From Anarchist Front (telegram)
January 4, 2026
A Leaderless Uprising: The Complete Denial of All Imposed Authority
In the heart of this leaderless uprising, where the streets are stained with blood and unstoppable screams, the Woman, Life, Freedom movement is not a top-down, organized movement, but an explosion of the accumulated anger of generations who have broken free from every chain. This movement is radical because it is rooted in the complete negation of any imposed authority; it rejects not only the Islamic regime but also every form of hierarchical domination. There is no savior here, no crown, no Supreme Leader or prince to come from the outside and set the direction. Real power is in the bare hands of women, youth, workers, and the marginalized, who have risen up against all structures of oppression without intermediaries, without a pre-written program.
But it is this uncompromising radicalism that frightens some. The monarchists, these wandering ghosts of the past, have entered the fray with their old tricks to harness this unbridled fire for their own benefit. By falsifying history, spreading lies in their affiliated media, and misappropriating the slogans of the streets, they are trying to steer the movement toward a nostalgic return to the Pahlavi era. They claim the Lion and Sun flag is a symbol of unity, while knowing it is a reminder for many of another dictatorship, one that laid the groundwork for the 1979 revolution with SAVAK and repression. From abroad, with dubious foreign support, they launch campaigns, forge charters, and call themselves leaders, but they are nowhere to be found in the real streets of Iran, where bullets are fired and batons are broken.
These tactics are neither new nor hidden. From the very first days of the Jina uprising, monarchist groups and supporters of Reza Pahlavi have tried to hijack the movement, exploiting the bloodshed for personal gain. They turn the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom,” which arose from the heart of Kurdistan and was the most radical negation of patriarchy and tyranny, into a tool to promote a return to a hereditary system. They lie that this movement is leaderless and needs a leader, when this very lack of leadership is its real power: a living, spontaneous anarchy with no center to be suppressed.
We who breathe this air know that any attempt to steer the movement toward a hierarchical alternative
(whether monarchical or a bureaucratic republican one) is a betrayal of its radical spirit. Our movement seeks neither a new king nor a new regent. We seek the complete destruction of the power pyramid: from the bottom up, with local councils, with autonomous strikes, with horizontal solidarity where no one stands above anyone else. The monarchists with their lies (from fabricating popular support to media scenarios) only prove that they are part of the same authoritarian system; they have just changed their clothes.
This movement will live on because it is rooted in real freedom, not in the illusion of a return to the past. Anyone who tries to tame it, whether with a crown or the robes of opposition, will be crushed by the wave of wisdom. The streets belong to us, not to the ghosts of the past. Woman, Life, Freedom; not for a new system, but for a world without systems.
Photo from Abadan, Iran, January 7, 2026
Add new comment