Breaking The Rules Thoughtfully
What Alex Jones and a group of students in Tehran have to teach us about free speech
In her memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi describes her living room as providing “a place of transgression” each Thursday morning where a select group of her female students could safely gather to discuss literature that had been banned by Iran’s Islamic regime. Not only were forbidden books and ideas on the agenda, but those in attendance could remove the veil and headscarf they were compelled to wear outside Nafisi’s small apartment, sometimes revealing jewelry or makeup in the process.
These gestures of self-expression were acts of defiance that served as reminders of the freedom and dignity the regime sought to suppress, especially among Iran’s female population. “It allowed us to defy the repressive reality outside the room — not only that, but to avenge ourselves on those who controlled our lives.” Nafisi continues, “For those few precious hours we felt free to discuss our pains and our joys, our personal hang-ups and weaknesses; for that suspended time we abdicated our responsibilities to our parents, relatives and friends, and to the Islamic Republic.”
A certain degree of defiance is necessary not only to experience true freedom but for anything like progress to occur. In societies…
