Iran means “Land of the Noble Aryans,” the Only True Heirs to Mohammed

I hate to generalize. I really do, and yet, I must risk saying this: Although many Iranian dissidents are so heroically outspoken--many are now referring to Iran as “occupied Iran”--still, so many Iranians, even those living in exile, are unbelievably arrogant. Supremacists. Devious too. A bit sadistic. Very imperious. I do not really understand this. Is it in the drinking water, the culture, the brand of Islam with which they’ve grown up? It is not necessarily a Muslim “thing” or an Arab “thing.” Iranians are not Arabs. They believe that they are the original Aryans. Iran means “the land of the Aryans” and of the “noble Aryans.” They are Shiites and also believe that they, not the Sunni Muslims, are Mohammed’s only true heirs.

Now, just imagine how arrogant Khomeini and Khomeini’s spawn are. My point: I would not trust them to negotiate anything in good faith or count on their sticking to any agreement. President Trump and his extraordinary, most excellent military mavens and armed forces must already know with whom they’re dealing.

Everyone: Let’s be clear. America and Israel did not preemptively attack their long-time persecutor, Iran. They are not committing “war crimes.” They are not there in order to establish regime change. Rather, we are finally fighting back against Iranian aggression, terrorism, Iran’s unchecked 47 years of funding terrorist proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis) and of murdering Americans and Israelis. American and Israeli armed forces are fighting to head off the possibility that such an Evil Empire could obtain nuclear power--and use it.

Now, for some of my many memories of Iran and Iranians.

I first visited Tehran in 1961, on my way to Kabul. The circles in which I moved were upper middle class, and the women were dressed in glamorous, expensive European clothing. I was shocked by the wretchedness of the poor and by how horrendously the servants were treated. I loved the bazaars, the tile-work, the courtyards, the distant mountains, and the food.

I barely survived Kabul, but I got out, returned to finish my last semester of college—but the East had inevitably claimed me. I ordered pilau with carrots and raisins, kebabs, puddings with rose petals, began reading Memoirs written by Central Asians and Arabs, and started writing about my experiences in my own journals and articles. I joined the civil rights and anti-war movements but then, far more fatefully, I joined the American feminist uprising in 1967.

By the early 1970s, Kate Millett had introduced me to Reza Baraheni, who was the head of CAIFI (the students against the Shah). He described how the SAVAK had tortured him. When Khomeini took over, Reza rushed home, believing that this would be a new day for his country. He invited Kate to address Iranian women on International Women’s Day—so far so good—but then Khomeini arrested her. How could we, a group of American feminists free her? We had no feminist air-force, no sovereign feminist country. Oddly enough, Khomeini let her go—and she wrote a fine and very controversial book about her experience there: Going to Tehran.

The following year, Reza invited me to deliver a lecture on International Women’s Day. He said that I “understood the Muslim soul.” I laughed—but I declined. I said that I would not come, not even if I were accompanied by every single American Marine. In a few years, Reza, an Azerbaijani Turk, had fled the country too.

Years later, in 2004, I joined a panel of Iranian and Afghan women at the UN. A group of eight formidably black-clad Iranian women came in, sat down in a bloc, glowered, and took notes. The brave moderator stood up and said: “We know who you are. Go home and tell your bosses that one day women will bring them down.”

The flowing black garments said nothing but at a signal from their leader, they slipped out as one.

In 2005, I participated in an American Senate briefing on Iran, which was beamed into Iran and Kurdistan. Our words were simultaneously translated into Farsi and Kurdish. It was a thrilling and memorable occasion. The room was crowded with Iranians in exile, organized by the American Committee for Democracy in the Middle East and by Maryam Rajavi’s followers.

Thus, Muslim women everywhere, but especially in Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, have been on my mind and in my heart for a long, long time.

As we know, American and European feminism has been hijacked by the gender-identity and transgender movements; anti-racism has trumped anti-sexism; imperialism, colonialism, and slavery have been seen as a Western-only crime and have not been viewed as global phenomena. As I’m now writing, what used to be an American feminist movement has also been completely “Palestinianized.”

