Taming globalisation? Kebabs, mini-skirts and meth - part I

Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar, a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp commander, has instructed all local police units to enforce government-stipulated behaviors. As a result, “Guidance Patrols” - a euphemism for the police’s morals squads - have recommenced crackdowns on Iranian conduct. Police commander Hossein Sajedinia is “rigorously” implementing the state’s Social Discipline Plan on the grounds that: “The public expects us to act firmly if we see any social behavior defying our Islamic values. We will first warn, then arrest and imprison those women and men.”

So the balance between individualism and state control, between indulgence and activism, has increasingly become a test of wills that pits Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his cohorts against a public curious about the temptations of the West.

For now, the state hopes to resolve “cultural and social ills” by throwing money and personnel at the matter. It has allocated US$1.5 billion to boost Muslim morality and $4.5 billion to enhance Muslim culture from the annual budget of $347 billion. Funds will be spent on founding neighborhood religious centers, recruiting additional individuals into the official and semi-official guidance patrols, plus producing and distributing Shiite literature, movies and other forms of official art and culture.

Consequently, the battle between globalism and traditionalism is fought through words and deeds daily in Iran. During our research there, we too came close to arrest. A patrol inquired of a young woman with us why her long tresses were barely covered, and she retorted: “Didn’t God create my hair? So why should I hide it.” On Si o Seh Pol, or 33 Arches Bridge in Isfahan, we witnessed an elderly couple argue with police who had chastised them for holding hands in public. A crowd gathered in support and the authorities backed off.

Members of a women’s organisation in Shiraz asked us, rhetorically, why police and judiciary are not more focused on “reigning in the rampant corruption” that pervades the state bureaucracy. Rejecting the state’s social codes, they question “why clergy and politicians can lead their lifestyles, even lavish ones, without fear of punishment, but we cannot?” They pointed to Supreme Leader Khamenei, who reportedly divides time between palaces where he maintains stables of race horses, and ex-president Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who chairs the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Discernment Council while amassing a personal fortune worth more than $1 billion.

Iranians have long welcomed springtime with a rite of leaping over bonfires. Like the newfound trendy fashions, this much older tradition has been frowned upon of late by the authorities as un-Islamic and subversive. Yet state officials have not succeeded in stopping the public from attending.

The consumer-driven modern world has provoked a range of faith-based radical responses including the tyranny of Iran’s Shiite ayatollahs. Despite their efforts, a permissive and globalising societal revolution is underway across Iran.