 بطنی자�و این از این ایسه که میگاریدند موارتین اگر نب underwear اینده که این میگاریدندShow اینم زاویدند شهوره از اینب موارتن بارتن دب این کارنگی دائمین فرمینه أین از این دنید دارمین در این تنگه کارین... اینگر به ماسی بیر کمان و ده في تنگه ترد انگه برایگ صدیه ماسی and her husband Comby's told me that they were going to be writing a book last year. I never imagined that the book would be done within a year and we'll be hosting them tonight. So we're very, very honored to host Mase. I am reminded of a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt whenever I think about Mase, the former first lady. She said, a woman is like a teabag. You can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water. Mase has both been in hot water quite often and she's very strong to show for it. The name of her book is The Wind in My Hair and I really do think it is one of the most important, unique, captivating books which has been written about post-revolutionary Iran in the last four decades. It's for sale in the back and we're selling it lower than Amazon and Mase will sign it here afterwards so you should definitely buy it here. Mase, as some of you know, is from a village of 650 people in northern Iran called Qomikola. If you actually Google Qomikola, the only thing that comes up is Mase. I love that. I googled it today and only photos of Mase showed up. Qomikola is more popular than clerics in Iran right now. And she writes in the book that in her village growing up, things like ceiling fans and bananas were luxuries and so she's gone from Qomikola to Brooklyn to, in my mind, being really one of the most important and dynamic women's rights activists in Iran. What's remarkable in the internet age is that the diaspora communities can really become integral parts of the homelands of their mother countries and that's certainly the case with Mase between her Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and Telegram. She has several million followers and when I check the number she gets, she actually gets more views than entire networks, whether that's BBC version or Manitou so she really is a force of nature. From an early age Mase didn't like the hijab even though she came from a quite traditional family and there's a wonderful quote in the book in which she says, if it's so great why don't men wear it too? And she writes that she's the first woman in her family to have been arrested, jailed, pregnant before marriage and divorced so she's had a lot of firsts both in the context of her own family but in the context of Iranian women and several years ago I invited Mase to speak at a conference in London which helped to organize on behalf of the Aspen Institute for members of Congress about 20-25 members of Congress, Senators, House members and traditionally the conversation about Iran in those contexts is about enriched uranium and Hezbollah and Bashar Assad and Mase came and gave an incredible 25-minute presentation about her story and hijab and we had a fascinating discussion afterwards and there was a very prominent member of Congress who asked Mase a question, she was totally captivated by Mase's presentation and she inadvertently conflated the word jihad and hijab so she was asking Mase about the jihub Why are women forced to wear the jihub? And that evening we had one of the speakers joining us a little bit late and so he was getting caught up by another member of Congress and that other member of Congress said, well today we had a fascinating debate which centered around one question and that question was the debate in Iran حجی or no haji so he had said it makes up the word hijab and haji as well and so I think by now she has and I said the pronunciation of hijab is that difficult, imagine wearing that Exactly, but I think she single-handedly educated much of the country certainly members of Congress about the issue of hijab Our lovely moderator tonight is Nina Ansady who has written a wonderful book herself called Jewels of Allah and though Mase and Nina come from very different backgrounds as I said Mase comes from a village of 650 people Nina comes from one of Iran's most prominent families her father is really one of the most dynamic and accomplished Iranians I know he was minister of finance ambassador to the United States before the revolution so though they come from these very different backgrounds they in some ways kind of arrived at the same destination so you guys are going to be talking a little bit about that today so Nina and Mase will have as much time as you like for your own conversation and then we'll open it up to all of you and as I said we have books in the back cheap within Amazon which Mase will gladly sign for you so thank you again for coming and look forward to the discussion Don't run away after that, bye to book Thank you Karim John for the lovely introduction Thank you so much I'm thrilled to be here I'm honored to be here to moderate this discussion I loved reading your book Just such a fascinating story of politics, culture, gender roles the complexities of Iranian society but most importantly a very emotional story about the Iranian woman, her resilience, her hope, her strength, her courage so congratulations Mase and congratulations BBC Radio just named Mase's book as its book of the week this week so the accolades keep coming this is a testament to the work that you do Mase I wanted to open with some powerful words in your book from your mother okay so I'm going to quote Mase's lovely mom you write my mother used to say that the darkness is a monster a shapeless black demon that feeds on your fear if you are scared of it then the shadow grows bigger and it will envelope you and swallow you whole open your eyes wide as wide as possible she'd urged me when I was a young girl staring the darkness and the shadow will disappear never be afraid of the darkness but stare it down Mase you refer to your mother as a true feminist and that she was unique because she earned her own money and didn't rely on your father and then you speak about your father who was very traditional and really believed right really was beholden to antiquated notions of womanhood and that