If you can’t fix the economy,
If you can’t figure out the way to shine in a good light around the globe,
If your friends are the least loved people in the world,
If you don’t know what to do with the minds that think,
If you don’t like what those thoughts bring,
If you have problems with drugs, prostitution, and crime,
If you can’t create jobs to keep everybody decently alive,
It’s time for you to go to the perpetual Plan B,
Where you attack women on the street,
You frighten and insult them,
You degrade and humiliate them,
You drag them away with you to Vozara,
To be paraded through the frightened eyes of those standing by,
And their worried families,
You arrest young men with different hairdos,
You arrest young men and women holding hands,
You arrest young women walking about,
You shout at them, you talk down at them,
You scare and intimidate them,
Now you are safe again for a month,
Go on, enjoy it, your forced values will appear intact again,
For a month.
........................................................
This is what inspired me to write this post:Nazy Joonam:
I was reading your post on national dance week a few minutes ago. As usual, I can’t add any comments from where I am, so I write them to you.
The day that dawn on you has barely set on us. Only 12 hours of time difference, a few thousand kilometers of distance, and two entirely different worlds.
As usual, now that summer is on it’s way, authorities in Iran have started persecuting women for the way they dress, and where you live, people can dance in streets and no one would bother them.
My 17 year old son came home late last night. His eyes were reddened by tears. He said he had been arrested by the police, just because he is a young boy. They catch every young boy and check their military service status these days. They also arrest them if their clothes or hair style are inappropriate.
Attached is a small piece of video footage. One of our presidents pre election interviews. Politicians around the globe tell lies before elections, but he has set a record in this area.
Good luck with your article
Love,
Fariba
5 comments:
Most excellent Nazy jan.
The "bad hijab" campaign cannot cover up some bald realities. 1. Rising levels of serious crime
2. Unemployment, inflation and corruption.
The hijab huffing and puffing also illustrates, at a very basic level, the authorities' obsession with control - and the sense that, for all their secret policemen and all their rules and regulations, control is nevertheless lacking. The hijab campaign reflects a deep-rooted structural and economical problem with a system that does not know how function or resist to navigate in an increasingly interdependent and homogeneous world of globalization.
is Fariba Kermani?
Serendip, Thanks for visiting and your comment.
Mehran, Yes. She is. An extraordinary woman she is, your hamshahri.
Do you know what makes me proud? I was looking at the pictures of some young women who were being singled out by the "hejab-police" on Iranian.com and when you look at their eyes, their facial expressions....
Some are smiling, others defiant, but none are showing any kind of fear or anger. I think that in that sense of "coolness" and "amusement" they are making this entire campaign look like a children's game of who can get under the other's skin first...and by those smiles on their beautiful faces...I'd say the young ladies have won.
When I was 11 years old, I won a writing contest in school. The prize they gave me was Obeid Zakani’s book, his Koliat. Of course I only read it’s jokes, some of them not at all appropriate for my naïve mind. Anyway, there was a joke in it I loved so much I still remember. Your Plan B reminded me of it:
A woman goes to judge, and complains about her husband beating her every night. The judge asks the man why he does so. The answer is:
Your honor, I can’t provide her a proper life, take her on trips, buy her clothes or jewelry or even decent food. If I don’t beat her, how people are supposed to know she has a husband?
Post a Comment