The story of two Mahsas, the choice and the Iranian uprising, By Osmund Agbo
The story of two Mahsas, the choice and the Iranian uprising, By Osmund Agbo
Protest by Mahsa Amini in Istanbul: Photo credit: Ozan Kose / AFP
Photos of Ms Amini widely circulated on social media two days after the arrest showed an unconscious young woman lying on a hospital bed with tubes in her mouth and nose, blood pouring from her ear. Many Iranian doctors said via their Twitter handles that even though they didn't have access to his medical records, the bleeding from his ear smacks of a concussion to the head, the kind you see in those who have suffered trauma.
A few weeks ago, I met a young woman of Iranian origin who had come for an elective hospital subspecialty rotation in our service. As with Mahsa and others who preceded her, this has become more or less a right of passage for most medical residents, as part of their pre-graduation academic requirements.
I have always had trouble pronouncing Iranian names correctly. As a resident physician in New York a few years ago, Pedram, a Persian who was both friend and classmate, had a good laugh every time I mentioned the name of his country's president. The Iranian president at the time was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In Mahsa's case, I was smart enough to quickly link her name to another name that was easier to remember; Mansa (as in Mansa Musa from the famous Mali Empire) but without an "n", as a way to memorize it. But of course Persian, known to its native Iranian speakers as Farsi and spoken in modern-day Iran, parts of Afghanistan and the central Asian republic of Tajikistan, is not for the faint-hearted.
Mahsa is an American citizen born to Iranian parents who fled the country following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. After the fall of the US-backed autocrat and Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in February of the same year, many of the ecstatic Iranians danced in the streets as the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the godfather of the revolution, returned from exile in Paris. An Islamic republic, a theocracy built on ideological choices inspired by the Grand Ayatollah, was born. New rules have been put in place with strict respect for...
Protest by Mahsa Amini in Istanbul: Photo credit: Ozan Kose / AFP
Photos of Ms Amini widely circulated on social media two days after the arrest showed an unconscious young woman lying on a hospital bed with tubes in her mouth and nose, blood pouring from her ear. Many Iranian doctors said via their Twitter handles that even though they didn't have access to his medical records, the bleeding from his ear smacks of a concussion to the head, the kind you see in those who have suffered trauma.
A few weeks ago, I met a young woman of Iranian origin who had come for an elective hospital subspecialty rotation in our service. As with Mahsa and others who preceded her, this has become more or less a right of passage for most medical residents, as part of their pre-graduation academic requirements.
I have always had trouble pronouncing Iranian names correctly. As a resident physician in New York a few years ago, Pedram, a Persian who was both friend and classmate, had a good laugh every time I mentioned the name of his country's president. The Iranian president at the time was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In Mahsa's case, I was smart enough to quickly link her name to another name that was easier to remember; Mansa (as in Mansa Musa from the famous Mali Empire) but without an "n", as a way to memorize it. But of course Persian, known to its native Iranian speakers as Farsi and spoken in modern-day Iran, parts of Afghanistan and the central Asian republic of Tajikistan, is not for the faint-hearted.
Mahsa is an American citizen born to Iranian parents who fled the country following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. After the fall of the US-backed autocrat and Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in February of the same year, many of the ecstatic Iranians danced in the streets as the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the godfather of the revolution, returned from exile in Paris. An Islamic republic, a theocracy built on ideological choices inspired by the Grand Ayatollah, was born. New rules have been put in place with strict respect for...
Protest by Mahsa Amini in Istanbul: Photo credit: Ozan Kose / AFP
