The Girl in the Plastic Slippers: Pegah Ahangarani

The little girl took her sneakers off and put on the plastic slippers. The process of changing shoes from sneakers to plastic slippers continues. This process has been taking place since the birth of our little girl. Now that she has grown up, they forcibly removed her sneakers. Plastic slippers are not a regular item. Plastic slippers are the symbol of the Islamic Republic regime. Women and men are seen with plastic slippers at any location where there is any sign of the Islamic Republic.

At the beginning of the 1979 Revolution, the ladies known as the *Zeynab Sisters would wear plastic slippers along with their black chadors (long fabric worn by Iranian women as hijab). In any office or bureau the bearded men wear plastic slippers. The most interesting of all the slippers is the one you wear in the detention centres or prisons. This slipper is different from the ones you see in the public offices, and wearing the [prison slippers] is not voluntary.

Sneakers, however, are the symbol of novelty, freshness, movement, and running and advancing ahead of everyone. This is why young political activists wear sneakers. When Shahyad Square was “freed” (and renamed Azadi Square [Azadi means freedom in Persian]), Hezbollah militants blew up grenades. Some people were killed while others were injured in the crowd. Many pairs of sneakers were left on the ground. When in Amjadiyeh, the supporters of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran organization (PMOI) were first attacked with rocks and then live bullets, the carnage left scattered sneakers around the runnels on the corners of Roosevelt Street.

Not long after this, the slipper-wearing people launched an assault and took the sneakers off the feet of the children and forced them to wear plastic slippers. Prison was a place where the slipper-wearers hoped to convert the sneaker-wearers so that they think and act like them. The plastic slippers hardly fit the the [prisoners] because their feet swell from cable blows. As a result of [this torture], they were unable to wear snug sneakers. The plastic slipper, which is at times defective, supports the the feet against the ground. The slippers even sometimes leave its owner’s feet forever when the owner is hanged. During an execution, a pair of the slipper falls to the ground while the owner makes a final struggle before losing his or her life. When the owners of the slippers find their new home in Khavaran cemetery, the slippers fund new owners. Yes, prison was the place where the prisoner and the prison guard were both wearing plastic slippers.

Long time have passed. Politics have turned into a dangerous and apparently useless affair. This was when the mind of the Iranian replaced politics with the art. If working in the former was not possible, the latter was nesting opportunities. This time, the artist became the sneaker kids and launched a running match with their sneakers. They passed from Berlinale (the Berlin International Film Festival) to Cannes in their white sneakers. The slipper wearers were on alert; then came the time to take off the sneakers and be forced to wear plastic slippers again.

Our “Girl in the Sneakers “, who was accidentally wearing a green headscarf and wished to go to the Tehran Book Exhibition in the event that Mir Hossein Mousavi was elected President, was arrested a few days ago. They took away her sneakers and she is now held in solitary confinement. She is most likely wearing plastic slippers. I pray to God that her small feet are not swollen as a result of the blows by those who promote plastic slippers as the [correct and moral] footwear. I hope that her feet will still fit in the sneakers. I pray to God that she could wear her sneakers to the next Women’s World Cup and provide us with her reports. I hope she could run in the fields of arts, science and politics and accomplish her goals without worrying about the sherrifs and the agents, without fear of Aydin’s betrayal, without concern about the cheating and swindles of the shameless, deceitful man, without worry about the reasonable or unreasonble restrictions imposed by the parents. The Girl in the Sneakers is now in jail and we are looking forward to her release. Now, we have to wait and see whether our girl comes out with her sneakers or with the plastic slippers they forced her to wear. I hope that the former will hold true.

*The Zeynab sisters were the hardliner militant women who were imposing the Islamic dress code in the years following the 1979 Revolution. They were equally taking part in crushing dissent and silencing any opposition movement by attacking the rallies, and harassing and assaulting the opposition activists.

Written By: F. M. Sokhan
Translation by: Siavosh Jalili, Persian2English