AUTOTRANSLATED PRESS TEXT:
The writer: “I’ve never seen a protest like this — we are at a turning point”
For Mahsa Mohebali, either there will be a complete overcoming of the Islamic Republic, or the country will become a “dark prison.”
Mahsa Mohebali knows how to see beyond the fog. She has narrated social changes in Iran when few could sense the tremors; she has dismantled stereotypes about women, love, sex, and politics; she has shocked and delighted her readers, whose numbers keep growing despite censorship. These days she is in Europe, but she has never accepted living away from Tehran.
What is happening in your city?
“I managed to speak yesterday with a friend in Tehran through an intermediary who had Starlink. He put the two phone receivers close together, because at the moment Iran is in the dark. The communications shutdown makes it impossible to get a full picture of events: the government’s goal is to prevent images from getting out and to hide the violence against protesters, which appears to be truly extreme.”
Less than a month ago you were still there — did you expect this popular uprising?
“Absolutely yes. With the protests over Mahsa Amini in 2022, civic participation made a qualitative leap. The June war further fueled anger toward the government, because the one thing the system had always claimed to guarantee — security — collapsed.”
Who are the people in the streets, and what do they want?
“The spark came from the bazaars, from merchants who were hit by the collapse of the rial. But then all the other demands brought to the streets by Iranians in different protest movements — in 2009, 2019, 2022 — joined in. This is the final shot, the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
The Islamic Republic has prevented and criminalized any alternative organization that questioned the system, so the protesters are not organized. What unites them is the demand for bread, shared suffering, the lack of security, and the desire for freedom. They are looking for a way out of a blind constraint.”
Is the political demand of the streets the end of the Islamic Republic?
“Absolutely, one hundred percent. For the protesters, there is no longer either the time or the space for dialogue with this system. Even the language used in caricatures and slogans is very violent toward the clergy and Khamenei, because a kind of hatred toward them has spread. In the streets there are workers and the middle class, but also religious people. Look at Qom, the city of seminaries, or Mashhad, where Khamenei was born and where his image is now being burned.”
The regime has shown it can absorb shocks. Will it happen again this time?
“We Iranians suddenly become revolutionaries. It can end in two ways: either there will be a total overcoming of the Islamic Republic, or Iran will turn into a dark prison and we will enter the darkest chapter of our history.
This protest — its spread and its cross-sectional nature — has no equal compared to anything I’ve seen before. For a long time, fear of another revolution prevailed, because after 1979 the country was hijacked by Khomeini and no one wants a new authoritarianism. But now Iranians have reached the conclusion that they have nothing left to lose. They are willing to undergo a transition even by temporarily handing power to a figure like Pahlavi — taking care that it does not become absolute power.”
You, as a writer and progressive intellectual, really think the Shah’s son could have a role?
“Probably three months ago I wouldn’t have said this, but I think so. It doesn’t mean I approve of him or like him as a candidate, but he has united a significant part of the Iranian people. He is the only one trying to exercise leadership and has taken responsibility for guiding a transition — also because there is no agreement among the different factions of the opposition. At the moment, there is no other alternative. And when you want to change a system, you need a leader, symbols, and an organization.”
Do you fear or hope for an American intervention?
“I hope it doesn’t happen, because it would mean the system has decided to continue with massacres and refuses to step aside peacefully. If the massacres were to continue, I hope the entire civilized world would rise up to stop the Islamic Republic.”
Is there a risk of an internal coup?
“The system appears compact, as far as I can see. Of course, there is the possibility that at some point the Revolutionary Guards take power, but that would not change the system. There would be no reforms, and we would probably see an even darker version of the Islamic Republic.”
