Current Heroes in Iran — Part 1: A Twitter Page
These days the news about Iran is everywhere. There is also a lot to say about it, but here I want to focus on only one thing: Introducing some of the big players in this revolution in an article series.
As the first part of the series, I chose a Twitter page called Hafezeh Tarikhi, or Historical Memory. As the name suggests, they share videos about events that should not be forgotten, and they are really good at keeping those memories alive or even resurrecting them.
The post consists of 3 sections.
A. Why am I writing this?
B. Why are they, big players?
C. What are some examples of their work?
The first two sections are mainly thoughts and ideas, but the third one is a collection of real events. That will help to give you a better sense of their work and its impact.
A. Why am I writing this?
There are mainly 3 reasons that I do this.
1. To share their works and idea
I would like to introduce them to a bigger community to expand their audience. Their work is incredible, and their voices are worth being heard. Some of the videos that they share are impressive pieces of history that can be useful for everyone. But also, more specifically, for those nations that have a similar struggle. They can start their own version of Hafezeh Tarikhi. This idea is a true way of fighting.
2. To get inspiration
Sharing is not only about giving, but also receiving ideas. This was an amazing initiative by them. I would expect that other countries had other ideas that help them in their fight for freedom. Knowing about those ideas can inspire us.
And it is not only about receiving ideas but also about knowing more stories. There are lots of inspiring stories that are lost/forgotten in the news. Remembering and resurrecting them requires lots of energy from their side. Knowing about the stories that happened in other places, can help them make more and better videos with less effort.
3. A tribute
This post is, after all, a big kudos to what they do. This group of anonymous (for obvious reasons!) people generously spend hours of their lives, probably watching lots of old speeches and making matches with other events. This post is a pat on their back for all of their efforts, to ensure that their work is appreciated by others.
B. Why are they, big players?
There are lots of reasons, but let’s categorize them into 3 buckets.
- Re-thinking about the old events
- Breaking the illusion of the uniqueness
- Using the limited resource of trust
1. Re-thinking about the old events
Ideological regimes, in lots of senses, are like broken romantic relationships. Going back and re-visiting things that were said, with your current knowledge, makes you feel how foolish you were that you didn’t see all of those signs.
The revolution of 1979 happened when the media was not as accessible as now, and generally, the political knowledge of people was not as good as these days. Therefore, lots of the speeches of the current leaders of Iran were not analyzed properly back then. Listening to their speeches now is sometimes even shocking when you realize how under-educated they were, and such impossible promises they made.
But you don’t even have to go back to 1979. There are more recent examples of the government making empty promises, false claims, and wrong denials. Let’s take a look at two examples where false claims were made.
Early after Covid started in 2020, the commander-in-chief of IRGC, General Hosein Salami, in an absurd tv show demonstrated a quasi-scientific machine, invented by Iranian scientists, that can detect the virus from a distance of 100 meters!! Having this in mind, it is harder to fall into the trap of their future lies, and also easier to recognize their previous lies that were not as obvious as this one.
As another example, there is an NGO based in Washington, called NIAC that claims they are opposed to the regime, however, in lots of critical moments they have served the interests of the regime. So, generally, it is not so easy to figure out if they are connected, underground, to the regime or not. What this channel did, was to gather and publish their position in several historic moments and those were all in favor of the regime. As the result, Iranian society does not buy their opinions that easily anymore, and there are lots of movements to clarify that this NGO is not a representative of the Iranian people.
2. Breaking the illusion of the uniqueness
Lots of dictatorships are closed countries. One reason, of course, is due to the abundance of their enemies, sanctions, etc that cuts their relation with other countries. But there is another reason, that is deeper and might be the incentive behind their provocative, hostile, and enemy-maker behavior. That is the strategic need for enemies and a closed country!
Dictators need to be seen as the only savior of the nation in a world where every other country is hostile to them because they are the only ones that follow the truth. They are the unique chosen group of people in the world. Inducing that in the people's minds, they will have/find/make excuses for all of the terrible things that happen in their reign. An open country ruins this plan because it gives people the ability to compare and realize that they are not the center of the world. So they have to shut down the free flow of information, ideas, and even travelers. Not only the internet is their enemy, but even traveling inside/outside the country is what they don’t like. When people travel, they can see that their beloved leader, is not as important as he claims to be. They can claim to be “the guardian (Wali Amr) of the Islamic world”, but when people see other leaders do the same and use similar techniques, they start to doubt it. This gets even worse when they realize that similar techniques were used before by notorious dictators. Let’s take a look at three examples.
