Aha! The nature of the swimming proscription is actually stated!
Whether it is an elite concern or a mass concern or just a marginal concern depends on what most Iranians think about the matter, something of which I have no data.
--- On Mon, 6/22/09, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
> From: shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] freedom to swim
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Monday, June 22, 2009, 4:15 PM
> while i don't disagree, it's cracking
> me up. the issue was gender
> segregation. a single mother cannot take her kid to a
> public pool b/c
> they won't let women in the same pool as men. i didn't
> think i'd have
> to actually spell that out as I thought that people
> understood the
> general oppression of women in Iran via gender segregation
> schemes --
> for which Imadickinjar was notable during his tenure as
> mayor.
>
> nothing to do with just basic swimming and whether you can
> or can't
> go, but about being able to, as a mother, take your 10 year
> old kid to
> the public swimming pool. Or to use the swimming pool at
> your
> apartment complex.
>
> these issues are emblematic of what's at root of these
> protests:
> gender oppression and a desire for a modicum of freedom in
> one's
> personal life that is free from the mercurial wishes of a
> clerical
> elite, or whatever government bureaucrat decides to be an
> asshole that
> day. the issue is a kind of rule-lessness that allows petty
> tyrants in
> the bureaucracy, among the basiji, among clerics to just
> make it up as
> they go along.
>
>
> > Re: all those who think that the freedom to swim is
> somehow an elitist
> > concern when it comes to Iran, Lou Proyect cites this
> excellent
> > passage from Lenin's "What Is To Be Done?":
> >
> > <http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/a-velvet-revolution-in-iran/
> > >
> >
> > Why is there not a single political event in Germany
> that does not add
> > to the authority and prestige of the Social-Democracy?
> Because Social-
> > Democracy is always found to be in advance of all the
> others in
> > furnishing the most revolutionary appraisal of every
> given event and
> > in championing every protest against tyranny…It
> intervenes in every
> > sphere and in every question of social and political
> life; in the
> > matter of Wilhelm’s refusal to endorse a bourgeois
> progressive as city
> > mayor (our Economists have not managed to educate the
> Germans to the
> > understanding that such an act is, in fact, a
> compromise with
> > liberalism!); in the matter of the law against
> ‘obscene’ publications
> > and pictures; in the matter of governmental influence
> on the election
> > of professors, etc., etc. Everywhere the
> Social-Democrats are found in
> > the forefront, rousing political discontent among all
> classes, rousing
> > the sluggards, stimulating the laggards, and providing
> a wealth of
> > material for the development of the political
> consciousness and the
> > political activity of the proletariat.
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>
>
> --
> http://cleandraws.com
> Wear Clean Draws
> ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
>
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