A Woman of Iran

If there is one thing that makes me proud to be Iranian, it is the Iranian women.
A vast majority of them have been pioneers in breaking through walls of suppression — at a time when conservatism, patriarchy and the suppression of women are increasingly being dressed up as virtues of diversity, tradition, or the good old days. And in a part of the world that has been quite unlucky with the weight of fundamentalism and religious conservatism, Iranian women have fought for the simplest of freedoms with extraordinary courage.
You may think that not wearing a scarf is simply a cultural or stylistic choice. But Iranian women have fought for that freedom with their blood. Just a few years ago, thousands lost their lives while protesting against compulsory head-covering. Yet these women burned that very symbol of suppression that had been imposed on them for centuries, and continued to fight for freedoms that should never have needed fighting for.
And then, after so many years away from the country I was born in, I come across one such woman. And I see the power she radiates — from her soul and body, from her mind and her art.

With Bahar in Regent’s Canal.
From the series Here We Are.