The Morality Patrol Is Watching You

By Ava Irani

I was running errands in Vanak Square when I noticed a Morality police van in the distance, lurking with its green stripe. It always bothered me that they stopped people and hassled them for their shoes or hats, but I was in hurry and left home wearing an ordinary raincoat and no make-up, so I didn’t imagine there would be much to find fault with in my outfit. I didn’t have the time to take another route to evade their disrespectful attitude, and figured I would be fine.

I quickened my pace so that I could pass by then as swiftly as possible. A frowning policeman who was wearing his cap at an angle and two ‘sister’ agents – that’s what they call both each other and their targes, ‘sister’ and ‘brother’ –  stepped forward and pulled me aside.

“Your raincoat is short,” one said.

“It’s long, there’s nothing wrong with it,” I replied.

One of them paused and assumed a worried, warning tone.

“No! What if you bend and want to tie your shoelaces? Your backside would show.”

I was aghast and gazed at her mouth, unsure that I had heard her correctly. Could it be that someone was actually saying this to me?

“What?” I said stupidly. “What do you mean?”

She repeated herself very casually. I couldn’t believe this was actually happening to me, and felt humiliated and worthless. I had grown up in a home where genders were equal, where there was no colossal difference between men and women.

I decided that she had to apologize, and only this apology could calm me down.

“Do you know what you’re saying?” I demanded. “You’re a woman yourself. Do you understand what you just said to me? How can you say such a thing? Do you have any idea how offensive it is?”

But she just repeated: “Your backside would show. Your backside would show. Your backside would show.”

I felt that I had done something bad and deserved to be ashamed. I wanted to take myself -- the same self that they had made worthless, the same self that they wanted to make worthless –  somewhere and get lost. I wanted to get away from everybody’s eyes. I couldn’t bear the self that they were inflicting on me.

I kept asking questions, one after the other, and they looked at me with surprise and said, rather unnecessarily, “this place has its own rules.” I still do not believe they knew what they were saying. I was standing next to the van and put my hand to my forehead and started sobbing. I could no longer see the patrol’s van, the two sister agents, or the policeman with the angled hat. I did not even see the passers-by who turned to look or did not. They had dug a grave and they wanted to bury my “self” alive. They wanted to take away my self-esteem away and forcefully replace it with humiliation and fear.

But my dear “self” would not take it and could not accept the wounds they inflicted on itself. I began to see them, the morality police, as a wolf pack, and my peers as a vulnerable flock. How did the pack come to be so daring in its attacks? How could they distort religious beliefs to the point that they could snoop into people’s most intimate details and suppress anything they wanted with a religious excuse?

I could see my dear and wounded self lying on the pavement but still holding its head up and looking at me. Its face was drained of blood but its eyes took me to the day when a police agent invaded my privacy and yanked up the collar of my white manteau to see if I was wearing anything underneath. Or the day that they I wore a black manteau and they, thirsting to invade my privacy or own what was underneath, demanded to know “Why is your manteau so loose? Are you pregnant?”  I gave a surprised smile as an answer.

Or the day when I was walking in the park with a friend and the nail polish on my toes met the disapproval of another agent who was also wearing his cap at an angle. Or the day when entering the library they warned me to add another button to the bottom of my manteau. Or the day the day that they pushed me back into the guardhouse and warned me that I must sew the slit on my manteau because it was too wide. Or the day that I refused to wear a chador to visit the mosque of Shah Cheragh in Shiraz.

I could not take it anymore and I was wailing. The agents did not know what to do. One of them looked around and said “Don’t cry! Don’t cry! Imagine what people will think we have done to you!” They did not know what they had done to me. Now I was crying harder, mourning the dear self whose wings they had tried to break for years. I was not aware of anything around me. I was mourning. I was sure they could not understand what I was saying.

Two springs has passed since I left my motherland. When I become nostalgic I look at Google maps to remind me of delightful memories from those streets. Now my eyes look at where my eager feet travelled. When I reach the Vanak Square I feel depressed. I have to run to the other side of the street.