Interviews with two Iranian Woman Living in Canada

We asked them their views on what’s going on in Iran and how these protests and the revolution has affected them

By Joanna Chu

“This revolution is not over. We’re in month number three, going into four. This is just the beginning. Please keep sharing, please keep listening and please keep keeping yourself educated.”

Shiva, 2022

In the midst of all the chaos of what is happening in Iran, I’ve taken the time to hear to two stories from Iranian-Canadian women living in Canada. They still have friends and families in Iran and during this time, it is important to hear their stories and to keep talking and to keep sharing.

The first interview that we had was with Taraneh (Tara for short). I have known Tara for a long time now. We used to both work at Town Shoes and when this opportunity arose to share this story, I knew I wanted to involve her. I also had a privilege to speak to one of my dear friends, Shiva, about this. Shiva has been teaching me a lot about the injustices that are happening in Iran and I knew that she was the perfect person to share this story.

Please follow along to the interviews below. We have Tara’s interview transcribed below and Shiva’s audio interview with transcription below.

Interview with Taraneh

“The protests have been really hard on my family and friends. I feel that we all share a feeling of collective trauma – we all know what it’s like in Iran, we have lived it.”

Taraneh, 2022

Joanna: Hi Tara, Thanks for joining us today. Can you tell me a bit about yourself and more about what is going on in Iran right now and how it has impacted you or your family and friends? 

Tara: Hi! My name is Taraneh, I’m 26 years old and I just graduated law school. My family moved to Edmonton from Mashhad in 2003, when I was 7 years old. My parents considered immigrating to Toronto or Vancouver, but they thought those cities would be more difficult to make it as new immigrants, so they chose Edmonton.

My entire extended family lives in Iran. I have 14 aunts and uncles, and even more cousins. They all live in Iran. The protests and executions that are happening are in my hometown Mashhad, where all my family lives. When the revolution first started, and the government cut off the Internet, communication with my family became very difficult. Our group chat went completely silent, and we couldn’t talk to my family at all. It’s better now, but their internet is still slow and it’s hard to get videos of what is happening in Iran now. 

The protests have been really hard on my family and friends. I feel that we all share a feeling of collective trauma – we all know what its like in Iran, we have lived it. So when we see the protests on the news, or the names of people who have died, it feels very personal to us. It’s a feeling that’s hard to describe, but every Iranian understands the pain, even if they are living outside of Iran. 

For my family living inside Iran, the biggest thing for them is that they don’t feel heard—especially at the beginning of the protests. I remember messaging my aunt on Instagram (who lives in Iran still), asking her what I could do to help. All she said was that I continue being their voice. With Western media largely ignoring what is happening in Iran, the biggest thing for my family is feeling that people outside of Iran understand what is happening. 

Joanna: What can you tell me about diaspora in the context of the Iranian Revolution?

Tara: The Iranian diaspora refers to all the families that left Iran after the Islamic revolution in 1979. There are huge groups of Persians all around the world, for example Vancouver has a huge Persian community. Almost every 3rd person I see on the street in Vancouver is speaking Farsi. The diaspora is really coming together during this revolution. There are massive protests all across the world supporting what is going on inside of Iran. It’s really heartwarming to see all Iranians come together, no matter where we are. 

Joanna: What does the statement “Women. Life. Freedom.” mean to you? 

Tara: The phrase “Women. Life. Freedom” has come to mean a lot to me. In Iran, women are treated very poorly. We are told what to do at every step in our lives. The only way that Iran can be truly free is if our women are free. 

Joanna: Can you tell me more about the morality police? How are they enforcing morality laws?

Tara: The morality police have been around since the Islamic revolution. Personally, I have been stopped on the streets of Iran as a kid by these police. When I was 7, I was stopped with my family, and the police asked my parents why I had nail polish on. Nail polish is against Islam. My dad came to my defence, stating that I was just a child. They let me go with a warning. 

My mom has also been stopped many times, because her pantyhose was not “thick” enough. My dad (who is an atheist) has been stopped for drinking water in 40 degree heat in the months of Ramadan, as the religious holiday states you are not allowed to eat or drink. 

Joanna: What do you want people to know about Iran or this cause?

Tara: What I want Canadians to understand about Iran is that our country was not the way the news has typically made it out to be. We were free before. When my mom was in University pre-1979, she wore skirts, and never covered herself. It’s frustrating to me that people in the West don’t realize that Iran was free, and we are not this ultra-Islamic state that people imagine. I think the lack of international awareness plays into this—the West doesn’t realize that we want to be free, that we don’t want war. 

Joanna: How can your fellow citizens help this cause? 

