Iran: the Revolution vs. Sleevless t-shirts, the Showdown

How bloody stupid can this government be?

I considered the use of one or many of the following adjectives: silly, irresponsible, petty, dictatorial.
And while there's a bit of truth in each, STUPID seemed to be the most appropriate.

Let's watch this interesting game unfolding in front of us. We'll keep score in italics.

What am I talking about? THIS, my friends. (Daily News: here)

So Iran wants to issue directives about people's CLOTHES, HAIRDOS and the like. Some of the silliest rules:
- No sleevless t-shirts, even inside all-male dorms, at the Uni.
- No 'immodest' t-shirts
- No 'spiky hair'. I swear. The Irani Government is so petty it has passed a law against spiky hair.

And they've been arresting people. Because their clothes are 'immodest' or 'un-islamic'. Yep.

(score in first 10 minutes: People: nil, Government:1 )
Okay, so assuming there is a hypothetical good reason for it, what did the Gov gain by doing that? I don't think productivity has increased, has it? Or perhaps analphabetism has decreased? Does the country now have less of a drug problem?
I don't know, is the weather getting any better perhaps? Jeez!


And this is what happens when you manage to piss off people for no reason whatsoever: they protest. Well done, champ, you've pissed off the educated young middle class without gaining anything. Bravo.

(score at halftime: People: 1, Government: 1)

After the Revolution, the only colours allowed were black, brown, and grey. During the Reformist era, women were allowed to were bright colours.
But the Revolution was in 1979. That's 28 years ago. I'll vent that 30 or 40% of the population was born AFTER -- and they have, frankly, a better taste in clothes than Khomeini or Ahmadinejad.

(Score at the 47th minute: People: 2, Government: 1)

For God's sake, Iranis are becoming so posh they have more nose jobs than the Brits. How do you think they'll abide by the Government outfit??

They've come too far and there's no turning back: you can tame an already supressed population, but people tend to cling onto their little bits of freedom. And if they have tried freedom, even on something so trivial as their clothes, they re not going back. It's just a lost cause for the Government. The more they try to bother the people, the more they will alienate their population -- in a period of harsh international winds, where National Unity should be the refuge of the country in waiting of the tough days ahead.

(Final Score: People 3, Government 1. People win!! :)

Let there be no misunderstanding: I am fine with, and for a modest, Islamic dress. The problem is not about the type of the uniform they want people to abide by (even if I quite disagree with the official outift as being far too strict than religion demands, but thats not the issue at hand).

But I am, primarily and more importantly, with giving people the choice to wear what they want. When I was in France, we as Muslims were outraged that this particular right was being taken away from us, and we (well, women most notably, with the whole veil issue) were being forced into a comformist mold where we're supposed to look like the 'real French'.

It's the same here. We're old enough to fucking choose our clothes, dammit!!