Finding identity in Iran's 1401 Revolution

and the concurring identity revolution in the Iranian diaspora

Hi friend!

I'm not going to sugar-coat it: October was rough. For the last six weeks, I've been watching from afar as my hometown and neighborhood go up in literal flames. There's an enormous amount of hope smeared in with heartbreak over the revolution currently taking shape in Iran.

The enormity of a revolution and the density of all the stories that come with it have always been inconceivable to me. Personally, I've felt like I've spent the entirety of my thirty-three years on this earth, digesting the story and the aftermath of the 1979 Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, and more broadly, the rippling consequences of colonialism. I may not have known any that consciously, but my subconscious has been digesting all of that through the first half of the narrative of Soultouch.

It never occurred to any one of us Iranians that the first revolution might just be the precursor to the next one. I distinctly remember a conversation with my sister recently when she asked, "Is this really happening?" and that sentiment alone is the embers underneath this movement.

I'm not going to sit here and talk about the revolution from a safe vantage point of being abroad, though. I'm doing what I can from here, but at the end of the day, the only experience that I have is my own. So I thought I'd talk about that instead.

For so much of my life in the United States, my culture has been like a piece of that I've tucked in the corner of a drawer and only brought out to wear in selective spaces. It isn't that it doesn't exist or even necessarily that I'm ashamed of it, but after 20+ years of living in the West, where everything has very precise, narrow definitions, I've also trained myself to not talk about being Iranian with everyone. Until recently, I have dutifully self-censored that part of my identity in every-day, casual conversation. I've only found it safe to really wear the true colors of my culture in front of my family and my spouse.

But that's not really the full story either. As with most narratives concerning identity, it has a lot of different intersecting facets. I never wanted to shun this particular identity away, and even in the years of self-censoring in order to cater to my peers, I've always wanted space for being Iranian. And I think it's taken so long because there genuinely was not a whole lot of room to be Iranian, queer, gender-nonconforming, and neurodivergent all in one go. Maybe even more importantly, it wasn't safe to take up space.

But the 1401 Revolution has entirely blown this all out in the open. Suddenly, there is so much room for so many different identities and minorities. Baraye, the very anthem of the 1401 Revolution written and sung by Shervin Hajipour reads like a manifesto to the social issues that have never had the space or the permission to exist and now, they do. The song holds space for all of the small acts of resistance like dancing in the streets or kissing in public, but it also brings up social issues like extinction of endangered species or dogs simply being illegal under the current regime.

This is just one of the many examples of the conversation taking shape in the global Iranian community. There are many smaller conversations happening at our dinner tables or between solidarity protest chants where we are, as a people, becoming ourselves very slowly. And as a direct result, my identities are no longer clashing or fighting each other for screen time. None of them are doomed to be crammed in the back of the closet, and instead, I've been wearing all of them every single day for the last six weeks, full time. As you can probably imagine, it's been both a liberating and extremely uncomfortable inexperience. After 20+ years of turning my different identities on and off so carefully depending on the people present, I'm having a pretty difficult time being whole.

But this, I think, this is real freedom. That's what everyone back home is really fighting for.

As with most things that are about identity, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Will we be able to instill lasting and meaningful change to reflect our diversity as Iranians and our right to exist as human beings? Only time will tell, and the fight that is ahead of the young people in Iran is a long and arduous one.

But one thing is for sure: There is no going back. We are all aware of each other's existence as complicated and diverse human beings all the while being Iranian, and this knowledge cannot be erased no matter how hard the people in power try to silence it.

Be omide piroozi (in hope of victory),

Yasi