The Batman movie “The Dark Knight” has one of the most powerful endings of any action movie. After having saved Gotham City, defeated the Joker, and saved Police Officer Gordon and his son, Batman has to flee from the very people he has saved and from the very city he has guarded.
“Why’s he running, Dad?” Officer Gordon’s son asks his father as Batman mysteriously escapes. His answer is striking. “Because we have to chase him.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong!” the boy objects.
“Because he’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now,” the father replies. “So we’ll hunt him… because he can take it.”
“Because he’s not our hero.”
“He’s a Silent Guardian… a Watchful Protector.”
“A Dark Knight…”
And so the legend continues.
Every community, at some point, has a Dark Knight. A protector that does the job no one else is willing, capable or dares to do. A silent guardian, perhaps a hero, who is scolded, yet secretly desired. Publicly admonished, yet thanked behind closed doors. A savior who does the right thing, yet has to flee.
“Because we have to chase him.”
The Iranian-American community has its own Dark Knight. An organization that fights the battles we want it to fight, who protects the community through hand to hand combat, and who silently sacrifices its purity to save the community’s innocence.
Yet we scold it, but behind our complaints we admire it. We belittle it, but when no one looks, an inaudible thank you escapes from our lips. We dismiss it, yet we fear the day when our Dark Knight abandons us.
The Iranian-American Dark Knight is the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).
I am not writing this article to praise NIAC, but to admonish our community. Because I am not sure we deserve our Dark Knight.
NIAC is the organization that in 2006 pushed back against the Bush administration’s inaccurately titled “Iran Democracy Fund,” a neo-con pet project to channel US tax payers money to Iranian NGOs with the hope that they would overthrow the tyrannical regime in Tehran.
But the Iranian NGOs had not asked for these funds. And rather than empowering the NGOs, the program empowered Iran’s hardliners to the extent that prominent human rights activists and dissidents like Shirin Ebadi and Akbar Ganji pleaded publicly with the US government to cancel their neo-con wet-dream.
But no one in the Bush administration listened to Ebadi and Ganji. So our Dark Knight NIAC intervened. And though the fund wasn’t entirely stopped, it was changed into a different and more acceptable shape.
Ebadi and Ganji must have been pleased, as were ordinary Iranian Americans. But not only did NIAC not get a thank you, later on the organization was attacked for having done exactly what Iran’s pro-democracy activists wanted it to do.
NIAC fought the inescapable hand-to-hand combat on Capitol Hill against the supporters of the fund (the neo-cons and AIPAC), a combat no one else in the community could or would engage in. They did what we wanted them to do. Yet, they were scolded.
“Because we have to chase him.”
There is a more recent example as well. Just a few weeks ago, a “conversation” raged on Iranian.com about the dangers of the Mujahedin (MKO) getting off the US terror list.
The monarchists were infuriated and issued their most petrifying yet anonymous warnings to the US government. The Greens were shaking their heads in disbelief. Could the US government be so stupid, they asked? The non-denominated Iranian Americans concurred.
If there was anything everyone could agree on, it was that the MEK was a horrible organization and an impediment to democratization in Iran.
But what could be done? Who could stand up to multi-million MKO campaign? Who had the guts? Who had the brains? Who was willing to go mano-a-mano against the worst and most vicious elements of the Iranian diaspora community?
In one moment of embarrassing honesty, a monarchist on Iranian.com suggested that someone should call on NIAC to do what everyone agreed was necessary, but no one else dared to do. It was a revealing moment because the monarchists otherwise spend all their time scolding NIAC.
But now they had to admit their impotence. Beyond angry warnings and the invocation of the names of ancient Iranian kings (that probably are more ashamed of the pointlessness of these monarchists than any other Iranians), there isn’t much the monarchist can or dare to do.
So again, the Iranian-American Dark Knight stepped in. A massive and daring campaign was launched. Though a few negative articles had been published in the media about the MKO, none had gotten much traction. But suddenly, the winds changed. Through the NIAC campaign, a massive amount of overwhelmingly negative media coverage was given to the issue. Investigative pieces were published in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor – and even the New York Times.
It was made abundantly clear that the Iranian-American community rejects the MKO terrorists. And it was made abundantly clear that the Green Movement rejects the MKO – and that those supporting the terror cult are dong so because they have been paid six-figure sums.
So was there a thank you? No, only more scolding. The very same people on Iranian.com who first had called for the Dark Knight to come and save them from the MKO were now on the forefront – together with the MKO – attacking and defaming NIAC.
“Because we have to chase him.”
Still, there is a difference between Gotham City and the Iranian-American community. As Officer Gordon said, the Dark Knight is the hero Gotham deserves, though it may not know it or may not need it right now.
But the Iranian-American community knows that it needs NIAC, and it needs it right now more than ever before.
The question is if it deserves its Dark Knight.
As for NIAC itself, it will likely suffer in silence, though never complain. It can’t. As a Dark Knight, it is doomed to thanklessly protect those who scold it, whether we deserve it or not.
