The Iranian Case
For over a month now (since the day after the elections held at June 12 , 2009) the liberal forces in Iran and part of the conservative forces in Iran are struggling for what they see as the right to have fair elections, the right to chose the path which their country should take. They oppose the dictatorship of the hardliners.
The ruling Ayatollahs (not that some of the Ayatollahs support the opposition) are cruelly oppressing the students, middle class and others who took on the streets manifesting. Read more here.
Don't mistake to think I'm naive enough to believe that only democratic people and liberals are behind the manifestations in the Iranian cities. However, the young people confronting the Basij militia, being shot, dragged, bitten and arrested are liberals and real freedom fighters. Each with his own view, which may differ from the western leftist view, is yet a freedom fighter. Freedom in its deepest meaning.
Iranian students are over the past 2 decades targeted by the most violent elements of the Iranian regime - and you can guess why. Their dorms are stormed, they are arrested and tortured. Click here for a good and very personal start point for reading on this.
Click here for some more on the students movement
And do not let yourself sleep calmly thinking they were just 'arrested'. You can rest assure these brave people were bitten, terrorized and tortured in order to make them an example of what will happen to those 'endangering the order'. Not even the parents loyalty to the system saved their souls (see this case )
Iran is a complicated nation. It is made of the historic Persian people, the Azeri people at the north, Arabs and Sunni Muslims (differing from the Shii majority) to the south and many others. Religious people live side by side with western like style city dwellers. It is a country with a long history of culture making and religious tolerance. The Iranian people were always sensitive to unjust deeds and rule usurpation. The young and educated people led also the past uprisings in Iran (e.g. the 1990's students manifestations). These are just another piece of the puzzle depicting the beginning of the end of the current regime in Iran. More young idealist will die. More non idealist people will die too - people who just want to be able to make the choice of what they dress, speak or do in their leisure time. More people will die for their demand to get accountability from their government - for knowing who really won the elections, what was done with legendary sums of oil money, how come their country suffer from poverty when their should have been one of the richest. They will all want to redeem a nation once leading the enlightened powers of the ancient world and now being dragged over and over again to dark places. The Iranian nation soul will eventually break out.
However, it looks they are gaining support only from individuals in the western left, their PC's and Twitter accounts. No major mobilizations by Left organizations were noted.
Read more here.
And Where Is The Left?
Have any of you seen a manifestation in favor of Iran's liberals in the streets of Madrid, Rome, Paris, London or even the 'Red' cities of northern Spain and Tuscany?
Do any of you have the slightest notion that till the Islamic revolution Iran had a strong presence of leftist parties who were forced to exile or "disappeared"?
What is that makes the left to manifest only against some things and not for others?
What is there in the slaughtered people of Darfur, the brave young people of Iran or the ethnic minorities of China that cause the western left to ignore them?
What is special in the dictatorship of North Korea that makes the left people to stay at home?!
How come the Spanish socialist government has not taken a clear stand on this?
How come the 'socialist' governments of Lola in Brasil, Chavez in Venezuela and similar have embraced the regime instead of standing by the people?
(for more details see )
The left as long ago deserted its ideals. Is it now deserting also its basic honor?
These are hard questions which resound in the current world politics and which will leave ugly scars in the history of the world we'll leave to our children.
I'm afraid the answers to these questions may be worst than leaving them unanswered.
Dario
The left has died. The politic parties are a sort of checklist, with some specific causes to mobilize people, and many people live the left as a sort of checklist (of clothes to wear).
ReplyDeleteyesterday as i was munching away at my falafel at on of the schick "oriental" restaurants in the middle of Vienna, i heard a roar from the main ring road. there was a demonstration going on, at first we thought its the Hungarian flag, but no, it was the Iranian flag , without the Islamic nor the shah's symbols on it. it was uplifting to hear the farsi slogans and to see the signs against the current president, but as i came closer i saw that the signs also said - America and Israel keep your hands away from Iran! i am not if this is a just a manifestation of a reflex , a kind of "cartago delenda est", but i failed to see why they had to drag the big and small "devils" into this.
ReplyDeleteat the same time there was a pro-gay rights gathering at the Tel Aviv beach(and Israeli beach like place, sported by the embassy) and on the other side of the Danube canal a Gaza pride rally in opposition.
all these events had some sort of leftist agenda and participation, but
what it demonstrates to me is that the left has completely lost its focus, as well as its reason d'etre in some places. the leftist ideas that were disseminated in the last century have spread so far as to lose sight of
their origin and purpose. the interesting question that i cant find an good answer for is: whats next?