Women, Life, Freedom: Hear Their Voices

There is a rise of a new generation in Iran that wants to think and make decisions for itself.

by Hamid AzodanlooPublished October 21, 2022

What follows is a condensed English translation of a requested opinion piece I wrote in Farsi to be shared inside Iran. This is a brief personal impression of the recent rise of a generation that is demanding freedom. I translated my piece for Iranian Americans and interested Americans who desire to understand what is happening in Iran these days.

These days, we are facing the nationwide rise of a generation that breaks the rules of previous generations’ often-ideological games. We are facing the rise of a generation that has started a new game that does not yet have established rules. We are facing the rise of a generation that wants to think and make decisions for itself. We are facing the rise of a generation that shouts “Women, Life, Freedom.” This generation, unlike previous idealistic generations, has reached self-awareness not by reading books and different ideologies, but by direct life experience.

We are facing the rise of a generation that knows its life experience represents an irreplaceable connection with life. Perhaps, that is why one of the pillars of its key slogan is “life.” This generation has achieved a life experience that includes elements of perception that neither were seen nor understood before. That is why it cannot be described or explained with the criteria of previous formats. We are facing the rise of a generation that resists any attempt to mechanize the meaning of its life experience. If we accept the hypothesis that “life objectifies itself in meaningful structure,” we may conclude (though hastily) that the meaning of life for this generation is the translation of the objectivity of life to the spiritual-psychological life from which it originates. 

I don’t know how poets intuitively see things that researchers, even after years of research, don’t see. The poet Fereydoon Moshiri predicted years ago that “One day their [women’s] patience will end. To me, this point is clear as day.” In Iranian mythologies, the mythical character Kaveh used his leather apron as a flag to face the brutal oppression of his time. What Moshiri also predicted: “Undoubtedly, the Kaveh of the future of Iran is a woman,” has materialized today, and the girls and women of this generation have raised their scarves against their current oppressors. The hairs of girls and women of this generation that once sexually provoked current oppressors are now freed and every strand of hair plunges into their hearts like a dagger.

As philosopher Slavoj Žižek recently stated, this uprising should not be compared with feminist movements and analyzed within those frameworks. From the very beginning, men joined in this uprising because this generation is all too aware that the freedom of each depends on the freedom of others. This is where the three concepts of the key slogan of this generation are connected in such a way that the existence of each depends on the existence of others: “Women” = the standard bearer of life; “Life” = life experience in time; and “Freedom” = freedom to live in time.

About 80 years ago, Ahmad Kasravi[2] (Iranian Historian and linguist) said: “We owe a government to the mullahs. The political power should fall into the hands of the clerics so that the Iranians will no longer care about their superstitious…” For whatever reasons, the previous generations of this rising one decided to pay their “dept,” and “pledged” Iran’s “title” to the mullahs. Although this “dept” has been paid over and over during the past few decades and with very, very heavy interest, the mullahs are not willing to return Iran’s “title” to its original owners. The rising generation is struggling to take back the “title” that their fathers “pledged” to the mullahs. Through experience, this generation realizes that if they do not take back the ownership “title” of their father’s land (house), they have no place to “live,” and they and their children must be tenants and servants of the owner who usurped their land. This generation shouts not only its dreams but also the dreams of previous generations who did not achieve theirs. This generation no longer falls into the traditional, ideological and value traps of the previous ones. This generation has built and will build its values within the framework of its life experience. This generation does not need the leadership models of the past. They are their own leaders and they will find their own way of leadership. But in order to materialize this meaningful victory, this generation needs the support of the generations who pledged Iran’s “title” to the mullahs.

The evidence shows that the great powers of the world, especially the United States, England and France, played a major role in changing the government of Iran and establishing the Islamic Republic. The previous generations in Iran and in countries whose governments played a great role in planting the tree of the Islamic Republic (and watered it for their personal interests), cannot close their eyes to what is happening. This current generation does not expect much from the past generations, whether in Iran or elsewhere, and does not want them to pay a heavy price for uprooting a tree that was planted and watered decades ago. This current generation is uprooting this tree with their bare hands, and this is not a tree that can be cut down with bare hands. Their expectation is that the previous generations (in Iran and elsewhere) will at least give them an ax so they can more easily cut the roots of this tree. The ax they need is not intervention but attention that can support those on the ground in Iran to be able to uproot the tree of the Islamic Republic. They are expecting the previous generation to hear their voices, bringing their voices to everyone’s ears, and recognizing their demands (women, life, freedom). 

Heidar (Hamid) Azodanloo is an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature.