Execution Of A Prostitute ( Peace Movement Chapter 3)

Execution Of A Prostitute copyright 2007 Kurt Rellians

A piece of fictional writing from the perspective of a ‘progressive minded’ female teacher, being executed for the crime of Prostitution, in an Arab dictatorship, based on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the years just before the Invasion of 2003. I wrote this in 2004, based loosely on what I imagined might be the state of affairs in Iraq before the invasion, motivated by some news reports I had heard from those pre invasion times. I understand a crackdown on Prostitution in Iraq did occur in and around 2001, in which Saddam’s Fedayeen executed prostitutes by cutting their heads off. There were probably some (or many?) female political opponents who were labelled prostitutes in order to dispose of them.

This piece is a part of my fictional ‘Peace Movement’ project, which is some writings projecting a depressing future/present scenario in which an Arab dictatorship and other middle eastern political and religious groups become very powerful and begin to influence life in the West more directly.

Progressive teacher :

“I thought the regime had some ideas right. They wanted to modernise, and in those days they ignored religion. They did not even talk to it. Shiite mullahs and Sunni clerics alike were ignored when they dared to speak. In those days they were irrelevant, not a part of the future. They wanted our country to be strong, one day, perhaps soon, they envisaged some form of unification or combination with other Arab states. They were not interested in pan Islamicisation except as some political counter balance against the western powers. There was no real religious angle. They were modernisers, socialists, idealists, and they wanted justice for the Arab people. Of course it went wrong from the start. The ruthless were the ones who got things done. They were the ones who got the most power. Eventually one of them was in a position to take total power. He was evil and egocentric, suspicious and more ruthless than all the rest. He became the top dog, used the state as his personal fiefdom, for himself and his family and those supporters whom he promoted. He became a kind of Emperor, in a state which was supposed to be modernising.

“I was alright in those days before religion became serious politics again. We women were educated in larger numbers than ever before. We were educated to do proper jobs; the state needed all the manpower and womanpower it could raise for its production projects and its economic enlargement. Modern women like me were encouraged and wanted because we were willing to learn. I became a teacher to pass on knowledge to the young generation who were our hope. We taught also that the Party was necessary and good, as well as practical things.

“But the party and the state has changed in more recent years. Religion is now a key component of the state. Religion is seen as a way to court popularity, a kind of insurance policy in which religion is used to save the country when it becomes endangered. Support can be gained from the man in the street, from foreign nations and journalists because the religion gives the state legitimacy, and honour, and binds support from different communities.

“I know there is no way out now. I am kneeling in one of the main thoroughfares of Baghdad, out in the open where anyone can see my last moments. This is not done merely because our ruler is cruel and his sons enjoy death. It is done as a warning to everyone, all citizens; to mothers not to let their daughters become independent and think for themselves, to be romantics or worse, whores like the citizens of our enemies; to younger women of our ages not to believe too closely in the books we have read, of a society where women do not have to follow the orders of their elders, where they can control their own destinies, where their minds are truly free to adopt the unencumbered lifestyles of their choice; to men not to take westernised ‘whores’ into their marital beds; and all citizens to avoid contact with dangerous people whose existence somehow threatens the great leader and his regime.

“I am not alone. Five other women also labelled prostitutes are to die with me. As far as I am aware not a single one of us has actually committed anything which could be construed as prostitution. I suppose that it is possible that one or more of us may have been such, for it is not publicly admired by the regime and is offensive to Islam which has recently been elevated to being the official philosophy and guide of the nation. I have not admitted to the torturers and guards that on trips to the West and even to other places in the Arab Nation I have indeed more than once entered into unmarried relationships with men I have not intended to marry, and have not known before. This has happened a number of times, and I have found my sense of being an attractive and independent woman to have been enhanced on each occasion. In London and Paris such behaviour was commonplace, and an attractive woman, as I found myself to be, was frequently offered potential romance, and became quite used to rejecting attentions from males, almost without thought. I met some very nice men in Europe, and on more than one occasion avoided a proposal of marriage which would have propelled me away from my homeland and all the people who meant the most to me, but would have saved me from this pathetic fate. I wanted to do more for my own people. I wanted progress in our country. I thought I could do more for the good, here in my pitiful land. Instead I have become a target of the mindless anti Westernism which pervades our propaganda today. I die in the service of our master’s paranoia, to satisfy him that all enemies of the state are rooted out, to spread fear among all who do not conform.

“I do not know well the other women who are with me. We have not been allowed to mix although we have been held in the same prison. I do not know the finer details of their stories, some of them I know not at all. Maybe some of them have been prostitutes, but I doubt it. They are cultured aspiring middle class women like myself, as far as I can detect from their bearing. All are well educated, too well educated it seems. The educated are now a threat to the regime. It has been so at times in the past. But for a long time the state encouraged education, among women as well as men.

“The regime tars us with being prostitutes, the worst description Islam has for women, and yet this regime loves prostitutes. All of its servants prostitute themselves to the master’s cause, for money and position, for survival. The regime loves those whose profession is traditional prostitution. The male members of the ruling caste in the military and the family of the dictator use prostitutes widely. They entice or order young beauty from the streets into their beds, giving their families money in exchange for the loss of honour. I do not see the regime executing real prostitutes. They are all hypocrites, just as their religion is a sham. The dictator’s espousal of Islam is purely to sanctify him in the eyes of his people, to lend legitimacy, to give him the divine right. Anything can be made honourable if it is done in the name of Islam. My execution is done in the name of Islam, although I am no prostitute. My disapproval of what our state has become is my crime. The label against me is a bare lie to give the state a reason for my execution.”