In the years leading up to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, many secular Iranian women on the political Left donned the hijab or niqab as protest against the Shah’s repressive government and “the West” who helped him rise to power by wrapping themselves in traditional, Islamic dress.
*This was never supposed to be permanent*.
It was a political statement on the part of women, and pushed on them in some ways by men, rejecting “western values” and the secularized society the Shah had tried to created. In a situation *rich* with irony, the very voice they, you could argue, *came* from the policies of the very Shah they loathed. There had been a mandatory, at times very harsh, westernization project in Iran in the decades following his return to power that among, other things, stripped Muslim women of the veil, suppressed traditional modesty practices, provided birth control and enrolled more women into schools so they could gain an education. It was this project that gave Iranian women space to have a voice and a role in the Revolution in ways that didn’t exist in other Muslim nations.
Unfortunately the Iranian Left, as with other left leaning groups all over the world, underestimated the depth of devotion to Islam many of the revolutionaries had. Especially the menfolk. So after victory the Left, to its shock and horror, was kicked out the alliance it had made with the religious Right to oppose the Shah and was instead persecuted and imprisoned just as harshly. The women were locked into their new, modest roles. Birth control was taken away and, ominously, the birth rate which *had* been dropping during the Shah’s reign, spiked precipitously in the early 80’s.
TheIronzombie39 on
Reminder that *The Handmaids Tale* was inspired by the Iranian government and the bullshit they’ve done. The book was written as a way of saying
>What if something like what happened in Iran happened here?
_Formerly__Chucks_ on
That animal ayatollah, I can’t even say his name.
ZhenXiaoMing on
If the Iranian Revolution was so bad why is almost every quality of life benchmark far higher than it was under the Shah?
Dmannmann on
Lateral to this, it reminded me of the first episode of the West Wing in which they compare the Taliban to the KKK and explained how the Taliban taking over Afghanistan is like the KKK taking over America. That’s a powerful illustration of what happened in these countries.
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In the years leading up to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, many secular Iranian women on the political Left donned the hijab or niqab as protest against the Shah’s repressive government and “the West” who helped him rise to power by wrapping themselves in traditional, Islamic dress.
*This was never supposed to be permanent*.
It was a political statement on the part of women, and pushed on them in some ways by men, rejecting “western values” and the secularized society the Shah had tried to created. In a situation *rich* with irony, the very voice they, you could argue, *came* from the policies of the very Shah they loathed. There had been a mandatory, at times very harsh, westernization project in Iran in the decades following his return to power that among, other things, stripped Muslim women of the veil, suppressed traditional modesty practices, provided birth control and enrolled more women into schools so they could gain an education. It was this project that gave Iranian women space to have a voice and a role in the Revolution in ways that didn’t exist in other Muslim nations.
Unfortunately the Iranian Left, as with other left leaning groups all over the world, underestimated the depth of devotion to Islam many of the revolutionaries had. Especially the menfolk. So after victory the Left, to its shock and horror, was kicked out the alliance it had made with the religious Right to oppose the Shah and was instead persecuted and imprisoned just as harshly. The women were locked into their new, modest roles. Birth control was taken away and, ominously, the birth rate which *had* been dropping during the Shah’s reign, spiked precipitously in the early 80’s.
Reminder that *The Handmaids Tale* was inspired by the Iranian government and the bullshit they’ve done. The book was written as a way of saying
>What if something like what happened in Iran happened here?
That animal ayatollah, I can’t even say his name.
If the Iranian Revolution was so bad why is almost every quality of life benchmark far higher than it was under the Shah?
Lateral to this, it reminded me of the first episode of the West Wing in which they compare the Taliban to the KKK and explained how the Taliban taking over Afghanistan is like the KKK taking over America. That’s a powerful illustration of what happened in these countries.