"In some places, the protesters pushed back, rushing the militia in teams of hundreds: At least three Basijis were pitched from their motorcycles, which were then set on fire. The protesters included many women, who even berated as “cowards” men who fled the basijis."--From today's New York Times.
Our media and literature on war tends to focus on the warriors, who are almost invariably young men. This is true of my own work. In ordinary combat the designated warriors predominantly are young and male. In Afghanistan and Iraq (where I worked in 2002, 2003 and 2007) this was the case on both sides: Young men fighting young men.
One thing I haven't yet been able to fully explore in my reporting--and something absent in much of the media--is the extent to which combat falls on women. This was especially true in Iraq where the US and various Iraqi factions were fighting it out in cities amid civilians. During firefights in Iraq it was common to see women walking through the smoke of battle in order to carry bread, or other provisions, for their families. In the course of this, I saw many women and young girls shot to death or blown up. Yet their courage and sacrifice remains relatively invisible to the world at large. They receded into faceless, murky categories like "civilian casualties" or "collateral damage."
I am reminded of all this in reading accounts of election protests in Iran and in watching videos of same on Youtube. Ever since the police and Basij (very similar in function to Nazi Brown Shirts) began their assaults on unarmed civilians, the protests have become combat, though the phrase is not being used in news accounts. It's striking to see how many women are in the streets fighting. They are true warriors.
Azar Nafisi's memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, is not on my list of books, but I have read it and recommend it to all who want a sense of the determination and power of women in a police state where the act of reading, discussing or merely possessing the wrong book can lead to imprisonment or death.
What we have seen on the streets of Iran the past week is in part the culmination of a decades-long resistance movement led by women (who are of course, the most oppressed in Iran). As I write this, reports are in of women and of young men in Iran sacrificing their blood on the streets to fight for their freedoms. All are heroes in an epic--and I hope not tragic--cause.
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