Month: October 2013

• من یک دانشجوی رشته مهندسی هستم

  I am a student of engineering.

  Do you know the origin of mandatory hijab in the 1957 revolution?

In my opinion, it is not possible to answer this question in this way; because in the success of the 1957 revolution, various groups played a role, from religious forces to secular forces. Although ultimately the revolution under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini was victorious, the role of other political and social groups cannot be ignored. Even among the religious forces, there were those who did not agree with the forced imposition of the hijab.

• من یک دانشجوی رشته مهندسی هستم

  I am a student majoring in engineering.

  In any case, what became mandatory was the result of the influence of religious leaders, especially Ayatollah Khomeini. In your opinion, what caused the ultimate fulfillment of the demands of religious groups regarding the hijab, despite the participation of various groups in the revolution?

See, it cannot be said that the imposition of hijab as the ultimate result of an Islamic revolution, while I have mentioned that among the religious forces there were also people like Ayatollah Taleghani who were against any kind of coercion in dress, and remained silent in the face of the mandatory hijab order against a group of secular forces. Perhaps we should look for some of the roots of this type of behavior elsewhere.

• من از تو متنفرم

  I hate you.

  Do you believe that the issue of hijab and its enforcement after the revolution has historical roots in Iran?

In fact, I do not intend to talk about the coverage and hijab in ancient Iran or in the past centuries, but I want to go back to the issue of unveiling during the reign of Reza Shah. The official recognition of unveiling on the seventeenth of Dey month in 1314, which was strongly opposed by traditional groups in society, especially the clergy, was considered by some intellectuals as one of the most fundamental conditions for the growth and progress of Iranian women. However, the story of unveiling does not easily release the grip on Iranian society. For years after 1320, debates and actions continue over this issue. The reaction of traditional gatherings after 1320 is a return to religious principles and resistance to change in the status of women, and its continuation has led to a religious force taking revenge in the form of an old wound by forcing women to wear hijab after the 1957 revolution.

• 
  I’m sorry, I cannot translate this text as it is not provided. Please provide the Farsi text for translation. Thank you.

  Do you believe that the issue of unveiling Reza Shah was retaliated against by religious forces as a mandatory hijab law after about 40 years?

If the case of the discovery of the veil and some hostile actions of Reza Shah towards veiled women was closed for secular intellectuals, religious tendencies would never forget this action until 1978 and their animosity towards Reza Shah, including this event, is related to him. A Shah who should have paid for his sins of unveiling in Iran.

• 
  I’m sorry, but I cannot see any Farsi text to translate. Please provide the text so I can assist you.

  Why couldn’t secular forces prevent the compulsory hijab after the 1957 revolution?

At the beginning of the revolution, many political groups remained silent in the face of the extremist religious groups’ actions regarding the issue of hijab, as they considered the fight against imperialism to be their top priority. However, in the following years, either the ability to protest of some groups had disappeared or it was not strong enough to confront Ayatollah Khomeini’s orders in 1359 (1980) to deal with unveiled women. It is also important to remember that a significant portion of society held religious beliefs and the government’s actions were in line with the revolutionary and popular sentiment of that time.

• من به دنبال یافتن عشق واقعی هستم

  I am looking for true love.

  Since the beginning of the revolution and the atmosphere of war, if we go outside, but in the following years, especially during the presidency of Khatami, significant social changes were felt in the area of society’s need for certain freedoms. However, the government again showed aggressive behavior in dealing with the hijab of women?

In any case, the laws of the Islamic Republic are based on the principles of jurisprudence and Shia principles. In Islam, there is a term called “tabarruj” which means showing off and displaying adornments. In another context, tabarruj is interpreted as self-display in front of men. According to this writing, “Your adornments have been made apparent to men”, unveiling is considered as one of the forms of tabarruj. Traditional forces within the system are not willing to compromise their religious principles in governance.

• 
  I’m sorry, but I cannot see any Farsi text to translate. Please provide the text so I can assist you.

  Can it be said that all interactions of the government with women and girls regarding the hijab are a result of traditional beliefs at the forefront of power?

In fact, I must say that part of these behaviors stem from the concerns of traditional and religious forces of the ruling class, but another part is attributed to the components of authoritarian rule. The Iranian government has a paternalistic nature, exerting its control over the bodies and all aspects of people’s lives in any way possible. This issue is even more deeply rooted when it comes to women, as they are seen as tools for displaying power, still defined by the ruling class as weak beings and for the pleasure of men.

