Marcel Winatschek

The Happiness Problem

The video was nothing special—Iranian teenagers dancing to Pharrell’s Happy, moving around in daylight, completely ordinary, goofing off and smiling. They got arrested for it. By Wednesday they had their sentence: one suspended prison term, the rest getting six months suspended plus ninety-one lashes each. For a dance video.

An Iranian police officer quoted in the press said young people should avoid people like them, that authorities would identify troublemakers quickly. He sounded terrified—not of the kids themselves, but of what they represented. Just teenagers expressing joy without permission, without asking first. Apparently that’s threatening enough to warrant physical punishment.

In May, Hassan Rouhani tweeted that happiness is a human right, that you shouldn’t be punished for behavior driven by happiness. It was the right thing to say. It also changed absolutely nothing. The sentence was already final. The lashes would proceed.

You look at that video now and it’s hard to understand what about it warranted ninety-one lashes. Just teenagers dancing to a pop song, just happiness. In a reasonable world, nothing. But we don’t live in that world, and in this one, apparently that’s enough.