So what do you think they are talking about over coffee in Iran?
"For young Iranians, a shot of freedom at coffee shops; Cafes on rise as patrons retreat from prying eyes" by Thomas Erdbrink Washington Post / November 15, 2011
Iranian law prescribes what people are allowed to do, wear, and say in public. Women’s hair must be covered, and showing affection is illegal. Although many people openly voice criticism of Iran’s leaders, there is always the fear that someone will overhear. So most people create their own worlds, at home and at the homes of their friends.
Then they are acting just like a newspaper, aren't they?
Nonetheless, coffee shops are mushrooming in Iran’s cities, providing small retreats from busy streets and prying eyes.
Tehran’s coffee shops numbered just a handful 10 years ago. But now hundreds dot the city, with a new one popping up every few days it seems, even in places such as car washes and movie theaters. They are among the very few semipublic places where young people meet and artists and intellectuals debate.
But reality is never far away. On a recent evening, just outside the shopping center where Lime opened its doors in 2009, officers with Iran’s morality police, a unit that controls the streets to “promote virtue and prevent vice,’’ were stopping cars filled with young men and women.
They arrested some, almost arbitrarily it seemed, for wearing tight clothes or sitting in a car with someone they were not married to. But none of the young people appeared to be married, and they were all dressed similarly....
In no way are the coffee shops official free zones, nor are they off-limits to the morality police. They are tolerated, but they can easily be closed down.
Last year, dozens of officers raided the Deja Vu cafe in Tehran, loading customers in vans and taking them to interrogation centers....
It is the young people of this capital who are financing the boom in coffee shops, where an espresso costs between $2.50 and $5, and sandwiches sell for twice that - expensive for most Iranians. More than 70 percent of Iranians are younger than 35, and although unemployment is high, a segment of the city’s population benefits from oil wealth.
Just opposite Tehran’s Mosalla mosque, an unfinished concrete behemoth reinforced with steel beams, two young women who work at a nearby bank entered Cafe Khiyaban for their daily cigarette break.
“As women, we are not expected to smoke,’’ one said. “So we come here, drink two teas, and smoke as many as we can, sometimes half a pack, and return to work like good girls.’’
But you STINK of CIGARETTES!
--more--"
Make mine to go.
More good girls:
"Ahmadinejad weighs in on fashion" by Thomas Erdbrink | Washington Post, January 01, 2012
TEHRAN - In the Islamic nation of Iran, the law requires women to cover their hair and bodies in public. But how to do so remains up to them, and the result is persistent confusion in the streets.
While leading Shi’ite Muslim clerics advise women to wear chadors - the traditional head-to-toe cloak, usually black - Iran’s urban fashionistas increasingly prefer tight-fitting coats and scant head scarves.
Now, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is stepping into the dispute. He wants to settle it by promoting government-approved clothes for women, garments intended to introduce an array of women’s clothing that is “Islamic and beautiful’’ at the same time.
Ahmadinejad -- the 21st-century Hitler -- some sort of moderate?
But at a recent government-sponsored fashion show, young women and their mothers gazed approvingly at mannequins showcasing the new coats and scarves....
Many hard-liners say the “culture’’ of covering up protects women and prevents them from becoming sex objects. They often denounce Western advertising as abusing women’s bodies to sell products.
Well, you really couldn't argue with them there. Feminists would say it's a choice, I guess.
Of course, don't choose the chador. Then you are in some sort of denial or oppressed-woman's syndrome or something.
But faced with a majority of young adults - nearly 70 percent of Iran’s more than 72 million people are younger than 35 - religious conservatives have been waging an uphill battle to prevent young urban women from dressing the way they want, even within the framework of the laws that mandate coats and scarves.
Same in AmeriKa.
With demographics fueling rapid changes in Iranian society, many women nowadays - even conservative ones - watch Western video clips, post their thoughts on Facebook, and travel to beaches in Turkey and Dubai.
Then WHY MUST WE WAGE WAR on them?
On any given day in Tehran’s streets, women can be seen wearing combinations of wide-open coats, heavy makeup, and towering platinum blond hairdos held in place by large hair clips and minimally covered by brightly colored scarves. Technically, they are not violating the dress code, but they can still be arrested.
Why is freedom for women equated with the right to drink alcohol, use cosmetics, and join an NGO?
The hard-liners’ answer to the changes has been an effort to enforce the dress code even more strictly. Besides an ongoing campaign by Iran’s morality police, who harangue and sometimes arrest women dressed in clothing deemed indecent, 70 fashion designers were rounded up in November, and more than 400 shops selling “improper’’ dresses were closed.
Do they taser 'em?
Ahmadinejad, who seeks to position himself as a champion of civil rights in an attempt to lure middle-class votes for his supporters in March parliamentary elections, has come under fire from clerics for refusing to publicly back the dress-code enforcement.
Oh, it's an ELECTION-YEAR PLOY!
Thank Allah AmeriKan politicians never do such things.
To many of those attending the government exhibition, the middle road between the chador and some of the Lady Gaga-like creations that some women make of their obligatory coats and scarves seemed to offer a solution to their fashion dilemmas....
Well, I wouldn't want my wife or daughter wearing Gaga garb.
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You know, maybe the best thing would be for the U.S. to flatten the place.
I mean, these poor women being treated like this. They would be better off if their country was smashed, polluted, and had all their men killed.
I mean, hey, the Iran is building a nuclear bomb argument hasn't sold. No one gives a shit that they have our spy plane and won't give it back. Americans have seen through the deception and provocation of the Straight of Hormuz situation and the potential for a false flag in the Persian Gulf (think U.S.S. Liberty, reader).
I mean, the only thing we can sell to the American people is those icky Iranians mistreat there women.
And wouldn't you know that AmeriKa's specialty is bombing people who do that. Those Iranian women sure are lucky!
Do you think that is what they are talking about in the Iranian coffee houses?
