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The Silence and the Outrage
Time magazine called it “the most widely witnessed death in human history:” the moment when a bullet hit Neda Soltan in the chest and she gasped for air in the crowded Tehran street. Soltan was protesting the Iranian 2009 election results when she was shot and killed by a member of the Basij, an arm of the Revolutionary Guards, and she died on the street like an animal for daring to speak her mind.
That may feel like a million years ago, and some may have forgotten that President Barack Obama sided with the regime that rigged the election that Soltan died protesting. Perhaps time has blurred the connection between her fate and the deal the president later struck, with much pomp and celebration. But it would do us well to remember her now, in the age of angry protests and moral relativism.
Over the past weekend, the streets of many major cities were flooded with crowds protesting the inauguration of President Donald Trump. They called it “the Women’s March,” pointing to President Trump as a particular threat to us as women and to our rights. As expected, these protestors are being hailed as modern heroes in much of the international press. With signs and slogans calling him a despot and an evil, illegitimate president, Trump is being juxtaposed — unfavorably, of course — with Obama. If I am to judge the message by the messengers, their goal is to fight the perceived Trumpian oppression with celebrity-endorsed public gatherings.
As of now, we have no idea what the Trump Presidency will be, as he’s been on the job less than a week. We do, however, know what eight years of Obama brought the world, and oddly, his actual accomplishments did not result in any public outrage or calls for impeachment. Obama sided with the killers of Neda Soltan and, later, awarded them a massive financial payout and international legitimacy. He also actively undermined, circumvented, and criticized Israel to the benefit of Fatah and Hamas and made decisions throughout his presidency that blurred every possible line in the Middle East, giving the Islamic State a void to fill with unimaginable horror. None of these actions benefited women but, rather, emboldened and empowered those who enslave, rape, and oppress women as a matter of policy or a tenant of faith.
Hypocrisy is such a worn-out word but, sometimes, no other will do. A protest that is half-condemnation of an untested, incoming president and an unbridled, teary-eyed celebration of an outgoing president who turned a blind eye to the dying breath of Neda Soltan and her many bleeding sisters to save his own legacy deserves such a word. That same former president wavered on Hamas, a terror organization that enslaves and oppresses women each and every hour of the day, as he was blinded by the anti-Israel splinter in his eye.
Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Iranian people directly through a video posted on social media and, in doing so, he got at the heart of what divides the real world from the fantasy of leftist outreach and outrage. Netanyahu spoke as an ally to the Iranian people and an enemy of the regime that enslaves them and steals their dignity. Most importantly, he spoke to them where most others speak of them, as if were they background extras in the righteous lives of the privileged.
Neda Soltan was not really politically active, not the way most of last week’s protestors would claim to be. She left university because she was harassed due to her choice of clothes and divorced after pressure from her husband’s family to conform. As she left her marriage, she found herself out of work, having been deemed “difficult” by society. Her protest did not fit in any ideological box, but was a reaction to the injustice in her life and the reality of oppression forced her to act on instinct. Hers was a true cry for freedom. I cannot help but ask myself what she would think of the Women’s March against a man democratically elected, but not yet given the opportunity to serve, especially when the same the people are silent toward a president of eight years, who sided with her killers and squashed the hope of an uprising in a country she loved so much.
Last weekend, tens of thousands marched on Washington, carrying banners of hijab-clad women that read “We the people.” I wonder if they know that, in 1979, tens of thousands of women marched on Tehran to protest the compulsory hijab-law that had just been put into effect and as a result were severely punished? I suspect they don’t know and that, if they did, they would not care; to them, the people in Iran are not nearly as important as the false sense of superiority they get from marching and ironically, making that same hijab a symbol of freedom and independence. They marched saying President Trump was dehumanizing them, but in fact, they dehumanize a large part of the world by making them pawns in a political game for which they have little respect or understanding.
Neda Soltan acted on human instinct and a yearning for freedom, just wanting to have what most of us view as our fundamental rights. I’m still not sure what the Women’s March was about, or what they are fighting for, but I’m sure very few of them know Soltan’s name, or want any part in the struggle that claimed her life.
Here here, Annika.
For thirty years, until the Revolution, Israel and Iran shared a special relationship in the Middle East. We have never been at war with the Iranian people. The Iranian Jewish community had a special place there and people still have fond memories of the “old country”.
It once again shows that political Islam, radicalized Islam, is the enemy of peace and coexistence, besides being the enemy of human rights and civil liberties.
While his tenure in the White House was stained with many unforced errors in domestic politics, it will be his constant refusal to support those striving for freedom and democracy against the boot of Islamic totalitarianism that will forever mar the legacy of Barack Obama.
