My friends and colleagues ask me for my opinion on Iran. What should we see in the demonstrations held in several cities of the country in recent days to protest against the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, 22, arrested by the morality police for “wearing inappropriate clothes”? A possible fall of the regime? Yet another demonstration dedicated to violent repression? What analysis could we do? I answer: none.
We have facts in front of us, and beyond the obvious, all analysis is futile. There is no ambiguity here, no complex geopolitical situation. The facts are as follows: young women and men no longer tolerate living in an open-air prison, and buy their freedom at the cost of their lives.
That’s all. No religious, ethnic or cultural difference here, the conflict is not between Shiites and Sunnis or between the many peoples (Turks, Kurds, Baluchis, then, etc.) that make up Iran. A single reason drives these 20-year-olds to risk their lives night after night: freedom.
Certainly, we can recall the systemic corruption, the generalized incompetence of those in power, and the catastrophic inflation and unemployment. These factors have contributed decisively to the discontent, but what these brave women are asking for is simple and clear: freedom. The freedom to really live, to dance, to sing, to run the streets hand in hand as lovers.
In love, because they are not alone; they are accompanied, followed, defended by brave men for whom feminism is definitely not just a women’s affair. We can certainly note that for the 43 years of the Islamic regime, demonstrations have punctuated Iranian society at a regular rate. We can see that this rhythm is accelerating, that the gap between the manifestations is gradually decreasing: 1981, 1999, 2005, 2009, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. Does this mean the end diet? Maybe. Can we hope for it? Definitely.
In “May 68 did not take place”, an article published in The news, in 1984, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari wrote, about the 1968 movements in France, that the rebellions are a matter of “voyance, as if a society suddenly saw what was intolerable in it and saw also the possibility of something else”. We obey as long as we feel in ourselves the possibility of tolerating the unjust situation, but when this threshold is exceeded, it is not so much courage or political strategy that pushes us to act, but the inability to tolerate situation.
In this sense, revolt is always natural, as natural as a drive, as a plant growing among the rubble; She is. We see it and there is no analysis to be made. Iranian men and women have reached, and exceeded, this threshold of intolerance.