This text by Pardis Mahdavi is republished right here with permission from The Dialog. This content material is shared right here as a result of the subject could also be of curiosity to Snopes readers; nonetheless, it doesn’t signify the work of Snopes’ truth checkers or editors.
Cries of “demise to the dictator” and “girl, life, freedom” echo by the streets of Iran Subsequent the demise of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old girl, whereas she was detained by the “vices police” in Tehran.
These protests echo previous resistance actions. Over the previous 20 years I studied gender and sexual politics in post-revolutionary Iran by ethnographic fieldwork. For about 40 years after the Iranian Revolution of February 11, 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini got here to energy and overturned the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, individuals rose up in opposition to the brutality of the regime in city and rural areas.
In the present day, these protests are gaining momentum and attracting worldwide consideration, giving many Iranians inside and outdoors Iran some glimmers of hope.
Islamist resistance to Westernization
Assist for the Revolution was born out of many Iranians’ want to convey equality and democracy to Iran. They criticized the monarchy for being too deferential to the US and have been pissed off by rising gaps between wealthy and poor.
Islamists have been most crucial of Westernization, which they noticed as violating Islamic ideas and morally deceptive Iranians. They vowed to return Iran to Iranians and refocus Iranian tradition.
To do that, the Islamist regime juxtaposed its rule with the whole lot it believed to be mistaken about “the West”. On the prime of the record of critics was what the regime noticed as free morals. These free morals have been illustrated in consuming alcohol and ladies sporting miniskirts and heavy make-up and flaunting their hair and physique curves in public.
Whereas Khomeini introduced the Islamists to energy, a brand new period of austerity is born. Khomeini changed the shah’s brutal police squad, SAVAK, with an equally, if no more brutal, Revolutionary Guard and created a brand new unit known as the “morality police”.
This period is maybe greatest illustrated within the Khomeini quote that was painted on buildings and billboards in Tehran“The Islamic Republic will not be a query of enjoyment, it’s a query of morality. There is no such thing as a enjoyable within the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Management ladies’s fertility
Together with the adjustments at house, Khomeini additionally engaged the nation in a decade-long warfare with neighbor Iraq.
Frightened concerning the rising variety of deaths ensuing from the Iranian revolution, mixed with the rising variety of troopers wanted for the Iran-Iraq warfare, the Islamists realized that they would want to extend their inhabitants shortly, in response to demographic researchers. Thus, within the Eighties, Khomeini instituted a sequence of insurance policies in iran encourage households to have extra youngsters.
Because of this, the start charge in Iran within the Eighties rose to a median of three.5 youngsters per household, up 30% from the earlier decade.
A decade later, the Islamists realized that the inhabitants increase would want authorities help. Infrastructure ought to be strengthened and jobs created. The federal government has flip-flopped and changed its coverage with household planning messages broadcast on radio and tv encouraging households to have fewer youngsters. Intercourse training courses and free household planning assets are required for all {couples} wishing to marry. By 1994, the variety of ladies utilizing household planning had elevated 30% from 1989.
When the brand new millennium was ushered in, absolutely two-thirds of the nation’s inhabitants was below the age of 21. These younger individuals have been born within the Islamic Republic of Iran that Khomeini and the Islamists had created: ladies needed to put on lengthy black coats from head to toe, overlaying each inch and each curve of their physique; probably the most brutal individuals have been members of the morality police, watching each motion and each strand of hair that escaped the quilt. If younger individuals held palms, attended a celebration or learn a e-book, they have been deemed immoral by the whims of a mercurial regime.
This era had by no means recognized the supposed opulence of the monarchy. And as its members turned extra pissed off and extra educated, the criticisms of Iran’s previous drilled into them by Islamists made much less sense.
Difficult the morality police
Mohammad Khatami, who took workplace as president in August 1997, sought to harmonize the Islamic regime with the wants of a altering inhabitants and a modernizing world.
Younger individuals, who fashioned nearly all of the inhabitants, had discovered their voice. They started to defy the morality police by pushing again their headscarves millimeter by millimeter, holding palms in public and organizing spontaneous avenue rallies.
Between 2000 and 2007, I performed ethnographic fieldwork within the cities of Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan and Mashad, following what younger individuals known as The sexual revolution in Iran. Resisters demanded a extra democratic regime centered on fixing issues reminiscent of unemployment and infrastructure issues relatively than monitoring their our bodies. Throughout my analysis in Iran on sexual and social actions, I additionally had a number of run-ins with the morality police and skilled their brutality first hand.
The revolution of those younger individuals was carried out by the language of morality utilizing their our bodies, their selections of outerwear, make-up and coiffure. They defied the morality police by dragging their headscarves, sporting layers of make-up and crowd pleasing outerwear, dancing within the streets and holding palms or kissing in public.
The federal government responded by cracking down and tighten its grip on the ethical habits of younger individuals. The rise in raids and public floggings was meant to ship a powerful message. However the younger individuals endured of their resistance.
In 2005, whereas the Conservative candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president, the sexual revolution was more and more threatened.
Not like his predecessor, Ahmadinejad had little interest in discovering methods to work with Iran’s rising youth inhabitants or extra progressive interpretations of Islam. He ordered the vice police to crack down on younger individuals, raid properties and events, and arrest ladies on the streets who dared to violate Islamist guidelines. Public floggings elevated, as did arrests of lecturers, feminists and journalists. The Conservatives needed to ship a message.
Emboldened younger revolutionaries continued to push for change. These actions reached their climax in 2009 when, though he didn’t obtain the favored voteAhmadinejad was re-elected president.
Led by the identical younger individuals who resisted the morality police in the course of the sexual revolution, a brand new motion was born within the aftermath of the 2009 elections. It was known as the “Sabze”, or inexperienced motion. Folks took to the streets of Iran chanting “The place’s my vote?” and “not my president”.
A catalyst second for this motion was the chilling homicide of Neda Agha-Soltan. She was killed in June 2009 merely for collaborating in one of many demonstrations the place one of many bloodiest clashes between protesters, Revolutionary Guards and vice police passed off. His demise was filmed and shared with the world.
On the fortieth anniversary of the Iranian revolution in 2019, the streets of Iran have been as soon as once more full of resisters, lots of whom had taken half in avenue protests because the early 2000s. These similar youngsters of the revolution and of the Iran-Iraq Conflict have organized efforts reminiscent of #MyStealthyFreedom which featured ladies photographing themselves with out headscarves in public in Iran and becoming a member of the worldwide #MeToo motion.
Demanding accountability
By 2019, disenchantment with the regime had unfold from extremely educated younger individuals in city facilities to even lots of the most religiously religious households in some rural areas that had been former supporters of the regime.
Iranians from all walks of life dealing with rising oil costs and unemployment following years of sanctions have been dropping religion increasingly more of their authorities. Many not subscribed to the rhetoric of restoring ethical order.
In the present day’s avenue protests happen in additional than 50 cities throughout the nation and have garnered the eye and help of the worldwide neighborhood. These protests are each a chorus of previous protests and a renewed sense of braveness and hope.
As previously, since September 16, 2022, activists have taken to the streets to problem a regime steeped in a harshly interpreted rhetoric of morality relatively than governing with the most effective intentions of the individuals. And just like the protests in 2009 and 2019, they name for accountability for presidency shortcomings, whereas highlighting the poverty raging throughout the nation – in addition to the ache of the individuals.
Pardis Mahdavi is Provost and Government Vice President at The College of Montana.
This text is republished from The Dialog, an impartial, nonprofit information group devoted to unleashing knowledgeable information for the general public good.
