They know it, celebrate it.Īfter years in gestation and several wrenching false starts, citizen-based politics has arrived in Iran. They inhabit the era of #MeToo and Black Lives Matter. No longer can they be silenced, closeted and forcibly isolated from the world. Whether or not the mullahs realise it, these courageous young women are Iran’s future. After years in gestation and several wrenching false starts, citizen-based politics has arrived in Iran
It has everything to do with high educational attainment, the internet and social media, globalised culture, and the denial of personal and career freedoms that are the accepted norm elsewhere. Nor has the unrest anything to do with “foreign plots” – the regime’s hackneyed, catch-all excuse for failure. For them it is corrupt, anachronistic and irrelevant. These vigorous younger generations care nothing for the Islamic Republic’s 43-year history of grand designs, broken promises and bloody wars. Little wonder this vile regime cannot comprehend it. The uprising has no leaders, organisation or manifesto other than “Women, life, liberty” – a slogan signalling collective commitment to human rights, free expression and democratic self-determination. While most seem to be led by young women and schoolgirls, backed by young men, a wide range of ages, ethnic groups and social classes is represented. Yet today’s ongoing nationwide protests, defying brutal crackdowns, are unusual in several respects. Is this the fate now awaiting the young women of Iran who have bravely taken the lead in challenging the latest lethal excesses of Tehran’s morally bankrupt regime? Like other countries, Iran’s 1979 revolution vanquished a tyrant, only to have another take his place. The people rise up, the people are crushed – and the western democracies, crying foul, eventually accept the new-old reality. Just look at the Arab spring “revolutions” in Syria and Egypt. It’s a pattern that repeats with dismaying frequency around the world. Its boss, General Min Aung Hlaing, stands accused of overseeing genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya minority – but has got off scot-free so far. In Myanmar, the army launched a coup last year, replacing elected politicians with a military junta.
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