Written by Shokoofeh Azar
Iran may be one of the few countries in the world to have experienced two revolutions and two wars in just half a century. My generation still remembers the 1979 revolution — a revolution that, with the tacit support of Western powers and the backing of domestic leftist groups, led to the fall of the Pahlavi monarchy and the rise of a theocratic regime. The children of that era became the teenagers of the futile eight-year war with Iraq, and today, in middle age, we find ourselves on the verge of another revolution. But this time, its nature and mechanism are fundamentally different.
Contrary to popular belief, Iranians’ struggle against the Islamic regime is not merely a 46-year-long story; it is rooted in 1,400 years of cultural resistance against imposed Arab-Islamic rule. Iran is among the few civilisations that, despite military and cultural occupation, never fully relinquished its language or identity. We did not become Arab speakers. We did not become Arab in identity. Iranian intellectuals, poets, and philosophers have always strived to keep alive the humanistic and philosophical foundations of our pre-Islamic culture — from Zoroastrianism and Mithraism to Persian mysticism — against the dominance of rigid Islamic dogma. The clash between these two world views has claimed thousands of lives throughout history.
The 1979 revolution, despite appearances, was not purely a popular uprising. Historical evidence and testimonies from officials at the time show that Western countries — including the UK, Germany, France and the United States — encouraged the Shah to leave the country in his final days. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, through figures like Ayatollah Beheshti — who was later revealed to have collaborated with the Soviet embassy — played a role in weakening the Pahlavi monarchy. For both East and West, the Islamic Revolution was a geopolitical opportunity: The USSR sought to weaken the anti-communist Shah, while the West wished to curb the power of a monarch who had become increasingly uncontrollable through the rise of OPEC and the strengthening of Iran’s national economy.
Over the past four decades, what the Islamic Republic has inflicted upon the Iranian people is nothing short of cultural, social, and human devastation. The systematic oppression has included the rape of female dissidents, the physical elimination of intellectuals, the humiliation of religious and ethnic minorities, the deliberate destruction of natural and historical resources, and the promotion of Arabic language and culture through education and media.
Sharia-based laws against women and girls have created an environment where domestic violence and femicide have become everyday occurrences. According to Iran’s official statistics centre in 2022, three women are killed each day by male family members in the name of “honour”. According to the Iran Human Rights Organisation, in 2023, the number of executions in Iran surpassed those in China, a country with 20 times the population. Alongside this, a wave of suicides among youth, activists, and minorities has reached a crisis point. This is the face of Iran under a religious dictatorship.
And yet, in the midst of this darkness, a profound hope has emerged. Contrary to the regime’s intentions, the people of Iran have not returned to religion — they are moving beyond it. More than half of the new generation is openly or secretly atheist or non-religious. This generation clings fiercely to its Iranian identity and the Persian language, and with each execution or act of violence, it distances itself further from state-imposed Islam. The regime has been effective in repression but has utterly failed to win hearts.
In recent days, Israeli military intervention against the Islamic Republic’s military infrastructure has sparked not just fear but hope among many Iranians. Millions have referred to these operations on social media not as a “war” but as a “hunt”— a hunt of those responsible for decades of murder, torture, corruption, and destruction. For a people who have lived under the yoke of tyranny for generations, seeing the institutions and individuals of oppression destroyed evokes a sense of justice — one that Western powers may not understand, but for us, it feels like a moment of liberation.
Let me be blunt: We are no longer the people of half a century ago who waited for the verdict of the East or the West. We are a nation with deep cultural and historical roots, a people educated, aware, and exhausted by Western, Eastern, and religious authoritarianism alike. But we have also learned that to defeat one of the most brutal regimes of modern times, global support is essential — just as you needed international allies to defeat Hitler. For many of us, Israel and the United States are no longer enemies, but temporary allies in our national liberation.
I am astonished to see that many Western intellectuals now describe Hamas as the world’s only anti-colonial force while condemning Israel’s strikes against Iran’s regime. Let me end with a message to these anti-Israel, anti-American activists in Europe and Australia: If you despise these countries so much, why don’t you take up arms and fight them yourselves, from your own soil? Why must we in the Middle East pay the price for your slogans? Does the suffering of people like us figure at all in your daily political calculations? Perhaps it is time to listen not just to governments and religious bullies, but to the voices of Iran’s suffering people.
We are on the brink of another revolution. But this time, it is neither religious, nor Eastern, or Western. This is a revolution of return — to roots. After 46 years of theocratic oppression and 1,400 years of cultural resistance, Iranians are rising — not for religion, nor for ideology, but for identity and freedom. And if you will not stand with us in this revolution — then at least, do not stand in our way.
Azar is the author of the International Booker-shortlisted The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree and The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen
