Iran Focus
Editorial
If there ever was the slightest doubt about the mullahs’ unpopularity among the Iranian people, the recent desperate, albeit amusing, gambit by authorities to entice people to visit the shrine of the regime’s founder should prove as a clear indication.
As one example, the official news agency IRNA reported on Sunday that over five million half-litre juice bottles will be distributed at the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on the 21th anniversary of his death on 3 June.
An organiser for the observance of the anniversary of Khomeini’s death, Mohammad Reza Mahmoudi, told IRNA that organisers plan to dole out millions of juice bottles to attract visitors. Additionally, make-shift stations will be equipped with nine huge water tankers and an 800-metre square water storage facility, he said.
In addition to juice and water, these stations will also hand out free cookies, biscuits and fruits to potential visitors.
Throughout the years, Khomeini’s mausoleum has attracted embarrassingly low numbers of visitors due to mounting resentment towards the clerical regime and its unpopular policies, including suppression of freedoms and liberties, misogynistic laws, draconian punishments.
Officials fear those numbers will dwindle even further this year after year-long unprecedented protests that have shaken the foundations of a regime based on absolute clerical rule.
The recent enticing measures by authorities have a palpable air of desperation to them. Following the last state-sponsored rally earlier this year, many Iranians mockingly labelled participants as “sandicy”, or “seekers of treats”.
After thirty years in power, the legacy of the theocracy that Khomeini established with an iron fist with a view to expand it in the Middle East has been reduced to dishing out free food in an enclosed and empty shrine. Outside of that enclave and for the rest of Iran the story has been nothing but crippling poverty, brutal crackdown and continued protests by a resentful population that has rejected Khomeini’s fundamentalist ideals.
