If today doesn’t turn out to be the big day that we all hope for, the day that brings about the end of Tehran’s repulsive regime, it is at least bound to be a major milestone in the right direction. All we must hope for now, beside a decisive blow to the awful theocracy that has been crushing Iran and spreading hatred and terror in the world for the last thirty years is that the brave Iranian people will not be weeping over new casualties but be a step closer to victory.
But please, people, let’s revise our slogans. My hair stands on end whenever I hear of the shouts of Allah-o-Akbar rising from rooftops. Isn’t that what got us into this mess in the first place? And aren’t Iranians–believers as well as secular– tired and ashamed of the Islamic Republic? Who, except for government supporters with vested interests or less favored classes lured by populist propaganda wants a religious regime? And make no mistake, as long as we chant allah-o-akbar, we’ll be stuck in the same rut. Shouldn’t we get rid of the superstitions and the ideologies? Shouldn’t we get rid of the cobwebs? And what about our slogans? What about “Marg bar dictator”? A while back, in a demonstration in Paris, I was struck by the contradiction of the speaker standing on a podium to denounce the brutality of security forces in Iran while the crowd listening to him regularly took up cries of “Marg bar dictator!” Marg is still marg. It can’t be wrong on one side and acceptable on the other.
Obviously, we still have a long way to go. Reversing the mindset acquired through centuries or millennia of powerlessness and victimization will take a while, as will the long march forward toward a more enlightened thought process. The day we stop repeating harmful slogans, the day we stop dipping our hands in blood and running around in the streets to demonstrate the evil that has been done to us, the day we understand that it’s absurd to follow self-dubbed leaders who are really another side of the same coin, the day we take charge of our destiny and the future of our country, that will be a day to remember. Today, maybe…
