Archive for May 8, 2007
Postcard: Tehran.
Moaveni, Azadeh
833 words
14 May 2007
Volume 169; Issue 20; ISSN: 0040781X
English
© 2007 Time Incorporated. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Despite a culture that thrives on lavish weddings, men and women are officially barred from celebrating together. How some Iranians skirt the law in order to tie the knot.
When I found out that my husband and I had been invited to a gender-segregated wedding reception in Tehran, it was too late to concoct an excuse. So for the first time in my life, I put on a chiffon gown to go hang out with 400 other women. I waved goodbye to my husband as he headed for the men’s ballroom, and we agreed that if the evening grew intolerable, we would send text messages to plan our escape.
Inside, the atmosphere was more like an expensive tea party than a wedding. For an hour, the female guests just stared at one another’s jewelry. Shortly before dinner, my husband messaged to inform me that the men’s side had a stand-up comic. So unfair. Even the bride looked dejected, arms folded tightly across her designer gown. After the sumptuous meal, intended to lighten the misery (it didn’t), the guests eagerly filed out to look for their men. “I’m not sure what’s worse,” a friend mused on the way out, “having a fun mixed wedding that gets raided by police or a wake like this.”
Weddings anywhere are famous for the hassle, but nuptials in Iran, where young couples confront the myriad social restrictions imposed by the clerical regime, add unbearable layers of bridal stress. For starters, Iran’s Islamic law forbids unmarried men and women to dance together, so the hosts are forced to separate their guests. At a segregated gathering, women can remove their veils and both sides dance among themselves. A less popular option is to hold a dinner rather than a proper reception, as men and women are permitted to have meals in one another’s company. But without music, these gatherings also end up being solemn affairs that don’t include some traditional rites of an Iranian wedding, like the “knife dance,” in which the bride must retrieve a blade from the partygoers in order to cut the cake.
Luckily for many newlyweds, a thriving clandestine industry has emerged to liven up wedding receptions. The first wedding I attended in Iran, for example, was at a rented garden in Karaj, on the outskirts of Tehran. Men and unveiled women mingled late into the night, periodically slipping flasks out of their purses and jackets. The cops never showed up. No one knows exactly who owns the rental gardens of Karaj, but the owners clearly work with the authorities’ tacit permission. The rental fee–about $6,000 an evening, exorbitant by local standards–should guarantee that the party will be safe from the police. The popularity of the gardens, however, has dwindled in recent months. Authorities have stepped up their raids of private homes and parties under the tenure of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Young couples are reluctant to bear the expense of a secure garden that might still be raided. “This is why I didn’t get married in Iran myself,” a wedding coordinator confided to me. “The anxiety is just not worth three horrible hours of showing off.”
As a result of the raids, wedding coordinators are now offering cake, a band and beefy security guards. On the day of the wedding, the coordinator shows up with a handful of men–dressed discreetly in suits and ties, with walkie-talkie earpieces–who surround a private home. Often the guards use cones to set up a roadblock down the street, so that if police arrive there will be sufficient time to warn those inside. In many cases, the wedding coordinator is able to fend off the police with an ample bribe (cash or cases of alcohol, which can later be resold).
Given the headaches, Iranians should probably forgo spectacular weddings and hold quiet ceremonies instead. But in a culture where displays of wealth are crucial, parents usually insist on grander events. One sign of this commitment to excess: it is common for parents to circulate DVDs of their children’s weddings, so friends and family can view the lamb-on-a-spit from every angle. As the mother of my recently married friend put it, “Weddings are for the community, and if the laws get in the way, not having a party is not the answer.”
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‘I’m not sure what’s worse, having a fun mixed wedding that gets raided by police or a wake like this.’ –GUEST AT A TEHRAN WEDDING RECEPTION
This story is an interesting piece and would catch people’s attention bcause this particular part of Tehran’s culture is fairly unknown to the western world.
It has the shock factor, the western world has a different culture for celebrations. I think that it is interesting that this culture is still thriving in other countries.
Add comment May 8, 2007
Why can’t we all just get along… as a team?
756 words
8 May 2007
English
(c) 2007 Independent Newspapers Ireland Ltd
There are times when religion, in all its glorious madness, can truly make the world a better, or at least brighter, place.
Whether it’s Pope Benny railing against rock music, that hideous little troll the Dalai Lama condemning oral sex or those Muslim chaps cutting each others’ heads off, it seems that religious types are always angry about something. Which, when you consider that they are all convinced that they, and they alone, are on the fast track to Paradise, seems rather peevish.
