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Greetings from the Ozarks in the US. Today, I will talk about something that is normally not a serious issue here, but is national and even international news elsewhere.

Not long ago, it was an ordinary day in Tehran. People rushed to work, shops opened their doors, and traffic clotted like any other weekday. Then everything changed. Jina Amini, also known as Mahsa Amini, was detained by Iran’s morality police for wearing her hijab “improperly.” Within days, this 22-year-old Kurdish woman died in a hospital on September 16, 2022. Investigations, eyewitness accounts and leaked medical information clearly indicate that she was severely beaten in custody and died because of police brutality.

Young Iranian woman, shutterstock

Source: Iran’s Anti-Veil Protests for Mahsa Amini Have Already Succeeded – Foreign Policy

Her death, triggered by the sight of strands of hair her hijab failed to hide, ignited protests on a scale unseen since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. But unlike 1979, this uprising wasn’t sparked by ideology or monarchy. It was sparked by clothing.

It was not the first time the actions of a single police officer set in motion events that reshaped nations. In 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, was humiliated and assaulted by a female municipal officer. An act that pushed him to self-immolate in protest. His death ignited the Arab Uprisings, toppling governments and transforming the Middle East. A year later, the killing of Khaled Saeed by the Egyptian police sparked public outrage that fueled a mass uprising.

These three incidents mentioned above demonstrate how an act of state violence can have major consequences. Sometimes, they set in motion mass protests and destabilize longstanding regimes.

Iran has not always mandated the veil. In fact, in 1936 Reza Shah banned the hijab, forcing women to unveil it as part of a modernization campaign. Many women withdrew from public life rather than appear uncovered.

The board of directors of “Jam’iat e nesvan e vatan-khah“, a women’s rights association in Tehran (1923–1933)

Sources:
THE IRANIAN: Politics of the veil, Azadeh Namakydoust
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Chastity and Hijab Law and the Weaponization of Women’s Economic Vulnerabilities | Middle East Briefs | Publications | Crown Center for Middle East Studies | Brandeis University 

After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, state policy flipped. What was once banned became mandatory. By 1983, failing to cover one’s hair became punishable by law. The hijab shifted from religious practice to state enforced behavior — a way the new regime regulated appearance, movement and morality.

After the 2002 protests, the mullahs have retreated on the hijab issue. Today, millions of Iranian women walk unveiled as an act of defiance. Each uncovered strand of hair is a protest. Additionally, hijab enforcement is not standard across the nation. For example, defiance is high and enforcement low in Iranian Kurdistan.

Hashmiz village in Kurdistan province in Iran, Nowruz to welcome spring by stomping and dancing, Shutterstock

Iranian historian Arash Azizi states:
“The mandatory veiling of women was once a pillar of the Islamic Republic. Now it’s almost gone.”

Long before the revolution: Headcovers always took center stage in Iran’s politics | The Times of Israel

The way people dress in Iran has become a marker of identity and a source of social strife. Not only women’s hijabs but also men’s turbans evoke emotion. Online videos show young people knocking turbans off the heads of clerics. Clearly, Tehran’s theocratic regime is no longer as popular as it once was during the early days of the revolution.

Iranians are knocking clerics’ turbans off. This isn’t an anti-religion act but an indirect tool for accountability. – Atlantic Council

Increasingly, neighboring Sunni Arab states have been loosening their hijab laws. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are two notable examples. Sunni Afghanistan has turned the clock back though. The Taliban are now in charge and they have not only brought back the hijab but also stopped girls from going to school.

Needless to say, Afghanistan has the strictest formal female dress code in the region. Women not only have to cover their hair but also their face. They can only leave the eyes uncovered so that they can see where they are going. The Taliban have imposed the burqa, a garment that fully covers the body and the face, while the mullahs in Tehran merely impose the hijab, a headscarf that covers the hair, neck and ears.

Turkey, once the seat of the Ottoman Empire, the hijab captures the tides of history. After World War I, Mustafa Kemal Pasha founded the nation state of Turkey on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. He wanted this new nation to be modern, secular and European. Out went the traditional fez for men and hijab for women. In came European dresses, especially for the Istanbul elites. For decades, women wearing hijabs or burqas could not go to universities or for the government. The triumph of political Islam in 2003 under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has caused the pendulum to swing back. Erdoğan’s wife herself wears the hijab, which was unimaginable in Kemalist Turkey.

Lebanon, which the French seized from the Turks at the end of World War I, does not impose a dress code. In Beirut, unveiled women walk beside those in hijab or niqab, a less restrictive burqa. In Lebanon, the way women dress reveals their sect, family, or neighborhood.

Syria was similar to Lebanon before civil war broke out in March 2011. Then, class, sect and geography determined what women wore. The regime did not care how women dressed. Elites in Damascus and Aleppo dressed like Europeans. More conservative people and those in small towns dressed more modestly. During the civil war, extremist Islamist groups enforced strict dress codes but personal choice has still survived in the big cities.

Iraq varies by region and sect. In Baghdad and Najaf, the hijab is common. In Kurdish cities like Erbil or Sulaymaniyah, women often wear western dresses. Freedom to dress the way you want depends more on the social environment, not the law. As during the days of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime, the hijab is less and less common in metropolitan areas.

Around the world, hijab means different things to different people. For some women, wearing the hijab is an act of faith and preserving their traditions. For some young Muslim women in the West, the hijab can be a symbol of their identity, an assertion of their culture and a resistance to racism. For others, the hijab is a means of male control, religious oppression and social backwardness. Often, the hijab triggers a jostling of faith, tradition, modernity and resistance. In Iran, the hijab has become part of an existential struggle between state and society.

Young people, not just young women, are protesting against restrictive dress codes in Iran and the regime has retreated for now. Women have cut their hair, burned their scarves and danced without hijabs in the streets. Many men have supported them. Once, the mullahs in Tehran imposed the hijab with an iron fist. Defiance meant punishment in the form of harassment, beatings and, in the case of young Jina Amani, even death. 

Now, a new generation is in open revolt. Visitors to Iran see increasing numbers of women defying the regime by not wearing the hijab. Some analysts say that power blackouts, water shortages and a rotten economy tie the mullahs’ hands. If they impose their strict laws on the hijab, Iranians could take to the streets again. A key question arises: Can the aging mullahs still impose their theocratic Shia dogma or will this new generation of Iranians burn the very foundations of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1979 Islamic Revolution?

Sources:

Why Are Young People Protesting in Iran? 

The Battle Iranian Women Are Winning 

The Iranian women resisting wearing the hijab 

I hope you have had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend and are having a restful Sunday.