Episode 56: From Oppression to Activism: The Pioneering Role of Iranian Women in Protests with Malu Halasa

Prepare to be awestruck as we journey into the heart of protests in Iran in 2022, with a focus on the extraordinary bravery of Iranian women. We're privileged to engage with Malu Halasa, the insightful editor of Woman Life Freedom, who helps us untangle the narratives that crisscross ethnicities, generations, and genders. We delve into how education shapes Iranian women's lives, the powerful role of photojournalism in protests, and the transformative shifts in the lives of these women since Iran morphed into an Islamic Republic in 1979.

As we navigate into the second half of our discourse, we uncover the intricate strategies of government surveillance, the role of tech activism, and the implications of VPN decriminalization in Iran. Malu expands on the significance of graffiti in Tehran, the efforts of the socialist youth group Kheobon Tribune, and the impact of tech activism. We conclude with a testament to the resilience and strength of Iranian women, encapsulated in heartening stories sourced from across the country. This is a conversation that promises an enlightening exploration into the transformative journey of Iranian women.

Chapters

• 0:09 Women's Struggle for Freedom in Iran
• 12:25 Iranian Tech Surveillance Challenges and Activism
• 21:41 Celebrating Women in Iran

Transcript

EPISODE 56:  Malu Halasa 

PART TWO

Guest: Malu Halasa 

Host: The Rebel Justice Host

Host

Welcome to the Rebel Justice podcast. This week, we're honoured to speak with Malu Halasa, the editor and curator of the book ‘Woman, Life Freedom’, a collective cry for justice. 

In the pages of the anthology about Jina Masa Amini's death at the hands of Iran's morality police on the 16th of September 2022, which ignited a five storm of protests that reverberated not only across Iran but across the world, women from all walks of life took to the streets, shedding their headscarves and boldly proclaiming Zan Zindagi Azadi in Persian, or Zin Zian Azadi in Kurdish Translation. 

‘Woman, Life, Freedom’, Halasa's anthology is a raw and unapologetic exploration of the extraordinary bravery exhibited by Iranian women in the face of oppressive laws and the relentless efforts to silence them. The anthology takes readers on a journey behind the scenes of forbidden fashion shows, where women negotiate the risk of expressing their individuality. 

Host

01:17

I mean this mixed medium presentation of the creativity throughout the protest also was reflected in the fact that the revolution is about all ethnicities, all generations, all genders.

Malu Halasa 

01:31

As you said, querying of the revolution as well, it's not just this idea of an Iranian woman, young woman, it's actually all of these multiple - and also, just going back to a point about the past, was that the book is an anthology that definitely gives insight into the protests that were happening and are still going on now. 

However, for the reader, I felt that to understand what was happening in front of us now, we really had to have context of Iranian women's lives - like how did women's lives change when the country became an Islamic Republic in 1979? And there were two articles that we included, Hengam-e-Golistan's photographs, iconic black and white photographs of mass women's demonstrations against compulsory veiling. That happened weeks after the Iranian Republic, weeks after Khomeini came into power, because these were women who had fought for the revolution and the 1979 revolution had been very bloody. A lot of people died. It was horrible.

02:43

Women had really fought in the front line for that revolution, for that change in their country, and what happened was that within a month they lost their rights; their rights to divorce, freedoms that they had been given under the Shah family law. They were kind of pushed back into the house. I mean, Hengam-e tells a very interesting story. She wanted to cover the Iran-Iraq war and she went to one of the ministries to get a permit so she could travel down and cover the war, and the ministry official denied her the permit and he said she better to go home, better to use your time at home making jam and pickles for the men at the front, and I kind of felt like that really showed how women had been really pushed back.

03:30

And another statistic that we don't have in the book, but what I've learned since is that in 1979, 3% of the women of Iran were college educated. By 2017, nearly 70% had gone to university. So you're talking about women who are highly educated and they've done well. They've gone to university. And what are they expected to do? Stay at home.

