It has been an emotional couple of weeks for Iranians in Iran/Eron and the diaspora outside of Eron and for all sensitive folks from around the world. It’s been difficult to see and hear about some of the details of the suffering that people of Iran, especially, women have been going through for the past 43 years under the Islamic Republic government designed by Ayatollah Khomeini and carried out to this day by Ali Khomeini, the current “supreme leader”. It’s been also difficult to ignore what’s going on and not follow up on which young woman, a child really, was beaten to death because she chose to take her head scarf and say out loud; Woman, Life, Freedom.
We also need to think about how a new constitution اساسنامه for a secular and democratic government ought to be written. The one Eron has at the moment was written by Khomeini. It needs to be revised or rewritten so the next generations don’t have to chant death to another dictator. It needs to have better checks and balances of power. Culture changes gradually and culture needs to change in order give less power to one person on the top and even then if that person changes and wants to become a dictator there ought to be safeguards and checks and balances in place written in the constitution. Change is happening right now in a big way in Eron, in the streets, college campuses, school yards and everywhere.
I posted on social media about a process of rewriting the constitution in this age of internet and social media and I’ll mention an important step in that process; Don’t throw out Khomeini’s constitution before reading it and reading it with a pen in hand. Cross out what you don’t like and if there anything worth keeping, circle it for now. This is a necessary step. Then write the constitution that you think it’ll work for all the people living in Eron.
People from all walks of life and in any age can think about what they want in the constitution and no one is going to stop them in their homes when they sit down to write their own version of the constitution. Simply put, constitution is an agreement between folks who live in the same country.
خواندن اساسنامه جمهوری اسلامی ایران و خط کشیدن روی اون چیزهایی که خوندی و بدت میاد چون سالها آن قوانین اسیرت کرده اند — درد داره اشک داره — داد بزن گریه کن ولی پارش نکن- اول بخون و خط بزن بعد احساست رو بنویس بگو یا داد بزن
اشک بریز
روش خط بکش
ولی پارش نکن
بعد از خواندن و خط زدن و درد و اشک
یک لیوان آب بخور
به خودت برس
خلوتی با خدای فردوسی و حافظ و یا با روح حضرت مولوی کن
از اون خدا بخواه که دلتو پر از عشق کنه
و قرادادی که میخواهی با همیهنان ات داشته باشی (اساسنامه) رو قلم بزن
Get together with your family members and/or with other folks and discuss what you want in the revised constitution. As Negin Shiraghaei wrote in her recent piece here in Medium; “The female revolution might not happen today or tomorrow. It might not even materialize in the next decade. Who knows how revolutions work.” She is right and I could be right too. Who knows, the constitution اساسنامه you write may become very useful.
Artists are needed for social change and in politics more than ever. Just to give another demonstration of how powerful they can be, by making an effortless effort in creating art or music, I give you Shervin Hajipour. He is a singer songwriter who was sitting in his room, trying to find tunnels through a very limited and mostly blocked internet access due to government’s fear during these nationwide protests, he came across some tweets, posts on social media, on برای# For what, are you protesting?
He put them together in an order of his liking and sang them exactly as they were posted, slightly changed some, gave it melody, sat somewhere in his room, turned on the camera and sang a song with amazing sensibility and uploaded it on YouTube. It went viral within hours. It was listened to by billions of heartbeats, goosebumps and rivers of tears around. A day or so later the authorities came to his home, took him into custody and this video went even more viral. Today it was sung in protests held by Iranian diaspora across the globe under our deceased daughter/sister’s name مهسا امینی #Mahsa_Amini.
