Societal Freedoms in the Middle East

on the occasion of the Iranian authorities’ decision to disband morality police, I hav found myself drifting into reflection on the status of morality in Arab countries. It’s a bit of a generalization but Arabs in general are fond of enforcing morality. They often justify their acts of patronizing women and disrupting any exhibition of affection between couples or intruding on couples in flats by the fact that they are men and not pimps. I have never had problems of such sort because I know how to put intruders in check. However, the subject matter has been given ample consideration on my part over long years.

Here is a list of possible explanations for the morality obsession syndrome. First, it could be due to genuine puritanical religious reasons. A second reason is envy, for it takes special skills to be able to get laid often in the Muslim World and not so many possess those skills. Another reason is fear that sisters and daughter might learn the liberal ways. A view that all alien women are potential concubines and hence they should be snatched from their owner is another psychological/ cultural explanation. An mportant explanation as well is the utlization of morality as a technique for the assumption of communal leadership or even social climbing.

The obsession with morality could simply be a mere matter tradition that set in over the last several centuries. It might not be highly implausible that following the inception of the gigantic Mongoloid wave in the Middle East the 13th century, more emphasis was laid on veiling and segregating women to protect them from marauding lawless soldiers. The Ottoman empire was actually decentralized in its mid- phase with chaotic bands of Circassians, Albanians, Kurds, Mamlouks, and assortments of bandits and malcontents marauding, looting, and constantly shuffling domains of influence. Hence it may have always been wise to keep women off the public sphere. Relevantly, Turkic tribes in general laid much emphasis on veiling and segregating women and so it remains a possibility that a Turkic influence seeped into Islam following the Turco-Mongol wave.

Middle class in the Arab World is weak and not emancipated while being devoid of entrepreneurial opportunities and so much emphasis is laid on the appearance of virtue as sort of social hedge and an implicit expression of anger aggravated by a list of long suppressed wishes.

Last but not least, it might be that morality is of prime utility in both political and bureaucratic control ( both are linked due to overlapping circuitry). A link exists between this very last factor and the phenomenon of Arab femles being morality enforcers themselves. With the exception of some truly pugnacious ones, veiled middle class women mind their own business and are low key. It is the seemingly liberal Arab woman executive that is a morality enforcer. Usually dressed up like a showcase for an ensemble of brands with a bright dyed blond hair put up on sharp middle Eastern, Dravidian, or slightly negroid features. Breach of morality threatens their livelihood as a fake image of modernity for the order, or their role as psychological motivators or sticks in the ranks of the inflated middle management in the Arab firm. They are the perfect manifestation of the confusion and civilization vertigo affecting the strong middle and upper classes in the Arab World.