Ever since Ayatollah Khomeiny returned to Tehran from exile in Paris on February 1, 1979, this day has been officially celebrated as “Fajr” (dawn). Nothing remains of the Iranian people’s hope for a better future. After the Shah was overthrown, the mullahs’ dictatorship established itself – relentlessly to this day.
In view of the fact that the persecution of the Jews by the National Socialists drove large numbers of Jewish elites to emigrate to the USA, an American academic there once ironically stated: «Hitler is our best friend. He shakes the tree and we pick the apples.”
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been shaking the tree for more than four decades, and for more than four decades our sociologists have been addressing the brain drain, the emigration of scientists, highly qualified workers and artists. Recently they have been leaving Iran in droves. In 2021 alone, 900 university lecturers turned their backs on the country.
As early as 2009, the IMF stated in its annual report that Iran ranked first among the 91 developing and emerging countries in which the migration of elites was examined. For example, the Iranian rulers are marginalizing all forces that could have a relevant influence on society through censorship and expulsion. At the same time, all media channels through which the population could obtain factual and critical information are blocked.
Perfume is like adultery
In such circumstances, a society is bound to become unbalanced. The bottlenecks and restrictions that the Islamic Republic has imposed on the Iranian population so far are not only aimed at destroying civil society. The system also considers interference in private life to be its duty. In the early 1980s, shortly after the revolutionary government took power, female students were subjected to an odor test before entering the university campus to ensure that they had not worn perfume. According to the prevailing ideology, a woman using perfumes commits a sin tantamount to adultery.
There will be more uprisings in Iran. The people of the country will no longer want to endure hunger.
Iran’s rulers still believe that they can turn the Iranians into Muslims without any fault or blame. Women who are not properly veiled in public are guilty of a sacrilegious offense – and again there is a threat of even stricter regulations.
Two ways of life are constantly at odds in Iran, and both sides are waging the fight with undiminished ferocity and perseverance. For those in power, anything that contradicts their convictions is a potentially system-threatening declaration of war. Accordingly, they rule with harshness. Threats and coercion are the order of the day and affect anyone who does not submit to the ideology. Conveniently, the permanent surveillance of the female part of society under the pretext of enforcing the Muslim requirement to cover up also serves to curb widespread protests against the constantly rising cost of living.
Iran is ranked 134th out of 140 countries in the IMF International Competitiveness Report. 20 million Iranians – a quarter of the population – suffer from unemployment, low income, the threat of job loss and unstable working conditions. Twice as many people live below the poverty line today than three years ago, and a quarter of the population lives in poverty on the outskirts of large metropolises.
corruption and inflation
The director-general of the Tehran Provincial Welfare Department recently announced that more than 2,000 children are employed on the Tehran subway network. The jumble of regulations regulating everyday life has become so inscrutable that 61 economists recently wrote an open letter to the people in the country explaining that the economic difficulties have no economic causes. Only better governance could solve the problems. In the face of constantly dwindling economic opportunities for survival, there is already a fear among many that threatens to erupt on the streets. Added to the frictions of everyday life are endemic corruption and staggering inflation.
Iran’s rulers regard governing as their divine duty. From this it can be concluded that God has apparently predetermined that Iranians become poorer every day. Meanwhile, the mullahs, in office and with dignity, have to constantly “optimize” themselves in order to be able to cope with their responsible task. As God’s vicars on earth, they find themselves constantly being tested and questioned.
Iran’s capital, Tehran, is the city of God and the city of money. Although God is visibly honored and praised here, its decline is also noticeable, because in the megacity people also pay homage to Mammon. In a discussion on the commercialization of the city, a young sociologist said: «Over the past two decades, Tehran has become increasingly unjust, luxurious and inhuman. On the one hand, new office towers, commercial centers and commercial buildings are springing up all the time, for which the necessary infrastructure is also being created. At the same time, the construction boom is causing more air pollution, higher traffic volumes and a constantly declining quality of life. – What is actually happening here?”
According to statistics, the income of the top 10 percent – i.e. that of the wealthiest class – is fourteen times higher than that of the bottom 10 percent. This reveals an unbridgeable social divide. The constant street protests show how heavy the pressure of survival weighs on the people. The government has nothing to offer but police violence. That tyranny and corruption are ineradicable is obvious. There will be more uprisings in Iran. The people of the country will no longer want to endure hunger.
There were times when Iran’s middle class sympathized with the reformers. But the hard core of power has long since exposed the moderate powers to ridicule. The opposition today searches in vain for its identity and shares the fate of all political movements that betray themselves.
Bubbling mix
25 years ago, the reformers had ideals that they also knew how to convey to the population through their exponents. Today, these people are no longer allowed to show themselves in public, and they are also not allowed to be reported on. Many are under house arrest and are banned from leaving the country. Iran’s reform movement has completely disintegrated, and it will not be able to mobilize the population again. At the same time, the middle class, which once advocated more freedom, is dwindling, mutating at an alarming rate into the lower class.
In this deep crisis, Iran’s rulers have not spoken a word about alternatives. Because such are not provided, they do not have to be discussed. An unmistakable sign of the Iranian government’s intellectual poverty is its aversion to intellectuals, even if they are just technocrats.
When the Islamic government talks about nation and citizenship, they often do so with perfidious ambiguity, saying things and denying what has been said at the same time. Behind the religious hypocrisy is a seething mixture of lies and corruption. Iranians live in a deeply divided class society. Those in power hate democracy, science, feminism, modern art and culture and everything that is not connected to the old traditions. Of course, the US and the West as such represent the root of all evil. Accordingly, they are constantly demonized.
The Republic of Iran is synonymous with prohibition and obliteration. And this does not only apply to simple pleasures in life such as wine, dancing and singing. It is unbearable for those in power to examine impartially what solutions to the problems of existence other cultures, especially the western ones, have found. Because then the weakness of their system would have to be revealed to them.
Their order, which turned the altar into a throne, has nothing in common with a stable political system. Run down to the point of bankruptcy, she terrorizes critics and opponents and does not shy away from murder. It feeds on the principle of enmity, indoctrination and intimidation, corruption and crime, censorship and prohibition. Anything that terrifies the citizenry and keeps civil society down serves it.
In its early days, the Islamic Revolution was a seed of hope for the stricken Iranian people, but also for many around the world – a symbol of justice, equality and the fight against despotism. Unfortunately, the picture quickly clouded over, and even if there was now and then reason to be confident that something could change, after forty years it can only be said that one dictatorship has replaced the other.
The Islamic Revolution failed because Iranian society lacked the knowledge and institutions necessary to contain the power of the clergy. And because later every attempt to moderate the firmly established theocracy was bloodily crushed. The toxic concentration of ideology, wealth, and power in the hands of a tiny minority has often caused sheer horror throughout history.
Today, the Islamic Republic as a project of social awakening is nothing more than a memory, a piece of the past that pretends it has a future.
The writer Amir Hassan Cheheltan lives in Tehran. His latest novel, Eine Liebe in Kairo, was published this spring by C. H. Beck Verlag. – From the Persian by Jutta Himmelreich.