{"id":33612,"date":"2024-07-05T10:07:18","date_gmt":"2024-07-05T08:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=33612"},"modified":"2024-07-05T11:23:38","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T09:23:38","slug":"the-mourning-diaries-of-atash-shakarami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/the-mourning-diaries-of-atash-shakarami\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mourning Diaries of Atash Shakarami"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Iranian regime blamed Nika Shakarami\u2019s mysterious murder on suicide. Her aunt pays homage to her and to the Woman Life Freedom movement.\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Poupeh Missaghi<\/span><\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once upon a time, not too long ago, Nika Shakarami was a teenager like many others in Iran and around the world. But that changed forever on September 16, 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Twenty-two-year-old Mahsa-Jina Amini died as a result of physical violence while she was in custody of Iran\u2019s so-called \u201cmorality police.\u201d Her funeral turned into a loud cry against atrocities committed by the regime, especially against women and marginalized communities. Protests erupted across the country, the Woman Life Freedom revolutionary movement was born, and an important page turned in the history of Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the helm of these protests were mainly young Iranian women and Gen Z. Sixteen-year-old Nika Shakarami was one of them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In some of the now-iconic photographs and videos from September 20, 2022, Nika can be seen, having taken her scarf off and holding it high while the scarf is in flames burning. With the united presence of their bodies in the streets, Nika and many others fiercely raised their voices to demonstrate their right to their bodily autonomy, to a normal life, to a better future. A few hours after these images were taken, Nika went missing. Her family began looking for her but were unable to trace her whereabouts. Several days later, they were told by the authorities to come in, identify, and receive Nika\u2019s dead body.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meanwhile, the regime officials fabricated various scenarios to absolve them from having any role in Nika\u2019s murder; they announced that she had never been arrested and that she had committed suicide. They released a video showing a young woman dressed similarly to Nika, going into a building. The video included a clip of a slip of the body of a young woman on the pavement as though she had jumped from the roof of the building.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From the very beginning of Nika\u2019s disappearance, family members, journalists, and human rights organizations, among others, questioned the official narrative and pointed out significant contradictions and inaccuracies. In April 2024, a comprehensive report published by the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mryxqWL69gQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BBC<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, based on a leaked IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) secret report, shed new light on the final hours of Nika\u2019s life, and her brutal killing. During the protest, in which Nika stood in front of a crowd and burned her hijab, regime agents had spied on her. She was arrested soon after the protest, and was molested by her captors while held captive and driven around Tehran in an unidentified van. She fought valiantly against the men, and was subsequently beaten to death. Her body was discarded in the streets.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The day Nika was forcibly disappeared, her aunt, Atash Shakarami posted on her Instagram account and asked people to help to find her niece. Atash is an artist with whom Nika had been living. On October 2, Atash was detained by the authorities because she had spoken out about the suspicious circumstances surrounding Nika\u2019s death. She was released several days later, but only after she and Nika\u2019s uncle were forced to give false televised confessions. Only later was it reported that the Shakarami family had been threatened with death if the confessions were not forthcoming. Atash remains under surveillance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite all, Atash Shakarami has continued to use her posts on Instagram to bear witness, in documenting both a personal as well as a collective history of the Woman Life Freedom movement. Her writings in the form of diaries provide a complex, double-layered narrative, first, of Nika\u2019s life as a victim of regime brutality, and second, of Atrash\u2019s own life as a survivor of state horror. It is an interwoven biography of two Iranian women, related by blood, from two different generations, each fearlessly standing against a totalitarian regime in their own way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The project <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mourning Diaries<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, from which the following entries have been selected, is a collection of Atash\u2019s writing since that dreadful day in September 2022 when Nika left home to join other young people in the streets of Tehran. Nika never again returned. Atash\u2019s words offer us a rare intimate glimpse into Nika\u2019s life before she became, in death, an icon of the WLF movement. They also present us with a picture of not only the immediate shock but also the long-term aftermath of loss: what it means to live through pain and to mourn, while staying strong enough to feel and think critically, to resist, and to bring all that such an experience entails to the realm of language.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33617\" src=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Nika-Shakarami-p2.jpg\" alt=\"Nika Shakarami funeral\" width=\"1000\" height=\"340\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Nika-Shakarami-p2.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Nika-Shakarami-p2-600x204.jpg 600w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Nika-Shakarami-p2-300x102.jpg 300w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Nika-Shakarami-p2-768x261.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/span><\/h4>\n<hr \/>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">October 1, 2022<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today was supposed to be your birthday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tenth of Mehr \/ First of October.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your seventeenth birthday, our beautiful Joojoo.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But on this tenth of Mehr, your delicate and wounded body will set out on the road toward your motherland so that you can rest forever in the slopes of Zagros mountains.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On Saturday the ninth of Mehr, we receive Nika\u2019s body.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On Sunday the tenth of Mehr, we transport her body west to Khorram Abad city.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On Monday afternoon, we are going to bury her in Khorram Abad\u2019s Salehein Cemetery.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You are all invited to Nika\u2019s final birthday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nika who is not anymore and is forever.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">May thousands and thousands of other brave Nikas come to life from the death of our brave Nika.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">October 9, 2022<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Time goes on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Life does not end.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But we will never be the people we were before Nika\u2019s death. Something has been destroyed in us and something has risen from the ruins.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And part of that thing rising is the deep sympathy and connection our nation showed our family in the face of Nika\u2019s painful loss.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You took our hands. And you recognized our beautiful brave Nika as the daughter of Iran. You mourned her loss and stood with us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We are grateful.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We are grateful with our whole hearts, pained and sorrowful, and know that what you have given us and continue to give us is big enough to hold us up.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We continue to keep righteousness and beauty alive, because we know too well that if we remove these two from life, life is not worth the suffering.