Can the Yellow Stars be Far Behind?
Betsy's Page
Amir Taheri describes a scary new law that the Iranian government just passed mandating that all Iranians have to wear authentic Muslim clothes.
<<< The law mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions reflected in clothing, and to eliminate "the influence of the infidel" on the way Iranians, especially, the young dress. It also envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public. The new codes would enable Muslims to easily recognize non-Muslims so that they can avoid shaking hands with them by mistake, and thus becoming najis (unclean). >>>
I wonder how Iranian youth, who have gotten increasingly modern in some ways, even shopping at Victoria's Secret and Calvin Klein in Teheran, are going to take to this new decree.
The one problem in implementing this new law is that they can't decide what "standard Islamic garments" are.
<<< The world's estimated 1.3 billion Muslims live in more than 180 different countries and dress in a bewilderingly large number of styles reflecting national, tribal, ethnic and folkloric traditions. The Ethnological Museum in Tehran shows that Iran itself is home to hundreds of different styles of clothing for men and women.
According to Ahmadinejad, the new Islamic uniforms will establish "visual equality" for Iranians as they prepare for the return of the Hidden Imam.
A committee that consists of members from the Ministry of Islamic Orientation, the Ministry of Commerce and the Cultural Subcommittee of the Islamic Majlis is scheduled to propose the new uniforms by next autumn. These would then have to be approved by the "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei before being imposed by law.
Although the final shape of the uniforms is yet to be established, there is consensus on a number of points. The idea of adopting an Arab-style robe (known as dishdash) for men has been rejected along with a proposal that men wear a form of turban.
"Iranians have always worn trousers," says Mostafa Pourhardani, Minister of Islamic Orientation. "Even when the ancient Greeks wore woman-style dresses with skirts, the Persians had trousers. We are not going to force Iranian men to do away with trousers although they predate Islam."
What men will wear on top is not clear yet.
Some Islamic experts want a kind of long, almost European-style, jacket known as "sardari" and used in Iran for centuries. Others propose only a waistcoat.
On colour schemes, however, there seems to be consensus.
Islamic legislators are unanimous that Islam is incompatible with "gay, wild, provocative colours" such as red, yellow, and light blue, which are supposed to be favoured by Satan. The colours to be imposed by law are expected to be black, brown, dark blue and dark grey.
Some Majlis members have been trying to lift the ban on green, which is, after all, the colour of the Bani Hashem, the family of the Prophet Muhammad, and thus regarded as the colour of Islam. The majority view, however, is that green is not "serious enough" to underline the gravity of a Muslim man's position.
Religious minorities would have their own colour schemes. They will also have to wear special insignia, known as zonnar, to indicate their non-Islamic faiths. Jews would be marked out with a yellow strip of cloth sewn in front of their clothes while Christians will be assigned the colour red. Zoroastrians end up with Persian blue as the colour of their zonnar. It is not clear what will happen to followers of other religions, including Hindus, Bahais and Buddhists, not to mention plain agnostics and atheists, whose very existence is denied by the Islamic Republic.
The new law imposes a total ban on wearing neckties and bow-ties which are regarded as "symbols of the Cross." Will Iranian Christians be allowed to wear them, nevertheless? No one knows. >>>
Read the rest of Taheri's article. This is scary stuff. Now that the youth of Iran have tasted some sartorial freedom, how will they respond to this new edict. What about all the entrepreneurs who have opened stores selling the new styles of clothes? Will the Iranian people tamely submit to these new regulations? And the plan to separate people by their religion is quite depressing. It is almost as if they are getting ready for the next step. We haven't forgotten how the Nazis first required the Jews to wear yellow stars and then used those to make it easier to sweep the Jews up and take them to the camps. (Link via Hugh Hewitt)
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