On the Renewal of Rusted Minds: Gendered & Generational Genocide in Iran — and Everywhere Else.
Over forty years of official repression and hatred has reached its disturbing and logical conclusion — Gendered & Generational Genocide against the women and youth of Iran — elsewhere, too.
Merriam–Webster’s Dictionary defines genocide as the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group.
Genə– is from the proto-Indo-European root for birth, to be born — delivered into the next generation. The word is derived from the Sanskrit janah — an offspring, child, person — and completes in the Latin –cida meaning the cutter, slayer; to kill — strike down.
Gendered & Generational Genocide is the crime of destroying youth through the organized and volitional destruction of women — of mothers, partners, sisters, nieces, daughters and grand-daughters; the children — the future.
It can be the systematic erasure of women from public spaces; it can be the deliberate exclusion of women from public life and the affairs of her home and body or the disappearing and torture of male and female activists. It can be the murdering of students — girls — in front of their schoolmates.
It is the trauma of a young mind, wasted in silence and rage.
The senseless murder of Mahsa Amini exposed the wider public to the unbearable, daily repression experienced by young Iranian women — both there and around the world, too. She was four days shy of her 23rd birthday.
“Focusing only on killing as a genocidal act results in the erasure of acts committed against women and girls […] Minimizing other genocidal acts, such as preventing births within members of a protected group — or inflicting serious bodily or mental harm — reflects a broader gender bias within the legal and policy communities. This bias results in a distorted understanding of how perpetrators target women to destroy the group itself and affects how governments and the international community understand the nature of these crimes.”
— Emily Prey & Erin Rosenberg, “Leaving Gender Out of Genocide Obscures Its Horror” — Foreign Policy.
These instances — of abduction, killing and state-sponsored rape — committed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its affiliates — certainly constitute sufficient evidence of a sustained genocide being perpetrated against their own people by the leaders of the Islamic Republic.
If the International Criminal Court was worth either two-shits or two-cents of the money contributed to them for this purpose — it would prosecute these crimes. But they aren’t — and it won’t.
Countless stories, videos and testimonies of unbridled brutality by the so-called morality police and armed forces were shared across the globe — despite widespread, directed Internet blackouts. Most of the videos were broken or blurred, spoken in foreign tongue and offered scant translations. No matter the divide — the language and context of the videos was clear.
Maybe you don’t really know about Iran — or Persians — well-enough to care all that much. Or maybe you do.
I’d like to share with you a sort-of long poem about Iran & Persian people, our shared ancestry and our natural friendship.
It has been my good fortune — throughout the whole of my waking life — to have been welcomed into many Persian homes; welcomed to eat and cook soup, to smoke and speak loudly — to listen — and campaign and towel-dry fluffy, wet dogs — or to float happy, new babies around kitchens. I’ve sipped and snoozed under corsis — tried to know art and rhyme — and learned of the Rhythms. I’ve been let alone, too.
Into these houses, I’ve been invited to sleep and to breathe and ponder and bullshit on all matters and subjects. I’ve been given much and swindled a little — I have founded some of my most cherished, profound thoughts there, sharing them or not with thoughtful and profound people — my friends.
In the prideful Persian places in which I spent my wasted youth, there was rarely quarter-given for foolishness — an unconditional sort of support that was insisted upon me when I’d wander in alone, lonely — licking at wounds.
That’s how good friends are supposed to be. Direct; helpful — kind, if not always nice. I’ve found brothers and fathers in them— sisters and nieces — but a Persian mother? — her intensity in intrigue — the quality and depth of her mind is unmatched in many men. She is the most notable one — and ought often remain unquestioned, even championed… sometimes avoided.
From an early age until this one, I was nourished in my soul and, much more importantly, in my stomach inside of these homes— so recognizable yet very differently orientated from my own — I was plied with crispy sweet tahdig and rich, fried livers, breaded onions and with nut-stuffed dates over poems and hiccups and baby burps.
I have had the sacred, simple honour of bouncing the giggling future on my knee — and I’ve giggled back at her— as ancient, resolute little eyes melted-off any mention of that silly defeatism of mine — I couldn’t dare infringe upon her sweet, enviable and still-stubborn irreverence with such nonsense.
— and it was inside of these humbled homes that I’ve studied my best on concepts of discipline and life — seldomly death. Very seldom on death. I have laughed and cried — confessed lies and made-up truths — and I’ve been able to unburden myself into helpful, deepened ears.
“Your task is not to seek for love — but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
— Rumi
Through the grace of my friends I’ve learned so much about Iran, both of her own politics and mine. I have traded in talk of intimacy and strength — of talents and unrealized potential — of dispossession — and I have listened to tales of love and murder and such unfathomable sorrow.
The hard stories that I’ve heard and listened to—of the upending and loss— were cherished, painful memories and hurtings. They were spoken softly & sad; kept close and extremely private. Into most of these conversations, I surely invited my curious self — never once made to feel an intruder; though once absent mindedly brought with me a book on the Campaigns of Eskandar.
Persian people are simply like that — unambiguous and strong of character. They are individuals perspicacious & careful of the impression made of their kin; but they are wide and open, intimate and enheartened to share their private hardship if there is the slimmest of chances to soothe yours.
Not many people have showed-up — truly ready and about it — the way that Persian people in my life have, for me. And though I am keenly aware it has been my blessing to hear these joys and sadnesses, both, I wonder often which stories were left untold to spare me from the embarrassment of their heartbreak.
…to hear of these heartbreaks is to know of abject horror and death — but to know a Persian woman is to learn about the indomitable dignity of Life.
She will be the Mother of a hard peace won, not given, after this stubborn malignance has been cut-out and discarded into the dust-bucket of history. She is the carrier of the flame in this generations-long and harder struggle.
She is how you know the regime is already defeated.
Now, it is the beginning of 2024. There are wars everywhere; all-consuming wars — and these stories have become full-throated — not soft; still sad — the tellings are enraged; resentful of the obscenity of being made to speak them aloud. We have listened to these stories — at least we’ve heard them — but we are becoming understandably distracted with so many and much fresher killings on offer to us.
I know there are other real and perceived violences competing for attention — white and brown and black and beige violence — mutely colored portraits safely set back, behind red ropes and radios — overwhelming and easy to shluff-off. I know it’s far away; foreign. I know they don’t look like us. I know how the wars and reasons for them blur and bleaken with age.
How much violence can we be expected to track, now; how many more murdersome leaders must be identified and condemned? How fewer will be charged? And how many of our breaths —our precious, enumerable breaths — should we exhale and spend into this ether?
The Iranian Government — Regime — is among, if not, the most heinous on our Earth — though the competition is stiffening. It is a bitter and jealous and effective regime one that is frightened that the stories — of brutalized and cut-open children— will be told-out to you in English, and not Farsi. A regime that would may-be terrified & alarmed — if only you were to listen.
Betting that you will still do nothing.
More than a year ago, that young, dead woman Mahsa Amini — and then hundreds and thousands more — renewed the call — demand — for an updated and better Revolution.
Today, there are still millions of Persian women and girls and boys and men who are stuck screaming hoarse against the shrieking wickedness of a death-inducing silence. I hurt very badly for my friends — my family.
I hope that you will pay fullest attention, amongst all the others, to the sustained, beautiful outrage of the Iranian people as they — surely if slowly — free themselves from this half-century long nightmare.
There is no bomb, nor opiatic prescription to soothe this sickness; to blot-out the pangs. This cure must be expertly self-doctored — not chemoed.
And as with all surgeries and cancers, the timing surely matters.
Simply look around you.
@thomrussellwrites — everywhere. ✌️