Host

03:55

Because educating women and young women is still an important priority in Iran.

Malu Halasa

04:00

It's definitely an important priority, and one of the essays that we have in the book tells the story of three generations of Iranian women and of a mother who was married when she was 13, had her daughter when she was 15. She was the second wife in a traditional Islamic marriage and the first wife, the sons, were going to high school and she wanted her daughter to go to high school, but at that time, where they were living, there were no schools for young women for high school. So the girl had to go to Tehran if she was going to go to high school. And the father said my daughter can't live outside the family.

04:48

And the second wife, the girl's mother, said I will go with her to Tehran, I will live with her so she can go to high school. And then they went to Tehran and the mother realised that there were so many high schools for girls in Tehran that it wasn't like whether a girl should go to high school. It was which high school should she go to? And it turned out that her daughter ended up working at the University of Tehran and for the World Health Organization. And so the essay is being written by the first daughter who's grown up and become a mother and had children, and it's one of her daughters that is writing, remembering the lessons that have come down during the generations. So education has been very important.

Host

05:35

That was a really beautiful essay. I remember hearing those three well, through the perspective of one generation, but the three voices were really powerful and how things have changed. I also wanted to speak more about Hengome Golestan's work as well, and also because you spoke about the power of photojournalism. 

You've also spoken about the power of rap and conscious sort of protest and speaking more about the past and how the creative mediums in women's life, freedom protests have maybe changed. Or compared to the past movements of the Green Movement, the 979 revolutions, how is it different?

Malu 

06:15

It's interesting. I think you can really see it in photojournalism, particularly because during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, people were taking photographs but there was a ban on all press in the country and the only way that they could see their photo, what was going on in the country was that there were some photographers that were already working for Time Magazine or for Newsweek, and that Newsweek in time I think it was Time that was publishing photographs and you could buy that issue of Time Magazine in the international hotels. But you couldn't find any other locally produced media or newspapers or magazines that were published inside the country because there was a ban on any sort of news. So what happened was that in the 1979 revolution, people would put their photographs of what was going on on the city walls and in Tehran people would go out and look at the photographs to understand what was happening. Also, there was a man.

07:12

Hangeh Me Gholistan told me about a man who has been documented in other photographs. He would walk around town pinned with photographs that had been taken of, I'm afraid to say, these corpses on the street, so that people could see what was actually going on. That was in 1979. So walking billboard, a walking billboard, that was in 1979. And then in 2009,. The Green Movement. You had a whole generation of young photojournalists on the street documenting those demonstrations.

Host 

07:47

That was digital, wasn't it? Because 1979 was still analog.

Malu 

07:51

It was still analog, but those photographs were being printed, they were being published in the newspapers. It was a reform press inside the country and also they were being sent abroad and being published. The regime was really upset about that and Nisha Tavakulian, who's a magnum photographer, talks about the last day that she was a photojournalist. It was during the Green Movement, where she was taking a picture of demonstrators and a man turned and he put his face, his hand in front of his face, so that his identity would not be seen by the regime. And that's when she realised that photojournalism - I'm sure that she already knew that photojournalism inside Iran was dangerous - but she said that was her last day. But also at the same time the regime was targeting photojournalists.

08:47

A friend of mine tells a story that the authorities came to his house, knocked on the door and they showed him a pile of photographs and they said ‘oh, can you tell us who took these photographs? We want to know the names of the photographers.’ And as my friend was going through them, he realised that he had taken some of those pictures and he said to the authorities ‘no, I don't know, I don't know.’ And they said ‘okay, well, think about it, we'll contact you again’, and they went away. And then, maybe like a few nights later, 3 in the morning, he receives a phone call and it's the authorities saying ‘ah, have you thought about it? Do you know who took those photographs?’ And my friend packed a bag and left the country immediately.

