In my post "To Zobayda", I wondered how different Iran would be if the 1953 coup hadn't occurred. The current authoritanian regime came to power after a series of Western intervention in the political scene in Iran. What if nothing of that happened! How different our countries in this region would be if we hadn't experienced colonialism!
Graeme commented:"authoritarian regimes have been around since Adam. Look at life in Russia and China since communism for example, and even that is recent... It's not a case of blaming everything on colonialism either."
Yes, conflicts and wars have been an inseparable part of Human history long before European Colonialism. Yes, we shouldn't blame everything on colonialism. However, what I know is that our countries carry the painful legacy of Western colonialism and our present is shaped to a great extent by what European colonialism did, and still does. It wasn't Russia or China that colonized Egypt, Kenya, Palestine, Congo, Algeria, Morocco and more. European countries did.
When we talk about European colonialism, some try to distract us by other irrelevant topics.
"Oh, but it wasn't only Europeans who colonized and erased other cultures. Look at Arabs, Chinese or Russians."
Whenever I look around, I find disasters created by European colonialism from Palestine, Libya, Congo, Sudan, Iraq, to Afghanistan.
I don't know why I was reminded of that zionist settler who came to steal Al-Kurd's house, a Palestinian family in Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem. When Muna Al-Kurd confronted him that he was stealing their house. He inconsiderately said; "If I don't steal your home, someone else will steal it."
"If we didn't colonize your countries, someone else would do." This is how it sounds to me when White supremacists justify European colonialism.
This is not a valid answer and this is not how it should have been, as if we should simply accept injustices imposed on us.
Even looking at those Arab countries crossing red lines, they wouldn't dare to do it if Western countries didn't turn a blind eye. A few years ago, there was an investigation that Saudi border forces killed many immigrants trying to cross the borders from Yemen. Guess who trained these forces? Germany and US. They did not train them how to be democratic or how to apply human rights, no they trained them how to kill.
Look at the Emirates and all the filthy work they do in Sudan, Somalia and elsewhere. Would they dare to do it if they didn't get the green light from the West? Who's selling them weapons that they send to the RSF?
Trump referred to Sisi as "his favourite dictator". Who supports those dictators and the bunch of thieves ruling us? It's the West.
If Western countries mind their own business, we will still have our problems but we will solve them. We just need to be patient and not lose sight of the ultimate goal, a democratic and free system for all. We need to overthrow capitalist systems, too. We'll do it the hard way but we will do it right. Just leave us alone.
I understand the reality is much more complicated than what I wrote. We might never reach this stage when we have a peaceful world but at least, we shouldn't surrender.
I'd like to end this post with a quote of Toni Morrison:
"Don’t let anybody, anybody convince you this is the way the world is and therefore must be. It must be the way it ought to be."
Headline image by thekidflames on Unsplash
I sometimes talk about Iran with my Texan friend. I think what you are writing is right, and religion also has taken over the country.
I also support the idea that you solve your problems on your own. I don't like other countries get into the problems to try to solve. When it happens, usually they make more mess.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Yumi!
I didn't know much about the 1953 coup. Around that time, the Korean War had just ended in the Far East. I'm currently trying to learn more about the Korean War, and I also want to study the history of the Islamic world. Everything happening now is connected to what happened back then.
I agree that everything is connected. There's no way to deal with the present without understanding the past.
P.S. I just wanted to add it's really important to read from its own people voices. We should read about the Korean war through Korean voices, read about Palestine through Palestinian voices. This way we don't allow their histories to be distorted or erased.
Yes, I know that, but I haven't read difficult historical books, I'm reading just some literature by Korean writers. I learned at school that the Korean War helped Japan's economic growth. But when I was young, I couldn't even imagine what had really happened in that war, or why it had started in the first place. Japan was responsible for that war and profited from it.
Anyway, your post informs me what I can’t know only from mass media in Japan. Thank you, Zeeza.
Yeah, the history we studied at school didn't tell the whole truth.
You're very welcome! I'm glad that the post gave you some food for thought.
Before the US- and UK-backed coup, Iran was a stable and "progressive" country. However, things went south when prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh decided to nationalize the the main oil company in Iran. This didn't sit well with the US and the UK—shocker! They threw the country into chaos and installed a puppet state. Meanwhile, muslim extremists believed that Iran should be ruled by a theocracy. They took advantage of a weak and corrupt government to revolte and seize power. That's how we ended up with the current leadership in Iran. It's like getting someone addicted to drugs and then complaining about their addiction. That's what the US and Trump are doing right now. This is gaslighting at its finest.
@Akiko What's with the mass media in Japan? I watched a YT video in Japanese—I don't speak Japanese, I just used the YT-translate feature for the comments—about the meeting between the prime ministers of Italy and Japan. People in the comments complained that the Japanese media barely covered the meeting and that the media is pro-China. There were also many comments praising the Italian PM, which is...interesting...to say the least.
@Simone- Japan's press freedom is often said to be quite low, but I don't think the media is pro-China. My interest in the Korean War comes from following Tetsuya Yamagami's trial. My English still needs feedback, so I want to avoid writing long comments here, but I may try to write about it properly someday in my own post.