Do Kerry & Zarif play volleyball ?

Sports may be for younger people, but as for the two foreign ministers we have heard that Mr. Kerry likes bicycle riding, or the two like hiking together. Mr. Zarif, of course, is very much for sports such as pulling down the rope, working with baseball bats and also shooting. Well, we are now concerned about volleyball. Of course, this may not be that important to bother the two friends at the negotiation table but among many social protests going on in Iran, a recent one is over not allowing women to watch volleyball games. Iranian regime did not allow women to enter the Azadi sport complex to watch the volleyball game between Iran and the United States. Regime even used its horse riding battalion and full equipped suppressive guards around the stadium to keep women out. Even, a French woman who was part of a TV camera crew did not get permission to go in. Iran‘s Volleyball Federation announced last week that it would not sell match tickets to women.

Disputes have been going on in Iran’s parliament during past few weeks on banning women and girls from entering sport arenas, even if it is only for a volleyball game. Mullahs in different ranks wrote to Khamenei to express their anxiety over the “presence of women in the sport arenas”.  They asked Khamenei to intervene personally to stop this “Tsunami”- as they called it.  Some gangs close to Supreme Leader, calling themselves “Ansar Hizbollah” issued a statement calling for “the bloody presence of People”. They wrote,” We will make an earthquake, should women be allowed into sport arenas”

 A high ranking Mullah, Makarem Shirazi, begged, “At this time when we need unity among ourselves, it is not necessary that women enter sport arenas. This is something that will cause discords between people, the government and the security forces.”  A high ranking commander in the security forces declared, “Preventing women from entering concerts and sport arenas is our crucial   task work”.

A simple question that may be asked in one of Kerry – Zarif press conferences  is that how a trivial matter of letting women and girls into stadiums –only for a volleyball game-has become as Tsunami and earthquake for a regime that claims to have dominance from Iraq to Yemen or … .

The answer, of course, should be looked for in the critical state that the regime of Ayatollahs is now in. This regime cannot tolerate a small rabble-rousing maneuver even to ease the people‘s exasperations. This is the most fundamentalist regime that relies on the most back warded parts of the society .Misogyny is one of the cores of the system of believes for the regime headed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This is the same regime that has many Mujahedin women and other human rights female activists in its jails undergoing most barbaric tortures .This is the same regime that its agents tried to suppress people by throwing acid on women’s faces.  Letting women and girls into sport arenas would be considered a step back or a slight crack even as narrow as one millimeter, in the system of suppression. A negligence of this kind, by a regime whose life heavily depends on suppression of its people, may end up to the eruption of fury that takes the control off the hands of the rulers. This is what the officials in Iranian regime call a Tsunami or an earthquake. This is what has terrified the reminiscent of Khomeini regime that misogyny is an essential part of their belief. Nothing can be built on without it. 

This is an aspect of impasses encompassing this regime. Fear  of  women ‘s force and a new people’s uprising along  its other impasses such as atomic , regional , economic , and suppression show why this regime has so much anxiety and horror, and why Mullahs cannot tolerate women’s presence in concerts or sport arenas. No matter what means of suppression they choose, all fractions of Iranian regime have to live up with the nightmare that people’s anger and social pretests will eventually lead to eruption.