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Geopolitics

How Iranian Protesters Unmasked The Regime's Old Game Of "Divide And Rule"

Iran's clerical regime has worked hard over 40 years to set Iranians against each other on multiple bases, and must now watch a nation united in opposition to itself and breaking its red lines, notably those set around gender, faith and even ethnicity.

Photo of a woman with a flag of Iran and the inscription "Free Iran" painted on her face

Anti-regime protests on Nov. 19

Elahe Boghrat

-Analysis-

In Iran, after decades of organized social segregation and the Islamic Republic's exclusion of the vast majority of Iranians in favor of a small minority of devotees, a nation has now risen to fight segregation — or apartheid — in all its forms.

Perhaps to attract wider attention worldwide and win over the opinion of Western democracies, wedded as they are to the ideal of gender equality, public declarations and reports have spoken of Iran's ongoing protests as a 'women's revolution' or the 'first women's revolution.'


But what is happening in Iran is even bigger than that, a unique revolt against a singularly wicked and criminal regime that has required several never-before-seen factors coming together.

One of these was precisely the speed with which protesting Iranians complemented their initial and now famed slogan of "Woman, Life, Freedom," with another of "Men, Fatherland and Prosperity" (Mard, Mihan, Abadi).

 Mahsa Amini, a rallying cry 

The women's movement in Iran often complained that men never gave women enough support in their fight for their rights. Yet men's voices have been loud and clear in these protests, as they were in previous, bloody rounds of protests against the regime in 2009, 2017-18 and 2019. It might even be fair to claim that in all those protests, the voices of the male half of the population were even louder than those of the female half.

This time, the state killing of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, became the trigger that has ignited all of society to boldly renew the demands it has repeatedly made before.

The regime in Tehran must be aghast.

The death of a woman became a rallying cry for all social groups sharing one goal, the downfall of the Islamic Republic and its brand of fascism.

The complementary chants of "Woman, Life, Freedom" and "Man, Fatherland and Prosperity" find meaning within this unification. Both slogans ultimately expound the unity and inclusion for all Iranians and confound the regime's 40-year obsession with imposing subjective barriers and fomenting social segmentation and discord.

"Divide and Rule was and remains its motto.

The regime in Tehran must be aghast now as it watches a spectacle of national, regional, ethnic, gender and class unity, and the collapse of all its boundaries.


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Society

Should Christians Be Scared Of Horror Movies?

Horror films have a complicated and rich history with christian themes and influences, but how healthy is it for audiences watching?

Should Christians Be Scared Of Horror Movies?

"The Nun II" was released on Sept. 2023.

Joseph Holmes

“The Nun II” has little to show for itself except for its repetitive jump scares — but could it also be a danger to your soul?

Christians have a complicated relationship with the horror genre. On the one hand, horror movies are one of the few types of Hollywood films that unapologetically treat Christianity (particularly Catholicism) as good.

“The Exorcist” remains one of the most successful and acclaimed movies of all time. More recently, “The Conjuring” franchise — about a wholesome husband and wife duo who fight demons for the Catholic Church in the 1970s and related spinoffs about the monsters they’ve fought — has more reverent references to Jesus than almost any movie I can think of in recent memory (even more than many faith-based films).

The Catholic film critic Deacon Steven Greydanus once mentioned that one of the few places where you can find substantial positive Catholic representation was inhorror films.

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