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Kai Wright: It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. In September, a young woman in Iran named Mahsa Amini was killed by the Iranian government's morality police after she was detained because some of her hair was showing from under her hijab. Mahsa was 22 years old. Her death has triggered waves of protests often met by violence from the government.

One human rights group estimates the death toll has reached over 130 people. These protests, often led by women, have surged in size and scope. They are now happening all around the world and around the United States. With this moment affecting so many Iranian Americans, we wanted to make space to talk about what's happened, what's happening, and why it matters. To help me do that, I'm joined by our senior digital producer, Kousha Navidar. Kousha?

Kousha Navidar: Hey, Kai.

Kai Wright: Kousha, you were actually born in Iran, right?

Kousha Navidar: Yes. I was born at the end of the Iran-Iraq War, and my family came to New York after. Coming to America in a moment of crisis there's trauma around that. I've been thinking about what people are experiencing there and here.

Kai Wright: What's coming up for you right now?

Kousha Navidar: The first thing I keep thinking when I watch is how can I be useful, which I think is a pretty universal feeling. Then there's a question that comes up, one that I think is a little more specific. It's how do you meaningfully participate in a movement when you're so far away. A lot of Iranian Americans watching the protests right now are probably grappling with their own set of feelings, fears, frustrations, as a result of that distance. We're hoping this show can be a service.

Kai Wright: How are we doing that?

Kousha Navidar: For the past week, we've invited Iranian Americans across the country to send our show voice memos responding to this question. How does it feel to witness the demonstrations in Iran from so far away? Kai, listen, we got a ton of responses to this. They're still coming in. I just want to dive right in. Here's one.

Leila: Hi, I'm Leila. I'm from Washington, D.C. Over the past two weeks, I've felt so many different emotions ranging from sadness to helplessness, to fear, to heartbreak, to anger and rage. Now I'm just determined and quite hopeful, honestly. My dad experienced this with the first revolution in 1979. I just can't even imagine what people's parents and grandparents, everything that they've been through, it's just really hard to watch and really hard to know everything that has been going on under this regime for the past 43 years.

As an Iranian living in America, I have so much gratitude and appreciation, but I also have this degree of guilt being tied to this, but also being so far and being so safe in America, a place where I've never had to fight for my basic human rights. Something seems different this time. There's been protests in the past. There's been talks of another revolution, but something seems different this time. I've heard it from family there. There's something different in the eyes of the Iranian people that are fighting for their lives in Iran. I have hope. I'm determined to not give up. I'm going to protests. I'm doing everything I can to spread awareness using my platform. There is hope if we can keep this momentum alive.

Kai Wright: A lot to unpack there. We found someone to help us talk through these messages and put them into context. Let me welcome to the show Narges Bajoghli. Narges is the assistant professor of Middle East Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Narges, thanks for coming on the show.

Narges Bajoghli: Thanks so much for having me.

Kousha Navidar: Narges, listening to that first voice message, I heard feelings of guilt of this movement feeling different than before. What came up for you and have you witnessed anything like the response we heard?

Narges Bajoghli: Yes. I think the feeling of being angry, of feeling enraged, and then at the same time, also, Layla mentioned this in her voice note, having hope and having that hope with determination define this moment despite the anger and despite the rage that it also brings along with it. The question about the momentum, I think one of the things for all of us going through this at this moment is thinking about how momentum for something like this, which is both a fight against oppressive state laws as well a wider culture of patriarchy, that's something that will need momentum into the long term.

I think one of the things that we're all having to figure out now is how to sustain this moment and also how to think about how this moment sustains into the future because this is not a fight that gets won in a couple of weeks. It will take time because as we see the Islamic Republic in Iran is repressive and fights back repressively, but also these are against broader questions of patriarchal control.

