 Royal Broadcasting Corporation
Monarchist TV channels are not against dictatorship,
but merely the dictatorship of the Islamic republic
Jahanshah Rashidian
January 14, 2005
iranian.com
I was recently visiting my sister in the USA. During my short
stay in Dallas I had time and interest to watch, for the first
time, the Iranian T.V. channels, mostly broadcasting from Los-Angeles.
My purpose of this article is to point out, but not to develop
several issues, to judge the role of their political contributions
for Iranian people.
The question which can immediately be raised is to ask if these
channels are globally doing well for the Iranian political future.
A part from the expatriate T.V.
shows produced in L.A. that I do not comment here, I was irritated
by the political positions
or collusions of some channels. I knew that many of these channels
are more or less Monarchist. They help and are helped by the Monarchists.
Therefore their political attitude is not against fundament of
dictatorship, but merely the dictatorship of the Islamic republic.
The reason of their opposition against the "Mullahs" in
Iran is far from democracy and secular. They confront only a little
part of Iranian history, namely the post revolution from 1979 on.
They advance their personal political ambitions at the expense
of people's interests.
It is for a neutral observer not very difficult to realise that
a number of their journalists can neither represent the Iranian
intelligence nor the interests of Iranian people. The Iranian monarchist
channels are not in the position to convey a message of dictatorial
change in Iran, but deliberately only a political change. The analogy
between the Islamic regime and the monarchists is that they both
seek to charge people by those values far from democracy. They
both operate from the same dictatorial ambitions and propagate
dubious notions to justify their parasite. The monarchist channels
are a comedy example for democracy and they try to stupefy their
public.
To preach salvation and to give meaning to individual's life
and at the same time advocate civil rights, democracy, human rights
and free flow of information, in a country in which popular dissatisfaction
is driven by rapid demographic changes, restrictive social policies,
devastated economic conditions and religious dictatorial system
is an obvious task of any Iranian opposition. However the monarchist
channels propagate persuasive slogans which bring some mechanical
and emotional reactions among people beyond their political interests,
remain however very doubtful to know how to pass the final obstacle
to exterminate the very deep roots of dictatorship in its entirety
in Iran.
It was a rough time for democracy when the Shah abolished
the ongoing puppet political parties in Iran to round them up and
rally them under an extreme monarchist unique party "Rastakhiz",
resurrection, which was meanwhile for some dissatisfied mullahs
another blasphemous abuse of a religious sacred term .
The main philosophy of this party was to impose the Shah's crown
and throne on Iranian people as the nations sacred. The Shah saw
himself as divine person heir to king of ancient Persian. This
megalomania was embodied by very expensive pompous royal ceremonies
-- Self-Crowing and lavish celebration of 2500 years of Persian
kingdom. Under such circumstances the shah needed also for his
propaganda apparatus greedy, flattery journalists to associate
the Shah's dictatorship with the grandiloquent titles. The debris
of those journalists is still in the monarchist channels to tackle
their old job. The phenomenon is old; all dictators from the ancient
Roman along to the new ages need to be worshipped.
The task of propagandists is to give messages to influence political
behaviour, in totalitarian systems, used for abusive ends by bombarding
people with persuasive appeals with no clear argument or information,
instead with the emotional agitations. The propagandists in the
totalitarian systems learn how to use many techniques to manipulate
public opinions, hoping many people follow their message. One of
these old "Göbbels" methods is the repetition of
the same message from different sources of information. That is
the reason for multiple numbers of the monarchist channels emitting
the same message.
When people are bombarded with many sources for
the same message, they follow more spontaneously the message,
as recent history shows this method has got a temporary mental
short
cut because events are manipulated with calculated emotional
charge, so that people should not ask themselves questions when
confronted
with this method. An obvious example was and is the constant
appeal of the monarchist propagandistic machinery that only the
monarchy
can guarantee sovereignty and prosperity of Iran. Of course for
these monarchists, the monarchy, per se, seems to be a monopole
of the corrupt Pahlavi dynasty.
