Women protest against compulsory hijab in Iran. Credit: Facebook/My Stealthy Freedom

For anyone unfamiliar with Iran, journalist Masih Alinejad’s The Wind in My Hair paints a fascinating and vast canvas of the country’s political and social fabric post the Shah regime.

Alinejad’s autobiography chronicles her journey from growing up in Ghomikola, a village in northern Iran, to her exile from the country in 2009, post which she has lived in England and the US. In the last section of the book, Alinejad’s path as a journalist takes a new turn after her exile as she turns to social media to advocate for women’s rights within Iran. Though criticised for doing her activism from the West, she faces challenges familiar to many immigrants such as the threat of becoming stateless.

In an hour-long interview with The Wire, Alinejad talks about her first book, the My Stealthy Freedom campaign, Iranian politics and the challenges of being a single mother and an immigrant.

Excerpts:

Let’s begin with the book. Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg gave you the idea to write it. How did you take it forward? You had to relive a lot of painful memories while writing the book. How did the writing process make you feel?

That’s a really good question to begin with because revealing memories is not easy. I gave up three times. It felt like somebody was squeezing my heart when I was talking about the time that we didn’t even have enough food. We didn’t have electricity, we didn’t have enough money and we had to buy second-hand clothes in my village.

Although I am having a good life here [in the US], talking about your family is not easy. Especially when I am talking about poverty, imprisonment and the times when I was interrogated. These were some of the darkest times in my life.

But my mother taught me that nobody can save you except for yourself, that if you let your fear in, then the darkness can devour you, it can swallow you whole. That became my lesson. I decided to be my own hero instead of waiting for someone else to rescue me.

Masih Alinejad
The Wind in My Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran
Hachette Book Group, 2018

How do you see yourself vis-à-vis activists and journalists in Iran who, so to speak, are on the frontlines? There has been criticism against theWhite Wednesdays campaignthat you’ve been doing it from the West. What’s your response to that?

Three decades of my life were in Iran. It’s been nine years since I left my country where I’ve faced difficulties and broken many taboos and barriers: when I got expelled from high school and the Iranian parliament; when I was summoned to the court because of my writing; when I got arrested by the morality police.

These are the experiences that make me a human being, so I have to talk about it. I have the right to talk about these restrictive laws because they have affected my life. This is the reason that I live in the West, because they couldn’t tolerate me and kicked me out.

Yes, I live outside Iran but my campaign is inside Iran. The people who dare to share their videos, photos and their stories with me are in Iran. I am just giving them a platform, which I always wanted to have when I was in the same position. My story tells me that now I have two options: to enjoy my own life in the West and keep silent and forget about those sisters and women who are having exactly the same experiences as me or give them a platform to speak about it.

As a child, I used to watch the clerics, mullahs and policymakers talk about my body, my identity and my life through the black-and-white TV at home. But right now, they are watching and listening to me and it doesn’t matter where I live. What matters is how my life is being affected by the Islamic Republic of Iran. They took our bodies hostage, they took our identities hostage, and this is the time to take our bodies and our identities back from the hostage-takers. That would be my response to those criticising my work.

Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad. Credit: Facebook

Talk about the challenges and risks of living as a single mother in exile. Your English was poor when you migrated to England and you wrote you felt like “a leaf fluttering in the wind”. What was that like?

I think all the immigrants can understand what I say. I couldn’t understand English properly when I first moved to England. It was the first time I could live with my son after we had been separated from each other for nine years.

There I was, I had a teenage son, I was a single mother, a student with a strong accent, and at the same time, the economic situation was horrible in Iran. We couldn’t even afford a normal life in Oxford. There were several times when I wanted to go back to Iran even though I didn’t even feel safe there. So it’s like you are living in the middle of nowhere, you can’t afford your life, but you can’t go back to the place you were before, where you came from.

My son was lonely because he didn’t have his grandparents or friends; he didn’t have anyone except me, and I was a full-time student and journalist. I remember him crying because he couldn’t understand a single word in school. I felt like somebody had punched me in the face. I felt like I was betraying my son.

I felt especially guilty that I just escaped Iran and here I was interviewing the families of those people who lost their beloved ones [during the 2009 Green Movement]. All this guilt along with my personal situation was horrible. It was a huge burden on my shoulder and I felt like I just couldn’t walk. I felt like somebody was holding my feet so tightly I couldn’t take one step ahead.

Were there periods of loneliness or depression that you went through while dealing with a lot of difficult subjects?

Most of the pressure came from the guilt. I actually interviewed the families of 57 people who got killed [for the radio documentary Victims of 88]. Every mother has her pain. But there were 57 mothers and fathers sharing their pain, and providing the details of how their children were tortured to death, what kind of wound they saw on their child’s body and the kind of bullets shot on the chest or heart. I had to write about police brutality in Iran and I didn’t have anyone to share these stories with.

I used to go and sit at Sainsbury’s to edit my interviews because I couldn’t listen to the cries alone in the house when my son was at school. I couldn’t handle it. I gave up. I began thinking about committing suicide. This was during 2009. I was so miserable and depressed. My husband, who was my boyfriend at that time, came to Oxford and helped me finish the rest of the audio documentaries.

You wrote that people would often chant, “Death to Amrika!” and there was huge anti-American propaganda in Iran. Having grown up with this rhetoric, what’s it like living in the US now, especially under the Trump regime?

I come from a country where I’ve been told to say, “Death to America” from the age of seven. That’s the main pillar of the Islamic Republic of Iran. We have a lot of songs taught on Iranian TV and in school that were anti-America. If you ask anyone from my generation to remember some, they would do so without hesitation. It’s like being brainwashed. You sing that song automatically, without thinking about it. I was the same.

In America, I used to sing these songs sometimes and laugh. At the same time, I felt bad. I wish people could visit the US and understand that this is a country where they have the First Amendment. People can take to the streets to challenge the president without anybody getting arrested. How can we say “death” to the country from where we want to adopt the same First Amendment? I am not saying that the US is perfect, but the First Amendment is perfect because it gives people the freedom to challenge policies.

That is why I joined the women’s march, to condemn the travel ban because I strongly believe that Donald Trump’s policy doesn’t affect the government or policymakers, it only affects people like me, and those who are students and ordinary people.

I criticise Donald Trump, but I still work for Voice of America. Nobody’s telling me that I have to be kicked out because I protested in the streets. I wish we had the same freedom to have such a huge demonstration in the streets of Tehran.

People march through downtown Seattle during a protest held in response to President Donald Trump’s travel ban, in Seattle, Washington. Credit: Reuters/David Ryder

Iran falls under the travel ban against Muslim-majority countries that prevented you from seeing your son Pouyan, when you had to instead meet him in Sweden. Was it just once that you had trouble meeting your son Pouyan because of the travel ban?

Yes, it was only once and now it’s been a year since I last saw him.

My situation is complicated. I asked for asylum in England and I received British travel documents. Then I got married, left England and I got a green card here in the US before the travel ban was implemented. Since my green card expired during the midst of the travel ban, I have to wait for a new one because of all the chaos right now.

British immigration says that I am no longer an asylum seeker because I left England. Therefore, they can’t give me a new travel document to replace the expired one.

I am not saying that the US is perfect, but the First Amendment is perfect because it gives people the freedom to challenge policies.

The Iranian government says that if I need a new passport, I will have to wear a hijab and come to the office and also submit a photo wearing a hijab.

So these are the dilemmas I face as a woman and an immigrant – I don’t have an Iranian, British or an American passport. That is why I cannot travel.

Some people might say that now that she left Iran she’s free, she can do whatever she wants, she’s safe. But if you’re an immigrant, you always carry a huge baggage with you.

And your son doesn’t live with you in the US?

No, because my son asked for asylum as a dependent. But I left England. He now has to apply for asylum himself.

Masih Alinejad. Credit: Reuters

Do you think policies like the travel ban reinforces the anti-American propaganda in Iran?

The travel ban is wrong and it made millions of Iranians upset. I still don’t understand why the American government is putting pressure on the people of Iran instead of sanctioning the oppressors because people didn’t do anything wrong against the American government.

People in Iran are not a threat to America; in fact, they protest against the oppressive regime in Iran. Our government, or our national TV, our policymakers, the politicians, they deserve to be banned, not the people in Iran.

You mentioned several instances in the book when you weren’t afraid of taking the authorities head-on. Keeping this in mind, why did the authorities give you a warning to leave Iran rather than arrest you like they do many other activists and journalists?

This happened to other correspondents as well during the 2009 presidential election in Iran. International correspondents were kicked out. The government told the journalists they’d be in trouble if they covered the story, that they could leave the country instead.

I hadn’t done anything wrong at that time. That’s why they were warning me that if I covered the election, I’d be imprisoned.

We have different offices in the government such as the intelligence services and the judiciary system that deal with journalists and activists. They have several different tactics to keep you silent. Sometimes they put you in jail, kick you out of the country or order a suspension. It means that you live in Iran but are not allowed to do anything. It was the same for me. I was a journalist, but I was not allowed to go to the parliament because I got kicked out. I was not allowed to cover the election even as a columnist.

People in Iran are not a threat to America; in fact, they protest against the oppressive regime in Iran.

The government doesn’t want to cause a scandal, especially during elections to show the world that this is a democratic country. During that time, they open the door for women and political activists to participate in public life. For example, women were allowed to go to the sports stadium during the elections. But they were kicked out after the elections.

The government sometimes does not arrest activists because it doesn’t want to pay a price. They don’t want to attract media attention especially if someone is already a well-known journalist. So instead, they deal with you and give you two options: do you want to go to prison? Or are you going to do what we want and just leave the country?

You wrote that TV channels are a mouthpiece of the Iranian government. This is similar to the situation in India today. Etemad Melli, the daily you worked at, was shut down along with other media organisations. Several journalists including you were intimidated by the government. What is the current state of Iranian media? What is the space for dissent and how are Iranian journalists navigating it?

We have so many great journalists inside Iran but they still don’t have a platform to investigate issues concerning the supreme leader, nuclear activities, hijab and those people who got killed, tortured or were executed in prison.

We still don’t have free media. All the newspapers that I used to work with don’t have a free platform to investigate topics that people are talking about in the streets. I have to say that the period of newspapers in Iran is just gone, it’s dead now.

How is the situation now compared to when you worked as a journalist in Iran?

During that time, I wrote on my Facebook page that while we [journalists] were writing about the domestic conflicts and arguments between the reformists and the moderates, the debates on the streets were totally different.

My argument is that journalists are lagging behind the issues of the people, especially those of the younger generation. The latter use social media to be their own storytellers. They are not waiting for journalists and the newspapers to cover their stories.

For example, Iranian newspapers don’t ever use the term “compulsory hijab”. But my White Wednesdays campaign gained momentum in Iran and every media outlet was talking about it.

A woman sent me a video of herself being beaten up by the morality police, which got around ten million views on my Instagram under the hashtag #MyCameraIsMyWeapon. I didn’t expect the video to go viral but the president, vice president, the media and the judiciary system reacted to this woman. She is more powerful than a reformist newspaper.

Another example includes those women who walk on the streets waving their headscarves on sticks. They broke the taboo because hijab was never talked about or discussed in Iranian media. But we became newspaper headlines after the Girls of Revolution and the women of White Wednesdays campaign.

Right now, this is the generation of the new media. The newspapers, journalists and policymakers are not the ones making the news. It’s the people, they make the news through social media, and journalists and policymakers should follow them.

You campaigned in support ofMaedeh Hojabri, who was arrested for posting a video of her dancing on social media. Apart from the hijab, what are some of the Yazadi Avashaki’s, or ‘stealthy freedoms’ for today’s Iranian youth, especially women?

We fight against all restrictive laws and we picked up hijab because it is the most visible symbol of oppression against women. My campaign has different initiatives like the one we started during the time when some female singers got arrested and were interrogated for singing solo. I started #MyForbiddenVoice and invited women to sing and send their videos in order to challenge this backward law.

The supreme leader of Iran said that women riding a bicycle in public is haram. So I asked women to upload their videos with #ILoveCycling. I received so many brave videos from women saying that the supreme leader cannot change our lifestyle by issuing a fatwa.

