Utterly Unforgivable Fun

"We are pursuing more information on those who organized this and will deal with them severely."

A cautionary tale. Do not indulge in joy and love of life if you happen by unfortuitous fate to live in an ancient country ruled by autocratic theists whose grim reactionary belief in a miserable infinity ruled by a morbidly-obsessed and joy-stifling divinity whose demands are not to be questioned but strictly obeyed will be outraged by such unseemly displays.

Women wearing black chadors, men and children in their hundreds turned up at the Fire and Water Park in Tehran with temperatures soaring to 40-degrees Centigrade, for a proposed giant water pistol fight. Once there, they indulged themselves happily in soaking one another for a two or three hour period, finding relief from the oppressive heat.

In the process, temporarily forgetting that they live under an oppressive regime for whom the sounds of people laughing represents untenable, unforgivable, religion-insulting sin. What might they have been thinking? That, perhaps they have the human right to find some pleasure in life beyond the demands of the ayatollahs to devote their every waking moment to Islam?

It is true that Islam is an all-encompassing spiritual ideology which demands of its followers that they place piety above all other considerations in their daily lives, throughout the day, day by day. But never might it have passed their heat-struck minds that they would be charged with "diluting Islamic values" by surrendering to the impulse to relieve their over-heated bodies with cool, clear water, finding relief from incessant summer heat.

Mohamed Taghi Rahbar, a member of parliament in the Islamic Republic of Iran who happens to chair the legal and judicial committee of said institution, addressing a session of parliament insisted that authorities "should not show indifference to those who are endeavouring to dilute our Islamic values."

Called to the attention of the authorities who must, perforce, take such societal-religious infractions of such a dangerous nature seriously indeed, police suppressed a similar event on a later occasion, rounding up and detaining a number of participants, to parade them on state television in a move to condemn this kind of nefarious behaviour.

It has been rumoured that Allah was not amused, and Mohammad turned over and groaned.