Civil disobedience, act 4: art and symbols
Demonstration art could be one of the most powerful ways to convey your message. Iranians have been making art all over the cities these days.
Painting the city with blood: Putting red color in water bodies around the city. throwing red color at street signs specially those that reads Velayat (supreme leading system), hijab, and Kurdistan. putting red blood on pictures of Khamenei, Ghasem Soleimani, and police or judiciary signs. Coloring the university classes and corridors with red. One art classroom door in Alzahra university read "this classroom is covered in blood". These red colors represent the blood the regime has shed.
Pictures on the walls: Faces of our fallen martyrs. Anti regime pictures. They read: "you kill our love, you are our ISIS" "women life freedom" "women of Iran and Afghanistan against the violence of Talib and mullah" "fuck compulsory hijab" "from 2017 to 2022 this regime would fall like dominos" "ambu-lice (ambulances are being used to move policemen)". A religious figure hide behind religion playing his anti riot forces. On an alley named Azadi (freedom) someone has written "there was so much bravery hidden in this land".
(It's important to know that in Iran, mullahs don't represent religion as much as they represent the regime. For 40 years the turbans have been the heads of political powers. Most of those mullah pictures are directly targeting Khamenei the supreme leader)
Slogans on paper money: these ones say "women life freedom" "queer life freedom" "Baloch life freedom".
Khodanoor Lejei, symbol of the islamic republic cruelty: The bloody Friday in Zahedan was one of the darkest spots in Islamic republic brutal history. Opening fire on a crowd of praying Muslims before they even start protesting. Killing about 100 people of Baloch. But one picture stood out and stood as the face of inhumanity of the regime. Khodanoor Lejei was one of the victims of bloody Friday in Zahedan. An old picture of him went viral after his death. He was arrested a couple of months prior to Mahsa Amini murder and was treated with no dignity. Bound to a pole. water in front of his thirsty body but out of his reach. So in universities, sport games, streets and alleys people have been posing Khodanoor in bound to protest the cruelty. In the last two pictures, the signs read "political" (سیاسی) and "justice" (عدالت)!
Students sing revolution anthems. Artists make digital arts. Musicians make revolution songs. People dance and the security forces attack and arrest them.
There have been balloons flying over the cities with banners containing slogans on them. There have been banners on footbridges situated so that drivers would see them. People also have been writing slogans on billboards especially those that promote regime propaganda.
Azad university art students gathered in their campus, painted their palms red and raised their hands to the sky.
Meanwhile the regime forces broke into dormitories and stole students.
Some universities including mine design their campus trees and buildings with names of the murdered protesters or captured students and other revolution symbols (red tulip represents martyrs in Persian literature). The uni authorities take them down but the art students do it again.
After Kian Pirfalak, all over the country you could find paper boats and rainbows. Kian was a 10 year old boy who was murdered by the regime. There's a video of him starting with "in the name of the god of the rainbow" and continuing to explain his crafted boat. He wanted to become an engineer. Now paper boats are banned in universities.
One of the murdered protesters, Hamidreza Rouhi, loved riding motorcycles. He had a video online of him on a motorbike lip syncing to a song and pointing to the camera. A group of motorbike riders in Tehran, 7 day after his murder, gathered in front of his house, their motorbikes lined nearby, with pictures of him on each bike.
And in a recent symbolic act, a woman walked around Tehran streets as The Handmaid's Tale cosplayer. Very on point.
Don't think for a second that these civil ways of protesting are safe or easy. People have been arrested or shot in the head doing these.
People are capable of beauties but the regime can only make ugliness. That's the summary of this revolution.
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the return of the king, j.r.r. tolkien // my tears ricochet, taylor swift // the handmaid's tale, margaret atwood // the return of the king, peter jackson // the traitor baru cormorant, seth dickinson // gollum’s song, emilíana torrini // the return of the king, peter jackson // giovanni's room, james baldwin // tumblr user ryebreadgf // the return of the king, j.r.r. tolkien // "thomas wolfe was right: you can't go home again," jonathan look (forbes) // the return of the king, peter jackson
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Out there or inside my head, it’s an equal darkness.
Margaret Atwood, from ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
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