An Iranian woman poses hijab free as part of the My Stealthy Freedom campaign. Credit: Facebook/ My Stealthy Freedom

The government has always used men to oppress women. This is not just specific to Iran; I’m sure Indian women can relate to this as well. For instance, forcing women to stay indoors and cover themselves modestly for the sake of family honour. Modesty and honour became the words to oppress women. Thus, I created #MenInHijab where I invited men to tell us how it feels to be forced to wear hijab when they don’t believe in it. Another hashtag which showed that millions of men in Iran don’t think the way the government of Iran does.

Her name is Maeade Mahi. Recently she got arrested just because of uploading her dancing videos on her Instagram. If you are a woman in Iran and you dance or sing or show your hair then you are a criminal. If you want to enjoy your true self, you have to brake the laws every day.

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) 5:09 PM - Jul 7, 2018

These are the main battles, but there is a daily war in Iran, the one that I call the culture war, lifestyle war, the war between the people and the government. The state wants to impose an Islamic lifestyle whereas people want to have their own lifestyle regardless of whether it is Islamic or non-religious. To be a free person means you actually have to practice civil disobedience everyday in public.

More than 60% of university students in Iran are women. The government didn’t give anything to these women; the women achieved it themselves. That is why the government came out with a new law to restrict women from entering universities saying that the ratio of men to women should be equal.

Hijab is the most visible symbol of oppression against women.

This backward regime and their backward laws are taking the people of Iran hostage. And now our campaign is expanding beyond the hijab. People are asking how they can get rid of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This has become the main debate in the country.

Just eight months ago, people protested against the older clerics, and were saying the Islamic regime must go and they were chanting against the dictator. But you never see any of this reported in the Iranian media. It is people on social media who show the hidden face of Iran, which has been censored for four decades, to the rest of the world.

People are asking how they can get rid of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This has become the main debate in the country. Credit: Monica Almeida/ Reuters

You wrote that 1.7 million dollars were allocated for the protection of the hijab by the Iranian government in 2016. In light of this, how do you respond to critics who say you should focus on larger problems plaguing Iran instead of the hijab?

Iranians are suffering from lack of water and electricity and not getting paid for six to seven months. But the government spends millions on morality police and cultural and religious institutions to promote hijab. The Iranian state TV, which is the main propaganda tool, is used to promote hijab.

My question is that if it’s a small issue, then why spend millions to promote it? Why do they sentence a woman who doesn’t wear hijab to prison for 20 years? She didn’t commit any crime, didn’t murder anyone, she hasn’t killed anyone.

In 2014, the police announced that there were 3.6 million women who were stopped and warned and sent to the court because they wore the hijab inappropriately. If it’s really a small issue, why would they arrest and warn 3.6 million women in just one year? That means it’s not a small concern for the government. For the Islamic Republic of Iran, the biggest threat is its own women.

Some of the restrictions against women in Iran have been portrayed in Iranian cinema in films such as Offside, The Circle and Half Moon. How do artists and writers walk the tightrope on censorship?

You find your own way to bypass the authorities when you live in such situations. We have so many good directors and journalists in Iran. They have been appreciated by the rest of the world except by their own country and government.

Jafar Panahi is banned from making films in Iran. There are still many red lines and taboos in Iran, which you cannot dodge as a director, journalist, activist or as a social media user.

People say there are many successful Iranian directors, and they deserve freedom of speech as well. We don’t deserve this backward regime to make decisions for the bright and amazing people of Iran.

Visitors stand in front of a photograph of Iranian director Jafar Panahi at the 61^st Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin in this February 11, 2011 file photo. Credit: Reuters/Christian Charisius

What are you working on next?

My life as a journalist has changed. When I left Iran, I was interested in interviewing politicians and challenging them. But I’ve also learnt a lot from being a campaigner, that you can challenge politicians by giving a platform to ordinary people. My current goal is to empower every individual and woman to be their own media, leader and storyteller.

I was kicked out of the country in order not to challenge the president of Iran. But when he was in France, two journalists confronted the president with a photo from #MyStealthyFreedom campaign. They asked him how he felt seeing an unveiled woman. That was my day because even though they had kicked me out, I challenged the president through my campaign.

My dream is to empower ordinary women to challenge policymakers through my campaign and platform. I want every woman to be a headache, a nightmare for oppressors. If I become a well-known journalist, then I cannot change the world. But if there are millions of other women who can challenge the oppressors, it can change Iranian society. It can make the world a better place.

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Masih Alinejad

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