This is one of the things that we're seeing a lot from young girls and young women in Iran on the streets is chanting about the state's laws and chanting women life freedom, but also then chanting and talking about how it may not always be the morality police on the street, but the morality police may exist at the home too in the name of father or mother. These are really deep questions that Iranian women and young people are battling with on the front lines today. These are questions that if we're hopeful that this will eventually come to push things, it's a long-haul movement. It's one of those things that I hear that listener very clearly and wanting to be determined to keep going but also we need to develop strategies for this to be a longer-term fight.

Kousha Navidar: Does it feel different to you at this moment than it might have in years past?

Narges Bajoghli: Yes, it definitely feels different because for a few reasons. One is that this is very much the continuation of a very long struggle that Iranians have had for different forms of freedom and their history. Layla talked about that with her parents and grandparents and this is something that I think intergenerationally many of us are coping with right now. All of our different family members have memories of rising up and struggling in Iran for different reasons. What I think is different here is that it's the first time that women's issues are taking complete center stage and that men and boys are fighting alongside women for these issues.

It's the acknowledgment that there's no such thing as political freedom if women and folks who are queer cannot determine for themselves how to have control over their bodies. That feels very different and the fact that women and young people in Iran are saying, "It's enough and we will no longer comply." I think the thing that makes this, it's the level of determination that we see on the street and the fact that it's given birth to a very, very potent form of civil disobedience. The symbol of resistance today in Iran is an everyday symbol. It's the symbol of the hijab, which is compulsory for women to wear.

It's something that they have to put on their heads every single day, and now they are performatively removing it on the street or they're coming out without it. What you have now that's different than before is, first of all, more and more women are willing to do this in a time of repression, but second of all they now see this as a form of civil disobedience that they can enact on a daily basis.

Whether or not the government is going to give in at this moment, they understand this as a long fight that they're in. That level of determination, and the fact that it's spread around the country and that different generations are involved and even folks who come from religious and conservative backgrounds are also involved makes this feel very different.

Kousha Navidar: Let me play you our second voicemail.

Speaker 5: I've been crying every day for the past three weeks. I can't stop looking at my phone. This is devastating. I'm proud of everyone that's on the streets. At the same time I'm just heartbroken by every post I see of kids that have been killed. It feels really helpless. All I can do is repost stories and go for demonstrations out here. It's been very painful.

Kai Wright: There is obviously so much emotion in that particular message. Narges, it just feels like this is so raw for people, for Iranian Americans even though folks are far away. I just wonder if you could talk about that both for yourself and for the community in general just how this is more than an intellectual or political issue.

Narges Bajoghli: Totally. The violence that the state is using on so many teenagers there have been a lot of young teenagers that have been killed. That brings up so much emotion as you just heard. I think many of us can really empathize with those feelings that we heard. The anger, it's raw emotion and the fact that it's happening in some ways live on your screens and you have your phone with you all the time.

It's like we've all entered into a vortex over the past three to four weeks. I can't remember what time it is. I can't remember what day. These bursts of uprisings that we have in our world today that are so compressed over time and that they are against forces that feel so incredibly powerful and we can't figure out how we're going to get past them. Those bring up so many feelings of frustration.

I think that that is something that any community that has over the past two years seen their communities or communities that they empathize and sympathize with, rise up in these hashtag uprisings that we have I think really understand these emotions of entering these vortexes of time, and then it's just like one after another. The footage is raw, the violence is raw and you're just bombarded with it. You have very little time to breathe and to process before you see the next images of violence come onto your screen. That is very, very difficult to deal with.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. The vortex that you're talking about, I think definitely resonates. Actually leads us to our next voicemail. We have time for one more. This one touches a lot of the themes that you've been bringing up. It's actually for my sister. Here it is.

Nahal: My name is Nahal. I immigrated to the United States from Iran when I was six. Watching these women, these young girls lead this movement, and Iran has been the most exhilarating and awe-inspiring thing to watch. Their courage has given me courage. As an immigrant and woman of color, I've often felt like my voice was not appreciated or wanted in this country, and I felt emboldened to speak up.

