I was hesitating whether I should use “Iran revolution” in the title of this post, but I guess it is too early to tell. I do very much hope for the incredibly courageous people of Iran, that their protests will lead to a revolution which will bring basic freedoms and a respect of their basic human rights.
I have no expertise on Iran, so will not write a post with anything substative, but wanted to open up a space for those of you who do, or for those of you who have come across interesting pieces on the web, to share them.
The heroic women of Iran have asked us, those who live in societies where access to internet is guaranteed and who can express our thoughts freely without having to fear for anything significant, to amplify their voices. My simple strategy to do this has been to try to seek out and follow on Twitter Iranian refugees abroad and journalists who report on Iran, and retweet their reportings and the videos that they share of the women and men who are on the streets, risking their lives, while demanding a regime change.
Also – if I may allow myself a small digression – on moments such as this one, I cannot express how grateful I am to be able to write on a public platform (this blog) where we can have a discussion among people from all continents and all persuasions, and no-one is telling us what to publish and what not. Let’s remember the Lessons from Timothy Snyder, and never take the importance of that freedom for granted.
{ 15 comments }
GiT 10.09.22 at 6:11 pm
I have a couple acquaintances who do work on Iran and they both highly recommended this piece: https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/44479/Figuring-a-Women%E2%80%99s-Revolution-Bodies-Interacting-with-their-Images
“This essay is an attempt to understand an intuition born of experiencing a gap: A gap between viewing photos and videos of protests online, and presence in the street. It’s an effort to explicate the short-circuit that courses in the opening between these two domains—virtual space and the reality of the street—in this historic moment.”
KT2 10.09.22 at 11:15 pm
(Feel free to moderate Ingrid. Tricky subject. If it were me, I’d be checking!)
I too “cannot express how grateful I am to be able to write on a public platform (this blog)”.
And me too – “I have no expertise on Iran”, nor Islamic / Hebrew / Roman (see below) law.
That said, my understanding of the concept of “Haram” applies to both men and women, yet the crackdown on women only seems to me controlling for power, paternaliatic, blantant chauvinism + biased sect based interpretations.
From Wikipedia > Haram > Clothing and adornment > Forbidden categories of actions:
” It is considered haram for both men and women to wear clothing that fails to cover the body properly (which stated in clothing guidance, the term “aurat/awrah”) and clothes that are transparent. …[30]”
[30] Al-Qardawi, Yusuf (1999). The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam. American Trust Publications. p. 85.
*
And in this vein, I “have come across interesting pieces on the web, to share them”
… Marg Simpson cutting her hair meme by this (very) brave artist:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CjU9B2xMktN/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY%3D
https://twitter.com/PalomboArtist
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And a shout out for
‘there but for the grace of secular constitutions go I’ supporting this blog in the “free” world – “The term [Haram] also denotes something “set aside”, thus being the Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew concept ????, ??rem and the concept of sacer (cf. sacred) in Roman law and religion.” (Wikipedia > Haram)
Which leads us to Vigilance and a warning for all of us, particularly for those in the good ol USA:
“Christian nationalism
“And how to make a difference in some tight midterm races”
By Steve Schmidt Oct 7 2022
“Christian nationalism is evil and dangerous. It is antithetical to Christianity. It is profoundly dangerous. It is on the ballot all across America.
“Christian nationalism is incompatible with American democracy and pluralism. When political extremists take power in the name of God there is always death.
“I was pleased to participate in “American Theocracy: The Rise of Christian Nationalism,” a documentary set to be released in January. I am delighted to preview this trailer to The Warning community. I would encourage you to share it within your own networks as a public service announcement to “get out the vote” on November 8th.”
https://steveschmidt.substack.com/p/christian-nationalism
“The most terrifying case of all is about to be heard by the US supreme court”
By Steven Donziger
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/06/the-most-terrifying-case-of-all-is-about-to-be-heard-by-the-us-supreme-court
*
One centrury forward, five centuries back.
Stay Vigilant.
And vote. Please.
William Berry 10.10.22 at 3:46 am
What’s happening in Iran right now is scary and potentially earth-shaking. Failure of the movement would be heartbreaking and catastrophic. But success (for certain values of success) would be a world-historical event.
I am so hopeful that this will lead to a radical reshaping of Iranian society and politics. That could, in its turn, be a springboard for a worldwide revolution in women’s rights that could give us a chance at a livable future.
Brett 10.10.22 at 4:23 am
I hope the best for them, since they’re incredibly brave.
But I’m not optimistic. A key part of any revolution is when the security forces either refuse to put it down or simply get overwhelmed, and the one thing the regime has done well is keeping the key security forces and police aligned with them ideologically and politically.
Chetan Murthy 10.10.22 at 5:10 am
I watch what’s happening in Iran with awe and horror: awe because children are fighting this despotic and misogynist regime, and horror, for the same reason. I read that the average age of a detainee at these protests is 15. So …. half are younger. 13-year-old girls are being arrested and God-knows-what is being done to them. And yet they fight on.
I wish there were something we in the West could do to help them, but obviously the answer is that besides supportive noises, there isn’t much, b/c we’ve blotted our copybooks so badly with the Iranian people, over so many decades.
