The nationwide uprising in Iran sparked by the September 16th death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman marks a watershed in the history of the Iranian people’s struggle against the totalitarian regime ruling Iran.
The protests entered their 25th day today as people from all walks of life in 177 cities in all 31 provinces have risen such that at no time during the past four decades have the prospects for a revolution been within reach as it is today.
One must be mindful that this regime is distinctive from any other dictatorship worldwide. These include religion and political repression at home and the export of terrorism, or in the regime’s lexicon, ‘the export of its revolution’.
Misogyny is the nexus between these two characteristics, with which the regime suppresses the entire nation.
As such, to topple this theocratic and totalitarian regime, the Iranian people must devise and formulate tactics that are suitable for successfully and effectively confronting the regime.
Scattered and spontaneous protests, even large ones like the protests in 2009 and 2018, would not ultimately lead to the regime’s downfall. And unlike the Shah’s regime, the mullahs will not relinquish power voluntarily. They are determined to fight to the end to preserve their grip on power.
Against this backdrop, a new revolution requires intense planning, organization, coordination, and unity.
This is something that the Resistance Units of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) have been working on over the past six years while risking arrest, torture, and even execution.
Their role is much more prominent and pronounced in the current uprising such that regime officials and media are expressing increasing alarm over their effectiveness in organization and continuation of the protests.
The rebellious youths have relied on the Resistance Units to improve their effectiveness and minimize their vulnerabilities in the regime’s onslaught and organized violence.
The protesters have also learned a great deal from the experiences of the four major uprisings since 2017 and the tactics employed by the Resistance Units, such as torching the regime’s symbols, posters of its leaders, and billboards, as well as targeting the repressive centers.
In an interview with the state-run daily Bahar News on October 7, Mohammad Reza Tajik, a member of the regime’s so-called reformist faction, said, “The current political situation in today’s society has passed the era of fear and entered the era of rage. The current movement is associated with a kind of happiness and zeal for life. Today’s activist is prepared to sacrifice his or her life to achieve freedom.”
Tajik also expressed his fear about the radicalization of the protests, adding, “Today’s activist thinks that he/she can only get his/her point across to the ruling class with rage. Today’s activist thinks that he/she cannot make change their fate and that there is no other path in front of him/her, and that he/she sees the solution only in acts of violence. He/she thinks that only the language of anger is the solution and that other languages are not answered and are not heard.”
Addressing the regime, he said, “Over the years we have planted the seeds of hate and now we are reaping a lot of wrath.”
Indeed, comments by a young Iranian woman in an interview with the Reuters News agency speaks to this fact: “Hey world, hear me: I want a revolution. I want to live freely and I’m ready to die for it. Instead of dying every minute under this regime’s repression, I prefer to die with their (security forces) bullets in protests for freedom.”
The walls of tyranny and religious totalitarianism are finally collapsing. A new revolution is happening on the streets of Iran and no force can stop it.
