Mandatory Hijab: A Minor Norm, Industry, or Repressive Politics?

After the remarks of a cleric close to the institutions under the leader's authority regarding the need for hijab to become optional (Mohammad Reza Zaeri, Alef, May 9, 2015), some believed this was the beginning of the end for mandatory hijab, while others were surprised. Some, as always, considered it a conspiracy by the regime to deceive women. Before Zaeri, another cleric among reformists had opposed mandatory hijab after leaving the country (Mohsen Kadivar, personal website, July 16, 2012). The deputy of the women's section of the Basij Student Organization and the deputy for planning and policy formulation of the Cultural-Social Council of Women states: "In a meeting of the Cultural Commission of the Parliament to draft hijab and chastity laws held about two months ago, which I also attended, Mr. Hojjat al-Islam Majid Ansari [Deputy for Parliamentary Affairs of the President] said you [the Parliament] should implement the model of Turkey and Lebanon. Leave the hijab issue alone; whoever wants to wear hijab can do so." (Basij Student Organization news site, October 20, 2015). Ansari has not denied these remarks. However, hope for a change in mandatory hijab policy based on the words of one or a few famous clerics lacks foundation for several reasons: 1. Identity dilemma. Hijab is part of the identity of the Islamic Republic because Iranian men do not outwardly carry the "Iranian-Islamic" identity envisioned by Khamenei and Islamists. Women must carry the burden of the superior hijab of Ayatollah Khamenei (the black chador). Mandatory hijab is part of the outward manifestation of the Islamic Republic, and its removal from the perspective of Shia Islamists weakens the foundations of the regime. This is why the publication of a non-hijab photo of two actresses leads to the dissemination of thousands of derogatory words from officials and state media towards them, or national team players are banned from games for publishing a few non-hijab photos. 2. Minor norm. Hijab has become a norm within the ruling caste and a criterion for the loyalty and disloyalty of women and their legal guardians (father, brother, husband) to the ideology and lifestyle of the ruling clergy. Clerics and their loyalists cannot simply discard this norm. They can do so with pilgrimage, prayer, and fasting because these have less visibility in society, but hijab is the banner of the regime. Therefore, the classes that currently hold the wealth of society through privileges and rents impose hijab on their daughters, brides, and sisters to find a place for themselves in the subculture of the regime. 3. Political Islam. Mandatory hijab is one of the cornerstones of political Islam in power and an inseparable part of the discourse of political Islam. Look at the Taliban and ISIS. Wherever Islamists have come to power, they have made hijab mandatory. Making hijab optional for Islamists means conceding to the separation of religion and state. Freedom of hijab means that the government does not interfere in the religious practices or sins of the people. If the government wants to maintain the consistency of its behavior after making hijab optional, it must stop any interference in people's sins, such as drinking alcohol, listening to music, watching films, or reading books. Making hijab optional means separating religious sin from crime and not intervening in matters related to sin, leaving it to the relationship between God and man. A religious government will not concede to this. 4. Industry-commerce. Hijab, alongside being a norm and discourse within the ruling caste, has become an industry/trade in today's Iran, with thousands of people relying on it for their livelihood. The annual import of black chador fabric results in profits equivalent to one billion dollars (Jamshid Basiri, former secretary of the Textile Industry Association, Sobhe Online, May 7, 2015). The government pays thousands of people in the headquarters of the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to harass women on the streets and admonish them. Hijab and chastity exhibitions across the country cost tens of billions of tomans annually, and thousands of people live off it. 5. Tool of repression. The enforcement of hijab is part of the regime's repression strategy for social control, carried out under the guise of enforcing religious laws. As long as the regime's repression machine exists, mandatory hijab will also remain. The breaking of the mandatory hijab barrier in Iran by women is, in fact, bringing the public sphere out of the regime's monopoly and the thugs who enforce mandatory hijab, and naturally, the security, military, and law enforcement agencies will not remain silent against it. The possibility that the government will abandon mandatory hijab without imposing a heavy cost on society is very slim. 6. Covering humanophobia. The Islamic Republic has spent a lot over the past four decades to enforce mandatory hijab to hide the "evil and sinful body of women." The regime's officials will not suddenly discard this expense. The enforcement of mandatory hijab is the opinion of all Shia authorities and instructors and the vast majority of them, and it will not be dismissed by the opinion of one or a few clerics. Mandatory hijab is part of the lifestyle of the Shia clergy, which this group has always wanted to impose on others. During the Pahlavi era, they did not have the power to enforce it; otherwise, they would have wanted to do so. Today, they have the power to enforce it and consider its enforcement beneficial for themselves and the regime. As you can see, hijab in the Islamic Republic is not just a single dimension that can be rendered ineffective and obsolete with changes in that dimension. Hijab has different functions and requires its enforcement to gather many groups around it. Each of the loyal classes to the regime cannot accept optional hijab for one or more of the reasons mentioned above unless this issue is imposed on them. The silence of reformists regarding mandatory hijab stems from one or more of the above dimensions. The positive and negative aspects of abandoning the mandatory hijab policy. Opposition to mandatory hijab has both negative and positive aspects. The absence of punishment and beating of non-hijab women is necessary for the removal of mandatory hijab, but it is not sufficient. The positive aspect of abandoning the mandatory hijab policy is the non-interference of the government in promoting and encouraging this issue. The requirement of hijab for employment in government agencies, advertising costs for mandatory hijab, providing chadors and headscarves as gifts in offices, and similar matters are also part of the mandatory hijab policy, which will not be dismissed without their removal. Clerics like Zaeri or Kadivar, who oppose mandatory hijab, fully cooperate with the religious government regarding the promotion of religious laws. They cannot be secular for this very reason because they do not want to give up the advantage of being able to promote religion under the government. The power of the people. For the reasons mentioned, mandatory hijab will not be violated by changes within the clergy or within the regime. The only way to incapacitate the coercive powers enforcing it and remove it from the list of the regime's expedient matters is that one day, one million Iranian women come out into the streets without hijab. With quiet freedoms, mandatory hijab will not be loosened or violated. The government must face the power of the people to retreat, just as it has retreated or reduced its pressure on the prohibition of devices such as photocopiers, faxes, cassette players, sound recording devices, satellite dishes, and hundreds of other things that the people have demanded. On such a day, men can accompany their women, mothers, and sisters by wearing hijab voluntarily. If hijab-wearing women participate in this gathering, they will acknowledge both their rights and the rights of non-hijab women, and they will herald a diverse society where individuals can live peacefully despite their differences.