Understand | Iranian anger

Nothing seems to want to stop the Iranians, who are multiplying the demonstrations against the Tehran regime at the risk of their lives since the death in prison of Mahsa Amini, arrested last September for wearing inappropriate clothes. Herself born in Iran, Hanieh Ziaei, associate member of the Observatory on the Middle East and North Africa of the Raoul-Dandurand Chair, presents four works to better understand the roots of this irrepressible anger.

Nasrin Sotoudeh’s fight

“She is the woman who best embodies human dignity in Iran,” says Hanieh Ziaei of lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, to whom Jeff Kaufman dedicated the shocking documentary Nasrin. Presented in December at the Cinéma du Parc, with the assistance of Amnesty International, the film shot clandestinely in Iran follows the journey of this determined lawyer, of great intelligence, who is languishing today in prison after having notably defended brilliantly women accused of removing their veils in public. “It is not for nothing that the regime targeted her, she knows the system very well and she has been able to reinterpret texts and the Constitution in favor of the women she defends”, explains the researcher. Nasrin Sotoudeh is helping to change mentalities in Iran, she continues. Hanieh Ziaei could “listen for hours” to the one who always fights against injustice even behind bars, far from her children and her husband. “Let’s be idealistic: I would love for her to be president of Iran one day,” she dreams.

Nasrinby Jeff Kaufman, is available for rental, with French subtitles, on many viewing platforms.

One drawing at a time

Being a caricaturist in a country with a liberticidal regime is not easy. The publication of a press cartoon in Iran can even lead to exile, as cartoonist Mana Neyestani recounts in An Iranian metamorphosis, an autobiographical comic strip published in 2012. Hanieh Ziaei, who is interested in the relationship between art and politics, has already met the cartoonist in Paris, where he now lives after having fled his country, failing to find the “security necessary for creation”, like many compatriots who are victims of censorship. He makes “protest caricature”, says the researcher. “His source of inspiration is Iranian news, but even if he starts from things specific to Iran, he touches on universal themes, such as the question of homosexuality or freedom with a capital L .” Although his drawings ignore borders, “he brings out the Iranian social reality well, in a colorful way, and that is where all his intelligence and his sensitivity as an artist lie. He left Iran, but Iran never left him”.

An Iranian metamorphosisby Mana Neyestani, published here and there (2012)

The impact of the Islamist revolution

Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi’s comic strip turned into a 2007 film, is a “classic of the works of Iranians in exile”, which tells how the 1979 revolution changed society there. The prohibition of alcohol, private parties or even card games as well as the imposition of strict dress codes: the drawn testimony of Marjane Satrapi, who now lives in France, shows how much the regime wanted to counter the Western influence and controlling the lives of Iranians. And how they managed to circumvent some of the prohibitions, in private, before – for some – leaving the country to become free again. Proofread Persepolis makes it possible to appreciate the evolution of mentalities in Iran, judge Hanieh Ziaei. Passionate about freedom as much as their elders, young people “have broken the ancestral silence”. “Rather than exile, the Marjane Satrapi of today have chosen to remove their veil in the public space”, notes the one who also recommends Chicken with prunesanother album by Marjane Satrapi, which gives voice to different generations of Iranian women.

Persepolisby Marjane Satrapi, in four volumes published by L’Association (2000 to 2003)

The film, directed by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi and released in 2007, is available for rental on many viewing platforms.

The muse of the resistance

Died in 1967 in a car accident at barely 32 years old, the poetess Forough Farrokhzad continues to influence Iranian culture. A figure of avant-garde feminism, this divorcee proud of her independence “made the revolution with her own life”, explains Hanieh Ziaei. Her work, which speaks of loving passion, but also of social justice, breaks the cliché of the passive woman, which is tenacious in certain circles in Iran. Unsurprisingly, “his poetry is very controversial”, adds the researcher, who also underlines the importance of his documentary House Is Black, shot in 1962, about leprous children. Even dead, she disturbs in Iran. “If you want to pray at Forough Farrokhzad’s grave, we’ll tell you that the cemetery is closed or we’ll give you the wrong address,” says Hanieh Ziaei from experience. The Quebec publishing house Le Noroît published in 2017 Other birtha collection of poems in French by this figure of civil disobedience who became a model of angry youth.

Other birthby Forough Farrokhzad, published by Le Noroît (2017), 120 pages