to capitalize on public opposition to segregation and draw support from liberals now that his status is under attack among conservatives.
Fatameh Haqiqatju, who was one of the leading women Majlis deputies in the reformist era and who now teaches at the University of Massachusetts, told Radio Farda, “He believes his move will disrupt political calculations in his favor. He knows people are unhappy over this situation. He’s under attack. Therefore, he needs to find a new popular base.”
Many analysts noted that the plan to separate the sexes in universities was publicly announced many months ago, but Ahmadi-nejad said nothing about it until he got into trouble with conservatives in recent weeks.
Ahmadi-nejad last week ordered that plans to segregate classes at universities across Iran this fall be shelved. (See last week’s issue, page one.)
His new position, however, is not a reversal of his attitude toward women.
Five years ago, Ahmadi-nejad tried, for example, to change the rule barring women from soccer stadiums. And right after his 2005 election, he publicly brushed aside the idea of stiffer enforcement of the dress code saying, “I have better things to do.”
But his outspokenness over campus segregation has gotten him in trouble with clerics again. Hojatoleslam Ahmad Khatami, one of Tehran’s Friday prayer leaders, said university chancellors who are working to segregate classes ought to be given a medal instead of being reprimanded by the president.
Qom’s Friday prayer leader, Ayatollah Reza Ostadi, said it is very bad for the president oppose the segregation plan.
Fatameh Goverayi, a women’s rights activist in Tehran, said the segregation effort is just an extension of the effort to Islamize the universities.
“One reason is that they want to bring the Green opposition movement under control because of its ties to the student movement,” she said. “Another reason is that they want to control the universities, which have always been a center of dissent. Another reason is in order to control the women’s movement, which is also tightly linked to the student movement.”
Ahmadi-nejad’s campaign may thus be an effort to get in front of those liberal movements and earn points with them.
Meanwhile, a fanciful map of a segregated Iran (see above) has making the rounds in Iran ridiculing the conservatives.