Transcript: Women, Life, Freedom: Iran uprising & its international impact

Mahsa Amini’s death in the custody of the hijab police in Iran became a code name for a protest movement with the slogan “woman, life, freedom”. The scale and strength of the movement are unprecedented, despite the massive crackdown. In this conversation, participants explain the causes of this movement and examine its international impact.

Chair: Dr Sertaç Sehlikoglu

Speakers:

• Dr Fatemeh Sadeghi (UCL, IGP, Takhayyul Research Fellow – on Iran)
• Dr Yuan He (UCL, IGP – on China)
• Dr Sumrin Kalia (UCL, IGP, Takhayyul Research Fellow – on Pakistan)
• Dr Ala’a Shehabi (UCL – on UK and Bahrain)
• Ms Rumeysa Camlibel (Researcher and Activist -on Turkey)
• Anonymous Scholar on India

Transcript

Sertaç Sehlikoglu  0:00   

Welcome everyone. We I’d like to welcome you to the first of our to high yield, Nativity and emergent issues podcast series, organised by the members of the ERC project named to high yield at the UCL Institute for global prosperity, the IGP I am Sartaj Cindy colo the primary investigator of this five year project, the need to this podcast series emerged due to a number of reasons. Firstly, the members of this team, as many of you may already be familiar, are often native scholars who have expertise about the various geographies they have grown up in. The project is carried in 11 Different countries in Eastern Europe, Middle East and South Asia, often referred to as the Global South. That’s being said, those very contexts are more vulnerable to global changes and crisis. As we have seen in for instance, the flood catastrophe in Pakistan as a result of the global warming. On top of a number of other issues. Thus the members of the scene has suggested to create a platform where we can address the emergent issues as they happen with other scholars, intellectuals and activists. And today we have Dr. Fatima Sadiki. Dr. Sameen Kaya from the Tahoe project, Dr. Karen hair from the Institute for global prosperity, Dr. Anna Shahabi, UCS color and also a former member of the RGP and remain such on the really a Muslim, feminist intellectual and activist and we also have an anonymous caller and activist from India. Uh, we also have two assistants who have been tremendously helpful in setting up this entire platform and the YouTube channel Hazal iden from from Coach University and Maryam Zhi Shan cooker. So we are yes, quite excited about today and about starting to connect with you in this new platform. Our topic is the uprisings in Iran and how it’s received in different parts of the world. We have guests to provide insights onto it and the topic from China, Pakistan, India, Bahrain, Turkey, and the UK. So without further ado, I’d like to turn to Dr. Fatima Sadiki. Thank you. 

Fatemeh Sadeghi  2:42   

Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for the introduction and for organizing this event. As you see the title of this talk, is the power of ordinary in creating extraordinary. Let me begin with this question. Why is this movement significant? And what possibilities does it offer? Here? I assume that at least some of you might have followed the news about this incident that is going on in Iran. So therefore, I will try to answer this question by explaining an aspect that has been almost entirely ignored. My argument is that this movement is strong because it is rooted in ordinary life. It is a strong because it is a disrupter of what I call hyper masculinity as an inseparable elements of the political apparatus into the Iran. Let me start with a phrase that we hear frequently these days, especially in Western media. I mean, the morality police, Massa, I mean, he was arrested and killed by the police while in custody, but the so called morality police is an misunderstanding of the situation. I think, because the function of this special you need is to chase and discipline women who are improperly veiled there is no morality in it. The so called morality police is notorious. Please note that this is not the first time that a young woman is getting killed while in custody, the morality becomes more questionable. If you consider the deceptions and fabrications of the government and security who attempt to conceal the truth about the murder of masala meanie and others by televise, confessions, fabricated stories and so forth. I would use hypersexuality disorder to describe this entire apparatus, including the discourse on the job into the urine. By hypersexuality disorder, I mean, an excessive preoccupation with sexual fantasies that is difficult to control but causes distress with negative impacts on life and his or her social relationships. Let me give you an example. One of them is actually the equation of unveiling an nakedness right after the Iranian Revolution of 1979 in which women participate Say that massively, Ayatollah Khomeini declared that naked women should not appear in public. The equation of nakedness and unveiling has been repeatedly expressed ever since. But it is not limited to the relationship between the government and women. The current leadership and officials attributed the protests to the enemy, namely Israel and the US and they describe it by using a certain set of words that are replicated from one context to the other, delusion, deception, Western influence, penetration, and of course, nakedness. Ordinary Iranians are depicted as passive female objects who could easily be deceived by the West, they are perceived as not being capable of deciding for themselves. The irony is that the more people shout on the streets, the more their agency and creativity are negated. Here I am going to show you some slides about this equation of nakedness and compulsory and the protests against the compulsory hijab here in this picture, you see one of the officials of Azzaro University who is telling the students who are protesting inside the university that you just want to get naked. And this is another quotation by Hamid Rasul a former deputy of the Iranian parliament who said their desire meaning the protesters desire is to graze like an animal and have sex with different person every night. And of course, there are so many answers to this by even by way of women for instance, here you see the Catalina go row. In response to wrestle he said wrestling made a mistake by slandering Iranian women who do think that everyone is like you who thinks about sexual issues from morning till night if it wasn’t like that, you wouldn’t have said such nonsense we women not stop will not stop fighting until we silence people like you. And another Twitter account called Kim Su says, This is what freedom means, not your MP thoughts, this account actually referring to the you know, the voluntarily veiling and also unveiling of the spoon women together the discourse of the equation of in discourse of nakedness is also deeply masculinist. Apart from language of mindset of the authorities. It is also expressed and produced in public ceremonies, documents, films, posters, monuments, and even architectural works hyper masculinity is best exemplified the figure of Austin Soleimani, the Commander in Chief of the OLS branch of the Iranian Guardian corpse corpse he was killed by the Americans in 2019. Mainly Trump administration actually Soleimani represents the idea of manhood, and the emerging super visuality of the Islamic Republic he is entitled as the man of the field, or madam Aidan, as the Iranian officials repeatedly call him. After this his death as his monuments have been constructed and erected all over the country. Despite these desperate efforts. Younger generations in Iran do not feel much identification with this personality. The reason is because the idea of manhood is fabricated and has little to do with the harsh realities of millions of men and women. This hyper masculine language is also deeply rooted in the ways in which the Iranian police behaved with the protesters while beating women and men severely and blaming blaming them for being corrupt. They also use excessive violence and sexist language. However, let me say that Iran is not an exception. hypermasculinity price plays a pivotal role in right wing populist movements across the world. In his movements. The image of a super masculine champion is embodied in certain political figures who appear as the savior of the whole nation. It is not only the greatness of the nation that he promised, but also the return of the imagined loss masculinity. This demonstrates how deeply hyper masculinity and riping politics are interwoven. To give another example, the war in Ukraine not only demonstrate the imperialist ambitions of the Russian ruler, but also acts as a muscle building DRock regaining masculine power and superiority by war appears to be a subconscious motivation. Another example would be the counter revolution in Egypt that also employ hypersexuality discourse to suppress the protesters in Tahrir Square. Jaime Allinson, the political scientists demonstrate how the counter revolution in Egypt won the streets of Cairo and other cities by Manu creating the people’s minds among other things. This has been done by raping women industries and creating a sense of potency, slash in potency and capability slash in capability. Among the protesters raping and harassing women resulted in the collective concern of women that streets are unsafe by using stereotypical notions of femininity and masculinity. The military succeeded in silencing the Egyptian revolution and extreme acts of violence not only targeted women’s bodies, but also their stereotypical the stereotypes around female shame and male honor. That’s how the counter revolutions succeeded in all of these cases, the aim is to mobilize the notion through a hyper hyper masculine discourse in doing this, equality is easily reconciled economic and more corruption is justified and dignified life rights and freedom is negated. But let me go back to you know, the the question that I started this thought, why is this movement in Iran centered around the slogan, women life freedom is important, I think it is significant because it disrupts the hypermasculinity discourse of the regime and shows that the government is morally corrupt. This movement emerges from ordinary realities on the ground, rather than the illusory world of the authorities. In early 2018. V DOM overhead, dressed in sporty clothing, climbed up to a platform on analog or revolutionary Street in the centre of Tehran, removed her headscarf and waved it in the air to demonstrate her opposition to compulsory hijab. This highly severe and creative disobedience was followed by other women. And the movement quickly became known as the girls of the revolution street, or Dr. Ron, if you’re one of the girls of the evolution of St. Paul’s a deep fracture within a hyper sexual and hyper masculine discourse of the Islamic Republic. In the picture, you show that the dome of our head on the left side of the picture, 

