A martyr for all women’s rights
Mahsa Amini. A name that travelled the world. A story that broke billions of hearts. But a story that is often summarised and trivialised as “the woman that was killed for wearing the veil wrong”.
Mahsa Amini did way more than just that, she was a martyr, the symbol of a population that decided to louder its voice, to not be silent anymore.
The events and the protests that have put Iran at the centre of the public opinion these days are historically relevant, they represent a voice that not only is resounding in every corner of the globe, but whose echo will remain for the next centuries.
However, this article does not aim to be a historical analysis of these happenings, does not want to explore what are the past situations that brought to the Iran of today, but it aims to be an analysis of how this event was perceived by the occidental world, a world that has a past and a cultural heritage completely different from the one of a middle eastern Islamic country like Iran.
For this reason, it is useful to take a step back, analysing other stories, like the one of Saman Abbas, a Pakistani 18-years old, killed by her father for refusing an arranged marriage. The names of women killed for similar reason are countless, and they all seem to have one thing in common: Islam.
The amount of people that identified the problem in the hijab and not in the Iranian dictatorship is not negligible, some of them with an important mediatic relevance. The perception of the hijab as a symbol of submission and oppression is rooted in the occidental culture, perception fed without any doubt by events as the ones we are witnessing these days.
But the reality, as we all know, is far more complicated than the simplifications that our brain performs to be able to read it and understand it.
If we move geographically, we can easily realise that the problem is not the veil. To this end, we shouldn’t forget the numerous attempts to introduce the hijab ban not only in India, a country culturally far away from us, but also in European countries that are considered a symbol of real freedom, such as France, Denmark and Belgium.
Analysing these events from a global perspective we can deduce two fundamental conclusions: the first regards the dictatorship, while the second one is about the control of women’s bodies and choices.
The difference between what happened in the European countries for what concerns the hijab ban, and what happened in Iran due to the imposition of it, lies simply in the possibility that we have in occident to protest, an essential right in a democratic country. The Iranian dictatorship, on the other hand, claims the right to refuse the opinion of others, to forbid any kind of criticism or protest, repressing these last ones in blood, causing victims and martyrs.
The second conclusion, on the contrary, does not see any difference between France, Iran or India. If anything, it identifies a common matrix behind the decision previously described, a matrix that aims to restrict women freedom in the choice of who to be, a limitation in their identities, whether it is religious, political or personal.
In a world that seems to be making steps towards women’s emancipation, these strict behaviours, on a political, familiar or social level, are becoming dangerously frequent, with the vain purpose to silence the always louder voice of women that want their freedom.