Here we go again. The ambassador of Iran in Spain, Hassan Ghashghavi, during the reception at the Royal Palace shook hands with King Felipe VI and then ‘accidentally’ forgot to do the same with the Queen Letizia, a gesture performed instead by all the other diplomats present. The images immediately made the rounds of the media, and the video showing what happened is circulating on the web. Instead of the handshake, Ghashghavi he made a short bow with his head to greet the monarch. Letizia replied with a brief nod of her head, without moving her arms, but the look she gave the diplomat was the most glacial.
Indeed, as the Efe news agency explains, the same scene of the failed handshake had already been repeated in past years, as for “religious and cultural” issues in Iran men are not used to having any physical contact in public with women. In response to the controversy, the Iranian embassy in Madrid issued a statement in which it reports that “this situation has an absolutely religious and it doesn’t mean disrespect at all to the position or figure of a woman, even less when it comes to an authority at the top level of the state”. The embassy adds that, in accepting the Royal House’s invitation to the annual reception for the diplomatic corps in Spain, it had been notified in advance of the fact that the ambassador would not have shaken hands with the queen “for reasons of protocol”. According to the Iranian embassy, diplomatic relations with Spain are “friendly and respectful” and “will continue to be cordial in the future”.
But the choice – religious or not – of the Iranian ambassador above all recalls other similar scenes that we all remember very well, of which the president of the European Commission was the unwitting protagonist Ursula von der Leyen. Starting with the so-called “sofagate“, when the Turkish President Erdoganin April 2021, left her without a seat during a summit in Ankara to relaunch relations between Europe and Turkey, and replied, again in the name of sexism – it is useless to call it a gaffe – in February last year, on the occasion of an EU Africa in Brussels: on that occasion he was the foreign minister of Uganda, Odongo heheto completely ignore the president of the European Commission to go and greet only the two males present, the French president Emmanuel Macron and the president of the EU Council Charles Michel. Shortcomings which demonstrate how much world politics is still steeped in misogynistic, patriarchal and macho culture, and that women at the top of institutions are not recognized on a par with their male colleagues or “worthy” of their role. Among other things, without the latter, who later become indignant and complain perhaps on social media or on the pages of the newspapers, actually doing something to prevent certain disrespectful and discriminatory attitudes from being repeated.