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The dawn breeze has secrets to tell you. Do not go back to sleep. This inspiring quote from the great Persian mystic poet Rumi opens Sarah Doraghi’s impactful book, Iran In/Out. From the outset, the tone is set: the following pages take us far off the beaten path, immersing us in the daily reality of the Iranian people in all its complexity and roughness.
The book transports us to contemporary Iran, post-Islamic Revolution of 1979, which saw the fundamentalist regime of the mullahs seize power and impose its stringent vision of Islam on the entire country. Over forty years later, the established theocracy continues to regulate public and private life in minute detail, stifling any semblance of freedom.
It is this relentless dictatorship that Sarah Doraghi, a Franco-Iranian journalist and actress exiled in France since her childhood, has chosen to highlight through this intimate narrative, enriched by her roots, observations, and conversations with relatives who remain in Iran. Neither an essay nor a documentary, Iran In/Out is primarily a testament to what it means to “live” under the rule of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2023.
Deeply truthful, carried by a sincerity that transcends its pages, and supplemented with photographs taken with a smartphone, it is also a clarion call for the world to finally recognize the suffering endured by the Iranian people. It is a vibrant appeal for solidarity and hope, resonating acutely in these times of fierce struggle against Islamist obscurantism.
The Death of Mahsa Amini, a Catalyst for International Awareness
This striking account is rooted in a recent, internationally resonant tragedy: the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, who passed away in September 2022 following her arrest by the morality police. This traumatic event triggered a popular revolution against the Iranian Islamist regime, relentless in its bloody repression.
The suppression intensifies. In six weeks, hundreds are arrested, condemned, and executed following summary trials. Like Sophie Scholl, the emblematic figure of student resistance within the Hitler Youth, whose courage and tragic death became a symbol of opposition to Nazism, Mahsa Amini now stands in history as an icon of the struggle against the Iranian Islamist dictatorship. Her tragic fate caused a shockwave, rallying the Iranian people and the international community to her cause. Thus, Mahsa emerged from anonymity to, despite herself, embody courage and resistance against barbarity, a mantle previously worn by all martyrs of freedom worldwide.
From this point of no return in the Iranian people’s struggle for their rights and freedom, Sarah Doraghi wields her pen. Beyond the emotion stirred by the recent protest movement, her bilingual edition aims primarily to open the eyes of international opinion to the horrifying reality of the mullahs’ dictatorship, a reality that the Iranian diaspora has ceaselessly denounced amid near-total indifference.
The Daily Struggle of Iranians Under the Yoke of Islamic Dictatorship
Sarah Doraghi’s book plunges us into the hellish daily life in Iran, where the populace is deprived of the most basic freedoms by a freedom-killing regime obsessed with controlling both private and public life. The author gives us a chilling glimpse of this reality right from the introduction:
“Due to cultural, social, and political taboos, numerous aspects of life are forbidden in Iran: kissing, dancing, laughing, showing oneself, thinking, or expressing freely… All these ordinary acts have become gestures of resistance for a population silenced.”
Throughout the book, through numerous examples, Sarah Doraghi highlights the absurdity of repressive laws that turn the simplest daily gestures into punishable acts. The prohibitions are endless, suffocating the populace in all aspects of their private lives: romantic relationships, mixed-gender socializing, dress codes, music listening, dancing, alcohol consumption, or gender mixing in public places… Nothing escapes the puritanical wave of the Islamists who have seized power.
The same is true in public life, where Iranians are deprived of their most fundamental rights: freedom of opinion, conscience, information, expression… The censorship imposed by the regime is relentless, silencing any dissenting voice, as Sarah Doraghi notes:
“It’s no longer about Persian carpets; the country has become a doormat for mullahs and diplomats devoid of humanity and with frayed consciences.”
Resistance and Cunning of a People Refusing Silence
Despite this constant oppression, the Iranian population has not given up on its dreams of freedom. This is the crux of Sarah Doraghi’s testimony, which shows how Iranians ingeniously use daily subterfuges to escape, even fleetingly, the grasp of the Islamists. With humor and tenderness, through delicious anecdotes and a gaze filled with empathy for her compatriots, she reveals various forms of civil resistance to evade authority surveillance:
“At a specific spot, a small part of the barbed wire has been cut, creating a tiny opening towards the lake. For the pleasure of approaching it or for the sake of disobedience, locals brave the prohibition and pass through the barbed wire gap to tread on the soil of freedom. Sometimes to walk for a few minutes by the lake, sometimes for a quick family picnic, eat fast, and leave fast. Here, disobedience is the first sign of freedom.”
The same fight continues in the private sphere, where, despite the risks, young people defy prohibitions to live their lives and their freedom: accessing social media, going out at night, mixed-gender socializing, parties with friends… All are ways of peacefully resisting the prevailing obscurantism:
“Living their youth, organizing parties, dressing like the youth in free countries, as seen in Instagram stories, having their first sip of beer, smoking their first joint, experiencing their first sexual encounter, toasting, laughing loudly, waking up with the hangover of a joyous evening – this is the path of the young Iranian rebels, preferring the worst smells of prohibition to the thousand scents of the houris, virgins promised as rewards to the blessed at the gates of paradise.”
The Vanguard of This Daily Struggle: Iranian Women
Iranian women, in particular, demonstrate incredible courage, daring to transgress the dress codes imposed on them. The author vividly describes the intersectionality of patriarchal and religious domination that subjects Iranian women to a multitude of absurd daily prohibitions, whether in the public sphere (rigid dress code mandating the wearing of the veil, prohibition of visiting mixed-gender places, traveling without a male legal guardian’s permission, riding a motorcycle…) or in the private sphere (prohibited mixed relationships, denied sexuality…), affecting every aspect of their emancipation as women and citizens with fundamental rights. Sarah Doraghi thus pays a powerful tribute to these ingenious Iranian women who, at the risk of their lives, dare to remove their veils or disguise themselves in secret to exist as women. Symbols of resistance against the mullahs, they carry the hope of an entire people to see a free and democratic Iran emerge.
Hope Against the Odds
Iran In/Out is thus a poignant and invigorating testimony to the struggle of the Iranian people against obscurantism. It is poignant, as it shows the daily ordeal of citizens under a freedom-killing regime, and invigorating, as it celebrates life that always finds its way. Hope is ingrained in the bodies of women and men, ready to do anything for a breath of freedom. As Sarah Doraghi proclaims in a final surge:
“Life cannot be forbidden. It will never be forbidden again. A secular democracy is no longer a dream but our project. A common project, with women and men, with Iranians inside and outside the country, and with all those who believe in the common values of freedom.”
It’s this universal message, borne by the courage of a people, that all human rights defenders must hear. Sarah Doraghi’s book forcefully reminds us: in the face of oppression, silence is not an option. Echoing Hannah Arendt’s strong denunciation of totalitarianism and violations of fundamental freedoms, Sarah Doraghi takes up the torch of vigilance and solidarity with oppressed peoples through this truth-revealing work.
In the name of Mahsa Amini, whose tragic death was not in vain, and for all victims of the Iranian dictatorship, global mobilization is necessary. Hope is justified, for the day will surely come when Iranians will finally taste a free and democratic life. They deserve it so much…
Sarah Doraghi, Iran in-out, Plon, 11/30/2023, 1 vol. Bilingual edition in French and English. Color illustrations, 176 pages. 39€
