{"id":3704,"date":"2023-09-05T00:45:46","date_gmt":"2023-09-05T00:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peykmagazine.com\/en\/?p=3704"},"modified":"2023-09-05T00:45:47","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T00:45:47","slug":"shirzan-sinead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peykmagazine.com\/en\/2023\/09\/05\/shirzan-sinead\/","title":{"rendered":"Shirzan<\/em> Sin\u00e9ad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shirzan<\/i> Sin\u00e9ad: A Tribute to a Woman with the Heart of a Lion\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Shaghayegh Hanson<\/p>\n

\n

The recent death of Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor hit me hard. She was my age, and when she first broke out onto the music scene in the late 1980s, there was no one else like her. I remember that as a young woman I didn\u2019t know a song could give you goosebumps until I heard her hauntingly powerful voice. She was small in stature and naturally soft-spoken in conversation, even shy. But her passion exploded when she sang, and her words carried the weight of truth and conviction. She championed the causes of the oppressed, both in her native Ireland and elsewhere. When the music executives told her to grow her hair long and wear short skirts, she shaved her head and wore androgynous clothing, demanding focus on her art and what she had to say, rather than on her sex appeal. She made a whole lot of good trouble and was unapologetic about it. I found her defiance and courage exhilarating and inspiring.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then came that moment, on Saturday Night Live, where she tore up a photograph of the Pope. I was in awe. She was taking on a mighty powerful establishment, trying to bring attention to the rampant child sex abuse within the Catholic church and the Vatican\u2019s efforts to cover it all up over the years. Then, when the audience at a Bob Dylan tribute concert booed her for it, my heart lurched in sympathy for that slip of a girl trying to hold it together on stage. The backlash against Sin\u00e9ad was brutal. Frank Sinatra said she was \u201ca stupid broad,\u201d and that if she were a guy he would \u201ckick her ass.\u201d Joe Pesci said he would have given her \u201csuch a smack\u201d if he had been on the show with her.2<\/sup> She was even criticized by the likes of Madonna, who had turned outsized cross necklaces into symbols of sexual imagery as part of her wardrobe. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember telling a friend how sickened I was by the cruelty of it all, and he\u2014a drummer and not Catholic\u2014shocked me by joining in the chorus of people suggesting Sin\u00e9ad had asked for it by disrespecting the revered head of a religion held dear by many. With tired frustration, I replied, \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t be saying that if she had torn up a photo of the Ayatollah Khomeini.\u201d He looked at me as though I were crazy and said, \u201cSo? What\u2019s that got to do with it?\u201d Everything, I tried to explain. His blind prejudice against Islam and equally blind acceptance of conventional narratives prevented him, and others, from understanding Sin\u00e9ad\u2019s underlying point, that there was a distinction to be made between religion and its manipulation by wrongdoers. She believed \u201cthat the people running the show [the Vatican, church officials] are misrepresenting what Catholicism actually is ….,\u201d a sentiment that is all too familiar to Muslims inside and outside of Iran having to shoulder the blame for horrible acts done in the name of Islam.\u00a0<\/span><\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, years later, in a 2010 interview with The Independent<\/i> newspaper, Sin\u00e9ad said, \u201cPeople under 40 don\u2019t understand what Ireland was like. It was a theocracy, like Iran, slightly less potent but the same situation. The photo of the pope I ripped up was one that had been on my mother\u2019s bedroom wall for 25 years. I took it when she died.\u201d3<\/sup> Sin\u00e9ad\u2019s mother had been taught in Catholic schools that any type of misbehavior was a \u201csin\u201d punishable by, as Sin\u00e9ad said it, \u201chaving the shit kicked out of you.\u201d3<\/sup> In turn, her psychotic mother physically and emotionally abused Sin\u00e9ad as a child in a similarly prescriptive way. At the time, the Catholic church\u2019s power over, and stranglehold on, women\u2019s rights in Ireland was wide-ranging, including a total ban on abortion. Sin\u00e9ad experienced this kind of institutionalized religion first-hand as a teenager, when she was placed in a Catholic-run reform school for \u201cfallen women\u201d after she was caught shoplifting<\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite everything, Sin\u00e9ad never lost her faith and, in an interesting twist, she converted to Islam in 2018, explaining how she had \u201cstarted studying scriptures from different religions, trying to find the \u2018truth\u2019 about God\u201d\u2014she \u201cleft Islam until last because I had so much prejudice about Islam. But then when I started reading, and I read just chapter two alone of the Quran, and I realized, \u2018Oh my God, I am home.\u2019 I had been a Muslim all my life and didn\u2019t realize it.\u201d4<\/sup>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, Sin\u00e9ad holds hero status in Ireland. Among other things, her outspokenness against the Pope encouraged abuse victims to come forward and hold the church accountable. She forged a path through all the death threats she received, the insults that were thrown at her, and even the loss of a burgeoning career. As an Iranian woman, I felt a sisterhood with her. She was a true Shirzan<\/i>, standing up to a powerful Catholic institution, in the same vein that Iranian women are standing up to the Islamic regime in Iran. She was, and will always be, Shirzan<\/i> Sin\u00e9ad to me<\/p>\n

\n

1- Literally meaning \u201clion woman,\u201d or \u201clioness,\u201d indicating bravery and inner strength.<\/span>
\n2- https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-features\/sinead-oconnor-catholic-church-abuse-legacy-1234797102\/
\n<\/span>3- https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2010\/sep\/10\/sinead-oconnor-pope-visit
\n4-https:\/\/www.thenationalnews.com\/arts-culture\/music\/sinead-o-connor-i-had-been-a-muslim-all-my-life-and-didn-t-realise-it-i-am-home-1.907708<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shirzan Sin\u00e9ad: A Tribute to a Woman with the Heart of a Lion\u00a0 Shaghayegh Hanson The recent death of Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor hit me hard. She was my age, and when she first broke out onto the music scene in the late 1980s, there was no one else like her. I remember that as a young<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nShirzan Sin\u00e9ad - Peyk Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/peykmagazine.com\/en\/2023\/09\/05\/shirzan-sinead\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shirzan Sin\u00e9ad - Peyk Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Shirzan Sin\u00e9ad: A Tribute to a Woman with the Heart of a Lion\u00a0 Shaghayegh Hanson The recent death of Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor hit me hard. 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