Emerging nation uncertain territory for Iraqi women

Editor’s Note: NEWS staff writer Alicia Anstead is sending periodic dispatches from Iraq and points along her itinerary to Baghdad, where she is traveling with fellow journalist Peter Davis of Castine, who is on assignment for The Nation magazine.

BAGHDAD, Iraq – To enter the Abu Hanifa Mosque in a northern neighborhood of Baghdad, where damaged houses wear the scars of war, I was instructed to cover my body from head to toe. My translator, Salih, took me to a thrift shop on a busy commercial street just before the midday prayer time for Muslims. The garagelike store was dark inside, and the walls were lined with racks of clothing. A few other shoppers, all men, rummaged through goods on a table.

Bearing in mind the extreme heat of up to 130 degrees, I chose a light blue, cotton, ankle-length dress with long sleeves and blue embroidery but Salih pointed to a heavy black one. “I prefer the black,” he said. We bought both for about $3 each.

Back in the car, I pulled the dress over my American clothes and wrapped my head in a violet silk scarf. Salih laughed. “What?” I asked. “We are going to make a Muslim out of you,” he said.

Although Salih was mostly joking, he would not be the only man that day who suggested I convert to Islam.

At the mosque, which was hit by American bombs, Salih disappeared into the sanctuary to pray. Because as a woman I was not permitted to enter during prayer, I waited near a group of women praying on their knees. Sweat was pouring down my back. After prayer, the imam of the mosque, Mouayad Al-Aadhami, came into the outer hallway to talk. He sat cross-legged on one of the many Persian carpets on the floor.

His first question to me was: “How do you like your clothing?”

“It’s hot,” I responded. But Al-Aadhami was not pleased with my answer and began to instruct me. The woman is highly admired in Islam, he said. She is autonomous and may choose any career she wants. She may even own property. But she must cover herself from her hair to her feet.

Many women in Iraq wear the abaya, a black, nunlike robe with a long veil. Some also wear the burqa, which allows even less of their face to show. Other women wear only a scarf and conservative western clothes.

And some dress like Americans – though I have not seen any low-cut jeans or midriff shirts here.

“The dress is a sign to be kind to women because her body – the nice body – cannot be seen by everyone,” said Al-Aadhami, who reclaimed this mosque in early April from members of Saddam Hussein’s regime. “It is only for her husband. There is no right for any person to look at it and enjoy himself.

“I think you like the clothing,” the imam added. “You must think about Islam.”

When the conversation turned to the larger political situation of Iraq, the imam called Saddam Hussein a “devil,” but he was also critical of the Americans: “We do not accept dictatorship or any unjust group of men to impose its principles on us and to limit our freedom and capture us. People fear the Americans are not serious and will not work to fulfill the happiness of the Iraqi people.”

I bit back my American-bred urge to ask whether the freedoms of Iraqi women are limited. Instead, I retreated into the drapery of my clothing.

The next day at the USAID office near the Republican Palace, I spoke with a 25-year-old Muslim woman named Tara Salim. Her dark hair is dyed with blond streaks, and she wore makeup that set off her large, crystalline blue eyes. She dressed in tight black jeans, a T-shirt and platform sandals. An architectural consultant before the war, she now works as a secretary in a building so damaged by the impact of fighting outside that the third floor wall behind her desk has been replaced with clear plastic tarps.

“No one can make me wear the veil,” Salim said to me. “That is between God and me.”

Then she leaned in toward me and whispered that she had heard rumors of a movement to force all Iraqi women to wear the abaya. If this happens, she will leave the country just as her family did during the war. If Saddam Hussein returns to power, she also will leave the country, she said.

When I ask her if she will ever marry, Salim’s response was immediate: “No.” But she added that she had not yet found a good Iraqi man.

What about an American husband? I asked. Perhaps someone from among the troops who are housed in the floors below her office? I tell her I have heard many stories about American soldiers and Iraqi women striking up romances.

Salim smiled politely. The Americans are very nice, she said. In particular, one young soldier, who is 18, had been very sweet to her, and she had comforted him through homesickness. She is glad the Americans have come to her country and she is hopeful for changes in her life and nation, she said. She hopes to have her own architectural firm someday, and she knows it will take time for Baghdad to thrive again. She can be patient.

But, when the time comes, she prefers to marry an Iraqi.

What will become of Salim, I wonder, as I head off for my meeting with a USAID subcontractor whose son, a student at Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, would surely find her attractive?

With only three Iraqi women on the new 25-member Governing Council, and with reports of increased violence against women in this country, it’s hard to know what the women here – those in abayas and those in tight jeans – can expect for the future.

Alicia Anstead’s “Notes” and articles she plans to write after her return from Iraq will be based on conversations with Mainers and Iraqis with common ties, and her perceptions of daily life in that troubled and volatile region.