sVia Al Jazeera

Maya Jabbari

Voices Editor

زن، زندگی، آزادی

“Woman, Life, Freedom”

I have never lived in Iran, I have not even set foot there, but I feel as though it lives in me constantly. This beautifully magical feeling of living in Iran happens through my father. Through the way he talks about the windmills in his village, the olive trees, the tea fields, the richness of saffron, his people, his family, and the once togetherness that existed there before 1979. 

Being half-Iranian at nineteen means carrying a country I know mostly through stories: stories shaped by war, revolution, and a state that made staying impossible.

My father was born in 1969 in Manjil, a small town North-West of Tehran. Instability and violence ensued in Iran as he grew. My father was ten when the Iranian Revolution, which replaced the Shah with the Islamic Republic, reshaped every aspect of life. What followed was not only political upheaval but intense tightening of state control over speech, dress, belief, and identity. The government was no longer a system of trust for the Iranian people, but of fear. My father was seventeen when the Iran-Iraq War tension truly began to build up near his home. The war took the lives of hundreds and thousands and further militarized Iranian society. That same year, my grandparents decided to, like his two other brothers, send him to a land of freedom and possibility: Canada. Like that, he had to start anew. Families like mine did not leave Iran because they wanted to, but rather, they left because they felt they had no choice.  

Watching what is happening in Iran today feels painfully familiar. Protests led by women and young people, especially following the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022, have been met with violent crackdowns, arrests, and executions. In an article by Amnesty International, they note that, beginning again in late December of 2025, protests over economic collapse, inflation to the point of starvation, internet shutdown, and widespread violence at the hands of the government drew thousands of protestors together in hopes of gaining enough attention to overthrow the Islamic Republic. What began with economic discontent eventually morphed into major demands for rights and freedoms regarding equality for all. In response, lethal force by Iranian security forces was drawn, including live ammunition and mass arrests nationwide. International bodies like the United Nations Human Rights Council have condemned the killings and called for investigations into possible crimes against humanity.

The same state that made my grandparents fear for their son’s future, continues to threaten another generation. The women risking their lives in the streets are my age. I see versions of myself had history unfolded differently.

There is a strange guilt that comes with watching from afar. I have freedoms that Iranian women do not, simply because my father left. I can speak openly, dress how I want, and dream without fear of punishment. At the same time, I carry the weight of knowing those freedoms came at the cost of exile.

“I am Iranian enough to feel the pain, but distant enough to be safe. How incredibly complicated that has been.”

That in-between space of existing defines a major part of my identity. 

“Woman, Life, Freedom” has been, with resistance, softly spoken and urgently screamed by Iranian protestors since 2022. Now, as we’re into 2026, those same words are again softly spoken and urgently screamed in Iran. Today, the Earth has taken 47 trips around the sun, that is, as I’m writing, 16,844 days of fight and resilience by the Iranian people towards the Islamic Republic. By the time you read this, it’ll be at least 16,858. But, a big part of me hopes that by the time you read this, the counting of the days will end and freedom will be unearthed. The demands for change, the decades of wanting change, will not be met solely with the help of Iranian people alone. They want, we want, and I want a revolution, and they want, we want, and I want it now.