Unknown Speaker  11:25   

standing on the platform, and waving her scarf is this is really me that was really a very civil disobedience. But it was disrupting the hegemonic ordinary, because what we don’t have our head is doing this doing here is to put him or herself in the as part of the ordinary life in the revolutionary Street in analog Street in in, in part of Tehran. And on the right hand side of the picture, you see now Yes, Hussaini, who actually follow and then I have to say and recently that she was arrested in the recent protests. So in doing this, they actually put themselves in a part of ordinary life. But this is not a civic significant act, because it’s also disrupt the hegemony of ordinary, this recent movement is strong. I mean, not the gears of the revolution is straight. But the recent movement is Iran is strong because it is rooted in ordinary life similar to the goals of the revolution history, and takes it strength and energy from ordinariness. 1000s of ordinary women and men took to the streets of Tehran and many other cities because they are frustrated by the humiliating hyper masculine and hyper sexual repression. This is in fact this ordinariness that creates the extraordinary, this ordinariness, ordinariness is exemplified in various slogans, Song tweets, artistic words and photos. And I’m going to show you one of the pictures, you know, became quite public these days. This is a picture by a film industry worker, Nina rod, she actually circulated in her Twitter account. And in this tweet, she says we went between work to juggle the heartbreak fast and return. So this is actually this picture shows a coffee house or at a con in south part of an in a neighborhood in the south part of Tehran, which is called jebadiah. I have to say that God is actually a working class neighborhood. Those who are familiar with the atmosphere of the Middle East and Iran know that working class neighborhoods are not that much women friendly, especially in a coffee house, other mainly houses that are mainly male dominated. But here you see that these two young women went to that coffee house. And then you also see in this picture that the gentleman gentleman in the picture are actually busy with their own words. There is no sign of sarcastic remorse, there is no sign of staring at them. One of them is on his phone, the other is drinking his tea. And you also see in the mirror a picture of a another gentleman who might be the owner or another customer, but we seen him from his back, but he is also busy with his own stuff. So I think that this is the normalcy This is the ordinary thing. That is very important here. This is an ordinary that creates an extraordinary, and they also eat breakfast as if another era has begun. This is a this is another era This is another atmosphere. So that is very, I think this is significant, actually, in the face of hegemony. So many women insist on ordinary life eating breakfast in a coffee house in downtown Tehran, dancing, working, singing, painting. in poetry, love and sport. Here you see another picture of two young women working on the water again one of the in one of the neighborhoods in downtown Toronto called cucina V which is very traditional. So again, here you see that how disrupt their how they disrupt the whole hegemonic atmosphere. And this is another picture which is also very interesting for me, because it shows a man writing on the wall, if you are a man be a woman, hashtag freedom. So I have to say that, in fact, the enemy that the authorities talking about is life itself, the Islamic Republic declare a war with life by ignoring the everyday life and, and its hardships, including corruption, precarity environmental crisis and severe discrimination and inequality. But precisely because of this, it is doomed to failure. I think Here rests the power and popularity of the slogan, woman life freedom, it also explains the popularity of the sign barrel Yeah, or for slash because of by shaving Haji poof, I have to say that the singer, this is the picture of sharing a Haji poor, who was arrested only because of singing the song. But a few days ago, he was released on bail. The song, it’s quick popularity and the arrest of the singer all demonstrate the power of the ordinary in disrupting the hegemonic role. All and I try to say here is concentrated in this popular song. Thank you so much. 

Sertaç Sehlikoglu  16:34   

Thank you very much Fatima. The Our next speaker is Dr. Sumrin Kalia. Sumrin?  

