For as long as I can remember, the plight of the Iranian people has been a weight I’ve carried. As an Iranian Jewish girl, born and raised in New Jersey, who has never even stepped foot on Iranian soil, I’ve constantly felt a powerful inclination to tell the story, the real story, of the Iranian people.
I vividly remember in eighth grade, years before I had any idea I’d end up working as a journalist, I chose to write about the Iranian Revolution for my first official term paper. Even then, I saw it as an opportunity to show my teacher and classmates the stark difference between the Iranian people and those who govern them.
Years before this, I sat on the rug in our living room watching TV as news broke of Ayatollah Khomeini’s death. I immediately looked at my mother and asked her, “Does this mean we will move back to Iran?” For someone that young, who had never even traveled to Iran, I equated my family living outside Iran with this revolution; with this regime; with this man. I felt a deep awareness about the happenings of a profound political movement that happened before I was born and how it now affected not only me but millions of Iranians.
Compared to the stories of others who left Iran, my parents were fortunate. While they left their homeland, friends, family, and belongings, they both left before the Islamic Revolution of 1979 which brought in an Islamic theocracy that still rules Iran today.
My father, an Iranian student studying in New York, met my mother in 1977 while on holiday in Tehran. The plan was they’d get married, they’d live in New York until my father finished his studies and then go back to Iran, where their families were.
The ayatollahs had a different plan.
For those who could read the tea leaves, they knew change was on the horizon in advance of the Shah leaving. My parents knew then that as Iranian Jews, they had no place in an Iran under militant control. Their stint in America was going to become permanent.
And so they gracefully evolved into ‘Iranian Americans,’ whose inspiration and admiration for their new home motivated them to assimilate, while their deep connection to their rich land and heritage, now thousands of miles away, moved them to celebrate their culture freely in a uniquely American melting pot.
And that is the exact balance they maintained while raising their four children.
My siblings and I have each have embraced different aspects of Iranian culture. For me, learning about Iran through my parents’ experiences is what I cherished most. I inherited the stories.
My siblings and I grew up with profound love and patriotism for this country while at the same time, attempting to preserve whatever we could from our Iranian culture. We each have embraced different aspects of the language, the music, the jokes, the delicious food, but for me, learning about Iran through my parents’ experiences is what I cherished most.
I inherited the stories.
I always loved hearing my parents’ experiences and envisioning their lives in a country that no longer was the way they left it. I imagined how they felt. While their memories were vivid and exact, their country was now occupied. Even the names of the very streets they grew up on are not the same. I imagine what it would be like if I had the opportunity to grow up in Iran — first under the Shah, like my parents lived, and then I imagine what it would be like to live repressed, under the new regime.
According to the Haggadah, “in every generation, each person must see himself as if he himself had come out of Egypt.” This is how I absorbed stories about Iran. I completely saw myself as if I had escaped Iran or had to flee this new regime. I look at pictures of my mother attending university with her fashionable outfits, short skirts and trendy hair styles and think about how young women are forced to dress now.
I think about the modernity and freedom a young woman like my mother had in the 70s, and then think about the recent story I covered of university students rounded up for peacefully protesting or how a beautiful medical student was thrown off the roof of her medical school by regime forces after she had run up there to hide from them during protests. To this day, when I see footage of the Shah leaving Iran, I actually shed tears for a time or for memories that I did not live through but that were somehow, somewhere etched in my consciousness, motivating me to continue connecting with the people, their experiences and their stories.
Fast forward to today, 44 years after the Revolution, and the young people of Iran are out on the streets protesting for their freedom and telling the world their story.
Iranians just commemorated the one-year anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian girl who was visiting family in Tehran when she was arrested for not wearing her hijab properly. While in custody, she was beaten so badly she slipped into a coma and shortly thereafter lost her life, quickly becoming the name, face and inspiration behind the latest grassroots uprising in Iran.
