As a feminist friend from Iran tweeted recently, the women\u2019s movement in Iran has already secured a major victory. Women in Iran will never again be ignored or underestimated. They have undeniably staked their claim to equal rights, inspiring many others to rise despite years of crushing repression and oppression. This is no small feat and an essential condition for any truly revolutionary movement. Through their struggle, they have also sparked a feminist transnational awareness that promises a new solidarity that crosses class, racial and religious boundaries.<\/p>\n
Iranians around the world are sharing an unprecedented moment of national pride in solidarity with the uprising for freedom and justice in Iran. Entering its sixth week of sustained confrontation with the security forces of the Islamic Republic, the protests continue unabated while the death toll rises<\/span><\/a>. This spontaneous grassroots uprising was set in motion by the death of Mahsa Amini<\/span><\/a>, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died after her arrest by the \u201cmorality police\u201d for not observing a government-mandated Islamic dress code. Since late September, the uprising has grown from militant street protests led by young women to widespread national demonstrations.<\/p>\n Large student demonstrations<\/span><\/a> in Tehran and many other cities have been met with arrests and bloody reprisals. University students have a long history of anti-dictatorship, anti-imperialist struggle in Iran going back to the months following the 1953 coup d\u2019etat against the nationalist government of Mohammad Mossadegh. December 7 marks \u201cStudent Day\u201d commemorating the killing of three Tehran University students during protests against then-Vice President Richard Nixon\u2019s visit to Iran in that year. Students have remained at the forefront of opposition to the Islamic Republic as witnessed during the militant and widespread 1999 student protests and again in 2009 during the Green movement. The current uprising includes elementary and high school students as well. The violent response by the authorities to their participation has alarmed the international community<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n News of worker strikes in different industries including oil and petrochemicals<\/span><\/a> has also brought the uprising to a new level, one that poses a deeper threat to the stability of the government. While reliance on oil has decreased in recent years, it remains a major source of government income. As in the 1979 revolution, the mobilization of workers in the oil industry is seen to be crucial to the success of the current uprising, both because of the economic impact it will have, and the influence it will have on workers in other sectors to strike as well.<\/p>\n Why are people risking their lives on the streets of Tehran and dozens of other cities across the country despite a relentless crackdown by Iran\u2019s brutal security forces (police, plainclothes \u201cBasiji\u201d paramilitary, the army, and the powerful \u201cSepah\u201d or Revolutionary Guards)? \u201cWoman, Life, Freedom\u201d (Jin, Jiyan, Azadi), a slogan that originated in the Kurdish national movement and has been the movement\u2019s rallying cry from day one, was first raised in protests in Saqqez, in Iranian Kurdistan (Mahsa Amini\u2019s hometown). It is attributed to Abdullah Ocalan<\/span><\/a>, one of the leaders of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party), who placed women at the center of the Kurdish liberation movement. During the recent uprising, it has united women and men, old and young, across class, religious and geographic boundaries around three major shared hardships: increasing violence against women, deteriorating living conditions, and an oppressive lack of personal and civil freedoms. Other chants like \u201cDeath to the Dictator\u201d and \u201cDown with the Islamic Republic\u201d focus on the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the regime itself, and clearly signify a call for a political revolution, reminiscent of the sentiment toward the shah in 1979. <\/p>\n The Iranian protest song \u201cBaraye\u201d (\u201cFor\u201d)<\/span><\/a> by Shervin Hajipour<\/span><\/a> captures the country\u2019s nascent revolutionary movement in its fullness. Hajipour, who was arrested soon after his song became the anthem for the movement (he has since been released), collected the hopes and sorrows of Iranians expressed on hundreds of different social media posts. From these he composed and set to music a simple but emotional inventory of the many motivations behind the freedom movement in Iran. It is not surprising that a campaign on TikTok urging users to submit the song for one of the Grammys\u2019 new special merit awards resulted in the song receiving over 83 percent of the 115,000 nominations<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n