「如果你想知未來的樣子， 你就想像一隻皮靴永遠踩在一個人臉上」 – 喬治．歐威爾

Update, 7/1/22: Chinese translation (traditional characters) by the author now follows the English original.

您亦可直接跳至英文文末並閱讀筆者鄭文傑 (Simon Cheng) 所翻譯的繁體中文版本。

On 16th October, a group of Hongkongers gathered outside the Chinese Consulate in Manchester to protest against the further consolidation of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s power at the Chinese Communist Party’s Congress in Beijing, and in support of their pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. During their peaceful protest outside the Consulate – on British soil – they presented their ideas through visual art. One of the protesters displayed a satirical poster of a naked Xi Jinping, dressed, as it were, in the ‘emperor’s new clothes’. The reference to the folktale suggested the absurdity of absolute power, and the way in which it can corrupt and distort the face, and lead to the construction of a ‘parallel truth’.

This poster, as well as other signs, placards and banners held by the protesters, apparently made the officials in the Consulate feel uncomfortable. In response, video footage shows staff from the consulate, dressed in riot gear, opening the gate and stepping outside the Consulate grounds onto the street in an attempt to kick down, remove and vandalise the placards. The protesters tried to protect their property from being vandalised and snatched away. A scuffle ensued; and the Consulate resorted to brutal violence. Consular officials can be seen dragging protestors onto Consulate grounds behind the gates and proceeding to beat them in full view of the Greater Manchester Police.

The Consul hastily fabricated a ‘parallel truth’, alleging in a statement to the police that ‘the Consulate grounds were stormed by a group of protesters and members of consular staff were required to physically fend off unauthorized entry and subsequent assaults.’ This ‘counter-narrative’ propaganda, with its own dedicated Twitter feed, ‘Manchester Story’, quickly and systematically spread out among many pro-Beijing groups of Chinese students and expats overseas, as well as local influencers on social media and video platforms such as Twitter and YouTube (for example here and here).

In the Consulate’s statement to British media (in Chinese), they said that ‘diplomatic missions wouldn’t tolerate their head of state being denigrated by protestors’. This cannot justify their violent crackdown on protestors who were attempting to hold the one-party dictatorship in Beijing to account for its abuse of power. In fact, what actually happened was that Consul Zheng Xiyuan, who is one of China’s top diplomats, acted violently and spoke disingenuously, manifesting a totalitarianism which ought to be unimaginable in the world’s oldest liberal democracy.

The Manchester incident raises the question of how far China’s representatives will go in their attempts to suppress all critics who challenge their political system and its leader overseas. It suggests that they are behaving in an increasingly assertive and even aggressive way, using what has been named ‘wolf warrior diplomacy’, after a classic patriotic film.  

For one thing, the consulate staff were wearing riot gear, such as protective vests and helmets. This suggests that they expected and even prepared for potential conflict. For another, the violence they inflicted on the protesters would have been impossible had it not been sanctioned by the Consul – who even admitted not only issuing the order, but also pulling the hair of one protester, which he claimed it was his ‘duty’ to do. The Consul’s statement to the police said that the protests were ‘deeply offensive’ – the typical rhetoric of bullies who want to silence criticism. If such a crackdown was prepared on the orders of the top diplomatic official in the Consulate, then it should be regarded as the behaviour of the State rather than a matter of individual failings.

If the British authorities do not follow up this state-sponsored assault on its critics with the strongest legal and diplomatic consequences, it will send a very worrying signal: that the UK permits China’s diplomats to abuse power on British soil without fear of the consequences. In such circumstances, who knows what China will do over here next.  

As for those Hongkongers who are seeking asylum in the UK, and who value the freedoms which were taken away one by one in Hong Kong, they are in a far more vulnerable position than the Chinese diplomats. They are not protected by diplomatic immunity, but they continue to be menaced by the Hong Kong National Security Law. This effectively criminalises dissenting thought; moreover, Article 38 asserts extraterritorial jurisdiction over non-citizens of mainland China and Hong Kong, even if they reside outside the country’s borders. In the first month after its enactment, the Hong Kong police issued an arrest warrant for six activists, including the author of this article, and (as reported in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law) Samuel Chu, an American citizen and founder of Campaign for Hong Kong, for ‘collusion with a foreign government’. In December 2021, the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, which represents the territory in the UK, sent a letter warning the Sunday Times that an article they had published criticising Hong Kong’s electoral system might be illegal under Chinese law, even though it had been published by a UK paper in the UK. And there are other examples of this jurisdiction creep.

There are already political tensions in the UK between the emerging community of exiles from Hong Kong and well-established pro-CCP Chinese communities. However, the incident at the Consulate indicates a systemic threat to the rights of everyone in the UK – and potentially in other Western countries – and ought to be considered in the context of national security.

First, the CCP could use its diplomatic impunity and privilege as a shield for its security agents, under the guise of diplomatic staff, enabling them to hunt down dissidents violently overseas. Secondly, China’s assertive economic policy in recent years, such as with its Belt and Road Initiative, has resulted in the establishment of a political, business, academic and media nexus between the UK and China which helps to subtly thwart critics of the CCP. There already appears to be a serious infiltration of CCP influence in every echelon of British society. For instance, the United Front Work Department, the propaganda unit by which the CCP seeks to strengthen its power abroad, is operating in the UK, through agents such as Christine Lee. The Confucius Institutes spread cultural propaganda. And some British Chinese groups, who have received government funding to welcome Hongkongers moving to the UK, have been accused of being infiltrated by CCP agents like Lee.

