The veil has become such a standard that like a damper it covers the analysis of the demonstrations, the uprising, the revolt or the Iranian revolution – History will tell us which term is the most accurate. While the strength of this uprising (I timidly opt for this word, hoping for the revolution) resides in the unprecedented: unprecedented in the gesture (the scarf removed and burned, the bodies moving in the streets, day and night, as incapable of stopping, of oxygenating this taboo, forbidden body), unprecedented in the mobilization (the oil refineries of the South which go on strike to support a political movement and not for union demands, the police station of the burnt bazaar), unpublished from the display of “celebrities” (footballers, singers, directors up to the director Asghar Farhadi yet unable, in 2008, to support the actress Golshifteh Farahani – exiled because of missing veil on the red carpet at the arm of Leonardo DiCaprio -, then preferring the cowardice of silence and the ostracism of the actress), unpublished of the duration (five weeks).
But, as the Islamist international has managed to impose Islamophobia at the heart of the debates, it has become inaudible to recount the events without putting a veil of euphemism and excuses.
Relieved nods
It is an element of language that has become epidemic: exiled Iranians, French of Iranian origin, researchers, journalists, men and women, nothing to do, they take pliers, they use quotation marks, they reassure the Islamists. However, since the burial of Masha Amini, who died under the blows of the morality police for not having worn her veil correctly, the most explicit gesture, the most emblematic gesture, the “watchword” gesture consists in remove her veil and burn it.
But, on the plateaus of France and Navarre, one hears a theory which swells, which refiles, which provokes relieved acquiescence: the Iranian women burn their veils, give the fingers of honor to the portraits of the supreme guides of the Revolution that are Khomeini and Khamenei, but they do not stand against Islam. At the limit they fight against political Islam, but, in fact, they demonstrate, are hurt, die so that women choose to dress as they want, they stand against the compulsory veil, not against the veil at all short. Better: they also demonstrate to be able to sing and ride a bike. My arms fall off, my ears bleed. On the one hand, if they fought against the compulsory veil, they could demonstrate by keeping the veil on their heads, accompanied by slogans which explicitly state their detestation of “mollahrchie”. On the other hand, if they can’t ride a bike or sing, it’s because the law is Islamic, because Sharia is the law. The restrictions imposed on women which sanction their legal, economic, political and cultural inferiority have their origins in the Koran, in the Islamic tradition. Ayatollah Khomeini did not invent anything, he simply used Sharia to make it the source of law. Iranian men and women rose up against Islam, against Islamic law.
Has Islamism definitely won over cowardly minds?
Why this insistence on erasing Islam from the equation? Why address the North African and Middle Eastern populations who do not understand this anti-veiling gesture? To reassure them ? To gain their support? To avoid the onslaught of Islamophobia? Some recall that Reza Chah had banned the veil in the 1930s and that this had been counter-productive, since the Islamic revolution had nevertheless occurred and the veil had been made compulsory. But, between prohibition and obligation, women’s rights had progressed faster in Iran than human rights; during this time, few women complained of not being able to display the shroud of their rights over their hair. We then quote old women traumatized by the ban, who felt naked in the street. But it is precisely the proof of the pathology that is the veil. The veil is not a garment, it does not cover nudity, but stigmatizes the body and the hair of women as a source of sexual temptation and sin. Has Islamism definitely won over cowardly minds? Would it be incongruous to note, like Huda Shaarawi, feminist and anti-colonialist activist who had removed her veil in public in Cairo in 1923, that the veil is incompatible with rights and freedom? Would it be a mortal sin to see that Islam is entirely directed against women?