Sign of change or merely a safety valve?
The last line is the most telling.Where Iranians go to let their hair down
"Kish, a tiny island 20 kilometres away from, and just beyond the full control of, the rest of the Islamic Republic."Twenty-nine years after the Iranian revolution brought in the tight-laced social restrictions that transformed a Western-backed monarchy into a strict Islamic republic, Kish provides a rare outlet for Iran's booming population of educated young people who are frustrated with the regime.
"There is no fun in Islam, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomaini once said. It's hard to guess what he would have thought of Kish. Live music is frowned upon in Iran, anything resembling a discothèque is banned outright. Alcohol is completely illegal, as is the mingling of unmarried members of the opposite sex. But in this one corner of Iran, it's as if the Islamic revolution never completely took hold...
"In reality, Kish is hardly sin city. Despite the occasional forbidden tipple, the island's restaurants openly serve only fruit juices, soft drinks, tea and coffee. Those who live and work here say that Kish is less freewheeling now than it was before hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005...
"Nonetheless, Kish remains a place where Iranians, as many as one million of them annually, come to let their hair down — and let it show — a little bit... Kish is at once the Hawaii of Iran, its Las Vegas and its Hong Kong. It's only a short flight from Bushehr, the city at the centre of Iran's controversial nuclear program, but to Iranians, the island is a rare escape from their country's economic woes, turbulent politics and repressive restrictions...
"The notorious religious police that keep an eye out for improper female attire and other social no-nos in Tehran and other cities seem to be absent here. Though there are separate men's and women's beaches... this is one of the few places in Iran where sunbathing is tolerated at all. Men and women ride jet skis and tandem bicycles together, and under the cover of night some of the more adventurous women even go wading into the water with their partners, albeit while fully clothed...
"'Men's beaches, women's beaches. It's silly, and it's not interesting for either side,' said Imjad, a 65-year-old retired Justice Department employee, snorting as he passed by a sign pointing to the island's men-only beach and speaking in halting French he learned before the revolution. 'We just have to hope that the rest of Iran becomes like Kish before Kish becomes like the rest of Iran.'"
Labels: civil society, Iran
posted by Ken Wedding @ 7:00 AM
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