you mention how he expected girls to stay indoors and out of sight so not what you are obviously and that every time you wanted to do something like go out and play with the boys you heard it's not allowed now as a young girl it was very obvious you had a mind of your own and not only that you were determined to forge your own journey your own path which is on the one hand very inspirational on the other hand you showed that being born and raised in that environment you were not you were determined not to be beholden to the life that was prescribed for you as a woman in the Islamic Republic can you talk a little bit about the challenges of growing up in a household with such opposing viewpoints meaning you had a mother who was an obvious feminist and unique as you mentioned and a very traditional father what were some of the challenges you faced growing up in a household with opposing views like that first of all I said I trust you but I changed my mind I don't trust you anymore because I told you don't ask the first question about my mother it's going to make me really emotional but I said I'm going to read you the book about but I'm going to tell you when I came here I saw two amazing women and I hugged them I haven't hugged my mom for nine years I'm really pleased that meeting so wonderful people here including these two amazing women and when I was a kid I never thought that I'm going to write about my mother because my hero was people like Azar Nafisi and my dream was like can I write one day like Azar Nafisi you know wrote it to the rest of the world can I do the same and so here my dreams come true and my mom became a hero in my book and I'm going to tell you how my mom was not able to read and write we didn't have inside bathroom we were really poor so we had outhouse and it was in the backyard garden which was really dark as I wrote in my book it was pitch black even blacker than black and my mom used to say that I'm not going to take you to the outhouse every night so just you know stare into the darkness when you stare into the darkness then the darkness will disappear but if you let your fear win then the darkness can devour you so I had so many darkness in my life you know being expelled from high school going into prison at the age of 19 being expelled from Iranian parliament growing up in a poor society and two of my brothers were involved in the war between Iran and Iraq both of them got injured being a woman means that you experienced discrimination every day and if you are poor that means everyone discriminates against you so I had to make a decision my mom said that just open your eyes as wide as you can and I did that is the way that I made a decision that to be a victim or to be a victorious so I became the hero of my own life rather than be a person who timid scared of everything and I remember that my little brother was an example of all the freedom that I wanted to have because you know in the early age as Karim mentioned that I didn't like a job that doesn't mean I was an open minded girl and I was aware of feminist movement I was fighting for equality not at all all came in an innocent way from jealousy I didn't want my brother to enjoy everything that I was banned you know I had to be دوختار خوب my own dialect خارکیجا so I had to be someone who you know to carry all the most visible symbol of Islamic Republic on my body as a kid from the age of 7 the hijab and my brother was the one just jumping in the river enjoying you know the beautiful river in Qomikola riding a bicycle singing playing with boys around anytime he wanted and I had to stay behind the curtain so and I was like anytime I did something which I was banned and forbidden so I get like you know locked out my father put me in a room and then locked the door and my mom said that anytime when you get you know locked out is that correct anytime when you get locked out just you know look around and you find a window sneak into the same room through that window so I got expelled from high school I got expelled from Iranian parliament I got expelled from my newspaper I got expelled from my own country and I found my window which is social media I am there every day and I learned it all from my mother I was the one we had a black and white TV in my house watching all the clerics all the Mullahs each channel the channel all of them talking about me my body all of them so all the troublemaker in Iran is just women my hair was so important and everything so now I am not the one listening to the clerics they are listening to me and when I when I'm saying they're listening to me it means they know me by my name and they have different names for me they call me a whore they call me a prostitute they call me the agent of CIA the agent of MI6 Zionist agent of Donald Trump so I don't care as far as they are listening to me and millions of Iranian women I'm happy I am not the listener and that is all I learned from my mother so that is why I strongly believe that if you want to bring change within the society first of all you have to start your own revolution which I started my own revolution from my kitchen beautiful thank you Masi John you talk about in May 2006 when you visited Kharej how do you translate Kharej in Kharej that's all like outside of Iran the first time you went as an itimod and you saw women in the street wearing no head scarves and not being harassed beaten or anything like that and how the shock the initial shock of that has stayed with you can you please give us insight for those of us who were not privy to that mindset of what when you went to Kharej the image that you saw was it very different from what you held or was it different from what you had imagined or what you had been told it was totally different when you feel the wind in your head the experience and I remember from the 80s I wanted to be as free as Ali my brother but it's not easy it's not going to happen overnight for somebody who is forced to wear it from the age of 7 I always say that when you wear it from early childhood then it's going to be part of your body it's not easy to take it off and when you go to Kharej just take it