Who did you write this book for?
At the beginning, I needed to organize my thoughts, to understand what was happening because everyone said: this time it’s different. It was really the phrase that kept popping up on everyone’s lips. Iran is a very opaque country, it is very complicated to have exact information on the state of the situation. In France, when we see Iranian women burning their veils, we say: that’s it, Iranian women have finally woken up, they have finally understood that they have been oppressed! They are being freed. But what is happening is multiple, and I try to explain it in my book.
You explain that this movement is not spontaneous, that it is part of a series of revolutions…
We must get away from this idea that Iranian society was completely committed to the Islamic Republic and that suddenly it is waking up. There were three other revolts before this one, there was a whole decade of resistance. Writing the history of repression and resistance over time allows us to try to understand, in my opinion, what political courage is. Courage is not an intrinsic virtue that a person possesses. It is a relationship with action, an economy of values and emotions which means that at a moment, what seems important to us will allow us to overcome our fears and to collectively tear away the curtain of fear. There are times when political courage becomes a collective affair again. It seems to me that in Canada or France, or anywhere else in the world, we are facing environmental challenges, rising fascism…
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Anthropologist and researcher Chowra Makaremi
We need to be inspired, to learn from this Iranian revolt and to try to see what we can learn from it as a political lesson.
Chowra Makaremi
You write that Westerners misinterpret the rejection of the veil by Iranian women?
The Iranian feminist movement did not start in 2022. For at least 15 years, it was the most powerful in Iranian civil society. It was very strong in the early 2000s and then was repressed at the end of that decade. Then, feminists went to irrigate other movements. They became ecologists, defenders of children’s rights, activists of the green movement, leaders of student movements… They had methods of what I call “civil guerrilla”, strategic ways of fighting against a State whose violence is known. . We will therefore always oppose at a level a little bit below where we could be exposed to too violent repression. This is why in the 2000s, they did not ask for an end to the wearing of the veil. But in 2022, society began to reshape its discourse by saying that the demand for political equality was the sine qua non condition of the freedom of all of us. This is what makes this movement revolutionary, in my opinion. We don’t just say “Down with dictatorship!” Down with the Republic! “. We propose a project of freedom that unites all fragments of society.
What should we understand, then, when women burn their veils in front of the cameras?
The notion of the red line is very important for understanding the functioning of Iranian power and the Iranian dictatorship. The red lines are the boundaries of the public and political space which are not negotiable and which should not be sought if we do not want problems. We can have the illusion of living in a relatively free society, but as soon as we attack these borders, we experience extremely violent repression. Compulsory wearing of the veil is a red line and anyone who confronts it puts themselves in danger. This is the equivalent of directly confronting the State.
For years, feminists and women have struggled within the red lines trying to negotiate breathing space, trying to improve their conditions where there was room to maneuver. Removing the veil and burning it means reversing this position by saying: we cannot reform this system and, therefore, we are going to attack the red line. It is an act of defiance.
Chowra Makaremi
In this context, what is the impact of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Narges Mohammadi?
In the space of 20 years in Iran, two women have won the Nobel Peace Prize for their feminist struggle. It clearly shows this genealogy I was talking about. In 2003, Shirin [Ebadi] is veiled in all photos. It symbolizes this struggle within the red lines that I spoke about. Narges Mohammadi receives her Nobel Prize from inside the prison. She is in serious danger because she needs medical examinations and as she refuses to put on the veil to go to the hospital, she is not transferred there.
ARCHIVED PHOTO OF THE MOHAMMADI FAMILY, PROVIDED BY REUTERS
An undated photo of Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, who received the Nobel Peace Prize on October 6.
These two figures allow us to see in 20 years how the women’s struggle has radicalized and become a revolutionary movement. The Nobel Prize provided ammunition for the type of weapons used by this revolutionary feminist movement. It is important.
An anthropologist, in principle, is fine in the field. Since that wasn’t possible, how did you go about gathering all this information?
There is social media, of course. And everything that new technologies allow. I’ve asked people to send me voice messages whenever they feel like it. I have also been in the discussion rooms, these exchange spaces on X or Clubhouse. I found extremely focused spaces, for example how to make slingshots from medical probes, in which pharmacy in Tehran one can still have access to syringes, etc. In short, there was a whole extremely localized know-how of the insurrection which was transmitted in these spaces. Then, it was important to put them together like a puzzle and make a collective story.
The comments collected have been reworked for the sake of concision.
Extract
“There is a fire at Evin prison. We don’t understand what’s happening, nothing is clear: only rumors, images of fire, videos where we hear serial detonations (around ten), the windows of the neighboring house from which filmed the fire exploding, bursts of gunfire. Other videos filmed in the middle of the night; a crowd has gathered in front of the building, they are shouting to free the prisoners, they are shouting “Down with the dictator!”. […] I spent the night glued to my cell phone. Of the spaces discussions opened on Twitter: former political prisoners exchange with those who are on their way to Evin. »
Who is Chowra Makaremi?
Born in Iran, Chowra Makaremi lives in exile in Paris. Researcher, anthropologist, director, she is a graduate of the Institute of Political Science in Paris and the University of Montreal. His mother and aunt were imprisoned and murdered by the Iranian regime. She recounts her family’s life in the film Hitchreleased in 2019.
Women ! Life ! Freedom !
Éditions La Découverte
342 pages