Nasrin Parvaz, Iranian Socialist denounces the Western Socialism
Oriente Medio News- Thank you very much, Nasrin for talking to us about your life story, your participation in the Iranian resistance against the Islamist regime and the current cultural and political revolution in Iran. Tell us a little about your work, publications, and biography to get to know you a little more.
Nasrin Parvaz.- I became a civil rights activist when the Islamic regime took power in 1979. I was arrested in 1982, tortured and I spent eight years in prison. When I was arrested, I was taken to the Joint Committee Interrogation Centre, there I was tortured until I was paralysed. A month later my head was bashed against a wall and as a result I developed a brain tumour. The tumour was extracted in 2012 in London. I was in that interrogation centre for 6 months. They killed many prisoners under torture there.
My books include ‘One Woman’s Struggle in Iran, A Prison Memoir’, and ‘The Secret Letters from X to A’, (Victorina Press 2018). My memoir has been translated into Spanish.
I published a novel in Farsi about the 1988 massacre of prisoners in
Iran, where I was an eye-witness.
My paintings were accepted for inclusion in several exhibitions, calendars and for postcards.
I studied for a degree in Psychology and subsequently gained an MA in International Relations. I then completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Systemic Theory at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, where I worked in a team of family therapists.
You can read some of my works in my website:
My article in the Guardian:
OMN.– In recent weeks we have witnessed a social uprising led by women and ethnic minorities in Iran. It is true that the compulsory hijab is a symbol of the Islamic Republic but there are other demands coming from Iranian women. What are other examples of structural discrimination suffered by Iranian women?
NP.- The protest started after the killing of Mahsa (Jina) Amini by the morality guards for not wearing a proper hijab. Women gathered in front of the hospital where she died. Soon the protests became a rejection of the mandatory hijab. Women started to go out without hijabs and burned their scarves while people clapped in support for them. Now many women don’t observe hijab laws and when they are approached by the police there are clashes between the police and people. A few months ago, women would be arrested for not wearing their headscarves and thrown in prison, now police don’t dare to say anything to women without hijabs.
Things have developed from a protest against the morality police to protests against the regime. Women started the current movement and fortunately men supported them. The protest has spread through the entire country, and it includes people of different socio-economic backgrounds. Unfortunately, the regime is killing people ruthlessly, shooting people and children in the head. The killing and arrests have intensified during the last three weeks.
Thousands of workers of oil refineries in the south have started to strike and have asked people to stop going to work. Many workers joined the strike. Hundreds of workers have been arrested. Shops in most towns have closed to show solidarity with the protests.
Many children have stopped going to school, instead they try to block the streets waving their scarves in the air and chant slogans. The regime has raided universities and schools and arrested students after beating them. In some universities lecturers stood in front of students to prevent the guards beating them.
Earlier this month, the news that Iranian climber Elnaz Rekabi had competed at the Asian games without her hijab captured headlines. Elnaz is now under house arrest for her brave actions and her family are unable to contact her.
Saman Yasin held his head in his hands as the judge read out his death sentence. The 27-year-old Kurdish rapper, whose popular songs touched on topics of unemployment and government oppression in his native Iran, was sentenced to die last week.
More than 20 thousand of people have been arrested. Toomaj Salehi an Iranian rapper was arrested on Sunday 30th October, a day after his interview with CBC news aired. Toomaj has been a supporter of the protests and is known for using his lyrics to criticize the regime.
In the last few days millions of people have been attending the demonstrations and the situation is turning to the people’s favour. On Friday 3rd of November, thousands of people demonstrated in Isfahan and their slogan was: “Toomaj Salehi must be freed”.
Shervin Hajipour another rapper whose song has become the anthem of the revolution was arrested. Both Shervin and Toomaj are under torture for ‘waging a war against god’.
People are using Molotov cocktails against the cars of guards. The regime is still killing people in Zahedan, but since the demonstrations are widespread through the country, the regime doesn’t have enough guards, and in many towns, they are running away from people who are using stones.
Women’s issues in Iran include more than the hijab; they pervade every aspect of life. The misogynistic Islamic laws against women include:
Women don’t have the right to divorce. Women don’t have the right to have the custody of their children. Men can have many wives, but if a woman leaves the house with a man who isn’t her relative, she’ll end up being stoned to death. Women must seek their father or husband’s approval to have a passport. If a woman kills her abusive husband, she’ll be executed, but men can kill their wives or daughters and walk free. The inheritance of a daughter is half that of her brother. The list is long, but I will stop here.
