Nation, state, country
This op-ed essay about the vote for Scottish independence is worth the time it takes to sort out the analysis (that includes references to Thomas Hobbes).
BTW, does writer Neil Irwin properly use the terms nation, state, country, government, and regime?
Why Does Scotland Want Independence? It’s Culture vs. Economics
It’s been a good three centuries, but now Scotland may want out of the United Kingdom.
The stakes are enormous for Scotland, and quite high for the rest of Britain. But the debate over Scottish independence also sheds important light on how debates over the nature of the state that are as old as Hobbes and Locke apply in a modern world of instant communication and cryptocurrency.
 |
| Alex Salmond, Scottish leader |
The latest polling on the referendum, to be held Sept. 18, points to a narrow edge for Scots who wish to pull out of the state that they have been part of since 1707 and go it as a nation of their own. Previous polls, by contrast, had given the edge to those who wish for Scotland to remain part of Britain. Both betting markets and forecasting groups are now putting the odds that Scotland will pull away and form its own state at something like 30 percent.
What’s all the more remarkable about this possible secession is that major, specific grievances over public policy between Scotland and the rest of Britain are hard to identify…
Many Scots feel as if they have more to gain from governing alongside people who look like them and talk like them than they have to lose from no longer being part of a bigger, more powerful nation…
One could point out that Britain as it exists today is the very model of a liberal democracy, that Scots are amply represented in Parliament, and that they have a great deal of control over day-to-day governance within their borders. The government has offered to expand those rights of local control over taxes and public administration if Scotland sticks with Britain. But it may not be enough…
In the 18th century, it was the creation of what is now the United Kingdom out of England, Scotland and Wales (and, presently, Northern Ireland). In the 19th century, it was the expansion of the United States to span a continent and the centralization of smaller states into what are now the nations of Germany and Italy. In the 20th century, it was the creation of the European Union, in which people from Finland to Portugal share a common market and common currency…
Among democracies, the march has been toward greater scale and reach, at the cost of less distinct national identity. There have been flare-ups of resentment in these large democracies… But none have come as close to getting their wish as the Scots will in just over a week…
If Scotland chooses to go independent, it will shed the advantages that come from being part of a relatively large global power (Britain’s population: about 64 million. Scotland’s population: about 5 million) for the chance to be governed by people with whom they share a deeper cultural affinity.
Paradoxically, pro-independence Scots have argued that they will recapture some of the advantages of size by joining the European Union. It seems slightly bonkers for Scots to get so frustrated about ceding power to bureaucrats in London and turn immediately to bureaucrats in Brussels, but there it is…
The Scottish referendum isn’t just about whether a few million Scots will govern themselves. It is a fight over the world of multicultural modernity that makes today’s global economy possible, but also leaves many people with a deep hunger for the sense of national identity it obliterates.
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Labels: culture, nation, politics, Scotland, state, UK
Televised musical performance in Iran
Philip Kantaros, who teaches at
Mercersburg Academy in Mercersburg, PA, sent along a link to a
Wall Street Journal article that offers some insight in Iranian cultural politics. You must subscribe to the Journal to get access to the whole article, but here's a bit of the essence and
a link to The Iran Project's reposting of the WSJ article.
Something New on Iranian Television: Music: New President Seen Trying to Ease Most Zealous Enforcement of Islamic Codes
When Iranians tuned into state television for a day of special holiday programming recently, they were treated to a remarkable sight—for the Islamic Republic, anyway.
There, for all to see, was a performance by Avaye Parsian, a traditional Persian music band. It was the first time a full band had played instruments on state TV since 1979, when the Iranian revolution ushered in an arch-conservative regime that deemed such displays too irreverent for television.
Before the day was out there was more: The Pallett, a popular contemporary music band, appeared on a late-night show called Radio 7 in an equally daring way for a jazz or rock band.
They didn't actually play instruments, but they did exuberantly pretend to—air band style…
 |
| The Pallett pretending to play their music |
Saman Alipour, the 25-year-old founder of Avaye Parsian, said the band wasn't even aware they would be shown on television until their live performance was over. Mr. Alipour… said they had assumed it would be the usual television appearance where they played in the studio while nature photos and abstract designs are shown on TV…
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Labels: culture, Iran, leadership, political culture, politics
Post-materialism in China
When I began studying China in the '60s, I didn't anticipate materialism becoming an issue. The country was desperately poor and dominated by the egalitarianism of the Cultural Revolution. A ball point pen in a shirt pocket or a watch beneath a PLA uniform sleeve was often the only way to identify someone with power.