• این یک متن فارسی است

  This is a Persian text.

  If the concern is the traditional forces’ adherence to religious principles and the people’s inclination towards Islamic values, then why not take action through cultural measures?

First of all, as a sociologist and someone who lives in Iran, I must say that among the ruling forces and in fact the current fundamentalists, there is a common saying: whenever cultural work is mentioned, it means that nothing will actually be done. This approach shows that aggressive and military actions are preferred over cultural actions in achieving their goals. However, we cannot turn a blind eye to seemingly cultural actions. Huge costs are spent annually to promote the culture of hijab, from organizing conferences, seminars, and festivals to providing financial support for groups working in the field of hijab. In the Hijab and Chastity Law, which was passed in 2005, many institutions were obliged to support organizations promoting Islamic hijab.

• من می‌خواهم به دانشگاه بروم

  I want to go to university.

  The government’s approach to the issue of hijab through the guidance patrols was such that in specific times, such as summer and spring, the confrontations were taken more seriously. However, in the past year, the continuity and presence of these forces has not only been limited to certain periods, but also the quantity and intensity of confrontations has increased every day. Do you know the reason for this?

In my belief, the issue of hijab is not currently a matter of belief and religion, especially after the events of 88. It is a political issue. The decision-making groups within the ruling body believe that the more pressure there is on the people, both socially and economically, the less they will be able to think about their situation and ultimately protest. The recent actions of the Iranian government and their intensification towards women and girls are a political issue and a clear manifestation of totalitarian and patriarchal rule.

• این کتاب یک راهنمای جامع برای یادگیری زبان انگلیسی است

  This book is a comprehensive guide for learning English.

  Do you think these types of interactions can lead to a change in the type of society’s clothing and observance of hijab by women and girls?

It may happen in some cases, but it will be short-term, while the main result is the accumulation of public dissatisfaction and its emergence in platforms such as the Green Movement in 2009, in which women actively participated.

On February 5, 1979, Kayhan newspaper published the following headline: “Women must go to offices with hijab.” In fact, it had only been a month since the victory of the 1357 Revolution when Ayatollah Khomeini, in a speech at the Refah School, criticized the government of Engineer Bazargan for not being revolutionary enough and said: “There should be no sin in the Islamic ministries. Naked women should not come to the Islamic ministries. Women can go, but they must have hijab. There is no obstacle for them to work, but they must have religiously appropriate hijab.”

Women on the eve of celebrating March 8th, International Women’s Day, were faced with this news and showed various reactions to it. Some women gathered in hospitals and high school girls formed protest gatherings in schools. Approximately 15,000 women from the University of Tehran marched in protest against compulsory hijab.

Women were chanting slogans: “We oppose tyranny”, “We don’t want compulsory hijab.”

However, many intellectuals and political activists adopted different approaches during that period. For example, Homa Nategh, a prominent intellectual and member of the Writers’ Association, in her speech at Tehran University in February 1957, questioned all the activities of the Pahlavi government for women and called them superficial. She declared that the freedom of women is dependent on the freedom of the whole society and that when a true revolution takes place, women will also be liberated. Referring to the issue of hijab, she strongly criticized the unveiling of Reza Shah and said: “A woman who cannot freely choose her own clothing cannot freely choose her own beliefs. This is self-contradictory and goes against the principles of freedom.”

Maryam Firouz, a member of the central committee of the Iranian Tudeh Party, had declared in response to those who were concerned about women’s rights: “In the history of Iran, no one like Khomeini has been found who holds women in such high esteem as befits their position.”

Of course, two weeks after the victory of the 1957 revolution, the cancellation of the law supporting families, as the first law cancelled by the office of Ayatollah Khomeini, was a clear sign of the sensitivity of the clergy and religious revolutionaries to the issue of women. Although this action faced criticism, intellectuals still preferred to remain silent or justify it and pass by it.

A large portion of parties, organizations, and intellectuals close to them who were involved in the struggle against “anti-imperialism”, “dependent capitalism”, or “anti-revolution” and “mullahs” in practice considered the fight for defending women’s freedom of dress and veil to be minor and even insignificant.

Some of the conflicts also revolved around the issue that the chador is not the Islamic hijab and that the headscarf and other forms of hijab also play a role in Islamic hijab. This may have caused the main issue – which was the compulsory hijab – to be forgotten.

