Economy, war and pandemic: we are distracted and hardly look at the freedom struggle in Iran. This is understandable, but tragic - and cruel.
Ivan, Iran, what else? We're becoming masters at juggling crises: pandemic, Schwurbler, war and relegation - I don't know about you, but I can't juggle more than three clementines and one tends to fall off. But now contemporary history throws a rattling chainsaw between us: the wave of protests in Iran.
Iran, my goodness, that's really far away. There are also no buckets of sangria there, as far as is known. We really can't take care of everything, besides, there's always a bang "down there". Or?
Observers say this time it's different. It is not about one of the numerous mobile phone videos, distributed primarily by the American-based activist Masih Alinejad, in which Iranian women take off their headscarves (usually the hijab) and are therefore harassed, kidnapped and, in one way or another, by Iranian men being tortured. Brave Iranian women are now protesting in all 31 provinces. People shout "Death to the dictatorship" and "Down with the Islamic Republic". Students, even school children protest. That doesn't sound like an isolated case. It sounds more like Iran 1979.
And yet: the topic is just a little in the blind spot. Everyone thought they could say something about the Covid vaccination after two wheat at the latest because they were sure of their "good immune system". Which is nonsense, but at least it opens up a topic. Iran? Where is that again? "Local man dies in nuclear holocaust" is a bon mot in journalism training - it always depends on the regional victim, otherwise even the biggest catastrophe doesn't matter.
The desperation of Iranian activists goes so far that one author cut off her hair in protest while she was soberly explaining the situation on live TV. What are they supposed to do to get attention? Go to the jungle camp? But, alas, the names alone - nobody can remember them.
How easy could it be: "On Monday, police officers in a Munich suburb dragged 23-year-old Melanie Huber off a park bench and banged her head against the interior of the VW van because she was wearing her crucifix the wrong way around her neck. Melanie died a little later in the hospital, the cause is unclear. The young woman, who had just started studying psychology, loved Norwegian metal bands and cats. The newspaper 'Bild' showed Melanie Huber celebrating at the Oktoberfest on Tuesday. The nation is shocked, Markus Lanz only talks about it for three talk shows in a row, Richard David Precht sits in two of them and explains to Melanie's distraught parents that they don't even know who Melanie actually is and how many."
But, wait, the woman's name is not Melanie Huber, but Mahsa Amini, Persian مهسا امینی, there was no Lanz show and no focal point (as the journalist Natalie Amiri complained in the Übermedien podcast). But with مهسا امینی it starts: strange signs, strange world, uff, no thanks, let's talk about my gas bill.
Amini is dead anyway, and she may have initiated the beginning of the end of the regime in Iran. Another young woman, bursting with life energy, was reportedly murdered and her body was initially held back to maximize the agony. This may be reminiscent of the self-immolation of the greengrocer Mohamed Bouazizi, the trigger of the "Arabellion," the Arab Spring. And again the interest wanes, because we see what has become of this supposed turning point in time.
The women in Iran are fighting for freedom! Wasn't that the thing we've been so passionate about since 2020? Were there not nationwide demonstrations for freedom and cheeky journalists who demanded on riot TV that this mask should now be removed for the sake of freedom? Funny, you don't hear anything from the liberal Wolfgang Kubicki in this liberal matter. He's probably busy right now.
The attack on Ukraine showed all sorts of things, but also this: Our freedom is not only being defended in the Hindu Kush, as former Federal Defense Minister Peter Struck (SPD) once said, but everywhere, especially on the heads of Iranian women. It is in the nature of indivisible human rights.
Why does the media report so little? They need access - they don't get that in Iran. Local political protagonists who could drive a story are stuck in a dilemma: And that has, again a parallel, also to do with the unfortunate topic of nuclear war. The western world is negotiating with the state of Iran, whose state doctrine is still aimed at the annihilation of Israel, about the revival of an international nuclear agreement.
Because of the nuclear dilemma, even the green-feminist Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was rather cautious in her criticism of the regime. In the Bundestag, she referred to the resources available to her. In addition: "If the police, it seems, beat a woman to death because the moral guardians believe she is not wearing her headscarf properly, then that has absolutely nothing to do with religion or culture." As if the Iranian woman's hated requirement to cover up wasn't based on a perverted understanding of religion.
Baerbock was trying to use a rather antiseptic concept of religion. According to the motto: If it's bad, it can't be religion! As if human history weren't obscenely rich in examples of religion being used for the worst atrocities.
But it's not the first time the Greens have stumbled over their cultural relativism on the road to a better world.
In Iran, women of freedom are used to the West's distractibility. The "green wave" in 2009 also came to an end, at least according to some observers, because Michael Jackson died at a bad time. So what can one expect from a West that not only has to cope with the death of a suspected pedosexual pop star, but is also juggling with pandemics, the threat of nuclear war and economic collapse?
So let's go out into the golden autumn and enjoy that, despite our hair loose, we don't risk a fractured skull or a death sentence for homosexuality. In the meantime, others are taking care of the admittedly valuable freedom: Ukrainians, for example, and the Iranian women - those with names that are difficult to remember.
