Iran Erupts in Street Violence

The electoral protests in Iran last week have changed to outright protests against the regime. The miscalculation of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in telling the protesters on Friday to sit down, shut up and get over the fact that President Mahmoud "Madman" Ahmadinejad was going to get another term either fairly or not. Countless Iranians accepted that challenge and filled the streets. Some of them died. One young woman in particular has become the face of the resistance as her death was recorded on a cell phone and distributed all over the Internet. Her name was Neda.

Stalin famously observed that one death was a tragedy and a million was a statistic. Nothing like a million have died in Iran, but her one death has shaken the consciences of a great many Iranians and friends of Iran. It has not yet shaken the consciences of the mullahs and the so-called hard-liners, but it has ensured that this is going to go on a long time with the outcome uncertain.

As a result of the pressure, the Guardian Council (an assembly of mullahs who decide much of what goes on in Iran) has admitted this morning that more ballots were handed out in no fewer than 50 cities than there were registered voters. Then in a puff of illogic, the Council said that the extra ballots didn't affect the outcome. This admission, though, is the first time the regime has made any concession to the protesters. More will follow.

Unlike most of the rest of the Muslim world, the Iranians have had 30 years of Islamic rule, and they don't hanker after some idealistic utopia based on the Koran. What they want is a government that works. Most Iranians are under 25, and they don't necessarily understand freedom or human rights in quite the way an American or a Briton might. They do understand that they don't have the kind of future they want for themselves, and that they have the Allah-given right to make their own future. And if there is one thing the world community does accept is the right of a people to determine their own future.

Sixty years ago almost to the day, East Berlin workers rose up against the Soviet occupation and were slapped down with all the might they occupiers could muster. Bertholt Brecht wrote that handbills were distributed in the Stalinallee that said, "the people/Had forfeited the confidence of the government/And could win it back only/By redoubled efforts." His poem ended with a rhetorical question, "Would it not be easier/In that case for the government/To dissolve the people/And elect another?"

Until last Friday, the great many people in Iran believed that their votes mattered. When the Supreme Leader said they were wrong, a rift opened up like the one between East Berliners and the government. The difference was the East Berliners were occupied, but the people will take some persuading to trust the regime again. It took decades for East Berliners to finally get a voice in their government. It took the Ayatollah Khomenei and his supporters a year to oust the Shah.

Neda's Revolution is going to have far-reaching consequences regardless of how long it lasts or of which faction prevails. Other authoritarian nations are watching. And if people power succeeds in Iran, it will go elsewhere. If it fails, it may take another generation for change to come. The trouble is no one is quite sure what success or failure mean right now. But any situation that leaves a young woman dead, shot like a rabid dog, for the simple act of petitioning her government for redress must not go on.

© Copyright 2009 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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