Knives and Forks for Freedom - The Girls of Revolution Street (single) (2022)

Hey all,

A few years ago, one of my bands recorded a few songs, for an EP that may remain unreleased. But we recently released one of the songs.

The song is about the movement in Iran in which women have been removing their compulsory hijab, for many years now. Many such women have been harassed, arrested and forced to leave their country. Recently, a young woman named Mahsa Amini was arrested by morality police and taken to a “re-education center” where she was beaten. She was later brought to a hospital, where she died from her injuries, causing widespread protests in the country.

The song can be downloaded here:
Knives and Forks for Freedom - The Girls of Revolution Street

Or listened to and downloaded from here:
The Girls of Revolution Street, by Knives And Forks For Freedom

Personally, this band of mine is completely unimportant. I did however want to use it as a way to try and spread some awareness of this issue to people in the punk community. This is a cause and issue I have been following and supporting for at least 7 or 8 years now. I reached out to Iranian-born women’s rights activist Maryam Namazie, and she recorded a spoken word introduction for the song in Farsi.

Here’s two great videos from several years ago which explain the movement:

Why Iranian women are posting pictures of their uncovered hair:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNdwFftpndM

How Iran's Hijab Protests Went Viral:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryE14q4pn-w

This recent video/documentary is also worth a watch:
“How Iran’s regime tries to silence protesters in Canada and the U.S. - The Fifth Estate”


All women in Iran are legally required to wear hijab, whether they want to or not. This includes Muslim women who personally don’t want to wear it, as well as atheists, and members of other minority religions in Iran, who are forced to wear a religious symbol from a religion they do not practice.

60% of the population of Iran are under the age of 30, increasingly non-religious, and they do not want to live under a repressive theocracy. Most recently, many have been increasingly calling for a secular and democratic Iran.

I would highly recommend following the My Stealthy Freedom page on social media, as well as following human rights activists Masih Alinejad and Maryam Namazie, to stay updated.

 

Yeah, absolutely. I really enjoyed watching it!

Part of me is cautiously optimistic about what’s happening in Iran. But I’m also a bit nervous too. Large-scale uprisings, or anything along the lines of a revolution, is a very risky undertaking. The last thing Iran needs is for things to devolve into a civil war which could last for years. Realistically, I don’t imagine the regime just disbanding themselves. But it seems that the majority of the population actually want a new government.

In the last month or so, I’ve been chatting with with some of my liberal/secular/atheist female friends from and still in some of the nearby countries in the Middle East (Yemen, Oman, Saudi). It seems many younger people, and particularly women in these countries are quietly observing what’s happening in Iran, hoping for a positive outcome, which could help lead towards positive change in the region.

One thing that’s also fascinating is that the majority of the Gulf Arab countries have hostile relations with Iran and want to see the regime changed also. But last I heard, none of these countries have made a single public comment on what’s going on in Iran. My best guess is that because this movement in Iran is overwhelmingly led by women. So a country like Saudi Arabia might equally fear the success of this women’s-led movement, because they could fear that women in their country may also start demanding more rights.

Of course, it makes me wonder what kind of government Saudi Arabia would want in Iran’s place. I imagine a country like Saudi Arabia would still a prefer Iran be fairly Islamic, rather than a secular, possibly democratic and more free country, which might really outshine the other countries in the region.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have been engaging in a proxy war for decades now, and they both arm and train extremist groups around the world and spread their extremism. They’re both the biggest de-stabilizing countries in the region. Saudi Arabia hasn’t been as bad in the last decade or so, since they’ve been very slowly implementing reforms in the country. Iran backs the Houthis, who control a significant part of Yemen, as well as Hamas. Under a better Iranian regime, these other extreme and destabilizing groups could lose a significant chunk of their funding and support.

What happens in Iran, could have a very significant impact in the Middle East.

Anyway, that’s probably enough rambling for now. We’ll see what happens, hopefully with the least amount of suffering and loss of lives as possible.