University students are breaking segregation laws; male and female students had separate dining halls, but since the uprising students are eating together…The segregation of men and women applies to many things, such as using buses together.
For 43 years the regime tried to convince the population that women are inferior to men, yet the main slogan of the revolution is ‘women, life, freedom’. The first women’s revolution is taking place in Iran.
I feel that if people achieve their goal of ending the regime that this will be a women’s revolution. It won’t only affect women, it will be a renaissance for an Iran that has been stifled in a medieval cage for 43 years, nearly half a century. Despite the murders that the regime has committed, people say they won’t go home, they won’t stop protesting – and every day more people join them. It might take months, but I hope that the Islamic regime will be put to the trash heap of history forever after this. And with it will go the gender apartheid.
OMN.- You are the author of «One Woman’s Struggle in Iran: A Prison Memoir». Tell us about the book, its contents, and how it reflects the resistance of Iranian women as well as the socialist political activism in Iran.
NP.- My memoir is not only about the eight years of my imprisonment; it portrays my generation’s struggle for the same things that the new young generation are fighting for. Many women in my generation struggled against the compulsory hijab, with freedom of expression, unions … and we were butchered. It was the early years of the Islamic regime and people didn’t know how dangerous it was, but now people know too well about the regime. The people in the street are fed up with the gender apartheid, poverty, the lack of freedom and they want to get rid of the regime.
My memoir is about our collective destiny (being prisoner) that brought a collective understanding and collectiveness that we had not experienced before and friendship that saved us.
It’s a story of mutual support – only the healthy ones worked in the wing, the prisoners in pain due to torture and prisoners who were weak or ill didn’t have to work. By work I mean cleaning – we had a rota to clean the wing, our rooms and distribute the food among prisoners etc. It’s about, how we drew strength from one another. It shows what we did to find joy during torture and pain. It also shows we risked being tortured for contacting each other to exchange news or political views. It’s about crowded prison life, which was the same yet different in each prison – I passed through four prisons.
My memoir begins and ends with encountering one of my prison guards in a London supermarket. She was terrified, I turned away and walked out into the sunshine.
My book is about oppression – especially the oppression of women.
OMN.- As an Iranian socialist woman, what´s your opinion of the alliances that various European (and Latin American) socialist politicians have with the regime of the Islamic Republic?
NP.- First of all I’m sorry for them for calling themselves socialist and supporting a regime that used religion to alienate people for years; and now is using weapons to silence people. Despite the regime buying modern equipment from companies in the west to identify dissidents, suppress and kill people, their final day has come, and people will consign them to the trash heap of history forever. What then its supporters will do except become silent? I say shame on them. People get arrested and are shot at in the street during peaceful demonstrations and they’re tortured into doing forced confessions; and these so-called socialists sit comfortably in European countries and defend the regime. Why don’t they go to Iran to get arrested and executed for calling themselves socialists? Socialists are executed in Iran. Thousands of socialists were executed in Iran – my friends were among them.
The regime claimed we were spies of western governments and deserved death. The regime says the same thing about the protestors being arrested now.
A revolution is taking place in Iran and there is no collective support for it by socialists – their silence is loud.
OMN.- Voices like David Miller, with whom you recently shared a space for debate among socialists regarding Iran, not only justifies the Iranian regime but marginalizes voices like yours. Why do you think the voices of Iranians resisting the regime are marginalized in academic and political spaces in Europe and the US?
NP.- The regime’s agents are very active in academia and political spaces in Europe and the US, and they have influenced some people who are working in these domains. The regime’s agents are paid, but the westerners who defend the regime are alienated. I think the empty slogan, ‘down with America,’ by the regime is the only slogan that these ‘socialists’ are standing for, this is one of the reasons. The manifesto of these ‘socialists’ is anti-imperialism, and therefore they go with anyone who has the empty slogan of ‘down with America’.
Another reason they support the Iranian regime is that they don’t know the US government helped the mullahs to get into power in Iran. They don’t bother to search the history of the country and see how the Islamic regime came to power. The US government was in touch with some of these mullahs, and with some of the liberals who were supporting the mullahs to get into power. The same liberals who had some high post because of their relationship with Khomeini and other clerics, but soon were executed.
Racism is playing a part as well. These ‘socialists’ think they are more advanced than us (after all they were born and raised in countries that used to colonise the world). And we must learn from them – or they have to teach us socialism. How come we see things clearer than them? They must be thinking that it’s the white man who should save the world – through barbarism or socialism. Otherwise, why would they marginalise Iranian socialists who escaped torture and execution?
