the crushing of the human spirit. Anyone who doubts the misery of fundamentalist rule should buy Azfar Nafisi’s memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, to see what the mullahs have wrought.
Among the Iranian people there is a yearning to break free, expressed in surprisingly pro-American ways. There were spontaneous demonstrations of solidarity with the victims of 9/11 which were brutally put down by the ruling elite. But agitation for democratic change continues in the face of imprisonment and execution. The advent of free elections in neighbouring Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the prospect that fellow Shias across the border, such as the moderate Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, can enjoy the fruits of democracy is profoundly encouraging for the Iranian opposition.
What is profoundly depressing for them, however, is the continued indulgence of their oppressors by the West. That is why President Bush’s inspirational inaugural address matters so much. Just as Ronald Reagan’s condemnation of the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire gave Soviet dissidents hope that they were not alone, and thus the courage to fight on, so America’s delineation of Iran as an “outpost of tyranny” gives hope to the democratic opposition in that country.
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