It is widely suspected that the British police have been advised by Chinese community leaders who also serve in the top state institutions under the one-party leadership in China, such as the Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress and the Overseas Chinese Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. In both of these, there is a quota for ‘returned overseas Chinese’ participants.

The police could spend many months on their investigation of the Manchester incident. This delay would give politicians and civil servants a convenient excuse for deferring any action against Beijing. It would also give the Chinese foreign ministry plenty of time to send the diplomats involved off to other countries before they could be touched by the UK authorities.

Some might argue that politicians who take a ‘hawkish’ stance against the CCP, in the name of national security and human rights, are standing in the way of protecting the UK’s interests in China. However, looking back at what has happened to Hong Kong since 1997, the CCP has gradually used economic and judicial measures to tighten its grip there, and to claim legitimacy for such tactics overseas. If the UK and other liberal countries do not resist China’s acts of totalitarianism on their home ground today, they will legitimise them. Future generations will suffer the consequences.

Instead, the British authorities should take decisive action now, and not kick the can down the road:

(1) The Greater Manchester Police must promptly carry out a thorough investigation and make their findings public.

(2) Those responsible for the violence must be duly punished in accordance with English law, as far as the Vienna Convention allows, so as to uphold justice.

(3) The Consulate staff members must be condemned for violation of the Vienna Convention; they must be declared personae non gratae and expelled from the country forthwith.

(4) If the Chinese Consulate General in Manchester has become nothing more than a centre for the surveillance of dissidents and critics, it must be closed.

(5) A police forum should be held with Hongkongers in each region of the UK. Hongkongers should be represented on one of Manchester Police’s Independent Advisory Groups (IAG).

(6) The consulate should be challenged on its attempt to characterise the protesters’ satire as ‘hate speech’. Rather than being ‘Sinophobic’, the protesters were exercising their legitimate right of free speech to protest against a political leader who is widely considered to be abusing his own power over his country. The CCP’s propagandistic attempts to identify itself with the whole of the Chinese people en masse should be resisted: a totalitarian regime does not represent its citizens.

(7) The UK foreign office should immediately issue a stronger statement on the attack.

The protests in Manchester referred to the recent Party Congress in Beijing. Chairman Xi Jinping is widely suspected of deliberately ushering out former Chairman Hu Jintao in front of the international media during the closing session of Party Congress, in order to demonstrate that the era of a comparatively ‘liberal’ China under the Hu-Wen leadership is gone. Instead, Xi’s far more aggressive and dictatorial narrative looks likely to dominate China in the coming years.

By scrapping the limit to the term of his chairmanship in state-party constitutions and so enabling him to rule indefinitely, as well as by weakening the collective leadership, and removing the premier Li Keqiang and other opponents, Xi has eliminated all obstacles in the way of consolidating near-absolute power in his own person. As a result, he may feel strong enough to wage war against Taiwan and neighbouring countries. Some analysts estimate that an invasion of Taiwan could happen as soon as next year. At the same time, aggression from CCP diplomats, agents, and loyalists in the UK, and elsewhere in the West, may also be scaled up.

The diaspora of Hongkongers will sit tight and be prepared to tackle the security challenges posed by China. We will carry on being robust advocates for democracy and freedom here in the UK – and hope sincerely that all freethinking, liberal-minded people will join us.

On the reasons why Hongkongers are leaving the territory and coming to the UK in large numbers, see further our article here.

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10月16日，一群港人在中國駐曼徹斯特總領事館門外集會示威，抗議中共總書記習近平藉着正在北京舉行的中共黨大會進一步集中權力，並支持香港的民主運動。 就在他們在領館以外的英國領土和平地表達抗議之際， 他們通過視覺藝術畫作表達他們的想法。其中一名抗議者展示了一張赤裸的習近平的諷刺海報，他身著「皇帝的新衣」。 這樣的民間故事暗示了絕對權力的荒謬，它可以腐化和扭曲面孔及事實，並進而構建虛假的「平行事實」。

這張海報，以及抗議者舉著的其他標語、標語牌和橫幅，顯然讓領館官員感到不舒服。 作為回應，視頻片段顯示領事館的工作人員身著防暴裝備，打開閘門，走出領事館範圍，走到英國街上並踢倒、移除和破壞標語牌。 抗議者試圖保護他們的財產不被破壞和搶走。 隨後發生了混戰； 領事館採取了殘暴的暴力手段。 可以看到領事官員將抗議者拖到大門後面的領事館場地，並在大曼徹斯特警察眾目睽睽之下毆打他們。

領事倉促編造了一個「平行事實」，在給警方的一份聲明中聲稱「領事館場地遭到一群抗議者的猛攻，領事館工作人員被要求以肉體抵擋未經授權的侵入和隨後的襲擊。」隨事件以後而成立的推特帳號「曼徹斯特故事」 (Manchester Story) 開始帶出引導輿論風向的敘事宣傳， 隨後在許多親北京的中國學生和海外僑民群體以及社交媒體和視頻平台（如 Twitter 和 YouTube） 開始流傳及散播。

在領事館對英國媒體的聲明中（中文），他們說「外交使團不會容忍他們的國家元首被抗議者詆毀」。這絕不能正當化他們暴力鎮壓反對獨裁政權的抗議者，因為他們是濫用權力的罪魁禍首。 事實上，中共在曼徹斯特當地的最高外交官鄭曦原總領事行為粗暴，言辭不實，在這古老的自由民主國家大放厥詞，公然發表着極權專制的言論，實在難以想像。

