There are wounds that do not heal with time, but by fighting for freedom. Fatima Hassani Ghaemmaghami lives in Rome, but her heart vibrates in the streets of Tehran, along with that of her sister Mahsa. While the West observes what is happening in Iran with detachment, she cherishes the memory of a courage that has the scent of the wind caressing her loose hair and the sound of squares regained for self-determination and rights.

We met her at our office in Rome while the news of the raids on Tehran bounced across the screens, to understand what remains of hope when the regime that has taken everything from you tries to take away your future too. Fatima gives us the story of her sister Mahsa and of an entire generation of young Iranians who have stopped being afraid and have taken to the streets barefaced to fight a tyranny that has lasted almost half a century.”

The umbilical cord of exile

“Fatima, you fled Iran when you were only 40 days old. Yet, the bond with your land seems never to have been broken. What does that land represent for you that you never experienced on a daily basis: is it an identity, a moral duty or memory that is passed on?”

“My whole identity – my name, my surname, everything I am – is viscerally linked to Iran. I was lucky enough to receive a European, French and American education, but my roots are deeply Iranian. In my house we have always spoken exclusively in Fārsi; I play the piano and love the music of my country, whose flavours I seek wherever I go. I feel a strong moral duty, being the granddaughter of a minister who gave so much to Iran before he was assassinated. Over ten years ago, when I returned to the areas where he was born politically, people still thanked me for what my grandfather had done to improve the south of the country. That is why I feel a duty to act for the future, no matter what. It is not up to me to decide what the fate of Iran will be, but I feel an obligation to do my part, in my infinitely small way.”

The January tragedy

“In January, during the protests in Tehran, you lost your sister. Who was she and why had she decided to take to the streets in defiance of the regime with her bare face?”

“My sister’s name was Mahsa, just like Mahsa Amini. My heart aches to speak of her in the past tense. We were opposites: me calm and quiet, her a true revolutionary. More than fifteen years ago, she chose to leave California to return to live in Iran; she loved art, ran a gallery in Tehran, and had not even wanted to follow me to Italy to study. She used to tell me: ‘No Fatima, I have to live in Tehran’. She was arrested during the ‘Woman Life Freedom’ movements and imprisoned for forty days. When they took her they smashed her septum and put cigarettes out on her neck. She never explicitly confirmed this to me, but I know she was raped repeatedly during her detention. Yet, her greatness emerged soon afterwards: when my mother managed to get her released on payment, I called her begging her to come to me in Rome, at least for a while. She, with immense courage, replied: ‘Fatima, as soon as my wounds heal, I will return to the square’. She was there until the very end.

Let me add a detail: my sister and I are the daughters of an admiral. Our father served under the Shah and, unlike many of his colleagues, remained in service even under the current regime. He fought in the war for eight years on hovercraft in the Gulf, he was a prisoner of the Iraqis… he served his country in an exemplary manner. And this, for Mahsa, was the thanks of the state.”

The weight of a historical surname

Your family is inextricably linked to Iran’s pre-revolutionary history. Today, as the Ayatollahs’ regime falters under the blows of protests and raids, do you feel that the Iranian people are looking back nostalgically to that monarchical past or are they looking for a new third way?

“On this point, the Iranian people seem divided. Those who are my mother’s age and still live in Iran often feel deep nostalgia: they hope to return to the splendour of the 1960s and 1970s, imagining that they can relive that era. I sincerely hope so for them. The very young, on the other hand, when they sing ‘Pahlavi-Pahlavi’ are looking for something totally new, something they have never known. Having never experienced freedom, they see its embodiment in the figure of Reza Pahlavi. He himself offered himself to the country as a transitional figure for a period of three or four months; in my opinion, the time frame would be longer, but I find it noble that he has admitted this time limit. Personally, I would not vote for him – but that is another matter. The fact remains that the new generations today seem to see in him the only possible way to freedom.”

The limit of military force

In my last article, I wrote that the rule of law is not imposed with bombs’. How do you, in the Iranian diaspora in Rome, experience the news of the massive bombings of the last few days? Does hope prevail that the regime will collapse?

“At this moment I speak for many young Iranians I met just before leaving for Paris. They begged me: ‘Fatima, please be our voice, tell what we feel’. On the first day of the bombing I received messages from all of them: ‘Finally, the time has come’. There was a joy that I would describe as heartbreaking. I vividly remember Saturday 28 February: I met some of these guys and they were happy. It’s an overwhelming thought: to be happy that your country is being bombed because you are convinced that this is the only way to change things. On their own they couldn’t do it; we had forty thousand dead, maybe many more. They had been waiting for a signal, for outside help for months. A few days ago, meeting them again, they told me: ‘Fatima, we are such a desperate people, so forgotten by God – if he exists – that we have come to choose the worst of the worst’. If there is something even more terrible than the worst, it is what is happening to us: a regime shooting at us while our loved ones risk dying under the bombs because, unfortunately, not all bombing is ‘intelligent’.”