Contrary to these channels
the collapse of the Shah's dictatorship was a fair consequence
of
history. The collapse was because of massive, collective engagement
of the
whole Iranian nation against his dictatorship inevitable.
And not, as the monarchist pretend, by the foreign conspiracies.
The Pahlavi
dynasty was from the beginning an illegitimate imposition
of
the super powers and was wiped out from the Iranian history
by the
legitimate anti-Shah revolution.
In 1921 an uneducated Cassack Brigade's putschist officer,
Reza Khan, became, with the help of British Empire, a strong political
man in Iran. Four years after his coup d'etat he replaced
the Qajar dynasty by his own. Phalavi dynasty. Due to the Britain
foreign policy, in order to confronting the influence of the Empire
Czars in Iran. Reza Shah established a robust centralised dictatorship,
his legitimacy was awarded by, at that time, the most extended
colonial power of the British Empire, and not by a puppet specially
convened assembly which in 1925 deposed Ahmad Shah Qajar, and named
him as new Shah.
Contrary to a female monarchist "historian" from one
of the numerous monarchist channels claiming that Reza Shah implemented
great infrastructure projects and educational national system at
his time, the fact is that no major improvement was carried out
under Reza Khan's dictatorship: The majority of people remained
illiterate, having become a great landlord, Reza Shah, due to the
feudalist interests, deprived the majority of Iranian who lived
in villages from the basics like running water, electricity, school,
wealth care....
Under his dictatorship the infrastructure projects
were insufficient to haul the country out of backwardness. His
sympathy for Hitler and relation with Hitler's fascism brought
in 1941 his sudden end. Ousted and exiled by his previous supporter,
England .he left his throne, with accordance of England, for his
son, Mohammad Reza who became the new Shah. Reza Khan had to leave
Iran reminding his last advice to the new Shah "does not be,
my son, coward".
In 1953 the "coward" Mohammad Reza Shah escaped the
country when the popular PM. Mossadegh accused him and his family
of corruption and treachery against the national interests in the
favour of England and the USA. However short after his escape he
was escorted back to power by help of the CIA and the Britain SIS's
coup and welcome by a paid mob and a high ranking Shiite cleric.
The Americans then built his SAVAK up; the Shah's strong secret
police to compensate brutally his "cowardliness". The
SAVAK was responsible for torture, intimidation and massive oppression
against the Shah's opponents.
The irony is that the monarchist's
propagandists present this coup as a national uprising
which brought the Shah back to his throne and forced PM. Mossadegh
to cede against people. The falsification of history seeks to legitimate
the Pahlavi dynasty and now Reza Pahlavi as the legitimate crown
prince -- today Americans acknowledge their role in the 53 coup.
The
monarchist channels are hoping to influence individuals while
leading each one to believe that the information he or she
receives, as response would be his own judgement. They spread
propagandistic lies to make them possible to reshape even the recent
historical
events. The monarchist Iranian channels censure and manipulate
the Iranian history hypocritically.
Another aspect of a typical manipulation is an appeal addressed
to people's emotion. The appeal is to the heart. Not to the mind.
Ambiguity and irrationality of appeal is the central point, otherwise
the appeal may be drained off into any uncontrollable reaction.
One of the easiest skillful emotional appeals is to sensitise people
with their national values, a perfect tool in the hand of any Propagandist
to use and abuse for determined targets.
The history of humanity
shows us how nationalism can flaw the humanity. Nationalism
is not only an ideological weapon, but also it is a mask to hide
the real face of tyranny against democracy, progress and all
human natural evolutionary instincts of normal developments . Nationalism
is an analogy to a religious faith with firm reliance on the
protection
of divine providence which promotes the fanaticism as the nation's
traditional highest value through the recognition of the sacred.
A prior study shows that nationalism is a projective egocentricity.
The nationalist uses this collective mechanism to justify his
individual interests, no wonder that many of nationalist politicians
are corrupt,
traitor, racist, and aggressive against their own people.
