It’s just occurred to me that Iran is on fire with violent protests and most people don’t know why.
Let’s start with the basics: Some people don’t even know where Iran is and many others think Iran is Iraq. Here’s a very simple way to differentiate them.
Iran (Ee-run. Not eye-ran) and Iraq are two different places with different languages, cultures and religious practices.
Iranians are not Arabs, though we both enjoy a lot of the same offensive stereotypes and dinners that end in fights over who gets to pay the bill. So, yeah, I get your confusion.
But there’s a revolution happening in Iran right now against the Islamic regime and it’s both heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time.
What initiated the outrage was the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish girl named Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran’s “morality police” because she committed the heinous crime of wearing her hijab wrong. I don’t know what that means exactly, but she may have showed a strand of hair, putting all these chaste mullahs and police at risk with her flagrant sexuality. Hijabs are mandatory in Iran under Islamic law regardless of whether you’re Muslim or not.
Hijabs are mandatory in Iran under Islamic law regardless of whether you’re Muslim or not.
Amini was arrested on September 13 in Tehran while visiting family with her brother. She was then taken into custody and ended up in a coma, which — according to a witness — was the result of being severely beaten. She died on Friday, September 16, from what the police claim was “natural causes.” They obviously have a very loose definition of “natural causes” because there’s a photo of Amini, comatose on a hospital bed and extremely bruised.
Since then, violent protests have broken out all over Iran, spearheaded by extremely brave women parading around the streets with no hijab, some cutting their hair and some straight up setting their hijabs on fire. This is all happening so quickly that I can’t keep up with the tragic death tolls, not to mention the Iranian government’s crackdown on the Internet delaying news out of the area. There’s been support coming from all over, including France, Iraq, and Afghanistan, with America and Canada putting sanctions on Iran’s morality police.
This is a very complicated and ongoing situation and not the first time Iranians have hit the streets. But I’m not here to cover over 40 years of the regime’s oppression. There are plenty of knowledgeable journalists and activists who can do that.
I’m just here for one thing and it’s to finally put to rest the idea that the hijab is part of Iranian culture. That it’s a sacred symbol of femininity and female empowerment going back hundreds of years.
Never has been.
Never will be and hopefully you can stop with the “hijab is a very beautiful part of Iranian culture and should be respected” bullshit. Calling it “exotic” or sacred makes it so much harder for actual Muslim, Jewish, Christian, or B’hai women living in oppressive regimes to fight against everything the hijab stands for. I get where this polite gaslighting comes from, but it’s not Islamophobic to speak against compulsory dress codes.
There is so much to love about Iran that is part of our actual culture; our history, stories, art, architecture, cuisine, poetry. If it wasn’t for Rumi, who would Instagram influencers constantly misquote to their millions of followers to inspire them to try their juice cleanse?
If it wasn’t for Rumi, who would Instagram influencers constantly misquote to their millions of followers to inspire them to try their juice cleanse?
Iranian people – if I may say so myself – are naturally very loving, passionate, happy people who use any excuse to celebrate and build stately marble pillars and lion water fountains all over our homes, inside and outside.
It’s like someone not Christian coming to America and saying they really respect your culture of forcing women to carry and deliver their unwanted babies, or going to Gilead and telling the Handmaids they are very beautiful and exotic in their cultural white bonnets and thick red ponchos. (I’m deep into Atwood’s The Testament right now and cannot unsee the similarities between Gilead and Iran’s current regime).
If anyone chooses to cover their hair, wear a burka, or special underwear, then god bless. Do you. Anyone who chooses to peacefully practice their religion, whatever that may be (unless it’s Scientology) should be respected and protected. Freedom of choice is a legitimate request.
As a Jew, it’s been really hard for me to have an honest conversation about the hijab, but this is not a Muslim vs. Non-Muslim issue. It’s an extreme religious regime vs. its own people who are requesting very basic human rights issue. I’ve lived in Iran. I’ve worn it, though very briefly, as have all the women in my family. Some have even had their own encounters with the morality police. It’s never been about Islam and morality. It’s about the mullahs maintaining power and control, harassing women, arresting and killing innocent people all while their own kids and grandchildren live freely outside of Iran.
The hijab became law after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Its purpose was supposedly to symbolize–or put into practice–modesty in order to keep horny men at bay. (Because it’s on women to do that, apparently). Pushing a strict dress code on women and little girls is not a display of love and protection. It’s a power trip that goes far beyond what they’re wearing on their heads to controlling all other aspects of their lives, including education, career, personal relationships, and everyday life choices.
No amount of glossy Vogue covers with hijabi women can disguise the gruesome reality of compulsory hijab for women in Iran. Because what they’re not including in those magazine cover stories is the reality that women are severely punished for not wearing them.
This fight over women’s rights, or human rights, is nothing new in Iran.
There was Sahar Khodayari, who was arrested in 2019 for dressing up as a man to sneak into a soccer match which is forbidden for women to do in Iran. Can you imagine what might happen in a society where women can watch soccer matches live? It would be chaos. Unadulterated chaos. Some of them might actually feel empowered to cheer or smile and there’s no place in a functioning theocracy for that bullshit. Ultimately, for her egregious attempted transgression, Khodayari was threatened with six months jail time. She protested by setting herself on fire.
In 2009, Neda Agha-Soltan’s bloody, lifeless face led the Green Movement. She was a protesting philosophy student in Tehran whose senseless shooting at the hands of a Basij militiaman was captured on video by bystanders and shared worldwide on social media. Her death was so needless and cruel that it sparked protests from Australia to Scandinavia.
Back then, when we protested in Los Angeles, we really hoped we were making a difference. How likely was it that parading around Westwood in a bright green T- shirt bought last minute from Target would dismantle Iran’s toxic, misogynistic patriarchy once and for all and take us back to the glorious pre-revolution days our mothers keep going on about? Probably not very. But in our anger and frustration and helplessness it was a small thing we could do to at least feel some sense of solidarity in the face of barbaric oppression.
Today, I’m pushing 40. I’m wiser, more cynical, jaded, and more or less dead inside but I’m not pessimistic about what feels like a real revolution in Iran right now. I hope my mother is right, and this is signaling true change. I’m sad for the lives that have already been lost and those that are going to be lost but cautiously hopeful about what might be around the corner for my homeland if people are finally able to disempower the mullahs and bring some basic freedoms and long-absent common sense back to Iran.
I truly look forward to the day Iranians can go back to engaging in the only worthy battle of who gets to pay the dinner bill.
