In this episode of La Loupe, Xavier Yvon explains why a clear opposition in Iran cannot emerge with Hamdam Mostafavi, deputy editorial director of L’Express, and Corentin Pennarear, journalist with the World service.
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The team: Xavier Yvon (presentation), Charlotte Baris (writing), Mathias Penguilly (editing), Jules Benveniste (directing) and Marion Galard (work-study).
Credits: France Inter, @arminarefi
Music and dressing: Emmanuel Herschon / Studio Torrent
Picture credits: AFP
Logo: Anne-Laure Chapelain / Benjamin Chazal
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Xavier Yvon: If you spend a lot of time on social media, you may have seen this video of two young women in the street playing Bella Ciao on ukulele and melodica. This video has been noticed so much because the musicians are in the middle of Tehran, the Iranian capital, they are not wearing a veil and they are performing a revolutionary song. A dangerous and above all symbolic gesture, as we have seen many in recent months in Iran.
If we continue to talk about strong images, you surely remember that of Mahsa Amini, killed in September after being arrested by the morality police. You may also remember the thousands of videos of the demonstrations that followed: young women with their hair uncovered, men dancing in the street… But also the fierce repression, the police firing live ammunition, female students who are poisoned by gas in their school.
You have also certainly seen the slogans of this mobilization, which does not only concern mores, or the economic situation of the country and which call for a much broader change: the end of the regime in place.
But you may have noticed that demonstrations like these, there have already been many in Iran: for example in 2020, in 2017, in 2009. And, like today, they never reach their goal , despite a massive mobilization. One of the factors of this failure is that each time, a united opposition fails to emerge.
So why can’t the Iranians who sing about revolution make it happen? Where are the opponents of the current regime and why is it so difficult to imagine an after-mullahs? These are the questions we are looking at today.
For further
PODCAST. In Iran, Raisi facing the grandchildren of the revolution
Iran: in the face of repression, art as an act of resistance
Ramin Jahanbegloo: “If the Iranian women win, it will be the start of a feminist revolution in the Middle East”
“The Iranian regime must disappear”: meeting with the nephew of Ayatollah Khamenei