Two puritanical regimes: coincidence or not?

I learned a little about life under Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell and the Puritan regime in school history lessons and from historical novels.

Much more recently, I learned something about life in Iran after the 1979 revolution. The monarchy was replaced with an Islamic republic and the country controlled by a fundamentalist clerical regime.

HTwo timelines

King Charles I, called by his opponents a tyrant, was executed in January 1649 and the resolution to abolish the monarchy was passed on February 7th.

The Shah of Iran, known to his oppressed subjects as a tyrant, fled his country into exile in January 1979; the new leader Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile on February 1st.

I have noticed some similarities in the rules and restrictions that were imposed on the people after the regime changes. Here are a few examples:

HDress codes were enforced

Cromwell believed that women and girls should dress in a proper manner. Make-up was banned. Puritan leaders and soldiers would roam the streets of towns and scrub off any make-up found on unsuspecting women. Too colourful dresses were banned. A Puritan lady wore a long black dress that covered her almost from neck to toes. She wore a white apron and her hair was bunched up behind a white head-dress. Puritan men wore black clothes and short hair.

In Iran, an Islamic dress code was imposed. Women's hair must be covered and dress must be modest. Women who wore make-up in public risked at best having their faces scrubbed clean and at worst being treated as criminals and punished. Many women wore long black robes over their clothes, robes that concealed everything except their face and hands. Ties for men were declared to be un-Islamic and beards Islamic.

HCelebration of the biggest holidays was discouraged

Cromwell banned Christmas as people would have known it then. In London, soldiers were ordered to go round the streets and take, by force if necessary, food being cooked for a Christmas celebration. The smell of a goose being cooked could bring trouble. Traditional Christmas decorations like holly were banned. Christmas was considered to be wasteful and un-Christian.

The Iranian New Year, which coincides with the Spring Equinox, is the biggest Persian holiday. After the revolution, some elements from the government attempted to suppress it - with very little success. They considered it a pagan holiday and not Islamic.

HTheatres were closed

The Puritan movement was hostile towards entertainment, which was thought to be sinful; theatres were considered to be centres of vice. All theatres were closed by an act of Parliament at the start of the Civil War. Some theatres were demolished.

In Iran, the clerics condemned music, theatre and the cinema as immoral and corrupt. Theatres and cinemas were restricted in post-revolutionary Iran. Some cinemas were destroyed.

HCoincidence, expected behaviour or something else?

Were unseen influences at work or was it all to be expected?

What else should we expect the people who came to power to do when they considered the theatre and cinema, not to mention fashionable women's clothes, to be immoral? They closed the theatres? Of course they did!

Much of it was done consciously, but other forces may be at work. 

Unconscious people often react and behave automatically; they are moved collectively by subterranean forces and currents that may well be natural.

Action and reaction are equal and opposite. When the pendulum has swung too far in one direction, it often swings too far in the opposite direction. This is the 'two sides of the same bad coin' scenario.

And yet... I remember reading something in Arthur Miller's autobiography Time Bends that made me see everything in a different light and wonder whether something sinister could be at work.

His play The Crucible was written in an attempt to deal with what he had experienced during the McCarthy hearings. It might have been unwise to protest and express his views in a play set in the contemporary era, so he dramatised the Salem witch hunts and trials of 1692.

He later met a Chinese woman, a fellow writer, who had seen the Shanghai production of the play and could not believe that it was written by a non-Chinese. She told him that some of the interrogations were precisely the same ones used on her and her colleagues in the Cultural Revolution. He had no idea of this until she mentioned it.

I find this very chilling. It suggests to me that many people are pawns and puppets, acting out scripted scenarios and controlled by puppet-masters who operate behind the scenes.

HChina had a puritanical regime too

Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution was launched in 1966.

It is very painful to read about what people had to endure at the hands of the Red Guards.

There are some familiar elements in the restrictions. For example, boys and girls who were seen in the streets with long hair had it forcibly cut. Colourful clothing and make-up were forbidden.

Celebration of the Chinese New Year was banned for 13 years.

When very different people from different countries and eras say and do the same things, perhaps the same forces and unseen influences are at work.