“When in Rome, do as the Romans do” evidently does not apply to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. During his visit to Rome this week, Rouhani was spared an encounter with ancient nude Roman statues. Nude statues at Rome’s Capitoline Museums, including a centuries-old Venus, were covered up in deference to Rouhani’s Islamic faith, as the Iranian president proceeded to meet with Italian government officials and sign 17 agreements with Italy. This was but the latest exercise in ongoing European submission to Muslim cultural norms in the name of multiculturalism.
Responding to backlash, Italian government officials tried to cover up whom had actually decided on the statues’ covering. Italy’s culture minister even took it upon himself – belatedly – to criticize the decision as “incomprehensible.” For his part, Rouhani denied that his government had requested such statuary modesty, but he was appreciative of the gesture nevertheless. “I thank you for this,” he said when asked about the temporary accommodation.
Submission to Iran’s Islamic cultural norms not only does a disservice to Italy’s own rich history and culture. It sends the wrong signal to Iranian citizens living in Iran, who are trying to seek more individual freedoms.
An Iranian women’s group, My Stealthy Freedom, posted a scathing criticism of the statue covering in a Facebook page addressed to Italian news outlets and female politicians:
“As you know, your country has just censored some of your highly celebrated artwork in a bid to welcome the delegation from the Islamic Republic of Iran. This censorship reminds us the way that the Iranian regime has been forcing millions of women in Iran to cover up. The politicians of our country, regardless of whether a woman is Muslim or not, force women in Iran to cover up and their justification is, ‘You, as a woman, should be shrouded in front of my eyes in order not to provoke me’. This way of thinking is completely unacceptable.”
“Italy, for the sake of pleasing the Islamic Republic, has not hesitated to conceal some of the masterpieces of its own history, which gives the impression that for them respecting the requirements of the Islamic Republic and its unpopular laws take precedence over their own history and cultural heritage. One has to bear in mind that these same laws are being challenged by millions of Iranian women who have been risking all kinds of dangers in Iran to be themselves.”