Iran protests between lies and reality
Protests in Iran are dying down and those who hoped for a regime change, will be bitterly dissapointed. But then, it seems those protests were never that big and had different causes, than those pushed forward by opponents of the Islamic republic. It all came together with social media offensive from people from outside of Iran, trying to portray the protests as a revolution in the making.
All in all, we were fed propaganda, that didn’t have much to do with reality. It can best be summarized with that famous twitt, showing mass protests in Bahrain in 2011, trying to persuade people, it was actually in Iran. Unfortunately, many were not smart enough, to notice Bahraini flags, or early warnings, that it is, as they say in this day and age, fake news. They shared it widely. There were many such cases of blatant manipulations, even by Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, who shared a photo of supporters of the Iranian regime, presenting it as anti government movement, writting that ‘with no option for voting out their supreme leader, Iranians take to the streets to press him to resign.’ Yea, right.
It is funny, how the same people, who yesterday wanted to bomb Iran, today cry bitter tears for Iranian protesters. Tomorow, they’ll be the first to call for sanctions, which will make harder the lives of the same people, they pretend to care so much about. But hypocrisy is nothing new in this game of great powers, dueling it out on the backs of ordinary people. No human rights, no freedom, what is in play here, are interests of outside powers, who would like to get rid of a hostile regime, like they tried in Syria.
Remember, Syria, where protests led to a vicious civil war, that left that country in ruins. Maybe that’s not a good example, because some would say, with a straight face of course, Russian intervention made things worse there. Let us rather look at Libya, where there is chaos, there are slave markets, and no Russians or Iranians to blame. Libya doesn’t matter any more and you can bet, if civil war broke out in Iran, or country would disintegrate into anarchy, there would be no outside help, no friendly Americans or Saudis, picking up the pieces and leading it to prosperity. They simply wouldn’t care, but would find themselves a new target. And with them, armies of online trolls, who obviously have no idea, what is going on in Iran, many of whom until yesterday wanted all muslims dead, and now somehow have the best interests of a majority muslim country at their heart.
Those of us, who warn against another color revolution, don’t cheer for the regime. Not at all. I wish all the best to Iranians. I wish they would have more freedom, a better political and economic system. What I do know, however, is that revolutions bring with them the danger of severe suffering and that it can all swiftly turn from bad to worse. Evolution is far better.
Protests, like these, send a signal to the authorities, they must change, they must listen carefuly, what people want. Reforms are necessary, but that is something, Iranians must work out among themselves. The last thing they should do, is listen to people, who are capable of destroying entire countries, because their interests dictate it. They may talk sweet, but their actions betray them. Again, are people in Libya better off after fall of Gaddafi? Are those, who lead the military intervention to topple him, now doing their best, to help? And, if they didn’t restore Libya, why would anybody in their right mind believe, they would act differently in Iran?