While we have seen many protests throughout the last four decades, each seemed focused on a different segment of the population or a varying cause. We had the bazaar protests, the university uprisings, the egg protests, the teachers’ protests and of course, there was the 2009 Green Revolution over a contested and fraudulent election. But over the last year, the protests over the life of #MahsaAmini were different than anything we’ve seen in Iran.
The movement, while supported by men and women alike, was spearheaded by women. They took to the frontlines, protested inside grade schools and universities, and even cut their hair in public. The tag line of the movement —“Zan, Zendegi, Azadi,” (“Woman, Life, Freedom”) — quickly gained traction throughout the world, with political leaders, actors, singers, influencers and journalists also cutting their hair in solidarity.
The footage of Iranian women walking the streets of Iran without their hijabs, or waving them around while allowing their hair to flow freely, or even burning their hijabs in group settings during the protests became unforgettable images that accurately characterized the bravery of Iran’s women.
I’ve covered this part of the world for over 15 years, and this latest revolution in Iran is unlike any political movement I’ve seen before.
It is a movement representing modernity but also has threads of tradition. While it is led by the youth, it is inspired by their parents and grandparents who witnessed their country fall to extremists and watched as their freedoms and way of life changed instantly. It is a women’s movement, but it is the men who are standing steadfastly, shoulder to shoulder, supporting the women and showing the world the stereotypes of patriarchy in a country governed by Sharia Law, where the ‘value’ of a woman is legally half that of a man, that from the point of view of young Iranians, there is equality and unity.
More than anything, I’ve been inspired by the astonishing bravery and fearlessness I’m seeing among Iranians who are seeing their friends, family and classmates get shot, blinded, arrested and executed, but continue to come out onto the streets.
But more than anything, I’ve been inspired by the astonishing bravery and fearlessness I’m seeing among Iranians who are seeing their friends, family and classmates get shot, blinded, arrested and executed, but continue to come out onto the streets to stand up to regime forces.
How are they so brave?
It is this same faux nostalgia, the inheritance of their parents’ stories that brings millions of young Iranians to the streets so courageously. Just as I hold on to the memories of better days in Iran through my parents, they’re fighting for the same better days, yearning for an Iran they never knew, but one they’re determined to see free again.
I have interviewed many Iranian families who tell me that the children often question why their parents demonstrated against the Shah or why they didn’t do more to stop it. They hear stories, quite similar to the ones I hear from my parents, and wonder why there had to be a revolution that crushed their country and their freedoms. Just like me, they wonder, “what if …’
Throughout this year, we often heard rhyming slogans on the streets of Iran fondly remembering the late Shah and his father, chanting “Reza Shah, rouhat shad,” or Reza Shah bless your soul, or even calling upon his son, 62-year-old Reza Pahlavi, who currently lives outside Washington D.C. and has been an outspoken advocate and symbolic leader, offering the people of Iran support, to come back to Iran.
While some will argue that there were issues with the Shah’s regime which led to political strife at that time, most, especially retrospectively, will agree that Iran under the Shah, while not perfect, was a utopia compared to what it has turned into under the mullahs.
The Iranian youth are looking to their parents and saying we will fix your revolution with our own, and using a phrase we often hear from Iranian protesters, “We will get our country back.”
Throughout the years many have asked me if Iranian protesters were influenced by Arab Spring of 2010, which saw an awakening of young Arabs, eager and hungry to join modernity and to shake off the dictators and archaic decades-old regimes.
On the contrary, it can be said that the Arab Spring protesters were inspired by Iranians who came onto the streets in 2009 for the protests that were dubbed the Green Revolution or sometimes called the Twitter Revolution, the first time a large-scale political movement took force and shape through social media. Up until the Mahsa Amini protests, the Green Revolution was the most notable grassroots movement we had seen in Iran in the 44 years since this regime came into power.
It was the first time the young Iranian people ‘introduced’ themselves to the world.
They were cool. They wore fashionable clothing, had gel in their hair and wanted the same things in life their contemporaries in our hemisphere wanted: Freedom? Justice? Liberty? Yes, perhaps. But more immediately, an iPhone, a pair of designer jeans and a European car. It was the Iranian people’s first foray unto the global stage where they told the world they had outgrown their government and wanted something different for their future.
