While I was surfing the website Global Voices, I decided to look at the country of Iran. I found a blog entry titled "Iran: Summer Heat Gives Way to Crackdowns on 'Improper' Clothing" from July 18, 2011, by Fred Petrossian. The blog entry discussed the crackdowns in Iran by the government on women who were wearing clothing that does not fit their tight dress code, namely "un-Islamic" clothing, during the summer months last year. As in the United States, the women in Iran appeared to be trying to wear more "revealing" clothing due to the summer heat. He included pictures and videos of women being taken into custody by officials. An interesting one, the first video in the blog, showed a woman actually running away from the police before being captured and arrested. At the end of the blog, Petrossian wrote that another blogger, Irane Azad from Iran, also wrote about these incidents, and he provided a link to one of Azad's entries. Though I cannot read Farsi, it is easy to understand the point that the blogger was trying to make. There were pictures of both ordinary women being arrested for indecent clothing and Iranian actresses who were dressed similarly, if not more "revealing" than the women being arrested, who were not facing the force of the government.
I thought it was interesting that the government of Iran was actually arresting women off of the street for "indecent" clothing, though I was not surprised. However, I was surprised at the reaction from both the women and the crowds that normally were watching the arrests take place. As I mentioned above, one women ran from the police before being captured and arrested. The crowds in the videos occasionally revealed their support for the women, even protesting their arrests. Iran is often depicted as a country of extremists with few people resisting the Iranian government. These videos, though, told a different story. While they are only a couple of examples, the women in the videos, along with the crowds, reveal to the world that not everyone is in full support of the government and its polices.
As I mentioned, Iran is known by many in the Western world as a country based on extreme Islamic principles. Women have few rights, and the image of the country is one from centuries past. When I was on the Foreign Policy website, I saw the Once Upon a Time series. It includes photo essays of different cities from before they were racked with violence and controversy, "to more peaceful times." I found the Tehran photo essay very interesting. One picture really shocked me, especially after reading the blog entries discussed above. It was from 1971 and had women from Tehran University wearing miniskirts. The other pictures in the essay revealed a more Western-style Tehran, one that is difficult for anyone born after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to imagine. There was even a picture of six people smiling at the camera, looking like they were attending UCLA, not UT (University of Tehran).
With all the news stories today about Iran, especially the current ones involving its nuclear activity and tensions with the United States and Israel, I believe it is interesting to look back on Iran before the Islamic Revolution. The country has changed in the past thirty years, as is revealed when one compares the photo essay from the Foreign Policy and the blog entries from Global Voices. In understanding the Middle East, specifically Iran, we need to widen our perspective to one that includes what occurred before the violence and repression that is often characterized as the norm.
Jenny
Blog Entry -
Petrossian, F. (2011, July 18). Iran: Summer heat gives way to crackdowns on "improper" clothing. In Global Voices. Retrieved February 26, 2012, from http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/07/18/iran-summer-heat-gives-way-to-crackdowns-on-improper-clothing/
Map - http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/asia/ir.htm
Other Related Articles -
- Azad, A. (2011, July 13). Blog post In Global Voices. Retrieved February 26, 2012, from http://arshia-azad.blogspot.com/2011/07/blog-post.html
- Parks, C. (2012, February 15). Once upon a time in Tehran. Foreign Policy. Retrieved February 26, 2012, from http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/15/once_upon_a_time_in_tehran#0
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