Iranian scarf protest

After last week’s arrest of an anti-government protester Majid Tavakoli, the Iranian government published a supposedly humiliating picture of him in a women’s chador. Of course as well as being an attack on anti-government protesters this action only makes sense in a context of misogyny and trans/homophobia but, inspiringly, Iranian men all over the world have created a wonderfully subversive response by publishing photos of themselves also wearing headscarves (CNN news article.)

I just love the multiple significances of this response- it is an act of political protest against the Iranian government’s treatment of their opposition but also a revolutionary feminist action. I found the  statement Hamid Dabashi wrote to accompany his photo on facebook particularly moving:

A Christmas tree for one!

My flatmate has suddenly quit her job and decided to go to India for 6 weeks, so I’ll be the only one in the apartment in the run up to Christmas. Even so, I think it is quite neccessary that I have decorations and a tree.

There is a stall selling trees at the Christmas market across the road from my building, so I went by on the way home from uni and bought one, thinking I could easily carry it home by myself. It is a living one with roots, so also came with a large pot of soil… It weighed an absolute ton. I managed to carry it about 100 yards down the road in about 10 minutes, at which point my arms were shaking and I was covered in soil, so I gave up and got a taxi the rest of the way (which google maps tells me is an embarrassing 600 metres). Once I had got it set up in apartment (with a little help from the concierge!) and cleaned up all the soil from the floor, I realised my arms and face were covered in a painful red rash! Not sure if this was just from the scratchy needles, or whether I am actually allergic to pine trees.

But I have a tree! And it’s such a cute little fat one. Now I am in the process of making my decorations out of bits and pieces in my crafty bit box. Pictures to follow 🙂