off and enjoy it no there are so many barriers not only the government not only the law it's emotional pressure that you don't want to lose your community you don't want to lose your emotional band with your family and I want to say a story about how it was difficult for me even Kharej to take off my headscarf and publish a picture of myself everywhere when I was going but I didn't accept on TV so it's just I know it's hypocrisy but I needed my parents and I remember I gave a talk in San Francisco and I was wearing my famous black hat which my so-called hijab and my speech was against the whole system because it was during the demonstration all people were really angry they were really sad and I said that we the people of Iran had the fear inside us and now this is the government of Iran they fear their own people so now this is the time that the whole government should be gone and my speech went viral and it went to my village so my mom was just watching my talk on a mobile phone and shouting my father's name my father's name is Ali as well he was going Ali and he said look at my daughter my darling sister my darling daughter she still wears hijab and my father just came and listened to what I said and so he got angry which I cannot say what he said so he said that you're an idiot look what he said you're so happy that he has hijab and this system has passed so my father got really angry you're really happy that she keeps her hat she's just saying the whole system must be gone so for my mom it was not important that what I'm saying so that shows that this small piece of cloth became the honor of the family and everything in such society and that is why it took me two years even outside Iran which I could take off my headscarf my black hat and my media appearance that is why I always say that کلاهی که خود آدمی سر خود شمیزاره دردش خیلی بیشتای دیگران سر آدم کلاه فزاره you can translate it oh my god the hat which you put say that slowly the hat which you put on your own head yes it means that when you lie to yourself it's more painful than when the government lie to you when you don't live your own truth you know sometimes this is the government the law it's just you it's liberating to be yourself in many ways which brings me the piece of cloth that you mentioned which brings me to the next question first of all you're quite possibly the Islamic republic's worst nightmare and I mean this I mean this in the best most complimentary way and I correct you it's all women in Iran they are scared of me just because I give the platform to them right so that's what I was going to get to that you're giving a voice to millions of women millions of the hardest to reach women you know the regime tries to silence all these women and you're on the outside giving them a voice millions and bringing all their trials and tribulations to the attention of the global community at large Masi my question is out of all the gender discriminatory laws in Iran and the list of which we know is endless why did you choose the compulsory hijab as your focal point of contention good question first of all I don't want to show off and saying that I had a plan no it was just an accident you know I was the one telling myself that compulsory hijab is not that important I can even wear a chador and go to Iranian parliament and expose the corruption I was the one always saying that Iran especially the Middle East has so many bigger problems so let's solve bigger problems you know freedom of choice freedom of expression freedom of religion political freedom when I left Iran first my main focus was about human rights and exposing the corruption in politics and I was the one actually exposing the story of 57 people who got killed during 2009 demonstration my main focus was that so I had a personal story which is the press and doing self-censorship that hijab is not that important just leave it behind and then my facebook page became cheerless like a pool of sorrow sad news because I was covering the story of those people who were getting killed tortured to death who got bitten up to death after the demonstration so I got depressed I went out running in a beautiful street in London full of blossoms to me when I see blossoms and trees it's like Kolm Kola so I was enjoying myself I published a photo and to just you know tell my story to other people who are like sad like me that you know we have to see the other side of life so I said that this is spring here and every time when I run in a free country and I feel the wind in my hair it just reminds me of the time when my hair was like a hostage in the hands of Iranian government that was the caption and I didn't have any plan to launch a campaign I got so many comments from Iranian women ending at my freedom from compulsory hijab when at the same time when there was a demonstration in Iran when there were so many bigger problems in Iran so I learned from women that they want to talk about their personal freedom and it's important for them so actually this is important for us so soon after I found another picture of myself which was taken inside Iran me driving down toward my hometown without hijab and I published that with another caption I am a woman I didn't have freedom of choice in Iran but I knew how to bypass the authority and create stealthy freedom and I know if you are a woman and you don't believe in hijab you have so many yabashakhi means stealthy, guilty pressure and I asked whether you want to share your stealthy freedom with me because freedom is freedom freedom cannot come with any adjective and stealthy freedom which Iranian government made us to do everything in itself is not going to scare the government but when you talk about it then it scares the government so I was bombarded by photos from Iranian women sending so many beautiful photos that time I just learned that these women need their own platform they want to be their true selves they want to express themselves that is how my stealthy freedom was born and after three years I found that all the media around the world without any exaggeration all the media in the world name it even Kayhan they wrote about us for more