Don’t just be a bystander…

What is happening in Iran can and will happen in every country in the world. It may take a different form but happen it will. The issue is not just the hijab. It is the question of freedom. The freedom to choose. The freedom to be. Technology has very effectively broken all barriers. How, then, can we remain as islands? Girls-women all over the world are identifying themselves with their sisters-daughters-mothers in Iran. Today it is them. Tomorrow it will be us. The girl child-woman is not willing to be an appendage any more. Our minds, our personalities, our hearts have to be recognised as having an equal place in our world. It is OUR world, not exclusively a man’s world where he has let women live. NO. It is OUR world. We have an equal place in it. 

The one really heartening thing is that men-boys have joined hands with the women-girls in the shout for azaadi, in Iran. And we all will too. We WILL stand by the women of Iran because their fight for azaadi is our fight too. 

The greatest gift that can be given to a human being, the greatest respect that can be shown to a human being, is that of freedom. Each one of us, regardless of any physial differences, has to be given this gift, this respect. In a world where there are no lines of demarcation between countries, we as a people need to stand together, equal and strong and human, to confront human issues of all people, without any differentiation or discrimination.  

Our world is not gender specific. Women should not have to fight for freedom….it is something which should be automatically ours. Women the world over, standing by each other, will be heard. The time for silencing us is over…

In the words of Benjamin Franklin: Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.