Martine Gozlan

The slogan runs across a wall in Tehran University, ready to be erased, and its author knows it: “Erase my words a thousand times, I’ll never stop writing them!” This cry broke through the wall of silence thanks to an insurgent generation that took every risk to defy the dictatorship. Young Iranian women bore witness to this in the cafés of Tehran and Isfahan, sitting in the secrecy of their homes, veiled and unveiled, united against a regime undermined by violence. Journalist Solène Chalvon-Fioriti was determined to report on their struggle, but you can no longer enter Iran on a press visa. Mine dates back to… March 2009! At the time, we were on the eve of the “Green Wave” that would throw three million Iranians into the streets against the rigged presidential election and be atrociously repressed. So Solène decided to work from her screen in Paris, in daily contact with her contacts and without endangering them by using artificial intelligence to modify all the faces, even those of the smallest children and silent passers-by. An Iranian man or woman who appears in an unofficial document circulating abroad is bound to be arrested.

This report, broadcast on France 5, cleverly circumvented the Mollahs’ censorship and terror. It complements and confirms the many messages captured on social networks. These networks, reviled for their excesses in our democracies, on the other hand constitute a fabulous counterweight in dictatorships. Although the regime has put the Internet under control – at the time of mass demonstrations, the Internet is cut off altogether – every young Iranian becomes an ultra-performing computer scientist, an expert in VPNs (virtual private networks) to escape the vigilance of the cyber-police. This is how reality reaches us. We know from these networks, as well as from those of numerous opponents based in the United States, Canada and Europe, that two-thirds of society, forty-five years after the 1979 revolution which subjected every moment and every gesture to inflexible religious law, is now demanding the separation of religion and state.

This metamorphosis is unique in the Islamic world. We had hoped in vain that it would be the fruit of the Arab Spring: the opposite happened. While the wreckage of the Muslim Brotherhood, diagnosed in the following pages, continues, the transition to an individual conscience freed from collective diktat is still a long way off. Reactivity or silence in Muslim countries in the face of the movement’s insurrection “Women-Life-Freedom” in Iran reflects the state of opinion: submission to behavioural Islam (still prevalent despite the defeat of political Islam) or the embryo of resistance heralding a new cycle?

Several factors explain Iran’s march towards secularism. Firstly, its young people are the most educated in the Middle East, alongside those of Israel. This is one of the paradoxes of the Islamic revolution: by putting everyone – including girls – into school, at a time when illiteracy among the working classes was one of the country’s curses under the Shah, the mullahs have slowly dug their own grave. Secondly, the spectacle of corruption among religious leaders (see our interview with sociologist Azadeh Kian in the following pages) has desacralised the function and the discourse. Finally, we come back to the violence of the henchmen who claim to be emissaries of Allah: religion tortures and murders.

The death sentence passed by the Isfahan Revolutionary Court on 25 April on the rapper Toomaj Salehi, who had sung in support of the memory of Mahsa Amini, illustrates the regime’s thirst for revenge against young people.  “We are dealing with a mafia that is prepared to kill an entire nation in order to keep its power, its money and its weapons”, said the artist in an interview with the Canadian television channel CBC. He was arrested two days later.

The perception of the conflict with Israel is another symptom of the gulf between the Islamic regime and the population. Already, in 2017 and 2019, during the major popular demonstrations against poverty, the slogans were eloquent: “Neither Gaza nor Hezbollah! I’m giving my life for Iran!”  After the Israeli strike against the Iranian consulate in Damascus on1 April, which killed senior commanders of the Revolutionary Guards, there were even messages expressing satisfaction at the elimination of officers who were also responsible for the crackdown on demonstrators. After the massive attack on Israel on 14 April, huge billboards in the streets of Tehran showed missiles hurtling across a blazing sky. This staging contrasted with the indifference of passers-by filmed on the spot. And the messages came flooding in. “Israel, destroy the Guide’s office!” was the brief caption on a wall in Tehran. And also: “Israel, hit them harder!” And again: “Come and bury our leaders, the living dead! We’ll take care of the shrouds; you do the rest!” On the Internet, tweets transmitted from abroad by the famous protected VPNs outright ridiculed the regime after 99% of Iran’s explosive devices had been intercepted: “For years, we’ve been wondering how the Islamic Republic could manufacture missiles when it’s incapable of producing good quality cars! After the results of the attack, we now have the answer to the question!”

The day after Israel’s undetected strike on the air defence system of the nuclear installations at Natanz, in the Isfahan region, the same kind of reaction was observed. In any case, “Young Iranians are more afraid of dying under torture in a police station than under Israeli strikes”, sums up the Franco-Iranian lawyer Chirinne Ardakani, a member of the Iran-Justice collective, in Paris. Indeed, a few hours before the strike on 14 April, measures targeting “poorly veiled” women in the street and warnings on the Internet against any “pro-Zionist remarks” were stepped up.

In this context, the prospect of a nuclear Iran seems less and less to be seen as the legitimate fruit of patriotic pride. Too closely linked to the rise of the Revolutionary Guards, the programme is considered dangerous and ruinous at a time when a third of the country lives below the poverty line. The ayatollahs’ real bomb is the anger of their people.