Many Iranians have lost faith in their leadership due to decades of unmet promises. The continuous protest’s catchphrase, “women, life, and freedom,” encapsulates how the women’s rights movement is intertwined with broader political, economic, and social concerns.
‘They have no plans to release us freely. Similar to Vietnam. I was going to add, “that they are even less ready to let go of you than Vietnam because of oil, because of the Middle East.”‘ Michel Foucault began his 1973 essay with these words. This work shows Foucault’s interest in the spiritual awakening that dominated Iranian politics for four decades. Could attacks on political institutions signal a spiritual crisis? Understanding the inner spiritual dimension of modern Iran, or what Iranians are dreaming about, requires understanding the historical political-economic dynamics that shaped the Iranian psyche.
Time during the Cold War
Foucault’s word encapsulates 1979 Iranian Revolution’s Cold War background. During the Cold War, the US and USSR contended for ideological dominance. Marxism grew in the Soviet Union, China, and other erstwhile western colonies, including Iran. Iran’s Pahlavis reigned since 1925. After 40 years of British dominance, Mohammad Mossadegh nationalized Iran’s oil industry in 1953. After losing power to economic populism, the Shah worked with British and American secret services to remove Mossadegh and ruin Iran’s democratic experiment.
Many Iranians considered the Shah as a puppet for the West because he worked with the West, favored free trade economic policies over nationalist ones, and pushed for modernization. Marxists were persecuted by the Shah, and with an opposing religious group and popular fear of Marxism’s rule, they couldn’t start a revolution on their own. An Islamic-Marxist coalition formed, which led to the Shah’s overthrow.
Prediction of Frantz Fanon
Iranians would realize aspirations vanish. Frantz Fanon predicted this in letters to Ali Shari’ati, the Islamic revolution’s ideologue. Fanon said Islam “had an anti colonialist and anti-western spirit” and hoped this would help academics “emancipate humanity and another civilization.” Fanon cautioned that if this spirit wasn’t “breathed into the weary body of the Muslim orient,” it may lead to the rebirth of sectarian and religious mindsets that would “divert a ‘nation in becoming’ from its ideal future, putting it closer to its history.” Fanon’s revolutionary work inspired him.
Shari’ati died in exile two years before the revolution, and it abandoned its founding beliefs. The Guardian Council can block any measures deemed anti-Islam in the Islamic Republic of Iran. At the period, the hijab was strongly advised but not required. Free public utilities like electricity and water, as well as monthly oil-funded cash handouts to citizens, were promised to draw them to the new democratic administration.
Ayatollah Khomeini:Iran’s Supreme Leader
Iran’s political system changed quickly. Velayat-e Faqih made Ayatollah Khomeini Iran’s Supreme Leader. This position controlled Iran’s economy and government. Political parties were repressed and Iran’s first president was impeached. The 1988 mass killings of Marxist revolutionaries divided the church.
After Khomeini’s 1989 death, an emergency assembly chose Khamenei. Every decade, his authority draws more criticism. Iranian college students protested the suppression of Salam, a reformist clergy newspaper, in 1999. Mir-Hossein Mousavi led the Green Movement after the 2009 elections. Mousavi was arrested and incarcerated after being arrested after major protests.
More than ten years later, the death of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish-Iranian who had been jailed by Iran’s morality police for “improper hijab,” has spurred new protests. These demonstrations are probably due to President Ebrahim Raisi’s (a conservative hardliner) methodical reform of Iran’s morality police and hijab enforcement. According to the Islamic Republic, Amini passed away in one of Iran’s re-education centers, Gasht-e Ershad, from a heart attack. But her loved ones insist that police brutality was to blame for her untimely demise.
After three decades of lies and failed promises, many Iranians have lost faith in their leadership. Iranian women experience institutional discrimination in marriage and divorce, inheritance, child custody, citizenship, and international travel. Sexual and domestic violence against women lacks consequences. Despite being second-class citizens, women in Iran made up 70% of STEM college students and produced the first-ever Fields Medal in mathematics.
Zan, Zendegi, Azadi
The slogan “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi” first appeared in the Kurdish part of Iran and has now spread worldwide in the wake of the recent uprisings. This slogan connects the Iranian women’s rights struggle to the country’s economic and social difficulties. Since 1979, Iran’s GDP has remained flat, wealth disparity has worsened due to government corruption, women and minorities have been brutally repressed, and no opposition movement has been allowed to fight for power and present alternatives and changes. Although many of Iran’s economic troubles can be ascribed to Western sanctions after the 1979 revolution, the Iranian people no longer accept the government’s reasons for failing to better their lives. The regular people paid the price while religious elites lived lavishly. Morality police have battered many women in the streets, while religious families can live freely in other countries.
Women (Zan), life (Zendegi), and independence (Azadi) are not randomly linked concepts. Since women initiate all biological processes, liberation of the species depends on women’s independence. Iran is currently in the midst of a new “dream,” but the country’s recent experience with a significant awakening offers important lessons. Iran’s opposition lacks leadership. Unhappy with the leadership, perhaps. Also, government persecution. Regular inhabitants are tougher to crack down on, and ideological divides are less frequent. Western meddling in Iran is suspicious. Once-promising movements in our neighbors’ countries degraded following the Arab Spring due to Western attention and a lack of ideological options.
Forty years later, Foucault’s analysis holds up. Iranians fear being imprisoned. No more than the six years they battled in Iraq. Due to Iran’s internet censorship, most Mahsa Amini discussion takes place abroad. Foreign interests must respect Iran’s autonomy. We must respect Iran’s repressed essence despite historical and sociological constraints. If a spiritual body’s “Zan,” “Zendegi,” and “Azadi” all die, it will asphyxiate. Iran inspires Foucault and Fanon even today. Iranians are hopeful. Let our hopes and dreams carry us into our future era.
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