No nation goes anywhere under the shadow of dictatorship. The Iranian morons, bigots guided by Ali Khamenei, swear on Koran and testify: “In Iran, freedom is near absolute.”
The protesters killed and shot at by the mercenaries of the Islamic Republic, those thrown into solitary and millions of Iranians, spied on and limited in their use of phone, mobile and Internet, be all that as it may, appreciate their near absolute freedom.
It needed four decades of maturation to teach the morons in power: Never tell a woman how to wear her hijab.
Today, the tagline of 1979 استقلال، آزادی، جمهوری اسلامی, Independence, Liberty, Islamic Republic, hangs at the end of the rope.
Our independence is subordination to totalitarian powers, China and Russia. Freedom is nix; people are slaves to the mullahs’ whims. Not least, the Islamic Republic is nothing else, but the simplest, grossest and ugliest of all forms of retrograde, incompetent and despotic theocratic government. It sustains economic mismanagement and gross unfairness towards all folks but their cronies.
However, if the Iranian theocracy made it into power with an overwhelming popular support in 1979, it will not leave the power without a fierce fight, leaving thousands in a blood bath.
After so many decades, how is it that today’s motto, “ زن، زندگی، آزادی – Woman, Life, Freedom” has breathed fresh air into the Iranian society? How did the climate of despair and helplessness, give way to hope and wrath?
Never Again Tell a Woman How to Wear Her Hijab
It is decades that despite all precautions, any citizen, female in particular, can expect to be manhandled on some lousy pretext at any time by the brainless agents of the Islamic regime. Mahsan Amini’s death, three days after her brutal arrest by the bastards of Gasht-e Ershad, was the last drop in women’s cup filled with wrath to the rim.
Mahsan Amini was a beautiful young lass with her life in front of her. The law enforcement agents of Islamic Moral, a bunch of fanatic lunatics, took her life from her; she was not wearing the hijab as the dirty and lustful old ayatollahs prescribe it for women.
Mahsan’s parents would have wanted her alive and happy. But, the brutes of the Islamic Republic stole her soul from them. In passing into a restful eternity, Mahsan carried with her the Iranian women’s fear. Her death awakened in the Iranian women the dormant desire of freedom from the yoke of Velayat-e Faqih’s enslavement. This, we hope, will be a drop of balm on her family’s wounds.
To visit or bewail thee, or if better,
Counsel or Consolation we may bring,
Salve to thy Sores, apt words have power to swage
The tumors of a troubl’d mind,
And are as Balm to fester’d wounds. ( J. Milton, 1671)
Day after day, year after year, we have heard the very same repressive stories about wearing hijab, singing, censorship, arbitrary arrests, flogging and executions.
Women have watched their lives wasted by difficulties in obtaining basic services, their children growing up with no hope for their future, husbands hanging around, in need of a job but unable or unwilling to lift a finger to help their wife in daily chores and miseries of living under phallocratic rules.
Women had resigned themselves to their fate but they were not to be overwhelmed. Their days have been and are long supervising the family: lifting up the spirits and socks of everyone, blowing kids’ noses, looking after elders, shopping, housekeeping, cooking for all, mending and repairing, finding time to stay stylish and welcoming guests often unexpected. They have taken up low paid jobs for 8-9 hours non-stop, travel time not included.
All this was, and still is today, to be done smiling, patiently and good-humouredly. Moreover, all is to be done under the unyielding vigilance of the Islamic Republic that criticises women’s clothing, restricts their fundamental liberties as humans, adds to their burden by considering them as citizens of lower caste, half-portions in social matters. Then when things go wrong, women are blamed for the failures of the men’s rule and mediocrity.
Let Mahsan’s Flame of Life Burn for Ever
Mahsan took away the women’s inhibitions. Never again tell a woman how to wear her hijab.
What was missing for decades was a little alchemy, the tiny flame that would transform women’s savoir-faire to a social project and a future for Iran. This will come: Woman giveth birth.
Mahsan was the flame of transformation. She gave the Iranian women the collective consciousness of a decisive ambition to succeed in changing society. Even if a personae conditioned by centuries of chauvinistic and phallocratic male domination in the name of Allah will not be defeated in a short time and without conflicting conscience for men.
Still fewer in numbers than women, but with a courage and fearlessness that youth commands, young men are joining the women in the protests. The Islamist ideology is nothing but a withered fig leaf.
In a dictatorship, the despot himself, Ali Khamenei, is none the worse for it; he is outshone by professional arse-lickers, laics more Muslim than Mohammad himself.
HARK! We Iranians have totally wasted our last revolution as we did with all we undertook in the 20th century. Today we must make a success of the Iranian womens’ uprising. In this, we need all the help from our men, be it father, husband or sons. They are our complement, our other half. It’s us that we break the bars of jails for our sisters and brothers.
Friend, do you hear the black flight of ravens over our lands?
Friend, do you hear the faint roar of the nation being enslaved?
Ahoy! partisans, workers and peasants! To arms!
Tonight the enemy will know the price of blood and tears.
Mount the mines, descent the hills, comrades!
Take out of straw: guns, grapeshot, grenades.
Ahoy! killers with bullet and blade! Kill swift!
Ahoy! saboteurs! Wary of your burden: dynamite …
It’s us that we break the bars of jails for our sisters and brothers.
Hatred on our tail and hunger pushes us, our misery.
There are countries where people dream, safe in their beds.
Here, as you see, we do march and we are killed and we’re slain.
Here, each woman knows what she wants, what she does when she passes.
Friend, if you fall, a friend leaves shadows to take your place.
Tomorrow, when sun’s high, black blood will dry on the roads.
Sing, mates! in the dark night, liberty hears you.
Friend, do you hear the black flight of ravens over our lands?
Friend, do you hear the faint roar of the nation being enslaved?
(Joseph Kessel and Maurice Druon, Le chant des partisans, 1943, with a little change)
A wise man was asked which of these virtues were most desirable: power or liberty.
He replied: The one who has liberty does not need power. (Saadi, 13th century poet, Shirâz. In: Golestân)
The Iranian women resistance to the hijab and its implications started as early as the spring of 1979. Over the years, any woman had endlessly recited:
A Sheikh beheld a harlot, and quoth he,
“You seem a slave to drink and lechery;”
And she made answer,
“What I seem I am,
But, Master, are YOU all you seem to be?” (Khayyâm)
Woman, Life, Freedom: Tempest Looms
Years ago, my neighbour, eighty five, was angry. She was coming home after some shopping; her scarf slipped, showing her rare white hair. It took her a while to free her hands from her walking stick and shopping bag and adjust her Islamic scarf. Meanwhile a loutish /بی شرف bassidji hurled abuse at her for her indecent clothing. She raved: “How on earth one can prove the Fairness and the Glory of the Islamic Republic? By our endemic poverty? By our illiterate masses? By the number of bearded people in the government? None of these! The proof of the Glory of the Islamic Republic is in forcing women to wear Hijab.”
Woman, Life, Freedom, are words scorned by the brutal Islamist regime but they will bring them down. Tempest looms on the Horizon, as it did in 1978-79. Women’s courage awaits our support. But, we are short of time. Nor do we have any consensual substitute for the Islamic Republic of Mullahland.
Had I the power great Allah to advise,
I’d bid him sweep away this earth and skies,
And build a better world, where woman and man might hope
Their heart’s desire perchance to realize
(Khayyâm)
