Goodbye to all that Iranian 'Opposition'

By: Reza Bayegan



As soon as the U.S. administration seems to be talking tough to the mullahs, these Iranians smell the aroma of their dream food coming from the Pentagon kitchen and begin salivating. They crawl out of their holes, bounce on their feet and jockey for the best seats on the gravy train. They want the choicest dishes of the banquet and there is no time to dally. In their headlong rush however, they end up trampling over each other and getting crushed in the stampede. When the smell from the kitchen subsides and their hopes wane, bloodied and exhausted they crawl back to their holes nursing their wounds and biding their time for the next opportunity.

I am talking about a sizable portion of the so-called Iranian opposition, especially those living outside the country. These people have as much self-reliance as a Guinea worm, and as much backbone as a jellyfish. The hearts and minds of the Iranian people are the last place on earth they venture to make any investment in. Iranian culture and literature are as alien and irrelevant to their sensibility as Javanese customs or Aztec civilization. Anyone trying to engage them in a rational discussion would be whistling in the wind. They are as blinkered in their views as are Islamic fanatics.

For them, Iranians are a nation of weathercocks who have no will of their own, no power of their own, and no spiritual values of their own. They think Iranians should be rehabilitated, re-educated and relocated. They should be cleansed of their savage foreign religion and psychologically (since it is impossible physically) transplanted into a purer and chichier cultural environment. They consider Iran as a country that is placed by historical, geographic aberration in the heart of a squalid and backward region. Do they see any discrepancy between this attitude and their professed devotion to their homeland and the future of its citizens? Not at all. Like all fanatics they forego concrete reality in favour of an abstract utopia. The Iranian mind for them is in need of being revamped and reconstructed before it can qualify to peacefully graze on the green pastures of freedom and democracy. Without this forcible overhaul, the total incompatibility of their ideals with the attitude and beliefs of the majority of the Iranian people can in no other manner be overcome.

For the past quarter of a century, these so-called opposition forces have fought the dictatorship of the Islamic Republic as effectively as water pistols would extinguish a blazing forest fire. They have been busy squabbling amongst themselves over a whole gamut of moot questions such as the merits and demerits of Prime Minister Mossadegh’s political legacy, or form and minutiae of the political system in the post-mullahs Iranian regime. The entrenched, well-tucked up mullahs on the other hand have not missed even a brief siesta worrying about such “opposition activities”.

Today, no self-respecting Iranian can fail to recognize that his or her country deserves something better than this distasteful travesty. The modern dynamic generation of Iranians have run out of patience with these bickering political bottom feeders who keep posing as opposition forces. They have squandered invaluable time and precious hope of our nation for an unconscionable time. Iranians can no longer afford to put up with the insatiable egos of those who are fighting their own puny turf wars in the name of defending the interests of the nation. Today Iranians are looking for an effective enlightened opposition. They are looking for the transformation of self-centred cynical politics into the positive politics of inclusion, real alternatives, hopes and concrete planning.

For the future of their country, Iranians are looking for politicians who are willing and able to represent the genuine aspirations and interests of Iranian citizens and not a clique of estranged snobs who could not care less what the Iranian people think, feel or believe. Iranians are not an arrogant people who consider themselves to be perfect. They are well aware that there is a great deal they need to learn from the rest of the world. They however distinguish between learning from other civilizations, and the obsequious surrendering of their national character and integrity. This has nothing to do with xenophobia and everything to do with human rights to dignity and individual freedom.

Today, the Iranian people are as opposed to the mullah’s regime as they are to this kind of self-destructive, philistine, decadent, out of touch opposition and believe them both to be the two sides of the same counterfeit coin. Today the Iranian people are looking for men and women, who in the words of the great Iranian physician and philosopher Avicenna are “fortified by the power of their own moral strength” and invest in the goodwill and approbation of their own people. Those who scoff at our nation’s customs, faith and way of life can only find themselves miserable within a culture that is unable to accommodate their taste and expectations. The Iranian nation can never bring itself to respect or trust those political lackeys whose fortunes are slaves to the ups and downs of this or that American administration or the allocated CIA budgets for covert operations in Iran. The Iranian people have said goodbye in their hearts to the mullahs, as well as to all that kind of outworn opposition.