Valentine's Day: Global Capitalism's Trojan Horse?

A young man crosses a busy street carrying a shiny, heart-shaped boxed, heading toward a white Peugeot 206 in which a blonde young woman sits waiting in the driver's seat, watching his progress across with a smile. He pulls a stuffed animal and single rose out of a bag, and smiles broadly at his girl, who closes her eyes in appreciation as he works his way across Mirza Shirazi Street.

Valentine's Day is upon us again and across Tehran young men and women are searching for gifts for their loved ones. Shop windows are once again full of chocolates, stuffed animals, and roses, a sea of pink and red and gold taking over the city. “This year we've been so busy that we don't even have a moment to scratch our heads,” says Neda, a shop clerk.

What's striking this year is the intensity of Valetine's commercialism, despite the holiday having been officially banned by municipal police, who issued a warning to shop owners. “They told us that throughout these days we cannot put chocolates, bears, or anything pink in our windows, or sell anything in the shop bearing the words 'Valentine' or 'Love,'” say a shop clerk in Milad-e Nour.

Some shops refrained from referring directly to the day, but held special sales around Valentine's Day with subtle invocations of the day of love.

Of course this isn't the first time authorities have tried to declare war on the holiday. In 2010 authorities issued a decree on media sites banning any brochures or publications bearing hearts, half-hearts, or roses, and warned publishers and manufacturers against producing any goods with such designs.

In 2012 the Customs Agency banned the import of products bearing Valentine's messages. Iranian officials have spoken widely of Valentine's Day as a cultural invasion by imperial capitalism that undermines Islamic values, destroying society from within with tainted Western culture.

This year the website Jahan News close to the conservative MP Alireza Zakani ran a piece yesterday under the headline, “Valentine: A Story for Destroying Society's Values,” arguing that the agenda behind the holiday is the destruction of family families values, a challenge to the institution of marriage, and an underhanded promotion of having girlfriends and boyfriends.

But despite all of this official hostility and the state drive to eradicate the cheesy day of love from Iranian urban culture, it hasn't reduced the eagerness of young Iranians to celebrate a day they associate with being romantic and globally-connected.