Iranian leadership is ideologically driven. They're committed to maintaining their theocracy because they're genuinely convinced it's their right from God to control women.
(Distinguishing leadership from people because the Iranian people tend to be much more pro-western.)
Actually this new generation of politicians (I mean Khomeini and after him) they are pretty good in changing old rules when they realize they are in losing side of the battle and not changing that rule will hurt they public figure in long run. Let me give you an instance, there is fuck load of hadith about chess itself being dirtier than alcohol (which punishment for it is death they catch you drunk 3 time), which in my opinion pretty absurd, like rest of religious beliefs. But Khomeini realized people will ask in long run what is dirty about chess ? And because it is so obvious that it is absurd, they changed the rule around 25 years ago.
My point is there is distance between something like hijab, alcohol, betting and something like chess. The idiots (mullahs) can justify (and they are aware of this fact) hijab for simple ordinary rural people (which is their only base in country other than people who earn money from this corrupt regime), but they cannot justify that even for naive people in rural area what is wrong about chess.
lets be honest, they don't give fuck about some bunch -not all of them, really small portion, I say it from my experience, right now I am student in Iran and I do regularly visit many universities in country- of student in university who shout and fight back for their rights, they would suppress them like lollipop if they try really hurt regime in any serious manner. If pressure become serious they would drop hijab rule in a day.
They may show to you they are 100% firm about their beliefs, but believe me when they realize just 1% danger (serious threat to regime nature, they don't give fuck about some chess championship tournament, what would happen? Tournament will cancel ? I bet the actual power in Iran would even be more happy if tournament gets cancelled), they would change their most basic rule if they can find a way to justify themselves to their supporters.
If you believe you have power by God's hand or by the hand of any other deity, you will justify keeping it through whatever means necessary because the circuitry involved in decision-making is not the same circuitry involved in reason.
My point was the rulers in Iran don't give fuck about any ideology and they are trying hard to use religious leverage in their benefits.
But if I understood your point correctly, I do 100% agree. Believe in something as dangerous as God , will give people illusion (they will justify in their mind) of controling of other people. Because at the very end they think they are better than others.
Update : I think there is no way to know which analysis is correct. Because at the very end in both analysis regime will do whatever they can to keep power. The only way to find out is to go through their mind. Which we cannot. In both analysis regime will do whatever they can.
In my case they don't believe in any ideology just because of the power(they changed so many rules in Islam and they will change).
In your case (if I understand correctly) they will try every thing because their religion gave them permission to do everything to keep power.
If I should give specific answer, I would not say you are wrong. I would just say there is no way to find out.
:)
Edit:
> If I should give specific answer, I would not say you are wrong. I would just say there is no way to find out.
I agree with this as well. We're all speculating, and in the end, it all manifests the same way.
At the very core, Islam is about killing and forcing.
P.S. I am not saying other religions are better, they have done their fair amount of killing in their time. But west overcome the barrier, sadly middle East has not.
Very similar to conservative politicians in US trying ban abortion or limit access to it.
I would advise you to acquire some actual information on how fertilized eggs are frequently self-aborted and how little a fertilized egg is like a human life.
This isn't an argument against the right to be able to have an abortion, but it is simply not true that embryos and fetuses have no rights either, fetal rights are a pretty big subject in ethics and morality and it is not an easy one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_rights
the abortion = homicide idea is so flatly intellectually dishonest, im surprised to even see it mentioned here.
How is forcing someone to do something they dont want to do, not 'controlling'?
Whether that is there motivation or not is up for discussion, but it explicitly does control women.
Whether the motivation for the hijab is to control women could also be debated, but that is beside the point that it /does/ control women.
Whether there is another life in the balance also does not change the fact that it explicitly controls a woman's body.
I'm not taking a stance here on whether abortion should be legal or whether it represents a homicide of some kind, im simply stating that it does in fact control a womans body, regardless of the intent.
> How is forcing someone to do something they dont want to do, not 'controlling'?
I think you've basically made my point. According to your definition, handcuffing a woman to prevent her from murdering an innocent adult with an axe is also 'controlling' her body. I hope you'd agree that is an acceptable use of force in order to protect a life.
Now re-read radmuzom's comment and I think you'll see the absurdity of his comparison, which is what I wanted to point out.
Its a plainly ridiculous point to make, regardless of whether you believe abortion is murder. Pregnancy simply isnt the same thing as criminal punishment.
Forcing a woman to go through a pregnancy would pretty clearly be a cruel or unusual punishment. Or do you believe that going through a pregnancy should be the punishment for other crimes as well?
But none of that is the issue. The question is whether or not this stricture violates human rights?
I know from experience that if you ask an Iranian woman if she wants to wear a hijab, she will most likely say "yes". (I'm told that the fuss to do your hair every morning is something most women would just as soon do without.) The thing is women should have the right to say "no", even if most would never use that right. That's the issue. Not whether or not women would want to go without a hijab, or whether or not Iranian women are more free.
My point is that many women voted for those rules. This problem could be solved in a single election.
Consider that a population is told that something is the One True Way all their life -- and that anyone thinking differently is evil and should be thrown in jail.
Are you really surprised that a large part of those people would agree with what they are taught? (In Iran's case, this is also asked in an interview situation where their answers probably will reach the secret police known for torture and rape.)
What would I know, though? :- \
What a weird coincidence that all the dictators that oppress their population and steal the oil money have lots of ideology... and makes lots of external enemies to blame all problems on.
And yeah, the Iranian upper classes seem even as West oriented as most any population in Western Europe.