1403: A Bitter Year That Ended
1403: A Bitter Year That Ended
The year that passed was a tumultuous one
Not the kind of tumult they spoke of in official discourses after 2009, discourses that see power as the seat of legitimacy and view opposition, conflict, and even protest against it as enmity with the truth
In those discourses, tumult is a turbulent and unclear space where one cannot distinguish the true from the false, the right from the wrong
But politics and power are not the stage for defining and explaining truth; they are the stage for balancing forces
And it is precise, though bitter, as they have said: ‘The right belongs to whoever prevails’
He who prevails and has more power can claim the right and see himself as the representative and symbol of truth
Hence, linking the issue of power with right and truth is improper, and worse than the overt secular model of balance of power, at least here, the dominant power does not claim truth
Therefore, tumult here does not mean a mixed and unclear space between right and wrong
Here, tumult is equivalent to calamity
In the same sense that Arifi Shirazi says, ‘The catapult of fate hurls stones of tumult,’ and of course, the masterpiece of his speech is in the second verse, which is not as famous as the first: ‘I foolishly flee to a glass fortress’
Yes, this was the state of us Iranians in these times, especially in the year that passed
The stones of tumult rained upon us, and we foolishly fled to glass fortresses
We clung to glass houses
We grasped at any straw, hoping not to drown
And of course, we ordinary people didn’t have many straws to hold onto
The most we have and know is a piece of paper and a ballot box
Sometimes we boycott and do not cast
Sometimes we invest in it with a thousand hopes and dreams, and sometimes we compromise with an option we don’t know well or like, out of necessity and fear of a greater calamity
And of course, at best, we can decide for our single sheets
We have no influence over the people of Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Washington D.C., but their votes and decisions determine our generation’s destiny and era more than they do their own
I wish the calamity was only that orange one sitting in the White House
The world of 1403 showed more than ever that it is a gathering of madmen, madmen of power
Those who no longer seek any etiquette or order, nor are they bound by any treaty or international system
They are throwing Westphalia into the dustbin of history
They are burying liberalism
From Gaza to Ukraine, from Greenland to Canada, from Panama to Taiwan
Like wolves over a corpse, a corpse that is the world
As if they are the artists of Saadi’s tale, sitting at the top, but their common art is authoritarianism and dominance
Contrary to those who say there is no difference between Obama, Biden, and Trump, it must be said there is no difference between Putin, Xi Jinping, Modi, Netanyahu, Trump, bin Salman, and Erdogan
All are show-offs of power
All are infatuated with spectacle
All are extreme rightists
All consider their country and government first and want it first within the limits of their power
One dreams of being Muawiyah, another Osman, a third a Tsar, and surely others Temujin
And of course Trump himself, who wants to make the world a transaction of America
And now this world has become tumultuous, not from the eyes and eyebrows of ancient times
From the path it has fallen into, and the madmen are racing
As once their domestic version said, ‘The brakes have failed, and the steering wheel is torn off and thrown away’
In such a world, what can we ordinary people do
What tools do we have
The most we could do this year was for half of us to vote and the other half not to
Half hoping for an opening and the other half hopeless even for a single opening
Now seven months have passed since that election, and the end of the year has come
Perhaps those who did not vote would criticize and laugh at those who did, saying ‘You see,’ but this inability is beyond that
Our voting was an act equivalent to fleeing to a glass fortress
But what could be done
Is there a tower or fortress left for us to flee to in these times
Did we have a stone wall and moat that we did not go
Did we have the helm of fate in our hands to not rain stones of tumult, no really
Our whole ability was just this
The last breath of our life, the remnants of our existence
All our tools and possibilities fled to a glass fortress
To a house that looked delicate and now has thrown itself out
To a bed where we saw different dreams, and now some still say an even more terrifying nightmare was possible
I don’t know
Perhaps they are right
Perhaps there was a worse than this bad
Perhaps those field clamorers, who in Mashhad, Tehran, and Qom issue death sentences for Zarif and enforce hijab and remove Pezeshkian, were sitting in state empires and ministry offices today
Just as they sat in 1400 and 1384 and broke every bridge we had built behind us
Just as in the seventh parliament, they put on a show of price stabilization and entangled the country in the imbalance of today
Just as in the eleventh parliament, under the name of lawmaking, they raised a blade, whether for cyberspace, hijab, reviving the JCPOA, or even against the return of scholars like Zarif
They have the right too
They are small and cannot see the big
Like the fearful encounter of the little people with Gulliver
Thus they bind chains on the hands and feet of the kingdom, nation, and state and then throw them into the stormy sea and demand swimming too
As they did with the Minister of Economy, and now that he is gone, the dollar and gold have broken all previous records
Perhaps we ordinary people with our single sheets could and in all the previous times we did not want and did not come, we could have closed the way to these talentless clamorers and for any reason sometimes did not
But the bitterest part of this reality poison is that today’s issue for us ordinary people is not the relations and disputes of Iran
It is the world that is chaotic
It is the world that has given the reins to the madmen
Here we no longer even have that single sheet
Of course, we tried again
Against the one who said do not scare people with war, we pinned hope on one who spoke of de-escalation and negotiation
And of course, even today, if it were up to him, he would say again
As he said he wanted to negotiate but did not get the mandate
And we ordinary people thought he was supposed to be given the mandate when they gave him the possibility of presidency
Let’s move on
As this tumultuous year passed
And now at the brink of the new year’s cannon shot, we are more perplexed than ever
More powerless
More spectators
Like puppets in the hands of the puppet-playing fate
As if those ancient poets had seen the reality of today’s world more precisely centuries before us
But for ourselves, it is a strange time, dear