曼徹斯特事件引發了一個問題，即中國代表將在多大程度上繼續壓制所有在海外挑戰其政治制度及其領導人的批評者。 這表明他們的行為方式越來越自信甚至咄咄逼人，不少媒體以「戰狼外交」來形容近年中國外交的趨勢，命名取材自一部典型的中共愛國主義宣傳電影。

一方面，領事館工作人員穿著防暴裝備，例如防護背心和頭盔。 這表明他們已經預料到甚至為潛在的衝突做好了準備。 另一方面，如果沒有總領事的批准，他們不可能貿然對抗議者施暴。實際上，總領事不僅承認發布命令，甚至還拉扯一名抗議者的頭髮，他聲稱這是他的「職責」去做。總領事向警方發表的聲明稱，抗議活動「極具冒犯性」—— 這無寧是典型的霸凌者想要壓制批評的言論。如果這樣的鎮壓是奉領事館最高外交官員的命令準備的，那麼這應該被視為國家的行為，而不是個人失誤的問題了。

如果英國當局不以最強烈的法律和外交後果去跟進及回應這次由極權國家支持的對其批評者的攻擊，這將發出一個非常令人擔憂的信號：英國允許中國外交官在英國領土上濫用權力，而不用擔心後果。 在這種情況下，誰知道中國接下來會在這裡做什麼。

至於那些在英國尋求庇護、珍惜自由卻在香港被一一剝奪的香港人，他們的處境遠比中國外交官脆弱。他們不受外交豁免權的保護，但他們繼續受到香港國安法的威脅。這條惡法將異議思想定為犯罪；此外，第 38 條規定對非中國和香港的公民，即使他們居住在中國境外，具有域外管轄權。法案頒布後的第一個月，香港警方對包括本文作者在內的六名活動人士發出逮捕令，以及（據《哥倫比亞跨國法雜誌》報告）美國公民、香港自由運動 (Campaign for Hong Kong) 的創始人朱牧民控以「勾結外國勢力」等罪名。 2021年12月，香港駐倫敦經濟貿易辦事處致函《星期日泰晤士報》，警告他們發表的一篇批評香港選舉制度的文章足已違反中國及香港的法律，儘管該文章由英國的一家報紙在英國發表，這都是中共長臂管轄的一些例子。

在英國，新興的香港流散社區和已發展具規模的親中共華人社區之間因政見不同而存在緊張的局勢。 然而，在領事館發生的事件表明，英國、其他西方國家及國際社會上的每個人的權利都受到這政權系統性的威脅，應該在國家安全的背景下加以考慮。

首先，中共可以利用其外交有罪不罰和特權作為其秘密警察人員的保護網，打著外交人員的幌子，使他們能夠在海外暴力追捕異見人士。 其次，中國近年擴張式的經濟政策，例如「一帶一路」倡議，導致英中之間建立了政治、商業、學術和媒體之間的利益共生裙帶關係，這有助於巧妙地、隱晦地稀釋及中和對中共的批評。 中共的影響似乎已經嚴重滲透到英國社會的各個階層。 例如，中共尋求加強其在海外的權力及利益， 中共宣傳部及統戰部等部門利用包括英國華人律師李貞駒（Christine Lee）等代理人開展活動、孔子學院開展文化宣傳 ，一些獲得政府資助歡迎香港人移居英國的英國華人團體，被指控被中共滲透。

人們普遍懷疑，英國警方的諮詢機制納入了不少華人社區領袖，他們當中有些更在中國一黨專政下的最高國家機構任職，例如全國人民代表大會僑務委員會和中國人民政治協商會議僑務委員會。 在這兩者中，「歸僑」都有被安排固定名額。

警方可能會花費數月時間來調查曼徹斯特事件。 這種延遲將為政界人士和公務員提供一個方便的理由，推遲針對北京的任何行動。 這也將使中國外交部有充足的時間，從容不迫地將相關外交官派往其他國家，以免他們受到英國當局的處置。

有人可能會爭辯說，以國安和人權為名對中共採取「鷹派」立場的政客正在阻礙英國在中國的利益。 然而，回顧1997年以來香港所發生的一切，中共逐漸利用經濟和司法手段加強對香港的控制，並在海外宣稱這種做法的合法性。 如果英國和其他自由國家今天不在本國抵制中國的極權主義行為，中共就會將其合法化及正當化，而後代將承受惡果。

相反，英國當局應該馬上採取果斷行動，而不是迴避問題：

(1) 大曼徹斯特警方必須及時進行徹底調查並將調查結果公之於眾。

(2) 在《維也納公約》允許的範圍內，必須根據英國法律對暴力行為的責任人進行應有的懲罰，以維護社會及司法正義。

(3) 領館工作人員違反《維也納公約》，必須受到譴責； 他們必須被宣佈為「不受歡迎人物」，並立即驅逐出境。

(4）如果中國駐曼徹斯特總領事館變成了監視異見者和批評者的基地，它必須被關閉。

(5) 英國各地警方應與居英港人建立恆常的溝通機制，包括舉行社區及國土安全論壇。 在此事件中，大曼徹斯特警方的獨立諮詢小組 (IAG) 中應該納入港人社區代表。

(6) 領事館試圖將抗議者的諷刺描述為「仇恨言論」，應受到質疑。 抗議者不是「反華」，而是在行使合法的言論自由權利，抗議一位被廣泛認為濫用職權統治國家的政治領導人。 應該抵制中共政權綁定中國人民認同的政治宣傳：專制政權不代表其公民。

