5 Centimeters of Hair: Iranian Chess in 2023

Does it really matter if 50% or 15% are suppressed (if it’s NOT gender-specific that number will rise btw). With potentially fatal consequences for living your life as you wish while not harming anybody?
No, it can’t be justified, no matter the exact percentage.

I wanna thank everyone around the globe who has heard our voices in Iran and tries to have other people hear too
These month have been a real strugle but I'm sure the blood on the streets will become the foundation for a new world a better world a world in peace.
yours trully just an Iranian

I know many will disagree with what I'm about to say but so far this thread seems to be nothing more than an echo chamber representing only one, politically correct, point of view. This is unhealthy. Healthy productive dialogue requires different points of view. So here I go.

Feminist women always complain when any attention is given to their attire, like with news anchors or politicians. But then they go and use it to grab attention whenever it suits them. So are we supposed to pay attention to it or not? I'm confused.

This particular woman seems to be confused too. She wants to be respected by and earn a high position in an organization that she also at the same time is spending so much energy trying to fight and disrupt and embarrass? What entity in the world would put up with these sort of shenanigans? It's a well known principle that any person who is sincere in their convictions and beliefs and uses disobedience as a form of activism has to be prepared to accept the consequences. This is true for all types of activism from the environment to political reform. So why should she be any different?

The law is the law and even though you might not like it you still have to obey it. If you don't you are a criminal, it's as simple as that. Criminals are certainly not people to be held up as heroes or role models. What kind of world would it be if we all went around making up our own rules and laws whenever we wanted to with no respect for authority or law and order. It would be pure chaos, it would send human kind back to the stone age.

Perhaps Bayat is an anarchist but from from her attitude I sense that she just likes to make trouble and stir up controversy wherever she goes so she can be the center of attention. That's why she's been pulling these childish stunts. One day it was this issue the next day it was the next and tomorrow it would have been something else if FIDE allowed her to continue I assure you. So FIDE I applaud you for removing her from her positions of authority with your organization and taking a stand to keep politics out of chess and protect the well being of our beloved game.

Brave woman. I admire her.

@Buttercup22, Do you really think this can be summed up with "The law is the law and even though you might not like it you still have to obey it." and "Criminals are certainly not people to be held up as heroes or role models."?

What if the laws are unjust? Should Rosa Parks have obeyed the law and vacated her seat? Should Alan Turing have avoided being criminally gay? The Committee that drafted the US declaration of independence also must have broken a British law or two.

These people sure are celebrated nowadays, what's your point?

You applaud FIDE for removing her from various positions but didn't FIDE just deny that? So are you accepting that they lied but think the lie is good? Who are they lying to (not you, as you are wise enough to see through it) and why? Why do they need to lie, if everything was handled perfectly?

You also attack Bayat personally (anarchist pulling childish stunts, etc.) Why do you feel you need to do that, is it because you lack coherent arguments as to the actual subject matter of the protest or are you just mean-spirited?

a statement like "the law is the law ... you still have to obey it" is the shallow narrow-minded thought of a totalitarian. was the law the law when the dred scott decision said black people had no rights that white people must respect? when the law said slaves were property? the nazi rise to power, and its assault on half the world was all consistent with 'the law' of germany.
we cannot allow 'the law' [the rules made by those in power] to tell us what is right and wrong. we must make our own decisions based on our moral values.

No driver has failed to break a law. Failed to signal when turning, stopped too close to a stop sign. Does that make everyone on the planets opinion's invalid? I find that argument invalid. As zozzers pointed out human history is filled with heroes that stood up to laws.

Chess didn't go looking for politics, politics came looking for chess. If Iran wanted politics out of chess they wouldn't mention anything about headscarves to anyone ever and Lichess wouldn't have written about what was going on in the chess world.

@Rookitiki said in #64:
> Does it really matter if 50% or 15% are suppressed (if it’s NOT gender-specific that number will rise btw). With potentially fatal consequences for living your life as you wish while not harming anybody?
> No, it can’t be justified, no matter the exact percentage.

I didn't make any assertions about the percentage of the population being suppressed. Rather, I made the argument that you could easily show that not all Iranian women are protesting against wearing hijab. Next, the notable problems that exist in Iran overall are not gender-specific. Therefore, the framing of what's happening in Iran is incorrect.

The point is that there is nuance, and competing POVs on the issue. It's not black or white, and it's not something you can just assert to be a gender-war and then be happy with it. It's wrong.

In general, the best course of action is to just keep these sorts of discussions and debates outside of Chess.

So if you were/are a woman, you’d want to move to Iran, wear a hijab and get beaten to death if you didn’t knot it properly or if it slides off after a while? Interesting.
As a man this can’t happen to you, how is that not gender-specific? There may be other problems ofc. Yet nothing can justify that.
You can throw thousands of red herrings, you won’t fool anyone with a tiny bud of empathy in their hearts.

@zozzers said in #68:

You're creating a slippery slope. What if a burglar, another type of criminal, decided that the laws that allow you to have so much wealth and him to have nothing are "unjust" and so based on your notion that we don't have to follow "unjust" laws broke into your home putting your belongings and family's life at risk. Would you support him and help him pack up your valuables? What about people that feel they have a just reason to murder?

This illustrates my point. You asked me "What if the laws are unjust?". Well I would ask you unjust according to who? Almost everyone who breaks laws makes some kind of justification for it. If all it takes is the person who breaks the law to say "but I think the law is unjust" that brings us back to total anarchy. We give the job of making laws to our governments and so we have to hope they make good ones. If not, we can try to change the government. But that does not mean we all get to run around like lawless baboons doing what we please. That will make life horrible for everyone.

And as for your example of the people that fought for American independence, well if the movement hadn't succeeded they would have hung as traitors wouldn't they? Yes, if you successfully overthrow your government then you as a law breaker become legitimized but until that happens she is still a traitor.

You accuse me of using simplistic arguments but it seems to me your saying that FIDE putting spin on this incident is some kind of proof they knew they were in the wrong thing is indeed a very facile counter argument. No, it doesn't demonstrate they did anything wrong it simply shows that they correctly assessed the effect that taking a stand that doesn't line up with current popular trends in such a militantly feminist world would have. And it's more important that they did the right thing then it is to brag about having done it. If anything this should show you have far off kilter the world has gone to one side when even a well established independent organization like FIDE has to walk on eggshells around subjects that pertain to their internal affairs.

I talked about Bayat's character because she chose to make herself into a public figure and it's relevant to the context of this discussion. It's not as if I was in a debate with another user on a public forum and committed an ad hominem attack on them by calling them "mean-spirited". But that's exactly what you just did.