Speaking up for them is like speaking up for myself. At the start a few weeks ago, I felt hesitant and worried, but the longer this goes on, the more I have this swelling, this feeling in my heart that their courage can't be ignored. It's obvious to the whole world. I have so much hope for them and so much pride in being Iranian at this moment.

Kousha Navidar: Speaking up for them is like speaking up for myself. Narges, what do you make of that?

Narges Bajoghli: Yes. One of the reasons I think that this movement has been so inspiring for so many, first and foremost, I think for Iranians in general in Iranian around the world, but also beyond that is because the amount of bravery as now has said that you see on the streets from these women is it gives you a symbol and a representation of resistance and of saying enough is enough. I think that gives you pride in the fight that they're fighting.

I feel Nahal in this very much too, it also gives me a boldness because we all experience patriarchy, whether we're men, women, it doesn't matter what we are. We all live in systems of patriarchy. Especially those of us now living in the United States, we're coming up against more and more laws that are trying to restrict our bodily autonomy. What we see on the streets of Iran, I agree with Nahal this is inspiring because it also gives us a representation of what it means to just say, "I will no longer comply." We see that in action now. That gives us a representation of it both here for us to imagine and then for us to be able to support the type of uprising that they're having in Iran around those issues.

Kai Wright: Now, you mentioned earlier that there's hope in this, but this is going to be a long process, this movement if it's going to have success is going to be a long process. What is next then in your mind? What happens now? We've had this moment in the streets. We don't know how long that'll go on. What happens after that?

Narges Bajoghli: Well, what I'm saying is that women and young people in Iran are trying to build solidarity with-- For example, yesterday you had some shop owners in different cities and towns around Iran start to close their shops to go on some strike. If they start to build momentum with workers movements, teachers movements, different folks who are in the economy and they begin to organize around strikes that can go one way. Obviously, the state will try and will continue to repress very heavily. What Iranians in Iran know very well is how to play this cat-and-mouse scheme with the state. The state represses and Iranians don't just cow down and say, "Okay, we take that repression." They figure out strategies around it. This is going to develop. I think people keep asking, well, where is the leadership?

I actually think not having a leadership is a very strategic thing that is happening right now in Iran because again, when you're dealing with such a repressive system, they know that to go after the leaders is one of a very effective way to shut down movement. They did that 13 years ago with the leaders of the green movement. This movement so far is being very adamant on not having leadership, on it being a mass form of civil disobedience. Where that will go, I think we'll wait and see and we have to wait and see because it's going to be in response to the dynamics that are on the ground. Just as the first speaker said, this time does feel very different and especially the school girls and the university students and young people on the streets, they're refusing to to be intimidated this time around, it seems.

Kai Wright: We'll have to stop it there. Narges Bajoghli is Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Narges, thank you so much. That was really wonderful.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

Narges Bajoghli: Thanks for having me so much. Thank you for doing this show. It means a lot.

Kai Wright: Like Kousha said, we got more voicemails than we had to play. We'll be posting them on our Instagram page. You can check them out @noteswithkai. Special thanks to the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University and Northwestern University's Iranian Students Association who helped us collect these messages. Notes from America is a production of WNYC Studios. We are live each week, but you can also follow the show wherever you get your podcast. We are on both Instagram and Twitter @noteswithkai, that's notes with K-A-I.

If you heard anything you want to chime in about this week, you can record a message and send it to us now from right on our website, that's at notesfromamerica.org. We particularly love new questions that we can follow up on for you. Our live engineer is Matthew Miranda, Theme music and mixing by Jared Paul. Our team also includes Regina de Heer, Karen Frillmann, Vanessa Handy, Rahima Nasa, Kousha Navidar, and Lindsay Foster Thomas. I am Kai Wright. Thanks for spinning this time with us. I'll talk to you next week.

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