Words by Shamim Aslani // photograph by Margarita Zueva
The source of science. The solace of poetry. The paradise whence lush gardens were first imagined.
The great muse of songs that inspired to life what we call the guitar…. did you know that târ is Farsi for string?
Iran has birthed and bestowed upon the world and indeed my world, immeasurable gifts of both intellectual invention and cultural joy. It is the great pillar of human rights and continuous civilisation.
The fragrance, texture and taste threads of my life have been meticulously woven into being by my father and his family through stories of destiny; of what Iran almost had and what it has the capacity to be. His homeland is the pomegranate from which the world has extracted its richest jewels of societal progress.
The west’s ongoing, imperialist thirst for resources, oil and access have resulted in the shaping of destiny to be violently thrust outside of the grasp of the Iranian people’s hands.
To ensure that what Winston Churchill recognised, in the early 1900s as “a prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams,” remained a western prize. For the west to indulge in and for which the Iranian people have continuously suffered for.
Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, whose appointed tenure lasted from 1951-1953, primary goal had been to nationalise the Iranian oil industry. Through this period, he shifted the balance of power away from Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and towards the elected parliament, effectively becoming the de facto head of government and reducing the Shah to a figurehead whilst remaining the serving monarch.
“The Iranian is the best person to manage his home” Mossadegh said, in critique of Britian’s decades-long control of Iranian oil through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.
When Mossadegh terminated cooperation with the British and rejected their continued involvement in Iran’s oil industry, Britain pursued assistance from the United States, whose aid directly enabled the CIA to support the overthrowing of Mossadegh.
Mossadegh’s only crime, he stated, under house arrest, was that he had “removed from this land the network of colonisation.”
Autocratic rule was restored to the Shah from 1941 to 1979, who split Iran’s oil profits between a notable syndicate that included companies based in Britian and the US. He promised under his leadership that Iran would reach “a western standard of living,” and actively sought to bring about modernisation, through intensive pro-nationalism that relied heavily on cultural hegemony – framed as a tribute to Iran’s rich historical legacy. Under his rule Iran’s economy flourished, however, a stark rise of extreme wealth inequality, and a violent crushing of dissent by any means necessary, including employing torture techniques extracted from the CIA, saw a growing resistance within ethnic minority, student, trade unionist, feminist and intellectual circles.
There were many notable resistance figures throughout this period. Though one notable figure, Ayatollah Khomeini ultimately emerged. Not organically – enabled and ultimately consolidated through foreign intervention. Wielding a widely spread rhetoric of resentment toward western colonial imperialism toward his advantage, his talks to remedying wealth inequality and a new imagining of societal progress were sweetened with monetary bribes.
When he came to power, he swiftly undermined his promises with a brutally theocratic regime based on velayat-e faqih which translates to Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists, betraying ideologies of freedom that had supported a change of power. The many ethnic minorities, students, trade unionists, feminists and intellectuals who had hard fought for a change of leadership, paid for the price of this change of leadership with their lives.
The brutality of that very and currently occupying regime is the reason my family, as Baha’is – a religious minority – were driven from their homeland.
The current occupying regime continues to enact intensive subjugation against minorities and any form of perceived resistance. Their well-documented human rights abuses maintain a firm grip around the neck of the Iranian population.
The scattering of Iranian peoples throughout the world, sometimes violently, sometimes at will, has enabled the children of the diaspora, a voice in the west. A voice that those in Iran are so violently denied.
Ironically, we have a chance at shaping our own destinies, telling our stories within nation states who benefit from the very colonialism that Iran has long suffered the consequences of.
Though this freedom does not come without stark reminders of one’s place within a western colonialist construct. Expressed most vehemently following the events of 9/11, where a new chapter of prejudice began to emerge. In this chapter, Iran was given a new framing in the eye of the west. This loin from which the fruits the western world bears in the form of libraries, hospitals and human rights became, the axis of evil.
