[Roark66]

I applaud their bravery in remaining non violent, but I'm not sure that is the best strategy as the state showed their willingness to just kill everyone.

Would organising an armed resistance be more effective? The state dissappears people. Have them organise and dissappear the leaders of the revolutionary guard or at the very least help another state (like Israel) to target them.

Non violence works only in democracies and other systems where the rulers care about what people think.

[ycombinete]

Protest of any kind only works in systems where the rulers aren’t insulated from the sentiment of their populace by a steady stream of natural resources money.

[AnimalMuppet]

Nonviolence works where the rulers have a conscience (or at least where those who carry out the rulers' will do).

Would armed resistance be more effective? How many guns can they get their hands on? I don't know the answer to that, but my expectation is, not many. (I am open to correction.)

[lich_king]

> Would armed resistance be more effective?

I mean, with dictators, that's usually what it comes down to. But it often takes years or decades of unrest and repression before someone with enough guns decides they want to be on the right side of history.

It's a fascinating if morbid process we go through every now and then... sort of, building consensus by sacrificing livelihoods and lives.

Iran is one of the most oppressive regimes remaining on this planet, so I really hope this does it. The problem is that revolutionary governments are usually not dumb and do their best to make sure that another revolution can't overthrow them too easily - hardline loyalists with benefits in the military, etc. So this probably ends with a military intervention by other countries or some other sequence of events that will spell even more misery.

The whole history of the Iranian revolution is pretty wacky. It's easy to take a knee-jerk position that "the West did it", and we definitely set some pieces in motion, but Iran wasn't really hurting prior to the revolution, which is why it caught everyone by surprise. The shah made a number of political missteps, there was some sentiment against the UK and the US, and people wanted change... but almost no one wanted a theocratic dictatorship instead. And yet...

[newsclues]

Should airdrop uzis to the people