Eleanor Roosevelt College senior Shamideh Rossoukh-Cruz donned the rupush and rusari, the required Islamic coat-like covering and headscarf, this summer before departing to the city of Tehran in early July. Like many students, Rossoukh-Cruz has roots in the historic city. This summer, she passed up traveling to London in favor of visiting her father’s ancestral home of Iran.
It was 3 a.m. when she got her first look at Iran. Rossoukh-Cruz was immediately enveloped in throngs of people waiting for luggage at the baggage claim. She said she felt as if she had stepped into a sauna, as the weather was hot and muggy.
Rossoukh-Cruz was both excited and nervous as she waited to meet her brother.
“”I was excited to be in Iran,”” Rossoukh-Cruz said. “”But I was a bit nervous at the same time because all my buttons fell off of my rupush and so I had to hold my pillow against my body to cover myself. I didn’t know what would happen to me if I wasn’t covered properly.””
Prior to traveling to Iran, she had questioned her brother, Raymar Rossoukh — a Ph.D. candidate of anthropology and Middle Eastern studies at Harvard University, about what was legal and illegal in Iran so she could pack and prepare herself accordingly.
“”I kept pestering my brother with questions like ‘could I wear nail polish and open toed shoes’ and he said yes to both,”” Rossoukh-Cruz related. “”I learned that since about four years ago when the more moderate president was elected, the morality laws became less strictly enforced, allowing women more freedom in personal dress and appearance.””
Even though some laws have become more relaxed, Rossoukh-Cruz found that other laws, especially those involving un-Islamic social behavior, have remained rigidly enforced.
For example, unrelated women and men cannot appear or walk together in public. Dancing is only allowed separated along gender lines in the privacy of homes. Alcohol and western music are banned. Dating is forbidden.
Rossoukh-Cruz said that these crimes of un-Islamic behavior are enforced by the “”morality police”” and punishable by fines, jail terms or flogging.
Rossoukh-Cruz found that living under these restrictive laws in Tehran was difficult.
“”It was like I had most of my human rights and freedoms stripped away,”” Rossoukh-Cruz stated. “”I was forced to cover myself. As a consequence, I felt constrained.””
She said that she was forced to act a certain way in public.
“”I couldn’t laugh or walk freely with my brother without having the fear that we’d be stopped,”” Rossoukh-Cruz said. “”I couldn’t turn on the TV and watch what I wanted or turn on the radio and tune into whatever music I felt like. The luxuries I had taken for granted back home were absent.””
These restrictive laws, Rossoukh-Cruz observed, foster a competing rift between the public persona and private persona of each Iranian.
“”There is a clear, unbridgeable split between the public and private worlds of an average Iranian,”” Rossoukh-Cruz said. “”In public, you must act a certain way, you are restrained from enjoying yourself with your friends. In private, however, you can laugh, dance, hang out with boys and girls, watch MTV and drink as you please.””
The eyes, Rossoukh-Cruz noticed, are the primary means by which Iranian women communicated.
“”By being restrained from physically and verbally expressing themselves in public, Iranian women learned to say their feelings and emotions with their eyes,”” Rossoukh-Cruz said. “”Their hearts speak through their eyes.””
Despite the many restrictions in Iran, Rossoukh-Cruz witnessed the ways in which the youth and college-aged girls and boys responded to and stretched the restrictive laws to allow some measure of dating.
“”The boys and girls would cruise in their cars down specific pre-arranged streets, which allowed them the precious time to see each other from afar,”” Rossoukh-Cruz said. “”Another popular way to get around the law of non-family members of opposite sexes together in public was to dress up nice and take a walk in the park where they could ‘accidentally’ meet.””
Despite the current situation in Iran for women and youth, Rossoukh-Cruz believes it is unfair to designate Iran as a “”backwards,”” repressive Middle Eastern regime.
“”Iran outranks the other Arab countries in the personal freedoms granted, especially to women,”” Rossoukh-Cruz said. “”For instance, unlike in Saudi Arabia, where women are not allowed to vote or to drive, women in Iran have those rights and more.””
Iranian women are legally able to own property and to hold public offices. Rossoukh-Cruz also points to the dramatic increasing levels of women attending university to over 60 percent as an indicator of Iran’s moving forward, however slow in Western eyes, towards comprehensive reform.
After spending two full weeks in Tehran, she and her brother set off for Esfahan, Iran, where they visited the Shah’s palace, mosques and bazaars.
While visiting the Shah’s palace, Rossoukh-Cruz discovered a startling fact when she sat down to rest on a cement block.
“”My brother showed me that the Farsi writing on the block I was sitting translated to “”Death to America,”” Rossoukh-Cruz said. “”The phrase didn’t shock me that much, as it is somewhat common to find such phrases in certain areas.””
But Rossoukh-Cruz said that contrary to widespread belief that Iranians hate Americans, she discovered that the government and religious officials mainly put up such violent phrases against America.
“”The people of Iran don’t have a problem with America, its the government that does,”” she said. “”Iranians love America and the full encompassing personal freedoms allowed.””
From Esfahan, the sister and brother then traveled to the base of the Zagros Mountains in the western part of Iran to join up with the Bakhtiyari tribe.
The Bakhtiyari are a pastoral nomadic tribe of Persian origins that herd sheep and goats.
To reach the Bakhtiyari tribe, she said that had to climb the mountain in 100-plus degree weather in her tennis shoes and black rupush and rusari covering her jeans and shirt.
Rossoukh-Cruz, a self-described hiking novice, said the climbing was extremely difficult.
“”The mountain was really steep, at least a 70-degree angle,”” she said. “”We had to climb over rocks and thorns.””
By time Rossoukh-Cruz reached the top of the mountain six hours later, she said her jeans were covered in red dots and her legs covered in bloody scratches. Her legs wouldn’t stop quaking from exhaustion. But Rossoukh-Cruz said that climbing the mountain was her greatest personal achievement.
“”It was my own personal Mt. Everest for me,”” Rossoukh-Cruz said. “”I proved to myself I could do it and I felt very proud that I succeeded.”” Rossoukh-Cruz said that the Bakhtiyari people immediately made her feel like she was a part of the family.
“”They are the sweetest, most nicest people I’ve ever met,”” she said. “”I felt like I was their daughter and that I was back home.””
It is in the Zargos mountains with the Bakhtiyari people that Rossoukh-Cruz said she was most happy and at peace in Iran.
“”The vast, endless, gorgeous beauty and peacefulness just radiated from the mountain,”” she said. “”It was refreshing to be in stillness and peace after the constant and blaring noise of city life in Tehran.””
Rossoukh-Cruz said the experience of traveling for a month in Iran changed her life completely. “”It was a life-altering experience,”” Rossoukh-Cruz stated. “”I have choices here in the United States: I can listen to the music I want, I can watch whatever TV channels I want, I can choose to dance or hang out with both my guy and girl friends at the same time. But I never once thought about these immense freedoms I exercise every day until I traveled to Iran.””