America’s so-called first Women’s March in 2017 was an abomination and a travesty. It was not only anti-feminist. It was also anti-America, antisemitic, anti-Israel, and anti-Western. It was more about opposing President Trump than opposing sexism.

But mainly, the marchers glorified the wearing of hijab. Some marchers sported embarrassing pink “pussy” hats, but many others desecrated the American flag by fashioning it into a hijab. The poster that memorialized this desecration became very popular.

In 2022, here’s a bit of what I published:

I am remembering this shameful march as I watch and read about the heartbreakingly brave Iranian women and men who have protested for days and nights in the streets of at least 80 cities. They were risking death for the right not to wear hijab. Women were burning their hijabs (headscarves) and cutting their hair. They were heard chanting “Women, Life and Freedom,” “Death to the dictator,” “Death to Khamenei,” “Reza Shah rest in peace,” and “Khamenei get out of our country.”

The Iranian mullahs have unleashed the Revolutionary Guard and paramilitary (Basij) forces against them. They dragged women by their hair, banged their heads on the ground, tear-gassing, beating, shooting, arresting, and murdering them. Fatality estimates ranged from 50-400 protesters and bystanders.

These protests were sparked by the Sept. 16th death in morality-police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman. She was apprehended while in a car with her family because she was, allegedly, wearing her hijab incorrectly. While the morality police denied beating or torturing her to death, a photo of Amini in a hospital bed reveals her bloodied face. She was in a coma.

Pro-government demonstrators also have been out in force, defaming the women and their male supporters as “Israel’s soldiers,” and shouting “Death to Israel,” and “Death to America.” The government blacked out the internet and arrested journalists.

It is obscene that the hijab-wearing Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour, Somali-American U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, and non-hijab-but- keffiyeh-wearing Palestinian-American Rashida Tlaib did not actively and loudly support these brave Iranian women.

As I argued in 2010, the burqa and niqab condemn women to an ambulatory sensory deprivation chamber, and violate a woman’s right to health, safety, freedom, and dignity. The Islamic Veil is also a statement of Islamist power and control over women’s bodies and lives.

When I was in Afghanistan, I saw women sweat, stumble, trip, and sometimes fall. If they were not super-wealthy, they were often juggling babies and shopping bags under their flowing and dust-grimed garments. In interviews and in memoirs, one learns that face and body veiling also induces anxiety and claustrophobia. Many women have trouble breathing.

I did not argue for banning the hijab, a head covering. It does not obscure one’s identity, although, in the West, it can still set one apart from others depending on how large, dark, unfriendly, or “forbidding” the hijab is.

However, in Mahsa Amini’s honor, I am rethinking that position. As long as one woman anywhere can be harassed, beaten, arrested, or murdered because her hijab has slipped or is seen as improperly worn – Western women, including highly visible activists and politicians like Sarsour and Omar, should consider voluntarily ditching their hijabs. When all women are free to wear or not to wear an Islamic head-covering – then, and only then, might women freely choose what is right for them.

Clearly, the Iranian women and their male supporters found their lives intolerable. They’d rather be dead than continue to live in the prison that Iran has become for all but the ruling mullahs and their hirelings. According to Shadi Sadr, an important human rights lawyer, “They have nothing to lose. They are standing up and saying ‘Enough of this. I am willing to die to have a life worth living.’”

The demonstrations, however, were about far more than women’s rights. Iranians have demonstrated in massive numbers before. In 2009 over election fraud, in 2017 over economic misery, and in 2019 over fuel prices. Each time the government suppressed the uprisings with bullets, tear gas, beatings, arrests, torture, and murder. What might be required for a different outcome to occur?

In a personal interview, my esteemed colleague Ibn Warraq points out: “The protesters lack leadership and above all they lack weapons. At some point the army would have to flip, refuse to kill their own people.”

Is this possible? Can it ever happen?

Are a people who were able to participate in driving out the Shah also capable of driving out Khomeini’s mullahs? That is the question.

I published parts of this in 2022 at the feminist site 4W (Fourth Wave).