Ms. Amini’s life wasn’t the first unjustly taken by Iran’s regime. In the more than 40 years since the Islamic theocracy instated itself, tens of thousands (more by some estimates) have been killed. Many more imprisoned and tortured. In some ways, the entire people of Iran exist in a perpetuity of imprisonment by their own government. Told who to love (strict laws against LBTQ+), how to practice your faith (must observe Islamic laws as interpreted by Iran’s religious clerics), what to say (jails overflow with political prisoners), or even what to drink (no alcohol).
If you’re female, you’re told what to wear (cover your hair and your curves), how to move (no running in public), and whether to work (you require your husband or father’s permission). Iranians, though, aren’t a weak people. Therein lies the exceptional duality that is Iran and its women in particular: They are a highly educated and remarkably strong-willed population who continuously in the last several decades have pushed back against their regime. They have written and screamed and bled over and over again for a mere taste of the freedoms they know they’re entitled to. Activists and poets, journalists and merchants, students and elderly have taken to the streets repeatedly in the last several decades. There is, however, something different about the revolution sparked a mere two months ago by the killing of Ms. Amini – the matchstick heroine – this time, the women are at the very front, with the men unfailingly supporting their sisters, wives, daughters and mothers. Many women are ripping off or even burning their headscarves, not to cast censure on anyone who chooses to cover their hair, but to refuse the imposition of such on those who don’t wish it. The chants in the streets are unlike those heard before, demanding an end to the Islamic state and outright chanting “death to the dictators” of their government. Protest after protest bubbles up, swelling to nationwide demonstrations. This accumulation and continuation of all sociopolitical, gender, ethnic, religious grievances, and sufferings of the past 44 years has been met with predictable violence, arbitrary arrest, detention, torture, and death. Yet, the fire continues to burn, becoming the future.
As the rotting core of the Iranian regime burns down, the diaspora, those Iranians living abroad and away from their homeland, stand in solidarity. I’m among them.
We can’t walk down the streets of their homeland with our sisters and brothers.
We can’t put our lives on the line.
But we can fan the flames.
Pictured here are ten such women and girls, including myself. All of us living in America. All of us originating from Iran. We are Bahá’í, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Atheist. We are children and elderly. We are on this side of the ocean … but connected. We all clutch an item of our own becoming. A grandmother’s antique watch and a father’s prayer beads. Persian calligraphy, one that calms with poetry, and another that inspires the lioness. The butterfly dragon held by a child, an African-American hero inspiring a play-write, a poetry journal full of hope, a book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez to remind us of magic, a mother’s photograph reminding of the present past, and a son who’ll one day back up the women in his life.
Words can’t express the suffocation of being away. The guilt of living in freedom while others die for it. The pain of not controlling what tomorrow brings. The knowing that our tears spill but our blood does not. And yet, we know … more than know … we feel our physical connection to our land and our people. An entanglement which no amount of distance can undo. A longing for reconnection that will never end. A forever togetherness with our people.
An ignited match can’t possibly know what effects its short life set in motion. All it can do is pass on the flame to others and hope they can and will carry it forward. To our Iranian matchstick sisters: Know that we are with you. See our hearts burning alongside you. Sense our embrace within you. And feel as we humbly fan your flames, in awe of your power, awaiting reunion.