Guest Blog: "Girlquake" & Government in Iran

Recently, I sent an article to an Iranian friend of mine, one "Ased Hamze," about the role of women in Iranian society:

"Of the nine members of Islamshah's city council, two are women. One, a lawyer, heads the legal committee. The law is the major battle for women everywhere in Iran, however thick or thin their chador. Women's rights, the domain where Mahboobeh, the Islamic feminist, sees the revolution of tomorrow, a revolution that will inject new victorious energy into the anemic reform movement. Sixty-two percent of the young people who pass the dreaded university admissions exam, so hyper-selective that it's nicknamed the Monster, are women. Bright futures that will no longer allow themselves to be eroded by the darkness of ignorance. The paradoxical triumph of a revolution issuing its own death sentence!"

He replied...

Women, Iran & The Mollahs
by "Ahmed Hamze"

The trend that is mentioned there is very real and in fact a basic one. Unfortunately for the Islamic government of Iran, women according to Islam and traditions, contrary to what many Muslims would say and argue, are treated like second degree citizens (if not less) but there are simply too many of them and nowadays they have obtained too much education. The prospect of seeing more educated women and consequently a more enlightened next generation has already scared the conservative mollahs... This also applies to other oppressed classes but women seem to be the most powerful!

However there is one point worth mentioning here: The Iranian government can easily dodge any existential threat based on human rights by allowing for more personal freedom and injecting fresh oil money into a mercantilist economy to project a false image of prosperity, something that they have done before.

For this reason, if one is serious about opposing the principles of the theocratic regime of Iran, one should put human rights and political agendas (national and international) on the same table and all the cards have to be dealt simultaneously.

Currently in Iran, from what I hear from wise and observant travelers, people, while aggressively demanding their personal freedoms (civic/economic/cultural), have become totally apathetic to politics. This is the kind of apathy that goes deeper than low voter turnout in the elections... The wealth generated by the "tax-free" (literally) economics and the social decadence in the upper class have become the main objective of many Iranians who have become increasingly less political and more relaxed towards the attitudes of their government as long as it does not interfere with their wishes.

Ironically, fundamentalist Islam is using these "sinners" to buy itself a few more years of reign. In fact political apathy might have a rebound effect such that after a while we might see an actual increase in the voter turnout in the Iranian elections (the only elements of democracy, a reminiscent of the pre-Pahlavi constitutional revolution) in favour of those hardliner elements in the Iranian regime, in exchange for an illusion of prosperity.

If you ask what is wrong with a bunch of Mollah oligarchs running Iran? Since they will satisfy people; they would not be adventurist in their politics; there would be prosperity for people; they might even leave Israel and the US alone for that matter.

It turns out that this question is more than a moral dilemma, the problem lies in the sustainability of such a proposed finality.