(7) 英國外交部應立即就中共駐曼徹斯特總領事館施襲事件發表更強有力的聲明。

話說回來，曼徹斯特的抗議活動所針對近日在北京舉行的黨代會，習近平主席被廣泛認為在黨代會閉幕式上故意在國際媒體面前將前主席胡錦濤趕下台，以表明胡溫領導下相對「自由」的時代已然過去 . 相反，習近平更具侵略性和獨裁的敘述似乎在未來幾年將繼續主宰中國。

通過廢除黨國憲法對國家主席任期的限制，使他能夠無限期連任執政，通過削弱集體領導、罷免李克強總理等黨內不同派系的競爭者，消除了所有在他身邊的一切障礙，令他得以進一步鞏固近乎絕對的權力。 結果，他可能會覺得自己足夠強大，可以對台灣和周邊國家發動戰爭。 一些分析人士估計，台灣最早可能在明年發生。 與此同時，身在英國和西方其他地方的中共外交官、代理人和效忠者的氣燄也可能不斷升級擴大。

居英港人將坐穩，準備應對中國帶來的安全挑戰。 我們將繼續在英國大力倡導民主和自由 —— 並真誠地希望所有思想自由、開明的人都能加入我們的行列。

關於大量香港人離開香港來到英國的原因，請在此處進一步查看我們的文章。

作者：鄭文傑（Simon Cheng）是英籍民主運動人士、人權倡導者、流亡港人。 先後在國立台灣大學和倫敦政治經濟學院學習政治學，並在英國駐香港總領事館從事貿易投資工作。 由於他堅定地追求民主自由等價值，他被中國當局拘留，被國安警察追捕，並被官方媒體污名化。 他是非盈利港人組織 英國港僑協會 (Hongkongers in Britain) 的創始人。

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The post Jackboots in Manchester 暴政踐踏之下的曼徹斯特 appeared first on The Freethinker.

When news first broke out about Mahsa Amini’s murder by the so-called ‘morality police’, the intelligence and security apparatus of the Islamist regime in Iran could not have possibly foreseen the historical consequences that would follow. To them, it seemed like an insignificant event. Because in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a woman’s life is worth nothing.

Under the banner of Allah, violence against women has been systematised as one of the main functions of the state. Hence the term ‘gender apartheid’. And hence the declaration by Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist, dissident, and women’s rights activist, that under the Islamic Republic of Iran, the veil is akin to what the Berlin wall once represented to both Soviet officials and its oppressed subjects.

Ironically, the person who first drew this analogy was not Masih Alinejad, but Mohammad-Saleh Hashemi Golpayegani, the head of the government agency tasked with directing the morality police’s activities. When he drew this parallel, only a couple of days had passed since the nationwide ‘Anti-Hijab Day’ campaign, which expressly protested ‘against the Islamic Republic’s 12 July National Day of Hijab and Chastity’ and mandatory hijab. A mere three months later, and Golpayegani’s prediction seems to be coming to pass. Not least because of the ceaseless efforts of Masih Alinejad, who has been leading campaigns against the forced hijab for many years now.

Alinejad’s own story is symbolic of the Islamic regime’s utter fear of women, and is indicative of the violence it is willing to perpetrate in order to silence them. In 1979, the Islamic revolution placed the Iranian nation in the firm grip of a theological elite whose only guiding principles have been those of Islam. And the policies which have resulted in the squalid living conditions of 80 million Iranians today are grounded in the same line of reasoning that refuses to compromise on the chokehold it has over ‘the second sex’ in the form of the forced hijab.

Women’s struggle for emancipation in Iran is far older than the 1979 revolution. It was not long after the establishment of the Islamic Republic that Iranian women began fighting against the state’s encroachment on their bodies. But as steadfast and uncompromising as these movements were, they were repeatedly undermined by the rest of the body politic. In the early years of Islamic rule after 1979, women’s struggle was undermined by supporters of the Islamic regime, both men and women, who claimed that their demands were tangential to more pressing matters, such as ‘the struggle against imperialism’. However, the unfortunate truth is that in the four decades that followed, women’s struggle against gender discrimination was often undermined even by opponents of the Islamic regime.

It was only with Mahsa Amini’s death that the Iranian nation began to launch a concerted attack on the forced hijab as the principal revolutionary question. Mahsa’s murder changed everything, and now, after 43 years of self-denial, it seems that Iranian society is agreed on what women like Masih Alinejad have been saying for decades. Namely, that the elimination of the forced hijab, far from being a distraction from more pressing issues, is the fortress which, once conquered, will result in the total defeat of our enemies.

The voices of the millions of Iranian people in the streets today, both throughout Iran and across the globe, are a unanimous rejection of all the anti-woman ideals which the Islamic regime has toiled so hard to impose on us all. But not only is this the first revolution in history to hold the cause of women’s emancipation at the very forefront of its charge forward: it is perhaps the only revolution that has been unequivocally led by women too.

‘Woman, life, freedom’ is our slogan, and is being echoed throughout the farthest corners of the nation. But what is it about these three words that threatens the Islamic regime so much?

The answer is that the values and principles which ‘woman, life, freedom’ connote are quite simply irreconcilable with the Islamic regime’s ‘revolutionary ideals’. The state has known this since its inception. At last, the Iranian women and men, fighting together hand in hand, have accepted that there can be no compromise. The regime may consider the life of an innocent 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman to be insignificant, but we do not. And since the death of Mahsa, Iranians have demonstrated their willingness to die fighting to establish an Iran that is permanently cured of the cancer of Islamism. What we are fighting for is a democratic, secular Iran. Our revolution is a vindication of the rights of women, and by extension a vindication of all human rights.