But it seems that even when they get together with other denominations to have a bit of fun things can still spiral out of control, if the recent attempts to stage a football match between priests and imams is anything to go by.
Last week saw an interfaith conference take place in Sweden and there were plans to finish the conference with a game.
Sadly, however, the imams objected to the presence of filthy women on their team and refused to play.
Then, just to further confuse matters, the Christian team agreed to drop its two women players and field an all-male team instead.
Which forced the Christian team’s captain to promptly storm off in disgust at the way the female members had been treated.
“Because we thought it would be a nice conclusion of the conference we didn’t want to call it off, so we decided to stage an all- men’s team game instead,” a spokesman said.
“We realise now that it was wrong to have a priest team without women.”
They can’t organise a match without falling out but they expect the rest of us to hand over our souls to them? You gotta love religious types.
Someone needs to get a hobbyWe are well used to politicians saying and doing stupid things. It’s one of the few reasons we keep them around, frankly.
Sadly, this current election campaign has been notable more for the weasel Ahern’s growing discomfort (when you have people cheering on Vincent Browne, of all people, over you, then you know the game is up) than any real gaffes, so we have to turn towards the frozen wastes of Canada for the most recent example of mad politician behaviour.
Local MP Mike Lake has decided that it’s time Canada gets serious about the real issues, which is why he wants to place Big Foot – or Sasquatch, if you’re a stickler for names – on the endangered species list.
The politician has collected 500 signatures in his home town of Alberta and wants to force the Canadian parliament to do more to protect the non- existent creature.
Bigfoot researcher Todd Standing, who was behind the petition, claims to have proof of the Sasquatch’s existence and says he fears for its safety.
Next week, Scottish MPs on why we need to protect the Loch Ness monster.
Junkie see, junkie doHaving already suggested that they might be interested in adopting their own little black baby, Kate Moss and Pete Doherty have now decided that they would actually like to have a baby the old fashioned way.
And while the thoughts of that scabby junkie engaging in any sort of intimate activity is rather repulsive, it seems that Moss refuses to listen to reason.
Doherty was once more arrested on Saturday night when he was busted with crack and hash in his car.
Despite the fact that Doherty is a serial offender, the judge refused to jail him on the rather remarkable grounds that he has been attending therapy sessions in the Priory.
Pity he didn’t get the judge who gave Paris Hilton a custodial sentence.
This is what you call a big whooopsSpare a thought for John Brandrick. He faces bankruptcy and will have to sell his house after he stopped paying his mortgage, donated all his clothes to charity and blew his remaining life savings on fancy meals and nights out.
And what was the cause of such profligate spending? Well, Brandrick was told he had less than a year to live because of cancer, and he decided to go out with a bang.
Now it has emerged that the test was incorrectly conducted and he is in fine physical, if not financial help.
Not surprisingly, he is planning to sue the hospital.
Still, it must be a record – is Brandrick the first man to become enraged by the news that hedidn’t have cancer?
This article is hilarious. It brings in a few religions together not through the story but an organised interfaith meeting, it simply discusses the novelty happening during it. It really is quite funny when you read through it. Also i liked it because it was from a different country, a more international story..
Add comment May 8, 2007
Richard Dawkins
By Michael Behe
Of Richard Dawkins’ nine books, none caused as much controversy or sold as well as last year’s The God Delusion. The central idea—popular among readers and deeply unsettling among proponents of intelligent design like myself—is that religion is a so-called virus of the mind, a simple artifact of cultural evolution, no more or less meaningful than eye color or height.
It is a measure of the artful way Dawkins, 66, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford, tells a tale and the rigor he brings to his thinking that even those of us who profoundly disagree with what he has to say can tip our hats to the way he has invigorated the larger debate.
Dawkins had a mild Anglican youth but at 16 discovered Charles Darwin and believed he’d found a pearl of great price. I believe his new book follows much less from his data than from his premises, and yet I admire his determination. Concerning the big questions, the Bible advises us to be hot or cold but not lukewarm. Whatever the merit of his ideas, Richard Dawkins is not lukewarm.
Behe is the author of the upcoming The Edge of Evolution
This article, I found, was different to every other religion article that i have come across. It is an article commenting on a book about religion, rather than a story actually on religion. I thought it would be a good one to include because it shows that religion articles are not just found in feature and breaking news sections. Its rather clever, because to actually realise it has anything to do with religion you have to really start reading the story, not the headline, de to the fact that the headline is simply the name of the author of the religion book.
Add comment May 8, 2007
