Part 1: Iranian revolution day. I ordinarily wouldn't have much interest in this, but I'm seeing a lot of news articles about it. Furthermore there is news coming out of Lebanon-Israel about new mounting tensions and as Israel says "the war that will happen." Of course this involves Lebanon only in the slightest way. Israel is complaining about Hezbollah (<----- not a fan) rearming themselves and doing a bunch of nonsense like they always do. Lebanon is complaining about Israeli fighter jets in Lebanese airspace. Of course, this is all very common, but who knows why the tensions are mounting again? I have no idea...
Back to Iran... The reason I mention the Lebanese war is because Hezbollah (<--- not a fan) is backed financially and militarily by Iran and Syria. What has happened I believe is that in the 31 years (to the day) since Iran's revolution radical Islam (and more generally radical religious movements) have become valid political entities.
Since I'm in India and have been to Lebanon a couple times recently, the Islamic world is always in my immediate consciousness. I'm stuck trying to make sense of a religion for which I wish to have much respect, but so many things make that difficult. Part of the difficulty is the novelty of the religion. It is in some sense going through growing pains. Clearly with a religion as large and widespread as islam there is not one central set of beliefs. Try checking out this girl's blog I love Hishma, the blog. It is safe to say I disagree with her on almost every point she makes. Not all of them, in fact she's well spoken, but I'm just not into it.
After reading about 30 or so of her entries I went looking around Lebanon and India to see how well the Muslim women fair under her set of rules. The answer is, not very well at all. According to her blog, basically all the women in Lebanon are damned. Muslim women in India really, really, really don't stand a chance. But funny enough, her set of standards are only strict enough to meet gulf states' requirements, not necessarily Saudi or Iran. So what's going on in Iran?
The news today is buzzing with stories of hundreds of arrests in Tehran regarding rioters on revolution day. It seems, the younger generation isn't so pleased with the Ayatollah anymore. Yesterday's news on BBC reported how Iran went about its most recent elections. They shut down many media resources including, TV, internet, mobile phones. Still, the younger generation is finding ways of getting around this. God bless you (and all the gods bless you) Google and twitter and facebook and all the absurd social networking sites for allowing sneaky outlets. There are reports that people are using their phones as cameras, simply saving videos of terrible injustices and simply waiting for the phone lines and email to come back up. These videos then go viral in Iran. Once they get on youtube they go viral elsewhere.
I think Iran has lost its Islamic way and allowed politics and money to take over. Perhaps only a small collection of people in Iran who have nothing to do with government are practicing Islam "correctly." As far as I can tell (and I'm no expert, but I CAN read) the wanton killing of innocent people is disallowed in Islam. In addition, as far as I can tell, Iran's government is responsible for many offenses in this vein. Of course, nothing particular can be pinned on them, because they are a government with a lot of money and nuclear power. But I'd be willing to bet a month's salary, many of the political officials in Iran are guilty of terrible offenses according to Islam. I can't say for sure, since I'm not there and don't know them in person, but I'd be willing to bet on it.
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The "I love Hishma" blog is very interesting and while some of her posts seem peculiar (had no idea Allah had an opinion on eyebrow plucking), I liked the Naomi Wolf article she included in her "Underneath the Veil" post. I can relate to the idea of a public image vs. a private image and that simply avoiding an overtly sexual public image does not mean being sexually repressed when behind closed doors. Also, this excerpt spoke to me especially:
ReplyDelete"Many women said something like this: 'When I wear Western clothes, men stare at me, objectify me, or I am always measuring myself against the standards of models in magazines, which are hard to live up to — and even harder as you get older, not to mention how tiring it can be to be on display all the time. When I wear my head scarf or chador, people relate to me as an individual, not an object; I feel respected.'"
So you saw the eyebrow plucking article too. I was totally miffed by that one.
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