The weblog community’s celeb o’ the moment writes,
The Shah’s White Revolution for radical social & economic change caused major problems. He was telling his people to do things they’d never done—he told the women to remove their veils! Iran’s leader backstepped on their entire way of life in favor of these huge industries and the customs they brought. Imagine if our leaders sacrificed our way of life, our individual liberties just because they were smitten with some huge corporation that made them rich? Read that again.
Yeah, just imagine some nasty corporation asking that a country treat women with dignity and respect. I wasn’t aware that libertarians now considered mandatory veil wearing for women to be a “civil liberty.”
When Kohmeini took power, thousands of women took to the street to protest a new order demanding they go back to wearing the veils. Soldiers were called out and fired shots into the air where the women were marching.
But at least (apparently) they weren’t beholden to any corporation or effort to Westernize (which was the real motivation behind the Shah’s edict).