The Tragic Backdrop and the Persistent Narrative
In the wake of devastating strikes on Iran, which resulted in the heartbreaking loss of 164 primary school girls, a familiar narrative has resurfaced in liberal circles across the West and East. Many are advocating for regime change as a means to liberate Iranian women, echoing past interventions like those in Afghanistan. This perspective, however, overlooks a long history of Western colonialism, where women's liberation has often been used as a pretext for domination. Despite this, elites in the Global South continue to embrace this story, raising critical questions about agency and sovereignty.
The Circus and the Seminary: A Powerful Analogy
To understand this dynamic, consider the analogy of a circus and a seminary. The collective West is portrayed as a circus, symbolizing revelry, curiosity, and a superficial sense of freedom that appeals to adolescent imaginations. In contrast, Iran is depicted as a seminary, promising faith, discipline, and, ultimately, meaning. The circus includes strong men like the Pentagon and NATO, clowns such as Trump and Hegseth, dwarfs like the European Union and Keir Starmer, and captive animals representing the people of the Global North and South. Lion tamers and mahouts, such as the IMF and World Bank, control the show, while a house of horror (Israel), joy rides like shopping malls, and soothsayers in Western media complete the spectacle.
This circus offers magic shows in the form of green development and climate finance, and even Merlin-like figures in Western academia to peer into crystal balls. It presents a complete package for a global audience, fostering a desire to run away with the circus in search of freedom and adventure. Yet, history shows that circuses often deliver captivity, forcing performers to work for meager rewards under the watch of global finance managers. Residents of the West themselves grapple with lives reduced to performance, masking labor and loneliness.
The Seminary's Promise and the Human Quest for Dignity
On the other hand, a seminary delivers discipline and, at its best, a journey toward meaning and dignity. While it can be authoritarian, it offers a path where even a pauper can find dignity through purpose. From its windows, the circus appears glamorous, leading many from the Southern diaspora to leave the seminary and join the circus, a choice not to be begrudged. However, this presents a false dichotomy for humanity. Humans inherently desire freedom and joy, but not at the expense of meaning and dignity. Imposing freedom through violence, as seen in the US/Israeli attack on Iran, is futile, just as enforcing faith by decree is meaningless.
Iran's Realities and the Call for Non-Intervention
The attack on Iran is condemned as a crime, rooted in flawed premises of Western superiority. Iran, though a flawed republic like many others, boasts significant achievements, such as having 70% of women graduates in STEM fields compared to 36% in the US, and an 87% literacy rate among women versus 80% in America. While gender equality in legal rights requires improvement, these statistics challenge the narrative of Iranian women needing external salvation. The Iranian regime is a domestic issue, best resolved by the Iranian people themselves, not through Western interventionism.
The West's war against Iran is predicted to fail, potentially catalyzing its own decline, much like the circus, which has moved from centrality to the margins of human experience. One hopes the West will find itself similarly marginalized, as empires rise and fall. In conclusion, the struggle between hierarchy and liberation must be internal, free from external imposition, echoing lessons from figures like Gandhi and Ambedkar.
