CAFÉ BABEL: The drawing that Schirin Germez* pushes quickly across the small table of a smoky café in Esfahan barely fills a napkin. Its shows a naked woman surrounded by threatening blots of ink, looking anxiously at the observer. The surrounding blackness has already taken over the woman’s body. Only a bright, red square in the centre of her body, protected by folded arms, still resists the gloom. 'You can’t take this from me,' says the young actress, as she taps the square with one hand and puts out her cigarette with the other. 'But I can’t ever show it in this country either.'
Fear of the government, which Schirin Germez only shakes off briefly in the company of a foreign traveller, is palpable in cities across the country. The time in office of the reform-oriented former state president Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005) was shaped by hopes of change, but since the victory of Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s conservative elite, disappointment has spread among Iran’s urbane young population, who often harbour sympathy towards the west. Some of them are fighting, as in the past, for a liberal society: for instance, the budding doctors at Schiraz University, who are taking a stand against the planned segregation of the sexes in their lecture theatres. However, most have resigned themselves to the belief that they will not be able to change this republic.
So, the younger members of Iran’s middle classes have entered into a risky game of cat-and-mouse with the regime, by trying to fill public areas with signs of their disapproval. The women’s veils fall back, until the police step in to carry out their strict controls. Extravagant hairstyles and clothes are so widespread in some Tehran suburbs that for a short moment it’s possible to imagine oneself in Tokyo or London. But here, too, the powers that be quickly intervene to enforce their self-styled Islamic clothing regulations.
Hairdressers are even advised, when in doubt, to side with the government’s ideas rather than the customers’ wishes. Many shop owners put up the obligatory photos of Imam Khomeini and Ayatollah Khameini, not over the door or next to the till, but above shelves which – 'oh, what bad luck!' – are piled high and therefore block the view of the leaders of the eternal islamic revolution. On top of all this come drugs, western music and the youth sub-culture’s undermining of the country’s strict sexual morals. All of which is risky – and therefore all the more exciting. >>> By Jan Aengenvoort, Isfahan | Translation: Andrew Christie | Wednesday, April 1, 2009
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CAFÉ BABEL:
Das Land der roten Quadrate - Jugendkultur im Iran >>> (Original-Version des Artikels)