What are their socialist activities after all? Calling themselves socialists doesn’t mean that they are socialists. Actually, when the Islamic regime took power, a group of Iranian ‘socialists’ stood by the regime because of its slogan ‘down with America’; they even helped the regime in arresting other socialists; then they themselves were arrested and tortured to do forced confessions and some of them were executed.
OMN.- Another book of yours is «The Secret Letters From X to A» where you reflect the level of repression and violence of the Iranian regime. Tell us a little about this book and how it connects to the current Iranian resistance.
NP.- The setting of my novel is the interrogation centre where I was first held, which has now been turned into a museum. They used that interrogation centre for twenty years but despite this in 2003 when they turned it into the Ebrat museum they said they’d never used it, and it was only used by the Shah’s regime.
Faraz is a young history teacher whose cousin was betrayed by his own father and executed by the Iranian regime. When his uncle offers him, a job helping to turn the building into a museum, he accepts the job, despite that his family being against his decision. Faraz believes this may be his only chance to find out what happened to his cousin.
Faraz doesn’t find any trace of his cousin, but instead unearths a series of secret letters, written by a young woman X to her husband A, hidden in the walls. Faraz pieces together a picture of the torture X goes through inside that interrogation centre. Next, Faraz wonders what will happen if he unveils the truth behind the regime’s lies?
The Secret Letters from X to A unmasks what happened inside the Joint Committee Interrogation Centre, and how the regime is trying to cover it up. It shows the pressures young people in Iran experience, how that resulted in trying to overthrow the regime. It also shows how divided society is, where those who are running the country see 80 percent of society as expendable.
OMN.- I believe that in addition to a revolution of women and minorities in Iran there is a generational revolution against the legitimacy of the Islamic institutions of the regime. What is your opinion of the generation of Iranians who today question the fundamental foundations of the Islamic Republic?
NP.- Sixty percent of the population is under 30 years old. The young people who are leading the revolution say they don’t have anything to lose. They all have been born under this regime and went to school and university to learn Islam but have become atheists. They are aware of the corruption of the regime. The internet helped them to become aware of their rights and how the regime is violating them. The internet helped them to organise themselves in groups. A few years ago the regime raided a place where more than two hundred young people were having a concert. Last year a group of one hundred 14 – 15-year-olds gathered in a square in Shiraz that were metal supporters. The regime talked about them and said that they all had strange make up and improper outfits on.
Young people in the street don’t feel fear and many of them have been shot, thousands of them have been arrested. Torture is routine and sexual violence is used against both men and women. On October 18, 20-year-old Armita Abbasi, was hospitalised after being raped repeatedly by security forces. Before her family could visit her, she was taken away again by security forces and her family don’t know where she is.
OMN.- The Iranian diaspora is a key player in making visible the regime’s structural injustices. You are, in part, an example of an Iranian who managed to leave Iran, live, and study abroad. What is your opinion about the Iranian diaspora and its political role?
NP.- The Iranian diaspora are made of different groups, but despite of being mostly atheist, the majority of them don’t belong to any political group. Since the uprising in Iran every Saturday and sometimes Sundays, there are demonstrations in many countries, but they are not reported by the western media, or they are only reported in passing. More than five million Iranians are living outside Iran. Many of them left the country during the 80s to escape arrest and execution. Most of them started their lives again from zero, and now have a good jobs, and are looking forward to going back to serve their country.
OMN.- We would like to end the interview with your suggestions about Iranian women that we, from Latin America, could follow on social networks and thus get closer to the struggle of Iranians.
NP.- Zeinab Jalalian, has been in prison for the last fifteen years, without having medical treatment. She was tortured severely and is suffering from illnesses due to torture and long-time imprisonment.
Sepide qoliyan @sepideqoliyan/ Sepide has been in and out of prison for the last few years. She was arrested in 2021 again and she’s still in prison. That’s why her twitter handle hasn’t been updated. Her crime was speaking out about workers’ strikes and their problems.
Marzieh Amiri has been arrested for the third time by Iranian authorities and is currently being held in solitary confinement at Evin Prison. She is a journalist. Her work was especially significant in coverage of poverty, inequality, workers’ unions, and state corruption.
Atena Daemi @AtenaDaemi/ Atena spent seven years in prison for defending street children. She is against the death penalty.
