Iran’s Hunger Games: May the Odds be Ever in Your Favor
The dystopic movie series Hunger Games brilliantly dives into some of the reasons totalitarian regimes articulate and the methods they deploy to subjugate their populations. To remain in power, totalitarian regimes do not rely upon massacres and repression alone. Coercion is necessary but not sufficient to induce compliance in the long run.
Totalitarian regimes consider the population composed of victors and vanquished. To enrich the victors, the vanquished population should be compelled to pay tribute in taxes, cheap labor, and resources. With no say over the government and with little power over their lives, the subjugated population would simmer with discontent. Rebellions and revolutions are deadly options that the bulk of the population avoids except in exceptional circumstances.
How do dictators intimidate the people into submission and keep their own supporters willing to subjugate the people? It is relatively easy: provide them with material benefits (money, jobs), social status, and ideological rationales for their superior position.
To subjugate one’s population is more complicated and is becoming even more complex in the modern age. Social scientists have published superb works on the process of democracy and democratization, but very little on how tyrants subjugate their populations. Literary works such as those by George Orwell and Arthur Koestler greatly added to our understanding of how tyrannical regimes work. Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games series further complement our comprehension of the tyrants’ dilemmas and machinations to keep a subjugated population compliant and docile.
We could not get Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to answer some of our burning questions: why his regime forces all Iranian women to wear hijab and harshly punishes them if they refuse; why he kills hundreds or thousands during protests but not a few millions; why he targets the youth and athletes more than others; and why he incarcerates and then releases some but executes others. Perhaps, we can find some of our answers in the dialogues in the Hunger Games.
Forcing women to wear hijab is the symbol of the victory of the fundamentalists over non-fundamentalist Iranians. Theological justifications for compulsory hijab are very weak. Out of 54 members of the Islamic Cooperation Conference, only the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan force women to wear hijab. The rationale is political. It is a daily reminder of who won and who lost the struggle for state power in Iran in the 1979-1981 revolutionary process just as the games (in the Hunger Games) serve as a reminder to everyone of who won the struggle for power when the citizens rose up.
As the Hunger Games explains:
“This is the Capitol’s way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion. Whatever words they use, the real message is clear. ‘Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there’s nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you.’”
Women in Iran cannot be allowed the freedom to choose their own attire because President Snow tells Katniss:
“If a girl from District Twelve of all places can defy the Capitol and walk away unharmed, what is to stop them from doing the same? What is to prevent, say, an uprising? … And uprisings have been known to lead to revolution… Whatever problems anyone may have with the Capitol, believe me when I say that if it released its grip on the districts for even a short time, the entire system would collapse.”
In a conversation between President Snow and the game maker Seneca Crane, President Snow says:
“Why do you think we have a winner? If we just wanted to intimidate the districts why not round up 24 of them at random and execute them all at once? It would be a lot faster. Hope. Hope it is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective, a lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine as long as it’s contained.”
The fundamentalist regime ruling Iran has targeted certain individuals, such as professors, university students, high school students, human rights lawyers, and athletes, for extremely harsh punishments. This has become more acute when the people protest on the streets. President Snow says:
“On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors.” It is added that: “Victors are our strongest… They, or should I say we, are the very embodiment of hope where there is no hope and now twenty-three of us will be killed to show how even that hope was an illusion.”
With the weakening of Hamas in Gaza, the crushing defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, there is palpable fear among Iran’s fundamentalist rulers of similar fates. As the Hunger Games show, totalitarian regimes are fragile and vulnerable to revolutions and overthrow. Like President Snow of the Hunger Games, Ayatollah Khamenei is aware of this. There are moves and countermoves between the tyrant and the people. To inflict fear and induce delusions of hope are what tyrants do. To overcome fear and inspire hope of freedom are what opposition leaders do to galvanize the subjugated people and convince them to rise up.
The wild cards of history are those individuals and accidents that inspire hopes that could not be contained or controlled by tyrants. That is what keeps Ayatollah Khamenei up at night. We do not know whether Ayatollah Khamenei has watched the Hunger Games. What we do know is that it is an inspiring movie for the Iranians who hope for freedom.
