Yesterday, I was woken up by friendly cops in Tehran. They were calling my apartment's "iphone" i.e. phone that is connected to the front door of my apartment building.
Buzz... Buzz... Buzz...
"Hello?"
"Yes, Hello, good morning we're from Tehran's law enforcement you have to come down, we have to talk to you."
Insert expletive. What had I done? I hadn't gotten in any street fights, stolen anything, or bought drugs/alcohol... I think.
I opened the door to a friendly cohort of 20-30 somethings. The lead officer shook my hand as one of his men took a digital photo of the front door, me included.
"Hello young man, we're here to investigate whether your building has dish satellites."
Whew. My unit didn't have satellites, but my heart was still racing. The officers came in and had to climb 4 flights of stairs only to find that the door to the roof was locked. I didn't have a key, so they clipped the lock open, went to the roof and exclaimed Allahu-Akbar!
They proceeded to bend the 6-7 or so satellites on the roof (in a 10 unit building). What's surprising here is that my apartment is located in what is considered "lower Tehran" where the people are supposed to be more religious, conservative, and lower income than upper Tehran where women's scarves tend to be looser, and people more educated and Western. Satellites are supposedly for Westernized Iranians who watch bad movies and foreign media propaganda.
This morning, one of my neighbors woke me up at 8 am after banging on my door for probably 5 minutes. I knew what was coming, but I opened up anyway.
"Sorry did I wake you?" She asked, clearly not caring if she had. She then went on to attack me for probably 5 minutes asking why I opened the door for the police. As if you have the option just to ignore law enforcement.
"You did a very bad thing," she told me.
So much for stereotypes.
Midooni moshkele police ha tu iran chie?osulan moshkele mardom tu iran, inke be zendegie khosoosie hameye adam ha kaar daran. osulan khosheshun maid tu hame kari dekhalat konan. va ghanun ham beheshun in ejaze ro mide, dar sooratike hatta tu eslam ham as long as ke moshkeli baraye jame dorost nakoni, too khuneye khdoet azadi har kari bokoni va in harime shakhsie adam hast ta jaii ke man midunam albate. I never saw POLICE in Iran, being friendly and helpful. They're just interested in destruction.They enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteAlbate in nazare man va bar asase tajrobe haye shakhsie mane, lozuman dorost nist:)
Yes, that's true; unfortunately there's too much meddling preference in Iran despite Islam saying private matters should be private. A person's home should be their private abode, but this highlights some of the problems associated with nation-states. The modern liberal state reserves rights that extend way beyond what, say, the Safavid empire did for example. The degree to which nation-states actually interfere in people's lives differ due to cultural and social factors, but one of the defining features of liberalism is the magnified role the state inherits: it reserves the right to regulate social order to the extent or regulating clothing, media, what you can and cannot eat, and etc. The state is extremely powerful not only in the sense of having arms, but also just being downright involved in everything. This is a problem which is associated with the liberal state structure, not just Iran. As far as police go, there's good and bad ones everywhere in my opinion :)
ReplyDelete