Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/07/25/conservative-iranian-televisio.html
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Yes, let’s demonize Iran some more. Then maybe Saudi Arabia will start a war with them for us even sooner!
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Silly! Everyone knows that Iran is filled with nuclear armed supermen, just waiting to invade our vulnerable shores! /s
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Silly, obviously it was non-alcoholic beer, and her hijab was decorated to look like hair.
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So you don’t call out shenanigans because bigger shenanigans exist?
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I see this more as calling out an individual act of hypocrisy, like when Geraldo Rivera victim-blamed Trayvon Martin for wearing a hoodie in public and then a bunch of people posted pictures of Geraldo wearing hoodies in public.
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I know a fair amount of muslims, some drink and some don’t - the ones that drink aren’t any less muslim. And of course, it’s not like Christians aren’t hypocrites, too. Do you really think this woman is some evil, scheming person, or just a human being, doing the best she can under a theocratic government? Are all the Iranian teens and young adults who like to party but are seemingly pious in public also hypocrites? How much agency do people in a theocracy actually have and how responsible are they for the ruling government?
I think that @milliefink hits the nail on the head about Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis aren’t the good guys here and the Iranians aren’t exactly the existential threat they’ve been made out to be.
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I don’t care for authoritarian hypocrites. Doesn’t much matter where they live or what religion they practice. YMMV.
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Maybe she’s just practicing for her citizenship exam?
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Saudi Arabia and Iran have been in a cold war with each other since 1979 in one form or another:
-Iranian terrorists lay siege to Mecca, Saudi Arabia responds by becoming equally fundamentalist
-Saudi Arabia bankrolls Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran
-Hezbollah and Fatah shoot each other in Lebanon as proxies for Iran and Saudi Arabia accordingly
-Hamas and Fatah shoot each other in Palestinian territories as proxies for Iran and Saudi Arabia accordingly
-Yemeni government and insurgents shoot each other as proxies for Iran and Saudi Arabia
-Iran bankrolls and supports Assad in Syria while I-S and Al Queda proxies are supported by the Saudis
Its just a matter that Americans have been caught in the middle of this crap in various ways
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If you voluntarily work as a mouthpiece of theocracy and present yourself as an officially sanctioned image of virtue, your hypocrisy is relevant.
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I think that’s fair enough. But I do think that the Iranians (from the US media, generally speaking, not necessarily you) are coming in for criticism that only serves to further exoticism and demonize them.
What do you think her options are?
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Not working as a propaganda tool of an ideology she doesn’t want to adhere to herself?
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I don’t think demonizing a very obvious and very vocal hypocrite is the same as demonizing an entire country. Obviously the fact that she is a hypocrite matters to the Iranian public-- that facebook page doesn’t exist for the benefit of the West.
If she is a mouthpiece for the clerics, then calling out her hypocrisy is fair game. Ideally videos of the ayatollahs drinking and gambling and dancing to western pop would be better, but you take what you can get.
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Oof, where to start?!
I…I hardly even know where to start. I suppose maybe with the U.S. ouster installation* of the Shah, continuing on up to recent arms sales to Saudi Arabia?
*thanks @frauenfelder and @Mangochin!
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And do what instead? Even people living in theocracies got to eat and pay rent. We have far more choices living in the US (even with it’s current problems). Sure, she has some choices, but not as many as we have here.
Maybe. I do think it’s important to note that people lack the kind of choices we do, though. People go to jail for challenging to government there, let’s not forget.
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What are you talking about??
Decontextualizing people from other cultures and then judging them by our own standards is what you’re supposed to do! /s
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My first thought was, see, their religious conservative hypocrites are just like ours!
But I recognize not everyone will see it that way. IMHO, the problem is not calling out religious conservative hypocrisy in Iran, but the fact that the Western media only publicizes the negative aspects of Iran, and that the negative aspects of “allies” like Saudi Arabia are glossed over. It reminds me of coverage during the Cold War, when the Soviets were painted as cartoon monsters instead of the complex culture they are.
So while I have no problem with a story like this, I have a huge problem with the fact that it’s the only kind of story we get on Iran in the West.
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Yeah, I know, and I can’t say that I would act any better in that situation, but I would still know I was being hypocritical.
So how do they get here from there?
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