“They will win there is no doubt. The Iranian women they are no longer afraid of anything, not even bullets”.
We will call you “Mahsa Amini”, in memory of the girl beaten to death by the "Moral Police" of Tehran on 15 September last year, because a lock of hair was sticking out of her veil. But her name is another and we can't reveal it for security reasons. For the same reason we can't even tell where she is. We meet our friend “Mahsa Amini” in a refuge in any city in Italy. We met her, thanks to a very dear friend of hers, a few hours before the celebration of March 8 to talk to her about Women's Day.
Does this story of mimosas and rights make you smile? What do you think, who fled above all to save her own life and that of her children?
"No way. I know what March 8 means. It's not just a party, remember the deaths, those of young women in the workplace. I lived almost ten years in Italy arriving there very young. So it's not the first March 8 that I live in your country and I have great respect for this day. I have always been moved by the thought of those workers who were trapped in the New York factory fire because they had been locked up there by the boss, after their request for better working conditions. And as long as I could, every year I posted a thought to remember those poor souls. It is an important day, it is right to celebrate it. We Muslims also have our own women's day, but it is of a religious nature, in honor of Mohammed's daughter."
Our "Mahsa Amini" is an Iranian woman among others, she does not tell the public story of her country's violence against women, she embodies it perfectly. When the revolt for Mahsa Amini broke out, the real one, she was in Iran, returned to her country together with a compatriot who she had married in Italy, but who only arrived at "her home" had revealed the true face of a violent, overbearing male and manipulative.
“I did not participate in the demonstrations, I was far from Tehran, but I followed those young women and boys who challenged power with joy and apprehension. They will win, I'm sure of it. They have to win."
His is an act of faith, and ours too; but in the meantime girls and boys in Iran end up in prison, they are beaten, they are killed because they claim the right to live a free life. The numbers speak for themselves: according to the Human Rights Activist News Agency, 530 people died during the demonstrations from September to today, 71 of whom were children; almost 20 thousand were arrested and 165 cities involved in the protest. While more than a thousand students from 58 girls' schools, scattered across eight provinces, have been hospitalized in recent days for symptoms of toxic gas poisoning, a mystery that increasingly looks like a premeditated police operation to intimidate girls.
The regime has decided to react in the hardest way.
That's all for a strand of hair. When I was in Iran in 2007, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning lawyer Shirin Ebadi , later forced into exile after her husband and sister had been tortured, pointed out to me that the veil was only a symbol, that it was not the heaviest imposition suffered by Iranian women. They had no right to property, they couldn't go abroad without a man's permission, they couldn't practice trades like that of judge. Today, however, the revolt started for a lock of hair that came out of the hjiab.
Is that veil so important?
“It's true the veil is a symbol, but it represents all the violence we have suffered and are still suffering. It's not just an accessory anymore, you have to start from there."
Our friend reminds us that she had never worn it in Italy and that when she arrived in Tehran she had to cut her long, very curly hair to be able to tuck it under the scarf.
Yes, her story: she comes back to us and explains how once she came out of hell she returned to it of her own free will ?
We had arrived in Italy with my family, parents and children, after having crossed more than one country on foot. Yes, we entered as illegal immigrants. We ran away because there was no hope for those who didn't comply with Sharia law. My mother especially, she had never accepted to "disappear" as a person, as was required by the culture of the religious. She educated us from an early age to be equal, sons and daughters. And I well remember how she put one of my brothers in order when she allowed herself to criticize how I was dressed. “She's free to dress however she pleases, don't meddle,” she told him. It was the best time of my life: I was studying, I had a lot of friends, I helped those arriving from Iran to integrate. Then fate overtook me."
The tears flow quietly, without jolts and she continues to talk without paying attention.
“It was during one of those meetings to introduce our compatriots into Italian society that I met the man who would become my tormentor for over fifteen years. My residence permit was about to expire, I needed to find a job. I started looking everywhere and also asked “that” person if he knew of anyone willing to hire me. He proved to be very helpful and affable, however proposing that I leave the city where I lived and follow him to his. There were just a few days left before my permit expired, I would have gone to hell to stay in Italy”.
Was she in love with him? Did she follow him like a boyfriend?