Tara: I think the best way for other citizens to help is to inform themselves on what is going on, and to continue the conversation. The only reason this momentum is still going is because people are talking about it. We have to keep going, keep posting, and show our governments that we care about Iran and the people who are fighting for freedom. 

Interview with Shiva

*Transcription below the audio*

Joanna: All right. So we have Shiva joining us today, and she is a Canadian-Iranian woman. Shiva has been living in Canada since 1996, and she’s actually doing her PhD here at the University of Alberta. And recently she’s been interested in the phenomenon of Iranian diaspora in the context of the current revolution and the protests that have been happening. We’re really lucky to be speaking with her today and to learn more about what is happening in Iran from the perspective of an Iranian woman living abroad.

Thank you so much for joining me today. Shiva, can you tell me more about what is going on in Iran right now and how it has impacted you or your family and friends?

Shiva: Thank you so much, Joanna, for having me. So I just want to say before we begin that though, what is happening in Iran and the experience of Iranian diaspora is very universal. It’s also very personal story. So this is just my perspective on what’s going on. So I think we all kind of know about the revolution that’s happening and the way that it’s impacted me and my family and my friends is the revolution signifies and symbolizes a lot of more things for all of us. It symbolizes the amount of injustice that’s been happening and has happened over the last 40 years to our people and our country. And it symbolizes really a battle between an extremely oppressive government that has committed unspeakable crimes to its people, and not only the Iranian people living in Iran, but the Iranian people around the world.

It’s really complex in Iran because we don’t know everything that’s going on. And even my family and friends who live there are shielded from the news. Like sometimes we even know more than them. Like we’re telling them what’s happening. But my family and friends are safe there. I do have a lot of younger friends and family that have been active in the protests and they are obviously trying to stay safe, but you never know what’s going to happen in Iran. But yeah, my family here, I think it’s just very, very weary to be really hopeful because Iran has historically quelled so many uprisings and revolutions, but we’re all just really hopeful that things will turn around for Iran and that we’ll be able to go back to our country.

Joanna: Can you tell me a bit more about the morality police and how they’re enforcing the morality laws in Iran?

Shiva: OK, so the morality police is an organization that works for the Islamic Republic of Iran. They were created in 1979 after the Islamic Revolution. Prior to the revolution, Iran was a very Westernized kind of place in the sense that women were allowed to dress however they wanted, just like they do in Canada or the US.

So the morality police are basically a group of very violent people that drive around or walk around the streets of Iran. And sometimes you can tell who they are, sometimes they’re undercover, but they will walk around and basically they are surveying the women and the way they’re dressed. So in Iran, you have to be covered with a hijab, so you’re all of your hair has to be covered and you have to wear what we call a monteau.

So it’s like a long jacket. And Iran is very hot in the summer months, especially, extremely hot. So you can imagine how hard it is to dress like that. And so for example, in the case of Mahsa Amini, her Kurdish name is Jîna. Jîna was visiting Tehran, the city that is like the capital of Iran, and she was visiting with her family. She’s a Kurdish woman and her hijab was just slipping a little bit and she was taken by the morality police and questioned. And they have these things like these places they take you for reeducation classes, they call it. And this is usually where they will be violent with women, especially if they show any kind of resistance. And I mean even just like verbally resisting what they’re saying. And so the morality police are there to enforce these laws of how women should dress. If they think that you’re with like a boyfriend, if you’re holding hands, they will be aggressive towards you and they will take you in. And it really is scary because it just depends on the day and how they’re feeling. There’s no real like unifying laws that they have to follow and they don’t answer to anyone. I know many people who have been taken by the morality police, family and friends. It’s such a universal experience in Iran as a woman. And like I said, it just depends on the day. It depends on how they’re feeling. So the morality police are there to enforce the laws of how you should dress and behave as a woman in Iran and historically, they have taken a lot of women into custody and to beaten, raped, sexually assaulted and murdered women. But Jîna Amini is the first one. That kind of her imprisonment was captured on video and that’s why it caused so much outrage.

Joanna: All right. Thank you, Shiva. And my next question is, what do you want fellow Canadian citizens to know about Iran and the protests that are happening right now?

Shiva: So I think in the term, in the context of Canada, there are so many Iranian immigrants living here. We have been so lucky to be able to immigrate to Canada. And in Edmonton, Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, we have such a high level of Iranian immigrants, especially in the bigger cities. So I think that non-Iranian Canadian citizens. What we would want them to know is that Iran is very much suffering right now and that the voice of the non-Iranians are actually what has gotten this uprising into a revolution, starting by a woman-LED uprising into a mass country revolution. And I want Canadians to know that there’s a lot of, as much as social media has helped our cause, there’s a lot of misinformation. It’s really difficult to keep yourself.

