LSeptember 16, Mahsa (Zhina [son prénom en kurde]) Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, was brutally murdered by the morality police of the Islamic Republic of Iran. She was hit several times on the head after her arrest for port ” inappropriate “ of the hijab. One state assassination among many others, systematically and deliberately committed by the gender apartheid regime in Iran. Since this state murder, demonstrations have taken place in several Iranian cities.
This nationwide uprising is not just aimed at the brutal murder of Mahsa, but at the very essence of the Islamic regime. And the demand is clear and clear: the end of a theocratic regime whose multiple violence against marginalized bodies has been made visible by the death of Mahsa.
Despite the terror and repression, we are witnessing today in Iran a feminist revolution inflamed by the rage aroused by the assassination of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini. Inspired by the Kurdish movement, the demonstrators chant: “Women, life, freedom! » Uprisings, bodies dancing without hijabs and protesters burning hijab symbols have been violently suppressed by state-funded ‘troll’ armies, internet shutdowns, tear gas, mass arrests and indiscriminate killings .
A neo-orientalist approach
Nevertheless, the international academic and activist community remains largely silent on what is happening in Iran today. The Iranian crisis is locked into two simplistic yet hegemonic frameworks, in the media as well as in academia.
On the one hand, the long history of colonial oppression and the recent rise of xenophobic, racist and sexist discourses in the West have led to the reduction of complex problems, such as that of the hijab, to “cultural questions”. This has notably prevented progressive voices in the North from fully expressing their solidarity with struggles in the Middle East and other Muslim-majority countries, for fear of fueling sexist ideologies in the West.
On the other hand, a supposedly progressive but, in reality, neo-Orientalist approach has disregarded lives and subjectivities outside the West, especially those living in the Middle East or North Africa.
These frameworks have led to the epistemological and political dismissal of feminist and queer resistance [ou allosexuelles, altersexuelles, termes qui englobent les personnes ayant une sexualité ou une identité de genre différentes de l’hétérosexualité] in Iran. The multidimensional oppression suffered and the battles waged remain ignored, unless they are linked to Western issues or the actors perceive themselves through this neo-Orientalist gaze.
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