politics

The Path to Freedom is Rough, but it is Worth Living!

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Out of the darkness, through the open window of Birth, human life comes to the earth; it dwells for a while before our eyes into the darkness, and then, through the open window of Death, it vanishes out of sight.
Annie Besant

This post may serve as a brief introduction to a significant revolution in a fledgling nation striving for its freedom and the right to lead a happy and healthy life. I decided to write this article because, in my latest post, I mentioned a short note about women and their fight for their rights in Iran, and one of my adorable friends, Petra Glimmdall, asked me to write a more extensive article about this happening.

I’ve written about this topic once or twice before! However, I’ll do my best to provide more details about one of the most widespread, laborious, and challenging struggles for freedom faced by the people of a vast country with a rich history. They have come a long way in their quest for rights but have not yet achieved their goal.

Copyright AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia

Iran has a long history of uprising, starting with the Persian Constitutional Revolution at the beginning of the twentieth century (1905-11), which could hold on but annihilated and oppressed by Reza Khan Pahlavi‘s ambition and selfishness (1925), up to the nationalize Iran’s oil industry under Dr Mossadegh‘s government (1951-53), which has been collapsed by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s coup d’état, until 1979 the revolution against Shah’s regime which Islamic treacherous Mullahs had stolen. Now we see there is no end to this!

However, this time, the heart of the issue is women who hold the head of the rope in their hands, and these protests represent the first uprising led by women.

New Yorker Women in Iran, Illustration by Roshi Rouzbehani

The Women’s Life Freedom Movement in Iran started in September 2022 after the tragic death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini. She was a young Iranian woman who was arrested by the morality police for not wearing her hijab correctly and found dead in the hospital a few days later.

In fact, the Iranian uprising began in 2009 during the so-called Green Movement. This occurred after the presidential election that year, and the people felt deceived by the extremists in front of the regime, although it was a pretext to rebel against them.

Even then, there was a woman who fanned the flame of the Green Movement revolution: Neda Agha-Soltan, an Iranian student of philosophy, who was participating in the protests with her music teacher and was walking back to her car when she was fatally shot in the upper chest.

It took some months then after the Islamic Regime brutally suppressed the revolution by banning international media, cutting off the internet for a week and killing more than one thousand and five hundred protestors.

This time, however, it has been ongoing for about two years, and it seems to be gaining momentum because, in my opinion, it is under the banner of Women, Life, and Freedom. It is not just for the Iranian people but for all people (especially women) around the world.

Honestly, I am a pessimist, not specialized in the Iranian future, but rather in the human condition as a whole. I have some theories that some might consider conspiratorial! However, I believe that for many decades, the actions in Iran, particularly the Islamic Regime, have been under the control of great powers like the USA and other interested authorities. I’m just trying to reason: How can it be that a regime that is unpopular and hated from within and is subjected to constant sanctions from outside remains in power so calmly and shows no weakness?! The West certainly supports this.

Significant changes will occur in the Near and Middle East when the time comes. When is this time? It is when weapons factories achieve good sales, when Putin’s regime becomes weak (though Putin shouldn’t go away!), and when peace is restored. At that point, it will be time for a regime change in Iran. These are my predictions!

Do you smile like the Rose at loss and gain? For the Rose, though its petals may be torn and asunder, it still smiles on, and it is never cast down.
Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi

Finally, to help you understand the core of this uprising, I’m showing you an example named Nika, Nika Shakarami. She is one of many victims of this injustice and brutality—a girl, as you can see in this short video, with lots of dreams, full of hopes and a joyful heart and soul. She was one of the first victims of the Mahsa (Jina) revolution, possibly because of their optimism in believing the uprise would soon win.

Here is a new report of her brutal death, which BBC broadcasted:

I have added two more videos about the history of the Iranian uprising to provide you with additional fundamental information.

I believe I have mentioned this before, but I want to reiterate that I understand everyone faces different challenges in life, and nothing is easy. While I value every thought and acknowledgement, I would appreciate your sympathy and empathy, my dear friends. May the justice win at last! 🙏💖🙏✊

Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil

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Peoples and Fatherlands, Para. 242 (Or a word about a common Europe!)

In Iran, I put a lot of value on the West and its people, especially the Europeans. After WWII, the engagement by England and France to make a common Europe, which came to fruition by Germany and France, made me sincerely wish to belong to this intellectual and cultivated community. I had a dream in Iran of seeing people in all of Europe holding books in their hands as they walked on the streets, and yet, when we escaped and arrived in Germany, I realized that it was a dream after all! Great expectations? It might be; in any case, I still had high expectations from European society. But as I followed this beloved idea wholeheartedly, I became increasingly upset. I found those gatherings of the European governments, apart from significant fundamental differences in understanding freedom, a group under solid influence by lobbyists trying to get their own wins on their business.

Long story short, I want to present the opinion of the great philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche here. As we will notice, he recognized, however tough, the problems of this idea and predicted them beforehand.

Translated from “Werke in vier Bänden, Band 3, Jenseits von Gut und Böse”

Call it “civilization”, “humanization”, or “progress,” where the distinction of Europeans is now sought. Let’s simply call it, without praising or blaming, with a personal formula, the democratic movement of Europe: behind all the moral and political backgrounds that are pointed out with such a formula, an enormous philosophical process is taking place that is becoming more and more fluid – the process of similarity between Europeans, their growing detachment from the conditions under which climatically and class-bound races arise, their increasing independence from every particular milieu that for centuries wants to inscribe itself in soul and body with the same demands – i.e. the slow emergence of an essentially supranational and nomadic type of human being who, physiologically speaking, has a maximum of the art of adaptation and – strength as its typical distinction. This process of becoming a European can be delayed in speed by significant relapses. However, perhaps because of this, it gains and grows in intensity and depth – the now still raging Storm and Stress of the “national feeling” belongs here, as does the anarchism that has just emerged -: this process probably leads to results that its naive promoters and eulogists, the apostles of “modern ideas”, least want to count on. The same new conditions under which, on average, a levelling and mediation of people will emerge – a valuable, industrious, multi-purpose and employable herd animal; humans -are highly capable of giving rise to exceptional people with the most dangerous and attractive qualities. While that power of adaptation, which constantly tries out changing conditions and begins a new work with every gender, almost with every decade, does not make the power of the type possible at all, as the overall impression of such future Europeans will probably be that of many talkative, poor-willed and extremely employable jobs that require the master, the commanding one, like daily bread; while the democratization of Europe amounts to the creation of a type prepared for slavery in the finest sense: In individual and exceptional cases, the strong person will have to become stronger and more prosperous than he has perhaps ever been before – thanks to the unprejudiced nature of his training, thanks to the enormous diversity of practice, art and mask. I wanted to say that the democratization of Europe is simultaneously an involuntary event for the breeding of tyrants – the word understood in every sense, including the spiritual one.

Sincerely appreciate your interest.🙏💖

The title image by Michael Cheval