Turkey 1930 vs. 2011

It's pretty clear the central point I was trying to make just went over everyone's heads here.

I am NOT justifying Islamic Republic policy here, I was simply trying to point out that suggesting Western fashion to be superior to other fashions, or that it offers some implicit liberation, is fundamentally flawed.

You guys are the ones filling in the blanks with your own cultural interpretations. YES, clothing restrictions are certainly an infringement, especially when you look at the I.R., but that's NOT the point I'm trying to make or fight against here!

FFS, people...

 

Who said western fashion is superior to anything? We're talking about the FREEDOM to wear what you want. In Iran's case you don't get that freedom. I'm not sure anyone suggested that what we wear is superior to anything. All we said was that the freedom to choose what you wear in America is superior to the restrictions imposed by the Iranian government.

 

Take a look at the first post of the thread and tell me what message you get. That is, after all, what the thread is about and what I took issue with.

And actually, nobody was talking about the freedom to wear what you want. That's what YOU brought up in argument against me, which is never what I was arguing against in the first place.

 

As a final reiteration of why I brought up that woman's quote, it was because she was clamoring to BE WESTERN, not to be FREE.

Hence the "not seeing the forest for the trees". Wanting the right to choose is absolutely fine and ideal, but fighting for merely one alternative because it gives you this superficial sense of freedom and modernization makes you look like a patsy for the old regime. Why not the right to dress African, or Eastern Asian, or South American? Why only "Western"?

It's that perpetuation of that same strain of submissiveness to greater Western powers that had average Iranians up in arms about the Shah in the first place. The solution is supposed to be absolute freedom, not just the freedom to be Western.

 

you do realized that you're quoting me like a journalist quotes people. you missed the part where i said they changed the name in 1930. but they have been calling it istanbul for much longer it was only "officially" changed in 1930. nice try