On Sunday, November 17, Hossein Ronaghi, an Iranian blogger, journalist and activist posted a photo of him on social networks, lips sewn. Literally. A blue thread crossing his still swollen mucous membranes. “I will go and sit like this before the Supreme Court of the Islamic Republic,” he wrote in his message. “With my lips sewn, because I only have one word to say to them: ‘no’.” Since then, social networks have reported that Hossein Ronaghi – who has already spent six years in prison since 2009 – was allegedly arrested and imprisoned by the mullahs’ regime.
“No”. The little word that rolls from the depths of the ages; which is said so quickly and costs so much. In a filmed interview in 1970, André Malraux summed up as follows: “Nothing is more important in the history of the world than being part of the people who were capable of saying ‘no’. The greatest character in history, It’s Antigone.” Through the young girl who opposed Creon’s laws to offer a burial to her brother, we know to what terrible processions Malraux thus paid homage.
They are fascinating, those who are “able to say no”. Like Antigone. Like Hossein Ronaghi. Like Ahou Daryaei, this young student from Tehran who, after being harassed on her campus by the moral police, took off her clothes on the square in front of her university. “No,” said her hair in the wind; “no”, insisted her bra and panties, in the middle of her stunned peers. The symbol was so strong, the emotion so great that after having interned her for several weeks in a psychiatric hospital, the mullahs released her two days ago.
They are rare, those who are able to say no. Like Boualem Sansal, the Algerian writer, who, since the dark decade in Algeria, has never ceased to oppose Islamism in his novels, his essays and his interviews. And to the Algerian regime. We learned today that the writer has not given any news since he landed in Algiers (where he was going from Paris) on November 16. He would have been arrested by the authorities, write our colleagues from Marianne. For years, Boualem Sansal has been one of those who have said no. Despite the threats. Despite what it costs. “But staying away is not very civic-minded, it does not build the future for children,” he explained to us soberly, during an interview in November 2020. So : talk. Say it again and again: no.
Like the writer Kamel Daoud. Goncourt Prize 2024, for his novel, Houris, which features a young woman who survived a throat slitting during the dark decade and who, having lost the use of her vocal cords, speaks in an inner voice to her unborn daughter. The novel was banned from publication in Algeria, from where a campaign of disqualification against the writer has been reaching us for several days: a woman says that this is her story, told under the seal of medical confidentiality to the wife of Kamel Daoud, psychiatrist. And, according to our information, at least one of the Goncourt Prize jurors would have received threatening messages just for winning Houris. As for Kamel Daoud, he no longer counts these threats. The day after his Goncourt, at the microphone of France Inter, after having expressed his immense joy and paid a magnificent tribute to his parents, he had words that could only grip the heart: “I have the Islamists on my back for obvious reasons; I have on my back the conservatives of the regime for obvious reasons but I also have on my back the intellectuals of the decolonial caste, because I am talking about a war which is not the war of; their pension… And if you add the fact that I also express my passion for France, and that I speak with my own voice, and that I am a villager who arrives in Paris under the rhinestones, I think you have everything you need for a decapitation .” Hold on, despite everything.
Despite everything, some persist in wanting to tarnish the courage with which they themselves have so little – calling one “Islamophobic”, the other “fascinated by the extreme right”, etc. However, there should be more of us behind, and with these valiant defenders of freedom. This “no” that they have the courage to express is for all of us. Long live Hossein Ronaghi. Long live Ahou Daryaei. Long live Kamel Daoud. And long live Boualem Sansal.