Kourosh Ziabari – Asia Times: The heinous stabbing attack against British-American novelist Salman Rushdie was so inexcusable that even the administration of hardline Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi disowned it, contending that the Islamic Republic could not be blamed for that outburst of violence against the persecuted writer, who had just begun to exercise some publicity after keeping a low profile for several years.
But as the literary world was rallying around Rushdie to reiterate his right to free speech and denounce aggression to stifle contrarian thought, it transpired that the attack, celebrated by hardliners in Tehran as an act of divine vengeance against an apostate writer, was also silently saluted by members of Iran’s opposition in exile, who didn’t wait long before initiating a public indictment of Iran for allegedly touching off this act of savagery.
The common denominator in the analyses churned out by Iran’s kaleidoscopic opposition factions, including their press corps, the more well-versed academics and think-tank wonks, as well as their ideological doyen the self-proclaimed Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, was how barbaric the Islamic Republic is, as it had primarily been the founder of the revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who issued the death sentence against Rushdie back in 1989.
Notwithstanding that the assailant was a US citizen and that the fatwa, although never officially withdrawn by Iran’s authorities, was de facto mothballed and not part of an active debate for nearly two decades, the anti-Iran hawks framed their talking points such that Iran would be depicted as being automatically liable for this felony.
They argued that the responsibility for the assault lay with the Islamic Republic, and the bottom line of their entreaties was that pressure on this malign regime should be ratcheted up and further isolation should be inflicted on it.
It looked as if the stabbing of the author of The Satanic Verses had given them new ammunition against the leadership in Tehran, and privately they cheered it as a blessing in disguise.
To be sure, the opposition chieftains feigned sorrow over what had happened to Salman Rushdie and lamented that free speech had been targeted, but it was the renewed opportunity to gainsay the Islamic Republic that nurtured their muted festive mood.
The same holds true in other episodes of national agony and collective pain. Be it the tragic collapse of the Metropol building in June causing 41 deaths, unprecedented water scarcity gripping the province of Khuzestan, or the fatal downing in 2020 of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the opposition behemoth instrumentalizes the anguish of Iranian citizens to score political points.
It is usually during critical junctures of suffering by Iranians when the opposition finds it expedient to go into overdrive and kick up sensationalized publicity campaigns, sometimes giving rise to debates on social media on whether they genuinely feel upset when Iranians are struggling or facing a crisis, or if these doldrums merely grease the wheels of their anti-regime fanfare.
Iranian opposition cliques, including the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization, monarchists with an allegiance to the Pahlavi dynasty, media conglomerates funded by the Islamic Republic’s adversaries Israel and Saudi Arabia, and ethnic separatists concur on a professed commitment to bring democracy to Iran, liberalize the country and rescue its people they say are being tyrannized by an uncompromising theocracy alien to the concept of human rights.
Criticism justified
To be sure, it is not in doubt that the Iranian government is tightening the noose around civil society, cutting back personal freedoms, charting a confrontational foreign policy that only antagonizes its neighbors and the West, and has plunged millions of Iranians into poverty with botched economic policies.
The state of press freedom in the country is alarming indeed. According to the Press Freedom Index 2022 released by Reporters Without Borders, Iran fares worse than Turkmenistan, Myanmar, Syria and Yemen, ranking 178th among the 180 nations surveyed.
Democratic credentials of the Islamic Republic, despite its complacency over the quadrennial presidential elections it holds, are markedly deficient, to the extent that the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), in the Democracy Index 2021, ranked it 154th in the world, trailing behind Eritrea, Belarus and Sudan.
There is no way the practices of governance in Iran can be rationalized or the nation’s runaway democratic backsliding under the ultra-conservative President Raisi explained away. In particular, as the establishment scales up coercion against women in public spaces by waging an ideational war of attrition over Islamic hijab compliance, more Iranians feal alienated and disgruntled at their rulers.
DC-based Statis Consulting, in a June poll, put Raisi’s approval rating at 28%, an unprecedented low for an Iranian president at the end of his first year in office. And ratings don’t necessarily need to be evoked to capture the magnitude of public discontent over a nearly failed state offering no prospect of betterment.
For one thing, Gallup found in a 2020 study that 50% of Iranians lacked confidence in their national government and more than four in 10 believed their standard of living was declining.
Dubious saviors
Any alternative to the status quo should be an improvement, ensuring economic, social and political prosperity for a jaded population. But evidence abounds that the opposition lieutenants, whose rallying cry is the promise of democracy and freedom, would not be spectacularly different and afford Iranians what they aspire to.
Just like the Iranian government claiming sanctity on account of its ties with the divine as a theocracy, the opposition is also reasserting itself as a sacred collective that shouldn’t be profaned. If criticized by independent voices, the response will be incessant trolling on social media by cyber armies prepared and trained to raise the costs of critical debate, ad hominem attacks and character assassinations.
On the one hand, the Islamic Republic discredits dissidents by libeling them as “Zionist agents” or US operatives; on the other, the opposition badmouths its critics as regime loyalists.
The Iranian government has disfranchised religious minorities, and the Zoroastrians, Sunnis, Christians and Jews enjoy no protection, nor are they entitled to political representation or economic opportunities. The radicalized Iranian opposition mirrors that exclusionary attitude in a different way, and in its discourse and ideology sees no room for Muslims, and even brags about being entitled to propagate Islamophobia, only because the Islamist government in Tehran has weaponized religion to consolidate power.
This display of intolerance glosses over the religious fabric of Iranian society and the values shared by a plurality of the people, which cannot be ascribed to the ascent of the Islamic Republic 43 years ago.
The opposition celebrities have shut the door on a sincere debate about their intentions and vision, and many of them are indulging in what is likely the least democratic service to the Iranian people, that is, chorusing effusive eulogies of the Pahlavi household and touting them as the future inheritors of power and throne.
The Pahlavi royals ruled Iran for some 54 years, and were ousted in 1979 as a result of a popular uprising that was, for better or worse, the reflection of the will of the majority of Iranians. If Iranians demand something different today, it hinges on their free vote to determine their political future, not the well-heeled, deep-pocketed opposition idols prescribing plans of action for them thousands of kilometers away.
The Iranian opposition replicates the undemocratic practices of the government in Tehran, on a different scale and in a different fashion.
Of course, they have not executed dissidents or imprisoned activists and journalists, because they are not in a position of authority. But if their words and media behavior are any guide, there is no guarantee they won’t go on a spree of eliminating their detractors and silencing unconventional voices if and when they rise to power.
This article was originally published in Asia Times