Shervin Hajipour: Anthem of Protest
Shervin Hajipour (Wikimedia Commons)
Iranian musician Shervin Hajipour was born 25 years ago in Babol, a city known as “Orange Blossom City” located not far from the Caspian Sea in northern Iran. He started to play the violin when he was eight, different music classes followed. Before long, he started composing. By the time he became an economics student at Mazandaran University, he was composing for the theatre and arranging music. Next, he turned to singing, participating in “New Era,” a popular Iranian talent television competition. A very successful remake of a popular song soon followed.
On 28 September, Shervin Hajipour posted a song on his Instagram account with almost one million followers: “You wrote this poem. May it ease all your pain.” Hajipour had composed a musical response to an outpour of protest on social media following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa (Jina) Amini, who had died in police custody following her arrest by Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating the strict Iranian laws on headscarves (read our article “Women. Life. Freedom” for more background). Iranians were tweeting why they were joining the protests that had erupted after Mahsa Amini’s death, always preceding their individual reasons with the same word: “Baraye . . . (For/Because of. . . ). Hajipour took these tweets and arranged them into an emotional cry for freedom, a poetic song explaining why people were putting their lives at risk in order to fight for change – “because of dancing in the street” (strictly forbidden), “because of every time we were afraid to kiss our lovers, “because of yearning for a normal life,” “because of my sister, your sister, our sister,“ “because of women, life, freedom” - a long list of grievances uniting people of different ages, ethnic groups and social classes.
The video went viral. Less than forty-eight hours after Hajipour had posted the song, almost forty million people had watched it. 1.5 million had liked it – and that despite frequent internet shutdowns by the regime. One day after he had posted the song, Hajipour was arrested and forced to take down the video. This made the song only more popular, turning it into the anthem of the protests. People are playing it in their cars and at protests, they are shouting and singing it, they are streaming it on social media. On 4 October, Hajipour was released on bail. The singer is now awaiting trial.