You have probably heard the news about the 4 hostages freed by the Israel “Defense” Forces (IDF) at the cost of more than 200 Palestinians and possibly 3 other Israeli hostages, who died in the bombings, not to mention 400 Palestinians wounded; apart from the biased Western mainstream media (MSM), it has been covered also by Richard Silverstein in this post in his blog, Tikun Olam, and Caitlin Johnstone in the article below, focussing on how the MSM distort the news:
So, I refer you to the two excellent posts/articles above for the coverage of the latest event. What follows instead is my English translation of an article by Jacopo Brogi, published on ComeDonChisciotte.org on 6th June 2024. (All formatting original).
Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
Teheran –
A rushing river of people fills the mausoleum dedicated to Ayatollah Rouhollah Mousavi Khomeini. 3rd June marks the anniversary of his death and his successor, Seyyed Ali Khamenei, will speak shortly. In what the West calls a ruthless dictatorship, policemen and unarmed guards guard the gigantic structure where people from all over the nation flock.
It was 1989 and Khomeini left behind his earthly example and the accomplishment of a political and spiritual revolution that continues to this day, a good 35 years later: on 6th June 1989, more than 10 million people poured into the streets to bid him farewell.
Khomeini's funeral, 6 June 1989.
But how... possible? A revolution in our times?
Yes, you got that right. Because to be an independent nation today that has withstood the ferocious thirty years of savage globalisation that came after the dissolution of the Soviet Union - where entire states and entire continents, especially Europe, were reset falling like skittles under the blows of international finance and the multinationals of the Washington, London, Tel Aviv triumvirate, via Brussels and Frankfurt - means having built a permanent revolution.
While Western peoples today find themselves in the chaos of lost identity and demographic collapse, of a ruined economy and widespread and systematic impoverishment, other worlds are experiencing growth and development built in spite of sanctions, coup attempts, and incessant and ubiquitous defamatory propaganda.
And this development of relationships, of human interactions, of feelings, even before economies and geo-strategies, can be seen with the naked eye. A country overflowing with the young and the very young is amply represented here today. And it awaits.
These are days of mourning in Iran, following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and the other passengers of the helicopter that crashed on 19 May. Memorial panels, posters, icons of Raisi and Abdollahian are everywhere: in the streets, in shops, in public buildings. Millions of people have poured into the streets at their funerals and there is no need to push the people, this is also evident at the celebrations for Khomeini.
Iranian President Raisi's funeral.
The immense participation, the mass involvement, the faces, the gestures, the solidarity are the human ingredients of a community cohesion in which the religious aspect is central, which is then welded to the political consciousness of the individual and the people, of an independent nation that has redeemed itself from the dictatorship of the Shah of Persia, the Persian Gulf gendarme commanded by Washington, while the Savak, its secret police, was trained from Tel Aviv.
The tension and anticipation reached a climax, several very young people were taken away on stretchers, half stunned in the throng to pay homage to Imam Khomeini.
Photo from IRNA.
When Seyyed Ali Khamenei arrives to the crowd, the scenes of jubilation, of joy, are incredible. We are talking about a distinguished 85-year-old gentleman, welcomed in a way we could never welcome, accustomed only to rock-star idolatry and disposable celebrities prefabricated by propaganda. Let alone get excited about political authorities, even less so about religious ones, in a society that is now fractured and secularised to the core by the God of money.
Here are the young, the very young and people of all ages suddenly pulling themselves together and falling into religious silence. There are no smartphones on the horizon.
Imam Khamenei - photo from IRNA.
At the heart of Khamenei's speech is the genocide, the Palestinian tragedy that “has become the world's main issue, with students at American universities chanting slogans of solidarity for Palestine”. While the resistance has put Israel “on a path that is its own decadence and destruction”, foiling “the great international conspiracy in the West Asian region”.
Two days earlier, also here in Tehran, at the International Summit on Gaza “The Oppressed but Resilient” delegations from all over the globe joined the Palestinian people. A whole day of debate and discussion on the crossroads we are all facing: will the West still and always impose the same fate on everyone?
The International Summit on Gaza, entitled “The Oppressed but Resilient” - TEHRAN, 1 June 2024 - Tehran Times
Khamenei goes on to quote analysts from the West who describe the defeat suffered by Israel at the hands of the resistance front in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood as “serious”, which according to the Imam “will change the world”.
In view of the presidential elections next 28th June, he then calls for great popular participation and morality on the part of the candidates running. Speaking of democracy and given that for our politicians, so widely detested, true democracy would only be Western.
We will perhaps try to compare the turnout in the upcoming European elections with that of the Iranian elections. We already know the mainstream answer, prefabricated in advance: in dictatorships there is always a large and false turnout.
And so, we ask: is the now customary massive abstention at our ballot boxes a sign of vitality and legitimacy of a truly democratic system?
The mausoleum is emptying neatly, as waves of worshippers pour out to the adjacent canopies, everyone wants to pick up their shoes again, without much of a hurry, and one finds oneself being carried along by the current: the rushing river has set off again, but without a quarrel or a hindrance, just a latent buzz. We are in a location with a higher risk of attack than ever before; and the police is unarmed, because you cannot act violently in a place of worship.
The representation of Neturei Karta Orthodox Jews present at the ceremony - photo from IRNA.
***
Raise your hand if you know an ideal, factual human and social reality free of problems and contradictions. I do not believe it exists in this world. Nowhere.
But there do exist human-scale realities built on common values, cultural, spiritual and material foundations. While the West is disappearing as a formless mass of atoms dispersed in the market, lacking a sense of community and run by a supranational technocratic government that is the enemy of the people, elsewhere there are individuals, families and the state. There is society. Whereas here it is decomposing in the name of an increasingly formal and evanescent individual freedom.
“In Iran I really feel free, not like in Manchester”, says an Iranian lady I find sitting next to me at the airport before departure, with whom I exchange small talk. She lives in England where her husband works and her daughters have good jobs. The woman tells me she can hardly tolerate the oppression of an invasive and systematic digitalised control system: “too many cameras, too many controls, too many economic inequalities. Whereas in Iran it is different. I would like to return to live here as soon as I have a pension, I have been in England for many years now”.
I tell her about the ceremony at the mausoleum and what we saw. “I am proud of my country: we are now independent”.
As my return flight approaches and I am about to close this article, I am reminded of the stark contrast between the sacredness of the morning crowd waiting for Supreme Leader Khamenei and the glittering materialism of the Iran Mall a few hours later: the mall north of the capital is now the largest in the world, an impressive 21 million square metres. It was used as an anti-COVID vaccine hub during the emergency, when Khamenei legally banned the US mRNA vaccines Pfizer and Moderna in January 2021, focusing on the national one.
The Iran Mall in Tehran.
This afternoon, the Iran Mall is full of young couples, many girls do not wear the veil, many others do, all busy shopping while keeping an eye on their children among the fountains, supermarkets, playgrounds and movie theatres built especially for families of all ages.
Many of them may have been at the morning ceremony, in memory of Imam Khomeini, not too far from the world's largest shopping centre, which makes any Western - civilised shopping centre pale in terms of product variety and modernity.
What a strange country this is: wasn't it supposed to be an intolerant, oppressive, violent regime left over from the Middle Ages? At least that's what they always tell us on TV. But also in the coffee shop, if you ever have to engage in the ‘Iran’ chat.
The war we are all going through, the war of the West against the East is this: not the whole world wants to live like us, there are peoples who want to continue to live differently, in their own way.
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