Sumrin Kalia  16:41   

I thank you very much am I audible? This Iran protests has kind of sent waves around across the Muslim world. And the women across the Muslim world are actually, you know, having different kinds of mixed reactions. And I would like to kind of bring to light a few kind of observations that I’ve had from Pakistan. And interestingly, as always, we’ve seen that Pakistan’s context is rather different. In the case of Iran, it’s usually the the morality comes from above. In the case of Pakistan morality comes from below. And it’s usually the women who get prosecuted by their husbands by the fathers by their brothers. And it’s within the homes that this prosecution goes on. And this point, I was reminded of the case of Newell macadam, last year, she was brutally murdered, her head was literally chopped off by her own husband. She was not exactly a husband, she was at a friend’s place. And she actually it is, can be considered a high profile murder, because she was the daughter of the ambassador of Pakistan. And as yet the her murderer has not been, you know, put to trial to in a proper way. And the trial has gone on, and he has been able to evade proper prosecutions, and the entire year has passed. And during this time, many other cases have come up and men have been raped and killed and murder but mostly their own family members, under the pretext of honor killing. And what this makes me think is this hegemony that Fatma was talking about, it does not necessarily need the violence of the state sometimes, or the monopoly of the violence that the cepic requires. It’s the violence that somehow permeates the society. And then, and then how do you hold responsible? I mean, when you do a protest, if there is a state, at least like a civil disobedience, and how does a woman say, raise a voice against her own family, even she’s made to suffer these kinds of injustice and oppression from the very hands of their own family? And that’s where I feel like the question of hegemony becomes a little bit more more complicated as to you don’t have the right person to argue with and then I bring in the question of the women themselves committing violence against other women and acting as the morality police, the right wing populist women of different Islamist political parties, they they I mean, the kind of masculinities that they demonstrate that is also a kind of question that you know, is somehow difficult this to address, who do we then you know, go and talk to the these kinds of oppressions about. So I believe, when at this juncture, when these women, women from Iran are actually able to raise their voice, we need to perhaps ask these questions as to how do we confront these hegemonic orders that have permeated not just the state and politicize the state and made religion a tool of oppression but also the society And the family as a way of exercising patriarchal control. 

Sertaç Sehlikoglu  20:05   

Thank you very much. This is very thought provoking. I was just tweeting your question actually, which has delayed my unmuting. Myself process. So now we are turning to Dr. Yuan He 

Yuan He  20:19   

So my part I were I think I’m mainly talking about the China’s influence of this Iran uprising in China from a media and social media perspective. That is why I’ve collected some screenshots of how the state media, the commercialize the media, they represent like a couture kinds of institutional media, how they reported it, and also some social media and how ordinary people reacted to it. So first of all, the state media, this is a screenshot of when I searched the website of a Shinwa news, which is the Chinese the most authoritative Chinese state news on their report, because starting from the Philippines of symptoms September and you know, because I think this is where the instance that happened, and when the movement started to gain a power on the ground. So as you can see from this, I it’s not a literary translation of the titles. But as you can see from the keywords that popped up, the social movements in Iran has never been mentioned, even once in the Chinese version of the state media. So from in the past, over 20 days, I think most of the focus is still on the nuclear power, for example, the deputy from foreign ministers visit, and even the earthquake and very funny here, as you can see, on the right, they even mentioned the word wrestling championship, and the very famous Iranian athlete missed the bronze medal. They that even caught the attention of Chinese state media. But however, what is going on the ground was never properly reported in the Chinese version of the state media. 

And then we can have an English kind of a version of the media because they do report to different in different languages. And it’s a pity that I don’t understand Arabic, so can only I can only use English as a kind of a comparison. So you in the English website, Iran appear more frequently than on the Chinese website, at least the database. And the the ones the news headlines, that has stars are the ones where the social movements are or protest has been mentioned. But however, I think this really coincide with what Fatima said earlier, whenever such incidents that report, they are reported from Iranian states perspective. For example, two French nationals was detained or confessed to incite in protest. And also it says here, it’s a kind of the the West is using human rights as a tool to oppress others, for example, the Iranians people also here, Iran is accusing the Europe of upholding double standard, and also Iran’s lands, hypocrisy of the so called synthesizers of the Iranian people. And I think we probably all become the representative of that group that they criticize. So this is the reporting, I think, in more recent time. But going back, so starting from the early, mid September, you can see that this protest has never been mentioned once, in the first 10 days of this movement, by the state media, even in the English version. So but I’m not saying because because of the time limit, I didn’t really have the capacity to look into all state media, because they have like say websites, they have newspaper, also printed newspapers and there is also state, for example, TV programs, and not this is not give you a very comprehensive understanding of how it is reported, but I think it is representative enough of many of the focus and how how the Chinese state is reporting it and that will have an influence on how the Chinese like people are perceiving it, because the context in China is that the media is heavily controlled by the state. So and even if the local media, they usually have to follow the reporting policies set by the state, so that is one side of the story. And then there are very few liberal leaning or market Tyst so there was a typo here. marketized. The media for example, typing is one of them. And since in the past 20 days, they have written six reports on it in a more relatively subjective way. It is also one with the most trustworthy in my personal opinion media in domestic China, especially the main lead right now. And this also shows the limited reporting space for institutions analyze the media in China. So the next slide is my summary of the Chinese social media sentiments. And first of all social media. As in the West, I guess, most of the time, the information there is really scattered, because institutional media is heavily censored. So on social media, people rely on individual bloggers and social media to provide updates. But these like very short lived social media posts, they usually only attract very short lived attention. And when, and it’s usually focused on very extreme cases. So it’s not really a continuous reporting on the development of the story. No, there is no such a kind of a reporting or information kind of a channel for people to get back a kind of a follow up or understanding like that. And also, there is also huge digital gap among different people, social groups, for example, social media is more widely used from by the teams up to people like say, I’m 40 years old, my parents generation, they don’t use social media that often. And also, it is also heavily used by urban population who are well educated. So the rural population, and those who didn’t receive really very good education, they become on the representative in the social meeting. And then secondly, I think, in general, there is insufficient understanding about Iran in China, whether you can see the rise of kind of a geographic area or as a country or the religion, it represents what the culture behind it, there is insufficient understanding in general, even amount of dynamics. And also, but very interestingly, I think I had a casual discussion with Fatima when we met in office, people are making a lot of comparisons when they see instances like this, for example, they were surprised because, for example, a lot of these international platforms, Google, Facebook, YouTube, Western media, BBC, CNN, and The Guardian, they are all blocked in China. So Chinese people were surprised when they knew that Oh, because of these protests, WhatsApp and Instagram are now blocked in Iran. But that that was never ever. Like, that was never like, for many years, it was not even accessible for ordinary Chinese. So people realize, oh, probably there’s even more country in China than in Iran. And also, there are also especially the lip rose, I think, but I’ve also seen like friends, asking why. Why is the protester happening wrong? And why the Chinese are not brave enough to organize something like this, and why are we still suffering quietly? I think people have a lot of unexpressed opinions, especially during the COVID. As you know, China still is squarely under this zero COVID policy, people’s everyday life is still heavily restricted. So when freshman’s talk about ordinary life, I don’t think the people who are living in China at present is able to have an ordinary life because of this COVID policy. And also it also people make comparisons about internal politics. So if, say this Iranian woman, they are asking for a condom, say they want the choice not to well, the hijab. In comparison, if, say the Chinese government wants to liberalize the domestic Muslim groups, for example, in Xinjiang, would that be legitimized as a comparison? So there are some discussion on this aspect as well. There are also collective memories of past incidences, especially I want to draw your attention to this screenshot, because this is a social media posts that’s posted by some individual blogger to talk about how Iranian girl, only 20 years old who was shot by the police to death during the protest, and when I was trying to repost it, I received this information. As you can see, sorry, there’s a violation of relevant laws and the regulations or the Weibo community convention and the current operation is not possible. So you cannot repost the such information. Even there are individual bloggers who try to feed the information into the social media platform. Also people have this discussion about the strong state and the weak state in this case, whether it is because Iran has a relatively weak state that there are still some space for civil society, activities or social movements like this. That said there are also people who has also shown solidarities because people are saying that we feel you to the Iranian people, although probably they wouldn’t be able to hear their support right now. And the support usually comes from feminists, liberals and the non status the leftists in China because among May I think there is also this shared experience of controlling the policing women. And the women also suffer the most and become the bravest. I think this is truly a ram and also become true in China. Because if you look at what a social movement, there is no really social movement of any large scale in China, in the past eight, let’s say, at least 10 years. But the metoo movement has been going on still going on since 2018. And quietly for four years. And the women, a lot of women, ordinary women are talking about their experience of being harassed or being aggressive, being censored or being abused, which I think shares a lot of similarities but in a different form. Also, when we get news about the Iranian what is going on in Iran, we see this very similar blockchain style self organization, the protest movements are putting up is more really led by any political organizations or any political party, it is heavily relied upon social media and most of the people who are in the movement, the young generation, and as a result, as the movement is gaining popularity in the support, the wider society started to join them as well. So this is also a similar pattern that we can see from China. 

