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‘Our classrooms are empty because the graveyards are full’: Iran’s students on why they are protesting again (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 8 months ago* by to c/world@lemmy.world
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As details of the death toll for January’s protests continue to emerge, three students explain why they are resisting a return to normality

More than 45 days after a brutal January crackdown that left thousands of Iranian protesters dead, students across several universities are protesting again. As Iran’s new academic term began on Saturday, students in Tehran gathered on campus, chanting anti-government slogans, despite a heavy security presence and plainclothes officers stationed outside university gates.

The Guardian spoke to protesting students about why they were rallying despite the fact that thousands had been killed and tens of thousands arrested in the January demonstrations.

“Our classrooms are empty because the graveyards are full,” said Hossein*, 21, a student at the University of Tehran. “It’s for them – our friends, classmates and compatriots, who were gunned down in front of our eyes, that we decided to boycott the classes.”

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[–] 120 points 8 months ago (35 children)

The protests are good and justified, all power to the Iranian people. Iran deserves a second revolution, after the first one was taken over by the Mullahs for their own goals.

But it's genuinely disheartening how readily nominally progressive spaces are jumping abord the manufactured consent for an imperialist military intervention by Israel and the US.

How, exactly, will bombing Iranian cities help their liberation? Or even if they succeed with deposing the Mullah regime, is anyone really expecting self determination by the Iranian people afterwards? We're seen how the Shar's son is pushed as the next US puppet government by US- and Israeli media (and their European allies).

The Iranian people, not just the current regime, are supportive of Palestine, and Israel and the US absolutely cannot accept that. Don't cheer for imperialist intervention.

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  • [–] 22 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    at this point I'm don't understand it but I can see it as a possible future for a lot of Latin America

    we are watching in real time how Venezuela is transforming into a US colony

    right now Fidel's grandson is allegedly making deals with the US gov (while the US asks Mexico to stop any deals involving gas with Cuba)

    and here in Mexico the state is so corrupt and the US propaganda is running strong for an intervention like the one in Venezuela (and what happened yesterday just made it worse)

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    The american savages are drooling at the prospect of colonizing Latin America as part of their future war effort with china. They will plant propaganda everywhere to steal from the global south as the death throes of their crumbling empire.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago*

    How, exactly, will bombing Iranian cities help their liberation?

    Same way that kidnapping Maduro liberates Venezuela. And embargoing gasoline liberates Cuba. And sending ground troops into Denmark liberates Greenland.

    The Iranian people, not just the current regime, are supportive of Palestine, and Israel and the US absolutely cannot accept that.

    Under Shah Reza Pahlavi, they will crush Hamas and Hezbollah, defeat ISIS, and end Woke Gay Iranian Antifa once and for all.

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  • [–] -2 points 8 months ago (21 children)

    But it's genuinely disheartening how readily nominally progressive spaces are jumping abord the manufactured consent for an imperialist military intervention by Israel and the US.

    Please provide evidence where this generally left-of-centre british reporting is "manufacturing consent". Which text lines do you think are trying to make us readers agree to that kind of action by these two states?

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  • [+] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (16 children)
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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (15 children)

    Nice wiki quote. Now show me, where this applies to the article.

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  • [+] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (14 children)
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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago* (13 children)

    You'd need to show how this is more than simply reporting events and the POV of participants. You'd have to show how the intention is propaganda, how the article manipulates the reader, etc. You'd need to show how this differs from the reporting of ICE crimes, for example.

    And then you'd need to show how the article tries to convince me that a US military intervention would be something I as a european should support.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago

    I feel like so many on this post just think we should cease all reporting about Bad Things because the reporting could be used as propaganda to those who lack the ability to think critically.

    Smh so many slow people around today.

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  • [+] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)
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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (3 children)

    it just means you're swaying public opinion.

    How exactly is this article doing this?

    Propaganda is communication that is primaroly used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda. Methods to do so would be using selective facts, loaded language, etc so the audience does not come to a rational conclusion but a fabricated one.
    Which facts does the article leave out, where does the article use loaded language, which effects do these parts have and how does that make me, a european, want the US go to war on Iran?

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  • [+] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)
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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Where did I state the information used for propaganda can't be true? In the sentence you quoted I talk about the audience's conclusion, not the presented information.

    You repeatedly fail to show where the concepts you present are applicable to the article. You keep deflecting, moving goalposts around and dodging the actual questions.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (6 children)

    And then you'd need to show how the article tries to convince me that a US military intervention would be something I as a european should support.

    You, as a european, are not the target demographic.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (5 children)

    Who is, according to you?