Educated on the right things, but I I would really press anybody who cares to really think about where they’re getting their sources from. And like I said before, this is a human rights issue. That’s what I want all citizens of the world to know. This is not an Iranian issue. We have an entire country of millions of people that are quite literally fighting for the right to exist, basic human rights, and we need the voice of Canadian citizens. We need the voice of people who are showing the Islamic Republic of Iran that they won’t stand for this.

Joanna: One of the chants and sayings that have been said at many Iranian protests around the world is women, life, freedom. What does the statement mean to you?

Shiva: So the slogan Women Life, Freedom that we hear in worldwide protests and also in Iran, in Farsi, it’s Zan, Zendigi, Azadi. It actually is rooted in the Kurdish slogan. It is a popular political Kurdish slogan, and it’s used in the Kurdish independence and democratic movements. And it was originated in Turkey and in Kurdish, it is Jin, Jîyan, Azadî. And it’s important to know the roots of this, because Mahsa Amini and her Kurdish name, which is important to know, is Jîna Amini. She was actually Kurdish and the Kurdish people in Iran have historically been severely oppressed, even over other groups of people, including women. 

So Kurdish women are very oppressed, and the term is a universal slogan. I think it means something to all of us. And even men in Iran really love this slogan because it’s kind of tying in the fact that our life and our liberty and our freedom is tied in with the life and liberty of women. 

And as long as women are oppressed, there is no way for the rest of the people to be oppressed. And this is really important in the Iranian movement because though it was a women led revolution, it started with women leading the way. 

You can see that men are standing right next to women. And this is something we don’t know in media. I think media has portrayed Iranian men to not be supportive. But this is like Iranian men are so supportive of Iranian women’s freedom, and they know that their freedom and liberty is personal, only tied in with Iranian women’s freedom and liberty. 

Joanna: Thank you for providing that context. My next question is why do you think there has been a lack of international awareness and action regarding this revolution and the ones that have come before?

Shiva: So there are so many different answers to this question. 

Since the Islamic revolution of 1979, there have been multiple protests and uprisings and they have been ignored by the world for many reasons. I think one of the biggest ones is that Iran is really good at these things called media blackouts. 

And they are, they’ve literally, essentially, in the past, uprisings completely silenced the rest of the world and the reigning community from the rest of the world. So the world’s actually doesn’t know what’s going on. 

I also do believe that there has been many efforts around the world and around different international media sources to downplay what’s happening in Iran. The difference this time is that we have a TikTok generation that has started this battle and has made this battle known. We are seeing on TikTok live things that are happening. You cannot refute these things like it’s horrible images and videos, but they’ve actually made the rest of the world see that there’s severe and horrific injustice going on right now in Iran. 

And this time the Iranian government, though they did have media blackouts during this entire thing and they still do, they were not able to shut out Iran from the rest of the world. I also do believe, like I said, that we see so many conflicting things in media and we don’t know a lot of the times other people, not Iranians, don’t know what is right and what is wrong and that’s fair. 

But social media in that way has been a saving and revealing grace for Iranian people and also something that has deterred their efforts.

Joanna: Okay, my last question is how can we help? How can your fellow Canadian citizens help this cause? What are things and ways that we can help mobilize support to help this Iranian revolution?

Shiva: This is a great question. So in my experience, Canadians who know what’s going on. Non-Iranians who know what’s going on, a genuine understanding are able to help. 

So starting with if you don’t know what’s happening, posts like this or blog posts like this, information like this really do help Canadians to know what’s going on. And for example, my friends during this difficult time in my life have supported me so much, much. 

By coming to protests with me. They’ve shared all of the posts I share. They’ve shared the posts I make. So listening to the Iranian community, there’s a few prominent Iranian activists that I would suggest that I think that you will suggest.* 

And sharing these posts and the contributions of these activists is really important. If there are protests in your city, the numbers in these protests mean the most. People don’t realize that the Islamic Republic is watching. They are scared. They’re very scared. And seeing more non Iranians around the world supporting this is the thing that scares them the most. And I can say with confidence, by talking to my cousins in Iran and my friends in Iran, they have said that the number one thing that has kept them risking their lives, every protest and every time they go out without a hijab is seeing the rest of the world watching them. 

There is so much power in unity around the world. We have felt as Iranians that we have been shut out from the rest of the world and demonized in Western media and made to be something we’re not for so long. And now that we see people are finally listening to us and they’re supporting us around the world, people of all different backgrounds. It is the most powerful thing. And this is what keeps Iranians going. 

So I would say sharing as much as you can. This revolution is not over. We’re in month number three, going into four. This is just the beginning. Please keep sharing, please keep listening and please keep keeping yourself educated.