Submission: The Untold Story of Zhina Amini
The Euro-centric discourse on Global Women’s Uprisings
By Leena Abdulla
Leena Azadi Abdulla is a third year Sociology, Critical Studies of Race and Ethnicity double major. She is of Kurdish descent and serves as Public Relations on the board of the St. Kate’s Muslim Student Association. She is also the co-President of the upcoming St. Kate’s chapter of Dissenters—an abolitionist, anti-imperalist student organization.
By now, the whole world has heard “Mahsa” Amini's story and the recent uprisings in Iran and Rojhalat (the name for the Iranian-occupied part of Kurdistan). But amongst the global chants of the protestors screaming, “Say her name!” we’ve failed to call her by her real name; we’ve continued the erasure of Kurdish women’s voices and have instead allowed white women in the Global North to colonize the discourse on Feminism.
Mahsa is Amini’s governmental Iranian name. However, she is a Kurdish woman, and the name she went by in her day-to-day life was the Kurdish name Zhina. Her mistreatment by Iranian police is not only a result of her status as a woman, but as a Kurd, which is a historically persecuted ethnic minority under the Iranian regime.
Additionally, the world has failed to have a nuanced conversation about hijab, headscarf, religious compulsion and American imperialism when raising awareness on the issue of the current Iranian and Rojhalati uprisings.
Zhina Mahsa Amini was a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was arrested on Sept. 13, 2022, for improperly wearing her headscarf when identified by the Iranian morality police. While in police custody, she was tortured and later fell into a coma due to her injuries and died.
Protests started in the Kurdish province of Iran in Zhina’s hometown and spread throughout the rest of the nation. To our current knowledge, Iranian authorities have killed seven protesters and wounded hundreds. They have also arrested thousands of civilians and advocates while shutting off the internet throughout Iran in an attempt to silence the current uprising.
The mandate of the headscarf has been an issue that has cost women in Iran their agency and freedom for decades. After the 1979 Iranian revolution, which was a result of over 20 years of tension caused by the United States backed coup d'état of 1953, things have escalated.
In addition to her ascribed status as a woman, Amini’s death and particularly vile treatment by Iranian police is also because of her Kurdish identity. The Kurds are one of the largest ethnic minorities in the world without a state. The region of Kurdistan spans across the primarily mountainous areas of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Under all of these states, the Kurds have been historically subject to assimilation, ethnic persecution and both cultural and bodily genocide.
It’s a shame that despite how widespread the news of Zhina’s murder and inspiration for the current uprising has been publicized within the international community, the media has yet again failed to give Kurdish women representation despite how paramount Kurdish women have been to women’s liberation efforts in the Middle East. It is crucial to recognize and note that even the slogan ‘Jin Jiyan Azadi’ or ‘Women Life Freedom’ is the result of the struggle of the Kurdish Women’s Movement comprised of freedom fighters on the mountains of Kurdistan.
Moreover, the media has uplifted the white, non-muslim woman’s voice more than it has actual Middle Eastern or Muslim women in this dialogue, which has opened up an international platform for orientalism, anti-muslim racism and the suppression of the voices of women of color.
White women who attempt to advocate and show support for Iranian women have repeatedly been taking it as an opportunity to disrespect the hijab as a concept and the women of color who wear it, all while not adequately uplifting the voices of women forced to wear the headscarf in Iran.
Muslim Student Association Liason Salma Said (Political Science, Public Policy fourth year) who wears a hijab herself, when asked about the subject, said: “The headscarf has always been a global fixation in the secular world of politics even though many Muslim women choose to wear it. Muslim women have become political pawns in patriarchal power.” It's true that Iran is a country that forces women to cover up with a hijab. It’s also true that France doesn’t let Muslim women cover their heads. The uprising is not saying that women shouldn’t wear hijab, it’s asking that women should have the choice whether or not to wear it. It’s asking us to tell men everywhere that they can’t make decisions for women. It’s about Muslim women’s agency. To say that Muslim women shouldn’t have a choice to wear hijab at all is an act of misogyny, and it’s stripping women of their agency. Said also went on to say, “I feel protected when I have hijab and feel in danger when I’m not given that choice.” The emphasis here is the agency of women.
Despite the actions of Muslim men, according to the Quran, there is not supposed to be compulsion in religious practice, meaning when a woman is forced to wear a hijab, it’s not a hijab. It’s a headscarf. The Kurdish and Persian language even have words to separate hijab from headscarf, and when they chant in these protests, they’re using the word “headscarf.” These complexities and details are only things Kurdish, Iranian and Muslim women could tell us. This reiterates the point that we have to give the people we attempt to advocate for the platform they’ve asked for.
To force women in Rojhalat and Iran to wear headscarves or risk imprisonment, torture and death is both a human rights violation and a religious crime. The women who chant today in the streets of Rojhalat and Iran deserve to speak for themselves and not be spoken for by gender-reductionist white “feminists” in the global north. I am a Muslim and Kurdish woman myself who doesn’t wear the hijab but I am aware that what feels like liberation for me is not what liberation feels like for everyone. I want women in Rojhalat and Iran to be given the platform to speak for themselves; I want women in Rojhalat and Iran to be free, and to have a choice. I want us to collectively stop seeing the world through a lens that centers our experiences alone. If your feminism doesn’t include women of the Global South, it’s not feminism.
Her name was Zhina. When you “say her name,” say it right. We can not keep speaking in the occupiers’ language to advocate against an occupation. When we advocate for women we need to uplift their voices rather than stealing their voices from their throats. Kurdish women have been speaking for decades and it’s time to hear them. Rest in power, Zhina Amini. Har biji, shahid namre.
