December 16, 2023

"A new form of protest against the government is rocking Iran: a viral dance craze set to an upbeat folk song where crowds clap and chant the rhythmic chorus, 'oh, oh, oh, oh.'"

"In cities across Iran men and women of all ages are gyrating their hips, swirling their arms in the air, and chanting the song’s catchy lines, according to videos posted on social media, television news channels like BBC Persian and Iranians interviewed. People are dancing on the streets, in shops, at sport stadiums, in classrooms, malls, restaurants, gyms, parties and everywhere else they congregate. In Tehran traffic was stopped in a major highway tunnel for an impromptu dance party to the song. Young women,hair uncovered and flowing, dance in parks and young men performed a choreographed hip-hop dance.... It all started with an old man at a fish market in the northern city of Rasht in late November. Dressed in a white suit the man, Sadegh Bana Motejaded, 70, who owns a small market stall energetically swayed and bopped...."

From "A Viral Dance and ‘Happiness Campaign’ Frustrates Iran’s Clerics/It all started when a 70-year-old fish market stall owner nicknamed 'Booghy' was grooving in public, in violation of Iranian law" (NYT).

44 comments:

narciso said...

this is what Walter Duranty would write,

Tina Trent said...

And then he was arrested and tortured. Thanks, Obama, for funding Iran!

MadTownGuy said...

Groovin'...on a Tehran afternoon...

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Old White Islamic Totalitarians ... not needed.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Backward Old White Jew-hating Terror-sponsoring Mullahs - not needed.

Wince said...

The Iranian "dance opposition" needs to improve their timing.

No, not their musical timing.

Instead, the bad timing of timing an opposition movement with a Democrat as US president.

As with the Green Revolution, don't they know Biden will sell them out as mercilessly as Obama did before?

Hopefully, they are just warming-up a movement in anticipation of Trump.

Bob Boyd said...

What a wonderful form of rebellion against the control freak Iranian regime.

America's woke clerics don't want people happy either. They want everyone anxious and angry and afraid all the time.

Look at the difference in the energy at a Trump rally vs the energy at a BLM or pro-Palestinian protest or any lefty political rally in the US. It's pretty stark.
It's another one of the things that used to be the other way around between Dems and Republicans. Dems were partying and the Republicans were all serious. Now the Dems are all, we're living under Nazi occupation and the Trump people are playing high-energy rock and roll at max volume, laughing and smiling and mocking the whole humorless, self-serious, pretentious, bunch of moral scolds.

The Iranian clerics and the woke puritans both want to punish people for being happy.

Dave Begley said...

This is how people without guns protest.

Obama’s and Biden’s support of the Iranian regime is a complete fucking disgrace.

tim in vermont said...

Iranians would have a lot more freedom if the United States didn't try to turn every legitimate expression of discontent into a color revolution and regime change. Same goes for China, and a lot of other countries, where the US is constantly working to change inconvenient regimes.

gilbar said...

from the rivers, to the gulf.. Persians can't get enough
[it's REALLY Hard to find something that rhymes with gulf]

Anyway.. If the Persians cast off their chains, the world would be a MUCH better place

chickelit said...

Hip-gyrating mullah-hoops are next.

tommyesq said...

Someone should tell the White House "subversive" tap dancers that THIS is how to do subversive dance.

Yancey Ward said...

Now all the Iranian civilians need are some dances that include ammunition.

Iman said...

By order of the Prophet
We ban that boogie sound
Degenerate the faithful
With that crazy Western sound
But the infidels, they brought out
The electric camel drum
The local guitar picker
Got his guitar-pickin' thumb
As soon as Ayatollah had cleared the square lol
They began to ululate

Iman said...

https://youtu.be/SllartCXbTg?si=m_k9-1CzUOprXoXD

Iman said...

“Everybody goes to parties
They dance this mess around
They do all sixteen dances
They do the Shu-ga-loo
Do the Shy Tuna
Do the Camel Walk
Do the Hip-O-Crit
Ah, hippy hippy forward
Hippy hippy hippy hippy hippy shake
Oh, it's time to do 'em right”

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The problem with Iran is that the average Iranian is civilized enough to endure the hostility of the Mullahs.