than for four decades we have been censored but now around the world all the media they are talking about our true stealth and Iranian women showing their resistance so after three years I decided to do something like shift the online movement to something offline because this is the way that these people now can meet each other in public and identify each other in public and why I picked hijab for my campaign the reason was women inside Iran but for white Wednesday I decided because I found that through this small piece of cloth you can gather more people how? if you talk about custody of getting the right custody of child it affects some of the women when you talk about the right to travel to get a passport some of the women can join you when you talk about inching the stadium some of the women they're interested in this topic but when you talk about hijab you're not talking about those women who don't want to wear hijab you're talking about the whole society how? it's an insult to my mother who wears hijab it's an insult to men that you cannot control yourself and you get excited if you see my hair so it's an insult to whole society and when we talk about hijab we're talking about our dignity our identity and we talk about the whole society we talk about our bodies which has been taken like a hostage for four decades that is why now when the girls of revolutionist or women of white Wednesday they really don't want just fight against this small piece of cloth this is just the beginning and when we bring this wall down then the rest will get easier thank you you talk about a lot of obstacles that you overcame and I love how you say when one door we know what close you would find another way to open the door I particularly love the comical instances that you talk about in your book that you take a very serious situation and you inject humor into it one of my absolute favorites and I want to ask you is when you went up to then president Fatami and you started singing a pop song to his face because women in Iran are not allowed to sing solo in public can I ask what the pop song was and what his reaction was sometimes you might think that it's a brave thing to do but that's what I mean it was not easy because you sitting in front of cleric who says that and that using a lot of fat for and I didn't know what to do so it was just simple you want to know whether he ever heard of a female singing I just asked have you ever heard a woman singing and he said yes I heard a woman reading Quran I said no that is totally different now I'm actually asking whether you heard female singer and he said no and I said wanted to keep me silent and he did this you took a photo of a grumpy looking foreign minister that was not a joke I was really serious but I know you were mad but it was comical the way the overall message so you took a grumpy picture of foreign minister and you photoshopped a blue hijab on him and you put out disseminating the message that men should join this movement as far as you know react to that yes but I'm going to tell you I'm not doing that only to Jawod Zarif if any of you men here says that this is not important I really make you to wear hijab and sit for half an hour here and I think this is the only way you can make those men who say that this is not important to understand how it means to be humiliated how it means to be forced to wear hijab and I was sending letters to female politicians around the world that when we are fighting against a discriminatory law you have to understand that legitimizing this law giving power to the government of Iran to put more pressure on us so one of the female politicians challenged Jawod Zarif in France and saying that why are you forcing us to wear hijab and he said that this is part of our culture so you have to respect our culture and I was really mad I didn't know what to do speechless so instead of writing an article I photoshopped him and I said if this is a culture so respect the culture and then I didn't expect that men are going to do that because I wrote a caption that respect the culture and I asked him you really want to understand how it means to be humiliated and forced to wear hijab just wear it for one hour and I was bombarded by photos from men beautiful movement wearing hijab sitting next to their wives sisters, daughters, mothers being unveiled and saying that we don't own our women we don't want to force them and I actually received a comment from a woman saying that my father said that bring that headscarf she's just making a big and then bring that headscarf I'm going to wear it so the guy wrote to me that I gave my headscarf to my father and he just wore it and then he said that it's not that difficult I said okay so the whole day you're going to wear that and go and do the shopping and then after like 15 minutes my father came to me and said this is disaster so and he said bring the camera and send it to Masi she made my day by that comment and I published that and I asked them to send a video to me just when you talk about this yourself people can understand it I received a video from a woman and standing next to her husband and the husband said that I never understood I never had this feeling but when I wore hijab I found that how humiliating you forced my mother, my sister to wear hijab that video got 12 million views just google men in hijab Iran now this 12 million views supreme leader of Iran president of Iran foreign minister of Iran all together they cannot get that much views that shows the power of Iranian people men and women when they get together I want to make sure we have time because you want to give the audience a chance you stop me I talk a lot we can't get enough of you I just want to I can keep going realistically speaking this is going a little bit outside of the box so realistically speaking do you think it's possible for women in Iran to gain freedom to gain rights even partial rights I'm being very realistic within the framework of Islam look this is the main pillar of Islamic Republic of Iran actually there are three pillars death to America, death to Israel and hijab I strongly believe that each