Two revolutions, and counting

In 1978, a revolution emerged in Iran that displaced a monarch and installed a popular religious leader. I supported that revolution. I should clarify that I am a West Virginian by birth and mostly Western European by ancestry; I became Iranian first, officially, by marriage and then, deeply, genuinely, through acculturation. I fell in love with Iran and Iranians through the eight years during which I lived there in three different periods. I supported the 1978 revolution relatively passively, but believed that it was a beneficial movement.

I joined the revolution mid-stream: I married an Iranian in 1981 and moved to Iran in 1982, well after the monarch had left and the religious leader had established himself and a regime of his supporters. I entered Iran two years into an eight-year war with Iraq. I lived in a city about an hour’s drive outside of Tehran and then in a village on an island in the Persian Gulf. On the television and in the streets, I saw family, neighbors, everyone eager to support the war effort, which was perceived as an attack on the new government, the government in which we’d invested much blood and energy. We sacrificed much and complained little, united in the righteous defense of our homeland.

I had studied religions for several years when I adopted Islam at the age of 20. I had always tended toward modest dress, which is advocated by Islam. I added a head covering at the request of my new husband two years later. In Iran, where everyone I saw wore modest dress (including men), I felt right at home. I vacillated over the decades from supporting to disputing the requirement to wear head covering until, when I left Iran most recently in 2011, I, a genuine introvert, had decided to keep it in the United States. It suited me.

The Iran-Iraq war went inactive in 1988, leaving the religious government and its citizens to focus on internal affairs, long neglected. In the more than three decades since then, it has become more and more clear to more and more people that we had been deceived and were dealing with another dictator. Through numerous protests and movements, it has also become quite clear that our dictator is, as most dictators are, unabashed and unwilling to reason or reconcile.

Over the past two year, as conditions and sentiments inside Iran worsened beyond what I imagined bearable, I remarked as often as anyone would listen that what we need in Iran is not so much a daily revisitation in news broadcasts and commentaries of the long list of what is wrong with the current government operations, of how things got to be so bad, of how the current unacceptable mess compares to that of the regime before it; what we need, I said, is a “Plan B.” We need people busy talking about how we can manage better, talking about with what new system we can supplant the current regime.

I ardently and actively support the revolution which has emerged in Iran in the last part of 2022. This revolution is moving to displace the religious dictator and the system surrounding him. People with nothing more to lose are standing up and speaking out against being trodden upon, being discounted and abused, being consumed. Many, many people. The protests that have been rumbling and bubbling for decades, sometimes just under the surface and sometimes boldly and across the country, have finally come to a full boil.

When I learned of the united and sustained demonstrations of September/ Shahrivar, people going to the streets, women waving their head coverings in their hands, and everyone standing and speaking together, I yearned to join them. What can I do? I asked the universe repeatedly.How can I help? Women burned their scarves in the streets; I removed my own scarf and updated all of my official photo-ID documents and profile photos. Women appeared in videos cutting their hair, in streets, in homes, in mirrors. I could cut my hair. I could buzz to my scalp. My partner agreed to buzz for me.

But, I had always worn my hair very long. After losing a great deal of my hair to covid in 2021, after a good deal of consideration -- for one's appearance plays a large part in one's identity -- I decided that a Jane Goodall/ RBG ponytail would be my new norm. I don’t WANT to cut my hair. I want a ponytail.

If this revolution is about the right to choose what we want, to choose what we think is good and appropriate, then cutting my hair would be contradictory. I understand the impulse toward self-flagellation, but I want a step into self-aware, empowered decision-making that considers and respects others but keeps my needs and feelings at the center. I want to manifest a truly revolutionary attitude and lifestyle, and that includes my ponytail.

"Wait," you might say, "Do you mean that a ponytail justifies a revolution?" Yes. More precisely, the right to choose a ponytail or a head scarf, the right to attend a soccer game or not, the right to breathe clean air and access clean water, the right to experience equitable support for schools and other infrastructure across the country, the right to know what your government is doing with national resources, the right to participate in all parts of government operation, and similar rights justify a demand to be addressed. If they are ignored, denied, and suppressed, then they justify a revolution. The issue of head covering is the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

On Friday, June 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Ruth Bader-Ginsburg had said that the Court’s ruling in favor of Roe v. Wade could have been managed better, that the right to decide to abort or carry a pregnancy could have been more solidly established in relation to the U.S. Constitution. Now, it is gone, and I, well into menopause, am concerned. This retraction on the heels of four years of unabashed bad behavior from the U.S. government, selfish, exclusive, privileged, and forceful, is very concerning.

Baraye, Shervin Hajipour

I whole-heartedly support the 2022 revolution in Iran. For the past five weeks, I have come to think that the Iranian people ARE talking to each other. They may not have formulated a “Plan B” yet, and perhaps that’s not a necessary first step. Perhaps we can move through the process organically. Perhaps such an organic, spontaneous approach would be more honest, more fair, more effective. It will need sustained commitment, unwaveringly inclusive thought and action. Real collaboration. Perhaps we will develop a crowdsource government, truly of, by, and for the people. I don’t know what will be next or how we will need to support it, but I am in.

I hope to see this revolution spread to the United States and, in a world with already enough for all if we share instead of hoard, to every other place about whose oppressed conditions and unmet needs I am currently ignorant. I am determined to do what I can where I am, starting with this post and continuing with statements and questions as often as possible/ needed. I am committed to living each day looking for opportunities to engage with passionate persistence. I am committed to resisting the perpetuation of the unacceptable.

Talking ‘bout a revolution, Tracy Chapman

20 October 2022