This short book (around 100 pages) by Nila, a pseudonym of a female writer and activist based in Tehran, is a heart-breaking read – both because of the descriptions of the repression shown towards the Woman\/Life\/Freedom protest movement of 2022-23 and because of the knowledge now (2026) of how that female-led movement, the latest in a line of uprisings, was brutally crushed by the theocratic regime in Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nila knows the history of her country and, as well as mentioning various poets and writers who have influenced the country’s culture, she recalls the grandeur of the Persian Empire, the imposition of Islam 1400 years ago (but the survival of the Persian language), the inspiration of the female scholar Tahereh (1817-52), the British\/American coup that overthrew a democratic government in 1953, the relative freedoms of women under the Shah’s rule, the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the Iran\/Iraq War of 1980-88, the failed Green Revolution of 2009 (the year that I visited the country), and then the murder of the 22 year old Kurdish Mahsa Amini in September 2022 which ignited the latest mass demonstrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nila thought the Woman\/Life\/Freedom protest would be different: “We are constantly receiving signs that reassure us this movement is different from all the previous ones.”<\/em> That uprising, like all the others, failed because of the ferocity and cruelty of regime. When, in February 2026, the United States and Israel assassinated Iran’s leaders and bombed the country’s strategic assets, Donald Trump thought that the people would rise up against the mullahs. It never happened. Now, as well as the authoritarianism of the regime, Iranians have to suffer the ever greater economic sanctions of the West. Heart-breaking indeed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This short book (around 100 pages) by Nila, a pseudonym of a female writer and activist based in Tehran, is a heart-breaking read – both because of the descriptions of the repression shown towards the Woman\/Life\/Freedom protest movement of 2022-23 and because of the knowledge now (2026) of how that female-led movement, the latest in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30314,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30313\/revisions\/30314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}