Extremists are at work

Extremists are at work

Extremists are at work. It is necessary to remind a few points to the honorable representative of Tehran and the associate professor of philosophy at the Mesbah Yazdi Institute. Nabavian’s intention probably relates to the appointment of the government spokesperson, who has been attacked in a coordinated manner by well-known social media users, the Kayhan newspaper, and some extremist political figures since the news of her appointment was published.

The pretext for the attack is that Fatemeh Mohajerani said during the elections in a speech that as a mother, she would not allow another Mehrshad Shahidi to fall to the ground. She said they would not let a few totalitarians fill our streets with the blood of young people. The Tehran representative must specify what is wrong with this statement and similar comments. Who wants another Mehrshad Shahidi to fall to the ground? In fact, who wants blood to be shed in a protest? This type of comment is rooted in a mindset that prefers to erase the issue and only be approved by politicians, analysts, journalists, and society.

Previously, there was also a discussion about the executive deputy of the medical faculty, questioning why he spoke about protesters’ eye injuries in 2021. Issuing a general verdict of riot or sedition for a series of events like those that occurred in Iran in 2021 prevents proper analysis. With the issuance of these verdicts, there is neither accumulated discontent nor any mistake that has occurred.

Everything that happens is a scenario. While a wave of protest is created within the country, sometimes due to a long-standing wrong law, the protests of 2021 after Mahsa were a protest against a critical situation, the water protests of Khuzestan in 2020, the sudden implementation of a decisive decision like the gasoline price hike in 2019, or the unanswered questions and numerous ambiguities of the events of 2009. Is every protest that occurs in our country a foreign scenario? In that case, we should say goodbye to the country because the adversary manages to disrupt this country every few years.

In this mindset, when an analysis is to be made, like what we read these days in Kayhan and its satellites, or the wave created by well-known users on Twitter, they talk about Arman Aliwerdi and Rouhollah Ajamian but remain silent about the Zahedan shooting, and the Kayhan writer allows himself to deny eye injuries.

Even now, when they want to mention Mahsa Amini or analyze an issue, they use words that conceal a kind of animosity. The mindset from which Mr. Nabavian comes does not believe that the roots of protest exist in Iran, and to ease itself and erase the issue, it ends the matter by issuing a general verdict of riot and uses this verdict as a benchmark to measure others against his criteria.

Another aspect of Seyed Mahmoud Nabavian’s remarks is the warnings that were raised after the results of the fourteenth elections were revealed. The possibility of crisis creation seems to be that the medical faculty intends to compensate for some past wrong actions like the purge of professors and students under a national consensus strategy. It is still unclear whether he has made any agreements to resolve the hijab issue and stop police crackdowns in the government or not. The issue of tension-reducing foreign policy is also on the table.

Any of these issues is enough for Mr. Nabavian’s ideological stream to feel that the revolution has deviated from its path and something must be done. The honeymoon of the government will soon end, and as in the past, the extensive organization of the national broadcasting service, at least two newspapers, and Friday prayer platforms across the country, especially in Mashhad, are expected to return to pre-2020 settings unless the course has truly changed, in which case the return to factory settings is not entirely off the table but will be less intense because, in any case, someone like the Friday prayer leader of Mashhad considers himself to have considerable independence. We must see where the first point of conflict between the extremists and the fourteenth government will be. Remember December 2017.