An American in Iran, Old Beetle Brows
Table of contents for american
While I was in Iran there was a debate going on about hijab, the conservative clothing requirements women have to follow. There was an article in the Iran Daily, a newspaper in English, about it. There were interviews on IRINN, their version of CNN, about it, and in Esfahan at Se O Se Pol bridge there was a guy making public announcements over loudspeakers about hijab and how it gives a woman respect, protects her, etc.
Many of the women I saw had their head scarfs worn far back on their head showing a lot of hair. Also, the long shirts that normally extend well below their rump has become tighter and shorter over time. On the plane ride home from Iran, by the time we were picking up our luggage in London, I estimate that 80 – 90% of the women had removed their head scarfs and of those who removed them, about half had also removed their long shirts to reveal sleeveless, form-fitting shirts that left little to the imagination.
This shows me that if they had the choice, many women would not dress hijab. The justification for hijab is basically to prevent men from looking at women as sex symbols. Why not require men to control themselves? I was told that rape is still considered an act of passion in Iran (as long as it isn’t a foreigner doing the raping). I think Iran should do as other, more liberal muslim countries have done, and that is to make hijab a suggestion. If a woman wants to dress by it great, if not, then the men need to control themselves and respect her as a woman nonetheless.
While we’re on the topic of religion, it is nearly impossible to escape the ever-watchful eye of Khomeini. There are portraits of ‘old beetle brows’ everywhere; inside banks, as a giant mural painted on the side of buildings, on their currency, etc. Just outside of Tehran is a huge, obscene memorial built for him, complete with gold plated domes and minarets and several buildings. The entire site is still under construction. Why is it obscene? Khomeini lived an extremely simple life, very similar to a monk. He ate the same diet of fruit and yogurt his entire life. He took a walk every day that people in the village could set their watch with. When he died he didn’t own a home. His life was very focused and very simple. If it was up to him he’d likely have a simple memorial, if any at all. His legacy was the revolution and the return of Islam to Iran after the Shah all but outlawed it. I that would satisfy him as a memorial, rather than having a lot of money spent on a shrine the size of a stadium.
In Iran, religion is everywhere you look. They have their prayer beads in their hands ‘worrying’ over them. Koranic versus are on framed pictures, sculptures, in architecture, etc. The conservative rules, like how a man and woman should act together in public, remind you constantly of how to live a pious life. However, the younger Iranians are pushing against this, little by little. In many places at night we saw young Iranian couples holding hands and flirting in the open. The young women are dressing less and less inline with the rules of hijab.
There has to be a middle ground where religion and modernization and progress all meet and coexist together. The Shaw took one extreme to achieve modernization and that was an all-out embrace of everything western and a disregarded for Islam altogether. This and the amount of corruption and disproportionate wealth distribution lead to the Islamic Revolution, where Iran swung 180 degrees in the other direction and became an ultra-conservative Islamic state that clung to tradition, religion and isolation from the West in order to maintain their identity as Iranians.
Neither approach is healthy for the them but from what I saw on my 11 days there, they might be realizing this and taking steps in the right direction.