While the Green Revolution was reportedly over a fraudulent election, it quickly grew into more. The protesters were no longer just contesting an election; they were contesting the entire system. But by the time they worked to evolve their message, Michael Jackson had died, the news cycle no longer showed interest, and President Obama failed to give the protesters the support they wanted, something he publicly admitted was a grave mistake.
But there are significant differences between the Green Revolution and the Mahsa Amini protests of the last year that make this latest movement the greatest chance yet for the Iranian people to gain their freedom.
This is the first time we have seen absolute unity in the message. This time around, the Iranian people have been very clear from the beginning that this movement is about regime change.
This is the first time we have seen absolute unity in the message. While previous protests had some underlying notions of overthrowing the regime, some were about specific reforms. This time around, the Iranian people have been very clear from the beginning that this movement is about regime change. Over four decades, the Iranian people have been duped by reformist candidates and promises of behavioral change that have all fallen flat. They will no longer accept any talk of reform or referendums. They just don’t believe they’ll see any real change under this regime.
Another major difference in these protests is the expansiveness. While the protests have not been as consistent as they were in the first few months after Mahsa’s death, throughout this year, there were demonstrations in all 31 provinces throughout the country in urban, rural and suburban areas. There were protests at universities, grade schools, the bazaar, among retirees, industry workers in Iran’s oil and steel refineries and more. We even saw protests in places like Qom, a clerical, religious city and traditionally a place where the mullahs find deep support.
This movement isn’t just about the cool kids of Tehran we saw in 2009. It is a country-wide movement where people of all backgrounds are uniting to say they want different governance. They want freedom.
This movement isn’t just about the cool kids of Tehran we saw in 2009. It is a country-wide movement where people of all backgrounds are uniting to say they want different governance. They want freedom.
And it’s that simplicity in their message that has so many people around the world supporting and rooting for the Iranian people to get their basic rights. Thanks to social media, celebrities, musicians, influencers and politicians lent their support to the Iranian people, helping to echo their message. Alongside the protests in Iran, there were solidarity marches in various cities throughout Canada, the US, Europe and Israel.
The support from Israel was particularly special, as it dispelled the false narratives of the regime that the people of Iran are at war with the people of Israel. On the contrary, Israelis from top leadership down to rights groups marched, hung murals, lit landmark buildings and made it clear that Israelis are standing in support of the Iranian people.
Iranians have received support from all different arenas. I just got back from the United Nations, where on the periphery of the UN General Assembly, a group hosted a Woman, Life, Freedom film festival where a short by Moriah Films that I narrated, “The Women of Iran,” was featured. It was a beautiful day honoring the freedom-seekers in Iran, ironically in the same building where Iran’s regime is not condemned; where they receive top positions on human rights and women’s rights committees and where Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, “the butcher” was set to speak only a couple days later.
The Iranian people have constantly looked to Washington D.C. and wanted more support. For many, to support regime change in Iran is the antidote to many global ailments. For those paying attention to global terrorism, Iran is currently supporting proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Gaza and the West Bank. They are still the world’s number one exporter of terror. For those concerned about the war in Ukraine, it is Iran that is manufacturing drones at this very moment to sell to Russia to use on Ukrainians. In terms of national security here in the US, just look south of our border, where Iran is increasing its presence in countries like Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia.
But there is no case stronger than that of the Iranian people’s call for basic human rights, so that they are not executed for a social media post or arrested for walking down the street with a significant other.
It may have been a yearning for my parents’ stories that first piqued my interest in telling the stories of Iranian people, but now it’s their virtue, as a freedom-loving, freedom-deserving people that I want to share with the world.
It may have been a yearning for my parents’ stories that first piqued my interest in telling the stories of Iranian people, but now it’s their virtue, as a freedom-loving, freedom-deserving people that I want to share with the world.
Let’s tell their story together.
Lisa Daftari is an Iranian American journalist and on-air foreign policy analyst, and founder and editor-in-chief at The Foreign Desk.
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