“We women will overthrow the ayatollahs”

No, at least not with this sharpness. They have lived in Spain for years – some since the Islamists established their theocratic regime in 1979– and they have a hunch that on this occasion, unlike other mobilizations that took place in the past, which resulted in the frustration of the population and a increased police repressionthere are circumstances that encourage them to think of a historic change in their country.

This time the rebellion has a symbol they didn’t have before –Masha Amini and her veil thrown in the windwhich has become an icon of the revolt-, multiple sectors of Iranian society have been involved in it and the leading role is being monopolized by two groups –women and youth– who have risen up with an anger and determination never seen before.

Refugees

In Spain there are registered 7,081 Iraniansof which 3,340 are women. Fariba Ehsan has been one of them for 28 years – “I am not an emigrant, I am a refugee. When my daughter was born, I refused to raise her in a place as misogynistic as Iran,” she clarifies- and these days hold your breath before the images and news that arrive from his country because in them he finds signs that he had not detected on other occasions. “I see people going out into the street with some desire for change and a belief in achieving it that they had not shown in the past. From a distance, and from what the people there with whom I speak tell me, the feeling is that we are facing a volcano that had been containing itself for many years and has finally erupted », he says.

Ehsan is in the Persian carpet business and chairs the Association for Human Rights in Iran. These days it multiplies to go to the concentrations that are being convened in many Spanish cities in support of the riots that take place in their country, in which banners with the drawing of Amini stripped of hijaba gesture that thousands of young Iranians have replicated in countless videos circulating on the networks tagged with the hashtag #MashaAmini.

📣 “You can kill me as soon as you want, but you will not be able to stop the emancipation of women” said the Babi poetess in 1852 #Táhirih before being executed in Tehran for removing her veil in public. 170 years of silenced crimes! ENOUGH NOW! 🙏💜🙏#مهسا_امینی#MashaAmini pic.twitter.com/EcrIx1kgZW

— Jordi Hamadi (@JordiHamadi) September 24, 2022

courage and bravery

“That image is revolutionary,” he acknowledges. Sahim Hosseinikhah43-year-old Iranian with nine years of residence in Spain, who confesses “moved” in view of “courage and bravery” that their younger countrywomen are demonstrating. “Not long ago it would have been unthinkable for a girl to dare to take off her headscarf in front of the police or to record herself cutting his hair in protest, But this generation is different. They inform themselves through social networks, they know what is happening outside of Iran and they are not willing to continue being subjected to laws they consider unjust», explains this marketing professional who has not yet forgotten the reaction she had the day she set foot in a Spanish airport for the first time and an agent asked her for her passport. «I started to tremble because in my country a call from the police is synonymous with problems. It took me time to internalize that I shouldn’t be afraid of those gentlemen I saw on the street in uniform”, he recalls.

Sahim’s photo—————

Every revolution worth its salt must have a symbol that galvanizes her. The one that is taking place these days in Iran seems to pivot on a piece of cloth that has many more implications than being a simple garment. “It is no coincidence that this has started with the hijab. The headscarf symbolizes the subjugation that women in my country suffer and is the hallmark of the Islamic republic. That is why they fear that we will take it off. They know that if the veil falls, the regime will fall“, analyzes Nilufar Saberi.

Nely -as she likes to be called- keeps clear in her memory the day her family fled their country and took refuge in Spain when she was 14 years old, shortly after the outbreak of the revolution -another revolution- that led to Khomeini to power. Of firm progressive ideas and brave speech, at 56 years old he has not forgotten the disappointment that his countrymen supposed to go from the corrupt monarchy of the Shah to the theocracy of the Shiite clerics.

“They came promising justice and freedom and the first thing they did was lock us up at home and tell us: or veil, or stick. Women have a lot of power because we transmit life and values. That’s why they repress us. we are who we can topple the ayatollahs”warns this administrative and human rights activist.

Tears for Iran

the psychologist Mediss Tavakkoli she cannot help crying when she talks about the situation of women in her country. “We are the property of men. We cannot take a step without the permission of our fathers or husbands, but they can beat us, rape us and kill us without anything happening. What has happened to Masha Amini can happen to any of us,” he says between sobs.

In spring, Mediss will read the doctoral thesis in clinical psychology who is studying at a university in Madrid –the third that he adds to his curriculum-, but he shudders when talking about a personal future that, inevitably, he sees linked to the one that his countrywomen are playing these days in the streets. “I want to be a university professor in my country, but I refuse to live hidden under a scarf and subject to the command of men. If Iran does not change, I will become one more refugee, as there are so many other writers, academics and scientists who are refugees around the world,” she predicts.

In the voices and gazes of the Iranian women who live in Spain these days there is a mixture of hope for the promise of freedom that the riots have aroused and the suspicion that the change will not be as quick and painless as they would like. At rallies and public statements they often repeat the word victory, but they know that totalitarian regimes do not usually give up power easily, and the Iranian he is not known for being soft-handedprecisely.

“Dictatorships usually last four decades. Ours has been 43 yearsis already touching his downfall, but it worries me to think of those who will have to give their lives to achieve it”, he sighs i will know. “Maybe it won’t happen tomorrow, or the day after, but for two weeks something is broken in iran. Society has woken up, and that hadn’t happened before,” he analyzes Tavakkoli.

dreams of democracy

Between dreams of democracy and nightmares of repression, they are all aware that the rebellion that is stirring Iran lacks political leadership that gives face and discourse to the process of change. “Yesterday someone asked on Instagram: and after the ayatollahs, who is coming? Nobody knew what to answer,” he warns. Sahim Hosseinikhah.

In the opinion of Ryma Sheermohammadi, an Iranian interpreter and translator who has lived in Barcelona for 30 years, the lack of a figure who can be glimpsed as an alternative to the power of Khamenei and his clerics It may be more of an advantage than a drawback. “After so many years of absolute leadership, Iran does not need another savior. It is better for popular movements to go from the bottom up than the other way around”, she analyzes.

The last book that Ryma has translated from Persian has been ‘Caged Poems’work of mahwash sabet, Iranian poet from the Bahai minority who spent ten years imprisoned by the Tehran regime. According to Sheermohammadi, her story sums up the tragedy that haunts his country. “There are those who think that Iran is a monolithic country given over to religious fervor. In reality it is very plural and fundamentalism is only practiced by those who hold power. Iranian society is very secular and four decades of dictatorship have not made him renounce his aspirations for democracy, just as Sabet did not renounce his beliefs in prison. Iran is a caged country that dreams of freedom,” he says.

May that aspiration come true soon or have to keep waiting the dream of the righteous It will depend, to a large extent, on how the international community reacts to the repression that the government of ebrahim raisiof the party Society of the Fighting Clergy, is exerting on the protesters. In two weeks of protests, the dead are counted by dozens and the reprisals by hundreds. “That is why it is so important that democratic countries react and do not allow the Islamist regime to continue massacring our people,” he pleads. Aira.

Related news

By age and political vocation, today could be one of the girls who appear in the videos confronting the police, but as fate would have it, her parents met in Norway, the country where they took refuge fleeing from the ayatollahs and where she and her brother were born and grew up, but in permanent contact with Iranian culture.

Now he is 23 years old and has been studying for four Law and International Relations at a university in Madrid. When she finishes, she would like to live in her country, but before she does, the conditions that she promised herself the last time she visited must be fulfilled. “I was 16 years old, I was sightseeing with my family in Isfahan and I was wearing a robe that covered my whole body, but suddenly a police officer approached me to ask me loudly if I didn’t give a damn. shame to go provoking men. I told myself that I would not return to Iran until it was a free country », she recalls.