The Green "revolution" in Iran - We should not support this.

This nonsense on the news about a Green "revolution" has sparked the imaginations and indignation of the youth there and across the world. U2 dedicated a concert to them, the Western news is full of concerned pieces about the movement and the latest "martyrs", and Neda Sultan's face is now familiar throughout the world. But to join the mob in baying for an overthrow of the Iranian government and to cave in to what the demonstrators want - which isn't really coherent, would be disastrous not just for Iran, but for the region. I am the last person in the world qualified to speak about Iran or to tell it's people how they should govern themselves, but prominence Iran plays in the region, its status as an Islamic republic, and my own personal anti-imperialist position means that I must at least voice an opinion on what is happening.

The demonstrations that are being regularly held in Tehran are beneficial politically only to the West. There are many young Iranians who are rightfully frustrated with a lack of jobs, economic opportunities and the corruption and heavy handedness of the thuggish Basij, but they do not know politics. As a result they are easily manipulated. There are other young Iranians who are frustrated with not having the same kind of freedoms that their Western counterparts have. They want to drink in the open, have Western style relationships in the open, and dress in mini-skirts or bikinis. I constantly see Shah-era Iranians and their offspring here in London and they are beyond pathetic with their obsession with fashion, drinking and black men. And those other demonstrators remind me of these silly hedonists. They are also the loudest and most arrogant when it comes to any discussion of politics, and generally the most clueless.

I don't have a lot of time for a long post but in short, you can draw a direct political line from the so-called Cedar "revolution" of Lebanon in 2005 to the Green "revolution" of Iran. I would like those who think these misguided people will succeed to take a close look at Lebanon and see what has happened to those Cedar revolutionaries 5 years later and then make a judgement.

Some of the mullah's might be corrupt, some of the police might be corrupt, but Iran is not an American puppy. It has done more in actuality in the battle against America's poodle Israel than sixty years of Arab "struggle" to liberate Palestine. It has tied America down in Iraq and in Afghanistan. It is governed under the laws of Islam and not under some political ideal evolved in Western Europe. We are Muslims first, not Europeans. We should stop being infatuated by the West's ideologies and way of life. It has only enslaved us and destroyed our souls. I leave you with some quotes from the Iranian writer Jalal Al-e Ahmad:

I say that gharbzadegi is like cholera [or] frostbite. But no.It's at least as bad as sawflies in the wheat fields. Have you ever seen how they infest wheat? From within. There's a healthy skin in places, but it's only a skin, just like the shell of a cicada on a tree.

Also, inspired by Al-e Ahmad, Khomeini wrote:

The poisonous culture of imperialism [is] penetrating to the depths of towns and villages throughout the Muslim world, displacing the culture of the Qur'an, recruiting our youth en masse to the service of foreigners and imperialists ...