Are we witnessing a feminist revolution in Iran? The protests continue despite the crackdown since the death of Masha Amini. This 22-year-old Iranian woman died on September 16 after being arrested by the morality police in Tehran, for not respecting the dress code of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since then, a wave of protests has shaken the country. If dozens of people died, killed by the police, and thousands of others were arrested, the movement does not seem to run out of steam.
In Tehran, the capital, and in dozens of other cities, thousands of young women and men demonstrate their anger every day against restrictions on freedom, especially for women, demanding a total change of regime. Despite increasingly long and frequent internet shutdowns, new forms of mobilization are emerging.
Wracked by years of economic sanctions, will Iranian men and women start a revolution? To better understand the movement that is shaking Iran, franceinfo spoke with Chowra Makaremi, cresearcher in anthropology at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Social Issues of the CNRS and specialist in Iran.
Iran has already been rocked by large-scale protests, notably in 2019 against the high cost of living. How is this movement different?
Chowra Makaremi: The first dimension that must be noted is the radical nature of the movement. We see it by this slogan which is taken up unanimously: “Down with the dictatorship.” We are really attacking the person of the Supreme Leader, who personalizes the regime. There aren’t really any specific claims. There is no specific right request, the only message is: “We don’t want that power anymore.” LThings weren’t said so clearly and massively before. This slogan is something extremely subversive, which was not taken up at all and chanted in crowds in the previous movements.
The second thing to point out is that compared to the 2019 insurgencies, there is a much greater social and sociological diversity of people who are on the streets. Among the demonstrators, there are both people from the northern neighborhoods of Tehran, the middle classes, but also working-class neighborhoods and very subaltern geographical areas, such as Balochistan which flared up after the rape of a young protester by a policeman. The 2019 insurgencies were rather confined to the working classes and were not very well understood by the rest of the population and by the diaspora.
Isn’t the youth of the demonstrators a notable element?
It is true that we are dealing with extremely young demonstrators, who often take their first steps in the street. They were too young to demonstrate in 2019, and far too young to demonstrate in 2009. It is quite noticeable, there is a strong generational dimension in this movement.
“This generation Z amazes everyone with its radicalism, its courage and its effrontery.”
Chowra Makaremi, anthropologistat franceinfo
What does this movement say about Iranian youth?
This says several things about his condition and his relationship to power. Obviously, this generation Z has not been socialized in the same fear of power as the previous ones. This generation has no traumatic memory of the war. She grew up in another world where peace and relative post-war “prosperity” were guaranteed. She had a different childhood, with a different socialization, she has a different fear of power. As a result, she is used to subversion. Ideological education, which is one of the foundations of national education in Iran, has had no hold on it.
We read a lot that she has nothing to lose…
On the question of future prospects, it must be understood that these young people grew up in a country under the regime of Western sanctions which mainly affected the general population.
“Now Iran has a completely disconnected upper class that has become ultra-rich and the Iranian middle class has all but disappeared because of the sanctions.”
Chowra Makaremi, anthropologistat franceinfo
If we draw a parallel with the revolution of 1979, at the time, which enormously weakened theold regime of the Shah, it was the fact that economic corruption blocked future prospects for a whole category of young people who had had access to higher education and who could not enter the labor market. We are currently in the same situation.
We have a whole category of the population which has a lack of prospects due to the gradual disappearance of the middle classes and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, in a society without a social safety net. VShis economic and social crisis has created a crisis of legitimacy of power. And this question is very important because it is around the legitimacy of the regime that these riots are played out.
These demonstrations began after the death of Masha Amini, arrested by the police of manners because she wore her veil badly. Since then, the young demonstrators have taken off and burned their veils. Does that surprise you?
Absolutely not. This is a movement that started several years ago. Attacking the veil is entirely consistent with protesters’ demands for regime change, since the hijab, the compulsory veil, is one of the pillars of Iran’s theocratic regime. It’s not just about covering women’s bodies. Iranian feminist circles have theorized the establishment in the country of gender apartheid, that is to say a system of political and social inequality and legal discrimination against women. And we are witnessing the end of this system.
“Removing your veil or burning it is not just saying, ‘I do what I want with my body.’ It’s a very drastic move.”
Chowra Makaremi, anthropologistat franceinfo
It is an almost blasphemous act, which can be considered an ignominy against God. Which is punishable by death in Iran.
Can we say that there is a strong feminist dimension in this uprising?
The feminist dimension is essential. But this revolt is not only feminist. Masha Amini was a young Kurdish woman. This is very important, because the way she was dressed was no more provocative than that of the majority of young Tehran girls in the north of the city. Except that young middle-class women in Tehran know the codes and have a way of behaving that prevents the morality police from going to arrest them.
“Her arrest is linked to the fact that not only was she from the working class, but in addition, she was Kurdish.”
Chowra Makaremi, anthropologistat franceinfo
I have often heard Kurdish friends testify to the violence of the police once they realized that the person they were dealing with was Kurdish. There is therefore an intersectional dimension, where ethnicity, social class and gender are totally linked. It is not for nothing that it was she, and not another, who died from police beatings.
We are not in a reading “the veil is bad”which is that of a feminism that will only target Islam as the source of all wounds. That’s not just the problem. Here we are faced with a theocratic regime of social and economic domination.
Can we talk about revolution as some do on social networks?
It is far too early to tell. But we are facing a situation with enormous revolutionary potential, in particular because there is great social diversity and unity among the demonstrators. On the other hand, there is a claim which is relatively clear and which concerns the legitimacy of power. The movement is tipping into the second phase of the insurrection: strike. The teachers have been on strike since Monday. We will have to see to what extent this strike will be followed by other sectors.
Moreover, if we look at the Iranian revolution of 1979, the first insurgencies began in September 1978. It is a movement which extends over several months and which experienced an essential, radical turning point, when the employees of the National Petroleum Company decided to go on strike. It broke the Shah’s regime. In addition, there was an international context which changed things in 1979, when the United States decided to distance itself from its ally.
In the case of contemporary Iran, we still have an international situation blurry, unstable and tense. What surprises me is that no analyst or journalist tries to understand the effects of the very obvious weakening of Russia, which is an ally of the Iranian regime, on the insurrectionary, even revolutionary situation, which is settling in Iran.
What to think of the response of the Iranian state, which is not as violent, for the moment, as in 2019 when at least 1,500 people died?
In 2019, in a few days, there was an internet shutdown and a very strong repression. This is not the case today, even if there are dozens of deaths.
“What is surprising is that the demonstrations can still take place. There is something broken in the population, but I find it difficult to see how the state could not respond.”
Chowra Makaremi, anthropologistat franceinfo
Moreover, the power has not really spoken on the demonstrations, apart from President Raïsi from New York. Iran is in silence, coupled with internet access cuts, which increases the tension. This installs a form of anxiety.
Precisely, could the cuts in internet access run out of steam this movement?
It’s hard to say. The problem with internet blocking is how it affects people’s morale and creates fear, because it is extremely worrying not to hear from loved ones. These are conditions that are equally conducive to massacre, repression or extreme violence. It’s a way of intimidating people.
“I feel that the government, through its silence and the blocking of the internet, seeks to retaliate against the very powerful revolutionary emotions. It seeks to deactivate the joy and the elation of people who find themselves brave and numerous. A revolution is a matter of collective emotions.”
Chowra Makaremi, anthropologistat franceinfo
That said, if we look at the street demonstrations and the lighting of the fires that allow everyone to see where the demonstrations are taking place, we can see that we can also create methods to invent forms of action without internet. The lack of internet is also a double-edged sword since the population becomes less watchable.