The monarchist channels try to boost nationalistic campaign against
foreign and neighbour countries of Iran in order to label themselves
as patriotic. The patriotism is not a fair attribute for those
channels whose sponsors ruined and robbed the fatherland during
the Shah's regime, especially the Shah himself and his clan, for
what the "legitimate" crown prince should tell people
the truth about the amount and source of his family's wealth.
Patriotism is an altruistic regard for own people and their direct
interests. It does not, in the contrary to nationalism, humiliate
other nations.
An Iranian extreme right monarchist channel from England is a
typical example for nationalism. The channel by putting an accent
on the Iranian race insults Arabs alluding to their ancestors who
ruined and imposed Islam on Iran many centuries ago. This provocative
hateful nationalism has nothing to do with patriotism and secularism,
and only damages the Iranian prestiges.
Approximately 2 decades
after the third Reich failed to bring the world under the Aryan's
domination, the Shah titled and
honoured himself as "Aria-Mehr", sun of Aryans. This
and other flamboyant titles like "shadow of God on earth" have
had to be used with his name. It should be another Charlie Chaplin
to satirise the Shah as he did with Hitler in his masterpiece "The
Great Dictator", but Charlie Chaplin in his film not only
satirised Hitler but the institution of dictatorship and racism
itself.
The monarchist channels unleash and justify an attitude of racism
as the pride of Iranians. They use a language as a tool of racist
attitude putting a prestigious accent on the race of Iranians "Aryans" which
is a racist term using by many racist groups in many different
countries with different colours of skin, and even if one can really
prove the pure blood transmitted from generation to generation
is far from any intermediate factors like marriage, population
exodus, military occupation and many other factors appearing in
course of human events.
That his race is intact and original, nevertheless
one has got no biological or mental proof of superiority as implicitly
understood. Unfortunately the influential opinion makers like
monarchist channels pave the way for unwitting attitude of racism
among Iranians
whose country is a multi ethnic, multilingual with one-half of
its people not being pars -- Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Armenians,
Jews, and few other ethnic groups.
 The racism in Iran, even if not very tangible, is rooted more
in the history of Islam than the social.
Islam allowed slavery in its previous form but proposed their
releasing as an act of merit. The Islamic invaders used the occasion
to kill the enemy warriors and the men of occupied territory sending
their family members to the slavery market. The act of merit was
the marketing trick of its increasing establishment in the Islamic
society.
In 652, the invading Islamic troops entered Iran. They robbed
and raped and killed up millions of Iranians. Eager to kill "to
jihad" anyone who refused the compelling conversion of Islam
the Invaders committed one of the bloodiest genocides of the Middle
Age in Iran. All according to the Islamic laws "Shariah",
they deported many Iranian female and children into other countries
to be sold as slave-workers.
The slavery like misogyny, as an acceptance of Islam, therefore
without moral criticism, has been imprinted in the Islamic faith.
Although two centuries after the Islamic invasion, Iran found its
independence back, despite revengeful hate against the Islamic
ruling class who set in motion the genocide in Iran, The Iranian
old, advanced civilisation was so destroyed that could never rebuild
and free itself from the Islam. The hate against the Islamic rulers
became in a reflexive process blind racism against Arabs or "non-Aryans".
In the beginning of 16th century, the Savvied Empire imposed
a sect of Islam, Schism, long time repressed by Sunnis, on Iranians,
since then the state religion, to hold out of Iran a solid fortress
against rival Ottoman's Sunnis. The impetus of Schism against Arabs
and then Turks brought racism in Iranian popular traditional culture,
which is mainly against these two populations and has been coloured
unwillingly in nationalism, with the transformation being relatively
recent. In my opinion the Islamic roots of racism have not been
sufficiently recognised in the recent time.
 To answer the initial question, in my opinion, the monarchist
channels are trying to disturb the process of an inevitable progress
in which Iran should be a democratic, secular and modern republic.
The sponsors of these channels are the debris and followers of
a political system which was a corrupt, dictatorial and fundamentally
subservient to Western interests. They are a U.S backed right-wing
trash of the Shah's regime, once in power they will re-establish
a corrupt monarchist dictatorship in Iran.
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Royal Broadcasting Corporation