I asked friends to call me “Sham.” I refused to speak Farsi. For so long in fact that it became a language I still struggle to speak. It gets trapped in my throat where I swallow the shame of separation from an identity I hold here in the west like water in my hands.
The Green movement in 2009, then Zan, Zendegi, Azadi (or in its traditional Kurdish form Jin, Jiyan, Azadî) movement in 2022, which translates to women, life, freedom, both signified Iranian’s deep yearning for liberation against authoritarianism. Both movements though far in distance, struck seismic chords within me. Of identity, of loss and of reclamation. There is abundant beauty in taking back what is fundamentally yours.
I live in safety, far from the current sirens, screams, and the deafening silence that comes after a strike hits, be that from foreign imperialist or local theocratic oppressors. I lie in bed and scroll through my phone at all hours to see the devastation of people who look like me. Who scream out in a homeland I have never seen in the flesh, with bloodied hands and bodies “when and with whose blood will you all be satisfied?!”
As of 12 January 2026, The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRNRA) has reported, according to non-governmental sources that 646 people have been killed. Narges Foundation is receiving reports that the number is closer to over 2000. Nine children have been confirmed by HRNRA among those dead. Various social media accounts are describing a “large number of bodies” at the Kahrizak Legal Medicine facility as the result of a “massacre.” More than 10,681 individuals have been transferred to prisons following arrest – and protests have been recorded at 606 locations across 187 cities in 31 provinces in Iran.
Internet blackouts are halting public information flows and a crackdown of any perceived resistance in Iran – with the government’s official narrative placing responsibility on “terrorists” and “armed rioters,” contribute to the resounding anger, fear and uncertainty amongst a people who have long suffered and long yearned for regime change.
HRNRA reports that the underlying drivers of the protests were initially a combination of political and governance-related grievances and economic pressures driven by the west’s crippling economically imposed sanctions. Field reports and published accounts particularly emphasised an extreme livelihood crisis and the collapse of the national currency’s value: accounts explicitly referred to life-threatening economic hardship and difficulties in meeting basic food and living costs. Coming up to 47 years of living under immense repression ensured that the protests evolved quickly to reflect the myriads of serious grievances that people living under theocratic rule demand to be addressed.
Amnesty International have issued an “urgent action,” calling for the submission of visual evidence and detailed information about victims, with an aim to compile legal documentation about ongoing crimes against protesters.
Diaspora Iranians, who have long waited for cracks to appear are partaking in heated discussions over whether foreign colonialist states that have long acted on imperial expansion interests, will war Iranian people toward their freedom. Israel is being positioned as a friend of the Iranian people across social media.
The International Court of Justice ruled in 2024 that Israel’s occupation of the Gaza strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful. Noting further that Israel is actively violating the international prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid. Finding it “plausible” that Israel has committed acts that violate the Genocide Convention.
Human Rights Watch outline how Israel is currently the purveyor of mass starvation, a war crime, that they carry out on the Palestinian population who they have brutally occupied for over 70 years, with full endorsement and funding from the United States of America.
War mongering sycophants representing western imperialist ideals weaponise the displacement and longing of many Iranian diaspora peoples. Capitalising on collective opposition toward the current theocratic occupier, knowing that power is paid for with civilian blood and bodies, that are never theirs.
The shaping of Iranian destiny has for too long been violently thrust outside of Iran’s collective grasp. Iranians deserve a freedom that is theirs. Not one that is framed as help by imperialist saviours. Not one that is yielded at the expense of the Palestinian people.
A freedom built from Iranian hands. Raised from their roots. They deserve to flourish in the source of science, the solace of poetry, and the paradise whence lush gardens were first imagined.
Iran is the great muse of songs that inspired to life what we call the guitar…. And when I lie awake at night dreaming of a homeland I have never seen, I imagine how many love songs have been silenced for those who dream of singing, dancing and living in freedom.
One day, my people, I will sing love songs with you in our land of science, of poetry, of paradise. Where the very human rights our ancestors scribed on a clay cylinder, informing the world of human dignity, are once again ours.
