The Handmaid’s Tale
“Democracy is when two wolves and a lamb vote on the lunch menu. Freedom is when a well-armed lamb challenges the outcome of such a vote.”- Benjamin Franklin
The escalation of protests in Europe over lockdown rules, demonstrations in favor of Navalny in Russia, and the seizure of the US Capitol made me wonder where the fine line between individual freedom and the well-being of society lies.
Humanity has been researching this issue for centuries and even millennia, making some adjustments with the help of wars and revolutions. Margaret Atwood, the creator of the novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,” investigated the subject too. You can check her findings on HULU, in the American drama series, starring Elisabeth Moss. She tells us the story of the religious state of Gilead, which overthrew the government of the modern United States. Society there is divided into newly created social classes, and women have been stripped of their rights to property and education. Torture and executions are widely employed there for those disobeying the system. For example, if a woman is caught reading, her finger will be cut off. Handmaids (natal slaves) are used as live baby factories. Fertile women are caught, “trained” in red centers (tortured and humiliated), and then ritually raped every month until they get pregnant. After giving birth to children, they are sent to a new house where everything repeats. Do you think that it is fiction that can never become a reality?
The author of the novel claims that she invented nothing. Absolutely all ideas were taken from real life. How is that possible? Look at the modern world — many Muslim women today cannot receive an education, travel, or even obtain passports without the permission of a male guardian, not to mention the right to vote, drive a car, work, choose comfortable clothes, and even go out on their own!!! Until now, women in Indonesia must undergo a humiliating virginity test if they want to join the army, not to mention such a test for marriages, which is a standard practice in a large number of countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Yet, the test is a piece of cake compared to the practice of female circumcision, carried out in all the above-mentioned regions. More than two hundred million women living today have become victims of genital mutilation, including a model, writer, and women’s rights activist Waris Dirie. Just think about it! Two hundred million!!! This is the population of Great Britain, France, and Germany brought together! Forced marriages, when girls are married off to wealthy old men, are still actively practiced. Poor families in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East often use their daughters as a commodity, earning money by, in fact, selling them into sexual slavery.
The ban on female education in Gilead is also far from fiction. It is enough to recall the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize — Malala, who survived an attempted murder precisely for defending her right to get an education. This girl is 23 years old — NOW! Bear in mind, we are not talking about the Middle Ages and the Inquisition. We are discussing the events taking place at the very moment when you are reading this article. Persecution against homosexuals (gender traitors in Gilead) can be seen, for example, in Russia, where last year the government wanted to add some “clarity” to the Constitution by defining marriage as a union of a man and a woman. Yet, Saudi Arabia or Iran, have gone way further than the supposedly homophobic Russian Federation since they sentence gays to the death penalty.
In Gilead, people who rebel against the system are caught and executed by hanging on the wall, a popular kind of punishment from the Middle Ages. Last year’s poisoning of Navalny, a fighter against the existing corrupt system, was also inspired by a popular medieval method of removing dissidents. However, even death by hanging is far from a relic of history, since it is a modern practice in some Muslim countries.
In Gilead, you also cannot gather in large groups and/or leave the territory of the country. Does it remind you of anything? Looks similar to lockdown restrictions? Even the idea of a uniform to divide people into strata is actively used in Saudi Arabia today. Have you looked around well enough?? Welcome to Gilead! We have been living here for a long time already.
Gilead explained all those restrictions as an essential measure for the sake of a higher purpose — the preservation of humanity, since due to environmental problems, and some other factors, the birth rate fell to a critical point. At that very moment, the state decided that the rights of people, especially women, can simply be neglected. Citizens were only the means of pursuing the interests of the ruling elite after all. Still, Gilead is not the only state interfering with women’s reproductive rights. A near-total abortion ban took effect in Poland yesterday. Nicaragua, El Salvador, Malta, and the Philippines have long had a complete abortion ban, even if childbirth or pregnancy meant death for the woman in labor. Andorra, Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Ireland, Yemen, Kiribati, Colombia, Lebanon, Libya, Liechtenstein, Mauritania, Mali, Nepal, UAE, Oman, Paraguay, Papua New Guinea, San Marino, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Chad and the US state of Alabama, consider abortion to be a crime that amounts to murder. That is, women in these countries ALREADY have no rights to their own bodies. In fact, all of us were deprived of our fundamental right to freedom of movement, guaranteed by article #13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights since the beginning of the Pandemic. Can we conclude anything?
1)There is the state — a small group of the ruling elite, protecting exclusively their selfish interests, and there are the citizens (servants for those rulers). Since citizens do not possess any power, even in democratic states, their rights can be easily taken away, as we all could experience ourselves in 2020.
2) The interests of the “state” never coincide with the interests of the people. Democracy and freedom are an illusion exercised by politicians to keep people from revolting, as well as religion, which often serves as a yoke for the people too, just like in Gilead.
If you make people believe that there are God, heaven, and hell; that God has given people some rules that must be followed to earn some kind of abstract happy afterlife, then people can put up with absolutely anything. This is precisely what religion teaches us. God is a pastor, and people are sheep, who should not think but follow their shepherd, surely without asking unnecessary questions. There is an interesting piece of statistics that confirms that the lower the level of economic development in the country, and hence education, the higher the level of religiosity. The world’s poorest countries are the most religious, except for the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. However, in those countries, the number of rich people is not that high either, since most of the population is made up of emigrants, who are treated, frankly speaking, like slaves. It is enough just to examine the working conditions and salaries of employees of the most luxurious hotels and restaurants in those countries. Jumeirah, for example, charges over 400 USD per person per night in the cheapest room, while the employees of this hotel receive just a bit more than that for a month of hard work, with long hours. This is probably because Qatar abolished slavery in 1952, and Saudi Arabia only in 1962, and they just have not had enough time to get used to the idea that it is no longer possible not to pay people for work at all.
Does it mean that there is no hope and only darkness and despair await us ahead? Not really! You can still change it if you stop supporting a rotten system and corrupt politicians. Speak out! Defend your rights! Stop being silent! It is time for a change! As Eudoria Holmes said to her daughter: “I didn’t leave you because I didn’t love you. I left for you… Because I couldn’t bear to have this world be your future. So I had to fight. You have to make some noise if you want to be heard.”
In Gilead, handmaids had to use the masks as a symbol of the deprivation of their right to speak. Don’t let COVID-19 masks deprive you of your voice too!