Azadeh Moaveni
The Islamic Republic’s already lengthy catalogue of fears has ballooned of late: alongside the possibility of being overthrown by its own citizens, it is haunted by the prospect of a full accounting of the massacres it has carried out; by the tenuous loyalty of its army, and its empty coffers; and by the shadow of Israeli spies and Islamic State militants. What terrifies Iran’s theocrats the most, the fear that eclipses all their fears, is the ability of the people at large to clearly see the essential realities of the present regime.
While Iranians have heroically demanded a great many things in recent weeks—change, new rulers, democratic freedoms—they are fundamentally insisting on dismantling the meticulously curated edifice of deceit and falsehoods sustaining the state as it has been constructed since 1979. For the first time ever, by explicitly chanting the name of a specific, alternative leader in the streets, Iranians have emphasized the true problem: the biggest, the most unsustainable lie of all, they are collectively saying, is the system itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment