LONDON: I believe we all have a responsibility for other people in other lands and I want to see developing countries get a fair share of the global cake, while retaining their own cultural identities. My second passion is Iran. I was at university in the 70s with a number of Iranian students and developed an interest in the culture and a desire to see the country.

This desire was not fulfilled until I was approached for help by an Iranian constituent in Taunton. We became friends and he invited me to his country for a holiday in October 2000. I am now on my fifth visit to the country, researching and writing my thesis while learning the language, Farsi. Long before Sept 11 it seemed to me that the apparently acceptable face of racism in Britain, even among liberals, was anti-Islam. Of course, this is usually disguised as concern for human rights, especially women’s rights, in Islamic countries. But how many “liberals” who blame the religion for denial of women’s rights, especially the compulsory wearing of hijab (a headscarf and roopush or coat), blame protestantism in Britain or catholicism in Mexico for endemic domestic violence? How many of them see paedophilia as a symptom of a Christian or western culture in which children should be “seen but not heard”? I’m not the only liberal or non-Muslim who is getting sick to death of the racism which parades itself as liberal concern.

How many western commentators have lived in Islamic countries and looked beneath the surface at Muslim women’s lives? Each time I have visited Iran I have stayed with Iranian families, and each time I have worn hijab outside the house.

The interpretation of hijab - covering - varies widely in Iran from young women who wear short coats over tight trousers and chiffon headscarfs over most of their hair to older women who choose to wear the all- enveloping black chadar. Many of the young women resent the law which says they have to be covered in public, but they take great exception to anyone who thinks that they are to be pitied or patronized.

The other day I had lunch with three Iranian women - one is a widow of 50, bringing up three children, who has not worked outside the home since her marriage; another is a 25-year-old graduate who is living at home and desperately looking for a job; and the third is a 32-year-old lawyer who lives with her parents because she is unmarried.

They talked about their lives and what they thought about the west - only the older woman had been out of Iran. She felt sorry for western women who not only have to bring up children and run a home, but also have to go out to paid employment. She thought in that respect Iranian women were more free, although economic realities now mean that many younger wives go out to work.

Interestingly, in Iran it is the men who do most of the shopping, whether their wives go out to work or not. The young women were resentful of the fact that they felt western women looked upon them as ”wilted flowers” (their words), when the truth is that they are assertive and have more freedom (apart from the dress code) than they did before the Islamic revolution. Women in Iran are in many ways among the most assertive and socially independent women I have met. Women can and do work - more women take engineering degrees in Iran than in the UK.

Women in Iran have other freedoms denied to many in the west. I have a British friend, for example, married to an Iranian, who has a one- year-old child. Rather than finding the baby a barrier to resuming her academic career she has been given help and encouragement, including a work-based creche, by potential employers. She also will happily feed her baby in public - in restaurants (not in the toilets) and in shared taxis, and no one complains or comments.

Of course, since the beginning of time men and women have tried to make themselves attractive to one another and it is no different in Iran. Eyes and noses are the main features you notice and on my first visit to Tehran I was surprised to see a number of people with plasters on their noses. I wondered what accident they had all been involved in but in fact there is a roaring trade in plastic surgery to correct perceived deformities.

Women keep their own names after marriage, whereas in the west the woman who does this is still seen as an oddity. It is many years since British women have felt free to walk the city streets after dark without fear of attack. I feel very safe here. If you walk down a street and see a group of men you don’t cringe inwardly, thinking you may face whistles or catcalls, or even molestation.

One of the reasons I love Iran is that it is a land full of contrasts and there is so much more to it than the stereotyped image portrayed in the west. A few vignettes may give an idea - but only a visit will really inform. One day my friend Tina drove the front of her car into a jube (drainage channel) at the side of the street. Within seconds, six men appeared from nowhere and lifted the car out for her; they then walked off with no expectation of reward. Nowhere in the world is all good or all bad but I think it’s time “liberal” opinion started to try to understand Islam better and to learn something about the culture of the Middle East, instead of offending millions of people with inaccuracy and ignorance. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service.