If you were one of those people rejoicing the dismantling of Iran’s morality police this week, you may be disappointed to learn that the news may not have been all that accurate. But rest assured in the fact that you are not the only one fooled.
Often, news coming from outside of the Western world tends to be distorted, or at least somewhat skewed. I know this far too well while working in a newsroom in Pakistan when I was reading Reuters and AFP’s standard introductions to any news about Pakistan. We had a running tally of how many times the words 'war-torn', 'battered' and 'desert' were used to describe the lush green mountains of Pakistan’s north-west. Long story short, I’ve learned to treat international English media with a grain of salt.
This week in The Global Tiller, we try our best to bring together credible information on what’s going on in Iran. What has the international media gotten wrong and what lessons can we learn?
It’s not easy to find credible sources of information when it comes to what’s happening in Iran. The government has been restricting internet access within the country since the protests began in September and are showing no signs of easing down. This means that activists on the ground are relying on VPNs and other hacks, highly limiting the amount of information coming out of the country. The other sources of information are English-language media published in Iran but scroll through the homepage of the Islamic Republic News Agency, Tehran Times or Iran News Daily and you’d think there wasn’t a single discontented citizen inside the country. The only Iranian news entity that has been covering the protests is Iran International, which itself is based in the UK and has been accused of taking funding from the Saudi royal family.
In the absence of independent local news media, we have to rely on international media and that is how we ended up with The New York Times headline claiming 'Iran Abolishes Morality Police After Months of Protests' and the Wall Street Journal saying 'Iran Disbands Morality Police, Considers Changing Hijab Laws'. Although, to be fair, the NYT was forced to change its headline to 'Iran Has Abolished Morality Police, an Official Suggests, After Months of Protests' after social media backlash.
As the world celebrated the big news, considering the decision to be a major victory for the protesters, Iranian activists were not buying it. In fact, Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad said she was shocked to see these headlines of victory. "It was total misinformation," she told ABC News. “When dictators are shaken, they know how to use disinformation to mislead the rest of the world or to calm down the protesters within the society.”
Turns out, the Iranian prosecutor-general who spoke about the dismantling of the morality police does not even have any jurisdiction over this force and, so far, there has been no confirmation from the interior ministry, which is in charge. In fact, an Iran-based activist told DW News that this announcement was nothing more than an attempt to dilute the turnout of the three-day strike that was called for Monday. Nevertheless, a large number of Iranian shopkeepers and lorry drivers staged a walkout in nearly 40 cities and towns, signalling a growing discontent with the current regime.
Even the Iranian state’s own security council has acknowledged that more than 200 people have been killed since the protests broke out in September, but this figure has been challenged by the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group. They claim that at least 416 people, including 51 children, have so far been killed in the security forces’ crackdown against protesters. It started as outrage after the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Jini Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police three months ago and has now grown into countrywide protests and demands for a complete regime change. For that reason alone, dismantling the brutal force will not do much to subdue the anger among the protesters.
It remains to be seen how these protests will evolve in the coming days and it would be naive to predict the outcome based on the fact that we, as outsiders, understand very little of what’s going on. However, this protest movement in Iran shares some similarities with its contemporaries, such as the Black Lives Matter in the US, the 2014 umbrella movement and the 2019 Anti-Extradition Law protests in Hong Kong, the 2020-2021 anti-government and anti-monarchy protests in Thailand, and even Sri Lanka’s storming of the president’s house. These movements are leaderless and are being sustained by a younger generation, ones who have a stake in the future and are willing to demand (if not yet succeed in bringing) systemic change.
Until next time, take care and stay safe!
Hira - Editor - The Global Tiller
Dig Deeper
When I want to learn more about a place, I rely on its fiction. I’m hoping to learn more about Iran by reading some of these recommendations.
…and now what?
What is happening in Iran? That’s is a tough question to answer. For all the reasons Hira says and may be more. From the moment a single person rose to protest in Tehran to today’s headlines throughout the world, it’s a combination of complex factors (history, economy, international agendas, personal experiences…) that have spread beyond the country’s borders and have been subjected to misunderstanding, cultural biases and anticipated hopes.
We as humans sometimes struggle to put ourselves in the shoes of others, get rid of our own biases to really understand what’s going on. It’s basic empathic work but it’s not an easy one. So we fall into the trap of interpreting mostly from the basis of our values, education, experiences and add to the confusion of an already complex situation.
But there is a new factor at play here, and that is fast-information. In an era of constant information, it’s no longer about providing an understanding but giving a reaction (usually a knee-jerk one). So as soon as a bit of information, even an incomplete one, comes out, it’s all about who will publish (share?) it first. Even old institutions, such as The New York Times, seen as reliable and responsible, are falling into the trap as they’re fighting for their own relevance.
In an already complex situation, our thirst for visibility makes us share no matter the cost.
Perhaps we need to take a step back amid the excitement. Can this inaccurate news (or misinterpreted for the least) cause trouble to the cause of the Iranian people?Would many people who read the NYT get disinterested now under the assumption that the fight has been won? Oh, they weren’t fighting because they’re forced to wear a hijab? Is there’s more to it than the desire to fit in a more American-European vision of a woman’s life? And it’s not even what really happened? Did we get lost in translation?
Unless we start to ask the right questions and dig beyond the headlines, our attention, which is already teased by so many people, will fall into the trap of oversimplified information, craving for the next breaking news, the next sensational event (the likes of the FTX collapse or the latest Elon tweet).
This context of overly bingeing information sharing leads to an even broader issue. As Hira says, there are similarities between the Iranian protests and many other we have seen sprout throughout the world.
And there is one more thing they all share: despite the attention they get through viral tweets, headlines and attention-grabbing threads, they rarely get the support they actually need. For each viral event, we go through the same cycle of outrage, condemnation and then critique until another event grabs our attention and the previous one is forgotten.
Maybe these protesters just want to be heard, understood and assisted in a way that they see fit, not in a way that we think does. Iranian women may not need to get “freed” from the hijab, but maybe from a patriarchal system that is also still present in our societies and that we don’t fight enough at home in a way that could resonate and impact in places where it’s even more urgent (as a matter of life and death).
Maybe the Hong Kong youth didn’t need an economic blockade on China or a criticism of the overly surveillant state but a mind-opening realisation that our countries are following the same path even if we claim we’re free.
So maybe, and I don’t want to be the old grump here, maybe if we truly want to help those people we should not see ourselves as their potential saviours (and play into the “foreign manipulation of the movement” cliché) but see them as an inspirations to do better in our own homes: that is to better explain what they do and want, to better share their struggles as ours, to better change our systems in order to welcome them in our hearts and minds.
I wish all the best to the Iranian people, and to any people currently fighting for what they think is right and humane (however, we may interpret this). I do wish the lives lost will be a wake-up call for all of us to ask the right questions and open our eyes on our own shortcomings but, mostly, that their lives are preserved for the sake of their own societies’ futures. Those are not icons, they are humans, and as any they just deserve to live as they intend to. And we should all support this.
Philippe - Founder & CEO - Pacific Ventury