THE MORAL POLICE, AND THE NEVER-ENDING WITCH HUNT

Tempo di lettura: 3 minuti

I feel overwhelmed with grief, exhaustion, anger at this whole world that hates women. And I can’t get my thoughts in order. But I want to. I would like to find simple words, I would like to address a young woman or a young man these days: the witch hunt does not belong to a past far from your lives. It happens today, as you live your freedom in the certainty that it will last forever. It happens today as it did yesterday, in the name of a religion. It is the result of oppression, of the denial of the freedom to exist, a fundamental ingredient to maintain control over peoples, through the control of bodies. It has as its purpose the physical elimination of anyone who questions what men decide is moral, and that morality is an instrument of death. That is why we are afraid of those who deny rights in the name of a God. It doesn’t matter which one. Religion is a means of control, invented by man in order to maintain it. It is nothing so far from us, from our lives. How much do you know about the Holy Inquisition, about witch hunts, beyond fictionalized narratives? Delve deeper: you will find discourses on morals, customs, behaviors, ideas, that challenged an inviolable and well-controlled power by men who used religion to justify the elimination especially of women considered allies of the devil. With the complicity of the eyes and ears of the populace, they would ferret out those who transgressed the precepts, and death was often literally invoked by women who arrived there exhausted from torture and abuse. It is referred to as the darkest page in human history, as if at some point in history light had returned. If they tell it to you this way, have doubts and start looking around. Women die by the hands of men and with the complicity of a society that still considers them allies of the devil-nothing has changed.
We are still murderers if we decide to have an abortion, provokers if we are raped, defiant if we love another woman, immoral if by wearing a hijab we leave out a lock of hair. Yes, a lock of hair. All these motivations are worth our killing. In the name of religion but at the hands of men.
Think back to your 22 years, to a walk through the city on a beautiful day. And imagine that suddenly the “moral” police arrive to brutally take you away, while you cry, scream, beg not to be loaded into a truck alone and terrified. You find yourselves alone and surrounded by men who beat and scream at you, abuse you, drag you to a police station so that you can be re-educated to the moral law: a law that requires you to wear a veil that leaves no hint of hair visible. Thus died, of violence in the name of religion, Mahsa Amine. At age 22, in Iran, on September 16, 2022. And many people died during the riots that immediately afterward inflamed the country’s streets.

Don’t be convinced by those who say that those over there are peoples who have no respect for anything, and that all this can never happen to us, here, at home. Here, in our house, there are political movements that are nostalgic for a certain vision of society.
When they talk about roles and the natural predisposition to fill them, when they talk about inviolable natural laws that set the rules by which we should live our relationships, feelings, sex, family, they are talking about moral laws. They are talking about an order that they hope can be put into practice. To do this, it is enough to have power, and power is won through words, which announce intentions. Religion serves to enter consciences by serving a God who punishes those who do not respect him. And he punishes at the hands of people. I have nothing more to add, except to ask you to observe and listen to what is around you, and to fight so that this will end, so that no woman will ever have to fear being free again. Send home every politician(s) who dares to talk about your bodies as their own, and also those who do not have the courage to stand up in the name of freedom to exist. Rebel, disobey.