The slogan “woman, life, freedom”, a cry from the hearts of Iranians, is similar to the French Revolution and the famous motto that resulted from it: “liberty, equality, fraternity”. It represents the courageous fight for freedom and fundamental rights, which young Iranians call a revolution. They are not wrong.
The country belongs to the youth free of any ideology, and their demand is to take back Iran1 enemy hands2. In other words, Iran wants to uproot the Islamic Republic, and move, before our eyes, from religious obscurantism to modernity. Today, a revolution is underway, certainly, but an Iranian-style revolution.
“Woman, life, freedom”, chanted in the streets of Iran to those of the West, is launched to become the motto of a democratic and secular Iran. A motto that takes up the three elements swallowed up by the regime. “Woman”, because the regime makes her disappear in every sense of the word; “life”, because the regime kills and glorifies death; “freedom”, because the regime persecutes it in all its forms. A motto offered to the Iranian people by its Kurdish population — “Jin, Jiyān, Āzādi”.
It is a way of honoring this minority, because of its legendary opposition since the advent of the regime, and of integrating this slogan with a national revolution of Iran against the Islamic Republic.
Iran, in its ethnic diversity, has been overwhelmed by the “divide and rule” strategy of the regime in power since 1979. This strategy designed to divide the people, in order to prevent them from uniting against the power, succumbs to a colossal defeat. The unprecedented solidarity of a people, who had been deliberately disunited, is an important characteristic of the revolution which carries in its heart all the values allowing a healthy and viable democracy.
Thus, the Iranian youth, in a spirit of solidarity, begins a revolution to rectify “the error of 1979”3 and get rid of a regime that cannot adjust to the popular mentality. Nevertheless, the transition is necessarily made in an abominable violence which does not spare even the children.4.
The images sent straight from the battlefield paint a picture of the situation that is reminiscent Liberty Leading the Peopleby Eugene Delacroix.
Marianne, allegorical figure and incarnation of freedom, is real in Iran: Mahsa Jina Amini. The other particularity of the Iranian Marianne is that she is not alone: Nika, Sarina, Hadis, Asra, Armita, and all the “women” who become symbols of “freedom” every day. With an egalitarian youth, the mobilization quickly recruited men from different social classes: Mehrshad, Komar, Shervin, Hossein, Toomaj — to name but a few.
The Iranian newsboy is another symbol that emerges from this realistic painting. Schoolgirls and their little voices are heard around the world. The obligatory veil in one hand, the clenched fist, under determined steps, the revolt of the children targets the pillars of the Islamic Republic.
Finally, the harsh reality of death encompasses the entire picture of Iranian revolutionaries, since for the most part their “life” has been cruelly taken from them.
The revolution, which is therefore led by women, supported by men and children, has no social class, ethnicity or language.
It is a revolution carried by united Iranians, secular and egalitarian, with broad aspirations of freedom and democracy, and whose heroism is more than admirable. A truth that deserves to be painted.
Unlike Charles X, Khamenei will not come down from his throne, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will not let go of the reins either. Guided by a Khomeini ideology and political Islam, the regime is ready to do anything to survive. The Islamic Republic fills the cemeteries, where the bravery of its opponents and the innocence of its children now rest. Atrocious crimes are brought to light. The mask falls and the true nature of the regime in power lets itself be observed, naked and shameless.
Moreover, the regime exports its disastrous ideology and the noise of its paramilitary boots resonates beyond the country’s borders. For the dictatorship of the mullahs, Iran constitutes nothing more than a military base. Ayatollah Khomeini was clear from the start; over the sky of Tehran, when a journalist asks him how he feels on his return from exile, his answer freezes the blood: “nothing”.
It will be up to the people to guide the revolution towards the fall of a regime, now illegitimate; and the international community to support the revolution, and its universalism underlined by the French President, Emmanuel Macron. An anti-woman, anti-life, anti-freedom regime has no place in a secularized society and in a world where human rights are universal. Let the light of these young Iranians defeat the darkness of Islamism clinging to power. For them, for them, let us be actors in this global mobilization for freedom, because our union is their strength.
1. Slogan “Mijangim, mimirim, Irān ro pass migirim”: we will fight, we will die, we will take back Iran.
2. Slogan “Doshmane mā haminjāst, dorough migan Āmrikāst”: our enemy is here, they are lying when they say it is the United States.
3. Written repeatedly on the walls of Tehran.
4. At least 43 children have lost their lives to beatings and gunfire from the armed forces, and these numbers continue to rise.
* Holder of a law degree from the University of Ottawa, as well as a Juris Doctor in North American Common Law from the University of Montreal