One classic example is the confessions after the accusations. Whenever a political activist is arrested in Iran, you should expect a tv show within a few days, in which they are confessing that what they did was terribly wrong, or even worse, that they were spies from a hostile country having a mission to destroy Iran. But Iran is not the country that has done this. There are lots of examples of other countries in which a very similar thing has happened, and it is proved that it was under torture. As an example, a video they recently published, in which the accused person was blinking a Morse code of the word TORTURE when he was confessing. Showing these examples raises this question in the mind of people that what happens in their country also might be recorded after torture.
Another example is the usage of sports in giving credibility to the country. Hafezeh Tarikhi used footage from a documentary showing how Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco were using football to hide the reality of their country. This comparison showed why the Iran government was investing so much in the world cup in Qatar amidst the unrest in Iran. This could help people to decide if they want to support the football team of their country or cheer against them.
The third example is when the Taliban took over Afghanistan. Back then, in 2021, they made lots of promises like giving freedom to women, which they ignored soon after they established themselves. That was resembling what happened also in Iran in 1979 and nowadays is famous as Khomeini’s trick (Khod’eye Khomeini). Having this knowledge in mind, the next time that people see the footage of 1979 with machine guns in the hands of revolutionists, they ask themselves “how blind I was that I didn’t see all of these signs before”, exactly like a broken romantic relationship.
3. Using the limited resource of trust
An Orwellian country is very careful with introducing heroes. Giving too much credit/power to anyone outside their close circle is a big risk. They do not want this power to be used against them anytime in the future, even if that person is currently 100% aligned with them. This is one of the reasons that, in these kinds of countries, the government waits for the powerful men to die, and then, when they are not dangerous anymore, glorifies them as heroes.
With all of these cautions from the authorities, trust becomes like a limited resource for people. There is only a short list of men and women that are not debunked by the regime as traitors, spies, enemies, etc. If you want to prove something to a loyal follower of the system, your options for a source that they agree with are quite limited. But fortunately, at the core of this shortlist, we have the current leaders themselves, who happened to be the revolutionists in 1979. They were charismatic speakers criticizing the lack of freedom and the economic turmoil of the previous regime. However, those speeches are really accurate these days to criticize the current situation of the country. For those loyal followers, that does not trust anyone outside the shortlist, recalling these old speeches that contradict their new ones, is an effective way of bringing doubt to their beliefs.
The shortlist, include a few heroes outside the close circle of the government as well. One example is Nelson Mandela that is considered a hero by them too, for all of his efforts against the apartheid regime. Hafezeh Tarikhi has published videos of him that he asks other countries to put more sanctions on the apartheid regime. Moreover, he defends their way of fighting in South Africa, while those fights were violent in the eyes of some people. A big share of Iranians, are criticizing the current uprising because of the violence. Or similarly, accuse people who call for more sanctions as traitors. Seeing Nelson Mandela saying these words, makes it more challenging for people to easily debunk the current movement.
C. What are some examples of their work?
Lots of their videos need some cultural/historical backgrounds to understand them. For this post, I would like to share those that are more international. These videos are easier to understand, and also their content is more useful to become a part of the historical knowledge of the readers.
5 examples, plus a bonus one are given:
1. Sport-washing
The first post shows how Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco were making use of football. Then it compares it to what the Iranian government did in the Qatar world cup. The footage is taken from a BBC documentary called Fascism and Football.
The second post does a similar comparison, but this time for the 1978 world cup in Argentina, and how Jorge Rafael Videla used the sport for his purposes. The footage is from another BBC documentary.
2. Nelson Mandela asking for more sanctions against South Africa
Nelson Mandela in NewsMaker interview in 1990, asks what do you expect South Africans to do when they are brutally oppressed? He also asks for more sanctions against his own country.
3. Civil disobedience during the civil rights movement
The first post shows Rosa Parks that did not comply with the segregation policies in public transportation in the 1950s. The footage is from the documentary The Rebellious Life Of Mrs. Rosa Parks.
The second video is a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. about unjust laws and the moral obligation to disobey them.
4. NIAC's hidden support of the government
NIAC’s founder says that the US cannot help the Iranian people in the 2009 uprising.
It is followed by a recent interview with Barack Obama in 2022, in which he says he regrets that he did not support the green movement of Iran in 2009.
5. Marking the shops of protestors
Similar to marking a star of David on the Jewish shops in the 1930s, the Iranian government was marking the shops that had participated in the general strikes as “under surveillance”.
Bonus. The surreal Covid detector!
In the end, let me share this funny video that shows the surreal claims of Hosein Salami about their Covid detector.
- The first video is a comparison with a newer speech of his, claiming that they master the war of “electronic, cyber, quantum, communication, etc”.
- The second one is an older exhibition of a similar machine that “can detect every kind of liquid and solid material from every distance”!!
