By Sharanya Gopinathan
My Stealthy Freedom is one of my favourite pages on Facebook. It’s run by journalist Masih Alinejad, and the page and the hashtag started off as her attempt to encourage more women to protest the law that mandates the wearing of hijab by all women in public. She continues to use the page to do this, and also shares really great videos and pictures of women from all over the Arab world engaging in acts of resistance.
A new video on the page is going viral for all the right reasons: it’s a really wonderfully performed, beautifully executed piece of resistance that has meaning both in that moment and after, and as a cultural object and a political one. The video shows an Iranian girl performing shuffle dancing in public. It’s illegal for women to dance in public in Iran. Her hijab also falls off during her performance, and not wearing it is illegal too.
The dance is just so catchy and good, and so is the performer’s smile. It’s also really nice how none of the passersby seem to care about what she’s doing, and just jog right past her.
Iran has seen this form of protest before. In 2014, a video of a woman dancing aggressively well on the Tehran metro went viral, and it’s just as awesome as this new one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hlPWScJAcY