I have been watching with interest and sadness the current political election crisis in Iran. It is a crisis the government has brought on itself and the country. It energized the students in the name of a faux-democratic election. The government had no intention to allow an opposition party to take control. So, it came up with unbelievable numbers for president Amenidijad’s alleged victory. Not only that, but the results were announced within a few hours of the polls having closed (millions of paper ballots were counted in no time at all!!!).
The country’s supreme leader Khameni sided with Amenidjad and called for crushing the opposition. He and the rest of the government are busy blocking international electronic transmissions of photos, videos and text and busy blaming everyone for the street protests, everyone but the true source of the crisis: the current Iranian regime.
I sympathize and empathize with the people in the streets, yearning for a democracy and their human and political rights. Iran’s political progress has been set back to (really, exposed as) a dictatorship. The Iranian students and other people from all walks of life who oppose the repressive government have been let out of Pandora’s Box. Maybe the people can be repressed again as in past revolts since 1979, but the government will now have exposed what it really is, a repressive oligarchy, the rule of a relatively few for the benefit of that few.
Why am I prompted to write now? I watch a young martyr die in the street in her father’s arms. Neda is her name. She is dead but I say “is her name” not “was her name” because her spirit and fight for freedom on behalf of her countrymen lives on. She was shot by a government sniper. There was a video taken of her being shot and then dying. It was a horrible image to watch but Neda to me is the symbol of the revolution that is underway.
Surely, sanctions on the Iranian government will follow and Iran will become further isolated from the community of nations. Amenidijad will continue to represent a crazed element of the government. One can only hope that he will be replaced by a more rational politician in the not so distant future.
The following phrase on the Internet sums it up: “Khameni and Amenidijad are the enemies of their people. Even the Shah of Iran did not order his police to shoot.”
Iran’s theocracy is unraveling. Stay tuned.
mickey glantz