In that sense, Iran is only outclassed by Japan. Whereas Japan doesn’t abuse power over their citizens like the Mullahs do.

Narr said...

Everybody cut loose,
Kick off the Friday slippers . . .


OK, needs work.

Rich said...

A regime that's threatened by an older gentleman having a laugh in the market is in big trouble. All the best to our Iranian friends who oppose their theocratic regime.

“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” ~ H.L. Mencken

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Send the First Lady’s dance troupe to Tehran stat!

The Crack Emcee said...

"Young women, hair uncovered and flowing, dance in parks and young men performed a choreographed hip-hop dance...."

While white people here unnecessarily and racistly bent our ears for decades, saying it wasn't even music - and still denigrate it at almost every opportunity as something pejorative - when, like other forms of Jazz, it's America's greatest cultural import, and a revolutionary source of pride to everyone in the world but their dumb asses.

Dr Weevil said...

So far (fingers crossed) it appears that Iranians are freer - well, slightly less unfree - than Russians. At least one young Russian woman got 7 years in jail for holding up a blank piece of paper. She was holding it up at a significant location where demonstrators had been arrested for holding up signs asking for peace in Ukraine, but even a blank sign was too much for Putin's goons. They knew what she meant.

Aggie said...

I thought I heard some strains from 'The Nutcracker' there - am I mistaken?

JPS said...

tim in vermont,

"Iranians would have a lot more freedom if the United States didn't try to turn every legitimate expression of discontent into a color revolution and regime change."

No, they wouldn't. Not everything is about us. Not everything is up to us. The Iranians are living under exactly the regime the ayatollahs have designed for them, no more, no less.

Iman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Iman said...

Crackers: Ambassador to the Underworld.

Freeman Hunt said...

Fun.

Many shots of crowded public places with no women.

The Vault Dweller said...

If the man who started the trend is 70, then he is old enough to have been an adult and remembered what Iran was like before the mayor from Foot Loose took over Iran.

The Vault Dweller said...

Blogger gilbar said...
from the rivers, to the gulf.. Persians can't get enough
[it's REALLY Hard to find something that rhymes with gulf]


from the rivers, to the ocean, Persian hips are in motion

Old and slow said...

Oh do shut up Crack. It is not racist to dislike hip hop. Besides, "hip hop" could describe many very different sorts of music/performance, some good, some crap. It's also not racist to dislike Lawrence Welk or Sha-Na-Na, and they are pretty fucking white.

mikee said...

Protest dances are fine and dandy, until the protesters are shot by the religious police.
"See a mullah, kill a mullah" - now that's a protest every Iranian should support.

FullMoon said...

Y'all a bunch of racists

The Vault Dweller said...

@Crack
Didn't Stanley Crouch not care for hip-hop also?

PM said...

Pretty soon, they'll drop out of school, carry handguns, smoke dope, rob stores and demand free money because the mullahs have been oppressive for centuries - which is true.

baghdadbob said...

By any chance is one of the song's "catchy lines"..."from the river to sea, Palestine will be free?"

narciso said...

he would have been 27 when he started,

Oligonicella said...

"There is no humor in Islam", Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

n.n said...

A Persian Spring, probably. Like the last one... with a hundred billion dollars in disputed funds entree, cash a la pallette, a second Iraq war following a premature departure, an ISIS parade, and collateral damage.

n.n said...

Y'all a bunch of racists

Diversitists (i.e. color judgment, class bigotry).

wildswan said...

Maybe he heard this somewhere long ago in another time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgZOYt5kH9Q

gilbar said...

The Vault Dweller said...
from the rivers, to the ocean, Persian hips are in motion

thanx Vault Dweller!

Tina Trent said...

Uh, Crack, believe it or not, but people did dance in unison long before the New York Times hired a bunch of dolts with degrees in "Hip-Hop Studies" who are too lazy to investigate culturally indigenous forms of music and dance.

I always thought hip-hop was stolen from Slavic folk dancing.

JAORE said...

Good to see old white man dancing is celebrated. My family is behind on this trend.

Dan said...

The Ghost Dance... invented by Wovoka, the Paiute Messiah, was outlawed by the US Government & was, at least in part, the cause of the massacre at Wounded Knee...