Member-only story
100 Days of Protest and Counting
A Conversation with Nora Rahimian about Iranian protests and U.S. misunderstandings
When I initially scheduled a call with Nora Rahimian, a brilliant community builder and anti-capitalist business coach for creatives and entrepreneurs (who is also Persian and currently resides in Los Angeles), Iran and the U.S. had recently faced off during the World Cup in a “winner advances” match. The media did its best to pit the two countries against each other outside of the bounds of sport, seeing the on-the-pitch face-off as an extension of the geopolitical face-off the two countries that have defined the two nation’s relationship for decades. This geopoliltical context makes it hard to see shared struggles that exist within both nations as systematically oppressed groups continue to be denied equal rights.
The protests in Iran have now passed 100 days of consistent action with increasingly harsh tactics facing protestors, who remain firm in their calls for change. Many in the West view these protests as religious, but that would be errant. These protests, Nora Rahimian, reminds us, are political.
“These protests are not about religion at all,” Rahimian stressed, “but about the use of religion by the state as a means to control people’s public and private lives.”