However, this is not only a feminist revolution. It is no exaggeration that every Iranian, regardless of gender, age, income, religion or beliefs has a claim over this uprising. There is not a single group in Iranian society whose voice is not contributing to this uproar. We have all been victimised by the Islamic state.

Whether it be the teachers who have taken to the streets to demand the dignity withdrawn from themselves and their students; school girls in primary, middle and high schools following their teachers’ example; farmers in protest against state policies that have caused water shortages throughout the country; a middle class which has lost all hope of attaining dreams it had once felt within reach; or a working class that has been systematically exploited and undermined –– today, all Iranians are suffering, and they recognise the source of all their maladies in a common enemy, which has always been clear in its logic. An ill-begotten logic derived from a holy book which has not only justified the misery its agents have inflicted on us, but which has elevated this assault to the realm of holy duty. The lives and dignity of Iranians have been fodder for a frail idea whose only legacy has been abject destitution. And despite what Islamist apologists around the world still claim, what is happening in Iran today is as appropriate an example of what ‘true Islam’ constitutes as any other in history.

People in the streets today know exactly what it is they are fighting for. It is the negation of everything which the 1979 Islamic revolution represents. What is happening inside Iran is the historical expression of the clash of two irreconcilable and contradictory set of values, ideals and principles.

Iran is by no means a homogenous whole. It constitutes a multitude of different ethnic peoples, identities and social classes. The Islamic regime has exploited these differences to sow division among us for more than four decades, and with great success too. And yet, today, all these differences seem to have been swept aside.

Only hatred can unite a people so thoroughly. The object of our hatred is the enemy which has inflicted pain and suffering on us all. This uniting force may be most aptly described in the words of Ahmad Shamlu, who once wrote of the ‘common pain’ in one of his most memorable poems. In our case, this common pain finally found its voice in Mahsa Amini’s name. Mahsa, whose real Kurdish name was never legally recognised because of its un-Islamic origins, has become a symbol of all the injustices which we are subject to under the Muslim God’s iron rule. Her Kurdish name is Jina. And as the words on her tombstone so prophetically predict, her name, both in its Kurdish and Islamic forms, has become a code for freedom. The headstone reads: ‘Dear Jina, you shall never die. Your name shall become a cipher’.

The very phrase ‘woman, life, freedom’, finds its origin in Kurdish culture. It was the Kurdish women present at Mahsa’s burial in the Kurdish city of Saqqez in north-western Iran who first called out this old Kurdish phrase as they took their veils off and twirled them in the air. This was their answer to the rhetorical question being chanted by the Kurdish men: ‘Another murder for the veil … How much longer will we put up with this indignity?’ Soon the crowd at the cemetery were chanting, ‘Death to the dictator.’ And as this cry rose against a backdrop of state violence (a brutal assault began at the cemetery itself), the uprising spread to other major Kurdish cities and then on to the rest of the nation, as Azerbaijan declared its solidarity with the Kurdish people. Today, the entire nation is united. ‘Mahsa’ has become a synonym for the idea that the truth that had been suppressed until now has been liberated, and that we are no longer afraid to shout it out loud:

Down with the dictator!
Down with Islamic rulership!
Down with theocracy!
The Islamic Republic must be eradicated!
Down with this anti-woman regime!
Down with this anti-woman reaction!
The Islamic Republic must be eradicated!
Cannons, Tanks and Firecrackers, it don’t matter, Mullahs have to get lost! We can only reclaim our rights out on the streets!
Out on the streets until the revolution’s success!
Hey Iranian, yell, shout, claim your rights!
We will fight, we will die, we will reclaim Iran!
Neither Gaza, nor Lebanon, I will only die for Iran!
Islam and the Quran, both to be sacrificed to Iran!
So long as the dictator remains, the insurrection will go on!
This is our final message: we’re aiming for the entire Islamic regime!

These are the words being shouted in our cities today, against the sound of the regime’s gunshots. Our shouts grow louder, every time we are confronted by anti-riot vehicles filled with armed men, who either believe they are doing the work of their Lord, or who are perfectly aware that Allah whom they once served has died long ago, and who are only there for their own material gain.

It is important to note that people opposing the regime have not burned Qurans. We would be perfectly within our rights to do so. But unlike our enemies, book-burning does not align with the principles we uphold. Almost a century ago, Ahmad Kasravi, a figure who represents what Leo Strauss once termed the ‘sword of philosophical atheism’, organised a Quran-burning. He was eventually murdered at the hands of Navab Safavi at the behest of a young Ruhollah Khomeini.

Once we have got rid of the Islamist state, it will not be laws, nor the threat of Islamist violence, that will keep us from repeating Ahmad Kasravi’s gesture. Our own dignity will withhold us from following in the footsteps of the likes of Khomeini (whose fatwa against Salman Rushdie and The Satanic Verses resulted in the author being stabbed just two months ago), or the caliph Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur (1184-1199), who ordered the burning of the works of the great rationalist thinker Averroes. The burning of the works of Ibn Rushd (Averroes’ Arabic name), and those of his namesake Salman Rushdie (whose father changed his last name to Rushdie in honour of Ibn Rushd) almost a thousand years later, are not incidental to the Iranian uprising today; they are emblematic of everything we are fighting against.

