{"id":106249,"date":"2022-10-13T06:15:28","date_gmt":"2022-10-13T11:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=106249"},"modified":"2022-10-13T06:15:28","modified_gmt":"2022-10-13T11:15:28","slug":"protests-galvanize-iranians-abroad-in-hope-worry-and-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2022\/10\/13\/protests-galvanize-iranians-abroad-in-hope-worry-and-unity\/","title":{"rendered":"Protests Galvanize Iranians Abroad in Hope, Worry and Unity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"VOA \u2014 LONDON \u2014 <\/span>As anti-government protests roil cities and towns in Iran for a fourth week, tens of thousands of Iranians living abroad have marched on the streets of Europe, North America and beyond in support of what many believe to be a watershed moment for their home country.<\/p>\n

From those who fled in the 1980s after Iran\u2019s 1979 Islamic Revolution to a younger generation of Iranians born and raised in Western capitals, many in the diaspora community say they feel an unprecedented unity of purpose and affinity with the demonstrations at home sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman detained by Iran\u2019s morality police.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see this as a turning point for Iran in many ways — we\u2019ve always had political fault lines that divided us, but this time it\u2019s people saying, \u2018I\u2019m with women\u2019,\u201d said Tahirih Danesh, 52, a human rights researcher who lives and works in London. \u201cIt\u2019s phenomenal, it\u2019s happened at such speed, and this sense of camaraderie among Iranians has been amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the past month, large crowds of people of Iranian origin in dozens of cities from London to Paris to Toronto have turned out every weekend for rallies in solidarity with protests that erupted in Iran after Mahsa Amini died in custody after she was detained for allegedly violating strict Islamic dress codes for women.<\/p>\n

Many say they have been kept awake at night by a mixture of hope, sadness and apprehension \u2013 hope that their country may be on the brink of change after decades of oppression, and fear that authorities will unleash more violence in an increasingly brutal crackdown that has seen dozens killed and hundreds arrested.<\/p>\n

Some, like Danesh \u2013- whose family smuggled her and her siblings out of Iran in the 1980s to escape persecution \u2014 say the images of protesters being violently suppressed by authorities recall afresh the trauma of similar scenes around the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thousands of miles away, it\u2019s 40 years later but the images I see are bringing it all back, it\u2019s as if I\u2019m reliving it again,\u201d Danesh said.<\/p>\n

While Iran has seen waves of protest in recent years, many agree that this time the resistance feels broader in nature and in scope because it challenges the fundamentals of the Islamic Republic. Some say they have never seen the likes of global solidarity for Iran shown by politicians, intellectuals and celebrities, many of whom have cut off locks of their hair in a gesture of support of Iranian women.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore, many of us outside had a distanced view of what\u2019s happening inside, we couldn\u2019t find the same connection. But today Iranians inside are calling for fundamental change. They\u2019re saying, \u2018retrieve my Iran\u2019,\u201d said Vali Mahlouji, 55, an art curator in London who left Iran in the 1980s. He said he is self-exiled because his work deals with censored artists and art history.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis unites every Iranian I know, all the different generations of exiles,\u201d he added. \u201cPeople who have been out of Iran most of their lives are feeling restless and sleepless. I don\u2019t know anyone who is not sympathetic, and of course, not worried.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Iranian diaspora is large, including not just those who fled soon after the 1979 revolution, but also later waves leaving Iran because of continued repression or economic woes. More than half a million live in the U.S., and France, Sweden and Germany have communities in the hundreds of thousands, with major centers in Los Angeles, Washington, London, Paris and Stockholm.<\/p>\n

In Paris, 28-year-old Romane Ranjbaran was among thousands last week who came out despite a heavy downpour and marched, sang and chanted \u201cKhamenei get out\u201d in Persian and French, referring to Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Several women cut off locks of their hair and threw them in the air joyfully.<\/p>\n

Ranjbaran, who grew up in France, said she felt \u201cstricken\u201d by what\u2019s happening in Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cIran is part and parcel of my history. My mom has known a free Iran when women were free,\u201d she said, as her mother and other family members stood by her side at the rally. \u201cIt\u2019s an international fight. If we want the situation in Iran to improve, we need international support.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 1979 revolution ousted the U.S.-backed shah, the monarch whose rule was resolutely secular but was also brutally repressive and plagued with corruption. The revolution joined leftists and other political factions including Islamists, who after the shah\u2019s fall seized total power and created the Islamic Republic, ruled over by Shiite Muslim clerics.<\/p>\n

Some expatriates have been wary of joining protests because they have family in Iran and regularly travel back and forth. Some raised concerns about the suspected presence of Iranian intelligence agents or extremist factions.<\/p>\n

Others say they felt some unease about the protests\u2019 aims beyond the unifying cry of \u201cWomen, Life, Freedom\u201d and the leaderless nature of the protests.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love my country, I want to show support, but every time I go, I\u2019m also confused because in every corner of the demonstrations there\u2019s a different chant,\u201d said Amanda Navaian, a luxury handbag designer in her early 40s who has attended all the recent weekend rallies in London.<\/p>\n

Navaian said she wanted to attend protests \u201cfor as long as it takes,\u201d and has even made plans to potentially organize one herself. She wasn\u2019t sure demonstrations abroad will make a real difference, but she said it was crucial \u201cto show we care.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the very least, she knows she is doing something to dispel what she described as pervasive negative perceptions of Iran and Iranians.<\/p>\n

\u201cIslam was forced upon us; this extremism is not who we are. Our country has been hijacked \u2014 we were a country of music, dance and poetry,\u201d Navaian said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were coming up to me in Trafalgar Square to ask, \u2018What are you doing?\u2019 and I explained why we were there,\u201d she added. \u201cThrough these demonstrations there\u2019s more awareness. Maybe now the international community should wake up to what\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA \u2014 LONDON \u2014 As anti-government protests roil cities and towns in Iran for a fourth week, tens of thousands of Iranians living abroad have marched on the streets of Europe, North America and beyond in support of what many believe to be a watershed moment for their home country. From those who fled in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106250,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106249"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106252,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106249\/revisions\/106252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}