Consider This from NPR - Ongoing Protests In Iran Echo A Century-Old Revolution

Episode Date: October 18, 2022

It's been more than a month since 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died after being detained by Iran's morality police – allegedly for breaking the rule requiring women to wear a hijab. Her death sparked protests that continue to this day.Women and girls have been at the forefront of the demonstrations, often removing and burning their hijabs in defiance of the authorities.We hear from some of the protesters themselves. And we talk to Iranian-American writer Reza Aslan, who tells us that what we are seeing today echoes a revolution that took place in Iran more than a century ago.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. It's been more than a month since 22-year-old Massa Amini died after being detained by Iran's Morality Police, allegedly for breaking the rule requiring women to wear a hijab. Her death sparked protests throughout the country that continue to this day. In this video, you can hear demonstrators tearing down a statue of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran's Islamic Republic. Women and girls have been at the forefront of the protests, often removing and burning their hijabs in defiance

of the morality police's rules. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has called the demonstrators agents of the West and says they should be punished. But the protests keep going, despite a violent backlash from Iranian authorities. Despite a brutal state crackdown, despite the use of force, people are still taking to the streets, and it seems that it's not dying out for now. Golnaz Esfandiari is a senior correspondent for Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. And the use of force she mentioned, it has been deadly. A report by Amnesty International estimates that among the people killed in these protests are at least 23

children, some as young as 11 years old, killed by security forces in the last 10 days of September alone. Asfandiyari grew up in Iran. She says these protests look very different from the ones she saw growing up. We would resist the regime, but in a very different way. And we were scared. But this generation, we're seeing they're fearless. That fearlessness was evident recently when a member of the Basij, a voluntary paramilitary wing of Iran's security forces, was brought to a school in the city of Shiraz to speak to the students there. And the girls reacted by removing their headscarves and chanting death to the dictator and telling him to get lost.

So the scenes we're seeing are amazing. So Iran's Gen Z, especially young girls and women, have been the driving force behind these protests. And even with Iran having Internet blackouts and the government trying to censor information about the protests, people around the world are watching. That is making it increasingly difficult for the Iranian regime to quell the unrest. Gulnaz Esfandiari says the regime could opt to use more force. But even if they manage to end the protest tomorrow, I would say that the anger is not going away. And I think that the use of lethal force is fueling more anger because people, you cannot remain indifferent

when you see that they're killing young kids in the streets. So whoever watches these scenes gets angrier and angrier. Consider this. There is no end in sight to the protests in Iran, and it's unclear who will ultimately claim victory, the regime or the protesters. But an Iranian revolution more than a century ago reveals lessons about what these protests could lead to next. From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. It's Tuesday, October 18th.

This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at carnegie.org. It's Consider This from NPR. Over the weekend, a devastating fire that killed at least four people broke out at Avin prison in Tehran, where most political prisoners in Iran are held. Iran's government has said the fire started during a fight among inmates, but some see a connection

between the fire and the recent unprecedented wave of anti-government protests in the country. Outside the prison on Saturday, demonstrators chanted, calling for the death of Iran's supreme leader. That's a call made at many of the protests that have erupted throughout Iran since Massa Amini's death in September. NPR's Dee Parvaz has been in touch with some of the protesters in Iran who are not backing down. Hatred. That's the word a 40-year-old educator uses when asked why she joined the protests. The woman we'll call F wears a hijab by choice but hates forcing it on others. We reach protesters in Iran via digital phone calls and

identify them by their first names or initials because it's dangerous for Iranians to speak out. F wants Islam to be seen as a progressive faith, one that respects choice. She says she's horrified at what she's seen on the streets. It started with batons, but as the crowds grew, the government response intensified. 25-year-old university student M has experienced that response firsthand. I've seen police attacking people, shooting at people, beating people. I myself was both shot at and beaten. Footage posted online shows security forces uniformed in plain clothes, beating unarmed protesters and dragging them away. That's why the international community must weigh in, says Ghisounia, who focuses on human

rights violations and international crimes at the Atlantic Council. She says the UN should schedule a special session demanding an investigative mechanism to be established for Iran. It would be a centralized body that collects information and evidence of the state's violent crackdown on protesters and other human rights violations. The UN has taken such steps for accountability before. For instance, in Myanmar, the U.S. State Department said it would continue to coordinate with allies on a response to Iran's, quote, bloody crackdowns. But for protesters to maintain momentum, they need to be seen and heard outside of Iran. And Nia, herself an Iranian-American, emphasizes that's difficult when some digital platforms used in the West are inaccessible to those in Iran. Iranian users are then forced to move on to the Iranian state equivalents of those services.

