Advice to Iranian women: Vote with your feet!!

My advice to Iranian women is simple:

Vote with your feet!

Educated women throughout Iran should gather their children and belongings and move en masse to Turkey and ask for political asylum until their country learns how to have an honest vote.

Leaving temporarily is non-violent and would speak more powerfully than simply protesting to no avail. Protesting still leaves the power in the hands of the ayatollahs, awaiting their decisions, reacting to events. Leaving takes control of their own lives and is a positive strengthening experience. It says "We don't think you are fit to live with". It is unmistakeable.

En masse because it is safer and makes a more powerful statement. A convoy can be seen from satellites and cannot be hidden. If arranged quietly, cars would gradually join a general movement and be huge before the ayatollahs comprehended what was happening. To intervene with Guards or force would be an absolute political disaster for them.

Go to Turkey because Turkey has a history of secular Islamic rule. They are as close to a western democracy as you get in that area. They would probably be amenible to such a convoy's request. An alternative destination would be southern Iraq, because of the close ties to Iran there.

Either way, the ayatollahs would be caught between a rock and a hard place: change, or lose a vital segment of your society; go hard line, and lose a vital segment of your society and the opprobium of the world.

Ma'ams', you have my utmost respect for your stand for freedom. I offer this advice in the sincere hope you'll follow it. You've nothing to lose but your lives either way. Accept that as I know many of you have, and take the freedom of action that it offers and do something boldly different.

Pick up your marbles and leave.

It sounds good on paper, But exactly how are these women going to care for there children in Turkey? Turkey could not possible help with the refugees nor could the UN, consider the magnitude of money, food, clothing, and shelter.

There better off doing exactly what they are doing, at least in Iran they know how to get rid of a corrupt goverment, unlike us spineless Americans who continue to vote the same retards into office every 2-4-6 years.

reply to post by poedxsoldiervet


Did you note the "educated" part? While most of the poor and uneducated would need help if they went, that group of women most probably wouldn't. They are the most likely to support the status quo.

I am referring to a migration of the educated middle class, the professional women. That group should be able to find employment within and contribute to any society that took them in, to the detriment of the ayatollahs.

Women are quite vital to all phases of economic activity. If a significant number left, it would cripple the Iranian economy. The ayatollahs would be faced with an extremely hard set of choices, and no matter what choice they made, it would only publicly underscore the importance of skilled women, an importance that could be leveraged into true political power.

The most likely case would resolve with the ayatollahs giving in to the enormous social pressure that would be brought to bear without anyone reaching the border. Understand that this would be political theater of the highest sort: deadly dangerous, but nonviolent; absolutely unmistakeably against the current policies; completely focussed on simple freedom, understandable by everyone everywhere. That's why a mass convoy, an exodus is required.

It would place the ruling clique in an untenable situation: ignore it and lose the talents, more importantly lose control of those voices, acknowledge it with physical force and underscore the fact that they can't control them by moral force because they have none. Pretty much no matter what response they make, they lose power, it would be a matter of degree.

An intelligent sharp woman, or group of them could then use the moment to create true change that lasts there.

No I did not ignore that part, But do you understand that a mass exodus of even 100.000 women and there children would cause a strain on turkey? I doubt there our 100,000 new jobs in turkey awaiting these women. Also in order for a mass exodus to have an effect it would take over a million women to leave with there children. Do you think Turkey has a million jobs for these women, how about homes, or schools for the children? It makes no since to leave Iran they only thing for those women to do its keep taking to the streets like they have been.