When Azadeh Moaveni , a Time Magazine journalist who seems to specialize in writing news stories about Iran and other Persian issues, lived in Iran in the early days of her career as a journalist, Iran was still under Khatami’s arms. While young people’s life seemed to be very depressed, very monotonous, very boring, the youngsters seem to always strive to take any chances to express themselves as soon as those chances approach. Well, you might say that Iranian young people wish to live like American youngsters they imagine.
In Lipstick Jihad Azadeh Moaveni records her life, which due to her living with them makes it possible for us to say that “she also records Iranian young people’s life”, during this phase. She records how, while out in the street they behave quite pious, nice, Moslem-clad, inside big houses where parties are held after paying some money to police officers they wear tank-tops that can only be seen once they enter the houses and throw their Islamic roopoosh (a kind of loose clothes worn by women in Iran) to jacket hangers. She records the moment when, due to a bit loosening of control by the government, people began to be a bit freer to speak up their mind, to talk about sex in pizza queue, to walk hand in hand with their boy-girlfriends, to enjoy blue videos from door-to-door video rental, and all.
Well, that’s it. That’s what Azadeh saw in the time of Khatami, the very moment when the liberals controlled Iran, the very moment before the conservative Mahmoud Ahmadijenad took the baton. Well, in spite of the fact that Iran is now quite frightening as an emerging power, with its still-unproven nuclear weaponry projects, with its internationally acclaimed researches in advanced biological science (hey, they can “produce” [mind my wording, please, :D] that carbon copy Dolly-like sheep!), not to mention their breakthroughs in computer software building, we once or twice hear young people protesting the government’s repressiveness. Reading this book, it makes sense now why they protest: despite the fact that they hate U.S. for embargoing them, they still have the younger generation which yearns a bit happiness in their life, they wish to express themselves like any other young people in the world. Yeah, everything makes sense now.