“No, for at least four years we were simple roommates. Then over time it happened that, having neither my family nor my old friends, the only people I saw were him and his relatives. And it was precisely his relatives who at one point told him that our situation had to be regulated because a woman and a man cannot live under the same roof for a long time without being married. For me it was just a matter of putting a signature. We did. I don't have any pleasant memories of that period of engagement which should warm a girl's heart. I had to do everything by myself, paperwork, party, wedding ring, clothes. My mother didn't agree at all, she told me that person wasn't right for me. But you know, she often tries to prove that her parents are wrong. And I was no exception. So to return to the question: was I in love with it? I do not think so. I just know that I needed someone to look after me and that he seemed nice and willing to do it. Later, at least until we stayed in Italy, I think I even grew fond of him. You know, how can you get attached to a cat”.
He laughs through his tears and then continues.
“I remember the first time I saw his true character. I had accepted to do menial jobs for the first time, always in catering: dishwasher, waitress, assistant cook. But I had enough, I wanted a better job, I had skills, I was sure I deserved it. When I told her, she made the first scene: she insulted me, reminding me to stay in my place. It was a first sign, but instead of understanding him and leaving him, I defied him: I found a better position as a manager in a shop, with a real contract and you will throw it under his nose. Then I was hired in an Iranian company in the oil sector, in the commercial department. I was earning much more than him who had remained in the import-export shop and I understood that he really didn't like it. But even there, I didn't see any warning signs."
Why did you come back to Iran?
“We were both unemployed after the economic sanctions in Tehran. My company had closed, the owners of his shop had left Italy. He couldn't find any work, but I did, but they never suited him. The first slap and the first straps came. I was baffled, I didn't understand, I didn't know what to do. And meanwhile the savings money ran out. It was then that he proposed that I return to Iran: perhaps it would have been easier for him to find work there. I said yes and to my mother, who begged me not to, reminding me of how many sacrifices we had made to reach Italy, I replied that I missed my country, that I had left it when I was young and that I wanted to go back. What madness.”
What happens when you arrive in Iran?
“Already on the plane he had taught me the lesson: look, a woman in Iran follows her husband and does what he tells her, it's not like in Italy where they have equal rights. I didn't understand what she meant and I paid no attention to it. The new life seems to start well. In my hometown I immediately find a job with an old relative who needs someone to take care of his shops and I'm the right person. But he immediately shows up too: he wants to be hired in the same place, to monitor me. The owner tries to make him change his mind, then gives in. After a week, he makes us the proposal to go to another city together to manage a series of shops: in addition to a good salary, food and lodging were free, but I should have been in charge of sales and organization . We accept and leave. At first everything is fine. Then he begins to interfere in my work: he introduces himself as the manager, sends me to the warehouse when a young man enters. And above all he can't stand that I'm appreciated and that I earn more than him, even in Iran. One day, during a fight, he breaks my finger by twisting it violently. He tells the doctors that he hurt me by lifting a big box. My owner was there too. Nobody believes a word. But nobody can do anything about it."
Why can't she leave him?
"Good question. Even my owner did it to me the day he saw me in the hospital with a broken finger. So he proposed that I manage all of his stores in the rest of the country, but that he would no longer want to see him. When I told her, she became a beast and beat me up accusing me of having an affair with the owner. I quit my job instead of leaving him."
The story doesn't end there. Our "Mahsa Amini" continues to suffer and not react, not even when her husband douses her shoulder with petrol and sets her on fire: her scars are still evident.
It could have gone on like this indefinitely if the children hadn't arrived. Now it was the children's lives that needed to be saved, not just his. And the day her husband attacks her eldest son by slamming him against a wall, "Mahsa Amini" remembers everything she had learned in Italy: respect, independence, freedom.
Or translated into the words of the movement of girls and boys in her country: women, life, freedom.
So she contacts one of the best known Italian anti-violence centers, she is listened to, and the rescue mechanism is triggered. You just have to get out of Iran. But she got the lesson and she's smart. She manages to get the expatriation documents signed by the torturer for herself and her children, and she is finally part of her.
The last memory is as painful as the rest.
“It was one step away from getting on the plane and I couldn't do it: I was petrified. A stewardess had to come and help me”.
Today our “Mahsa Amini” will also celebrate March 8th. You will dedicate it to Iranian women who are still prisoners of the state and of too many male bosses. And we do too.
