RSS
Home
Dateline: Tehrangeles, voices waiting to be heard
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
.jpg)
As skirmishes died down last week in the streets of Tehran, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took the opportunity to emphasize that the uprising of a million of its own citizens was caused by outside influences mostly from the United States and Britain. For one Los Angeles resident, it’s a double blow. “The way I see it is, OK, you took our votes away, that’s fine. Now you’re taking our voices away. You’re saying it’s not ours, it’s someone else’s,” says the woman, a law clerk, who did not want to be identified for fear of being targeted by the Iranian government.
In response, local Iranian American women are continuing to speak out, just as their female counterparts in Iran have been doing, in demonstrations that have no end date as of yet. Nazanin, a 27-year-old college student, who, attracted to opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi’s progressive stance on women’s rights, voted in the June 12 election for the first time, said students from UCLA and USC last week had planned several protests throughout Los Angeles. She noted a candlelight vigil was scheduled for June 26, dubbed “green day,” a day to wear green in memory of those who have fallen at the hands of the basij – like Neda Soltan, a passerby who was caught in the crossfire and has now become the human face and symbol of the uprisings.
“Neda is me, Neda is any Iranian woman,” notes Pari Esfandiari, founder and editor in chief of Los Angeles-based Irandokht, an online lifestyle community for and about Iranian women. “We’ll always remember Neda and associate her with this uprising. It’s always going to be these two [Neda and the uprising] will be intertwined.
“We all are very close,” Esfandiari continues, noting that she recently learned that Neda’s aunt lives in Orange County. “It’s next door to us. It’s not on the other side of the world.”
But Neda is not the only shocking casualty of the uprisings. Thirty-two-year-old physical therapist Sara Amoli says her mother – an active participate in protests in her Orange County community – recently emailed her a graphic photo of a pregnant woman in Iran, allegedly gunned down, her unborn baby killed.
Esfandiari emphasizes that the point of contention for the Iranian community both in Iran and in Los Angeles has changed. “Now the issue is about human rights,” she says. “The freedom to have a peaceful demonstration.”
“People just want to be heard,” adds Amoli. “I think in that society where the voice of the people has been muted they just want to be heard, and they’re not trying to do it in a violent way.”
For some in the mainstream media, the women of Iran have been at the forefront of that fight, demanding more rights, as promised by Moussavi whose wife Zahra Rahnavard was uniquely visible in his campaign and continues to speak out. Long believed to be living under the strictures of an oppressively theocratic society, media coverage in recent days has focused on Iranian women and their participation in the protests.
But L.A. Iranian American women say Iranian women have always been vocal. “I remember myself, the revolution of 1979, women very very active on that revolution and indeed before,” says Esfandiari. Amoli also notes that the women in her family have been particularly independent. “Women were very strong in our family and kind of wore the pants in the family and would speak their mind,” she says.
However, Esfandiari is quick to point out that this is not a women’s revolution. “This is the Iranian public,” she says. “Iranian people fed up with some problems and demanding some basic rights.”
Whether Iran’s leaders will hear its people – and its women – is unknown. “If Moussavi says he accepts the election, then it’s going to fragment the movement,” Esfandiari believes. “That doesn’t mean it will go away completely because I think that a line has been crossed here, and I don’t think Iran will be the same as it was.”
Like so many, Esfandiari, Amoli and Nazanin wonder what will happen in the days and weeks to come, whether their families back in Iran will be safe, how many more lives will be lost.
“The one thing I keep reminding people is that revolutions don’t happen in a day,” says the law clerk. “Things take a while. … One change that happened was that people took to the streets. … it got to the point where people are willing to riot. That’s the way change happens, it’s what we risk. Whatever happens, we’ve already passed that threshold.”
Photos by marctonysmith courtesy flickr.
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
