Grief is not only a personal experience of loss, but also a social and political phenomenon that is closely linked to power structures, storytelling, and collective memory. In societies under the rule of authoritarian governments, mass deaths – particularly those caused by structural incapacity, widespread censorship, or management crises – take on a special political dimension. In this situation, the government’s response to grief is often based on controlling and managing information crises, rather than showing empathy or taking responsibility. Mourning in this space is not only seen as a human emotion, but also as a strategic tool to ensure the continuation of the existing order; it must either take shape within official and guided frameworks, or be suppressed as a security threat.

Recent tragedies, including the explosion in the port of Rajai in Farvardin 1404 and the incident of the coal mine explosion in Tabas in Shahrivar 1403, provide an opportunity for reflection on the relationship between mourning and politics. The main question of this writing is how mourning can be interpreted as a form of political action in such circumstances? And in this regard, how do the ruling powers, by controlling the bodies of the dead, eliminating absent narratives, and managing suspended memories, try to contain the energy of mourning? This writing, using theoretical approaches in the field of mourning studies, will attempt to show how mourning can act as a platform for resistance, representation, and reclaiming collective agency. Here, mourning is not just an emotional response to loss, but also acts as a space for symbolic resistance and reclaiming power against repressive mechanisms that seek to deny and suppress mourning.

Who deserves to mourn?

In the tradition of psychoanalysis, especially in the thought of Sigmund Freud, mourning is not just an emotional reaction to the death of an individual, but a complex response to loss – both tangible and abstract. In “Mourning and Melancholia,” Freud emphasizes that this reaction can be a response to the loss of a country, freedom, or an ideal. From this perspective, mourning is not just a tragic experience, but a dense field of emotional, social, and institutional reactions. Freud’s distinction between mourning and melancholia – the latter being “endless mourning” – alludes to the impossibility of forgetting and resistance to the end of loss; something that can be seen as a basis for expanding the analysis of political mourning.

In continuation of this logic, mourning rituals, especially funeral ceremonies, act as scenes for the representation of belonging and identity politics. What we mourn is simultaneously an individual and social action that redefines the boundaries of belonging: who is deserving of mourning? Who is allowed to mourn? And who should be excluded from this space? As Anthony Appiah points out, identity politics is always caught in the distinction between the “inside” and the “outside”. Mourning, within this framework, is also one of the mechanisms for either solidifying or challenging the subject’s position in the social-political order.

In order, mourning rituals should not be understood solely as emotional-religious events, but rather they should be considered as scenes in which individual and collective identities are reconstructed. Death, in this sense, is a moment in which the social identity of the deceased is solidified; through the body of the deceased, living narratives about who they were, what they belonged to, and who is allowed to mourn for them, are reproduced. Mourning ceremonies, by designating specific audiences, implicitly create emotional and identity-based orders.

Within the framework of Judith Butler’s theory, mourning becomes a resistant and disruptive power. According to her, mourning can become a scene for the emergence of losses that were previously unable to be expressed; losses that can challenge and redefine the dominant order of mourning. Established norms in society determine who is worthy of mourning and who is not. Although this writing is not seeking to trace the roots of these norms, it is important to see how these norms dictate who should mourn and who should not.

In many cases, the spread of norms is accompanied by the production of stereotypes that label certain bodies as “abnormal” or “undesirable”. This labeling leads to the mourning and holding of ceremonies for these bodies being seen as undesirable and even shameful. As a result, a strong boundary is formed between “us” and “others” that extends even into death. This distinction gives rise to a group of “worthless mourners” who not only do not have the permission to hold mourning rituals, but their suffering and grief is also ignored and they are buried in silence, shame, or disgrace.

Butler sees this inability to mourn as an opportunity for resistance. In his view, mourning ceremonies can become scenes for expressing anger against oppressive forces. When mourning is performed for those who are not deemed worthy of grief by the ruling order, new conditions are created for defining mourning. In this situation, funeral ceremonies become “abnormalities within the usual order” and mourners take on a different role. They transform the bodies that were previously deemed worthless into symbols of honor, identity, and resistance. Therefore, mourning becomes a disruptive action that challenges norms by reclaiming forbidden losses.

Necropolitics and giving order to mourning.

“Organizing death and, as a result, mourning, is one of the fundamental mechanisms of power in modern and postcolonial states. While Foucault emphasized the management of life, health, and fertility in his analysis of biopolitics, Achille Mbembe, in his theory of necropolitics, shows that states not only organize life, but also death: who should die, how they should die, and whether their death is worthy of mourning and remembrance. In this apparatus of power, death is not a natural end, but becomes a form of political technology: a technology of elimination, denial, terrorization, and the establishment of authority.”

In the oppressive regimes, there are bodies that are not officially recognized in death, let alone in mourning. Mourning for these bodies – the “unmournable” bodies – is suspended, because remembering their death is also a reminder of injustice, structural violence, and delegitimization of power. In such a structure, the state not only produces death, but also tries to control, conceal, or distort the signs of death. Nameless graves, abducted bodies, prohibition of mourning ceremonies, and detention of grieving families are examples of this necropolitical order in which death is only tolerable if it serves to solidify the official discourse.