Sertaç Sehlikoglu  31:12   

Thank you very much. Without further ado, May I turn to Rumeysa Camdereli? 

Rumeysa Camdereli  31:18   

Yeah, of course, I, it is great to hear all the contexts and differences and also the commonalities between all the all our experiences as a veiled woman that is not accepted to be veiled so much in Turkey as well. It was an interesting period of time that I’ve been actually trying to understand more about the Iranian situation. And but through that, first, I want to say that I’m a Muslim feminist activist in Turkey and Egypt, Ban has been one of the most important issues that I struggled against, through my through being a child, actually, I, I was starting veiling in when I was 12. And I’m 34. So it’s been so much so long time that I’ve been in sight, this issue as a subject. So the band itself in Turkey makes it harder to discuss all these issues, because my connection with the veil itself has been because of this ban, mainly these days, actually. So if it was, if it wasn’t the ban, I don’t know if what kind of connection I would have with my veil. So the issues in Iran, we try to discuss as both the ban itself and both the obligation of wearing hijab is the same thing that’s mainly around the manhood and around patriarchy, talking about women. So that’s the thing that we are trying to discuss in Turkey. But interestingly, the issue has been came to the agenda of the political parties in a different way. So the opposition’s leaders has, has had interesting comments on their future approach around the band itself, that they will provide the law that will make it impossible for the band to come come here in Turkey again. So the opposition itself has been symbolized as a chemist and also one of the symbols of the band itself for some time now for the Turkish history. And so this kind of change has been an interesting change that I was actually shocked, but want seemed to or field to have it as a positive improvement. But on the other hand, the opposite opposition itself has been a, you know, not in the same page, because they, some of the poor political parties, leftist parties, said that this CHP, the leader of the opposition, is trying to be a right wing political party by saying this, so it’s not the time to say this, etc. So we’re after after 10 years of the ban is over. And after all those years of discussions around hijab now discussing all the issue, again from the start, actually, so we’re starting to try and to understand more about the agencies of hijab of women in Turkey, etc, or the other way around, and the political pressure of the conservative side of the story to religion is getting more and more increased. So it’s like getting complex in Turkey and I I hope that the resistance in Iran will also reflect to our resistance in Turkey as a solidarity, because we need so much of struggle together as the world’s women’s movements. And also, I can also have a little comment on the identity of cultural identity of the woman killed in Iran, and she being a Kurdish woman. And it is an interesting and important discussion as well, that we, I think, skip in all over the world about the issue where her death was something that’s also about her ethnic identity as well. So that’s what I won’t say, because, you know, the Kurdish issue is something that we all trying to discuss in Turkey, and we’re not really able to. So I think it’s also has a kind of division around the discussion around that that could be an important topic for our solid solidarity as well. So that’s from me. 

Sertaç Sehlikoglu  36:07   

Thank you very much. And I’m also very happy that you’ve raised the identity of Jina Mahsa Amini. I mean, I think that’s we might have I’m expecting a number of questions about that. And our next speaker is how shall I address you as HS perhaps? 

HS (Anonymous)  36:29   

Oh, yeah. Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to voice my thoughts on what’s going on with regarding the hijab. And in India, we have a very different context. The previous speaker was talking about a hijab ban in Turkey, and India, also, large number of Muslim women, especially in southern India, where the hijab ban has really erupted as a very contentious issue. The Hijab ban has become a very contentious issue in the southern part of India, as I said. So just to give a little bit of context about how this started, especially this year, in the month of February 2002, a dispute arose in a junior college in state of South India. And in that incident, several hijabi Muslims, female students, were not allowed to enter the college because it sucked, because they were wearing a hijab. And it supposedly went against the dress code that the college was imposing. So these Muslim female students were not allowed to enter their college, they were this barred from entering the premises, and some of them but even again, not allowed to appear for the exams. So, so the map to the matter went to the court, and the High Court of this, of the southern Indian state ruled that hijab wedding is not an essential Islamic practice. In other words, the High Court of the state said that the hijab wearing the hijab is not an essential part of Islam, it is not an integral part of part of the summit practice of life of fear of life of everyday living. So, so when we talk about the state or when we talk about how masculinity is how hegemonic masculinity or this kind of dominant masculinity tries to control women. In the case of India, we have to remember that there is this larger context of minority persecution. So the hijab ban is actually can actually be understood in India, with along with patriarchal obsession of controlling women’s bodies, plus this whole context of minority persecution, which has actually escalated ever since the current government, under the Hindu nationalist government has come to power in 2014. So with the ascendance of these, this Hindu nationalist regime, what we have seen is a systematic and persistent attack against minority communities be their way of life, their way of living, who they marry, what they wear, how Muslims divorce, what the how Muslims eat, what they eat, how they, where they go for the studies, what kind of mothers has they go to, everything is up for questioning again, and the government or the state, the majoritarian religious state or the Hindu nationalist state, in this context in the Indian context, is actually trying to impose this hijab ban in order to attack or de demoralize or de or demoralize these Muslim women. And the funny part is that in this all state machineries be the executive, the judiciary, the legislature, they all somehow they they come together in a certain way. So much further in this case, especially in the hijab ban case, the judiciary actually is actually taking upon itself, the role of interpreting Islam or maybe telling Muslims how they should be living their religious religious life or actually interpreting Islam? And how and how, and telling Muslims, whether hijab is an essential part of their day to day activities. Or in other case, there was another another question that was put forward in front of the court, whether offering namaz in a mosque is an essential part of the of Islamic life. So what is happening in India, at least, with the hijab ban is not just patriarchy, but also a larger system of systematic persecution of religious minorities, which only seems to be escalating. So there is his obsession with controlling the bodies of the of women of the other community of the of the marginalized, other of the complete other who are the other, the other eyes community. So there is a complete control of that, along with the state says, bad persecution of religious minorities. So so we have to see the hijab ban in the Indian context, along with this way. And it’s also important to reiterate over here that in India is not only Muslim women who cover the head, there are other communities as well which, which require women to cover their head in different situations. So the the issue of a job ban becomes even more pernicious, because there are other communities where women are covering the head, they are dealing themselves. So it becomes much more contentious, and there’s this whole angle of minority persecution. So that needs to be factored in when we talk about India. 