09:36

So during the 2009 movement, a whole generation, because Transiteran, the book that I did when Mazir Bihari, is just filled with incredible photojournalism. On the cover we have these Iranian women police. They're like abseiling down a building. It's just like mad. There's also an essay by Nisha Tavakolian about Maria, a trans truck driver. So photojournalism was really really a very important, on one hand, social activity. Documenting life inside the Islamic Republic was very important at that time and a lot of people did it. But after the targeting of journalists and photojournalists, a whole generation went into the artist's studio. The artwork that's being made is quite critical of the regime, or looking into the corners where maybe the regime would not like them to look, but they're not on the streets taking photographs and I think that was really seen in fast-forwarding until now, but to this time. Now that really shows that for Woman, Life, Freedom, it was really social media and it was the videos. The videos have been very important - Instagram, twitter, all of that.

Host

11:04

I was going to move into that as well, to talk more about the role of social media and tech activism, how important that has been, especially to counteract the digital surveillance of the state, and I loved it. Also, there was a great Let me see if I find it here Alexander Cyrus Pauli Khekos. Oh, Lukakos.

He wrote that Unity of places has become possible temporarily without unity of time and physical space, and he wrote this in relation to the graffiti in the city shared through the digital realm, and I thought that was a wonderful way of seeing how it's shifted the revolution to this kind of unbounded exploration of protest and resistance to disseminate the message.

Malu 

11:56

Definitely, they're disseminating the message and that's been going on on the streets through graffiti, word of mouth, through all of that song, but also, I think, definitely through social media, because without that, I think that's what really alerted the world.

And the world being alerted also gave the revolution power. Like it sustained it, it kept it going, just like the artwork it sustained it and kept it going. But the technology, it's a double-edged sword. On one hand, you have incredible surveillance of the people. You know the government peers into cars. You know the government peers into not just everyone's lives but into what they're looking on at the internet. So you have all that going on. And then you have these tech activists, whether they're here or here in the West or they're in Iran, and they're trying to, you know, figure out a workaround. So they said Ashley Bellinger writes about the technical tech in Iran and wrote that you know. Or one of the people that she interviewed said that when the internet goes down, people are killed because the world is no longer watching. So it's important to have the tech activism to try to keep ahead of the incredible surveillance that's going on.

Host

13:23

And we could talk more about that as well. The importance, because there is an essay on the tech activism, especially on the decriminalisation of VPNs. I mean, maybe you could speak more about the importance of VPNs in Iran, because I did not know anything about this until I read it in your anthology. I thought it was very fascinating actually.

Malu 

13:43

Well, VPNs are a way that they can have access to the internet, but some of the VPNs that they buy and have access through are government owned, government promoted and maybe even the hand of the government is hidden. So, as people are using the VPNs to get to the internet, all their data, what they're looking at, is also reported to the government. So they have to be really careful about what VPNs are used. And you know, when - I can't remember if it was Telegram or Instagram, it was one of the apps - went down, then the government put up its own version of that app and when people used that, then whatever they were looking at went to the government and the government knew.

Host

14:28

Because, as I read in that essay, they were talking about how they would create apps that looked just like the real app under the radar, but actually everything was being monitored. So that really showed as well the tactics and strategies behind government surveillance.

Malu 

14:49

But it's interesting, those tactics. Kheobon Tribune, the socialist youth group that documents graffiti in Tehran - for a while there they were documenting there was a lot of graffiti of women who had been shot and killed during the protest that their faces would go up, and the collective was going out on the streets photographing this. And there was one face that they realised that wasn't of someone who had been killed during the protest. It was a dummy face that the government had put up and that meant that they had to think again. It's not just in tech, it's even on the streets. In terms of graffiti, the government's quite wily.

Host

15:48

Yeah, so throughout the women's life through the anthology. There are a lot of people repeating the phrase or it's heard even throughout Iran. Nobody is going back to the way it was. I wanted to ask you, after completing the anthology, what does the way forward look like to you?