Ingrid Robeyns 10.10.22 at 1:44 pm
this might deserve a post of its own, but in case you haven’t seen it yet, here is a link to a recording of the song “bar?ye” (“for”) by Shervin Hajipour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPyHuCZzsVA
My colleague Asghar Seyed-Gohrab (professor of Persian Studies at Utrecht University) has written a post explaining the lyrics:
https://beyondsharia.nl/2022/10/10/for-women-life-freedom/
Fake Dave 10.11.22 at 3:36 am
The Islamic Republic could only be the calm eye of the storm for so long. With a collapsed “caliphate” on one border, an “Islamic emirate” clamping down on another, and constant setbacks and brutal reprisals for women’s rights in the broader region, even very young Iranians have had a neighbor’s perspective of people very much like themselves becoming the innocent victims of vicious theocratic regimes very much like their own. I’m sure most of these women and girls have more direct experience with male chauvinism and impunity, but the scale of the gendered violence against their cousins in the Kurdish/Yezidi and Hasara communities in particular (and their government’s inaction) must be fueling the sense that women simply aren’t safe under this kind of regime and thus have nothing to lose.
Peter T 10.11.22 at 9:21 am
Having, long ago, witnessed the revolution that overthrew the shah, living in Tehran at the time and having Iranian friends, I have more time than many for the Islamic Republic. It clearly met most Iranian desires at the time, and has been sorely put upon for most of its existence. But its time has clearly passed. Can it adapt? I don’t know. For every urban young woman it oppresses, there is another rural, devout Shi’a person it feels right to – the masses (women included) from south Tehran and Mashhad and Tabriz who defied the police and the soldiers in 1978. Iran has changed a lot – a good deal of it for the better, I think.
Macchiavelli observed that the most dangerous time was one of transition, when an autocratic regime must yield to popular demand. Even if one discounts much of the reporting, the demand seems to be growing.
Seekonk 10.11.22 at 1:59 pm
It’s difficult to tackle misogyny without addressing organized religion. Countless billions of people are indoctrinated from childhood to believe that God wants patriarchy.
The main problem with religion is that it’s irrational. Once we’ve opened the door to irrationality, it’s hard to complain about who walks through, and we’ve surrendered crucial tools – facts and logic – for challenging their behavior. Not to mention that organized religion is almost always obscurantist, undemocratic, homophobic, and divisive.
The fight against theocracy begins at home. We don’t want thought police, but we should insist that religion be practiced in private, not in public, and it should definitely be kept out of government.
Religion should be treated with tolerance, but not with respect. Like tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and fatty foods – religion should be permitted but not encouraged.
Alan White 10.12.22 at 3:06 am
“Religion should be treated with tolerance, but not with respect. Like tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and fatty foods – religion should be permitted but not encouraged.”
My quote of the day!
novakant 10.12.22 at 9:10 am
I’m vacillating between hopefulness and disillusionment – and sadness about the murder and abuse of the incredibly bright and daring young people, who will be the future of Iran.
I am also very worried about what happens should the regime fall or be seriously challenged – nobody wants another Libya or Syria. But I think there is really no way back this time. Here’s a list of what’s different this time:
https://iranwire.com/en/politics/108420-irans-2022-protests-15-key-differences-from-past-unrest/
N.b. the sometimes narrow Western focus on religion and the headscarf is not really helping.
David in Tokyo 10.14.22 at 5:33 am
Thanks to Peter T for saying, better than I possibly could have, what I wanted to say. Namely:
“It clearly met most Iranian desires at the time, and has been sorely put upon for most of its existence.”
It was a revolution against a CIA imposed dictatorship that overthrew a popular, democratically elected government. And the US then had the hutzpah to complain about the embassy being occupied. The stupidity of US Middle East policy is embarrassing beyond words.
And all this in the context of a nearly/arguably genocidal war against Shia Islam (by the Islamic terrorists the US hates the most).
Iran could/should be our closest ally in the Middle East. The insanity of US Middle East policy is beyond words.
Anyway, any criticism of the Iranian government needs to be made with full awareness of the context in which that government exists.
Ingrid Robeyns 10.14.22 at 7:39 am
David @12 – just as any criticism of the current Iranian regime needs to be made with full awareness of the immense suffering of Iranian people and refugees/disapora. It is perfectly possible to strongly criticise the US Middle East politics and at the same time strongly criticise the current regime in Iran.
Ingrid Robeyns 10.14.22 at 10:54 am
Thanks to PM Lawrence heads-up, I noted that some of the posts on this thread have automatically been diverted to spam (I do not normally look in the spam folder, since it’s full with genuine crap). I’ll restore this manually, this might take some time and also change the numbering of the posts.
Also: I’ll read the pieces first, especially if they come from websites that have published biased stuff in the past. Also, no posts with links to websites that have a track-record of defending dictators, authoritarian regimes, deny genocides, etc.
Ingrid Robeyns 10.14.22 at 12:16 pm
After thinking about this for more than an hour, I’ve decided to not rescue the two comments from the spam folder, because of their links to websites that spread information/theories that I do not want to help spreading. Since I have some work that needs to get finished, I’m also going to close the three threads I still have open on CT right now.
It’s fine for websites that want to “fight empire” to raise the question whether the CIA has a hand in what is happening, and I do not doubt that the CIA/Washington and other global powers will try to profit from the situation. But to suggest that all of these protestors are [unknowingly?] behaving like puppets of the CIA (as some of these websites do), is a major insult to the people of Iran (either or the many refugees and children of refugees abroad), who are thereby denied of their own agency. Also, websites who try to defend the regime by pointing out that the majority of Iranians are behind the compulsoray hijab, should read this piece by my colleague Pooyan Tamimi Arab and his co-author: https://theconversation.com/iran-protests-majority-of-people-reject-compulsory-hijab-and-an-islamic-regime-surveys-find-191448. Or read up what Amnesty International has to say about how friendly the Iranian regime is to its own people.
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