Morning Exercise
Apr 12th, 2010 by pedestrian
“Varzeshe Sobh-gahi” (morning exercise) has been promoted more and more in the past few years. It has been more heavily emphasized by state media outlets, which air a number of morning exercise programs (which as far I know, weren’t aired at least up until the early 90′s).
As far as phys ed classes go in schools, girls have one class per week, and boys (my brothers school being the only boys school I’m comparing my own to) have two classes.
I have personally never been particularly athletic, but I enjoy bike riding, jogging, outdoor activities. When I had be covered, I just didn’t want to do any of those things anymore – even if I could. That’s not speaking for everybody though – a lot of my friends put an effort into exercise, despite the limitations.
So while keeping the dress codes intact, the state has been trying to find ways of getting females to be more active physically. This is particularly important for more conservative parts of the country, where there are certainly no female-only parks (there is one in Tehran), or parks at all. Where women just are not physically active or exercise for women may not even be “appropriate”.
Marziyeh Vahideh-Dastjerdi who is the health minister in the new administration is seen here at a local event promoting morning exercise.
I have not the least bit of respect for her like most/all Ahmaidnejad ministers, but what events like this do is that they break some of the conservative objections to women’s exercise – while of course, succumbing to others. But folks like the one you see in that link form the very base of the Ahmadinejad support circle and they have a harder time protesting if it’s one of their own. For instance, if a female Khatami minister (assuming he had chosen one. He never did precisely because he was afraid of the political backlash) had taken a photo like the one you see above … the country would have been in chaos right now. Both hardline political circles and their support base would have been in fury.
But we’ve seen over and over again that Ahmadinejad is willing to push boundaries or ignore the strict religious guidelines of his own base to win supporters … and can often even get away with it. He’s a shrewd businessman willing to take risks – be it with people’s lives, like in the S-election, or morning exercise.
Here are more photos from the event:
you read this article?
http://parsine.com/fa/pages/?cid=17097
I think it has some keys to understand this kind of act & react.
and also, the reason that conservatives or families of martyrs in Iran, they don’t protest ahmadinejad for these, is that they count him and his government one of themselves, not a stranger like khatami!
Thanks for the interesting report. As to the way, who/which political party/grouping is allowed to address which political problems
( – e.g. what Khatami had not – for well-founded reasons – dared to do, like appointing female Secretaries of State, Ahmadinejad is free to do – ),
I think, that’s the way politics functions frequently and in lots of countries
– the – extremely sad and highly depressing – difference being that
politics in Iran seems still to be enacted via arrests, prisons, beating ups, proactive hatred, killings, executions – briefly death.
Not the best basis to find easily and quickly a suitable way to tackle complex problems.
The political mechanism itself [of course without the accompanying horrors], described by you, actually might not change very much under more democratic auspices
(e.g. in Germany legislation aiming at/resulting in decisive, if not brutal, cuts in social services had recently been introduced and enacted by a coalition of the Social Democrats and the ecological party ‘The Greens’; a sort of friendship between the Soviet Union/Russia and Germany developed between the former strictly anti-communist conservative Christian-Democrat-government in the 90s).
I don’t really know her, but from things I’ve heard here and there, I Imagine her to be more of a traditional conservative as opposed to the neo cons that really have no core value, and as such I’m holding her to a higher standard of decency and competence until proven wrong.
the mere thought of jogging wearing all those layers ………in the heat of summer in Tehran………I can’t imagine how anyone can do that…….without completely collapsing in a heap………..do women have to cover up in the same manner in the women only parks?
So much of Fars propaganda, especially when that Marziyeh asshole, the promoter of hospital seggregation is the center piece makes me slightly sick
“I have personally never been particularly athletic, but I enjoy bike riding, jogging, outdoor activities. ” I don’t even enjoy those, covered or uncovered
My only sport is Backgammon! :S
State TV does broadcast a lot of educational programs. This is something they can pull of, though their programs can be dull at times (state news doesn’t even compare).
Sometimes I just wish the “experts” on tv would use digital presentation, they mostly present on a whiteboard which is not camera friendly.
The thing I’m critical about the most is the fitness program. I know its mainly directed at elderly viewers (workouts are slow paced) and its supposed to be easy, but the fitness “experts” are unqualified at best. They don’t even look healthy (they have lovehandles). State tv advertises these scam weight-loss/muscle tone devices and these “experts” bring it on TV encouraging folks at home to use it. Ironically other people on the show discourage people from buying these stuff.
I like the exercise equipments at the parks though, but I’m sure they were there during the Shah’s reign.
danial, I generally don’t grant personal requests … so consider yourself very special!
I don’t have any experience with the exercise programs myself, but my grandmother is an ardent supporter so I think they must be good!
it is propaganda, but I’m in awe of how many buttons these folks are willing to push … exactly just for the sake of propaganda. I NEVER imagined I’d see an Iranian female minister posing with dozens of males like that!
When the weather is so beautiful outside, I can’t help but want to stretch a muscle or two!
Kate, the women only parks are quite a spectacle! women don’t have to be covered at all! they lie there in their bikinis soaking up the sun!
foruhar, don’t know much about her either.
Old Sober, hadn’t seen it! thanks!
Publicola, yup, as you said, it’s politics … just more brutal in the current Iranian landscape.
oh that’s so funny…………….are they popular?
I was reading an article in the Guardian today about a senior cleric in Iran blaming the possiblity of earthquakes on women not covering themselves up in a modest fashion – it must be due to those parks….they should be shut immediately ….
it’s official – watch out
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/19/women-blame-earthquakes-iran-cleric
Kate! this bastard is all over the news! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry!
oops…since writing this, it’s kind of been overkill on this item…..it’s everywhere…..x
and….I’m not too sure what I think of ‘boobshake quake’ or whatever it’s called. Although, I did read the blag hag blog – she seems completely blown away by the response (it is quite wild just how many people have been motivated to join in)…and she’s written a very thoughtful statement after her initial idea.
lol … saw the ‘boobquake’ worldwide event on facebook
@Kate, Pedestrian, RE:Boob talk…
This is the first time I google the word “boob” for a different reason… The other reason was breast cancer obviously [-X.
RE:Pedestrian #7…
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Thank you, you’re the best!
For the record I had mistakes in my post and Pedestrian was kind enough to post a revised version.