Fiendish brutality
Back to talking about things that actually matter. What the thugs did to the family of Neda Soltan is quite staggering.
Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since she was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said…Amid scenes of grief in the Soltan household with her father and mother screaming, neighbours not only from their building but from others in the area streamed out to protest at her death. But the police moved in quickly to quell any public displays of grief…In accordance with Persian tradition, the family had put up a mourning announcement and attached a black banner to the building. But the police took them down, refusing to allow the family to show any signs of mourning. The next day they were ordered to move out. Since then, neighbours have received suspicious calls warning them not to discuss her death with anyone and not to make any protest.
How fiendishly brutal is that? Less fiendishly brutal than murdering Neda Soltan in the first place, but fiendishly brutal all the same.
“We are trembling,” one neighbour said. “We are still afraid. We haven’t had a peaceful time in the last days, let alone her family. Nobody was allowed to console her family, they were alone, they were under arrest and their daughter was just killed. I can’t imagine how painful it was for them. Her friends came to console her family but the police didn’t let them in and forced them to disperse and arrested some of them. Neda’s family were not even given a quiet moment to grieve.” Another man said many would have turned up to show their sympathy had it not been for the police. “In Iran, when someone dies, neighbours visit the family and will not let them stay alone for weeks but Neda’s family was forced to be alone, otherwise the whole of Iran would gather here,” he said.
Yes well of course that’s exactly why they wouldn’t allow it – they couldn’t be doing with the whole of Iran gathering there. Bastards.
This is religion in action. Religion may not poison everything, but it poisons almost everything, and even its much vaunted goodness is always in danger of slipping over into poison. Some people think that the feel-good factor is enough to justify having religious beliefs (cf Sam Harris and Philip Ball). This barbaric behaviour (‘barbarism’ is apt, for religious talk is nonsensical, just repeated nonsense syllables, even when you can understand the words) shows why it is not.
Well non-religion can certainly be every bit as cruel. But one problem with religious cruelty is that it smacks into the idea that religion is supposed to make people good, and in particular compassionate. It is striking that strenuous devoutness doesn’t prevent people from doing things like this, just as it’s striking to read how the Irish congregations saw fit to treat children. It’s striking that their religion doesn’t get between them and their sadism.
Yes, it does run smack dab into the idea that religion is supposed to make people good, but is that a religious idea? I don’t think so. That is a latter day apologetic stance. When religion has the power it uses it without remorse. When it is on the back foot, it speaks about love and compassion. Arguably, these have no intrinsic relationship with religion. That is why religious texts are so full of malign influences. The issue was never goodness. That came later, and is a superficial veneer on threatened religious believing. The foundational idea is obedience. The first four of the ten commandments make this perfectly clear, and the Qu’ran is bursting at the seams with prescriptions.
Quite. That’s one of the reprehensible things we say in the final pages. That’s why I said ‘supposed to’ – I think that’s one of the great myths (great meaning large) of our time.
This is the horrible truth that Bunting got a glimpse of when she saw the Ryan report – and then lost again. Looks like carelessness.
Eric: Yes, religion requiring obedience to a living human god has been tried (Egypt, Rome…) and discarded in favour of unseen god/s for whom the dictator is simply, in the manner of Augustus Caesar’s choice, Pontifex Maximus – chief priest.
I notice the following report filed yesterday:
“IRAN’S hardline regime has warned the leaders of the post-election protests that they were ‘worthy of execution’.
“Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a member of the clerical leadership, used Friday prayers at Tehran University to accuse the regime’s opponents of ‘rioting’ in defiance of God’s will.
“Those arrested should be punished harshly, he said, while their leaders could face the death penalty as enemies of the Islamic Republic.
“The authorities have taken a stronger line in the absence of mass demonstrations, which came to an end after a brutal police and militia response led to the deaths of dozens of people.”
Seems like Khatami and the rest of the Guardian Council have got themselves into the position the Shah was in in 1978, a year before he was finally overthrown.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/death-threat-to-iran-protesters-20090627-d0ir.html