SOURCE:Irán, entre la corona y el turbante: esta foto define mis 47 años de lucha contra la teocracia
AUTOTRANSLATED PRESS TEXT:
Iran, Between the Crown and the Turban: This Photo Defines My 47 Years of Struggle Against Theocracy
The Iranian writer Mahsa Mohebali recalls her childhood experience during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the echoes it casts on today’s protests, set against Persia’s historical duality between monarchical and religious power.
Interview — Hoda Afshar, artist: “The struggle of Iranian women goes far beyond the hijab”
On April 1, 1979 (12 Farvardin 1358 in the Iranian calendar), exactly one month and 20 days after the Iranian Revolution, I realized that my share of the revolution was over. I was seven years old. The feeling of revolutionary victory mingled with the closing of schools and the scent of spring and budding flowers. In my navy-blue pleated skirt, I felt a sense of liberation and well-being. I insisted we go vote like everyone else; I liked the “game of the revolution.”
“Would you like to wear the chador (hijab)?” my father asked.
“No… Well then, we’ll vote ‘no’ to the Islamic Republic,” I replied.
“Why only Islamic Republic, yes or no? What about the other ideologies? What about those who want a secular republic, or others and their beliefs?” My father said that this very type of referendum showed that the funeral of the revolution had already taken place. “They stole our revolution.”
For my seven-year-old mind, it was hard to understand how Ruhollah Khomeini, who only two months earlier had been the leader of the revolution, had now become a “thief” and the object of hatred for some revolutionaries. From that day on, our part of the revolution ended and turned into the insults my father and his friends hurled at the television. Once, my father threw a slipper at it, and my mother didn’t speak to him for a week.
I tried to understand the connection between my father’s anger and what was happening on TV, but it was difficult. When people sat before the camera and confessed their “mistakes” and their status as spies, what exactly enraged him? Eventually, my mother’s will prevailed and the television was switched off completely.
These days, when people look to the sky hoping American or Israeli fighter jets will come to their aid, I ask myself: what role will the people play in this bloody war and revolution? Pahlavi again, yes or no?
When my father came home from work in the evenings, he would spread the newspaper on the floor, cut his fingernails and toenails, and read the entire paper—even the obituaries. Then he would crumple it and throw it in the trash. He would take his sleeping pill and retreat to the bedroom; some days he wouldn’t leave the bed at all. In the black decade of the 1980s, the cloud of sleep and death settled over our house.
The Iran–Iraq War began. Death anxiety. Doing homework by candlelight. My uncle went to the front and returned without his hands; my aunt was imprisoned. Everything turned black. Black, black, black.
Now I see people shouting the name of Reza Pahlavi; I see everyone saying the Islamic Republic must go and that whoever comes will be better. Again I wonder: what will be the people’s role? Reza Shah II, yes or no? Is history repeating itself?
When the choice is reduced to oneself or nothingness, the ballot box produces oneself. Anything is more than zero. Is it my people’s destiny to swing endlessly between the Shah and the Mullah, like a pendulum from the embrace of one to refuge in the other?
I look at neighboring countries: Afghanistan under the Taliban; Pakistan with its atomic bomb; Iraq with its coups; Syria under ISIS; the massacres of Kurds and Armenians in Turkey. Does Iran truly have the potential to escape its geopolitical fate? In the balance of power, what kind of Iran do neighboring countries tolerate?
Sometimes we clothe the Shah with Farrah-e Izadi (divine glory). Then we revolutionize and lower that same divine glory onto the cleric’s turban.
And now, I begin again. I am 54 years old. I lived seven years under the monarchy and 47 long years under clerical rule. I undoubtedly hate the theocratic system of the Islamic Republic. As a teenager, I was detained many times for not wearing the hijab. I cried and signed pledges. My friends were arrested and flogged for drinking alcohol. I was detained for walking in the street with a boyfriend.
Our generation has fought for the bare minimum of a normal life. Forty-seven years of struggle against a theocracy that has seated the hand of God on the throne of power and advances without restraint. It wants the atomic bomb. It feeds allied forces in the region. Even parts of the European left are confused: If Israel is bad, Iran is good. So are Iranians who want Israel bad? Is the enemy of my enemy my friend?
When I was nine, the school principal ordered all girls to wear the hijab because a photographer was coming. I had no scarf. I tried to make myself small and invisible so no one would notice I was the only one without a hijab among forty girls. Miraculously, I became invisible. My father framed that photo as proof that his daughter was a “fighter” and placed it on his desk.
I grew up in the years of terror and inquisition. I do not want my country to fall again into such hands—even if the turban is replaced by the crown.
When I was ten, I passed the academic exam for the gifted school. There was also an ideological test and an oral interview. The night before, I tried to memorize the names of a few clerics and Islamic books. My father caught me and said, “Be yourself.”
At the interview, when asked whether I would report my parents if they opposed the government, I froze. What kind of question is that for a ten-year-old girl? I don’t even remember what I answered. Perhaps my memory erased it out of shame. That day, a seed of betrayal was planted in me: the possibility of trading your parents for a better education.
I was never admitted to that school. Maybe I said “never.” Or maybe I didn’t. Since then, my soul has been split in two: the girl who refused and the girl who might have betrayed.
My share of this revolution—beyond those three months and ten days of tasted freedom—is perhaps these dark years of inquisition. Let them not be forgotten. Let them be engraved on our foreheads. I hope this generation, doing everything it can to survive, remembers it must be demanding. It must claim its share of power.
The bird of fortune does not belong on the shoulders of the Shah or the Mullah. It rests on the shoulders of men and women who claim the right to a normal life.
About the author
Mahsa Mohebali is an Iranian writer, literary critic and screenwriter, considered one of the most prominent voices of the third generation of fiction in Iran. Her works blend fiction and social critique, focusing on gender issues, social crises, and the challenges faced by the queer community and younger generations in contemporary Iranian society. Among her works are Don’t Worry (The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2021), Lovemaking in the Footnotes (Hanging Loose Press, 2020), and the novels Tehran Girl (Bompiani, 2020) and Téhéran Trip (La Croisée, 2023).
Due to the critical nature of her writing, Mohebali has faced pressure and surveillance by Iranian security forces, which have banned the publication or reprinting of her texts. Since 2025, she has been residing in Catalonia with the support of the Artists at Risk network and No Callarem.
