Iranian Nobel Prize recipient discusses relationship between fundamentalism and women’s rights violations

Fundamentalist violence is still a prevalent issue and should be addressed through education rather than military response, Nobel Prize recipient Shirin Ebadi said in a lecture Thursday. Ebadi won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize and is the first Iranian woman to become a chief justice.

Ebadi was the first-ever female judge in Iran. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, she was stripped of her chief justice title and forced to be a clerk in a court she once presided over. Ebadi obtained her lawyer’s license in 1992 and has since taken on controversial cases. She has been arrested several times.

Ebadi said that, since Nov. 25 is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, she plans to dedicate the subsequent 15 days to talking about the issue of violence against women and its relationship to fundamentalism. She added that her travels to India, Liberia, Italy and Finland have exposed her to a variety of women’s issues, including discrimination against widows, genital mutilation and pay inequality.

“In Islamic countries, violence against women is worse because in numerous countries laws support such violence.” Ebadi said. She cited laws allowing men to kill their wives for committing adultery and honor killings as examples.

Ebadi noted that, although the media in most Western countries depicts Muslims as being the only violent and fundamentalist religious group, fundamentalism exists in all religions, including Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity. She added that very little is reported about the persecution of Muslims in places such as Myanmar and Chechnya.

“Justice is a dynamic concept. It differs according to the time,” Ebadi said. “Modern Muslims believe that they can change many rules of Islamic law and bring them up to the standard of human rights.”

She also said that governments that claim they support human rights should not support fundamentalist governments that do not do the same.

“Many Western countries close their eyes to human rights under the excuse of cultural relativity when it comes to commercial agreements,” she said.

Ebadi said that the Islamic State is not only a terrorist group but also an ideology. She added that, although the United States has been fighting against the Taliban since 2001, the group still exists because bombing military targets and civilians does not solve the problem. Terrorist groups like ISIS and the Taliban, she said, survive and thrive upon illiteracy and a lack of social justice.

“Instead of throwing bombs at ISIS, we have to throw books at them,” Ebadi said, adding that Malala Yousafzai was an example of how frightened terrorists are of education. Yousafzai is a Pakistani activist for female education in northwest Pakistan, where the local Taliban has banned girls from attending school. Yousafzai was shot three times in 2012 while boarding a school bus.

Ebadi added that she hoped her message was accepted by young Muslims, particularly those in the United States.

“Violence is contagious. If we resort to violence we will see violence,” Ebadi said.

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The talk, entitled “A Critique of Fundamentalism,” took place at Dodds Auditorium at 4:30 p.m. and was sponsored by the Wilson School. A sale and signing of Ebadi’s book, “The Golden Cage: Three Brothers, Three Choices, One Destiny,” followed the discussion.