The Uprisings of Iran

this writing was never finished and completed, these are some bits, and I am leaving it open. It was written on 30th of September, 2022.

Over the past two weeks, the whole world got to pay attention and eyes to Iran over the protests that were sparked over the (systematic) killing of a (Kurdish)-Iranian girl, Mashsa Amini مھسا امینی. The protests started growing exponentially, cities by cities, universities by universities, from north to the south, east to the west, the slogans were chanted. From “we will kill the one who killed our sister” to زن، زندگی، آزادی.

I can go ‘very’ emotionally and innocently describing my emotions and sentiments that all these days were felt all these days, from affecting my personal life to the closure of Internet. I can go on citing the details, with how many being killed to injured to those arrested. It is concerning, but I specifically intend to indulge my political and philosophical explanation of the rising against systematic oppression and the corrupted institution of such authoritative governments.

These protests are the biggest uprising in the Middle East since Arab spring and are very much the same, same decentralized protests, individuals acting on, to no central leadership, the protests share the same characteristics with a major a change. The interesting, and main figurative thing about these protests is the main character and the figure is ‘woman’. It is precisely what the movement was about, and what it achieved. It is a form of women collective participation in the society which was yet to be seen. As Zizek (in his recent about-facing Iranian protest) commented, this form of feminism was yet to seen in the liberal West, and If I add more, it is the form of what feminism meant to be.

It showed how men are side part as well, we observe in west the feminism is a woman lead movement with such me-too movements to the liberal framework of women leadership. Men have been removed, if not removed, not the part of it. But here we see, how men became the part, leading and following women, as both take together, understanding the oppression of women is oppression of themselves. Both leading and following each alongside, side by side, is what the core of feminism is, sharing responsibilities to contributing together is what is seen in these protests. One of the things that energizes me, the fact this is not an elite or upper-middle class feminist movement, which is mostly the case all around the world. Be in the west or in countries as India and Pakistan, woman marches and feminist movements have never been thing of the working class. Iran’s uprising is, what else than class consciousness?

It quickly became a movement against the current authoritative government. From a protest to water problems, inflation, municipal corruption, to the... . It is rising of discomfort Iranians, who are fed up, fed up by the same government to keep going and playing in between. From so-called reformists to the actual president. 

There has been a high dissociation of Muslims across the world concerning the symbolism of the protests, which even at first slightly made me, like, wait… what is happening and my immediate state of having second thoughts about what I am cheering for. The burning of Hijab, a sacred thing for Muslims, be in West or East, even Iran itself. This act made the community furious, alleging of humiliating those who wear to being Islamophobic. Instead of understanding hijab as a political symbol in Iran than a religious, this became a reason to criticize. 

Hijab is a political symbol in Iran than a religious symbol, by differentiating it, we can move on our further elaboration, and I think it will refute those as well who comes up saying hijab is not a choice rather a submission to the will of Allah, again not to get in Fiqh, but If a symbol is a being used in political means, 

What on earth can you think of a morality police? Iran has that. In the times of Prophet s.a.w, or other caliphates do they established a morality police, concerning, invading people’s private personal life, from their dressing to their thoughts. To all those concerned over hijab burnings, in Iran the morality police can simply arrest you if your headscarf just fell, be it any reason. It has the all rights to do that, charge you the way they want. To all those saying that girl Mahsa Amini got died because of heart attack, okay even for a second we believe that, doesn’t this systematic oppression do happen? Doesn’t the 

As I keep hitting my keyboard, I want to keep going on with what’s keep coming to my mind. It’s for sure these protests in western world are taken in liberal framework, from liberal ideology to liberal feminism. Their cheering is nothing than crocodile tears, their support is nothing than oppressing women in such countries, we saw in Afghanistan what happened, and what’s so the status of liberal feminism. If you hear sanctions coming out of someone’s mouth, what do you think, are they going for support and help than keeping the burden? What to talk about Iran than sanctions, Iran is brutally sanctioned by this liberal west which has oppressed the Iranians most, it's the working class, the women suffering. 

