I see dancing in the streets of Iran
Imagine the transformative effects of continued woman-led nonviolent protest
This is a prayer for singing and dancing in the streets. This is a love letter to the beautiful, mystical core of Persian culture. This is an affirmation of the power of nonviolent revolution.
My grandmother was one of the first women to graduate from university in Iran. With my grandfather she established a secular school for girls, which my mother attended before coming to college in the US. Years later my grandparents both fled to the U.S. Their beautiful school was turned into a center for religious indoctrination.
Her school, and all the other institutions in that region, are today run by lost and broken men who are acting out of a crisis of self-worth. They are terrified of womens’ power, brilliance, sensuality. Their weakness is expressed as the most pathetic invention of macho society: coercion.
How feeble and weak-hearted must a man be to construct edicts that stop women from showing their hair, from singing, from dancing in public?1 But the power of the women of Iran is here to shine, once again. They are here to dance in the sun, their radiant hair free, their beautiful voices ringing.2
And why would God object, ye theocrats? Remember the Persian poet Hafiz, who wrote of “the God who only knows four words”: Come dance with me.
Come dance with me. Dance with, dance for the women of Iran. Every time you sing out — despite the fear that has been instilled in you by strongmen, bullies, and weird norms — you dismantle their regime. We all have an inner cleric inside of us, telling us what we can and can’t do. I hear it admonishing me now. Shine brightly before it, sing it into the present moment, dance and help it once again know joy.
Whatever our gender, we have a role to play. Brothers and fathers, sons and uncles, use your voice on behalf of all, yourself included. I see it happening: plainclothes militiamen are looking women in their eyes and putting aside their arms and their confused ideals; workers are striking, striking, striking in solidarity. Truckers are walking out of their big rigs. Everyone is pouring into the streets. Whether it happens this month, this year, or next year, it is happening.
I look at my life as a woman of Iranian-American heritage. I cannot imagine its disfigurement if I had been stopped from dancing. My most joyful moments, my richest learnings, have been on the dance floor. I spent a decade co-creating a feminist tango community where gentle and fearless people of all kinds lead and followed each other. I wasn’t surprised when I learned that my Persian grandparents had danced many tangos together. May the people of Iran find the power of such partnership once again, and may places like their school flourish.
If you have the freedom to sing or dance publicly, I invite you to dedicate one song this month to the emancipation of Iran. #MahsaAmini
If you want to help the women of Iran, here are some ideas:
Learn: Learn about what’s going on and use your voice to share your support of the movement, in whatever ways feel authentic to you.
Commit to nonviolence: We all have a lot to learn about the power of nonviolent conflict, and how to cultivate skill and confidence in the face of oppression. The film A Force More Powerful documents many powerful examples of strategic thinking, creativity, and persistence. Women make a special contribution to nonviolent movements. If you are in Iran, or are connected to people there, I especially hope you will explore the power and discipline of nonviolence through practical resources like these, conveniently translated into Farsi. In the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu: “Why would we discredit our cause by using methods which, if used against us, we would oppose?”
Donate: Support Iranians who want to live freely by contributing to United4Iran, which provides an app that allows Iranians to crowdsource the locations of “morality”/riot police.
Meditate: Participate in Stefan Fabry’s musical meditations. Stefan is a musical channeler and his guidance has led him to sing ceremonial songs to spread the energy of light and love to Iran. His deep empathy for the situation in Iran comes from his own experience growing up under a Romanian dictatorship. (Full disclosure, Stefan is my partner. I witnessed his first two meditations — here and here — and found them vulnerable, potent, liberating.) If you’d like to be invited please reach out to me.
Dedicate a song: Finally, if you have the freedom to sing or dance in public (something that Iranian women do not yet have) I invite you to dedicate one song this month to the emancipation of Iran. Whether you are a professional or an amateur, whether you share it or not, it will make a difference. #MahsaAmini
These men are creating hell on earth, just as Hades did in Hadestown, and for the same reason: His loneliness moves in him crude and black / He thinks of his wife in the arms of the sun / And jealousy fuels him and feeds him and fills him / With doubt that she'll never come / Dread that she'll never come / Doubt that his lover / Will ever come back.
Last month a women’s dance troupe from Lebanon called the Mayyas, which means the lioness, won the America’s Got Talent dance competition in an epic celebration of feminine power. This lioness is fierce, is beautiful, is menacing, is sublime. I imagine Iranian women, sisters with this great lioness, joining them on the stage that is the world.