I first became aware that something big was happening from my husband, who is an avid reader and follows all the news from Iran. We had returned from one of the first US demonstrations after the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, after being arrested for failing to wear her hijab correctly, and he directed my attention to the main slogan of the protesters: Woman, Life, Freedom. I couldn’t get it out of my mind, and kept walking in circles around the living room of our home in Washington DC, repeating it to myself. From then on, it became part of my life: I wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night with this mixture of anxiety and elation.
I know there have been many false dawns, not least the Arab spring a decade ago, but two things have happened in Iran that made us realise this was a turning point, no matter what the outcome. One is the fact that the Iranian people in general, but women and young people especially, have discovered their power, and decided to use it. That means something fundamental has changed. They know that they can walk down the streets of Tehran, not obeying the law, so that their bodies, the way they appear in public, become a sign of protest. It is telling the regime: “You don’t own me, you cannot impose your image upon my identity.”
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