The illusion of succession

Khamenei died in the raids, but the Pasdaran immediately named his son as his successor. As a connoisseur of those dynamics, do you think the system can really survive itself through dynastic succession, or has the death of the Supreme Guide broken the spell of terror for good?

“For me, it’s not broken at all. The Supreme Leader is a ruthless figure – if you can call him a ‘person’. His son, who fought in the front line of the Iran-Iraq war, is also much loved by the Basiji and the Pasdaran; he has a strong hold over the 30 per cent of fundamentalists who hold political and economic power in Iran. It is a power based on weapons and technological control: they have unblocked internet lines and can communicate anywhere. Apart from the figure of the Supreme Guide – who now appears shaky, like a wounded man who has lost his wife and children, however relevant this may be to such a subject – what really frightens everyone are the Basiji and Pasdaran. The widespread fear is that these bombings could lead to a military government, a regime that would prove to be just as bloodthirsty as the Islamic Republic.”

The role of women and sacrifice

Your sister fought for freedom, she fought to be able to take a stupid medieval rag off her head. Many say that the Iranian revolution is the only one in the world truly led by women. Usually the most oppressed social groups are the real engine for the revolution, do you think the new Iran will be built by women?

“If they will let us! But of one thing I am certain: Iranian women have immense character. I have had the good fortune to know several generations of my compatriots and they are women not only of great beauty, but of profound depth and culture. I sincerely hope that many girls, like my sister Mahsa, will finally be able to live free tomorrow. I want to tell you a very short anecdote about her. I met my sister when I was about fifteen years old: she lived in Iran, I lived here in Italy. Once, laughing, she told me: ‘Fatima, I have been to Kish, it is beautiful! I could take off my veil and I felt the wind in my hair… an incredible feeling!’ Then she burst out laughing again: ‘But it’s a feeling you experience every day!’ At that moment I burst into tears: why should she be denied something so natural? I am convinced that the women of that country – the mothers and sisters of all the victims, including those of the bombings that I do not condemn, and especially those of 8 and 9 January – will have great power tomorrow. It is rightfully theirs.”

The call for Justice: a new Nuremberg?

Let’s talk about international justice. Do you think a regime change or the establishment of an international tribunal – a sort of new Nuremberg – that would put the regime’s crimes on trial and finally name and shame those responsible for the deaths of so many women is more urgent for Iran?

“In my opinion, there will never be full justice, because we will never be able to know the whole truth. What terrifies me deeply is thinking about what might emerge the day the regime falls: all the information that will come out about what they have been capable of doing during these forty-seven years of terror. What will come out, to give an example, from the prison cells in Evin? I don’t even want to imagine that. I think the most important and immediate need is freedom. A breath of oxygen for ninety million people. But then someone will have to pay. Someone will have to answer to the mothers, sisters, brothers and fathers of the victims of the Ayatollahs’ regime.”

The dualism of the Italian left

Part of the extreme Left in Italy almost seems to be winking at the Ayatollah’s regime, a flag of the regime was displayed at the University of Genoa, in Florence immediately after the US attack a demonstration for peace was called by the trade unions, and a brave Iranian woman, Leila, stopped the procession shouting ‘where were you when 40,000 people died in Iran’. What do you think, what does the Iranian community in Italy think? Do you think that radical and political Islam is colonising and poisoning the Italian political debate?

“I believe that a certain left-wing party is making a bundle out of all the grass. I have seen the flag of Israel and the American flag being burned in demonstrations, as happened recently in Turin, in Piazza Castello. They are trying to identify what is happening in Iran with what is happening in Gaza, as if they were two peoples united by the same enemy. In fact, in Iran many are chanting ‘long live Bibi’ [Netanyahu], seeing him as an opponent of the regime. I myself am a leftist, I proudly admit it, but I must say that the Left was totally absent while my sister was being assassinated. My sister, for me, is the symbol of all the other thousands of young victims. That total and deafening silence was painful. I still feel a void today: a talking in vain, a not exposing oneself or, worse, an exposing oneself almost in support of the Islamic regime. I am astonished that politicians whom I have always respected can, only in an anti-American vein, go so far as to support a regime that in forty-seven years has committed all kinds of atrocities, without looking anyone in the face!”

The appeal to Europe

We met at a demonstration in Rome in January. After years of exile and long-distance struggle, what are you concretely asking of Europe and the Italian institutions today? Is solidarity in the squares still enough or do we need an act of political courage that has been lacking so far?

‘There has been solidarity in the squares, but in my opinion it has been little and does not affect us as much as it should. I see that by now even my fellow countrymen are tired of participating in demonstrations: something more is needed. I believe, for example, that the Iranian consular authorities in Italy and Europe should no longer be recognised as diplomatic bodies. I don’t think Italy should be actively involved in the conflict, but what scares me are the ‘mavericks’ – the fundamentalists who are also very present in our country – who could fuel terrorism. Last week I was in Paris and it was totally armoured: a scene that shook me. That’s why I think we need a much clearer stance from European leaders, from President Meloni to President Macron.”