The “Woman, Life, Liberty” revolt
The tyrannical theocracy that has ruled Iran for four decades is responsible for a brutal number of summary and capital executions. Nevertheless, the assassination by the moral police in autumn 2022 of Masha Amini, an Iranian Kurdish student, for improperly wearing the hijab triggered demonstrations in the country by women protesting against the fate to which the power of the mullahs has forced them since 1979. This revolt, known as “Woman, Life, Freedom”, inspired Delphine Minoui – Frenchwoman of Iranian origin, born in 1974 and senior reporter at the Figaro- the novel in the form of an interior monologue, Badjens. Badjens means word for word, wrong kind. In everyday Persian, mischievous or cheeky.
The plot takes place in the city of Shiraz in the fall of 2022. At the heart of the “Women, Life, Freedom” revolt, a 16-year-old Iranian girl climbs a dumpster, ready to burn her headscarf in public. Faced with the encouragement of the crowd, and while the fear gradually dissipates, the intimate landscape of the rebellious teenager – Zahra, nicknamed Badjens– scrolls in flashback.
Badjens
From childhood, his father assigned him a subordinate role, especially after the birth of his little brother Mehdi, the one he had been waiting for since the dawn of time, “the one who appears to better erase you”. His brother was born on March 21, 2009, the Persian New Year, in the best private clinic in Shiraz. Each of Mehdi’s birthdays is celebrated with pomp while she must be content with more modest and conventional ceremonies, without any pomp, although her name, Zahra, chosen by her grandmother, is an icon of Islam, daughter of the Prophet Mohammad and his first wife Khadija. By accepting this choice, his father thus cleansed his sin of having thought for a moment of eliminating him. Indeed, the father would have wanted the mother to abort when the ultrasound revealed that the baby was a girl. Except that Islam, the state religion, prohibits abortion.
The father did not eliminate it, but we often forget it. One night, when she was only four years old, she was startled awake by a distant clamor. A stifling heat irritates his skin. There was a fire. She manages to run down the stairs as best she can. In the street, his brother, his parents and a few neighbors are gathered under survival blankets. Seeing her running towards them, her father exclaims: “Oh, damn, we forgot you! “.
Like all women, she is invisible. At the age of 9, he was given a flowered chador for prayer and a balaclava scarf for school. God always has an eye on her.
State television evokes the United States as the Great Satan, virgins are promised in marriage to soldiers in the afterlife. At school, they tell him all the time that gay people are weirdos.
She grows up, she becomes a teenager. She likes boys, but one day a cousin opens her pants and forces her to do what she doesn’t want: “On my knees, in the night, I obey his orders, captive of his desire, of his impulses “. She feels nauseous.
With her best friend, Leyla, they listen to rap, watch banned series on Netflix, dress up as boys to be able to go out into the street, with the tacit complicity of Zahra’s mother. One day, Badjens – a nickname given to her by her mother – was arrested by the moral police because her scarf had accidentally slipped off her shoulders. At the age of 16, she was caught in the turmoil of the “Woman, Life, Liberty” revolt…
In Iran, we repress, we condemn, we always kill people who dare to shout their desire for freedom. However, Delphine Minoui recently affirmed in the program “La Grande Librairie” presented by Augustin Trapenard, on France 5, that, in her novel, she especially wanted to talk about Iranian youth who demonstrated at the age of 16, of these young people who are certainly ready to walk to the end of death, but precisely to go to the end of life.
Finalist for the Prix du Roman Fnac 2024, Delphine Minoui delivers to us with Badjens a moving novel of learning and a vibrant tribute to the heroism of Iranian youth.
Delphine Minoui, Badjenseditions du Seuil, Paris, August 2024.
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