Malu 

16:08

I don't know as the editor of the anthology. People ask my opinion of things and I have to defer to the contributors, and I think that I have to defer to the anonymous contributor who closes the book as the anonymous contributor the same one opened the book that that contributor feels there might not be regime change anytime soon and that might sound depressing and upsetting to many people. However, that contributor or that writer does believe that something seismic has changed and that people before Woman, Life, Freedom, they didn't dream that change could happen. Now they believe that some change can happen, but whether it will happen soon is another conundrum altogether, and that maybe, when you're fighting an enemy as difficult as this one, one has to manage expectations so that you can handle the long fight.

17:27

And also remember the Iranians already had a revolution, they already upended their society, many people were killed. They're not really willing to do that again. So I think that it's a slow, this is a slow burn, but I think, even though the regime is difficult to deal with and dangerous to deal with because I was talking to another friend of mine in Tehran, especially after these new laws came in, it was so demoralising and so upsetting, and I was told a story where my friends building has a lot of cafes at the bottom and the authorities went into the cafes and said to the owners you cannot serve women who are hijabless, you have to turn them away. And initially the people said well, you're asking us to do your job, we're not going to monitor, we're not going to police society. South Monaster.

18:27

Yeah we're not going to do that, but then their cafes would be shut down or some other thing would happen to them or their family. That's another thing that goes on is that for the young women who have been really active, their families are targeted. Some of them are killed. I don't know if you were following the death of Amita Garavan, the 16-year-old student who there was film footage released on social media where she walks into a train on the Tehran metro and then the next thing you see is that her friends are carrying her body out.

19:10

The footage from the platform was released, but not the footage inside the train. And there was allegedly from reports that there was an exchange between these schoolgirls. She was 16 years old, a schoolgirl with a woman morality police. Amita had to wear a hijab and the schoolgirl said well, we don't tell you what to wear, so why are you telling us? And they hit her with a big stick and so she was carried out on the platform. She was sent to a military hospital. She's in a coma. They say she might be brain dead. Her family were not allowed to go see her. The authorities went to the school and told the pupils and the teachers not to talk about her. So you get this censorship but also this really heavy situation where they're trying to control everything. So what can people do? It's that bad and that's what I was asking. My friend and my friend in Tehran said the young will figure out a way, and I think that's the optimistic note.

Host

20:22

I think that's a wonderful note to end on and for anyone who's listening. Would you like to suggest some places to get that information or to keep updated on Iran?

Malu 

20:33

I think that, yeah, instagram's good, twitter's probably good. I really do believe Iran Wire is the best source, because Iran Wire isn't just a new service. It has a very, very deep commitment to human rights. So all of their investigative pieces, all their research, goes to human rights reports, which I think is really important. Also, there's another, because Gina Masa Amini. She comes from a Kurdish family. It was the Kurds that have really been in the forefront of woman life freedom, and there is a Kurdish news agency called Harana H-R-A-N-A and they are actually very much on it and a lot of the news is reported in the West. Harana is breaking that news. So I think it's important to even go even deeper to that source. Their website is in Kurdish, but also in English, so I think that's a wonderful resource.

Host

21:41

Thank you so much. My name is Celeste and I'm the host for this episode of the Rebel Justice Podcast. Thank you so much, Malu Halasa, for being our guest here. I hope you all take what it takes to make the anthology and go out and buy a copy. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.

Malu 

21:58

Celeste, thank you.

Host 

22:04

Thank you to Malu and thank you to you for listening to Malu's extraordinary personal journey and how she's gathered together the stories of women across Iran to commemorate and celebrate the life of a young Iranian woman whose bravery is tattooed on all of our hearts. Check out our social media posts with Maru's selection of artists and prose to find out more. Support the view by liking us on social media, subscribing to our quarterly magazine on our website, theviewmagorguk, and donating, sharing and being part of our growing community, wherever and however you can. Thank you.