But wealth for some and materialism for many more did come to China. Is there also a post-materialism coming?
Nationalistic and Chasing the 'Chinese Dream'Ge Yang is an editor at Umiwi.com, a Beijing-based Web site for and about China’s “post-’80s” generation, those born in the decade after China’s economic and social liberalization began.
First of all, she says, the majority of post-’80s — especially those in big cities and with decent jobs — don’t envy the United States its material wealth.
“We have all the material things here that America has, like iPhones, which are really, really loved here,” said Ms. Ge, a petite, eager-faced 26-year-old. “We can get the best of all their goods, so that’s not an issue.
“But we can’t do what they do culturally: produce things like Tom and Jerry cartoons, ‘Transformers,’ ‘Avatar,’ ‘Inception,’ iPhones, Barbies. America has things we really, really like, on a cultural level.”
The post-’80s are China’s first only-child generation, and they happily admit they are prone to selfishness. Yet, generally, they are also searching their souls, conscious of their historical mission in pointing their country toward a better future and away from the ideology-driven violence and poverty of the past.
After the tradition-smashing Communist politics of the first three decades of the People’s Republic, and three further decades of breakneck economic growth that has destroyed some of the country’s environment and cultural heritage, China’s young adults are searching for values and moral meaning, said Ms. Ge, who studied Chinese literature at Beijing Normal University…
Ms. Ge’s work at the Web site brings her into daily contact with a broad range of opinion among the post-’80s. She predicts the next three decades will see people here pursuing the “Chinese Dream.”
“This is a big topic here right now,” she said. “It’s inspired by the American Dream, but different. Americans say you can build anything out of nothing. We believe that you can love your family and your country and return to your cultural roots, such as Confucius. So much was lost in the last 60 years.”…
Yet expectations are rising along with incomes, posing a major challenge to the government, and looking ahead, the post-’80s want more of a say in politics, she said.
“People want more competitive politics, to know something about the people who lead the country, to know that they are really excellent in quality like President Obama and not just bureaucrats whom we don’t know.
“Bad things happen in America too, but at least there is a system to supervise the people in power. Here, there is no one who can do this, and if we can’t monitor what the government is doing, there are so many challenges, like corruption, it will end badly.”
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Labels: China, civil society, culture, politics
Lingua Franca
Is a "new" language a way to unite Nigeria? In a country where more than 400 languages are spoken, how can politics, education, business, or just everyday life function? How about
pidgin?
Thanks to Jeremy Weate at
Naijablog for pointing out this article.
Nigeria harnesses Pidgin English powerLong considered the language of the uneducated, Nigerian Pidgin English, with its oscillating tones and playful imagery, is now spoken by Nigerians of every age, social class and regional origin.
In a country with wide disparity in education provision, Pidgin operates as a de facto lingua franca, a bridge between social classes, ethnicities and educational levels. Public announcements and information campaigns are often made in Pidgin, which has a wider reach than standard English, the official language of this former British colony.
But while Nigerian Pidgin first emerged nearly 600 years ago, when trade with Europe was first established in the Niger Delta, and is now estimated to be used by 50 million people, and with variants spoken in Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the language still has no standard rules for spelling, grammar or an official dictionary.
As a Nigerian linguist once put it, "Na like pikin we no get papa, we no get mama" (It is like a child without a father or mother). Everyone uses Pidgin to serve their purpose, but no one looks out for it.
That is what the Naija Languej Akademi is seeking to change by creating the first reference guide for Pidgin English…
Pidgin is a definition applied to simplistic languages that are prone to die out. If, however, they evolve and acquire native speakers, they are categorised as creole languages…
The interest in Pidgin is not only intellectual but also political. Because similar forms of Pidgin are shared across west Africa's English-speaking countries, many believe it could evolve from a national lingua franca into a regional one…
See also:
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Labels: cleavages, culture, Nigeria, political integration
Nigerian Diversity
When teaching about Nigeria, I remember holding up a print out of
The Languages of Nigeria from Ethnologue. It pointed out that there were 10 official languages and a total of 527 languages used in the country. The list is huge and students were appropriately impressed. They were also stumped by my question about whether democratic government was possible in a country with such diversity.
