Editorial: Understanding the protests in Iran

Mahsa Amini passed away on Sept. 16 after spending three days in a coma, likely induced by severe head trauma. 

The state-sponsored “morality police” detained the 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman in the Iranian city of Saqez for failing to sufficiently cover her hair with her headscarf. 

Once inside a detention center, Iranian officials claim that Amini collapsed due to a heart attack, but eyewitness accounts and medical professionals refute that claim, saying that Amini had endured a severe beating at the police station that likely led to her death.

The Islamic Republic of Iran holds strict laws requiring women to fully cover their hair with hijabs, a rule that has been in place since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 displaced the rapidly Westernizing regime and implanted a theocratic government.

While there is much that could be said about the repressive nature of the Iranian Government’s social policies, we would instead like to focus on the resistance that has formed in the aftermath of Amini’s death.

This event has been the catalyst for a new wave of protests in the country, led by and consisting mostly of young women.

Despite a militaristic crackdown on protests from the government, videos have emerged showing Iranian women, mostly students, tearing off and burning their hijabs and openly disavowing the Islamist republic.

These protests constitute the beginning of what could become a war over the direction of the country, not a physical war fought between two countries or opposing factions, but an ideological war over the hyper-conservative interpretation of Islam that has been in power in Iran for over four decades.

While this is not the first instance of opposition to Islamist rule in the country — the Green Movement following the 2009 elections was stifled by extreme government tactics — there is something different about this most recent bout of protests.

Women in Iran make up over half of the college graduates in the country and have begun taking higher roles in government, but the regime’s oppressive rules still bar women from holding certain jobs or wearing certain clothes outside the home.

Highly educated women have begun fighting back against these laws, along with ones that condone intermarital rape and forced marriages for girls as young as 13.

The cruel patriarchal society that these laws attempt to create simply does not comply with the vision that these women have for themselves or for their country.

Still, this is where we must be careful in our commentary on both Islam and the protesters themselves.

Too often, people with a Western feminist perspective writing about the Middle East come at the issues with a condescending, Orientalist perspective that is not accurate to the experiences within the country.

When thinking or talking about the protests in Iran, we have to understand that the hardline fundamentalist position of the government is the interpretation of two men, Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini and his successor Ali Khamenei. 

There is a high level of nuance when discussing the theopolitical makeup of Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, a nuance that American writers — this editorial board included — likely miss due to our lack of exposure to and understanding of the religion and culture of Islam.

We support the women risking their lives and their freedom by protesting against a regime that they see as illegitimate and unjust, but we also recognize that these discussions all too often can become a breeding ground for Islamophobia.

It is hard to know at this point what, if anything, will result from these protests. Moreover, it is easy to feel powerless in response to injustices happening thousands of miles away.

In the present moment, we should work to educate ourselves on our own preconceived notions and attempt to become more empathetic, unpretentious members of the human world.