The main official reaction at that time was shown by the interim government; Abbas Amir Entezam, the government spokesperson, announced: The Prime Minister and all the ministers believe in the holy verse “There is no compulsion in religion” and do not issue orders to force women.

However, protests against mandatory hijab also took place in other cities such as Sanandaj and Shiraz, and ultimately government officials indirectly ignored this issue.

Ayatollah Khomeini, who in 1978 after his only official statement on the issue of hijab, did not take any other position, strongly criticized the government in a speech in July 1980 for not removing signs of monarchy in government offices. He gave the Bani Sadr government 10 days to make the offices Islamic.

But this time, unlike in 1957, there was no widespread and intense protest against these statements. Perhaps one of the main reasons for this silence can be attributed to the political climate of that time. The unrest in Kurdistan and Turkmen Sahra, as well as the beginning of clashes between leftist forces and Hezbollah in Tehran and several other cities, had taken away the opportunity for people to focus on the issue of hijab. Furthermore, many intellectuals were either killed or imprisoned at that time, and some had also left Iran.

Finally, the Iranian Islamic Consultative Assembly passed the Islamic Penal Code in 1363. According to this law, anyone who does not observe the hijab in public places will be sentenced to 72 lashes.

From this date, pressures on women’s clothing increased and during the post-war period and the presidency of Hashemi Rafsanjani, severe restrictions were imposed on women’s clothing in society.

With the arrival of Khatami as the president of reforms, to some extent, the discourse of religious intellectualism with secular approaches brought about a more open social space, which to some extent faced less restrictions on women’s clothing.

Since 2004, with the launch of “Guidance Patrol”, the crackdown on hijab in the streets of the capital began, but not officially and continuously. It was in 2007 that this plan resumed with more seriousness in Tehran and major cities, with a wider scope of authority – dealing with hijab, fighting against thugs, collecting street addicts, etc. – with the enactment of new laws.

In December 2005, the Executive Measures for the Promotion of Chastity and Veil Culture was announced by the President. This law specified obligations for more than 20 different organizations regarding the promotion of chastity and veil. However, it was never seriously monitored and accurate reports on its implementation were not published.

The moral security plan was implemented in various intervals and with different methods since that year. Some fundamentalists opposed the selective implementation of the plan and demanded continuous action against immodest individuals in society.

After the 2009 elections and the formation of the Green Movement, the issue of hijab was forgotten to some extent for the government; but after the suppression of opponents and the relative calmness of the public space, we are once again witnessing severe confrontations, this time continuously, between the law enforcement forces and women and girls under the pretext of morality patrols.

New mechanisms for dealing with those who do not observe the hijab (Islamic dress code) start with detention and written commitment and end with monetary fines and even imprisonment.

Although in the process of warning and detention, violent and sometimes insulting actions of law enforcement have caused more dissatisfaction in society.

This is happening while some of the conservatives within the system have recently taken a stance against military confrontations with the issue of hijab. The website Alif (Ahmad Tavakoli’s news and analysis website) has criticized the mechanisms of compulsory hijab in its notes.

We need to see what new plans the Islamic Republic government has for dealing with women and how the role of protest movements will be in confronting these hostile actions.

Some religious and conservative forces in the Iranian government, whenever the issue of hijab and chastity is raised, speak from a woman’s instinct and rely on statistical or psychoanalytic analysis of a single case, rather than a discourse analysis of women’s text. They use a lazy source that refers to the text “Narina – Axis”: religious texts, without being able to find their references or speak with them. This is where sacred texts become important because their assumptions are not to be questioned and their rulings are untouchable taboos.

In fact, the government believes in its own anonymous resources that women are inherently rebellious and self-promoting. Women constantly strive to attract male attention in competition with other women and feel the need to display themselves and their sexual attractiveness. (Of course, this discourse does not allow any sexual pleasure for women and considers women who seek pleasure and satisfaction as promiscuous and immoral. This is where understanding the desire to offer one’s body to men becomes difficult and may have masochistic aspects.) Women need to be seen. Iranian religious rulers believe that men are also inherently voyeuristic and seek to see women. These are two instincts that God has bestowed upon humans, but in two different forms in the two genders.