In his
Naijablog, Jeremy Weate interviewed linguist Uwe Seibert about the languages of Nigeria. It's another illustration of the cultural diversity that is Nigeria and a reminder of how oversimplified basic political analysis can be. And you don't have to print out a 50-page list of languages.
On Nigerian LanguagesNigeria is not only rich in languages, there are also many different language groups. First of all, three of the four language macro-families of Africa are represented in Nigeria: Afro-Asiatic, Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan. Within the macro-families, there are subgroups, e.g. Atlantic, Benue-Congo, Chadic, Mande, and Saharan. These language groups are quite different in terms of their vocabulary and grammatical structures…
Many of the more than 500 languages of Nigeria are quite small and often only elderly people speak them really well. If their children - who still understand and speak a reduced form of these languages - fail to teach them to their children, these languages are definitely in danger of extinction. This could happen to a large percentage of Nigerian languages within the next 20 years…
I don't think that larger population languages like Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Kanuri, Fulfulde or Tiv will die out so easily...
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Labels: cleavages, culture, Nigeria, political culture, political integration
Happy New Year
The Islamic New Year is a cultural event which Muslims observe on the first day of Muharram, the first month in the Islamic calendar. Many Muslims use the day to remember the significance of this month, and the Hijra, or migration, Islamic prophet Muhammad made to the city now known as Medina.
The Islamic calendar or Muslim calendar or Hijri calendar (Arabic: التقويم الهجري; at-taqwīm al-hijrī; Persian: تقویم هجری قمری taqwīm-e hejri-ye qamari; Turkish: Hicri Takvim) is a lunar calendar used to date events in many predominantly Muslim countries, and used by Muslims everywhere to determine the proper day on which to celebrate Islamic holy days and festivals. It is a lunar calendar having 12 lunar months in a year of about 354 days. Because this lunar year is about 11 days shorter than the solar year, Islamic holy days, although celebrated on fixed dates in their own calendar, usually shift 11 days earlier each successive solar year, such as a year of the Gregorian calendar. Islamic years are also called Hijra years because the first year was the year during which the Hijra occurred—Islamic prophet Muhammad's emigration from Mecca to Medina. Thus each numbered year is designated either H or AH, the latter being the initials of the Latin anno Hegirae (in the year of the Hijra).
The current Islamic Year is 1431 AH.
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Labels: culture, Iran
How much history matters politically?
Pardon my proclivities, but I have been fascinated by archaeology since I read
Gods, Graves, and Scholars in junior high school. When I had opportunities, I volunteered on local archaeology projects in the 1970s (yes, prehistoric archaeology in Minnesota). I am still amazed by how much we can describe of people's lives by the physical stuff they leave behind. (Think about that the next time you take out the garbage.)
So, when I saw this article about urban archaeology in Mexico, I read it. The archaeological discoveries, this time amplified by the written observations of the Spanish conquerors, do offer insights into the Aztec political culture.
The question remains, though, does this have any relevance to today's political culture -- except, perhaps, as a symbol of pre-colonial greatness?
Archaeologists uncover Aztec palace in Mexico City
"Archaeologist Elsa Hernandez and her team have found remains belonging to an Aztec palace once inhabited by the emperor Montezuma. Photograph: Alexandre Meneghini/AP"
"The remains of an Aztec palace once inhabited by the emperor Montezuma have been discovered in the heart of downtown Mexico City, archaeologists said today.
"During a routine renovation project on a colonial-era building, experts uncovered pieces of a wall as well as a basalt floor believed to have been part of a dark room where Montezuma meditated, team leader Elsa Hernandez said...
"The basalt floor most likely belongs to the Casa Denegrida, or the Black House, which Spanish conquerors described as a windowless room painted in black, said Hernandez.
"The emperor was believed to have reflected there on visions recounted by professional seers and shamans.
"His reliance on such predictions may have contributed to his downfall, possibly prompting him to initially mistake the conquistadors for divine figures."
Labels: culture, history, Mexico, political culture
Video about Iran
Here's a reason to ignore the camera phone videos of Tehran that
I found on YouTube awhile back.
Juliette Zener, who teaches comparative government at Newton Country Day School in Newton, MA., wrote that she "came across
this fantastic BBC documentary on the lives of average Iranians from Feb of this year."
She added, "Thought you might like to pass it along to folks on your list serv."
