- 22 February 2004
LISTEN UP...
- Mary Elizabeth Hansen
It has been 25 years since the Islamic revolution in Iran...twenty-five long and unhappy years for a large part of the Iranian population, if political dissidents, independent Iranian newspapers and massive numbers of anti-government demonstrators are to be believed. A majority of Iranians, the under-25 age group, don't remember a time when oppressive mullahs didn't rule their country. What they do remember is the punitive micro-management of their lives and the lives of their families, all in the name of Islam.
The dhimmis of Iran remember of the last 25 years of Islamic rule as an unbroken nightmare of fear, oppression, degradation and violence. They have not had nor will they ever be able to have even one night's peaceful sleep as long as the Islamic tyrants of Tehran remain in power. At ever turn in their lives, their position in Iranian society has been threatened and marginalized. All dhimmis know members of their minority religious communities who have been snatched in the middle of the night, or in broad daylight, never to be seen again. For Iranian dhimmis, even more than their Muslim neighbors, their spilled blood should serve as a testimony to the rest of the world of the evil that has existed in the past quarter of a century in what was once the great nation of Persia.
And, yet, the tyrants of Tehran, who have transformed the whole country into one big Gotham City, are able to weave silver linings of delusion that those on the outside appear eager to find. For years, "moderate" Islamic countries, various countries in the West and in Asia, as well as certain media outlets, academics and policy wonks have been willing to call Iran an "Islamic democracy." Among those bestowing that undeserved title on the present Iranian government is none other than the Number Two Honcho at the U.S. Department of State, Richard Armitage.
Recent actions by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his henchmen to remove most of the reformist candidates from the current election process, the transparent lies and/or belligerence about the developing Iranian nuclear program and the continuing efforts to disrupt democratic reforms in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq cause a little more than official "tut-tuts" from the rest of the world. There appears to be little or no negative consequences for the continuing bad behavior of Iranian mullahs by the larger community of nations. Russia, who suffers increasingly from violent attacks of terror by Islamists in the very heart of their own country, remains a staunch ally to the same group of mullahs who most certainly cheer at the sight of exploded buildings and broken, bloody Russian bodies on the streets of Moscow.
Millions of young Iranian are sick of decrees from their despotic Islamic rulers and want to make their own decisions, even on such small but personal choice issues as buying a Valentine card for that special someone, or owning a dog as a pet, or wearing a certain color of clothing. Iranian dhimmis have larger wish lists, like wanting the government to cease and desist in teaching Muslim school children to hate their non-Muslim neighbors, affording their young people the right to work, and not having the cemeteries of their dead loved ones torn apart and desecrated.
Another revolution may take place in Iran, a revolution to restore some sense of sanity, freedom and equality to all its citizens. Some hopeful signs point in this direction. And yet, in many parts of the Western world, there are young Muslims who look to Iran and its Sunni-sister-in-oppression, Saudi Arabia, as model governments. Indeed, there are young Islamists living in Western democracies that would like to see these governments toppled and replaced by Iranian-styled theocracies. Urged on by an Islamist propaganda machine that can freely operate in Western democracies, there are Muslim youths in North America and Europe who long for..what most Iranian-Muslim youths long to see abolished.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has made the lives of their citizens miserable for the past 25 years. Most Iranians, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, desperately want freedom from their mullah masters. Just ask any brave 19 year old in downtown Tehran about his dreams for democracy.
Young Islamists in the West, listen up.
© 2004 Mary Elizabeth Hansen