“We Are Tired of Hiding. We Are Tired of Whispering. We Are Revolting.”

WORDS & IMAGES Arian Nik

My first memory of Iran was sweating in a Peugeot taxi, sporting a buzz cut, and being carted from one side of the capital to the other. It was 2003 and the first day of our 6-week stay. I was fuming I had been made to leave my friends, karaoke machine and Disney Channel for a whole summer in a country that I thought had never heard of Lizzie McGuire. It was my mum’s first time visiting Iran since leaving in 1989. As we drove through the smog of the capital, my mum tucking strands of her beautiful curly hair into her headscarf – something I’d never seen her do before – she talked me through the rules of Iran and some things I should and shouldn’t do while we were visiting. I just remember the list being endless and making very little sense in my 8-year-old brain. I was scared and unsure of what would happen to me if I forgot a rule or said the wrong thing in front of the wrong person.

What followed was 6 weeks of utter joy. I tasted the best food I’d ever eaten, went to the greatest theme parks I’d ever experienced, felt the love and care of the family I’d never met before, got my hands on a surprisingly wide range of Hilary Duff’s work on pirated DVD and saw some of the most beautiful views I’d ever encountered.

I was too young, naive and privileged to feel the brunt of the rules my mum had warned me about. I was only a visitor, had a base knowledge of the language infused with my northern twang and if at any point there was a hint of danger I would be protected by those I was with.

Revisiting in my mid to late teens was different. While the rest of my friends spent summers in Zante and Malia, my cousins and I spent ours in Tehran. The naive and rose-tinted memory I had of the motherland had gone. We were older and therefore expected to abide by the rules set out by the state. Rules that are deeply engrained in misogyny. Rules that favour men. Rules that make women of the country second-class citizens. Rules that disregard queer peoples’ existence.

We were older and therefore expected to abide by the rules set out by the state. Rules that are deeply engrained in misogyny. Rules that favour men. Rules that make women of the country second-class citizens. Rules that disregard queer peoples’ existence.

Arian Nik

Let me give you a real brief dummies guide to life as an Iranian living under the Islamic Republic.

• Women from the age of 12 must cover their hair and dress ‘modestly’.
• All art forms – music, film, theatre and art have to be government-approved which results in a great deal of censorship.
• Dancing in public is banned.
• Women are banned from singing in public.
• If you identify as queer you could face imprisonment or death.
• Women have to be authorised to leave the country by their father or their husband.
• News platforms are government-regulated.
• Women can only file for divorce if they can prove that their husband is addicted to drugs or is deemed mentally unwell.

Sound like a pitch for an HBO show? Nah, it’s not. It’s the reality that millions of Iranians are forced to live under every single day.

These dated, misogynistic and homophobic rules are enforced by governmental departments – more specifically the Morality Police, an arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard who are essentially a collection of sophisticated thugs that drive around cities in police-like vans ensuring people are adhering to their social rules and Islamic dress code. Those who aren’t are dragged into the back of militia vans or taken to prisons and
punished. These punishments start with lashings and grow in brutality.

You can see the Morality Police coming a mile away; women’s headscarves tighten, car stereos are turned off, lovers let go of each other’s hands and everyone resumes the role of good citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

You’d think these inhumane rules and barbaric repercussions would be enough to hold the people to ransom. No.

Spending my teens in Iran, I experienced first-hand the defiance of the Iranian people. While their public lives appeared to comply with the rules and regulations expected by the government, the people themselves found pockets of freedom, joy and happiness in their
private lives – behind garden gates, behind the netted curtains.

No all-inclusive holiday in Maga could beat summers in Iran: getting drunk at pool parties in Karaj and smoking sheesha on the rooftops overlooking the capital, held between mountains and a starry sky.

We’ll never have summers like that again. We don’t want summers like that again. We are tired of hiding. We are tired of whispering.

We are revolting.

The state of Iran has declined rapidly since the monarchy was overthrown by a wave of right-wing Muslim clerics and mullahs who believed the country was becoming too much like the ‘west’. Over recent years, in particular, the economic gap between the rich and poor has grown vastly with many families on the breadline and unable to afford healthcare. All the while the government and those affiliated with them continue to grow in wealth.

There have been notable protests opposing the government and their legitimacy since they took control in 1979. But what’s happening in Iran right now is a first.