of us has our own responsibility I cannot overthrow the regime by myself but I can gather all these women together to ask for their own rights because I strongly believe if a woman do not let anyone to force her about her own body then that society never going to let the government to oppress her so this is really important for me and some people might say that not some people the reformist always want to keep me silent and saying that the same argument so this is a red line for Islamic Republic let's do the reform and then the right to choose it's going to come itself step by step I don't understand 40 years step by step never happened and those people who want to overthrow the regime for 40 years they have been saying that when we overthrow the regime then of course women are going to be free so for 40 years we have to carry the most visible symbol of oppression on our body and then we can help ourselves to be powerful and this is my job and now I get a lot of criticism that why you say that you say that within the Islamic Republic his job is not going to be it's not going to be and it's going to be a choice a choice so you make this issue political then you put women in danger and you make the government of Iran more strict this is a big lie as well because I strongly believe when those women inside Iran going in a platform putting their headscarf in a stick it's not just the headscarf it's the most visible symbol of oppression for 40 years and when the woman has the power to protest publicly then if one day these men and women want to get together it's easier because they already get united well you know a testament to your work is the recent Iran protest which women took the reins from that and we don't move ahead your movement which is white Wednesday she went on top of a utility box with the white scarf and she went there from the beginning when I published her photo I got goosebumps because to me she was the Rosa Parks of Iran she came with her own idea putting the headscarf in a stick which was amazing and she encouraged many other women to do exactly the same as she did and some men were doing it as well and the government of Iran arrested 29 women of white Wednesdays who protested in public and I'm going to give you an example of Shema Babay so Shema Babay got arrested and she was interrogated for hours and hours she wrote on her Instagram page she wrote about the release that I was interrogated for hours to admit to confess that I'm working for Masih Al-Inisha my interrogated said that your crime is that you're working for Masih and I said no this is Masih working for me and I was like you know this is the new generation to answer your question this generation is not going to ask for Islamic Republic you know to give their rights they are not waiting for compulsory hijab to be removed they remove it themselves this generation is not begging they are not waiting for the moderate president for the conservative president for the open minded one for nobody for me the most amazing thing is through their civil disobedience they do everything women in Iran they are told you're not allowed to sing but we sing anyway we are told that you cannot dance we dance anyway we are told that you cannot show your hair we do it anyway anything that we are told not to do we are doing it and this is the way that we find our own agency and I strongly believe that if every individual person find that they are powerful and they are their own leader then we can easily get rid of this you know oppressor on this very positive note can we open up the room to question and answer how do I ask actually this is the first time I've met Masi and I worked for the women's movement in Iran for some 30 years and I have to say Masi I don't know if I can say it without actually having tears that it is so heartening to hear you and to see that what we dreamed of is there, it's alive it's spicy, it's full of energy and also I totally believe in what you're saying I think one of the major causes of the Iranian revolution was what we had achieved for women prior to the revolution I think that it hasn't been paid enough attention to because women cannot be the cause of anything major but it's obvious if the Islamic Republic of Iran has spent all this money all this trouble all this time to just simply keep scarf on women's heads it's a symbol of all that you were saying sorry that I'm taking the young ladies time but we are of the same passion and for me she is a realization of that passion it shows that we're going to do it I salute you I love you and I wish you all the best thank you so much thank you so much my father was against you proud of that I needed that hug we never had the chance to learn about you when I left Iran when I had the revolution against myself as well I had to do self-education to understand about what we had before the revolution and you know we are fighting for something that we already have and I don't understand when some people say that this is not important I don't know how can I convince the whole world that change only comes through women believing women trust women because after the revolution only two years after the revolution the Islamic Republic of Iran actually started to to oppress women because they know that this is a tool to control the whole society so that is why for me when I pick up hijab I always say that because I strongly believe change comes the next revolution is going to be a women revolution in Iran just wait for the mic please I just want to know if Jewish or Baha'i or Zwasun women are required to wear hijab in Iran too You see we are so powerful yes we force everyone and we claim that this is not important we have so many bigger problems actually I want to European parliament and then there were this is really important story they invited me to talk about Burkini ban in France so you see it's not an internal matter and it's not a small issue it's really important the whole world should get together and condemn Burkini ban and travel ban but when it comes to compulsory hijab it's a cultural issue it's an internal matter it's required by law I want to European parliament