Iraq’s ‘cycling girls’ defy restrictions to pedal on the streets of Baghdad
BAGHDAD: Her name is Marina Jaber but to many she is “the girl on the bike”, a young Baghdad artist inspiring Iraqi women to exercise their rights one pedal at a time.
In Iraq’s conservative society, the young woman cuts an unusual figure when she rides her red bicycle in the streets of the capital.
What started off as an art project became a social media meme and then a civil society movement.
A group of women now gathers regularly to cycle in Baghdad and break new ground.
Or is it old ground?
“My mother and my grandmother used to ride bicycles. It used to be normal,” Jaber told AFP.
“It’s only a bike. It’s a simple thing. It should be normal,” the 25-year-old said.
“Does society just not allow us to do certain things or does it start not accepting those certain things because we stopped doing them?”
To find the answer, Jaber started cycling in her neighbourhood and made that a project for a contemporary arts institute called Tarkib.
A picture Jaber posted of herself cycling alongside an old man riding his own bicycle and staring at her in reproving disbelief made the rounds on Iraqi social media.
“With that old man, I found my answer. For more than five minutes, I was riding next to him and he kept looking at me. He didn’t seem to like it,” Jaber said.
“Then he stopped looking and went about his business. All the people in the area got used to it, they stopped looking at me... I understood then that I am society. If I want something, I should start doing it.”
Jaber instantly became an inspiration for many girls and women across the country yearning to lead their lives the way they choose and not bow to more or less recent social, tribal or religious restrictions.
Hashtags started spreading on the internet and Jaber was overwhelmed by the response she got.
“I received a lot of messages... mostly from young girls. Maybe they needed somebody to stand up for their rights,” she said.
Her red bicycle became the centrepiece of her installation at an exhibit in Baghdad last year and Jaber’s action joined a long global history of cycling as a symbol of women’s emancipation.