The problem is not Mahsa Amini, and the solution is not abolishing the morality police that killed her. The regime currently in power in Iran has faced several difficult economic and political challenges since Khomeini’s coup in the seventies. However, it overcame them. Its principal institutions remain intact, and they continue to have a strong influence. Its representatives and militias abroad remain cohesive despite some popular movements going against them.
This capacity to overcome all of these sanctions and hurdles has led the regime to conclude that it cannot collapse and that every cry in the streets will go quiet sooner or later. This is the most prominent sign that it has begun misreading the situation.
Does Iranian Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri’s announcement that the morality police will be abolished reflect a genuine shift in the regime’s position, or was it made to offer the regime some temporary relief from its pain? Does this announcement imply that women are free to wear what they want, whether veiled or not? If the answer is no, then there is no point in abolishing it because it is nothing more than an institution. Individuals can replace it, or other institutions could be tasked with playing the same role. And if the answer is yes, then women are now free, and no turbaned hammer-wielding men will scrutinize their every move and threaten their lives. This would mean that the most important pillar of the regime’s social control has been broken, an outcome it will never accept.
Abolishing the institution that monitors and chases after women will not be enough to quell the streets and absorb all the pent-up anger. Indeed, it is not a revolution over the death of an individual but the accumulation of previous revolutions. It is against all of the ills that have racked up over the years and disrupted people’s lives. Otherwise, what does it mean for the regime to imprison and execute a rapper, actors, directors, and others?
When the Iran national team refused to sing the national anthem in the Word Cup in Qatar, it was a decision the players had all agreed to. They united around a single position and act meant to peacefully express their opinion and send a heartfelt message to the world that they are despondent people whose desperation is different even to that of the poor countries taking part. They did so fully aware of the grave repercussions this could have on them, their families, and their friends.
No one feels the bitterness that the Iranian people feel after watching what they are going through, regardless of the number of clips, images, and commentary we see in the media. The Iranian people are undergoing a genuine humanitarian tragedy in which no ethnicity or sect has been spared.
This country of horror is wobbling on the inside, and we say it is shaking at the expense of the souls of peaceful protesters who refuse to be stale ideological victims with no ties to modern life. The institutions of the state remain despite the deaths of its early theorists, and only regime and IRGC (whose companies invest vast sums abroad, launder money, trade in arms and illicit drugs, and run prostitution networks) beneficiaries remain.
None of these emperors within the regime are willing to give up his luxuries, the lavish life of his children, or the money he has stored in foreign bank accounts.
However, one thing that cannot be overlooked is that the current revolution, the ones that preceded it, and the ones that will follow, indicate that the regime is weaker than it had been. Khomeini’s regime, like all the fascist regimes that came before it, will come to an end.
