The video below was posted on YouTube to show what people are saying is one of the spontaneous protests in Tehran by Iranian women. The woman reportedly danced on Tehran’s metro in protest against laws limiting women and such public displays.
We have seen in the past that the new young generation of Iranians pose a serious challenge to the medieval limitations imposed by the Islamic Republic. More than half of Iran’s population is under the age of 35 years.
Given past draconian sentences for women confronting these laws, including the recent sentencing of a woman for trying to see a volleyball game, this is a particularly brave act.
Squeeky….good choice of dance bits. “Sing Sing Sing” is one of the ultimate Jazz & Boogie Woogie pieces. It is still used today in European (Austrian) “Boogie Woogie” competitions. It was one of the first “let it all hang out” forms of dance…strangely following a depression and in the midst of a horrible war. The sensuality of ballet made modern so to speak.
Full disclosure: I am a die hard fan of Gene Krupa and Art Blakey…both drummers that made you move, even in your seats….and long before In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida 🙂
Off topic. But while people are dancing in subways the New York Times published the street address of Darrel Wilson and his wife’s home in Saint Louis so that the terrorists can go kill them. Boycott that so called Newspaper for the rest of your lives. It is not fit to print much less wipe your arse with it.
Issac – So – the Islamic Republic is a rich country now and if it can free itself of the bonds of a cruel regime, which is probably in the cards, it will be worth it to them. The Shah was a greedy man
This is the true war on women, but I don’t see any liberal progressives in front of that fight! Yet, Romney’s binder of female candidates for his cabinet was a war on women issue. LMAO! These poor women lose their lives over anything they deem is inappropriate female behavior per the koran by proxy!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/17/romney-binders-full-of-women_n_1974092.html
However, revolution comes from an advanced intellect and idealism and energy of the young, otherwise pain is more likely
DrSigne,
So true!
The energy and motivation for rebellion tend to come from the young. One thing they have going for them, for better or worse, is that they are less “burdened” with all the possible consequences and wide-ranging implications of their rebellious behavior. Whereas older, more mature, ostensibly “wiser” people who have a wide range of experience tend, therefore, to have more fears and concerns about those consequences and implications. Thank goodness for the young who want a positive cultural change. Experience, maturity, and wisdom are necessary but can get older folks stuck in too much contemplation and too little action.
It reminds me of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dNI9UTThZU
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Nick:
I knew a woman who would start shaking and crying describing how her entire family was murdered after the shah fell. She felt it just as keenly in the present as if it had just happened. Such atrocities. No one ever really gets over that.
The likely follow up story is she’s been sentenced to 100 years in prison.
But change does need to come from within the country.
The US and Great Britain installed Shah Pahlavi because the elected government nationalized the oil industry, primarily one of GB’s largest oil companies. Also being next to the USSR and having communist influences looking to work their way into the government, a Royal Puppet was the answer. Iran is still pissed off at the West for doing that. The USSR moved into Cuba using the paradigm of US in Iran.
issac – we learned everything we did from those who had colonies or puppets. Don’t ever think America is Point Zero.
As long as we are on Iran’s history, should there not be a mention on the USA/CIA promoting the overthrow of the democratically elected Mossadeq and installing the brutal Shah? For what purposes? maybe to protect western oil investments? Or that Iranians (at least in Tehran) lost many of their communication dishes, access to western information, freedoms, etc…….. when a US neophyte president declared them one of the “Axis of Evil” in 2002.
btw – am pretty sure some of those “brave” anti Shah young protesters were also supporting Khomeni and the 1979 Islamic revolution. In 1979, we called them terrorists.
I hope the dancer is not caught and remains safe. Iran seems quite the mess presently. But we should always remember the longer term costs of US foreign policy meddling in the internal affairs of others. On the flip side now that both Iran and the US are on the same “anti-ISIS” side in Iraq………who knows what strange bedfellows will follow.
Before folks jump on me, Iran was normal culturally, it was ruled by a horrible man and the Savak. I worked w/ an Iranian whose family fled Iran in the 60’s. But, as bad as the shah was, these a-holes are worse.
Folks forget Iran was quite cosmopolitan before the revolution. North Korea has been able to stomp out free expression by having a cult, not a country. But, no one is alive there who remembers anything else. Iran was quite normal until 1979.
Some of the finest protestors against the Shah were the young, the college students and those just out of college. They were very brave.