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nika\u2019s beautiful brave soul will rest in that ancient, far away cemetery, because when she left us, she was brave and beautiful, and beauty never dies and braveness is one and the same with beauty.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-size: 14px;\">* I know you have been worried about me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If I say I\u2019m well, I\u2019d be insulting my suffering and what I\u2019ve lived through.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019m not well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019ll never be well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But I\u2019m alive. I\u2019m physically healthy. And I\u2019m in my own house.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">* The third picture is of Nika in my <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bones<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> exhibition. An exhibition inspired by the Zagros mountains on fire. And now she too is resting in the beautiful foothills of Zagros.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33616\" src=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Painting-from-Missaghi-3.jpg\" alt=\"Slain student freedom activist Nika Shakarami - courtesy Poupeh Missaghi\" width=\"900\" height=\"907\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Painting-from-Missaghi-3.jpg 900w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Painting-from-Missaghi-3-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Painting-from-Missaghi-3-600x605.jpg 600w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Painting-from-Missaghi-3-298x300.jpg 298w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Painting-from-Missaghi-3-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Painting-from-Missaghi-3-768x774.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">October 12, 2022<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I kiss a mirage and water boils in me.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I kiss a mirage and light shines through my bones.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I kiss a mirage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But no, no flower grows from my wounds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Humpback whales wash up along my shores,\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And the dark sun rises from my eastern lung.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today, on the 20<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of Mehr\/ 12<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of October, I turned forty-two.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Being born onto this earth is not a blessed event.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h4><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33615\" src=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Nika-Shakarami-3.jpg\" alt=\"Nika Shakarami 3\" width=\"1000\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Nika-Shakarami-3.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Nika-Shakarami-3-600x210.jpg 600w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Nika-Shakarami-3-300x105.jpg 300w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Nika-Shakarami-3-768x269.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/h4>\n<hr \/>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">March 10, 2023\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One half of this black cotton scarf Nika set on fire while standing on top of the trash can, and the other half remained with me, Atash, forever.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She liked wearing light-weight pieces of clothing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As if she was always ready to run.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even when she walked, she seemed to be in a rush.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Towards the end, I could sense her rushing somewhere and this caused me to worry intuitively. She was growing up, becoming independent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She was growing up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And every time I reach this phrase, this \u201cgrowing up,\u201d I feel my heart coming to a stop for a few moments, then beginning to pound faster against the walls of my chest, feeling like it\u2019s set on fire.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nika did not grow up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But she did grow and become mature, while she was still young in age.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She did grow, grow big and shining, turning into a star at the peak of this \u201cblood sprouting\u201d land.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First image text: I had bought her a bundle of simple hair elastics, and the one she is wearing here was one of the last ones from the pack &#8230; The loose black shirt, we had bought together, and she considered it her most comfortable piece of clothing &#8230; That scarf too, we had bought together. It was too wide. I cut it into half and sewed the borders again &#8230; I still have the other half &#8230; She planned to use the second half when the first one got ragged &#8230; I cut the scarf in half because the lighter and smaller this forced hijab, the better for her &#8230; When she left that day, she put on her eyeliner, put on her black mask, wore her lightest most comfortable clothes &#8230; And I did not know why she wore such light clothes &#8230; And her clothes were never returned to us &#8230; Nika who was so full of life &#8230; Nika, the bravehearted and the light-footed, left &#8230; with her small backpack and towel, with her water bottle &#8230;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She had bought those white, light shoes on sale.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You, with your courageous heart, with your feeble feet \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h4><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33620\" src=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Nika-Shakarami-4.jpg\" alt=\"Nika Shakarami 4\" width=\"1000\" height=\"408\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Nika-Shakarami-4.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Nika-Shakarami-4-600x245.jpg 600w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Nika-Shakarami-4-300x122.jpg 300w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Nika-Shakarami-4-768x313.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/h4>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">March 11, 2023<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the dailiness of life, objects are important, in the sense that they facilitate the life of the day. You buy shoes because you have to wear something to cover your feet to be able to walk without a risk of hurting your feet; you buy a lidded container because you want to keep your candies fresh; and you buy a key chain to put your house, car, and office keys on a ring to make sure you do not lose them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the dailiness of life, objects have ordinary functional meanings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But death changes these meanings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Death pushes these functional meanings away and creates new meanings because the person to whom the objects belong is not alive anymore to wear her shoes; to put her hand inside the wide-mouthed container, pull out a mint candy and put it in her mouth, and feel refreshed from its strong cooling taste; to turn the key in the keyhole and playfully say, \u201cHi auntie, it smells great in here, and I\u2019m so hungry!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In death, objects become important in some other sense.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Objects change their functionality with death.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You have replaced the mint candies in the candy container with two flowers you have brought from Nika\u2019s grave and you watch them gradually decay. Later, you find one hair strand in the unused half scarf left behind by her and you add the hair to the flowers in the container.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sometimes you place the container on your wet cheeks, and your muffled cries break the silence of the house with their waves of pain. In bed at night, you hold the bunny key ring in your fist and think about the white shoes that were never returned to you, and you whisper, \u201cMy dear Joojoo, forgive this cruel world. May your pains all be mine. You forgive, but I &#8230; I won\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The diaries provide a complex double-layered narrative of Nika as a victim of regime brutality, and of Atrash as a survivor of state horror.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":597,"featured_media":33728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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