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Iran Protests Are about Far More than Cost of Living
(Jewish Chronicle-UK) Jonathan Harounoff - Many headlines are reducing what is unfolding in Iran to unrest triggered merely by a plunging currency. But such framing is not only incomplete, but dangerously misleading. The demonstrations now rippling through cities far beyond Tehran are the latest chapter in a decades-long struggle for dignity and freedom. Yes, the economy is in crisis. But what we are witnessing is the culmination of 46 years of accumulated grievance. Iranians are protesting against a rotten system that has continued to fail them in every way. They are protesting against the routine use of violence, arbitrary detention and lethal force against citizens who dare to dissent. They are protesting against the persecution of minorities, from Kurds and Baluchis to Baha'is and Lurs, who have borne the brunt of systematic discrimination. They are protesting against the daily war waged against women, whose bodies, hair and choices are policed as instruments of ideology. They are protesting against corruption so entrenched that even formal resignations at the top, like that of the central bank governor this week, appears less like accountability and more like theater. They are protesting against environmental ruin and water bankruptcy, the result of mismanagement that has left once-fertile regions parched and unlivable. The people of Iran deserve better than a regime that pours vast sums into foreign terrorist militias while its own citizens struggle to afford bread and medicine. This year alone, a billion dollars was sent to Hizbullah. The people of Iran are not asking to be rescued. They are demanding to be seen. The writer is Israel's international spokesperson at the UN.