At the FIFA World Cup, Memorable Drama, and Quiet Messages

 Soccer is referred to as a "beautiful game," and the World Cup, its premier competition, leaves unforgettable memories in the mind's eye.

Consider Geoff Hurst's roof-busting goal at Wembley in 1966 to seal England's lone victory or Diego Maradona's 1986 dance with England's defenders before scoring the best goal in competition history.

Baseball and cricket are two sports whose statistics can be imagined. However, football, or soccer as it is more often known, comes to life at dramatic moments that catch the audience's attention.

Although perhaps not in the way the analysts had anticipated, this has been true of the early rounds of the Qatar tournament. Millions of people around the world have watched remarkable political gestures so far and noted the ones that ultimately failed. It has been a theatre of symbols. The competition has served as a stark reminder that the voiceless frequently use astonishingly effective silent messages as their only form of communication.

In a brave display of disobedience aimed for the theocracy in Tehran and the squad's struggling home fans, the Iranian team refused to perform their national anthem before their opening match against England. It came after months of protest stemming from the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian lady who was detained by the nation's "morality police" for allegedly breaking strict dress restrictions. Although the Iranian government claims she had a heart attack, many people think she was killed and brutally beaten to death while in police custody.

When England players scored goals, Omid Djalili, an Anglo-Iranian comedian and actor, urged them to imitate chopping their hair. Iranian women who have cut their hair and burned their hijabs have made the "hair snip" a symbol of rebellion.

The gesture is not used by the team. But before the game against Iran began, the players knelt. Although it has its detractors in the UK and the US, where it began, this silent act of protest has become a staple of Premier League games in England.

Harry Kane, the captain of England, and Gareth Bale, the captain of Wales, both said they intended to wear a "One Love" armband during games. Many hoped that this would be seen as a show of support for those in Qatar (and worldwide) who are subject to harsh punishments for coming out in public. FIFA, the organisation that oversees football across the world, cautioned that a player who displayed such a symbol might face a punishment in the form of a booking. Instead, "No discrimination" armbands are permitted by FIFA.

Before the game between England and Iran even started, there was a flurry of powerful visuals in the mix.

The quiet protest serves as a potent show of disapproval for people without a voice. It exudes an intense implacability. After putting up pictures of their missing children and remaining speechless in Chile in the 1970s, moms of the missing attracted attention from all over the world. President Mubarak was overthrown in 2011 as a result of nonviolent demonstrations in Egypt's Tahrir Square. He was the first Arab leader to be tried in a civil court alongside regular citizens.

The unspoken rebuke has also crept into communities where criticism cannot be expressed clearly through art. The Beijing government approved the Chinese artist and humanitarian Ai Weiwei, who now resides in Portugal, in 2008 so that he could work on the Olympic Bird's Nest Stadium, the sole competition for the World Cup as the world's top sporting event.

However, Ai also started a series of pots with a subtly satirical message while he lived and worked in China. His Coca-Cola Vases mix the iconic soda's branding with ceramics made in the manner of Ai's own country. The artist was criticising a Chinese leadership that was caught between the demands of global capitalism and the great history of the nation without ever making his point openly. Ai was expressing himself in a way that he can only do now that he is an expat.

In all of art history, it has been tricky to find common ground with a governing class that is sensitive to any slight, real or perceived. The Spanish master Goya is frequently referred to as a court artist, as though the Madrid monarchy had treated him like a lapdog. But many detractors claim that "Charles V of Spain and his Family" (1800–1901), a group portrait of a dyspeptic–looking royal dynasty, is an outrageous critique of a feeble and cuckolded monarch and his family.

The image pays homage to Velazquez's "Las Meninas," the supreme work of Spanish court painting (1656). If Goya's gift isn't exactly in the same category, then he didn't have access to the same selection of royals, the artist seems to be arguing.

Dmitri Shostakovich, a Russian composer, was one of the bravest people to ever live. Shostakovich smuggled satirical themes into his music despite a constant fear of dying or being transported to the gulag, which was the fate of so many artists during Stalin's "Great Terror": The composer's wager was that the rude and brutal tyrant wouldn't have ears to hear his protestations, despite the fact that they were audible.

Shostakovich, a gentile, included Jewish musical influences into his compositions despite the fact that Jews were a special target for annihilation. One example is the klezmer-like music in the conclusion of his "Piano Trio No. 2" for piano, violin, and cello. When Stalin's henchmen began collecting up Jewish actors, writers, and poets in Russia in 1948, Shostakovich wrote the song cycle "From Jewish Folk Poetry." It contained works that a Jewish audience would have recognised as a reaction to the difficulties they faced in practising their religion in the Soviet Union.

Such music was confrontational and a scathing indictment of Stalin. In order to prevent disturbing his family when he was taken by the KGB, Shostakovich kept a suitcase packed and slept in the staircase of his apartment building while he was expecting to be arrested. He did, however, live longer than the dictator did, passing away in Moscow in 1975 from natural causes.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose name you may not expect to be evoking on the weekend, offers a postscript on stillness. The best-known quote from the Austrian-British philosopher seems to apply to both the actions of Iranian football players and dissident artists. Where one cannot talk, one must remain silent, he remarked.

This gnomic proclamation has been the subject of decades of academic study. Was Wittgenstein urging us to keep quiet about abstract concepts that defy human understanding? Whatever his intentions, it might act as a motto for non-verbal protests and as the final word on silent protests.