In order to
make a documentary about traditional
fishing, I went from
Qeshm Island to Salakh village, where
fishing was common and the recently founded
fishers’ cooperation had a new young
chairman named Mr Ahmadi.
The first time that Ahmadi mentioned that
his wife worked as a nurse at a health
services center, I couldn’t grasp the
significance of what he said. Some days
later the subject was brought up again for a
different reason and he said, because of his
wife’s professional responsibilities as a
nurse she has had to stop using Burka .
Stunned by this revelation, I asked: “Has
she really stopped putting on Burka?”
Bringing to my attention the people around
us Ahmadi asked me to speak more quietly.
I was to some extent acquainted with the
confined society of Qeshm and even more so
of Salakh. While walking down the narrow
lanes and streets of Salakh, the women
avoided facing men, especially strangers, in
such a way that one thought, they had a
deadly contagious, airborne disease. Salakh
women’s being unsociable was not surprising
to me, as I had encountered the same
attitude in many other cities. But deciding
not to use Burka in a society where Burka
was considered a necessary part of Islamic
coverage was stunning to me, as I was sure
that Ahmadi’s wife had gone through many
difficulties in her acting against local
traditions and I was curious to know what
her motivations were for taking such a
dramatic step.
From then on, it was only my questions and
Ahmadi’s haphazard explanation of his wife’s
adventure in taking off the Burka, which
made me even more eager to find out about.
Finally, one day Ahmadi lost patience and
said:”I do not know the answers to your
questions. Ask Zinat herself.”
He then promised to arrange a time for me to
meet his wife.
The day we were set to meet, I was keenly
waiting in the room, when a woman dressed in
local costume and a Burka on her face,
entered the room and greeted me. I greeted
her back and although I repeatedly offered
her to sit down she thanked but didn’t do so
until Ahmadi came. The husband and wife
exchanged some words in their native dialect
that I could not understand.
Then Ahmadi sat down and the young woman
followed suit at the nod of his head.
Afterwards, Zinat asked how I was and
welcomed me and wished that the heat of
Salakh did not stop me from my work. Her
etiquette, correct
Farsi and confidence was interesting to me.
She did not have the usual fear and naivety
particular of women in closed societies when
faced with male strangers. She listened to
each question carefully and answered with
deliberation. If more information was needed
to understand the matter, she added brief
and clear responses to the answer. That all
revealed a special character behind the
Burka.
Besides Zinat, there was only one other
extraordinary woman in the village. A woman
nearly thirty years old, lively, well
mannered and perspicacious named Khadijeh.
She was the wife of Ahmad Talandeh, a
Lenj(boat) owner and fisherman in Salakh, in
whose house Ahmadi had accommodated me.
It turned out that Khadijeh and Zinat were
sisters. These two unconventional sisters
especially compared to men in the village
who were often very reserved and impossible
to make relations with, became quite
questionable for me.
Later, I found out that their father played
an influential role in shaping their insight
and spiritual upbringing; a father who as
head of the village in the closed rural and
patriarchal society, had been a blessing for
many. The villagers still quote Naughty
Abdullah (the father/headman), which
indicates he was an open-minded man. The old
man spread his experiences and perceptions
of social life at home and the talented and
thirsty mind of Zinat absorbed them. It
seemed the old man had also realized that
his little daughter inherently had similar
obsessions to his since he answered her
childish questions with care and elderly
wisdom.
The other man in Zinat’s life is her
husband, who despite being surrounded by
traditional bigotry did not hinder her from
flourishing and even accompanied her to the
best of his ability.
In patriarchal societies, men are very
influential when it comes to women’s growth,
but they are far more effective in
preventing them from growing, as in the case
of Zinat’s other sister, she was also an
enthusiastic health work since her
adolescence but she married a bigoted man
and had to quit her job. Zinat, however, by
her father’s guidance, her husband’s support
and most of all her own strife found a way
to pass the barriers.
My inquiry about how Zinat became a health
care worker stemmed at first from personal
curiosity and then continued with hopes to
make a film about her life.
After several times of discourse with her
and organizing the notes I made of her
words, I realized that her descriptions
could complement the film-given it would be
made some day-in the form of a book.
But more importantly, the main reason why my
attention drew to Zinat was that, what had
happened to her not only reflected her
village people’s perception of women but
also revealed in large our present day
traditional society’s look at women.
So this time I put Zinat’s life story in a
broader perspective and went beyond the
events that related to her becoming a health
care worker. I aimed at learning more about
her childhood, her family and the important
characters around her so as to apply the
concepts I had arrived at.
Initially (even in the script) I had set the
conclusion of Zinat’s memories to when she
took off the Burka in her village after
training to become a health care worker.
Removing the Burka marked the end of a
milestone era in Zinat’s life. From this
ending, I pursued a beginning and focused on
Zinat’s childhood and adolescence and kept
every vivid and meaningful signs of that
phase of her life that I found.
In the course of this project my only means
of evaluation were the several years of
knowing her, my familiarity with her
personality and dispositions, my little
knowledge of Hormozi dialect and Salakh
community and their inner relations that I
referred to and used with Zinat’s help.
In compiling the memories I used Zinat’s
writings and recorded words, my own notes
and other information that I gained from
her.
I intentionally asked Zinat to write down
any event that deemed important to me or to
describe what she had written, time and
again. There were a couple of reasons for
this repetition. One was that a new
description compared to the previous one
either lacked something or contained more
which would lead me to the perfection of the
event. Secondly, even one objecting sentence
that was expressed in later descriptions,
sometimes told of a new meaningful event,
that had to be clarified in order to be
added to the book.
I asked Zinat to reminisce about her inner
conflicts if any that she encountered during
the event because I had seen some events
became meaningful as a result of her inner
conflicts and without the description they
lost their meaning. With that approach,
gradually her living experiences throughout
this time were obtained and her fate became
unwound like woven yarn and made it possible
for us in the light of Zinat’s existence to
first see her and then her family and to
some extent the people of Salakh.
In arranging Zinat’s account, without
damaging the truth of the matter or missing
the reality of the event, I have as much as
possible tried to incorporate a fictional
attraction, with hopes that the ordinary
reader will relate to her life story. I had
almost finished writing this note when
Zinat’s candidacy for village council
elections was raised. I went to Salakh with
a camera to make a documentary on Zinat’s
participation in the election. At that time,
twelve years had passed since my initial
visit with Zinat. In the Meantime, a lot had
happened that proved that a period of her
life from childhood until removing the
Burka, would not express Zinat’s character
in its entirety.
It occurred to me that Zinat’s recent
endeavors also should be added to the book.
So, during a one year period, I talked to
Zinat several times and inquired from her
and organized the result of our talks of
thirteen years, in a separate chapter. Thus,
the book in your hands has two chapters. The
first covers childhood to taking off the
Burka in first person narration of the
memories and the second chapter discusses
the post Burka period until the present in
the form of conversations.
Parts of the accounts and talks, by my will
or Zinat’s, in view of the social damages
they might have caused her or other persons
have been omitted.
I would very much like to acknowledge Mrs.
Afsar Nazari who assisted me in discovering
new points, removing any ambiguity and
compiling the second chapter of the book.
Ebrahim Mokhtari
Summer 2004
