16 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY JANUARY 12-18, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com Voice of the People Ongoing protests in Iran show a society demanding change. U.S. policy should adapt to meet it. By Ava Homa FORUM Despite crackdowns, direct shootings, detentions, public execution and looming death penalties for protesters, Iranians continue the protests and labor strikes that started on Sept. 16. It started over the brutal killing of a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Jina Amini, officially known as Mahsa due to ethnic discrimination, over showing a few strands of hair. Her unnecessary death triggered the pain of daily violence, harassment and humiliation Iranian women have experienced for decades. Ever since, three groups have been at the forefront of the protests: youth, women and Kurds. Jina Amini embodied all three. At least 488 have died in the unrest. The reason Iranians call their nameless, leaderless movement an irreversible revolution is because they find themselves at rock bottom. The economy is stagnant, civilians are repressed, activists, artists and intellectuals are behind bars, and the country is isolated on the global stage. Generation Z sees no future, unlike their parents who hoped for reform, and their grandparents who thought their 1979 revolution would bring justice. In addition to the lack of prospects, youth see online that in many other parts of the world people can enjoy, even take for granted, what Iranians are punished for. Elsewhere women can sing and dance, couples can hold hands, friends can clink a glass of wine. Before Iranians concluded that a revolution was the only solution— something their grandfathers tried with catastrophic consequences in 1979—they had hope the government would be amenable to reform. Iranians voted for the self-proclaimed reformists President Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005) and Hassan Rouhani (2013-2021). They failed to bring about a change. Under current President Ebrahim Raisi, arbitrary arrests and state-sponsored killings intensified. Iranians were left with no choice but to rise up. If the bullets don’t kill them, substandard roads and alarming rates of car accidents would, air pollution, lack of access to crucial drugs due to sanctions, or growing poverty would. It’s not only people who suffer in Iran. Lakes are also drying up, trees are dying, animals are going extinct. Despite the ongoing waves of anger and dissent, the government has failed to offer any meaningful policy change and only doubled down the repression. What must change is the U.S. and the world’s interactions with the Iranian heads of state. That means the Biden administration should fundamentally shift its Iran policy, which so far has mainly been focused on resuming the nuclear agreement. There is more fracture in the Iranian government today than there was in Egypt and Tunisia in December 2020, before their overthrow. Something fundamental has shifted within the Iranian society; they can no longer tolerate the violence and tyranny of the ruling state. The shift to democracy won’t be an overnight transformation, nor a peaceful or simple one. But Washington must make policies that will support that transition. Ava Homa is the author of the novel Daughters of Smoke and Fire. Her writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail, the BBC and elsewhere. OPINION Something fundamental has shifted in Iranian society. “I brought my Subaru to Hartzel on advice of a friend and I was so pleased with the service & attention I got from them. Not only finished on time, but under the estimate I was given. Very rare these days. So pleased with the whole experience & great peace of mind knowing it was done correctly. 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