In yesterday's post we looked at a timely art exhibition, giving new visibility to women written out of history in Iran. Protests - sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police after they arrested her for being in violation of the dress code for women - are now in their fourth week.
While the government forces's response has been brutal and the regime is cracking down on protesters with hundreds arrested, wounded and killed, according to human rights organization, protests are continuing and it was recently announced that also the workers from the country's vital oil sector will be going on strike.
The regime may have shut down the Internet across the country, but videos showing the violence of the police are still being leaked. During the last few weeks, in the images and footage from Iran, we have seen women ripping off their headscarves, burning their hijabs and cutting their hair. The latter is a practice cited in Persian literature as a sign of protest, anger or mourning.
In the Shahnameh, a 1,000-year-old Persian epic poem written by Hakīm Abul-Qāsim Firdawsī Tūsī (Ferdowsi), that recounts the history of pre-Islamic Persia or Iranshahr (Greater Iran), when the hero Siyavash is killed, his wife Farangis and the girls accompanying her cut their hair to protest injustice.
Women cutting their hair in Iran did so in anger, to show they don't care about the government definition of beauty and to protest against the control of women's bodies and the suppression of women's rights.
While Iranian living in other countries supported the protests cutting or shaving their hair in public or on videos posted on social media, women from all over the world, joined in to show solidarity. Among the latest, there were also a group of French actresses, including Juliette Binoche and Marion Cotillard.
Last week Iraqi-born Swedish lawmaker and MEP Abir Al Sahlani, cut her hair during a speech at a debate about the protests at the European Union's Parliament in Strasbourg. "Until the women of Iran are free, we are going to stand with you," she stated as she cut a lock of her hair. "Women, life, freedom!"
This poignant form of protest recently arrived in museums: in Italy, both the MAXXI museum in Rome and the Triennale in Milan, are inviting visitors to cut their hair and place it in a box. The boxes will be delivered to the Consulate General of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Italy as a peaceful gesture of protest against the murderous violence of the police.
Will other museums join in? Well, even though it is a very small gesture, compared to the heroism of the protesters in Iran, it is still an act of solidarity with those who are risking their lives to defend the inalienable right to individual freedom, so let's hope there will be more cultural institutions all over the world keen on organising events such as these ones in support of Iranian protesters.
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