And the Iranian state equivalents often have mechanisms to surveil these people. The constant surveillance and stringent controls, repression of minority rights, along with the regime's harsh response to even small infractions, has fueled these protests. They're not just about the hijab, clarifies another protester named Hossein, who's 35. His audio is shaky, but he says people are in the streets for one reason. To change the whole system that suppressed them. People are not scared. This is a new thing. People don't feel they have too much to lose. But protests don't last forever. So activists like Em are looking

at what else might put pressure on the government, like a labor strike in the oil industry, because oil revenue funds much of the regime. Right now, M feels this moment could be truly transformative, but doesn't see that reflected in much of the international coverage, the way he's seen with other uprisings. This is not too dissimilar to what happened in Tahrir Square in Egypt 10 years ago. And I remember that there were daily coverage, if not hourly coverage of that. But within Iran right now, many expect change to be incremental. F says a girl who is two or three years old now should be able to choose whether to wear a hijab by the time she's in school.

The 1979 Islamic Revolution was years in the making. And changes to the Islamic Republic will also take time. Toppling the regime isn't necessarily the goal for all protesters. And, says M, any easing of restrictions would be welcomed by Iranians. If we get to a place where we get more freedom for women, if we get to a place where we get other civil freedoms, that's amazing. You know, just a revolution is not the only thing that matters. The voices of some of the protesters in Iran who spoke recently with NPR's Deepar Vaz. Now, there was another revolution in Iran way before that one in 1979. It was an uprising

when women threw off their veils, cropped their hair, and stood shoulder to shoulder with men to fight. Sounds similar to what we're seeing in Iran today, but this was 117 years ago, 1905. I've been studying, you know, Iranian history going back all the way to the dawn of the 20th century, and I can tell you with confidence I've never seen anything like this before. Iranian-American writer Reza Aslan argues the constitutional revolution of 1905 is the closest parallel to what is happening in Iran today.

So tell me briefly, what was happening in Iran around 1905, 1906? Who was protesting and why? In 1905, a band of educated young revolutionaries poured out onto the streets of Iran, backed by the clergy and by the business interests, in order to demand the creation of a constitution that would outline the rights and privileges of all citizens. And of course, the creation of a parliament, an elected parliament that would be able to pass legislation and in general, curtail the absolute authority of the Shah. This was the first democratic revolution in the Middle East. And it was the first of three

major revolutions that Iran has experienced over the course of the 20th century. And in each one of those revolutions, just like today, women were at the forefront. Hmm. You mentioned the Shah, who I have to ask, how did the ruling power of the day respond to all this? Well, he responded with unrestrained violence, which of course shouldn't come as a surprise. And in fact, he and his Russian backers at the time rolled cannons to the parliament building and destroyed the building with the parliamentarians still inside. But the revolutionaries regrouped in the city of Tabriz in the northwest of the country

and there made this appeal to the rest of the world, to all lovers of humanity, to put aside the prejudice of nationality, the bigot rest of the world, to all lovers of humanity, to put aside the prejudice of nationality, the bigotry of creeds, and to come to their aid in this struggle against tyranny. And people did. People came from Russia and Georgia, Armenians. There were Jews and Christians and Baha'i and Zoroastrians. They created this truly multi-ethnic, multi-religious coalition to fight for the freedom of Iran. And then, of course, the really fascinating part about this is amongst that coalition was a single American, a Christian missionary by the name of Howard Baskerville,

who had just arrived from Nebraska to preach the gospel, but who ended up fighting and then ultimately dying in the constitutional revolution. But you argue, you come away from this and say, there's kind of two main lessons that you think we could learn from what was happening in Iran during the constitutional revolution more than a century ago. The first is about that you need a diverse coalition of people for anything to change. Explain. That's right. People who've been watching Iran

or who understand Iranian history know that there have been countless uprisings and popular protests over the last hundred years or so. But the ones that had been able to elevate from protests to revolutions were the ones that were able to bring in a coalition of the educated middle class, the clerics who maintain an enormous amount of control and power over the pious masses in Iran. And I'm talking not about the grand ayatollahs, but sort of the mid-level clerics and the seminary students. And then most crucially, the business class, the merchant class, the Bazaari merchants. In 1906, in 1953, and in 1979, these three groups were able to come together. And that coalition is what ultimately resulted in radical change in the Iranian government. The other big takeaway that you see is what the rest of the world does, how the rest of the world is watching and responding.

What parallels do you see there? Well, of course, in 1906, people came from all over the world with guns and bombs and actually physically joined the revolution. That's not really, of course, possible today, nor is it advisable. But the truth is that we have something even more powerful than guns and weapons. We have our voices. We have the ability to make sure that the cries for freedom that are coming out of Iran are actually heard and responded to by insisting that the Iranian government pay a price for this brutal crackdown. As an Iranian, what's it been like to watch everything happening today in Iran from outside, from afar. The power of these young women, girls, teenagers, children, frankly, who are willing to put their bodies in front of bullets in order to say that we cannot have any more of this. The only thing that will satisfy us is the downfall of this regime.

I don't see how that force can be stopped regardless of the power or the violence of the Islamic Republic. That was writer Reza Aslan. His new book is An American Martyr in Persia. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, I'm Mary Louise Kelly.