Tara Kangarlou, an Iranian-American global affairs journalist, shares a message of strength and hope

Harpers Bazaar

Wenevًer I close my eyes and think of Iran, I return in memory to my childhood home in Tehran. It was a house wrapped around a lush garden filled with walnut, pomegranate, cherry, fig, apricot, and persimmon trees, tended to by our gardener Ali Agha, who felt more like an uncle I longed to hug every morning before school. I remember the scent of its roses – the crimson and pink sweet-briers my father loved, and the golden Lady Banks roses that relentlessly climbed, softening the brown brick walls of a capital that’s now home to more than 10 million people.

All of it reminded me then, as it does now, of the beauty that was and is my Iran.

The house and its garden are long gone, but the memories remain intact – quiet proof of the splendour of our land, our culture, and most importantly, our people. Today, that beauty is more vivid than ever in the Iranian people’s unflinching will, united across class, faith, age and ideology in their demand for change – armed with nothing but their bare hands and resolve.

As I write this letter to my Iran and its people, including the country’s 45 million women and girls, the nation is mourning like never before – grieving a massacre that has resulted in the highest number of civilian casualties since the Iran–Iraq war. Families are quietly lamenting the unjustifiable killing, injury, and arrest of thousands of innocent people in protests that were, once again, violently stifled by the state. What is unfolding in Iran is not only a crisis of repression, but a crisis of isolation, where voices from inside the country are cut off and grief itself is denied dignity.

Yet, Iranians persist – people who know what they want, what they have been robbed of, and how they can forge their future.

"Voices from inside the country are cut off and grief itself is denied dignity"

For decades, the Iranian people have been dehumanised – reduced to nuclear headlines, regime slogans, and geopolitical threat assessments, rather than understood as a society of no 90 million shaped by thousands of years of history, culture, and human ambition. Today more than ever, Iran has proven itself to be its people, not its rulers - making it a moment that demands listening – to Iranian stories, grievances, hopes, fears, and aspirations, and all that they share in common with people across the world.

Perhaps the most important step in supporting Iranians, especially women and girls, is recognising their strength. Iranian women are not victims, but courageous survivors of a gender apartheid that has long sought to hold them back. Though, despite this relentless repression, they have made extraordinary strides – clear proof they are not waiting to be saved, but demanding to be heard. Today, the streets of Tehran and cities across Iran are filled with teachers, scientists, doctors, artists, athletes, lawyers, and builders of everyday life – women who have forged a revolution of their own, steadily expanding their presence across every sector of society.

"Iranian women are not victims, but courageous survivors of a gender apartheid"

What the world can do – immediately – is to see, hear and feel the cries coming out of Iran, and to recognise how much those inside the country share with those living beyond its borders.

I dream of a day when I can return to Iran without fear of arrest for my journalism; when every girl can pursue her highest aspirations with the full support of her country; when women are lifted rather than restrained. I dream of a day when Iranians – men and women – are no longer longing for a “normal life”, but living the extraordinary life they have fought for, proven they can build, and long deserved.

The beauty, talent, intellect and vitality that exist in my homeland are unmatched; and if Iranian people are allowed to emerge from isolation, the world will be richer for it.

It is time to see Iranian women – and Iran itself – not through the prism of victimhood, but through their strength, potential and capacity to shape their own future.

Governments come and go, regimes rise and fall; but what endures is the pulse of the people. Today, that heartbeat is paying for freedom with its life. The least we can do is listen and recognise Iranian people – women, men, young and old – not only for their suffering, but for their power, agency and promise.

As one PHD student and entrepreneur in Tehran told me: “We are willing to risk it all to see change. We just don’t want to feel abandoned by the world.”

Tara Kangarlou is a global affairs journalist who has produced, written and reported for NBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera America. She is the author of The Heartbeat of Iran, Founder of Art of Hope, and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University.