A coffee with… Homa Hoodfar | In solidarity with Iranian women

The last time I met Homa Hoodfar, she was just coming off a long season in hell. It was October 2016. The Iranian-born Montreal anthropologist was back home after surviving Evin prison in Tehran, where she was accused of “immersing herself in feminist activities”.

Six years later, as we witness in Iran, in the wake of the death of Mahsa Amini, the biggest uprising in the history of the Islamic Republic, I was curious to know how Homa Hoodfar, a specialist in feminist studies, posed on this movement led at the risk of their lives by Iranian women.

Since the death in detention, on September 16, of Mahsa Amini, 22, arrested for an “incorrectly” worn veil, the wind of revolt has not waned despite the intensifying repression, notes Homa Hoodfar, who waltz between concern and hope for his country of origin.

“I worry a lot about the violence. On the one hand, it’s exhilarating to see all these young women and young men together taking to the streets for women’s rights and chanting “Woman, life, freedom”. This testifies to a maturity of the political culture. On the other hand, I know how brutal this regime can be and unleash violence. »

Homa Hoodfar sees this as an important tipping point. It took three generations since the advent of the Islamic Republic in 1979 for this revolution in collective political culture to occur.

We see in the street women who wear the veil alongside others who remove it, she says. “The idea is that they can decide for themselves and that the hands of the state no longer touch women’s bodies or individual rights. »

If there have been other rebel movements in the past in Iran, this one stands out for its particularly unifying aspect. It brings together women and men from all social classes, from large cities and regions, from different ethnic groups. And her demands go well beyond the contestation of the compulsory veil, the symbol chosen by the regime to inscribe its identity and its ideology on the body of women.

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Homa Hoodfar has always been irritated by the West’s stereotypical image of the “poor-Iranian-submissive-woman” just waiting to be rescued.

First for very personal reasons. Born in Tehran in 1951 into a middle-class family, she grew up surrounded by role models of very strong women.

Her father was a nationalist and feminist intellectual and poet, involved in the anti-British movement. He was agnostic. His mother was interested in the spiritual aspect of Sufi Islam. She was not wearing the veil. Neither did his daughters. “I remember going to a daycare where they wanted me to wear it. My father was furious! »

Attached to secularism, the parents of Homa Hoodfar encouraged their children to respect each other’s beliefs. “It’s unfortunate that today, embracing secularism means being atheist or being anti-religious. At the time, it just meant that you didn’t want to mix religion and politics. »

Feminism entered young Homa’s life one day in 1960, when she was 9 years old. She was shocked to hear her teacher say that “crazy people, criminals and women” did not have the right to vote in Iran. She was convinced it was a mistake. “Women can’t vote? »

It was a fact — the right to vote was granted to Iranian women three years later, in 1963. On returning home, she asked her father what he thought of it. It was totally unfair and she would have to fight for it to change, he told her.

“Study first. You will fight afterwards.

– Nope ! I do not want to wait. I want to fight right away! »

In 1971, at the age of 20, the young Homa moved to England to continue her studies. A decision encouraged by her parents who fear that their protest-minded daughter will get into trouble in Iran.

There she married an Iranian who wanted to return to the country after obtaining his doctorate. A few months later, when she realizes that he does not intend to let her continue her studies in England, she undertakes divorce proceedings. “Even though we were married under British law, I couldn’t leave the country without her permission!” »

This injustice, which she will take two years to repair before an Iranian court, provokes a great feminist awakening in her. “I had a big party for my divorce. The next day I flew to London with my mother. »

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Homa Hoodfar was living in England when the 1979 Islamic Revolution took place, bringing down the Shah’s regime. “We were very excited at the start. We wanted democracy and freedom. We did not think that a regime worse than that of the Shah was going to take hold. »

Very quickly, when the veil became compulsory among other repressive measures against women, she realized that her father, viscerally opposed to the mullahs’ regime, was right. “He said to me, ‘You don’t understand how religion can be used against the people and specifically against women. »

On March 8, 1979, Iranian women took to the streets by the thousands, demonstrating against compulsory veiling and for equality. Other anti-women measures were adopted in the process. A woman’s testimony in court was worth half that of a man. Women judges have been kicked out…

Then, unlike now, the women’s movement did not win the support of men or of Iranian political organizations who considered that the fight against imperialism was a priority and that it would lead to democracy. . For Homa Hoodfar, it was unthinkable to found a democracy by denying from the start the rights of 50% of the population.

The Iranian women’s resistance has never ceased. In the 1980s, Homa Hoodfar co-founded the Women Living Under Muslim Laws movement with a dozen feminists from Muslim countries. This international solidarity network campaigning for women’s rights and secularism was born from an observation: while many women were arrested, imprisoned and some were executed in Iran or Algeria, it was at the time impossible to obtain the support of a human rights organization like Amnesty International.

When Homa Hoodfar was imprisoned in Tehran in 2016, she was blamed for her activism within this movement. “That was the main thing that was held against me. Being a feminist…”

She has never denied her feminist allegiances. “For them, it’s as if I were admitting a crime!” »

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How is it still possible in 2022 that a misogynist regime that tramples on the rights of half of its population could have survived for so long without being called to order by the international community?

Part of the answer lies in the fact that women’s rights are too often used by the most powerful countries as excuses without their real concern. This allows them to intervene by mobilizing public opinion when it is to their advantage. “They want to go to Afghanistan? They say it’s for women…”

While waiting for a world where human rights in general, and women’s rights in particular, would be part of the criteria that determine which country we do business with, Homa Hoodfar salutes the international movement of solidarity with Iranian women.

She is not one of those who found derisory the videos showing women from Iran and elsewhere as well as celebrities like Juliette Binoche and others cutting off a lock of hair in solidarity with Iranian women.

She watched with emotion on the BBC Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British who was imprisoned at the same time as her, in 2016, and released only a few months ago, cutting her hair by naming with each scissor cut a murdered woman.

“Cutting the hair is a pre-Islamic tradition for grieving women. In a way, we revive this tradition to show our solidarity. It’s not violent, and at the same time, it’s very eloquent and very beautiful as a gesture. Even though it’s a female tradition, I’ve seen young men in Iran cut their hair too. »

Such symbolic gestures do not fundamentally change the course of things, of course. But they remind Iranian youth who are fighting for their freedom that we do not forget that.