Backseated Science

Dissertations are fun. I am… not in the majority in thinking so, I am well aware. The Ph.D’s themselves probably disagree with me the most. But I enjoy sitting for 40-some minutes and listen to actual, honest to the Gods, new knowledge being presented with the hope of being accepted by the scientific community as Science^[tm]. To try to follow along. To try to make sense of years of nerdy study distilled into a pellet-sized argument for its validity to the growth of mankind’s understanding of the universe.

Yes. I think that’s fun.

Last Friday one such dissertation took place at Stockholm University’s department of material chemistry. Even before it got underway, there was buzz enough about it to send the fuzz to watch it. And at the ass end of it, the presentation was cut short and aborted. Not because of chemistry. Which seems to me to be an utter failure for everyone involved. The dissertation wasn’t aborted due to controversial data. People weren’t escorted away by the coppers because of some revolutionary new spark of knowledge.

No; the dissertation was shut down because the Ph.D. student decided to make loud proclamations of support for the Iranian regime, by dedicating the dissertation to Ayatollah Motahhari and General Qasem Soleimani. Which sparked uproar. And prematurely ended the dissertation.

No one seems to give a shit about what the Ph.D. student Vahid Saadattalab’s paper was really about. Instead, all eyes rest upon his ardent support of the Iranian regime, and the university’s reluctance to let him voice that support.

Saadattalab can be heard wanting to claim his right to freedom of speech. The university doesn’t want to become a political battleground between the Iranian regime and its opposition. And angry audience members do not want the regime to score such easy points while hundreds, fuck knows how many, are dying in the Mahsa Amini revolts currently rocking Iran.

So what.

It’s nothing strange that Ph.D. students make dedications for their work. Mothers, fathers, siblings, husbands, wives. However, it is uncommon to name government officials. Universities don’t generally object to mentions of family members. But they don’t generally have to take a stand on the mention of government officials. Government officials aren’t generally considered martyrs, nor are they usually also considered monsters and terrorists… But those are easy labels to peddle these days. And dissertations are very, very, very rarely aborted because the Ph.D. student derail themselves, send their work down the fucking river, only to make a political statement like this.

This… circus may be many things. But whatever else people may think that it is, it’s a fucking travesty of science. And that, itself, is sheer heartbreak.

/Sebastian Lindberg 7/3-2023

The Hewn Hair Rebellion

People, men women and children, are being shot dead on the streets of Iran. In riots, protests, and insurrection sparked by the murder of 22-year old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested on September 13^th for “faulty hijab use” by the Iranian morality police, and left custody in a deadly coma. Hijabs are burnt. Hair is cut. Rage is levied against an autocratic religious oppression. And though the regime has begun to lock down the Internet, and information is scarce, we know that streets are being bloodied by the Iranian regime’s stranglehold on a dissenting population.

And safely tucked away in their Nordic apartments and houses, support takes the form of sympathetic hair-clippings aired on social media, garnering views and likes and retweets like only thoughts and prayers can.

Which brings to mind a question: At what point does support for a foreign cause turn from encouragement to egocentric exhibitionism?

Cut hair in the comfort of the West, live on social media, does absolutely fuck all to stop a Revolutionary Guard bullet from cramming its way into the skull of an Iranian child. This much is undeniably true. But cutting your hair in support for Iranian feminism isn’t about making them bulletproof, you may say. Granted, but then what is it for? Putting international pressure on a religious regime already so sanctioned that it weren’t but three years since the last deadly popular uprising in the country, that time due to fuel prices? Do you really think the Ayatollah gives a single fig about TikTok videos from Scandinavia? Do you think our state department, under pressure from both the US and the international community to sanction the nuclear capable Middle Eastern country, will be significantly (or insignificantly) affected by your “well”-intentioned exhibitionism? Or is your exhibitionism supposed to make the loss of a loved daughter more palatable?

Maybe… however unlikely; maybe. Maybe your locks, felled in the safety of suburbia, in the comfort of your own home, instead of to a chorus of angry chants on bloodied streets, is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. However unlikely that is to be the case.

But how else is a far flung git supposed to show support for foreign causes? If we do nothing, we’re blasted for arrogance and aloofness. If we commit, although from the comfort of our homes, we’re discredited as fickle exhibitionists. In an era of social media, how else do we fan righteous flames than through virtue signalling on the internet? Is it possible to meaningfully rage on the internet against the murder of a 22-year old woman who had the audacity to show a lock of hair on a subway station?

As of yet, we cannot guide a cruising lead pellet through the atmosphere to bury into the skull of autocratic despots, religious fanatic leaders, or zealous authoritarian regime guards, purely by the power of collective social media discourse. Which, I hazard to say, sounds like a Black Mirror episode, and might just be a good thing.

So, where do we draw the line between childish exhibitionism, and legitimate and constructive support for progressive social reform? Fuck if I know… but cutting your hair in front of your cell phone in the safety of your bathroom, three thousand metric miles away from your cause, is not the latter.

/Sebastian Lindberg 26/9-2022