Iran In Flaming Dissent
The world watches, fascinated, aghast and hopeful. Fascinated at the events that have slowly built from a botched election and a disaffected society that have brought things to a head with an unofficial opposition to the clerical and brutal administration of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Protesters now being drawn out in hundreds of thousands-strong to confront a government they mistrust and detest. Aghast at the reaction of a fearful government, prepared to mount a bloody attack upon their citizens. Hopeful that the power of the people will prevail.It has done so before, under the Shah of Iran who was thought to be a repressive tyrant, even while he eased restrictions for women in an Islamic state, and built new schools and hospitals. The popular reaction from the Iranian public against the continued reign of Shah Pahlavi paved the entrance back to the country from exile in France and the reigns of power in Tehran of the fanatical Islamist Ayatollah Khomeini who made swift work of any resistance to his imperial version of Islamist dynastic imperatives.
Foreign media have been banned from entry to the country, but their absence does not result in a complete loss of information coming out of the country during its latest political-religious-social paroxysm. Social media capabilities open the world to Iran's ferment. Fearful of just such a massive protest linked with the 7-day commemoration of the death of the opposition's spiritual leader and the Shia remembrance of the caliph who murdered the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, incendiary events unfolding now in Tehran and other cities, brought out the Basiji and the Revolutionary Guard.
With the result that protesters are deriving great satisfaction from stoning the militias that club and shoot them, and their glee at setting afire the Basiji motorcycles, their building, police stations, and freeing their colleagues from police vans, are great encouragements for continuation and escalation. Who might have thought a scant six months earlier that cries for the blood of the Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would burst from the lips of Iranians? Demonstrators are breaking through cordons, blocking streets, stripping police officers of uniforms and weapons.
"People no longer fear", said one activist. Perhaps they have gained sufficient courage within themselves, with their growing numbers, and knowing that the world is watching and waiting, and hoping. It's more than likely that they've been puzzled that although countries like Canada have issued statements in support of the protesters, and condemnatory of the administration, no such statements of concerned support have been reported as issuing from that great communicator and social benefactor, President Barack Obama.
Perhaps Mr. Obama knows something that others do not. Perhaps he has taken to heart the statement of Tehran's police chief who has denied that any protesters have been stilled by death occasioned by official means. After all, Iran's deputy police chief has explained that one protester fell off a bridge, two died in car accidents and one was shot, but certainly not by any public agency. Presumably the opposition leader's nephew, Seyed Ali Mousavi, shot himself in the back.
Labels: Middle East, Troublespots, World News
posted by Pieface @ Monday, December 28, 2009
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