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Iranian women fleeing the police (September 19 in Tehran)
Photo: AP
As a tool for public idealization and beautification of one's own existence, Instagram is not a source of goodness and relevance.
The popular social media service shows how German spoken word artists kill their time in Dubai, how nicely the scallops were prepared in this Breton restaurant, or in front of which Southeast Asian coastal scenery Silke from the administration practiced her "sun salutation" on vacation.
In Iran, access to Instagram, among other things, has recently been restricted.
Because idealization and prettification suddenly took on a political meaning there.
For days, women have been demonstrating in Iran - not only, but above all - against oppression by Islamism, which - not only, but also - imposes on them the veiling of certain female characteristics.
After a young woman dies in the custody of the morale guards, people express their solidarity with the liberal cause.
With sometimes serious consequences.
The regime has means of sanctions at its disposal, the use of which has rendered it effective and cruel services in the past.
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The rebellion against state coercion has found its symbol in the hijab.
While the first Western observers already accept the obligation to cover up as a local custom and castigate any criticism of it as postcolonial abuse, many Iranian women are now revealing themselves in protest.
The cloth itself is not their problem.
But the obligation to wear it.
You can see demonstrations in which the hijab is waved like the flag of a resistance movement.
You can see scenes in which the cloth is demonstratively burned.
On social networks, women filmed themselves cutting off their hair to be covered.
These are powerful images.
But the Revolutionary Guards seem to fear nothing more than beauty.
And this is where Instagram comes in.
Before the service was blocked, countless Iranian women tried to idealize and beautify their everyday life under the regime.
They photographed or filmed how they moved in public without the cloth.
Sometimes on a boulevard in Tehran, sometimes with a view of the Caspian Sea, sometimes in a park in Isfahan.
According to the laws in force in Iran, this is a criminal offence, but according to the universal laws of aesthetics it is also a confession: the women stroll, take up space, are simply there.
And it is not the burning or trampled cloth that seems particularly provocative here - but his playful handling of it.
It's not just the wind blowing through freed hair, in many of the contributions fabrics made of silk, cotton, viscose or chiffon are also blowing.
Not only is liberation celebrated here – the symbol of oppression is reinterpreted as a toy of freedom.
As if they were waving textiles from a Kate Bush video or details from a baroque painting.
These private stagings speak of a lack of aggression that is as touching as it is provocative, which obviously affects the regime more sensitively than the organized throwing of bricks or Molotov cocktails.
What should remain hidden is revealed.
And exactly that elegance and individuality comes to light, the sight of which should actually be banned from public space.
The symbol turns into its opposite.
The fluttering cloth changes sides and appears as an accomplice to the change.
In philosophy, the beautiful is on an equal footing with the true and the good.
Whoever wants to be true and good cannot possibly reject the beautiful.
It is to be wished that one day it will also return to its original place in Iran.