Our revolution is a contemporary expression of a renaissance of Enlightenment ideas. One of the most central aspects of this concerns the principles of freethought, free expression, and freedom of the press. The Islamic revivalists of the 20th century, following the example of their prophet and remaining true to their faith, worked to extinguish the light of reason with the sword. In contrast, in our revolution, the pen will always be mightier than the sword. The weapons which are monopolised by our enemies today are nothing but evidence of the intellectual bankruptcy of their cause.

Many have been shot at and brutalised over the past three weeks, and at least 154 people, including children, have been killed. But they have not managed to silence us: ideas cannot be murdered.

Consider for example, the poem composed by Asma bint Marwan, a female Arab poet of the seventh century, in honour of the memory of the Jewish poet Abu ‘Afak, killed because of his criticisms of Muhammad:

Do you expect good from him [Muhammad] after the killing of your chiefs / Like a hungry man waiting for a cook’s broth?
Is there no man of pride who would attack him by surprise / And cut off the hopes of those who expect aught from him?

These words live on, and the revulsion which many felt at Muhammad’s message is plain for all to see. In this rebuttal of Muhammad’s claims, Asma bint Marwan seems to have fulfilled the ideal which Baal (one of the characters in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses) sets for the poet, when he claims that a poet’s work is ‘to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.’

The Muslim historian Ibn Ishaq relates that upon hearing these verses, Muhammad turned to his companions and asked: ‘Who will rid me of Marwan’s daughter?’ The prophet of Islam ordered an assault on a brave woman who happened to be a poet too.

No, the war on women and freethought is not external to ‘true Islam’, as liberal Muslims like to keep repeating, but fundamental to it. In Crescents on the cross: Islamic visions of Christianity, V. J. Ridgeon draws a compelling parallel between Khomeini’s fatwa against Rushdie and Muhammad’s order to assassinate Asma bint Marwan. The Islamic regime of Iran fears reason more than anything else. In the words of Rushdie, what scares it is the human mind’s ‘ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.’

What is happening in Iran today is the clash of two irreconcilable and contradictory set of values, ideals and principles. It is represented, on the one hand, by the people, and on the other, by an occupying Islamic elite. This is a clash between the values of the Enlightenment and the values of the Islamic Revolution. Only one can win.

The removal of the hijab is a performative act which contains within it a thousand and one stories waiting to be told. Stories of the reclamation of dignity, but perhaps more importantly, of a long-alienated identity. To remove the hijab is to strike a blow, not only against the state, but against a theocratic system which has worked very hard to rid people of their identities outside its own strict confines. As Le Figaro accurately observed, the significance of the revolution in Iran is embodied in the dance of the young girl who tossed her hijab into the flames.

There really is a reason why the Islamic regime cannot compromise on the issue of the hijab. There really is a reason why writers, thinkers and poets have been executed in droves under this regime, and why so many journalists and artists who covered the topic of Mahsa’s death have been imprisoned in the past two weeks. Freedom is something which the foot-soldiers of Allah simply cannot abide by. Our enemies are perfectly aware that in an equal playing field of ideas, their claims cannot possibly stand up to the scrutiny of common sense. And so they will never allow this scrutiny to occur. It is the bankruptcy of their thoughts which makes them so completely reliant on the sword. And yet, as is being witnessed in the streets of Iran today, even their weapons are impotent in the face of the words being spoken by unarmed civilians. The entire force of their Umma is nothing in face of the women who confront them shouting ‘woman, life, freedom’.

And yet, as footage of Iranian women burning their veils began gaining traction on social media and spreading like wildfire across the world, so-called ‘Islamic Feminists’ started to spread disinformation that was aimed at obfuscating the true character of this uprising. Nora Jaber, for example, claims that by paying attention to Iranian women unveiling themselves, ‘mainstream media narratives contribute to the victimisation and homogenisation of Iranian women.’

In fact, is it is narratives like the one spun out by Jaber that are the true perpetrators of the  ‘victimisation and homogenisation of Iranian women’. For four decades, the voice of women from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) telling Western audiences about the true condition of women in their countries were ignored or attacked. Women such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Masih Alinejad and Maryam Namazie have received a lot of criticism for their honest description of women’s lives under sharia. The fearful atmosphere of political correctness cultivated by Islamist apologists had made it such that any mention of the hijab was framed as a redline. ‘This is our/their culture’, they would say. ‘You can’t offend other people’s culture!’ Today we say that every single one of the politically correct apologists of Islamism that have forged public opinion in the West about proper attitudes to the hijab in Iran have been complicit in the crimes committed by the Islamic regime against humanity.

For a long time, anti-Islamophobia crusaders like Hoda Katebi have acted as apologists for the Islamic Republic’s systematised violence against Iranian women. And now, being acutely aware of the threat that the women’s revolution in Iran poses to all the falsehoods they have perpetuated, they aim to censor its true tenets and frame it as a movement in line with their own reactionary agenda.

Jaber, for instance, claims that Western coverage of the uprising in Iran ‘ignores the pluralistic nature of Islam and conceals various rich historical accounts of women in Iran and in other Muslim contexts grounding their demands for rights and justice within an Islamic framework, known to many as Islamic Feminism.’ Apparently, she really believes this revolution is not a negation of political Islam as such, but one which still reveres the Islamic ‘framework’, even though it aims to change certain aspects of it – for example, by eradicating the morality police. Or at least, she is trying to get others to believe this.