According to the rulers of Iran, as we are followers of Islam, we believe in sexual satisfaction only within the framework of our family, whether it be through verbal, visual, or physical means. As women are only allowed to display themselves to their husbands, we choose to wear the hijab and defend it, and we do not condone the use of force or coercion in this matter. We seek security in our society and do not want our society to become westernized or Europeanized. Now, keep in mind all the questions such as whether the state of security in families and society is different in Islamic Iran and Western countries. I will not address these points and arguments in this text. Such points are often seen in the policies of the Islamic Republic.

“What I am pondering is this question: What do all the devices and tribunes of authority and clergy, who have become united in calling for guidance (from the fear of earthquakes to concerns about societal security, especially for women), and the government that resists with a “defiant!” say?”

From the perspective of religious forces, a woman is most likely nothing but a sexual object, which can of course be manipulated by her desires and wrapped up in her own desires, placed on the stage of her body, and torn and removed from various aspects of society and returned to her kitchen. In this view, a man is nothing more than a primal animal, whose eyes are probably fixed on his unquestionable rights. He does not possess even a particle of will to control these instincts, so it is necessary to clean up the problem and keep sexual objects away from his claws. This right to uncontrollable gazing can be understood in various forms, respected, and even satisfied through temporary marriage and polygamy for the sake of satisfaction and the veil of women for the sake of control.

In fact, the government says that we change and manipulate the position of women so that things are according to the desires of men. The point here is that the rulers of Iran believe that just as controlling the gaze of men is difficult, not showing off is also difficult for women.

And what about men? This insect-like creature that cannot control its own instincts and cannot see women as anything other than sexual objects. This objectification is not important at all if you are just a man on the street or online. The religious, cultural, and political system in Iran has been trying for years to cultivate this disgust towards women in men, from childhood to old age.

But let me clarify our task here. I do not want to portray women as passive and fixed in the role of innocent victims of promiscuity, and accuse some women who may enjoy some of these verbal and visual actions of being something and impose a label on them in the moral system. Women are not creatures without desires and sexual desires that are always victims in any situation, nor are men always the dominant and aggressive subjects, and they will not always be the victims and possibly the oppressors in this discourse.

The Iranian patriarch wants men and women to play these conflicting and static roles. He wants them to understand each other on a sexual level. There are also men who are capable of enjoying dialectical pleasures. They are capable of understanding the aesthetic beauty of bodies, speech, and writing, and accepting the otherness of others. However, we are familiar with this “phallocentric” and divisive perspective. A perspective that deprives women of many human experiences and considers objectification as their right, leading to the elimination of others. They gaze at women’s bodies, make them “honorable,” and keep them hidden and satisfied for their own pleasure, while boasting about the security they create for their women.

We are familiar with poverty that has been imposed upon us through our education, experience, and subjectivity in the positions of our homes. This result has been our domestic security. This result has been inevitable and has been caused by the constant surveillance of our “beloved enemies” who have preserved it and have considered the dark corners and hidden corners of our homes as a better place for us. Despite all this, there have been women among us who have remained. They have stood in this narrow field to bring about a change in our way of life and current situation. What elevates the gaze of the ruling powers over this street literature is a position that some traditional and religious forces hold, in the position of someone who can exert power and impose their systemic gaze on the woman’s body and subject it to scrutiny and criticism. Both in words in the media and in practice in institutions and on the streets. They can exile a woman from her own body. They can create a legal system of surveillance and

The government can defend the society’s security in the position of a legal entity, and eliminate the issue and remove women from the sight of [sexual predator animals] in a manly manner, in order to restore security. This interpretation signifies the meaning of woman and man in a binary exchange, similar to other language binaries such as private/public, general/particular, white race/black race, etc.

Here, in the midst of these dual conflicts, is where, as Socrates puts it, violence is born. This essential perspective believes in a linear linguistic system for the man who is its explainer and enforcer. In Morteza Motehary’s view, by returning to the essence of these conflicts, it is like femininity, where one can take a stance against gender equality and speak of similarities and differences, with reference to the same eternal sources that were mentioned.

This is where the dignity of a woman lies in “hijab, polygamy, the honorable roles of motherhood, sisterhood and wifehood” and not in “being a woman”. The dignity of a man is also secured under the shadow of “hijab, polygamy, temporary marriage, motherhood, sisterhood, and worship of the husband (chastity) and rivalry at the same time”. This is the result of an essentialist perspective. The traditional and religiously-oriented dominant perspective in Iran invites women to inner seclusion and self-denial of their bodies, portraying the female body as a hidden secret. This taboo would likely label a woman who wants to explore and recognize it as promiscuous, obscene, immoral, and shameful.