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To Be a Voice To be a voice A study of exiled Iranian activists in Norway Helen Hillevi Ruud Communication for Development One-year master 15 Credits Autumn semester 2018 Supervisor: Anders Høg Hansen Ackowledgments: Thanks to Malmö University for the possibility to take a Master’s degree online, part time, in a field that lets me combine my interests in communication and in development. Thanks to my supervisor, Anders Høg Hansen, and to the rest of the ComDev staff. A big thank you to all the informants who contributed to this study. Abstract: Social media and increased transnational communication has given new life to activism for social change in Iran. As seen in the Iranian Green Movement in 2009, the introduction of social media gave new possibilities for activism across borders. Activists in the diaspora have been significant contributors in social and politicial movements in Iran, such as the Green Movement in 2009 and the more recent My Stealthy Freedom. This master thesis investigates the role of the diaspora in promoting social change in Iran, with Iranian exiled activists in Norway as a case study. Through in-depth interviews with prominent key activists and grassroot activists in Norway, supported by existing theories on diaspora, transnationalism and polymedia, this study explores how, and through which media, activists in exile in Norway contribute as intermediaries to build leverage against Iran’s regime. The study also asks whether the activists, in this «role», experience a gap between themselves and their contacts in Iran, and to what extent their activism has a clear long term perspective or aspiration. This study finds that the fragmented character of the Iranian diaspora in Norway as well as the situation of being in exile affects in different ways how activism is practised. Big actors such as Iran Human Rights seem to have a more prominent voice than others. A common feature for all activists in this study is a generally positive view for the future of Iran in terms of social change. Key words: activism, exile, Iranian diaspora, transnationalism, polymedia, Iran Human Rights Table of Contents Preface .................................................................................................................................................. 6 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 7 Background: The role of the Iranian diaspora in transnational activism ............................................. 8 Why Norway? .................................................................................................................................... 10 Context and theory ............................................................................................................................. 12 Transnational networks and activism ....................................................................................... 12 Mirca Madianou: Transnational communication and polymedia ............................................. 14 The Iranian diaspora – a heterogeneous community ................................................................ 15 The relationship between online and offline activities ............................................................. 16 The relationship between the local and the transnational ........................................................ 17 Methodology ...................................................................................................................................... 19 Findings and analysis ......................................................................................................................... 21 The Iranian diaspora in Norway ............................................................................................... 21 Iran Human Rights ................................................................................................................... 23 To be a voice: demonstrations and radio debates ..................................................................... 24 Writing for awareness: the journalist and the poet ................................................................... 26 Transnational activism and the theory of polymedia ............................................................... 27 A narrowing gap? ..................................................................................................................... 29 The conditions for activism ...................................................................................................... 30 Future aspirations and perspective ........................................................................................... 33 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 34 ”I hate the word exile. Exile is a title that means you cannot make your home in a different place. It means you introduce yourself with borders, not with yourself as a human being, not with your words or your poetry. Everywhere I live is my home.” Asieh Amini Preface My interest for Iran began when I worked as a volunteer for the Red Cross in my home town in Norway in 2009. I was in charge of organizing activities for asylum seekers, and at that time Norway had received a high number of asylum seekers from Afghanistan, as well as a relatively high number from Iran, among other countries. Later I continued this work as an activity leader and information consultant for a reception centre for asylum seekers. What first caught my attention was the Persian language. Being a language enthusiast (and journalist) I became interested in the language because of its beautiful sound. A few years later I completed an introduction course in Persian at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. Another reason for my interest in Iran is connected to my interest in the country’s growing movement for women’s rights. I became familiar with the online social movement My Stealthy Freedom, started by Iranian expat activist and journalist Masih Alinejad, in where women in Iran take pictures of themselves wearing no hijab (hijab is compulsory for women) and post them online. I learned that, despite strict authoritarian laws towards women in Iran, something is now in motion. My Stealthy Freedom fostered a similar campaign, #WhiteWednesdays, in where women take pictures of themselves wearing white or no hijabs and get them posted on Facebook. Then, during the uprisings in Iran in late 2017 and January 2018, a woman tied a white hijab on a stick and waved it in the air on Revolution Street in Tehran. This symbolic gesture for women’s rights was copied by women across the country and the movement flourished on social media under the hashtag #GirlsOfRevolutionStreet. It received international attention, and when the news reached Norway, one my informants for this degree project was interviewed. His words about the movement were promising: «What we see now is the beginning of a civil movement that I think will become something very big». Introduction Morley and Robins put it well when citing the 1986 Commision of the European Communities that new media technologies «seem to make a mockery of borders and frontiers» (Morley and Robins, 1995, p. 176). As seen in the Iranian Green Movement in 2009, when protests broke out in Iran after the presidential election, the introduction of new media has opened up new ways for activists in Iran to promote social change and human rights in the country (Elson et al., 2012) both inside Iran as well as to the international community. The Green Movement is a frequent example of one of the first social movements that demonstrate the significance of new media in such movements. New media enables communication to take place beyond borders and make international solidarity easier and quicker (Aday et al, 2010, p. 24). Activists inside Iran and Iranians in the diaspora are connected online despite the restrictions imposed by the Iranian government (Tufecki, 2017). Moreover, new media implies a function that exceeds the purpose of activism, as Iranians in the diaspora also use social media «as a tool to connect with their roots to the Iranian society» (Khonsari, 2014). Social movements or campaigns such as My Stealthy Freedom can be called «extentions» of the protests that occured during the movement in 2009 (Koo, 2016, p. 145). Because women’s rights were part of the agenda in the Green Movement, many women activists were forced to leave the country. Furthermore, My Stealthy Freedom, and the campaigns that later have emerged from it (such as White Wednesdays and #GirlsOfRevolutionStreet) are all recent examples of how social media is used in activism in the Islamic Republic and supported and extended by the Iranian diasporas. Activists in exile play a significant role in what could be called a growing civil advocacy for social change in Iran. Marcus Michaelsen is a researcher with a PhD in Media and Communication studies with a dissertation on Internet’s role for political change in Iran. He states that: «Exiled activists engaged for political change and human rights in Iran often act as intermediaries channeling information and expertise to and from the borders in order to bypass and build up leverage against authoritarian politics of control and repression.» (Michaelsen, 2016) With this description as a starting point, this study aims to examine the role of the diaspora in activism for social
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