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"At the heart of my activism is the need to give voice to millions of silenced women”

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MumsnetGuestPosts · 21/06/2018 17:16

My name is Masih Alinejad. I’m a journalist, human rights activist, and a women's rights warrior. I’m also a troublemaker, all because I started to say the word ‘no’.

Saying ‘no’ is not easy for women, and especially in the place where I grew up. Born in a small village in Northern Iran called Ghomikola, I had a simple childhood with two conservative parents, surrounded by brothers who enjoyed more freedom and greater privilege.

My inquisitiveness about why life as a girl had to be different started at a young age. Like children everywhere, growing up was riddled with small acts of defiance - with one small difference. Without knowing it, I was challenging the notions of what it meant to be a girl in the Islamic Republic. This brought shame to my family time and again - when I was expelled from high school for asking questions about the political system, for instance, and when I complained about the compulsory hijab.

Another source of embarrassment (which probably contributed to my expulsion) came when I was chosen by my high school to become a Quran reciter. As I mention in my book, this opportunity imbued my parents with pride. That day, I sat cross-legged on a futon on the stage, looking out at the students and teachers, and started reading a verse from the Quran. But I was a voracious reader of poetry, and my mind instinctively wanted to venture into reading a forbidden poem. It was written by Shamloo - one of Iran’s censored poets. So, I started reciting: “They smell your mouth, lest you've said I love you; they smell your heart. These are strange times my dear.” To my utter surprise, the students were whistling in delight. But delving into the ‘forbidden’ displeased the teachers, who hurried forwards and dragged me away. I continued to recite the poem even while they pulled me from my platform - a public manifestation of my early rebellion.

I believe that it is only by saying ‘no’ that we forge our identity.

The will to fight against injustice has guided me ever since. For more than four years now, I have campaigned against the compulsory hijab - a venture which started spontaneously on a beautiful May day, when the rain stopped and the sun came out. I lived in Kew Gardens at the time, and decided to run around amongst the cherry blossoms. I posted a picture of this on Facebook, not wearing a headscarf. In the picture, I was running through a street in London - enthralled by the sensation of the wind stroking my hair.

I hadn’t lived in Iran for a long time - forced to leave five years earlier. In 2009, there was a sweeping crackdown by the Islamic Republic authorities, and the country was gripped by large-scale protests against the electoral fraud. I settled down in the UK as a journalist, relaying the voices of families whose sons and daughters had been killed by the security forces with impunity.

After five years of covering political news, I longed for change. And, to my astonishment, this Kew Gardens photo prompted numerous women in Iran to reach out - sending me messages about how envious they were of my freedom, and expressing the sorrow they felt in being unable to share it.

Little did I know that, shortly afterwards, my Facebook feed and inbox would be inundated with photos sent from Iran by Iranian women; women who were stealthily enjoying the wind in their hair. And so a campaign named #MyStealthyFreedom was born. It was so successful that it soon morphed into related initiatives.

In May 2017, we launched #WhiteWednesdays (whereby every Wednesday, women in Iran go into public without a headscarf, or wear a white shawl to protest against compulsory hijab). Soon enough, women started walking the streets of Iran bare-headed, and sent me the videos of their rebellion.

Another groundbreaking moment took place in December, with the rise of the #GirlsOfRevolutionStreet movement. It began with Vida Movahedi, who started waving her white scarf as a flag in a busy street called Revolution Street, standing on a utility box on a hectic Wednesday morning.

Now, #WhiteWednesdays has grown so huge that women are walking unveiled in the streets of Iran on a daily basis. Our latest initiative, #MyCameraIsMyWeapon, has also garnered a huge following in Iran - as evidenced by the popularity of our Instagram videos. The campaign asks women to film the people who harass them in the street for being unveiled, which seems to have frightened the morality police officers.

At the heart of my activism is the need to give voice to the millions of silenced women in Iran - women who are continually ignored by the government. I attribute the success of my campaigns to the fact that they are utterly based on the actions of ordinary people. My role has been to give them a platform from which to relay their voices - so that they, too, can speak their forbidden words.

Masih Alinejad is the author of The Wind in My Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran (Virago, £10.49 hardback). She joins us here on the bottom of this guest post for a webchat on Wednesday 27 June at 9pm. Post your questions here in advance if you can’t make it on the day.

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Ereshkigal · 28/06/2018 23:55

Thank you Masih