It is the month of Azar according to the Persian calendar and theIran nta experiencing three days of strike that give the sign as the movement born after the death of Masha Amini not only has it not diminished, but it broadens its consent to all social classes. Not anymore only womenno longer just students, no longer just areas of Iranian Kurdistan.
It all started on December 5, from bazaars to the petrochemical sector, from refineries to transport. Participation in the strike is close to 100%, despite threats by the security forces to the shop owners. The Basij paramilitary organization have “marked” the shops with the shutters down with the inscription “under observation”.
Despite the threats and the repression, the strike goes on, in the most conservative cities as well as in the most liberal ones. The message, as read in the tweets of Iranian activists and journalists, seems clear: “the scheme must give in and go away, the Iranian people are united and want to take back the country”.
Women continue to take to the streets without a veil, even in the presence of military forces and despite the government threatening “the freezing of current accounts for women who do not dress correctly‘hijab” .
The strongest signal, which indicates the dimension assumed by the protest, comes from the closing of the bazaar. It’s not just a lockout of shopkeepers, the bazaar is the heart of economic power in Iran, and the caste of “bazarias” it has always been able to decide the prices of goods and to influence the political line of the country.
The most prominent example is the Revolution that in 1979 he ousted Shah Reza Pahlavi and brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power. The replacement of the royal family with a class of armed theocrats was possible thanks to the economic strength of the bazara class placed at the disposal of the revolutionary movement.
Since 1979 there have been other massive street protests, such as in 2017 and 2019, against inflation and the economic crisis, especially against the increase in fuel prices, but it was bloodily repressed.
Today there is a profound difference with the protests of previous years: it was from spring of 1979 that agricultural owners or large traders, social classes that have always been on the side of the ayatollahs, did not join the protests, but that now they are asking for a political alternative and taking to the streets alongside women. A signal that should worry the government, exactly what the bazaars favored forty-three years ago.
Revolution in Iran
