Guest Post by Morbo
I used to think Iran’s Islamic fundamentalist theocracy would collapse under the weight of America’s oppressive, offensive and all-consuming popular culture.
The majority of the Iranian population is young, and many of them are chaffing at the repressive rules of the mullahs. But a recent article in The New Yorker has led me to believe that many in the media may have been too optimistic in thinking that hip-hop and fashions inspired by “The O.C.” would spark a counterrevolution.
As Laura Secor points out in the piece, many Iranian young people have become frustrated at their lack of progress – and the situation in the country seems to be going backwards in the wake of recent elections. Many young voters boycotted those elections, which saw a hardliner, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, assume the presidency.
For the past eight years, Iran under former president Mohammad Khatami loosened up a bit. Social codes were relaxed somewhat. Many young women, for example, took to wearing loose head scarves instead of full chadors. Dozens of newspaper sprang up, and some dared to criticize the government.
But Secor says it was all an illusion. Iran has always been run by a Supreme Religious Leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the power to overrule elected officials. Secor notes that Khatami pursued some reforms and secured the passage of many laws, but a 12-member body controlled by Khamenei vetoed many of them.
A broader crackdown followed. Writes Secor:
Meanwhile, from 1999 through 2004, the clerical establishment closed more than a hundred newspapers and magazines, and hundreds of student activists and journalists were imprisoned, often under terrible conditions.
The fundamentalists who control Iran recognize the need to closely monitor potential trouble spots. Universities tend to be centers for dissent and demonstrations in most countries, thus in Iran all universities house units called Basij, which Secor describes as “a hard-line militia of young fundamentalists who provided physical enforcement for the conservatives.”
This reminds me of the hordes of Heritage Foundation interns and College Republicans who attack progressives in this country. They are just as effective in creating a climate of intimidation in Iran. Secor interviewed one of these young fanatics, Ali Belashabadi, who complained because some young women in the schools dress too provocatively “in a way that is meant to attract attention.”
Belashabadi said, “This is an academic atmosphere, and the men can’t pay attention. Even non-Muslims, if they were here, would be attracted to this type of fashion.” Belashabadi stated that Islamic women cannot wear makeup, perfume or revealing fashions in public. “These are our fundamental values,” he said. “We had a revolution for these values.”
So, the Iranians fought a revolution because women were wearing mini-skirts? I know there was more to it. The country, for example, had been straddled with a U.S. puppet, the shah, whose secret police terrorized the population.
But for a young generation of fundamentalists, who were born after the revolution and for whom to shah is a figure from a history book, the revolution really does seem to have been about women wearing mini-skirts and resistance to what are seen as decadent Western values.
The young fundamentalists are close to the centers of power, and will probably ascend to those positions as they get older. This leaves the Iranians who long for change out in the cold.
One young man interviewed by Secor, identified by the first name of Arash, speaks of his fondness for America — a country he has never visited. He has embraced a hip-hop culture through the form of contraband CDs. It makes for an interesting form of cultural subversion in such a closed society, but it’s only going to take Arfash so far. In the recent election, Arash, like many of his friends, was so disgusted he did not vote.
Iran will change some day. But that change is probably going to take a lot longer than anyone in the West realizes. Hard-line fundamentalists have a way of digging in and creating power structures that become self perpetuating. It will take more than a few rap artists and underground DVDs to dislodge them.