Sertaç Sehlikoglu  41:42   

Thank you, thank you very much. That was very important, I just want to kind of abuse my position as much as the chair. And to kind of state how in the most simplistic terms patriarchal ideologies are defined as having control over women’s bodies. So we have seen the kind of the same type of audacity to deny women’s agency and to claim authority and power or women’s bodies with the in the context of just hijab, by compulsory veiling, and by by bans over veiling, including in France, including in Turkey, including in India. And I’m guessing we’ll receive more questions from this, and I’m happy that you highlighted this kind of denial of women’s relationship with their own religion and claiming they would be ignorant, as if they don’t have any space to establish another connection to the god and as if they are following some sort of false consciousness. These are all kinds of important points, I guess. Now, last but not the least, Ala’a Shehabi 

Ala’a Shehabi  42:48   

Hi, everyone. Thank you, everyone, for all your thoughts and comments so far, and I can only sort of agree and listen carefully to what everyone has said before me, particularly Fatima, who I believe is Iranian and is closely connected and following what’s happening. I can just talk from my own positionality as a British Muslim and as a as a vahini as a Bahamian citizen. So I’m just gonna offer some thoughts from that perspective. You know, viewing the events in Iran, it from London, both from the perspective of the British Muslim community. You know, we watched as images of Iranian women, protests bravely in the face of police, and it resonates particularly as an Arab to the images we saw in 2011, and the Arab Spring. So we watch with tentative eyes and worrying concern over the potential response, particularly kind of the repression that ordinary Iranians face on the street. And I just want to point to the lovely essay that was translated in Jeddah Lea recently, maybe we can share that link in which that it’s it’s an essay written by some a protester in Iran, and in which they kind of describe the feelings and emotions of being on the street. And there was one line that particularly resonated with me, that was that you know, that being on the streets suspends all thoughts of death. And in that way, we begin to understand people’s relationship to that kind of militarized securitized confrontation and which fear no longer exists in the in the minds of those who take to the streets you know, I’m now there’s a moment of liberation that people live that they can’t forget and it changes collective consciousness and in ways we can only I appreciate watching from a distance through the screen. But anyway, and, you know, we’re seeing kind of as observers and spectators to this, we can only consume these images and, you know, and and wish and hope and pray for the for for the safety of activists and the women who are clearly fighting for their rights now from a British Muslim perspective, you know, we, British Muslims are diverse, they’re varied in their sectarian background. But it’s really about the question of the hijab itself, as an object and as a symbol. So in that sense, what does the hijab mean, and the fear that the, the the tendency to valorize, and obviously, where we should rightly support protest movements can be reused to possibly gone? The, you know, the far right, and other Islamic Islamophobic tendencies that aren’t necessarily far right, that are basically mainstream in the West. So without necessarily decentering the role of Iranian women, if the hijab becomes re politicized in this way through the burning of the hijab and others, how does that feed into Islamophobic agendas? And and is that the reason why liberal feminists and others who do within their own movements retain Islamophobic, then tendencies that are not intersectional anyway, to suppress Muslim women, British in the UK and France and others. So in that sense, there’s a sense of ambivalence, ambivalence towards the response, not towards Iranian women towards the response of the West to Iranian protests and Iranian activists. And then it’s worrying because it it, it should be a way of opening up a conversation, not a not necessarily comparative one, but about female subjectivity to choose who they want to be, and to where, who they want to be. So for example, recently French Muslim authority, sorry, French activists, were cutting their hair in solidarity or Israeli so called feminists, we’re also standing in solidarity with Iranian women. Now, of course, here we they do this while repressing Muslim women or Palestinian women. So the question is that there is what is the duplicity? And how do we address this? How do we maybe it is not the job of any women. But how do we address the duplicity in ways that calls out that the the repression from within these countries themselves Western countries themselves? Yeah, so this is just kind of being mindful of Gayatri Spivak next notion that, you know, white people really want to just want to say brown women from brown men really not really, it’s, if it’s if it’s about policy and women, they’re not interested, if it’s about women’s rights and Muslim Rights in France, they’re not interested if it’s about Saudi Arabia, women wanting to drive they’re not interested. If it’s about, you know, the arrests of the ending of the apartheid state in Palestine, they’re not interested. So it’s just kind of questions around British Muslims concerns around that duplicity. Similarly, within the Gulf, because the kind of this anti Iranian ism that we generally see buy from Saudi Arabia, from the Gulf from the UK and others. This feeds into, you know, the circulation of images feeds into that kind of agenda. So it brings up the kind of the fears and concerns are women rights yet again, being used as a fig leaf for a kind of Neo imperialist agenda that wants to continue repressing Iran as a whole through sanctions through possibly military intervention? And how do you come out? The question for us is how do we can we as as movements, calling for men’s rights? Do something that doesn’t get us embroiled in these geopolitical calculations? And is that too much to ask? From people simple, ordinary people who want to ask basic rights? I say that with tentative hooks, because, you know, we saw in the 2011, Arab Spring how the geopolitics then overcame these movements. I don’t know if this is the right moment to do that or not. But this is just the kind of a cautionary tale of from what we’ve seen happen elsewhere in Syria, and in other in Afghanistan, even where some of these things do not fall in with the geopolitical calculations that sometimes sabotage and while was they celebrate them, they can also destroy them at the same time. movements at the same time. Thank you. 

