How Stories Shaped the Iranian “Women, Life, Freedom” Movement?

Today marks the anniversary of the Iranian movement caused by the death of a 22-year-old woman named Mahsa Amini at the hands of the Islamic Republic’s moral police. As we cherish the lives of those who fought for freedom, it’s important to take a look back at what shaped this movement; where the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom” came from, and how the whole nation and the world got together through the stories of courage and self-sacrifice in the way toward manifestation of human rights.?

Through this short article, I try to shed light on the power of storytelling behind rising and even silencing social and political movements like “Women, Life, Freedom”.

How the Movement Started?

Mahsa “Jina” Amini was an ordinary 22-year-old girl living in the Kurdistan province of Iran. Last year, she traveled to Tehran with her family for summer vacation. She and her brother decided to go to one of Tehran’s famous parks - Imagine as they were visiting Central Park in New York. As they got off the subway, the moral police (1)? stopped them. They arrested Mahsa for having inappropriate clothing. At the moment, Mahsa has worn a long black coat that has covered whole her body and she had a black scarf on her head covering all her hair and neck. Mahsa’s brother begged the moral police to let her sister go, telling them “we are tourists and we don't know anyone in this city”. But police didn’t hear him out and forcibly pushed horrified Mahsa into the van. A few hours later Mahsa was found in the hospital, beaten and in a coma. The news of such an inhuman act toward a young innocent and defenseless girl put the whole country in shock. People started to gather around in front of the hospital that Mahsa was taking care of, not knowing that the poor girl they were worried about had already lost her life. People were crying and asking for justice in front of the hospital. But instead of any rational act of justice, the regime started to beat up even more unarmed protesting citizens.?

Officials started circulating a fake narrative that Mahsa already had an illness, nobody beat her up and she “simply” had a heart attack. They “demanded” the citizens to calm down and not fall for the enemy’s narratives. As the officials insisted on the wrongful treatment of people who simply asked for truth and justice, protests spread and people came to the streets not only in front of the hospital but all over the city of Tehran and soon all over Iran.

In the beginning, the protests were about Mahsa’s unfortunate destiny and the government's role in such an event. But soon, people started chanting new demands. They wanted the whole lying and corrupt regime to go away; the regime that was responsible for not just killing Mahsa but for all the injustice and widespread poverty around Iran.

The Calling: “Your Name Will Turn into a Symbol”

Every story has a calling, something that the hero’s journey starts with. For Iranian people, this calling was the two Kurdish sentences written on the grave of Mahsa “Jina, dear! You will not die. Your name will turn into a symbol." (2)?

And indeed, it turned into a symbol. Just days after her funeral, thousands were chanting her name around the world, asking for justice and basic human rights for the Iranian people.?

A Slogan to Unite, to Be Identified With

You see, every brand has its own slogan, some simple and short phrase that shows the essence of the brand and sticks in the mind of its audience. If you look at a movement as a brand, you can see how it also needs to have a clear slogan, something that shows what it stands for.?

While the fire of protests was burning all over the country and the agents of the government were crueler than before shooting, imprisoning, and torturing people in groups, the slogan of the Woman, Life, Freedom breathed a new spirit into the movement. The history of the slogan goes back to when first was used by Kurdish women fighters in the Kurd region of Turkey and then in the war against ISIS. The conceptual affinity of all three words used in this slogan was consistent with what the Iranians were fighting for:

Woman: The violated rights of women as a symbol of all sexual, religious, and racial minorities under rulling the Islamic regime and the beginning of protests that originated from the killing of a young woman by the hand of the government.

Life: the demand for basic human rights so that all residents of Iran - and not just Iranians - have a dignified life

Freedom: Is there any need to explain this one at all?

Numbers Out of Picture: The Stories of Individuals Lead

Every day we hear in the news that 10 people were killed in a terrorist attack or 100 were drowned in a flood. Numbers don’t move us anymore. We hear them and we pass like nothing has happened; unaware of the fact that those numbers are lives that affect many other lives around them.

In the midst of the Women, Life, Freedom movement, people started to say the names of those who were affected, tortured, or killed. There was no longer a talk about, 10, 20, or 1000 who were killed. Everyone had a name, and as one of the Iranian freedom fighters once said “Everyone was a child to someone”. This made the “EMPATHY” element so strong and even vital to this movement. People, even those who didn’t care to come to the street or were even against the fight and thought it wouldn’t make any change were starting to feel for each other. Strong connections were about to be made.?

One day the story of Nika came out. The courageous girl who was living with her aunt and was filled with youth energy. The other day everyone was talking about the 9-year-old Kian who wanted to become a scientist and had faith in the “God who created rainbows”. Every day, there were new names out there, new unique stories. For anyone, there was a narrative, there was a hero that could bond with. Heros of flesh and blood like all other people. Heros who looked like ordinary people and could be resonated with.

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Social Media, a Place to Keep the Flame of Narration Alive

While people started to pour onto streets all over the country, social media specifically Instagram and Twitter played a key role in the movement.?

These platforms were the first place where people could share and get the news of the movement firsthand and without any censorship. Anyone could be a reporter and share their own stories.?

While the internet was shut down nationwide by the regime, Iranian people living in other parts of the world started a Twitter - then called X - campaign with the hashtag #MahsaAmini (#???? ????? in Persian). The hashtag went on to become the most twitted and passed the Back Lives Matter (with 47.8 million tweets). According to BBC, “The hashtag #mahsaamini was tweeted and retweeted more than 250 million times in Persian and more than 50 million times in English”. It was a way for the Iranian voice to be heard internationally and it did resonate with many people including celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Roger Waters and other countries’ politicians like German’s foreign minister Annalena Charlotte Alma.?

Social media platforms were a place to unite, to tell the story of individual citizens fighting for their basic human rights, a place to coordinate the protests and alarm one another about the risks and methods of dealing with the armed regime.?

The Whispers Behind the Curtains

While citizens of Iran kept fighting and pushing forward they felt the support they needed from international organizations and opposite groups. But soon, these supports seemed more of a mask than actual actions. Suddenly long-awaited sanctions against the Iran regime were dismissed by the USA, several broadcasting stations changed their policy towards covering the news of the protest and even social media platforms like Instagram started to impose controlling algorithms on related hashtags and content and kept away their audience from the news.?

It seemed once again the narratives were written by the hands of the powerfuls without including people. But is this the end of the story?

Is the Movement Gonna Survive?

This is a question that should be answered by the political and social experts. But as a story enthusiast, I can tell that the Story of the Women, Life, Freedom is far from over. It’s just at that curve that the hero faces several setbacks and barriers and gets disappointed but there’s always a new arc; someone or some new voices that come to the rescue.?

The stories always find a way to live, to stay with us, and to make changes and that’s what’s gonna happen to the story of the courageous Iranian freedom fighters.?

1. The moral police is a subsidiary police branch in Iran that tries to enforce specific unwritten moral laws like how people should dress or act in public. Remember that these laws are in contradiction with human rights and most of them have not been criminalized even in the legal framework of a regime like the Islamic Republic.

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