While Western media is portraying ongoing protest by the Iranian people as “protest against hijab”, in reality it is a resistance movement against the mullah regime. It is indeed true that the protests that overlook Iran after Masha Amini, a twenty-two-year-old Iranian Kurdish girl, was killed have now spread to more than eighty-five large and small cities. Unlike the protests of 2009, in which Iranians objected to the legitimacy of their elections, or 2017 and 2019, which were based on economic issues and mainly organized by the poor, the current upheaval is more extensive, and outrage has brought together Iranian across social groups. For this reason, Iranian mullah regime is in greatest fear as they anticipate the ongoing protest further intensifying and getting international support.
Recently, Emad Afrogh, the former chairman of the Cultural Commission of the Iranian Parliament, told Iran’s Jamaran News that protestors are demanding flexibility on both the hijab and in the system in general. However, he also observed that people are also demanding broader change; society, poverty, inequality, unemployment, and discrimination are rampant. Iranian society is inundated by problems and looking for solutions.
According to experts on Iran issues, the ongoing protests’ central slogan – “Women, Life and Freedom”, is revealing. The protests’ central slogan, “Women, Life, and Freedom,” is also revealing. Women have played a central role in the protests, and their demands for reforms have encouraged the emergence of a collective societal consciousness of the challenges Iranian women face. However, as Slavy Žižek has observed, the protestors’ full demands are broad. They are not against men; they are comprehensive and inclusive in that they pertain to issues that affect men as well. The protests are now about the rights and recognition that are due to all Iranians.
It is important to note, the protests’ leaders not only represent the middle class, instead they also are very young in age. Due to participation of mostly young Iranians, these protests have received admiration from many Iranian scholars. For example, public figures like Nasrullah Hekmat, an Iranian philosopher, and Soroush Sehhat, a director, praised Iranian students and young peoples’ participation in the protests, noting that they had “learned lessons” from their “courage”.
What is the core reason behind Iranian youths coming up in a large number and participating in the ongoing protests? Iranian Professor Shahindokht Kharazmi considers this generation to have been brought up in the era of sustainable awareness and digitalism and says they have learned how to deal with and pursue their demands in video games. This generation is ready to play until they win. One cannot talk with this generation with the language of limitation and filtering and expect success.
Be that as it may, it is notable that the protestors have not called for reforming Iran’s existing political system, which shows how frustration has increased, especially among the middle class, with the discourse of reformism. Indeed, today’s youth are largely disconnected from the reformist movement. But one key point here is – Iranians are not only facing cruel repression from the regime for decades; they also are now facing acute economic and social crises. They know, unless Iran is liberated from the evil clutches of rogue mullah regime, the degree of sufferings will continue to increase.