Not to indulge, culture imperialism, what we saw in Algeria. West will portray and paint a picture of oppressed middle eastern woman by showing the clothes, and will play over the clothes. West will paint and has painted the freedom of woman by unclothing her. And people actually buy it, and it’s quite understandable why, as the one being oppressed will symbolize the things that individual perceives as oppression instead of the oppression itself. Hijab will become a symbol of oppression, as it is perceived. It’s not the oppressed individual problem, it’s the oppression which will make these as a symbol of oppression. Hijab became a symbol of oppression in Iran because the oppressor made the hijab a symbol of oppression. It used it as a tool of enforcing, exploiting and oppressing the oppressed.

In these protests, as decentralized protests, many ideologies are coming out and together. Yeah, it’s no surprise when some will be coming cheering the old bloody dictator shah, in a beautiful scene, some came chanting the slogans for shah, the group there chanted back the slogans, down with the shah, down with Rahbar, be it king or Rahbar, an oppressor is an oppressor. Shah was the bloodiest West (USA, UK) backed ruler of Iran, who ruled the working-class Iranians as a second class, making the upper-middle and elite class the class which will be cheering for such tyrants. It is not a thing of hiding anymore of what the working-class women experienced in the times of Shah, go ask those women who worked in the huge gardens of elite Iranian class and westerners, who worked in their own homeland as second-class citizen. Making the women unveil and unclothing is no work of freeing her or liberating. The liberation comes when she is powerful of bringing yourself down.

To clear the picture more of my thoughts going on in my mind, I consider or evaluate hijab as a symbol of oppression being used in Iran for the political means by the state, and it comes no quick that I am cheering for un-hijabing (unveiling). I am against the systematic oppression being done in the name of hijab. And I am against the systematic oppression of unveiling women (i.e., in France, India, and other European countries, where many Muslims women are forced to remove hijab, are experienced to systematic discrimination, and in India where girls are stopped from entering school and colleges, being discriminated by wearing hijab). 

What writes Arundhati Roy, one of the finest writers ever exists; 

The NGO-ization of the women’s movement has also made Western liberal feminism (by virtue of its being the most funded brand) the standard-bearer of what constitutes feminism. The battles, as usual, have been played out on women’s bodies, extruding Botox at one end and burkas at the other. (And then there are those who suffer the double whammy, Botox and the burka.) When, as happened recently in France, an attempt is made to coerce women out of the burka rather than creating a situation in which a woman can choose what she wishes to do, it’s not about liberating her but about unclothing her. It becomes an act of humiliation and cultural imperialism. Coercing a woman out of her burka is as bad as coercing her into one. It’s not about the burka. It’s about the coercion. Viewing gender in this way, shorn of social, political, and economic context, makes it an issue of identity, a battle of props and costumes. It’s what allowed the US government to use Western feminist liberal groups as moral cover when it invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Afghan women were (and are) in terrible trouble under the Taliban. But dropping daisy cutters on them was not going to solve the problem.

All this, I got my concerning geopolitical side as well. IRI is considered an anti-imperialist and anti-neoliberal state by many of leftists, which if you notice, there’s a slight discomfort and hesitation towards supporting the protests. 

I am aware of the cultural imperialism; I am aware how these are means of making the women more oppressed. 

When I am writing this, it is because I want to write for my sister, a woman being murdered by the USA in Iraq the same day our sister Mahsa Amini died in the hospital. I want to write about the women of Afghanistan being put in highly monitored and oppressed rule of Taliban. I want to write for my sisters, my mother aged woman, my grandmothers of Syria who are being played in the proxy wars of the so-called “countries”. When I am writing I am aware of women, sisters dying in Yemen, been starved by Saudi Arabia, and UAE being supported and backed by the United States of America, by the United Kingdom, by France, Israel, you name it. So, when you see these countries talking about Iran and Mahsa Amini, know who they are, what they are for. Israel made a commercial about Mahsa Amini, do you even know what Israel have done, is doing, will do with women of Palestine. 

In solidarity with the protestors of Iran it is being written, to clear and explain, and give a rational explanation of Iran’s protests this is being written. I am sorry to not stand with the ones who need my standing. I wrote to commemorate, those who lost their lives, those are keeping the spirit alive. Those Afghanis women who protested in front of Iran’s Embassy in Kabul, to those who lost their lives attending their university*. 

*In Afghanistan, It is being written on the date of 30th September, a suicide bomb killed 50 plus students mostly girls who attended to assist their entrance exam.