Iran is different

Ayaan Hirsi Ali at UnHerd:  

Perhaps more than anything, the wave of protests now sweeping the country is a perfect moment to remind ourselves of the shameful stupidity of US policy in the region in recent years. Take the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal, which gave the regime time and space and money to strengthen its morality police and security infrastructure, as well as extend its regional influence. If no deal had been signed, perhaps the regime’s current crisis would have come sooner.

Nor should we forget the fact that Iran has recently tried to abduct and kill several American citizens on American soil; or that a number of senior US officials believe Iran is to blame for the attempted assassination of Salman Rushdie last month. It’s a national disgrace that America’s politicians saw fit to break bread with the butchers of Tehran in the first place. And still too many think we can politely sit down with them again to re-negotiate the nuclear deal. I wouldn’t blame the brave men and women of Iran if they never forgave us for such short-sighted idiocy.

Still, while the response of the West should be limited to cautious optimism, there is one other conclusion we can draw, no matter what happens: the current protests are a unique, and uniquely inspiring, phenomenon. Nowhere else in the Muslim world — and I mean, literally, nowhere else — would we see what we are seeing right now in Iran: men and women, together, standing up for each other, the men demanding justice for the regime’s murder of a woman who dared to let her hair show. It bears repeating: the men of Iran are standing alongside women as they burn their hijabs.

This is the most dramatic evidence of something I have long suspected: Iran is different. I have many Iranian women friends who are highly accomplished. They are doctors and scientists and writers and artists. When I ask them how they do it, they tell me that they owe much of their success to their male relatives’ support of their ambitions. So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that the fire behind the protests was lit by Mahsa Amini’s family — in particular, her father, whose remarkable courage in accusing the Iranian authorities of a cover-up serves as an emblem of the solidarity many Iranian men have with their women.

It's true: Iranian culture seems to run much deeper than its Arab neighbours, where Islam guides everything. Yes, Islam guides everything officially now in Iran too, but it seems like an aberration. It seems like there's a civilised world there, waiting to be freed from its oppression - and one key element, as we're seeing, is that many Iranian men are out there supporting the women. Underneath the Islamic hatred of women enforced by the theocrats, there's a more liberal world aching to break out. It's doubtful that now is the moment of freedom - but who knows.

Comments

[Graham]

'Nowhere else in the Muslim world...' - perhaps we're wrong to consider Iran part of the muslim world. Only four out of ten identify as Muslim, after all:

https://theconversation.com/irans-secular-shift-new-survey-reveals-huge-changes-in-religious-beliefs-145253

[TDK]

It won't be the moment of freedom. The US is currently dominated by an elite informed by Identity Politics. The US is the source of all evil in the world and if only we treat others better, all the problems will vanish. Who are we to tell Iranians how to govern their country. The protesters can be safely ignored. They are corrupted by Western thoughts and as such inauthentic.

The situation in the UK is little better. We are facing a landslide Labour victory - a party dominated now by Identitarians, who will pass self ID on the day they are elected and will probably punish those such as yourself who publish defences of Hatemongers

[TDK]

On reflection I realise I mistakenly wrote Identitarians instead of Woke, even though I know this is a designation of a far right movement. Perhaps I'm not so wrong after all.