Sertaç Sehlikoglu  49:48   

Thank you very much. These questions are piling up. So floor is yours who would like to go next? I’m guessing I should turn to Fatemeh because there were a number of questions being asked asked Fatemeh, would you like to go ahead and then Yuan and it seems like you will be next because I’m seeing a number of questions about China specifically, you can also address some of the questions raised by the panel members actually. And like, there were a couple of points raised about the Kurdishness of, of the movement, not only about the identity of the victim, but also where the kind of uprising has started from the Kurdish regions. And also Jin Jeyan Azadi, in fact, is kind of one of the, you know, like one of the essential slogans of the Kurdish movement crafted, like, personally by Abdullah Ocalan. (Exactly, yeah). So I’m guessing you might want to start with that, because I feel like it’s one of the repeating important points. 

Fatemeh Sadeghi  50:54   

I think that yeah, that’s a very good question, actually. Because although Mahsa Amini was a Kurdish woman. And, I mean, lived in the small town of Saqqez, in Iranian Kurdistan. But this this condition, as is not much, I think, within this movements, actually, there are two things that I have to explain. One is this condition is and one, it’s the relationship of both of these conditions with the, with the whole movement. So this conditionals is actually very important. And so many Iranians, even bluebox, you know, Arabs, and even in central parts of Iran, you know, express their sympathy, because Kurdistan has been one of the regions that have been severely oppressed, not only after, but also before the revolution. So it is an marginalised province is, and so many people are actually struggling with poverty, and precarity, and severe economic and environmental hardships. So this is so because of NASA, because NASA was Kurdish, this added to the, you know, the anger of the people who are familiar with the level of oppression with the problems of Kurdistan. But, um, you know, here that was, I mean, very interesting incident happened, although that was I mean, this Kurdish identity and the Kurdish pneus was raised, but at the same time, it actually helped the solidarity of, of the nation. So many Iranians from different parts of Iran, as I said, you know, express their sympathy and added to, like the solidarity of international solidarity. I think that that was very interesting. 

Sertaç Sehlikoglu  53:02   

So it hasn’t been sidelined as a minority issue. That’s important. That’s the importance your highlight. 

Fatemeh Sadeghi  53:08   

Exactly. So that is one of the things that, you know, I actually, so many people are, were and are still worried, you know, about, you know, this identity and the potential dangers for division of the, you know, collapse, internal collapse, and division and so on. But I think I raised a very important and interesting notion that once you are on the streets, and now another future, even another future is possible, and even you start thinking about your presents differently. And that is the interesting issue of that. So, yes, that wasn’t a question of conditioners. But that question of conditionals was suddenly was put in the broader context of the sufferings of the nation being, whether they are Kurdish, whether they are absolute values, or whether they are Arabs, and so on. So and I have to say that the news of czar hidden another, you know, very deeply, actually impoverished province in Iran, neighboring Pakistan, the news of the coming of the zeigen. I mean, that was the news was that so many protest, protesters wanted to make protests on the streets of Xavi down in protest against the reportedly rape and killing of a young woman by the heads of the by the head of the military and police either, so the news came up and the people took to the street but before that, they were shot and so many of them were dead by the police. So this news added to was added to the this you know, the news of mass so on, so on. So suddenly, you see that the whole nation is grieving because of the, you know, because of being Iranian, in front of the regime that is oppressive. Whether you’re, you know, your courts, whether you’re Arabs, whether you’re a believer, or whether you’re from, you know, women or men or women, whether you are from upper or middle class or working class. So that that was actually a sense of solidarity. 

Sertaç Sehlikoglu  55:29   

Thank you. Thank you very much. Who i i can see there are a number of questions regarding your contribution, and I can see how welcome to and found to be much needed. So is it okay, if I let you pick the question you’d like to address? 

Yuan He  55:49   

I think many of these questions are actually related. And they are also related to the, say, social media reactions that I’ve shared earlier. But probably requires further discussion. So I think as we discuss, we have received one comment who says that while I’m texting they have blocked the building next tours and more fences has been brought back tonight under the sterile COVID policy, and it feels like the worst nightmare, but nightmare. But thank you for seeing this. And also, I think another question related to this is like, do you think Chinese are indifferent to indifferent to hegemony? Or is it just based on our instincts? So I think I know what what is what what this audience is asking. And I think there are a lot of discussions about why the Chinese have quietly suffered so much, but then no large scale social movement was ever slightly possible, or it won’t actually there are lots of like small scale social modes happening in China every year, if you look at some databases, because there are civil society groups who are documenting this, but most of the time when they happen, they will crack down before people like even in the same city can get to know about these instances. So there is highly controlled in terms of information and people don’t know even say they’re close neighborhoods. So on the one hand, I, I don’t really think that the Chinese are so different from other people in terms of they are willing to suffer more. And I also don’t agree, when say some people say that the Chinese are not brave, because Chinese the identity itself is such a complex term, for example, I, for example, the feminist movement has been going on very, very quietly, although on the very tight censorship for four years, and it’s still going on. So you can I don’t think it does justice to the feminists when you say that the Chinese women are not brave enough. And also there are other minority groups in China who has tried to fight unsuccessfully, I guess, look at what’s happening in Hong Kong, look at what’s happening in Xinjiang. I think it’s also unfair to say that they are not brave enough, I think they are very, very brave. But then, but the counter force is also very, very strong. So. So I think there is one question that asks, is there a safe and effective way of resistance? Going back to the point of ordinariness, I think there is resistance also, I think, a come from everyday life. And there are many, many different ways of resistance, it doesn’t need to be on the street. That’s one way of resistance, very open resistance, talking about it openly is the kind of resistance, there are more also more subtle ways of resistance. And I think the young generation is already realizing this, for example, if you look at the fertility rate in China is very low, because young people are not cooperating. And I see many young generation comments on social media saying that, if we can’t live a happy life in contemporary China, why do we bring akin UK to the to the society to experience the same thing. So I think that is also a kind of resistance in a very subtle way. And also it’s reflected in your everyday life. So I think resistance come in multiple ways. And I wouldn’t encourage young people to become matters. I think you need to learn to be smart and the resist in the affordable way I would say. 

Sertaç Sehlikoglu  59:41   

Thank you very much. Thank you, Sharon (audience). There are a number of questions immediately addressing Fatemeh but there is one question which opens up the conversation a little bit further. So I’m going to kind of bring this this one forward. This one is by Yasmin Huang who says I’m also very curious about this intersectionality and the uprising. Could you please share more about this in the context of Iran and Turkey? And if I may, I would be also interested in bringing more like Pakistan and India as well, actually. So just kind of further to think about intersectionality aspect, how are people seeing themselves relate, like relating themselves to the movement emotionally, intellectually? 

