On March 8th, which was International Women’s Day, the young man in the two pictures below could be seen walking through the streets of Tehran. His tee shirt reads–and excuse my perhaps awkward transliteration of the Persian–Marg bar Mardsalari, which my wife translates as “Death to Patriarchy.” That he is wearing a hejab–or, in Persian, roosari–speaks for itself. As I understand it, he was arrested almost immediately after the pictures were taken. I have not been able to find out anything about what has happened to him since.
Cross posted on It’s All Connected.
It is too bad that he was arrested, and I didn’t realize that Persia was so strict with their freedom of speech laws. It is good to have male allies and I applaud him for speaking out. This whole thing makes me realize how lucky we really are here in America (and I don’t think we are all that lucky).
I’m finding this image rather haunting because I have a hard time thinking something very bad hasn’t happened to this man. But thanks for posting it.
chingona:
I have the same haunting feeling, and I guess that’s part of why I posted it. It was an enormously courageous thing to do and people other than Iranians should know about it. I have been wondering, though, if the sight of him wearing a head covering is as jarring to most of the people who come to this blog as it was for me, and it was far less jarring for me than it was for my wife.
I doubt I can fully appreciate how transgressive his action is within the cultural context, but I think I have some idea. It’s one of the reasons I worry about what happened to him after he was arrested. It struck me as something that strikes so directly at masculinity that those who opposed him would want to blot him out. It seems the kind of thing that would bring much greater abuse than other types of protest or resistance.
I appreciate how transgressive it was. I hope he’s okay and I hope Iran starts producing a lot more men like him. (And we could use a few more like him too, I suspect.)
You never know about Iranian justice, though. There are so many police forces and they have so many different sore spots — the worst thing is to be picked up by the equivalent of the vice squad. And he really needs help if they think he’s gay. Ugh.
Aye – it was a brave act to be sure, and it deserves to be respected…… but surely he must have known what was going to happen to him.
Is an act such as this really useful? I mean, it’s brave and it’s obvious that he has a good heart, but now that he’s arrested, he can’t do anything. Maybe if he organized a group of people to protest, but by doing this by himself – it’s a one way ticket to jail that doesn’t accomplish much within Iran itself.
Jeez, I feel sorry for this guy. Best of luck to him….. hope he gets out in one piece.
Korolev,
Without knowing more about him, I wouldn’t assume that he was acting alone. It is not clear to me, for example, that the photographer just happened to be in the right place at the right time to take these pictures.
According to this source, he was detained for a few hours and spoke to some kind of news source after the arrest.
This young man is doing what Quinten Crisp and thousands more in the West had to do in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s to achieve a recognition of Gay Rights. It takes guts and determination to achieve changes in attitudes. During the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s Christians risked imprisonment, torture and death to smuggle bibles into Communist countries. Only recently has worldwide opinion and the actions of the brave militants has seen the end of apartied in South Africa. I wish him and all who work for change in this area of the world good luck, strength and sucess. Remember that ending slavery, getting women’s rights to vote, homosexual equality, ending aparteid etc all took decades to achieve. I hope that the speed at which change happens for the people of Iran is benifited by the modern world’s social political and technical impetus.
Mark,
While I appreciate the sentiment of your comment, I just have to respond to this:
Christians smuggling Bibles into communist countries so that people who are already Christian can possess copies of their holy book is one thing and fits with the other examples you have given. Christians smuggling Bibles into communist countries with the goal of proselytizing, of converting people in those countries to Christianity, is not the same thing as what “Quentin Crisp and thousands more in the West had to do […] to achieve recognition of Gay Rights.” The former, which is what I assume you were referring to, is absolutely resistance to oppression, to the degree that Christians were (and maybe still are) prevented from practicing their faith in those countries. The latter is not, and since I am someone on whom proselytizing Christians have often focused their energies, I feel the need to make this distinction.