I haven't seen the whole thing yet, but I do recommend that you consider using it with your students studying about Iran.
I'm always thankful for images that fill in the blanks left by my lack of imagination and textbook descriptions. This video does this many times over.
The one-and-a-half hour video is
Rageh inside Iran. It comes from former BBC reporter Rageh Omaar. The
BBC description says,
"Rageh Omaar embarks on a unique journey inside what he describes as one of the most misunderstood countries in the world, looking at the country through the eyes of people rarely heard - ordinary Iranians.
"It took a year of wrangling to get permission to film inside Iran but the result is an amazing portrayal of an energetic and vibrant country that is completely different to the usual images seen in the media.
"Rageh soon discovers that Tehran is a complex place and uncovers a city of extremes of wealth and poverty, where some people survive on less than a dollar a day and others shop till they drop in glitzy shopping malls.
"Iran is a country that bans women from riding motorcycles but where 60 per cent of the student population is female. It is also a youthful place, with two thirds of Iran's 70 million population under the age of 30.
"Rageh meets with local people to hear their personal stories and feelings about the current state of affairs in Iran. There are stories of taxi drivers, wrestlers, business women, people working with drug addicts and the country's leading pop star and his manager - the 'Simon Cowell' of Iran.
"Rageh Inside Iran transcends images of angry demonstrations and burning flags to reveal a country that isn't without its problems but which is also fascinating, dynamic and hospitable."The scenic shots and the faces and voices of individuals really do make my mental pictures of the place and the people more realistic than the images inspired by the black and white words in books.
It's a long program, but it looks like it should be pretty easy to select segments to use in class. In addition a number of related videos are accessible at the GoogleVideo site where the program is offered.
And in case you want shorter segments already packaged, I
searched for Rageh at YouTube. Several scenes from the program (4 - 10 minutes) are available there.
If you're going to be teaching about Iran in the future (even next semester), now's the time to take a look at this video and begin preparing teaching plans to use it.
Labels: civil society, culture, Iran, pedagogy, political culture
Thinking about thinking
Two things this morning. Both are related to the assumptions we bring to the comparative process (some of which we don't recognize). The first comes from an Indian academic. The other from an advertising exec in China. Both are related to
Insights for us teachers that I posted here last Friday.
Put all this together and you could come up with at great lesson in the need to stay objective and still get trapped by unconscious ethnocentrism.
Pankaj Mishra is the author of
Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Beyond. His essay in
The Guardian (UK) offers a powerful rationale for studying comparative politics.
What would your students make of his argument?
Indians are baffled by the paranoia and prejudice of European liberals"David Miliband, the [British] foreign secretary... told a group of journalists that politicians of his generation who didn't understand what the world looked like through Indian eyes, weren't going to understand the world very well.
"Miliband's curiosity most likely derives from India's growing economic strength. But the country's political and intellectual life, particularly its experiment with democracy and pluralism, has an equal bearing on Europe today. With its many religions and languages, and inequalities of caste and class, India possesses greater social and cultural variety than even Europe. Aware that the potential for conflict between religious and ethnic communities was immense, India's founding fathers hoped to build a pluralist democracy...
"The scale of political-religious violence in India dwarfs anything suffered by western Europe in the postwar era. Yet India's unique liberal tradition, which respects minority identity and community belonging, remains central in the country's intellectual life. Indian economists, historians, sociologists, philosophers, novelists and journalists are deeply divided on many political and economic issues. But, apart from a minuscule few, they remain wedded to India's founding vision of pluralism.
"Not surprisingly, these postcolonial Indians are bewildered to see liberal politicians and intellectuals in Europe embrace a majoritarian nationalism, recoiling from what, by Indian standards, seems a very limited experience of social diversity and political extremism... It is clear that recklessly globalising capital and technology, and the failed modernisation of much of the formerly colonial world - of which religious extremism and migration are consequences - pose daunting challenges to European societies. But instead of facing them squarely, many Europeans have retreated into old insecurities about Islam and Muslims...
"Still looking at the world through the ideological simplicities of the cold war and longing to give battle to another evil "ism", they have found a worthy enemy in the conceptual conceit called Islamofascism...
"If this disturbs Indian intellectuals, it is because they are accustomed, from bitter recent experience of the
BJP, to see strident rhetoric about values as a rightwing ploy meant to channel middle-class anxiety over seemingly insuperable problems into xenophobia...
