Portland, ME -
It’s called chorophobia, an irrational fear of dancing. And do those zany mullahs in Iran have it bad.
The latest authoritarian vomit from Tehran is the banning of and punishment for public dancing. Yes, that's right. You would think they have more important things to do.
It seems that a 70-year-old fish-market vendor in Rasht, Iran started happy dancing one day, many folks joined in, and thus a fun-loving dance craze spread throughout the country. In efforts to ban it, of course, the medieval clerics only served to vastly popularize it. Memo to Florida's morality police: banning a book is always guaranteed to boost its sales.
Any society with morality police, self-styled or otherwise, is in trouble. Imagine that, Moms for Liberty. Banning speech, books, art, ideas, relationships, marriage, and, yes, dancing is always a sign of retrograde weakness.
The backwards-looking “Make Iran Great Again” crowd is once again a laughingstock. Of course, in reality, there is nothing funny about the damage, destruction, and death these right-wing zealots inflict on their fellow citizens, especially women, young people, LGBTQ communities, people of other races and faiths, artists, writers, educators and, well, you name it.
The real and wannabe authoritarians who catalyze and sponsor these dim 14th Century views fear so many things. Their personal insecurities are legion and too often savage the people they purport to lead. They wrap their ignorance, hatred, corruption, and lust for power in nationalism, faux-nostalgia, severe religious doctrine, cult-like nonsense, claims of victimization, otherization, divisiveness, show-business spectacle. and non-stop lying. It’s always the same sad, tragic script. Boring, yes, but dangerous because it still works with a small but angry and vocal minority.
Let’s see, in addition to our favorite mullahs in Iran, there’s Putin, Xi, Orban, Erdogan, the sports-washing Saudi royal family, and that little creep in North Korea. And let’s not forget their fascist forebears throughout the long lens of history. Or how about their pretenders such as the defeated Le Pen in France, the defeated Bolsonaro in Brazil, the defeated Morawiecki in Poland, and that defeated, disgraced, twice impeached, and four-times indicted insurrectionist in the U.S.?
The core ideas and ideals of a civilized society are to think, create, grow, share, and express levels of personal agency that balance rights with responsibilities. This is completely lost on angry, frightened people who think they know better and use government to enforce their sclerotic views. They'll always be dancing in the dark.
Image courtesy of La Lista.