“I’m still not sure what the Women’s March was about, or what they are fighting for”
There’s a good reason you don’t know what they are for, they, collectively, have no idea what they are for either. They only know that their ‘leaders’ have told them the Evil Republicans want to take away their free stuff, turn back the clock, etc. And they, having never been taught critical thinking, have bought it hook, line and sinker. They are being used by pandering demagogues in an effort to muddy the waters of the current political debates, nothing more. They are, sadly, the current ‘useful idiots’ of the extreme left.
No doubt some are sincere but being sincerely wrong is not much better than being insincerely wrong IMO.
And I don’t even like or much trust Mr. Trump but he is the duly elected President so I do think after giving him some time to actually do some things the better approach would be considered efforts to reverse any bad decisions/actions that may be extant. Maybe that would involve street action but hard work at the precinct level is more likely to ultimately be effective if less visible.
It’s a contemporary deceit that the problems of the moment are just as challenging, important, and heroic as the challenges in past history. Sure, they fought a civil war over slavery … but you know, income inequality is just as historically important as all that stuff, so our protests make us just as heroic.
Well, no, not really.
It seems obvious that the desperate and delusional attempts to over-magnify the importance and “meaning” of one’s life is only testimony to how unimportant that life really is. If it was truly important, you wouldn’t have to beg someone to notice.
Annika,
You have spoken the real truth to power. The left wing globalist fools, of which the Obama Administration was a leader, manipulate facts and reality into a childish narrative. They are sure that nobody will be watching and keeping tabs on their deceit and hypocrisy. Gd is always watching. I’m glad you are too.
Excellent post Annika.
Regards,
Jim
Good post, for which I thank you, but is this an example of Netanyahu hacking another country’s political system?
Basij: here now in a country a heckuva lot closer to home than Iran, with Iranian foreign aid money courtesy of Obama’s largesse.
Emanuele Ottolenghi, interviewed by John Batchelor, has this to say:
Listen to the whole thing.
There is a We The People petition regarding this on whitehouse.gov.
Marvelous post. Thank you for reminding us of what so many of us have known for some time. That is, so much of today’s hypocrisy (on stilts) originated in the Women’s Studies departments at universities years and years ago. Requests to include those women across the globe who were being horribly mistreated, as you described, went unheeded as if the only victims were American women – women who now have no doors closed to them. That not a word was was spoken or written by these faux feminists about all women’s rights is a testament to the paucity of their positions. Namely, one big one: abortion at any stage, funded by the government.
This, so sad, so true:
“… an unbridled, teary-eyed celebration of an outgoing president who turned a blind eye to the dying breath of [Neda] and her many bleeding sisters to save his own legacy deserves such a word. That same former president wavered on Hamas, a terror organization that enslaves and oppresses women each and every hour of the day, as he was blinded by the anti-Israel splinter in his eye.
“I cannot help but ask myself what she would think of the Women’s March against a man democratically elected, but not yet given the opportunity to serve, especially when the same the people are silent toward a president of eight years, who sided with her killers and squashed the hope of an uprising in a country she loved so much.”
I take care of two fairly prominent Persian Jews who left Iran in 75. One had only one question for me in our interview,”what is your opinion of Israel?”.
Both usually vote D but not this time around.
One of the best posts I’ve read yet, and that is saying something given the high quality of the posts here at Ricochet. Thank you Annika for the insight and the history. You’ve inspired me to read more about pre and post revolution Iran. I’ve read a lot about Iran, and much of the Middle East, but I stopped just short of the revolution – now I will correct that.
I’d say that Neda Soltan knew there would be danger, knew how important the occasion was, and went to the protest anyway.
I’d say that those women in Washington knew there would not be the slightest danger, had little else to do, and bought travel and lodging to hang out and rail against … whatever.
Wonderful piece Annika.
I pondered similar thoughts earlier today–wondered why nearly 50% of our citizens dismiss the true outrages we have seen over the last eight years; wondered how they could explain their blatant hypocrisy. And here’s how: Some have called this time in history the “Post Facts” era; I’d call it the “Post English” era.
For your consideration: Oppression once meant women were forced to stay home, with little to no chance of education or a professional life, no voting rights, and limited ability to influence substantive matters outside that home. It many cases, it meant that the physical abuse of women was accepted by the society at large.
Today, oppression means the government will not pay the contraception bill for your sport sex and, when the bad news comes, the government will not pay for the destruction of the 8 month old child in your womb.
Tyranny once meant, well, the actions of a Tyrant: cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control.
Now it means, “Someone who is boorish and a bit of a knucklehead,” but yet, wants to pass legislation and sign executive orders in complete accord with our Founding documents and the laws of our nation because he won the Electoral College.
We’re speaking different languages. “Shaka, When the walls fell.”
Here, Here, Annika!! Well stated for all of us conservative women. My guess is that last Saturday’s protest was to prove that women can trash talk and be just as vulgar as they think men are. It was just leftist women further emasculating men!