But what reveals this order more than anything else is resistance against it: resistance through mourning, through insistence on remembrance, through tears that become public, and coffins that are carried on the shoulders of the crowd, even if only for brief moments. In moments of mourning, the dead body becomes a political body; because it is no longer just a subject of loss, but a subject of protest. This is what the government fears: a death that becomes a cry, not a death that is buried in silence.

Here, death, as the babble says, exits the realm of mere biology and enters the realm of political struggle. This struggle is a battle over the value of bodies: which bodies have the “value of life” and which bodies, even in death, are not worthy of “mourning”? The necropolitical order solidifies this valuation, but political actors, grieving families, and angry communities challenge this order through public mourning. Where mothers stand in the field and speak with the image of their slain children, mourning is no longer a private matter; it becomes a scene of collective judgment.

In this situation, the government is faced with two possibilities: either it must suppress mourning, or it must absorb and make it harmless. Absorbing mourning means officially recognizing it, making it harmless, and reducing it to ineffective rituals. But as long as mourning remains a vessel of suppressed anger, a wounded body, and a censored voice, resistance remains; a resistance that takes shape in the heart of loss and not just in death, but in a life that is deprived and martyred.

Necropolitics, ultimately, is a project to erase memories. But mourning, as a collective action, can preserve memory. If power forces bodies to erase history, mourners with their tears and cries can rewrite it. Not from a position of victory, but from the heart of loss. This rewriting may be a different form of politics: a politics that cries out for life from the heart of death.

Grief is a collective action and a resilient memory.

In situations where organized violence takes away not only the bodies of protesters, but also deprives the survivors of their right to mourn, grief becomes not just a personal matter, but transforms into a collective and resistant action that manifests itself in the cracks of symbolic power. In such contexts, mourning is no longer a sign of accepting loss, but a way to reclaim history, memory, and identity; an act that belongs not to the past, but to the future.

Collective mourning in oppressive areas is a form of political creativity. Unofficial ceremonies to commemorate the deceased, writing names on walls, sharing their images on social media, creating and reposting videos, reminiscing about memories, and even naming children after those who have been lost, are all examples of reviving memories that the government is trying to erase. These forms of mourning not only do not replace official mourning, but they also conflict with it; mourning without peace, without closure, mourning that constantly opens the border between life and death, between the past and the present.

This type of mourning has a different timing. Unlike the psychoanalytic mourning that leads towards closure, reconciliation, and return to life, resistant mourning suspends time. Death does not turn into a closed event, but remains like an open wound that needs to be seen, touched, and spoken about. Here, mourning is a form of “memory-making for the future”; meaning the reflection of hope for a world in which justice, if not for the dead, at least for the living, is achieved. The concept of “resistant memory” is exactly meaningful here: preserving the names and memories of the slain, not out of nostalgia, but to create another possibility of life. Every remembrance is a form of martyrdom. Every time a name is mentioned that tries to erase from the collective memory, it is an act against erasure. These remembrances are pushed out of official media, but they return on social networks, city walls, and the bodies of the memorizers.

Mourning bodies on the streets, in cemeteries, in the solitude of homes, or on virtual platforms, carry a different kind of politics; a politics that is not about seeking power, but about insisting on the absence. Here, resistance is not through organization or party structures, but through memory, love, and possible suffering. Ultimately, mourning becomes a collective action, creating a different language for communication with the dead, and providing the possibility of living in another world. A world where bodies that have been violently removed return in different forms: in narratives, in rituals, in memories that are not only faithful to the past, but also to the future.

Buttocks.

In this text, mourning is not just a psychological state, but a political action and memory-oriented; a form of resistance against forgetting and erasure. Bodies that have been suppressed and killed are pushed out of the public sphere through the prohibition of mourning or the humiliation of survivors. But this very absence creates a gap from which resistance emerges. Mourning is the language of silence and tears, but in this very silence, it becomes a historical cry. In this narrative, mourning is not the end of grief, but the beginning of memory. Memories that bring death out of silence through repetition of names, images, and rituals. Unlike individualized mourning, collective mourning is historical and political; living memories that are in conflict with official power. Media, images, and mourning bodies are carriers of this resistance of memories. However, mourning is also unequal; not all bodies mourn in the same way, not all survivors have the opportunity to mourn. Mourning becomes a complex political issue in relation to gender, class

Notes:

1. Anstett, E., Duterme, C., & Robin Azevedo, V. (2023). Transforming funeral practices: Rituality and necropower in mass death situations.

   This text discusses the transformation of funeral practices in the face of mass death situations, exploring the role of ritual and necropower in these circumstances.

   مطالعات مرگ، ۴۷

   Six hundred forty-one to six hundred forty-three.

2. Duterme, C. (2020). A political dimension of grief: Individual and social healing after conflict.

   مطالعات مرگ، ۴۵

   (1), 71-81.

3. Mitima-Verloop, H. B., Mooren, T. T. M., & Boelen, P. A. (2019). Facilitating grief: An exploration of the function of funerals and rituals in relation to grief reactions.

   مطالعات مرگ، ۴۵

   (9), 735-745.

4. Silverman, G. S., Baroiller, A., & Hemer, S. R. (2020). Culture and grief: Ethnographic perspectives on ritual, relationships and remembering.

   مطالعات مرگ، ۴۵

   (1), 1-8.