On the 16th of September, Jîna (Mahsa) Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, was brutally killed by the morality police of Iran for not wearing her headscarf ‘correctly’. This murder sparked a women-led movement across the country. Decades of oppression, corruption and injustice brought thousands of women to the streets of Iran, burning their headscarves, cutting their hair and putting two fingers up to the oppression that’s consumed their lives and the lives of their ancestors.

These protests very quickly spread throughout Iran and saw men, women and school children take to the streets and rooftops to scream ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadî,’ Kurdish for ‘Woman, Life, Freedom.’

The chant, that has now been translated into many languages and acts as the slogan for this revolution, was born from the Kurdish women’s liberation movement and was first heard on International Women’s Day of 2006 in Turkey where brave Kurdish women protested to challenge engrained misogynistic and patriarchal constructs within Kurdish society.

I note this as the few media outlets that have covered the atrocities in Iran have failed to acknowledge and honour Mahsa’s Kurdish heritage and the roots of the slogan.

Now her murder, and the murder of countless other brave young people at the hands of the dated and corrupt government of Iran, has sparked a global protest.

While the Iranian government claims these protests are anti-Islam, they are not. This revolution is pro-choice. We are demanding political freedom and economic justice; an end to the repression of gender and sexuality; and the overthrow of ethnic and religious-based oppression of Iranian people.

The government has been killing people who are peacefully protesting on the streets, locking the brightest and best students the country has in university campuses, cutting internet and phone services and taking people in for ‘questioning,’ never to be seen again. Since the protests in Iran broke out on 16th September the country has seen over 400 murdered – 43 of those children – at the hands of the government. The government is now threatening to issue death warrants to 15,000 of the protesters who have been arrested as a ‘warning’ to others of the cost of their ‘disobedience’.

Why hasn’t this historic movement been given the time of day? Does it not fit with the polarising narrative the media likes to craft of the Middle East? Are they frightened it will inspire British people to revolt against their own government who are putting them through a cost of living crisis? Or do they just not care? Out of sight, out of mind.

Arian Nik

If this is the first you are reading about it then I can’t say I’m surprised. The media in this country has actively chosen for the most part to ignore the bravery of the Iranian people. With over 40,000 Iranians living in London alone, surely it’s an issue that deserves more airtime. So why hasn’t this historic movement been given the time of day? Does it not fit with the polarising narrative the media likes to craft of the Middle East? Are they frightened it will inspire British people to revolt against their own government who are putting them through a cost of living crisis? Or do they just not care? Out of sight, out of mind.

If you didn’t know before, now you do. While we aren’t there on the front line, there is so much we can do as a global community to help amplify the voices of our brothers and sisters who are putting their lives at risk and taking to the streets in the name of freedom and democracy.

Here’s where you can start:

• Share and keep talk about what’s happening in Iran with the hashtag #IranRevolution2022. With so many humanitarian crises across the globe our focus can shift very quickly. Please keep Iran at the forefront of your thoughts and activism. Here are some Instagram accounts to follow to stay looped in: @iraniandiasporacollective, @centerforhumanrights, @from___iran and @azadi.sedaa.
• Attend protests across the country. The bravery of the people in Iran has sparked a worldwide revolution with weekly protests being held in most major cities.
• Check-in with friends from Iran and the Middle East – what’s happening in Iran isn’t the first protest the region has seen. This can be a very triggering time for MENA+ (Middle East, North Africa and surrounding areas) people across the world so take a second to say hey and show your allyship.
• Donate to trusted Iranian human rights organisations: Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre, The Abdorrahman Boroumand Centre for Human Rights in
  Iran & Centre for Human Rights in Iran.

We are seeing the beginnings of an Iran my family and so many others have always dreamt of. An Iran where women’s voices are heard and respected. An Iran where people are free to be, love and live as they choose. An Iran where people have the freedom to express themselves through art, music, fashion and film without censorship. An Iran where queer people are celebrated for who they are.

The truth is that I, like you, am privileged to live in this country where we can use our voices, bodies and minds freely.

Arian Nik

An Iran that can finally share its rich culture, vibrancy and magic with the world, free from the shackles of an oppressive government.

The truth is that I, like you, am privileged to live in this country where we can use our voices, bodies and minds freely. Please use your voice, use your privilege and get angry alongside the global Iranian community. Let your voice join the brave movement of Iranians who are standing up for their own freedom after years of oppression, mistreatment and inequality.

Jin Jiyan Azadî. Women Life Freedom.

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