Fatemeh Sadeghi  1:00:27   

Yeah, that’s a very important question. Actually, part of the answer, I already said in the previous question that, you know, the identity here plays a role. You know, for instance, coalition is plays a major role here. But, I mean, this is the intersectionality mass, I mean, it was a woman who was arrested and murdered by the police, but who was also she was also a Kurdish woman. And that’s an intersection that is that that is a piece that appears here. So, there is this kind of intersectionality and, and you can see it in different versions, such as, you know, those women who are enjoyed are now in Baluchistan, Iranian marriages are actually, and this is another intersectionality, although they are Iranian, but they are also this, you know, they are women, and they are also by Luke’s and because of that the discrimination is actually an added discrimination, because of being a provincial woman and also because of woman. So in zeigen, for instance, you have this sort of, because they are also in Zion, and we have also is Sunni, like elements as well, and part of the Sunni elements, we can see also in in Kurdistan, so they are women, they are from Kurdistan, and they are many of them are Sunni. So these are the added sort of intersectionality that we see here. But I can say that, you know, yes, there is the intersectionality, which is important, but those even who are not Kurdish, they are not women, and also not Sunni, like the majority of the force that are, you know, also originally shy. And also men, they also feel solidarity with this moment, because I think what actually links all of them together is this element of humiliation. And this deactivation of ordinary life. So I actually, maybe there was a little misunderstanding what I said, but I will say saying about with new life as well, I actually saw so many comments that I mean, as one also said that there is no ordinary life in China. So I’m actually going to say that exactly the situation in Iran is that women try to, you know, to regain the ordinary life by emphasizing that, that this is important. This is ordinary life that is important. You know, dancing is important music important, life itself is important. And that’s what they try to, you know, say by the slogans and then the other 30. So, in different contexts, you see that this slogan is, is, is set, but in different contexts, people, you know, feel sad, if feel discrimination in one way or the other, but at the same time, there is this feeling of solidarity, because all of them, and no matter where and how and when they actually experienced this humility, humiliation, and they want to have life back. So there is this intersectionality elements. But apart from that there other things as well. So I try to use my concept of ordinary life, I try to actually conceptualize the whole filming. Thank you. 

Sertaç Sehlikoglu  1:04:20   

Thank you very much, I’m guessing Rumeysa, and Sumrin, and HS would also want to contribute to the conversation. 

Rumeysa Camdereli  1:04:27   

No, of course from Turkey’s side. From my perspective from my context of being a Muslim feminist and being a part of the feminist movement. I think we have given such a struggle within the feminist struggle itself. So I’ve been an activist for 10 years, more than 10 years now. And for the first two years, I actually wasn’t accepted to be a feminist at all. So I by the secular feminists, and also by the others as well, so Muslim Being a Muslim and being a feminist wasn’t something that was accepted so much. But feminist movement itself, actually, I think, given an important lesson that this kind of intersectionality is possible. But I think it’s not about only the secular ones, accepting the Muslims, but also the Muslim women trying to be they’re trying to present in the moment itself through its own stories, and on its own issues there. Like we have established different platforms, online platforms and association. So closely. So I think that’s such an effort that may need some mutual contract and mutual, you know, struggle throughout throughout. But I, as I mentioned, to be it to be a mutual one, of course, I’m talking about my experience about a month being a Muslim or not, but I don’t think we as feminists moment, we couldn’t give out the lesson to be intersectional, in terms of having the Syrian or refugee, other refugee women involved in the moment, or even the Kurdish women still are not really included, to the mainstream parts of the discussion. So I think it’s a huge process that we are trying to have this resistance in between us against all the pressures that we are experiencing, sometimes become something that’s not no, don’t talk this these times, because we have many issues around that kind of issue. But I think we’re giving a nice effort on that. And there’s a huge transformation that that I experienced personally, in the Turkish feminist movement. 

Sertaç Sehlikoglu  1:06:44   

Thank you very much. May I also add, again, I keep abusing my power as a chair, but I know remains. From the moment she was dragged into this politics, actually, by a very simple thing, performing something she designed, he’s a musician, and she was performing on the stage at her university, which on the next day, we’ve seen her on the newspapers and one of the circulars newspapers saying both hijab and playing guitar as if they have they have to be mutually exclusive with that tone in it. So in the kind of polarized contexts, even the kind of simple steps would do drag would like the kind of the question was about intersectionality. And I think humans are intersectional. Anyway, we are kind of multiple, we have multiple desires, multiple subject positionings, etc. And in the kind of polarized context we are dragged into into intersectional politics is what I wanted to add. Sumrin or HS, would you like to add any notes? Yeah, 

Sumrin Kalia  1:07:47   

I think I would go ahead. I think there are a few things that I have been coming to my mind first, regarding this intersectionality question. I mean, the example that I gave from Pakistan, new muqaddam, she comes from the elite group. In fact, even when it came to Pakistan comes to Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, she was murdered by Islam, this despite being the having the highest, you know, coming from the dynastic politics as we as you call it. And so, I believe that intersectionality, particularly in the in terms of class is important. But when it comes to being a woman, this class and AmEx somehow do not matter so much, and the women somehow continue to get prosecuted despite whatever class dynamic they come from. In India, for example, but yes, like in cases like India, if you’re from an ethnic minority, or from religious minority, that can be a different thing. But in India as well, when we go and look beyond the religious divide, rape culture is quite a common thing. And women are persecuted left and right. Regardless of yes, it does change the the extent of participants situation, but we have to remember that women’s movements and women’s activism, just like the same way women themselves are, you know, in disproportionately being subjected to different kinds of oppression remains a concern without just the intersectionality issue. And that brings me to the point of which Allah raised about the CO option of the women’s act, activist movements that we have seen, having, making it this argument of brown Muslim, Muslim women needing saving from brown men kind of becoming a reason for, you know, to use further certain kinds of geopolitical agendas. That is also another way the women’s activism are persecuted or oppressed or On a global scale, the spring there now, I’ve been trying to kiss my remembering about this particular statistics that was shared recently about to research. Our 56 countries 42 countries, women are harassed for wearing clothes, which violates secular norms for wearing the hijab. Whereas in 19 countries, they’re harassed for wearing clothes, which violate rigid religious norms, or like, for example, for not wearing, you know, for not wearing hijab or third violating do not disagreeing to wear the hijab. So the problem here is perhaps, on a broader scale, when we look at these kinds of protests, we need to remember that the injustice is, in general against the women and, and as more and more we go towards more insecurities and inequalities, the the, the women’s body becomes a way of exercising power over it, and then, you know, it becomes an expression of, of, you know, showing off the frustrations, and that are coming in general. And they’re there, I think we need a little bit more debate on what does it mean for women’s movement on a global level? And how can we, you know, find solidarity and move away from the question of the Muslim woman or the brown woman, and, you know, somehow be able to connect across these kinds of divides, and actually do something or talk about things that do not make it possible for other powers to go up these kinds of movements, and which is why I think India is an example, an important aspect, because it’s not just about whether somebody who wears a hijab or does not wear a hijab, or does not want to wear hijab, it is definitely about that. But it’s more about why do we find it so important? Or why do people find it so important to control women’s bodies and decide what they want to do with their lives? 

