Outdoor Concerts? Uncovered Hair? Shimmying in Public? Is This Iran?
Young people across Iran have been leading a dramatic change in social mores in recent months. “We have a fearless young generation that is breaking taboos.”
Thousands of young men and women, hair uncovered and dressed in jeans and short-sleeve tops, jumped up and down, dancing and singing at a packed outdoor pop concert. In another part of town, young people bobbed to the beat of a hard rock street band. And scores of people traversed the city to experience Design Week, a festival of gigantic colorful art installations, light shows and live music in multiple locations.
This is not New York or Berlin. It’s Tehran, the capital of Iran, where young people in recent months have been leading a social renaissance. Last month, a five-day jazz festival turned cafes and art galleries into performance spaces.
It is a stark contrast to just five years ago, when women could be beaten and dragged into police vans for showing a few strands of hair, security forces raided homes to break up house parties, and dancing was banned in public.
“The society is changing at a very fast speed, almost like a shedding of skin. Aside from the openings we see in social space, we have a fearless young generation that is breaking taboos,” Donya Amiri, a 33-year-old fashion critic and designer in Tehran, said in an interview. “The young generation wants its basic freedoms, and it’s getting them through sheer perseverance.”
