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Rapping to the death throes of Iran's Islamic Republic

When a regime is too inflexible to cope with the cultural rebellion of the young people under its domination, the system cannot be expected to survive for long.

In a youthful country like Iran, we are seeing signs that the dictatorship of the Islamic Republic is on its last legs. Especially because this youthful cultural rebellion, thanks to the Internet, cannot be contained.

The regime's latest crackdown has focused on repressing Tehran's underground rap culture.

Tehran police chief Hossein Sajedi-nia explains that his forces arrested "boys and girls" and seized "Western musical instruments" as well as alcohol, which is officially forbidden under Iran's sharia law.

But the police chief noted the real dangers: the organized efforts of the cultural underground and the rap fans' ability to share music and communicate with one another online, both at home and abroad.

Like other Iranian underground bands and their fans, the rappers work hard to camouflage their presence from authorities. "These boys and girls used deserted and crumbling buildings, and camouflaged the place by hanging dirty curtains in order not to arouse suspicion," Sajedi-nia said.

In addition to citing the standard rock/rap behavior that challenge and defy established morals, the police chief said the artists were spreading a subversive message, in his words, "portraying a bleak picture of society."

Internetted musical underground

This blog has long advocated strong international support for Iran's youthful rock, rap, hip-hop and punk underground.

The rappers are far from isolated - and herein lies the danger for the regime. "These bands recorded underground clips and released unauthorised songs on satellite and cyber networks," said Sajedi-nia, according to Agence France Presse.

Where is the Voice of America's Persian service?

Agence France-Presse notes that despire the official repression, Iran's "underground bands have still managed to get their music heard by using home computers to get it aired over the Internet or on Persian-language satellite channels broadcasting from abroad."

This is an extremely important point: Foreign Internet media companies, radio channels and satellite TV channels are vital to leveraging and magnifying the cultural rebels in Iran. Which brings us back to the question, Where is the Voice of America in all this? What is wrong with VOA's Persian-language service and why is it not providing accurate, timely, and full coverage of the repression of Iran's young people, whose expressions seem far more like a voice of America than VOA itself.

 

Videos about Iran's rock underground

From Persian Cats to Yellow Dogs from Jehangir Irani on Vimeo.

Yesterday's post led me to look around for some good videos about Iran's rock underground, and some research about the Yellow Dogs led to these excellent segments. The first one, above, is a look at Iran's young people and how they express themselves through music - with help from supportive parents and corrupt police - focusing on the Yellow Dogs band.

Below is a CNN report on rock in the Middle East. About 1:42 into the video is the section on the Iranian rock underground, with an inside look at Yellow Dogs and the rock scene in Tehran. Following the CNN report is a music video of the Iranian band Hypernova, that just released its debut album, in English, this spring. Hypernova began as an underground band in Iran but is now based in the West and has a more polished look and sound.

The musical threat to Iran's regime

How can we take down Iran's soon-to-be-nuclear-armed regime without firing a shot? There are a number of ways, but the Islamic Republic has been openly betraying its greatest fears: music.

Not just the rock, punk, rap and hip-hop cultures that the regime is trying to repress, but all music. 

Eric Felten writes about it in the Wall Street Journal. In an August 18 piece titled "Why Dictators Hate to See Us Moved by Music," he begins with a recent quote from Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who declared that music is "not compatible with the highest values of the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic."

The problem with music is that "it affects people profoundly and can't be controlled," Felten observes.

And lack of control is what the regime fears - a legitimate response from the hated tyrants who rule a country in which 70 percent of the population is under age 35.

Felten continues in his column with recent psychological studies about the effects of music on individuals' moods, emotions, and overall states of mind. 

Some of Iran's best rock groups are making it to the West and performing abroad, even in the United States. The group Yellow Dogs (pictured) is one of them.

There's an amazing popular cultural revolution going on in Iran today - a youthful, widespread, pro-western rebellion against the sharia regime of the Islamic Republic. Time for the rest of the world to get on board.

(Hat tip to SD)