Why do they say it’s their own doing?
Why do people say it’s their own doing? This phrase has become a refrain in the analyses of many people these days in response to the terrorist incident at Shah Cheragh. The answer should be sought in the wall of social distrust between the people and the government, a wall of distrust that has gone beyond cracks and has almost collapsed. So much so that even when ISIS issues a statement or publishes an image of the terrorist with a weapon and the ISIS flag, it does not significantly change people’s mindset.
People believe that the power structure, instead of confronting ISIS, has directed the attack towards the protesters. Some have also referred to the bombing incident at the Imam Reza shrine in 1994, which was later stated by Ali Younesi, the intelligence minister during Khatami’s government, to be the work of an extremist group called Furqan, but the Rajavi terrorist cult was suspected and accused. This disbelief especially gained strength when some responsible officials and media outlets began to suggest that the protesters were to blame or were the facilitators of this terrorist incident.
On social networks, they began to claim that all the protesters, or as they call them, rioters, have their hands stained with the blood of the Shah Cheragh martyrs and should no longer be tolerated, and decisive action should be taken against them. To the extent that the interior minister officially stated that the riots that have troubled people in recent days are taking dangerous paths in different forms by the enemy, and the terrorist group has acted using the chaos.
Why protests are not the reason for the terrorist attack
Their claim was that because the protesters have made the country unsafe, ISIS or terrorist groups found the environment conducive and took the opportunity to easily carry out this act. Based on this, they had published cartoons or visual designs with this content or theme, suggesting that the protesters have so occupied the police or security forces that they have been distracted from their primary duties. However, the responses given to these claims are noteworthy, pointing to previous terrorist operations in the country when there were no protests or riots.
Mostafa Hemmat, the son of the martyr Hemmat, wrote on Instagram in response to a similar claim that in 2017, when ISIS committed that crime in the parliament attack, which protest was going on that we were unaware of? Or perhaps in each of the years between 2005 and 2010, when the Jundallah terrorist group carried out 24 terrorist operations in Iran, there were protests, and we didn’t know? Or during the bloody attack by the Ahvaz terrorist group on the army parade in 2018, were there protests, and people were unaware? Don’t you find your claim laughable?
Blood seekers
Another issue that has caused this distrust is labeling the people killed in the recent protests as fabricated deaths and calling the killed police and security forces martyrs. When they created a hashtag for Artin for the victims of the terrorist incident, held funeral ceremonies, and ignored the images and videos related to the killed in recent weeks. Although, on the opposite side, more people simultaneously condemned this terrorist incident and declared that there is no difference between this blood and the blood spilled on the streets.
Salman Kadivar, in an article titled Blood Seekers, wrote that our society is highly polarized and ready to create its own polarization from anything, even the terrorist attack on Shah Cheragh. He criticized that one pole, even after it becomes clear that the attack was ISIS’s doing, refrains from offering condolences and giving it media coverage because, in their view, the blood must flow in the streets to keep the fire burning.
According to him, the second pole, however, considers this blood to have political value and sees it as a tool to subdue and accuse the rival. For this pole, the blood spilled on the streets or in Zahedan is different from the blood spilled in Shah Cheragh. One blood is of insiders, and the other is of outsiders. They scare people of becoming like Syria, while the country’s management style itself is the biggest enemy of Iran’s existence. Innocent blood is innocent blood, whether it be a pilgrim or someone without a hijab, whether in Shiraz, Zahedan, Tehran, or Saqqez.
Whose share of blood seekers is greater?
However, Salman Kadivar forgot an important point in his analysis, which is that this polarization is not necessarily and merely a polarization between people in equal conditions. One side of this polarization is within the power structure, which incidentally has a part of the people with it. One side of this pole enjoys all the tools of power, while the other side has only a portion of the power tools. Therefore, the responsibility of the side with more power, which should logically remain neutral in response to the shedding of innocent blood, is greater in creating and guiding this polarization.
For this reason, some rightly believe that portraying the protesting people as responsible in the tragic terrorist incident at the Shah Cheragh shrine is shirking the responsibility. Both the responsibility for ISIS’s attack on the shrine and the responsibility for the lack of understanding and appropriate reaction to the protesters. The result of all this has led people, in light of their lost trust in the power structure, to say it was their own doing. In reality, the power structure, by erasing the issue and discriminating between the killed and ignoring the protesters’ demands and attributing them to this and that, is itself contributing to this disbelief.
Supporters of the hardliners in power, however, do not have the rationality or maturity to seek the reasons for this belief among the people. Instead, they resort to threats. Mehdi Solhshour, the brother of Farajollah Solhshour, a valued film director who passed away a few years ago, tweeted that more dangerous than the terrorist committing a crime in Shah Cheragh is the terrorist who paves the way for the enemy’s future crimes with the phrase ‘it’s their own doing.’
This article was published following the death of Zhina Amini (Mahsa Amini) by the security police. Other reports and analyses on this topic have also been shared from Iran Gate.
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