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Social Life in the Islamic Republic of Iran
On a recent trip home to Tehran I was invited to a birthday party. When I arrived I found the 70 or so guests wearing fancy dress and dancing to the latest Western pop music. The party goers were all young and from well-to-do families. One was dressed as Tarzan, another as a pilot from the film "Top Gun". Assorted "ayatollahs" and "mullahs" were whirling drunkenly under the strobe lights. A girl in a black chador, flung it off to reveal a skin-tight Cat Woman costume underneath. In the middle of the fray, a waiter with a bow tie was trying to manoeuvre through the crowd, balancing a tray filled with glasses of wine, gin, vodka and whisky. [....] The hardliners had just banned hundreds of reformist MPs from taking part in the forthcoming parliamentary election. I asked one party-goer what he thought about it all. "Actually Iâm more interested in trying to remember the words to Eminemâs latest song," he said, and launched into an impromptu version of "Lose Yourself". At that moment there was a knock on the door. It was the Revolutionary Guards, wanting to know why there were so many cars in the street. I was terrified, but neednât have worried. One of the party guests, dressed as a mullah, told them it was a religious gathering and slipped them some money to leave us alone. They did, but as the party continued I wondered what it said about the state of the revolution. Who was the more cynical - the Islamic vigilantes who took the money, or the fancy dress cleric who offered it? Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-02-15 |
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