Jaber claims that media focus on the performative act of unveiling, and the innumerable recorded instances of women burning their headscarves, ‘builds on and perpetuates a reductive understanding of Islam (in this case, one that is brutally enforced by the regime and its institutions) as the root of Iranian women’s oppression, which in turn fuels Islamophobia and harms Muslim communities abroad.’

In other words, our uprising represents precisely what Jaber rejects. But today, the world is finally hearing the voice of the Iranian nation’s unequivocal disavowal of Islam as ‘our culture’. Our culture does not degrade women. Our culture is one which celebrates life, not death. Our culture is one that values freedom, and which, as has been proven in the past three weeks, is more than willing to pay the high price of attaining it.

The distinction between the rejection of the veil and women’s freedom of choice is a false one. No one is denying that what Iranian women are fighting for is the right of choice over their own bodies. No one is proposing a reversion back to Reza Shah’s state ban on the hijab. But were it the case, as Jaber proposes, that this fight for her ‘freedom to choose’ does not entail a rejection or critique of Islam, and that this struggle is being waged ‘within an Islamic framework, known to many as Islamic Feminism,’ it would have sufficed for women simply to have removed their veil. Instead, what we have seen again and again is women not just removing but ceremoniously burning their hijabs. This is not just a rejection of the veil, but a celebration of freedom: freedom from a faith that preaches submission.

The values that we are fighting for are irreconcilable with those which drive Islamist apologists. The threat which Islamists around the world feel as they watch events unfolding in Iran today is not an imaginary one. They are as justified in their fear of our cause, as we are of theirs. The term ‘Islamophobia’ has quite a literal meaning amongst Iranians these days. People are ‘afraid of Islam’ not because they are confused about ‘its true message’, but because they know exactly what it is.

The Iranian insurgency has already sent shockwaves throughout the so-called ‘Islamic world’. Female Turkish artists were among the first to express their solidarity with the Iranian women occupying the streets and setting fire to the hijab, that symbol of oppression, despite the threat to their lives. It is not a coincidence that women across the region have found inspiration in the Iranian revolution. Women in Afghanistan have gathered in front of the Islamic Republic’s embassy in Kabul to express their anger at the assaults being made on their sisters who are chanting ‘woman, life, freedom’. The ideas fuelling this movement are not foreign to any of the people in the Middle East. The support we have received demonstrates that the protesters in Afghanistan, Turkey and elsewhere are perfectly aware of the values they too would fight for, given the chance.

For the first time, women stand on the brink of total victory over an adversary that has wrought nothing but humiliation upon their lives for centuries. And even though the Iranian nation has not achieved its political aims just yet, the fact is that women have succeeded in breaking free of that captivity of mind which had been built up around them for so long. Today, hope has revitalised a catatonic society. Brave women and girls have broken the spell of the Islamic regime’s infallibility. We hope that our revolution against this regime will inspire our sisters and brothers across the region too.

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The post The ‘Women’s Revolution’: from two activists in Iran appeared first on The Freethinker.

Below are edited extracts from the interview. Nehrych describes what it was like to hear the bombs falling on his city and how people there have responded. He also explains why Ukraine, for him, is culturally European, how young Ukrainians are keen to change their country for the better, and why it is important not to fear death.

Freethinker: What was your experience of the beginning of the invasion?

Nehrych: I woke up when they started bombing Kyiv. That was at 05:00 a.m. on 24th February. And that was a real shock. I can’t even explain it to you, I can’t even find words for what I felt at time. It was horrible. I was prepared for it – I knew that Russia would attack us, but I didn’t know when. But they did it in the morning, just like Hitler did. In the morning, they were bombing all infrastructure, airports, warehouses, et cetera. They came close to Kyiv in a few days.

I lived in a district called Vynohradar – it was pretty close to the battle. On the day of the invasion, my friend called me up and said, “Andrii, it’s easier for us to live together for now.” So I moved to the apartment he shares with his girlfriend in the Obolon district on the edge of the city. Here we cook together, buy food together. It was much easier for us to survive this way.

The second day, my friend went to our local territorial defence office and took me with him. There were a lot of men there who wanted to get guns and defend the city. But the office told us, “we have a lot of people who have experience, so no need for you here.” I had never served in the army, and they told us that we could make things worse. So instead we helped at centres here in the Obolon district, sorting clothes, food, carrying all this stuff to people who couldn’t come to the centres.

Freethinker: What was the most difficult period for you?

Nehrych: The most difficult was the first month when Russian Army was around Kyiv. They didn’t surround us from all sides, but they did reach the northern left bank, on the edge of the city. That was horrible. We couldn’t sleep because we were hearing those bombs all the time. Each minute – each minute – each five minutes. But then we got used to it. There were two air bombs close to us – one about 700 metres from our house and another 300 metres. But still we were lucky, because not even our windows were broken.

When Ukraine was in the USSR, air raid shelters were built under each apartment block. So the first time when we heard air defence siren, we went to the shelter. It’s not very safe, but it’s much better than being on, say, the 16th floor. But maybe after the first week, we just felt like – it’s okay, and stayed in our apartments. We understood that if the bomb goes straight into our place, we would not be alive. So then we reached an acceptance of this: either we survive or we die. No other option here.

We have friends who are in the territorial defence. They described us how the different bombs sound. Before the invasion, I couldn’t have imagined that I could become some kind of expert in artillery and bombs. But this is life. We saw rockets launched into the sky. It was like in some Hollywood movie, except that I saw it with my own eyes. I can’t tell you what I felt at that time. It was a mixture of feelings. It was scary, but I was also happy that we had some guys who could defend us. If they hadn’t defended us in Kyiv, we could have suffered the same fate as in Bucha.

