Iran – The Women’s Revolt

We just spent an evening with several Persian friends discussing Iran’s brutal response to the demonstrations there for the lives and freedom of Iranian women. We were brought together by Mahmood Karimi Hakak at his Café Dialogue. Mahmood is a long-time Persian-American member of the Siena faculty, who worked as a producer and director in Iran until forced to leave.

Artist Cheryl De Ciantis came in from Arizona. She’d gathered photographs of the women in the demonstrations who were murdered or had been disfigured by destruction of an eye. The women wanted their disfigured faces to be seen. Those who could, took selfies and proudly showed their destroyed eye sockets or added a patch to call attention to what had been taken. Others sent pictures of the murdered women. Almost all of the women were smiling. Cheryl built paintings around the photographs, so we could see how lovely these women were, or are, and added roses to the pictures of the dead.

The word for an eye in farsi, the language of Iran, is chashm. Socially, chashm sort of means “I will,” but I avoided using the term in that context because the fuller meaning is “I promise to do that on my eyes,” or, more completely, “If I don’t fulfill my promise you may take my eyes out.” The expression turns my stomach. It’s a way that the cruelty of Nader Shah, famous for removing people’s eyes centuries ago, is preserved in everyday speech. Every Persian knows that history.

When Persian soldiers and Revolutionary Guards kill or shoot the eyes out of women who demonstrate for the life and freedom of women in Iran, even beyond the horror that Americans feel, every Persian understands the symbolism.

At dinner I pushed back – how, I asked, will the bravery and sacrifice of these women make any difference? Mahmood responded that society will condemn the cruelty. I pushed back. When Martin Luther King brought the nonviolent philosophy and strategy of the great Indian leader, Mahatma Gandhi, to the Civil Rights Movement, he was counting on the support, and the vote, of horrified citizens from the states that had not been segregated by law. But Iranians don’t have the power of the ballot – whatever good things he did, President Eisenhower deposed a democratically selected Iranian Prime Minister in 1953. Iran has not been able to choose their leaders since. Americans may not remember – it’s not our history – but I never met a Persian who didn’t. We’re still paying the price.

So how is the self-sacrifice of these brave women going to make any difference? Mahmood responded, accurately, that dictatorships and theocracies are brought down either by conquest or by collapse from within. But the price of opposition from the inside is death. Dictators hold on to their power with cruelty, murder and fear, major hurdles to any kind of overthrow.  Mahmood shot back that there is growing opposition from within the regime.

I’m convinced that the people of Iran do not want an invasion. Don’t be taken in by military solutions – Iranians don’t want us with guns and uniforms. They’ve had too much of that; it would slaughter too many of the people of Iran; and it would end up putting the wrong people in power. They want to own their own future and make it happen their way. And they are convinced that enough sacrifice, horrible as it is, will curdle enough minds, hearts and stomachs even inside the ruling regime that internal dissent will make the dictatorship crumble. That leaves me praying for the wonderful, kind and thoughtful people I knew there. Salaam Aleykom سلام علیکم – peace be with you.

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on June 20, 2023.