Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran: 'Women in Iran have discovered their power and deci
Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran: ‘Women in Iran have discovered their power and decided to use it’
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A protester in Tehran sets her veil on fire in clashes with police. Photograph: Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
The demonstrations across Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini, arrested for failing to wear her hijab correctly, are a turning point, no matter the outcome
Claire Armitstead
As told to Claire Armitstead
@carmitstead
Thu 27 Oct 2022 05.00 EDT
Last modified on Thu 27 Oct 2022 05.19 EDT
I first became aware that something big was happening from my husband, who is an avid reader and follows all the news from Iran. We had returned from one of the first US demonstrations after the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, after being arrested for failing to wear her hijab correctly, and he directed my attention to the main slogan of the protesters: Woman, Life, Freedom. I couldn’t get it out of my mind, and kept walking in circles around the living room of our home in Washington DC, repeating it to myself. From then on, it became part of my life: I wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night with this mixture of anxiety and elation.
I know there have been many false dawns, not least the Arab spring a decade ago, but two things have happened in Iran that made us realise this was a turning point, no matter what the outcome. One is the fact that the Iranian people in general, but women and young people especially, have discovered their power, and decided to use it. That means something fundamental has changed. They know that they can walk down the streets of Tehran, not obeying the law, so that their bodies, the way they appear in public, become a sign of protest. It is telling the regime: “You don’t own me, you cannot impose your image upon my identity.”
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Azar Nafisi, writer of this piece and books including Reading Lolita in Tehran. Photograph: Andrew Francis Wallace/Toronto Star/Getty Images
The second thing is that the regime has discovered it has failed. The violence used by the Islamic Republic no longer comes from a position of strength. It comes from weakness. They are so afraid, and the only thing left to them is the gun. More than 222 people have been killed during the recent protests, including other young women such as Nika Shakarami and Sarina Esmailzadeh, both 16 years old. Of course, there is outrage at seeing these young people being so indiscriminately murdered, almost in front of our eyes, but there’s also a realisation that it is happening because the protesters are not going to give up and because there is no other alternative left for this regime.
I come from a political family, although my parents were both very bad politicians because they were so independent-minded. My father was mayor of Tehran at the time of the White Revolution in 1963, and was thrown into jail for four years on trumped-up charges before he was exonerated. My mother was one of the first six women to go into parliament after it became legal to do so that year. When I was a young academic, teaching at Tehran University, I, along with two of my colleagues, was expelled for refusing to wear the veil. I remember the chair of the English department asking me why I was resisting when tomorrow I would have to wear it in the local grocery store, but the university was not a grocery store. If I wore one, I would feel ashamed in front of my students, because what kind of a role model would I have been for them? One thing people don’t see about Iranian women is that their fight is, above all, about humiliation and dignity. It is easier to be physically flogged than to be insulted by being forced to wear the veil, or being subjected to a virginity test, as one of my students was.
For Iranian women, this movement is existential. It is saying: we can no longer tolerate this imposition upon who we are
. . . .
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A protester in New York holds up a picture of Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody for allegedly violating the country's hijab rules. Photograph: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
Azar Nafisi’s latest book is Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times (Dey Street Books)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/27/azar-nafisi-iran-women-protest-veil