The first week, it was also hard to find food, even bread. But there were some funny and warm moments. Maybe 200 metres from us, near the underground station, there is a Georgian restaurant. From the beginning of the invasion, they were cooking special Georgian bread and distributing it to all the people who wanted it.

From around 29th-30th March, the Russian army moved out from the Kyiv region, and they have stopped bombing us. Now everything is okay. All our stores, food shops, they are full of food again – for the moment.

Freethinker: Did you ever consider leaving Kyiv and going somewhere safer?

Nehrych: A lot of young people, families, ran away from Kyiv when the war started. My mum and grandma live in the western part of Ukraine. From the beginning, they were asking me to come back to a safer place. But I didn’t run. I told them, if I run, if we lose here in Kyiv, then we will lose there too. Putin will not stop at Kyiv. So I decided it was better to remain and help people here.

Freethinker: When you go out on the streets, can you see how the city has been affected by the conflict?

Nehrych: I went to see the flat where I lived before the war. Some of the apartment blocks in that area are ruined – you can’t live there anymore. You would have to build them from scratch. But it’s not a problem – they can be rebuilt. What is horrible is that people have died.

In our district, through all Kyiv, we have a lot of roadblocks, a lot of anti-tank constructions, where the army and territorial defence are making preparations. They also check your documents, check your luggage, check all your things, all the possessions you have with you. This is because during this month in Kyiv, some collaborators – in Ukrianian we call them diversante (‘saboteurs’) – were caught filming and photographing the places where our army have their positions and sending them to the Russians for money.

Right now, maybe in the last ten days, a lot of people are coming back to Kyiv. From my window, as I’m talking to you, I can see a lot of cars outside. Shops, cafés, restaurants are opening back up. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea, but it’s good for the economy.

Freethinker: How have people in Kyiv responded to the invasion?

Nehrych: When the invasion happened, everyone was shocked. A lot of people didn’t know what to do, but it makes me proud that maybe half the population of the city, from the first day of the invasion, started helping the army and the territorial defence. We were digging special trenches. We were helping with the sandbags so that they could make defences around the city. All the people started doing what they could.

Even old ladies, like 80 years old, who were pretty poor, were going to the shop buying bread and other food, taking it to the army, saying, guys, please take it. And the soldiers, said, no, leave it for yourselves. And then one old lady told them, no, if I don’t help you, then the Russians will come and kill me.

I’m happy that I’m Ukrainian because I’ve seen such things done by our people. Even our IT guys, who don’t know how to handle a gun, started working on the internet to gather money to make attacks on Russian government websites. Some entrepreneurs who were supplying food reorganised their factories to help to make helmets and gilets.

Freethinker: How much support has there been for Russia in Ukraine, in your experience?

Nehrych: Before the war, there were many more people who were supporting Russia than there are now. But even some of them have finally opened their eyes and understood that we are not friends. For centuries, the Russians have been saying that we are brothers, because we are Slavic – but so are the Poles, Slovaks, Czechs, Belorussians. They tell us that we are brother nations, and then they come and kill us.

Because human life, for the Russian regime, has no cost – they can kill thousands, millions. The Holodomor of 1932-33 killed around seven million people, they took all their food. We still have that memory in our DNA. [Nehrych refers to the Great Famine in Soviet Ukraine.]

A lot of young people, we don’t tend to watch TV or listen to the radio. We are mainly on social networks, which we can filter. But sometimes we read Russian propaganda channels to see what they say. Russian propaganda is very strong – if you’re a weak person, it could work on you very easily. It could break you.

Freethinker: Culturally, in your opinion, where is Ukraine in relation to Europe and Russia respectively?

Nehrych: We are Europeans. We are closer to Europe than to Asia. In the 1990s, Ukraine was a poor country. But in the last two decades, a lot of Ukrainians, especially the younger population who had started businesses and made some money, visited Paris, Rome, Berlin, and began to ask, “Why do we live like this in a shit country? We can make it much better.” And they started asking the same question of politicians. Ukraine requires changes and it will be done, because young people want it to change.

Freethinker: Do you think Zelensky is a good leader?

Nehrych: It is good that he didn’t run away – he could have done. He stayed here. Right now we are very happy that he is not a coward. That doesn’t mean that we want to make Zelensky emperor, or a king who will sit in office until he dies. But right now we don’t discuss anything except the war. We’re all in this together.

Freethinker: Is that something that you are afraid of, that Russia will use a nuclear weapon? Is the fear still there?

Nehrych: We have no fear. Many Ukrainians, especially men who are defending our country, are ready to die. Whether it’s a nuclear weapon, whether it’s artillery or air bombs, it doesn’t matter. We are ready for this. It’s better when you are ready and when you’re not scared. Had we been scared, we would have been defeated in the first week.

Freethinker: What are your plans for the immediate future?

Nehrych: A week ago, when I was still looking for new job, I was almost about to give up the search and join the army as well, because for people like me who have no experience in it, there is a fast track in the army. You are taught how to handle a gun, how to fight in city combat, forest combat, et cetera. For the last month and a half I got used to ‘doomscrolling’ on social networks – but it’s a really bad addiction. Right now I have just got a new position, so I am trying to focus on normal life.

The post A view from Kyiv: Ordinary life during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine appeared first on The Freethinker.