The current protests in Iran sound the death knell of the Islamic Republic. By now, all the world has witnessed the wave of angry and bloody demonstrations, boycotts, and wildcat strikes that has spread to more than 100 cities after the killing in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman arrested for wearing the hijab incorrectly.  Sure, the government has endured major protests before, notably in 2009, 2017, and 2019, but these demonstrations are different. The protests have not been short lived and they embody the anger that Iranian women and young Iranians feel toward the regime.

Today Saturday, 5 November, 2.30pm, Bundesplatz Bern:
Protest against the Mullah regime

Four years ago I told a packed auditorium at Stanford University that the next revolution in Iran would be led by women (see below). At the time, few in the audience shared my confidence. The idea that the Islamic Republic with a vast military, a multitude of secret services and a sophisticated propaganda arm would fall to women was laughable to many at the time. 

Truth is I knew a revolution was coming but I didn’t know when.

I started my campaign against compulsory hijab in 2014 on a spring day that was full of joy and hope. To outsiders, hijab is a piece of cloth but to Iranian woman, compulsory hijab means much more; it’s a symbol of subjugation, a symbol of enslavement,  a clear indication that the patriarchy had triumphed. In the Islamic Republic women are property, to be kept hidden from the gaze of outsiders. Women cannot work or travel without express permission of their husbands, or fathers. Or enter football stadiums. Until recently, single women could not easily book hotel rooms or rent property by themselves. 

For years women seethed about the discriminations.  Yet, European politicians choose to express support for women to wear hijab in the West but didn’t support Iranian women who didn’t want to wear the hijab in their homelands. Many Western feminists became accomplices, aiders and abettors, to those who subjugated women in Iran. Fifa found ways not to take action against a regime that is in clear violation of several of its own bylaws

So, if you are surprised by the anger and vehemence of the protests, then you haven’t been paying attention.

There’s a popular saying that revolutions devour their children, but in Iran the grandchildren are devouring the revolution. Iran’s clerics have responded to this existential challenge with brute force, but violence and repression will not snuff out the will of a nation so roused against its government. 

The regime cannot loosen its own laws because compulsory hijab is part of its ideological core. We are truly at a Berlin Wall moment. Let go of the hijab wall and the whole Islamic Republic edifice will collapse. 

With women leading the way, Iran’s transformation from theocracy to a democracy will be remarkable.  Yet, this is a marathon and not a sprint. It will not happen overnight. We have a message for Western governments: Don’t save the Islamic Republic. In 2009, the Obama administration opted to deal with to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, rather than support the pro-democracy Green Movement. I urge European leaders and the Biden administration to stand on the right side of history. Now, more than ever, it is time for us to think seriously about a world after the Islamic Republic.

Defeating a theocratic world would be a game changer. 

This article will also be printed in the winter issue of our magazine "frei denken. It will be published on 1 December 2022.

Masih Alinejad and the Freethinker Association

In 2017, we awarded our Freethinker's Prize to the exiled Iranian and her organisation My Stealthy Freedom, and to the Kurdish painter and journalist Zehra Doğan, who was imprisoned in Turkey at the time. Read more at free-thought.ch/freethinkeraward

The illustration is by the Iranian artist who appears under the pseudonym Ghalamfarsa. We sincerely thank her for allowing us to reproduce it here.