New Yorker: The Twilight of the Iranian Revolution

[al bupp]

A very interesting article, I think. It includes some discussion of how the Iranian government has responded to the Covid-19 pandemic:

For decades, Ayatollah Khamenei has professed enmity with America. Now his regime is threatened from within the country.

By Dexter Filkins

May 18, 2020

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/25/the-twilight-of-the-iranian-revolution?utm_medium=social&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=twitter&utm_brand=tny&mbid=social_twitter

[regnaD kciN]

1. Threatened by COVID-19...

...but, as the article points out, things are unlikely to change even after Khamenei dies.

[al bupp]

2. I found the sentiments of Iranian women interviewed to be telling and hopeful, if guarded

It had never occurred to me how much of the clergy's power depended on the subjugation of the country's women. More than a little blind of me, I now realize, having been apparently so distracted by the geopolitical aspects of their rule so as to occlude the obvious and extreme patriarchal basis of it. Of course, they're not alone in that sense, not by a long shot, as Bronze Age beliefs and social constructs have a grip, to one degree or another, on all but a few countries world-wide.