I promise I won’t get all political

Do you remember this meme where ‘me’ says, ‘I promise I won’t get all political’, cut to ‘three drinks later’ where ‘me’ is Lenin hyping up the masses with a revolutionary speech? This used to align perfectly with my self-image in my 20s. Now, not so much. And, let me try to tell you why.

Many people of my generation in Iran are children of parents who have not only seen the 1979 revolution but have participated in it in one way or another, although these days, they keep looking for ways to minimise their roles in it or pretend they had no part in that “disaster” whatsoever. I did an artistic project called Holding a Monument a few years ago. The work was based on my mother’s notebook, made in 1979, in which she, together with her sister, wrote questions asking one’s thoughts on subjects such as the idea of political Islam; social inequality; hijab; colonialism; political independence; their role in the revolution; martyrdom; the role of universities and different institutions, etc. My mother and aunt responded to the questions and then passed the notebook to their friends to write down their responses. I used this notebook as a blueprint for making two other notebooks with the same inquiries. I gave one to my friends who were born after the revolution. The other one went to the same people who wrote in the original notebook, those who had taken to the streets with revolutionary values: asking for equality, independence from the West, standing up for the rights of the working class, etc., all of which have been put to the test in the course of the last 40 years. Their answers to the book’s inquiries were apologetic, filled with guilt and regret, and “this is not how we wanted things to turn out.” They ask for sympathy, which I don’t have much for them. You see, I think of their generation as a highly arrogant one. It’s not that they didn’t “get it” back then and made a mistake. The problem is that they still don’t “get it”, that understanding without which all social movements are doomed to fail. I’m referring to our flawed idea of “freedom” as something that is limited to our own views only. Whereas we truly believe in freedom when we want it for our adversaries as well. I asked my mother recently whether she joined in with other women in the protests against the hijab law when it was introduced shortly after the revolution. She said no. Why? Because she adopted the hijab voluntarily and didn’t see the problematics of others being obliged to do so.

There are protests happening right now in Iran against the obligatory hijab law, sparked by the tragic death of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish girl, at the hands of the morality police in Tehran. People are chanting “زن، زندگی، آزادی” which translates to “woman, life, freedom”. A beautiful and apt slogan reminding us that women’s liberation is not a secondary task and that demands for freedom are meaningless without it. I’m wondering how many pro-hijab people are going to join the protests. I dream of millions.

As I’m writing this editorial, I can’t think about anything other than Jina Amini and what is taking place in the streets of Iran. Vidha assures me, “When reading an editorial, I am not reading you as you now, but you as a composite of your experiences, your politicality, and your views that are constantly updating and revising.” With this reading, I hope you will forgive my scattered thoughts.

I used to religiously follow Iranian politics and participate in the social media debates around it, especially because I left to study abroad in 2013 and didn’t want to become one of those diaspora people with zombie politics (like the “respectable” filmmaker with Iranian origins I met in Helsinki once who told me, “the solution to all Iran’s problems are in the US dropping a nuke on it, as it is only then that Iranians can start with a clean slate and rebuild things correctly, you know, as Japan did.” I asked him if he had any friends or family in Iran. To which he answered, “No”). It was important to me to preserve ‘hope’ within myself, no matter what. To keep thinking with others and not give up on change. That hope has grown dimmer and dimmer in the past few years, thanks to unfettered internal political and economic corruption and the Western sanctions exacerbating it. I stopped following the news and commenting on debates and gave myself a break.

How can one preserve hope when the problems are colossal, and the institutions in power you’re fighting against are so forceful? In these circumstances, a lot of blame is thrown around to figure out what/who is responsible for this ugly state of affairs. One particular blame is one that scolds people for being ‘passive’ in the face of oppression, aiming to create an overbearing amount of guilt that may shame them into becoming ‘active’ agents. I don’t buy into this humiliating narrative that implies ‘we’ as people have always been afraid, indifferent, or submissive towards oppression, so we ‘deserve’ to live like this. I think what we have been in recent years, at least, is not ‘passive’ but ‘desperate’. The difference here is that ‘passive’ people have surrendered to oppression, whereas ‘desperate’ people have not. They are merely in a state of recuperation, taking their time to figure out what to do, which is what you need to do because you have things to lose, you have a life that is full of values, and one can never be too careless with safeguarding that. Spending some time in this lingering state of ‘desperation’ encourages you to be more patient, and to trust that things are cooking on some level unseen to you, to learn you are not the center of the universe and the demand for liberation hasn’t started with you and will not end with you. If you just look closely enough you’ll see an abundance of torches being passed around, from one generation to another, from one movement to the next.

I am as passionate as I was ten years ago about notions of resistance and change, but it takes me more than three drinks to get on a podium and raise my imaginary revolutionary flag. I’m more eager to sit amongst the ‘desperate’ crowd and listen to what they have to say, about their stubborn histories of resistance and their dreams and imaginaries of the future. If I’m lucky enough, I might be able to contribute something to that image, if not, I’ll feel joyous for just having been there. My tip for others who wish similarly is to find a space to sit next to women. When the time for movement comes, women will be on the first row, leading, hopefully, not just themselves and everyone who looks like them and thinks like them, but everyone, adversaries and whatnot. Isn’t that an image worth getting all political for?