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  • [–] -1 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    It should be obvious that the target demographic for atrocity propaganda about an enemy of the US is US Americans.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Why should US citizens be the target audience for a british medium?

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago* (2 children)

    430k Guardian subscribers are American, compared to 529k from the UK. A significant number of their articles are produced specifically for a US audience.

    Having some basic media literacy and asking why a story is being told and who it's for doesn't make me a tankie or whatever box you've likely already put me in. I'm not even disputing the facts in the article. Propaganda can be truthful and still be propaganda. Atrocity propaganda often is, and even when it is exaggerated tends to be based on a kernel of truth.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    So? US-based subscribers make up sixty percent compared to european readers, but this is definitely targeting US-americans and no way I, as a european, am part of the target audience?

    You are, like the others I had the dubious pleasure to discuss under this post, not providing any evidence for all the bogus claims you are making.

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago

    Obviously you're part of the target audience - the entire western world is - but the primary target demographic is US Americans. There has been an increase in selective reporting on the political situation in Iran in order to manufacture consent for military intervention and ultimately regime change by the US. Western media has been known to do this in the past such as during the leadup to the Iraq war, and they're doing the same thing now with Iran. They make certain editorial choices to play up the emotional impact and imply that US intervention is justified or even invited by Iranians, and because they don't (usually) outright lie about what's happening they have plausible deniability about their intent, which is why it can't be proven.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Are they even accusing the article itself of manufacturing consent? The way I read that, it was talking about online spaces and communities falling for the manufactured consent. Which is not coming from the reporting, but from propagandists, who use the reporting to help them manufacture consent.

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  • [–] -5 points 8 months ago* (9 children)

    I think most people are hoping for an attack on military targets like last year. No-one is calling for "bombing cities". That's a tankie fantasy. A fantankasy

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    People said the exact same thing about Libya in 2011. ‘Just military targets.’ ‘Just a no-fly zone.’ It's genuinely impressive how the same script can be rolled out over and over.

    What it actually meant was destroying Libya’s air defenses and command systems. Once that was done, NATO pushed regime change, the state collapsed, and the country was handed over to militias, foreign powers, and jihadist groups. That’s the model.

    When people say ‘only military targets,’ they’re repeating the same script. You don’t bomb a country’s defenses unless your goal is to weaken it. Once that happens, it’s open season: invasion, proxy forces, destabilization. These strikes are never isolated. They’re step one.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Well you're partly correct, in that you seem to agree that it is, indeed, possible to limit yourself to target military targets... Instead of it being a cover for 'bombing cities' which is what was claimed here.

    But that's separate from what happens in the vacuum later.

    You can look at the support for the Kurds in Syria as a good counter example - arming them and giving them intel and air support helped them defeat IS. Or working together with the résistance in WW2 to defeat the nazi's.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Syria? The country currently controlled by terrorists massacring minorities is a good example of what you want? Also the USSR did 90% of the work of defeating the Nazis while America continued to trade with and fund them through ford IBM and other enterprises. I think the US should just stop intervening but they never will as the massive violence and immiseration is necessary to sustain their empire.

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I think you don't have the slightest idea of what life would be like under the boot of IS (pretty comparable to Iran in most regards, imo) or even what life was like under Assad. Can you let me know how the current Syrian government is 'massacring minorities'? Because that seems like quite the overstatement. Sure they're islamists but Turkey seems to have the leash on pretty tight.

    Funny tangent you're going on in the second half. USSR kickstarted German conquests allying with them at the start of WW2. And when they were inevitably stabbed in the back they had to call on the US to supply them so they had a bit more than their bare hands to fight back. I'm sure you can't see the resemblance to the situation the Iranian people find themselves in.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (1 child)

    USSR kickstarted German conquests allying with them at the start of WW2

    Ah you're one of these people. Ok conversation with you will not be productive. Continue believing what you want all the best.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    Hey as I'm currently enjoying some WW2 flight sim, here's a relevant fun fact to close with :-)

    What plane did the top USSR ace use to kill most of his nazi's?

    Do you think the plane would have been able to do it without him in it?

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  • [+] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)
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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Well no. The biggest death toll in the Iraq Adventure (r) came from the civil war that erupted between (mainly) Sunni and Shia militias. Instead of singing kumbaya and rebuilding the country together they started murdering eachother to settle old scores and try to grab power. Which is to be expected, and was expected, actually.

    But that doesn't mean that should be the final argument in the question of how you help a people liberate themselves from their oppressors, as that would just mean you accept the status quo and the fact the oppressors won.

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