"[I]t is likely that just as the militant Hindu is usually an upper-caste man fearful of assertive low-caste groups, the non-relativist muscular European liberals are no more than a few middle-aged pundits rattled to see their assumptions defied by the upstart regimes of Iran and Venezuela, as well as India, China and Russia.
"In any case, claims to superior values are likely to fall on deaf ears in a world where the chasm between moral grandstanding and actual conduct is quickly exposed. Last century, Indian thinkers pointed to this credibility gap.
"Indeed, much of Gandhi's strategy of non-violent persuasion consisted of alerting the British to the contradiction between their claims of fair play and the reality of imperial rule. Asked for his opinion of 'western civilisation', Gandhi replied: 'It would be a good idea.' It sounds like a cheap jibe, but he was in earnest. Civilisation, he implied, is never a fixed achievement, as Europe's own frequent descent into barbarism in the 20th century proved; it has to be maintained, primarily by a high degree of awareness about its fragility.
"Gandhi's warning came during the interwar years in Europe, when liberal democracy proved feeble before demagogic nationalism. It is no less relevant today, as opinion-makers berate what appears to be the latest of many minorities Europe has found indigestible. Intellectuals may balk at learning from a supposedly inferior Asian country. The lesson, however, from an embattled and resilient Indian liberalism in the 61st year of India's existence is clear: liberal values will prove their superiority by not collapsing before the challenge of pluralism and political extremism."
Labels: concepts, culture, pedagogy
Iranian rap protest video
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports on a YouTube video produced by an Iranian living in the USA. The music video features a protest about government actions to enforce a dress code for Iranian women.
Internet Video Tells Leaders To 'Leave The Youth Alone'"A video by underground Iranian musicians that is circulating on the Internet criticizes the current official crackdown to enforce Iran's strict dress code.
"The clip is built around an Iranian rap song that has tough words for the Iranian leadership and what it describes as official repression of young people.
"The video, called "No More Lies," chides authorities for their persecution of Iranian young people who flout the dress code...
"The clip includes scenes of Iranians -- most of them women -- being warned or detained by police because of their appearance...
SEE THE VIDEO AT
YouTube
"The video begins with a televised interview in which Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad says his government has better things to do than tell young people how to dress...
"Mani Turkzadeh, an Iranian-born activist who is now based in Los Angeles, California, produced the video. He tells RFE/RL that he decided to make the video about a month ago, after he received the song by e-mail...
"It is perhaps no coincidence that the rapper is a woman, who are discriminated against under Iran's strict official interpretation of Shari'a. The song's collaborators also chose a musical genre against which authorities appear to be cracking down..."
Labels: culture, Iran, politics
At ESPN of all places
Once again, thanks to Jim Lerch, who is soon off to Hong Kong for his new job. He sent me a reference to this ESPN story.
Wright Thompson, a senior writer for ESPN.com, wrote an account of his 2500 km drive from Beijing to Chengdu,
Behind the Bamboo Curtain. It's illustrated with great photographs of the people and places along the route.
It's not a pretty picture and Thompson's focus is on how well China can host the Olympic games in '08. There are perhaps inadvertent glimpses of government, politics, political culture, and policy making included. And that makes it potentially useful for you and your students.
"On this wall along Highway 108, local citizens have written grafitti. Some of it voices their displeasure." -Wright Thompson
Labels: China, culture, environment, policy
Populist digital politics
Democratic candidates for president responded to questions posed in YouTube videos and appeared at the Yearly Kos, a meeting of liberal bloggers. Some Republican candidates balked at answering questions posed on the Internet, but are likely to do so in the end. Technology is changing politics and government. But how and how much?
A pair of op-ed articles on the web site of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce in the UK might offer some starting points for discussion, debate or writing in your classes.
Here are excerpts:
Open to all…
George Osborne on ‘open-source politics’
[George Osborne is shadow chancellor of the Exchequer and MP for Tatton, Cheshire]
"The internet is changing the world... What is less clear is how politics and government need to change to keep pace... Just as companies all over the world are changing the way they do business... We need to recast the political settlement for the digital age. We need ‘open source’ politics.
"First, this means embracing equality – equality of information...
"Secondly, we need to harness the potential of new online social networks... These new online networks enable us to engage with new audiences...
