Reminder: Everyday acts of civil disobedience are always an option.

September 15, 2023 10:14 PM

Here's a couple examples. The present: A young woman walks down a street in Tehran, her hair uncovered, her jeans ripped, a bit of midriff exposed to the hot Iranian sun. An unmarried couple walk hand in hand. A woman holds her head high when asked by Iran's once-feared morality police to put a hijab on, and tells them: "Screw you!"

The past: How individual, ordinary Jews fought Nazi persecution − a new view of history.

posted by aniola (16 comments total)

As the first article mentions, anyone can show solidarity. For example: "Some men wear mandatory hijab on the streets to show how bizarre it looks when you force someone to wear something they do not like."
posted by aniola at 10:23 PM on September 15, 2023 [13 favorites]

A few other pull quotes from that first article:

"The women of Iran have crossed the threshold of fear,"

"This is a marathon not a sprint,"

"The government keeps wiping them out but the slogans keep coming back."

"My heart was pounding. It was so exciting. I felt like I'd broken a huge taboo." Now she's so used to it, she doesn't even carry one with her.

The government has "dug its heels in", according to Jasmin Ramsey, deputy director of the New York-based NGO The Center for Human Rights in Iran.

But the Iranian population refuses to surrender, she says.
posted by aniola at 10:23 PM on September 15, 2023 [9 favorites]

It's hard (impossible) to fathom the bravery of Iranian women, especially, but also their male supporters - a beautiful people in a beautiful country and normal activity and ways of relating suppressed through deliberate misreading of a religious text. I really hope they win.

I hope we in the OECD can resist the same impulse from our politicians, a spreading threat now even in NZ - not that the media covers it as religion is seen as personal to a politician, and beyond confrontation.
posted by unearthed at 10:46 PM on September 15, 2023 [8 favorites]

I read the second article first—it's not every day that your longheld assumptions about a historical period that you think you know about get overturned so dramatically. Thanks, aniola.
posted by rory at 10:54 PM on September 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

I've always thought of myself as naturally defiant and willing to stand up for myself in the face off illegitimate authority — or legitimate authority, for that matter. And I have, on many occasions.

BUT, if I were facing the kinds of consequences Iranian women are facing, I don’t have much doubt I would be among the ones cowering in fear.
posted by jamjam at 2:09 AM on September 16, 2023 [17 favorites]

Various parental type entities forced me to wear modest clothes until I was in my late 20s but I was always defiant, always telling them to fuck off, at least from the age of about 16 or so. One time my mother in law said my skirt wasn't long enough, so I took my skirt off and stayed in my shirt and panties the rest of the evening. I've always thought of myself as kind of a badass ... but you know what, I'm pretty sure I'd be a wuss if I was asked to break laws or go against the fucking police.

During the George Floyd protests in my area (upstate NY), I was handing out water to protesters who were marching when suddenly the police arrived in, like, armored Humvees or something? and sprayed the whole crowd with tear gas. It was terrifying! Someone handed me a little bottle of milk and that helped but the catastrophizing part of my brain was saying, "What if I can't get home on time? What if I get arrested? What will my kids do without me, their single mom?" (the kids were having major issues with their dad at the time, too, and I have zero family in the area, so it was extra scary thinking they would "have nobody".)

Anyway, that one incident was all it took for me to stop going to the marches. I started volunteering at online helplines that day and have never looked back, going online remains the extent to which I (don't) stick my neck out to help the causes I believe in. QUITE the opposite of a badass. Sigh.
posted by MiraK at 5:57 AM on September 16, 2023 [23 favorites]

Anyway, that one incident was all it took for me to stop going to the marches. I started volunteering at online helplines that day and have never looked back, going online remains the extent to which I (don't) stick my neck out to help the causes I believe in. QUITE the opposite of a badass. Sigh.

Eh, courage is not a competition, and people who do what they can are valuable even if "what they can" is limited. I remember a march in Louisville where, after about a mile and a half, we ran into a line of police armed for a riot. The marcher next to me said, in a tone of mild panic, "I can't get arrested. My kids are at home." I just said, "Go. There are plenty of us here. You've helped us show strength and you don't need to get hurt." Maybe that's all she needed, and maybe she was going to leave without encouragement, but she slipped off down a side street and, I reckon, got home OK (FWIW, at that event there were no arrests and no violence and we got past the police line without trouble, but it was a moment when it sure looked like skull-crackings and nights in jail were in the offing). I don't disrespect her at all for needing to cut out, and I don't disrespect those in Iran whose resistance is short of what can get them arrested. Everyone comes from a different place and has their own acceptable risks. I'm glad there are a good number of people who can risk the consequences of really overt action, but it's not like that's the only way to support a cause you believe in, and someone needs to stay out of jail.
posted by jackbishop at 8:15 AM on September 16, 2023 [18 favorites]

Everyone comes from a different place and has their own acceptable risks. I'm glad there are a good number of people who can risk the consequences of really overt action, but it's not like that's the only way to support a cause you believe in, and someone needs to stay out of jail.

I absolutely absolutely agree with this, we've all got our roles and things that do and don't work for us for whatever reason. I've engaged in a certain amount of street-level action some of which was very challenging and scary but it was something that was manageable for me. On the other hand, for a number of reasons including people pleasing and capitalism-related anxiety it is an INCREDIBLE struggle for me to make waves at work; it's something I'll do in solidarity with my coworkers when something is important but it's so, so hard for me in a way other things are not, and I have so much admiration and appreciation for my friends and coworkers who have the courage to speak up on their own.

