Families should block stones, not throw them.

Monday, 08. 10. 2009  –  by Holly

Soraya's husband, father, and friend prepare to throw stones at her.

Zahra had a lot on her shoulders.

Of course, this observation about Soraya's aunt (portrayed so brilliantly by Shohreh Aghdashloo in “The Stoning of Soraya M”) is the understatement of the year.  But the dimensions of the burden she heroically attempted to carry hit me in a new way this week, when a coffee shop conversation left me asking, “Where were the good guys?  The male members of Soraya’s family who should have helped to support and protect her?”

Zahra carried the weight of a responsibility that others had abandoned.  It’s just part of the human contract, this responsibility we all have to our loved ones to create a safe space for them to grow into the best person they can be.  But because of the way religious and social dogma in Soraya’s community darkly defined what it means to be female, the contract was broken.  Had even one man valued her and defended Soraya, she would have had a fighting chance.

I didn’t go to the coffee shop with these thoughts in mind. But while focusing on the day’s appointments and whether I should have gotten the bran muffin instead of a croissant, I sat down next to a leggy teenager and a man I assumed was her father.  They were engaged in what seemed an uncomfortable discussion for her, a crucial “teachable moment” for him.  What the young woman was hearing from her dad was not appetizing; she pushed her half-eaten food to the middle of the small table and looked away from him.  Still, I could see that she was absorbing every fatherly, if a bit overbearing, word.  (The tables were really close – I wasn’t craning…I don’t think.)

After a while, I felt an odd sense of affection for these two – a girl who appeared strong and capable, who trusted herself to be and do the right thing.  And the dad – the provider, protector, holder of more life experience, experience that drove him to lay down the law for his daughter’s own good.  (He was setting strict limits on when she could walk about the neighborhood by herself.  Evidently, theirs was a section of town the father worried about, one in which nefarious people hang around in the same places day after day, watching and waiting for opportunities, perhaps in the form of a young, leggy, innocent-looking teenage girl. They would notice her pattern, he worried, see the regularity with which she would walk by after school.  Maybe they’d know the hours when she was alone; maybe they’d follow her home.

Even though I felt for her, could see that she was chafing at the restrictions being placed on her freedom, she didn’t get my pity.  And notably, she didn’t put up a fight beyond registering a surprised and slightly sullen expression. I wondered if this was because she felt safe and protected by this man and his limits; she recognized his lecture was a sign of being a treasured, beloved person to him.

As I watched them walk toward their car, I thought about the countless number of girls without such fathers (or brothers or uncles) and pictured a day when, as a grown woman, this teen would remember today’s conversation and smile with gratitude.

It was only later the same day when Soraya and Zahra came to mind, and the father-daughter duo I’d overheard took on a different meaning.

I bring up the absence of loving, protective men in Soraya’s story cautiously. But to talk about the failure of male elders in her community to exercise the moral courage to tell the truth about distortions of justice is not a criticism of Iranian men, or gender bashing, or any equally unhelpful swipe with a broad-brush stroke.  I bring it up only because the grief and outrage this movie generates makes me ask questions.  It also makes me wishful.  Specifically, I wish the film were based on fiction, and we could choose another ending in our mind’s eye, one in which Zahra is joined by a few brave men, and together, they save Soraya’s life.

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