"The final pillar of this new settlement is ‘open source’. Open source harnesses the power of mass collaboration to find new ideas..."
…but tread with caution
Will Davies on why we need to stay focused on the real issues within the UK power structure, rather than on the niche area of ‘open-source politics’
[Will Davies is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research]
"Consider the following two portraits of Britain in 2007. In the first, the internet has fostered a culture of mass collaboration, in which open source projects such as Wikipedia are worked on by a distributed network of volunteers.Politics increasingly follows a similar model, with citizens seizing the potential of interactive media to organise themselves both on a local and non-local level. Political parties and governments have no choice but to partner with these ever-more confident citizens on an equal basis.
"Transparency and interactivity have trumped secrecy and passivity. Individuals speak for themselves and hold power to account, thanks to being equipped with abundant information...
"The second portrait could scarcely be more different. In this, the rules that limit state and police power are gradually eroded, with tangible public support. Liberal measures such as data privacy and freedom of information become viewed as unnecessary burdens that undermine the more important goals of maximising security and public-service efficiency. Concern for inequality leads policymakers further into the private lives of individuals and families...
"George Osborne’s championing of ‘open-source politics’ only exacerbates the contradiction. He argues that top-down politics is impossible in a bottom-up age, while the truth is that the two are mutually reinforcing. How can this be? Three answers suggest themselves.
"Firstly, to paraphrase the trickle-down economists, the rising tide of digital technology lifts all ships. While citizens can now Google each other, search parliamentary debates using theyworkforyou.com or gather medical information to challenge their doctor’s opinion, similar technologies have been harnessed by the powerful to entrench their informational advantages...
"Secondly, a vague but highly significant line is being drawn between those decisions that can and can’t be democratised. At one extreme lies counter-terrorism, an activity that by definition can’t engage the public on an equal footing. At the other lies pure opinion gathering, such as a BBC message board. But problems arise in the middle ground, especially where children are involved. Should parents be involved in developing the content of the school curriculum? How much should employers be allowed to know about their employees (and vice versa)? The e-democracy zealots tend to focus only on the narrow comfort zone in which decisions matter sufficiently to attract interest, but not enough to carry significant risk...
"Following from this is a more perturbing thesis, but one that any serious investigation of this topic must address. In his classic study of community life, Bowling Alone, Harvard academic Robert Puttnam writes: 'The ability to send a message to president@whitehouse.gov can give the illusion of much more access, participation and social proximity than is actually available'. While all efforts to make the democratic process more transparent must be celebrated, there is a danger that some of them look to substitute technological interactivity for constitutional interactivity...
"None of the above is to dispute the veracity of Osborne’s depiction. Open-source politics is real and interesting. But to focus on a niche and relatively inconsequential area of politics to the exclusion of other more momentous shifts in UK power structures is irresponsible..."
Labels: change, concepts, culture, participation, political culture, theory
Political integration and socialization
Many countries rely on a military draft or youth service programs to promote political integration.
Now
The Guradian (UK) reports on a proposal in the UK. How does it compare with similar efforts in other countries? How well do such programs fit with the political culture in those countries? Look for information on Mexico's Servicio Social, Nigeria's National Youth Service Corps, China's Voluntary Poverty Alleviation Relay Project, and Russia's Youth Service and Alternative Civilian Service (ACS), for examples.
Plan for new 'teenage call-up'"Plans for every young person in Britain to enrol in a national volunteering scheme that could become compulsory are at the centre of a government report into improving social cohesion.
"The possibility of mandatory community service is put forward today by Darra Singh, chair of the Commission on Integration and Cohesion...
"[It is argued] that the benefits of volunteering are great, 'bringing together young people from different backgrounds to work together towards a common goal'...
"The issue of how to make society more cohesive in the face of threats from Islamic extremism and the British National Party has risen to the top of the political agenda in recent weeks..."
Labels: concepts, culture, UK
More on the fashion police of Tehran
The fashion police in Iran have caught the attention of most of the media. Here's the latest from the BBC:
Iran's fashion police target ties"Barbers' shops in Iran have been ordered not to serve customers who wear ties or bow ties, Iranian press says...
"In the early days of the revolution wearing a tie was seen as a symbol of western decadence...
"The latest directive is part of a campaign against westernised clothes, which has so far focused on women's headscarves and Islamic covering..."
Labels: culture, Iran, politics
