Can’t it really be worse? Looking at the situation in Iran

By maxime68 on Saturday, June 27, 2009 - 18:33

The Iranian elections have made the headlines for almost three weeks now. Protests inside the country are going on and the support from outside the country is still growing. Which is already a miracle itself cause most people tend to lose interest in causes when the novelty has worn off.
What is making this different this time?

While it is really difficult to write an up-to-date article on the current situation in Iran, as so many things are happening and the minute you write something it is already outdated, here are still some thoughts and background information I would like to share with you.

You might have heard or read people referring to the Iranian Revolution and though there were other revolutions in this country, this term refers to the Revolution which took place end of the seventies, in 1979.  Although I was already 11 eleven years old back then, I can’t remember if this was covered by German Media, what I know is that I first consciously read about this time in “Going to Iran” by Kate Millett (Published in 1982, my copy is from 1986). It’s been a while since I read the book but I have thought about it quite often, not only recently but every time discussions about wearing a headscarf surface.

Women played an important role in the revolution back then, just like they do now. This despite the fact that some of the changes made by the new leaders were like a setback in time for them. The Iranian Revolution has not been called for nothing also the Islamic Revolution. It abolished the US- and western lifestyle friendly Iranian monarchy and installed an Islamic republic, a theocracy. I think it is somehow inconsistent that today women are better educated and have more degrees while they lost many of their personal rights.

And today? What are they fighting for today? Living in Iran has turned for worse since Ahmadinejad came to power in the last election (even then doubts where raised about the results’ legitimacy). He has no interest in developing the economic situation in Iran and nobody really knows what happened to the money earned with Petrol, and these are enormous sums of money. Ahmadinejad is protected by the countries religious leaders and enforced many laws to represent Islam even more than before. He also claimed in a speech at an US University that there are no homosexuals in Iran. Transsexuality, however, has been regarded as a disease and early on the Islamic Republic decided to pay for sex-change operation as a means to cure Transsexuality.