For all this stuff as well I feel like it's always important to say that anyone who is pressuring you to do something that you aren't comfortable doing is not a safe person to be around. Encouraging and supporting are great! But if someone is pushing you into actions or risks that are outside your comfort zone then pay attention to the part of yourself telling you what is and isn't okay for you. Resistance is vital and important and beautiful and can look like many different things but there can be all sorts of consequences (legal, physical, social, job-related, familial, psychological, and more) and I think it's really important to make sure we are being clear about what the risks are and how to mitigate and survive them as a way of caring for ourselves and each other.
posted by an octopus IRL at 8:35 AM on September 16, 2023 [6 favorites]

For all this stuff as well I feel like it's always important to say that anyone who is pressuring you to do something that you aren't comfortable doing is not a safe person to be around. Encouraging and supporting are great! But if someone is pushing you into actions or risks that are outside your comfort zone then pay attention to the part of yourself telling you what is and isn't okay for you. Resistance is vital and important and beautiful and can look like many different things but there can be all sorts of consequences (legal, physical, social, job-related, familial, psychological, and more) and I think it's really important to make sure we are being clear about what the risks are and how to mitigate and survive them as a way of caring for ourselves and each other.

So, like, I agree with this. But it implicitly reads to me as something that supports inaction and only if you think about it, as something that supports action. Both interpretations have their place.

Both articles are abundantly clear that resistance can have dangerous consequences. There are plenty of people in Iran who are running the cost/benefit analysis and coming up short. Plenty of people in Nazi Germany did, too. But these are not articles about reassuring one another that inaction is a valid option. That's the majority opinion and there's plenty of room for it elsewhere.

This is about e.g., when someone is persecuting you outside your comfort zone by telling you you mustn't hold hands, or that you must adhere to a special curfew. This is about paying attention to the part of you telling yourself what is and isn't ok. This is about e.g., when the supreme court makes inhumane decisions and everyone was saying "Decide where your lines are. Figure out what you'll do when they cross them. Remember this."
posted by aniola at 9:30 AM on September 16, 2023 [4 favorites]

Fair enough! I'm definitely not advocating inaction, I just think it's important to understand your own values and boundaries in scary circumstances including state repression and know the potential cost of what you're doing not because you shouldn't do it but because it's important to have as full an understanding as possible to make these challenging choices.

when the supreme court makes inhumane decisions and everyone was saying "Decide where your lines are. Figure out what you'll do when they cross them. Remember this."

I definitely sent emails about that to family members like this (and even provided a (very long!) example at https://metatalk.metafilter.com/24253/What-are-YOU-doing#1259786 (: )
posted by an octopus IRL at 10:00 AM on September 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Humans of New York is also in the midst of a lengthy (but quite good) series on recent Iranian history.
posted by Monster_Zero at 10:06 AM on September 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Not in any way to minimize the risks involved, but, like the lunch counter sit-ins and similar actions during the US Civil Rights movement, or a lot of the struggles of the early labor movements, a lot of these actions come from people in the position where doing nothing or continuing to acquiesce is even more intolerable. Similarly, yes it takes some courage to publicly come out as transgender or nonbinary, but for some of my friends that was the only way they could stay alive. If you haven’t been, or known people in, that sort of a situation, it can perhaps be difficult to imagine that resistance can be a matter of need or survival rather than a courageous choice.

US/North American white middle class culture is also unusually atomized (one might say individualistic, but I think atomized better captures the fact that this is a result of various systemic forces and incentives, not necessarily an individual or personal failing). Having a community who you are resisting side-by-side in solidarity with both amplifies the effectiveness of your individual actions and reduces individual risk.

But, overall, civil disobedience is a learned skill that improves with practice. In the same way that emergency response personnel practice various potential situations they might find themselves in, you can build your “courage” by working with other folks to practice how to respond in various situations that you might encounter when engaging in civil disobedience. Even if you don’t expect to ever clash with totalitarian morality police or Nazis, I highly encourage everyone to take bystander intervention training, where you also practice speaking up and intervening in common scenarios involving smaller, everyday injustices - and learn some techniques to do so as effectively and safely as possible. And then continue practicing those skills periodically with a group of like-minded friends, neighbors, or other community members, because any such learned skills can also atrophy from lack of practice.
posted by eviemath at 1:36 PM on September 16, 2023 [10 favorites]

eviemath: US/North American white middle class culture is also unusually atomized (one might say individualistic, but I think atomized better captures the fact that this is a result of various systemic forces and incentives, not necessarily an individual or personal failing).

I remember reading in an old Mennonite history book that homesteaders from Eastern Europe in Western Canada were forced to have their homesteads at least 1 mile apart so that they would not recreate the communal village culture of Eastern Europe but would instead turn into the kind of individualists preferred by an Anglo government.

But I digress.
posted by clawsoon at 3:25 PM on September 16, 2023 [4 favorites]

The first article is incredible, Aniola! Brought tears to my eyes, thank you for sharing. The courage and resilience of these people beggars belief.
posted by unicorn chaser at 1:18 AM on September 18, 2023 [3 favorites]

"We know we can't save the world by following the rules, because the rules have to change." -Greta Thunberg
posted by aniola at 10:35 PM on September 18, 2023 [2 favorites]

How radical should you be when you’re trying to save the planet?: “Die-ins,” Krazy Glue, and gridlock: The climate movement is embracing civil disobedience.
posted by aniola at 8:37 PM on September 28, 2023