Sertaç Sehlikoglu  1:12:23   

Thank you very much. There was I think we have just enough time, three minutes to be precise. for one more question, and I think are going to look at Sebastian Garner’s question, how strong is the support of this evolved? There’s a vast majority of the population wants to follow up the regime. The question is specifically about Iran, I understand that. But I think it also gives us the opportunity to highlight some of the some of the elements about about the support to the revolt across the world, perhaps. 

Fatemeh Sadeghi  1:12:59   

Okay, thank you so much. How strong is the support of this revolt, I have to say it is a strong and so many surveys, and that say the scholarships and also numerous qualitative and quantitative data, actually predicted that something like this might have might happen. And what we see on the streets or somehow, although it’s completely different, and it might have might lead to other directions, but the this the, you know, the support of the Society for this moment is high. And another sign is that now there are high school children, the high school boys and girls who are chanting on the streets against the regime. So because of that, you know, we are actually I think that we actually entered a revolutionary situation. I’m not saying that tomorrow, there will be another revolution. But I mean, the People’s, you know, that there are so many added an accumulation of problems in Iran that the government is not willing, and probably is not any more able to solve. And that leads me to the second part of the question, how strong is the repression? I think, exactly. I mean, because the government is not willing to and is even not able now to solve the problem. And this, you know, pervasive sense of unwillingness. Everybody knows that and this is quite surprising even for the, for the authorities who are among the core of the regime. They also started criticizing the His way of approaching the, you know, protesters and all the time, you know, bringing justifications such as they are influenced by the verse they are, you know, the US they are Israel, which is not true, actually. So, yeah, I think that the level of repression is high, because because of the regime’s inability to respond to the demands of the people, but there are some, you know, short term and also long term consequences, or just to keep it short for short term consequences, I think that the level of oppression of women will be decreased. That does not mean that they will try other ways, like, you know, they might, you know, abolish all these, you know, police on the streets, but they might continue that depression in other ways. But in the long run, I think we, you know, we are in a situation that some on even on imagine consequences might happen. And I think that I think that the ability of the inability of the regime is actually pervasive. And but we cannot predict the results yet. 

Sertaç Sehlikoglu  1:16:12   

Thank you. Thank you very much. And anybody would like to add, I’m looking at Isla guessing she might have something to add, but I’m not so sure. 

Ala’a Shehabi  1:16:22   

I mean, we look on this is we’re talking about a state now. That’s that experienced large scale revolution over 40 years ago. And it needs to reconcile its particular mode of governance around what a theological state can do in today’s world order under very strict global sanctions. You know, it’s the most isolated country. By far that’s had the longest running sanctions economically. It’s hard to tell how it’s managed to sustain the logical rule for this long for 40 years without kind of succumbing to global hegemonic Western culture, for example, media, and how you can kind of sort of insulate society from you know, global trends and Western liberalism basically. So recklessly reconciling sort of this secular liberalism with a theocracy is something that I think is goes much deeper than the question of the headscarf. It goes really to the kind of the purpose and the principles of rule itself. And so yeah, we wait to see how the Republic either renews itself to deal with with that deeper question or whether it you know, it reverts to, to kind of older forms of just pure, you know, just repression to just kind of kill the debate off. But we know that Iran, this is my impression from the outside is a, you know, a very rich, complex country in which there are different political trends within it. There are different political voices within it, whether they’re allowed to speak whether we’re allowed to debate this question, whether they’re allowed to come up with ways of moving forward to either kind of embody revolutionary fervor on the streets, or whether to open up deeper questions about the future of the country is something that we all are waiting to, watching and waiting to see. 

Sertaç Sehlikoglu  1:18:31   

Thank you. Thank you very much. I think we are four minutes behind our closure time. So what I’d like to do, first of all, amongst the the comments, we have been receiving, I’d like to thank everyone. And the last two commands were from (audience names) very encouraging notes. So I would like to say you’ve listened to “Women, Life, Freedom: Irainian Uprisings and It’s International Impact” as part of “Takhayyul Nativeness and Emergent Issues Podcast Series”, which means we will be editing this live broadcasts into a into a podcast. And we are hoping to host you in our future events. I would like to thank each one of our guests very much for their time for pouring their mind and heart into this conversation that’s very valuable, which is immediately related to the very need we had in putting together a series like this as you know, scholars from the geographies we are working on my colleague here phytomer. In the meeting, use the term we are those who do not just have the return ticket from the geographies that we are focusing Mine were a lot more bounded and rooted, which is shaping up the way we are positioning ourselves very, very deeply not being dismissive to other scholars, obviously, but it has a significance and we are fully aware of it. And the event series are of course hosted by the Institute for global prosperity, who they are already hosting our project. And I’d like to thank Zisan Koker, and Hazal Aydin as well who have been instrumental in putting together this series. So, if you can unmute yourselves and and we can all thank together perhaps, to the audience who have been following us till this moment, at one point, we had over 100 listeners, we are closing up right now. And we have 60, which is a great number, 

Fatemeh Sadeghi  1:20:58   

and I should thank you, and also one and Allah and Zoomarine, and your honorable guests from Turkey, Rumeysa 

Sertaç Sehlikoglu  1:21:11   

And we have HS. 

Fatemeh Sadeghi  1:21:13   

S. So I realized that there are so many commonalities, and I mean, shared concern and common concerns amongst us. So, as Sumrin said, I think that we can do something about it probably. But thank you so much. Thank you. 

Rumeysa Camdereli  1:21:29   

Thank you all so much. Thank you. 
 

Yuan He  1:21:31   

Thank you, to you and thanks for everyone who engage with us. Thank you, bye 
 

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