Iran - womenparadiseprison

In Tehran there`s a park. The Noshatpark. It`s only accessible to women. Except for fridays, then men are allowed too. Women can walk around here without their headscarve, can jog here, can lie in their bikini in the summer.
In the houses surrounding the park mullahs with binoculars are said to live there. Our first reaction after hearing about the park was what a paradise. Our second what a prison. Both are true. It`s a womenparadiseprison.
For me this park is little Iran.
For me it`s the symbol for all the opposites, the inconsequences and hypocrisy in Iran.
For the latter they have a word in Farsi : tarov.
Someone who`s too friendly, hospitable,gallant is tarov. It`s a very common used word here...
But about the park. A woman CAN walk around here without the compulsory scarve or long coat. It`s allowed.
First, this park is ugly, concrete is everywhere and it`s tastelessly decorated. There are works going on and it`s next to the big road.
Second, if something is allowed somewhere it means that elsewhere it is NOT allowed. And that`s the problem. The elsewhere.
Elsewhere women should be allowed to walk around the way they like.
And here, in womenparadiseprison, here women can come hopping in their hijab if they want.
Here the police can come and arrest women when the coat isn`t covering their behind.
Here women can guiltely avoid the gaze of a man when he`s looking at her.
Here it`s not allowed to flirt or hold hands.
Here it`s not allowed to talk out loud about leaving Iran or about Ahmadinejad.
Here can`t be worn green.
But elsewhere, yes.
Let it be this way. Give the extremists their place where they can apply their rules, give them a space next to a big road, where it smells and ask for their gratitude. Even expect gratitude. Because you are showing respect for them and their needs. You understand them and want the best for them. You make sure they`re not in lack of anything here, somewhere, in Park Noshat.
It should be something like this, but it`s something else. It`s elsewhere. It`s in the whole of Iran.
Because someone has written it down and called it law.
They are so beautiful, these women with their headscarve slided as much as possible to the back of their head, with their tight coats hardly covering their behind and making their body even more attractive, feminine and mysterious.
That can`t have been Ayatollah`s intention.
What is it about then?
About power. About a woman not being able to think about her freedom because all the time she has to think about her scarve and her coat, if they`re still in the right place, if the police isn`t near, if there`s no spy near.
That`s what it`s about. And that`s how the system is intruding in the head of a woman and stays their 24 hours a day in the form of a scarve. When someone knocks on her own door, the thing has to be put on.
That the thing can go off in the park seems like a favor, but it`s a candy to keep the child silent.
When will they realize that to enforce something always has the opposite effect?
And that opposite effect, that`s what we`re seeing in the people we meet.
That`s the beauty of Iran. The kind, hospitable people. The protesting people. The little, honest people that eventually will appear to be on the right side.
But victims have to be made to reach the right side.
And that`s an endless pity.
That makes angry.
In Iran live the most hospitable people I know.
In Iran you`re being given so many things that it makes you feel uncomfortable.
In Iran you can`t drink alcohol.
In Iran I`ve been offered the most alcohol ever.
In Iran they drive like crazy, but that`s allowed.
In Iran, they don`t stop for red lights, but that`s allowed.
In Iran, you can`t dance at a concert.Dance.
Because what? Maybe because you can punch someone on his or her freshly corrected nose, because that is allowed, a nosecorrection. A woman has to wear a headscarve so that men can`t see her hair but they can look at her fresh and more beautiful nose, they can.
In Iran, they can kill people on the road, but they can`t drink in their own house.
Iran, beautiful ugly country.
Womenparadiseprison.
Thank you, Iran, thank you.