The other sense of the Velayat-e Faqih is a synonym for ‘tyranny’ or totalitarianism and terror. The absolutism of governance, combined with the ideological dogmatism of the political Shiite Islam, has developed into an episode of Black Death in Iran. It has resulted in a failed state, an economic catastrophe, and an iniquitous society. Abroad, Velayat-e Faqih is a nefarious element whenever the Islamic Republic is involved with any given issue.
The tyrant, or as Iranian have called theirs, Vali-e Faqih, the Supreme Guide, cannot rule alone. He must have two vital organs. One is a large herd of yes-men who would abide by his decisions in return for fortune and a piece of power to rule as petty despots. The second is a population with few aspirations in life, both individual and collective. Apathetic, indoctrinated and fearful at heart, people from all walks of life try to adapt to a lawless state. In their daily routines, they have to avoid the malignancy of the tyrant and the incompetence of the lower despots.
Velayat-e Faqih has a long history of human rights abuses, discrimination based on gender, religion or ethnicity, and extrajudicial executions at home and abroad. For us, in writing these lines, it is tantamount to Idiocracy, the Idiots Supremacy, in which the folks without vision deserve whatever they get. Phallocentric ideology and religiosity indoctrination in which a population has lived in intensively for over four decades, are not limited to harness the ignorant mobs. It has critically infected the highly educated people with sufficient foresight or awareness to be part of a positive driving force for betterment, but their personal interests come before any collective consideration.
Nowadays, bragging, even for a trifle, is a prevailing social behaviour in the society. It is strongly encouraged and practised by the Shi’ite elite in power and resonates with the population. When an Iranian does not have any rational argument in stock to defend his proposal, he invokes his “pride” by pursuing it obstinately, even suicidal.
As Tehran’s autocrats push for more nuclear facilities and missile development, the costs in billions of USD soar. The ex-Foreign Minister, M-J. Zarif, talked about the Iranians’ pride in their progress. Decades of stand-off with the West, and many – theatrical – international conferences has not changed the population’s living standards for the better. Instead, poverty is spreading at the same pace as the Velayat-e Faqih’s innate corruption and brutality.
The population grunts and moans in dispersed movements, few and far in between. However, we are not to observe a strong front line with a concerted aim in sight.
Gar-Gar: The Harrowing Ride
Reporting from the backyards of Iran, a term is regular use: Gar-Gar, گرگر, a means of transportation over rivers and ravines.
The widespread use of Gar-Gar, where a bridge is the only rational option, is a sign of the folly in which the Velayat-e Faqih regime, the supremacy of idiots works.
Gar-Gar is a manual cable car, a makeshift structure to cross a ravine or a river, mostly in mountainous areas to the West of the country. Patched with metallic ropes, rudimentary pulleys, and a small platform to transport passengers, Gar-Gar is very prone to accidents, without basic safety measures. However, Gar-Gar is the only means for many villagers to open up their hamlets to the outside world by accessing nearby towns, reaching their fields for cultivation and sending their children to school.
Gar-Gar stories appear in the back section of the print media from time to time when there is a sad story to tell. Either the structure has broken and the passengers drowned in the river or the cables have cut off the fingers of the users.
Any local authority in a country in which there are fewer idiots at the helm would had built a bridge long ago. But in Iran, those living in small villages are not human beings of interest in the eyes of the local authorities; they are only Dahâti / دهاتی, yokels, pumpkins, hicks.
Those in charge of local government, far from being caring stewards, are snobby social climbers and misogynist specimens. They kiss the arses of any Hujjatu l-Islam/Authority of Islam – the middle-ranking clerics of the province – and slurp their words.
Every time a Gar-Gar accident is reported, the analysis and logic of the idiocy of the supremacists – local authorities and representatives of Valiy-e Faqih – smell of a filthy bottomless gutter.
For a start, the men in charge slam the muckraker journalists of putting under spots a trivial matter and enlarge the little inconveniences to the people. Fancy, in a country where journalists parrot the views of the ruling elite.
Then, the provincial administrators play blame games:
Certainly! The harm befallen on the villagers is entirely their own fault.
People were drowned? So what! Perhaps they should learn how to swim.
Were their fingers cut-off using the cables? They should have been more careful.
[see the references below]
Idiots in the Quest of Remedy
In Iran, the standard reply of the authorities faced with any problem to solve is to start by denying it.
If that doesn’t work, they try to appease the citizens with hollow promises and lies, as if a stern headmaster was addressing a crowd of inbred half-wit children. Dehumanising villagers and gentle folks is not a vicious teaching of forty-plus years of Islamist brainwashing. It is firmly anchored in Iranian social history.
What if the citizens are stubborn in their demands and hold their grounds? The regime takes out the rifles and fires. Those who escape death, would serve a sentence in an execrable jail under the false and overused charges of espionage, sedition, traitor to Islam/country.
For now, the gentle folks using the Gar-Gar have not held their ground. They count on their chance and the Gar-Gar. For centuries, they have lived with little means in harsh areas, and the comfort that any government must have had provided them, has been denied to them by the succeeding dictators. In today’s hermetically sealed and unresponsive political system, the role of the individual is only to serve the rulers of the Islamic Republic.
As a deputy to the parliament for the regional province put it, building an iron bridge can be considered, but, before taking action for its construction, the plan of the bridge must be provided by the Regional Transportation Department. Then the plan should be submitted to the provincial planning committee for approval. If approved, the plan should then be sent to the government in Tehran, so that the government can provide the necessary funds for the construction of the bridge. Therefore, it may take quite a few years for this bridge to be built.[sic]
Dead easy, yeah? See, if there was a need to refurbish a rundown Tekyeh/تکیه, there would be no need to go through a Kafkaesque process, the money would not be a problem. The lucrative business of mourning in Iran would pay for it with a hefty return on investment.
Since there are by far too many reckless souls and fingerless bodies, philanthropic plastic surgery may be the answer. At least, the remedy to Gar-Gar flatters an idiot supremacist. His pedigree conforms with the Islamic Republic’s standards. The altruist surgeon is born into a devout family, veteran of Iran-Iraq war, has studied in the West, but has refused their offer of wealth to serve the deprived people in the rustic areas by patriotism. [sic, abridged]
Dr Abduljalil Kalantar Hormozi, head of the Plastic Surgery Center in Shahid Beheshti University, was praised in a lengthy report for saying: The villagers whose fingers are numb or amputated, can go to the hospital after receiving a letter from the provincial authorities stating that they live in the village and undergo surgery without paying for the hospital.
However, building a basic bridge to save the lives and fingers for penniless folks brings no national or international prestige to the Islamic Republic. The bare fact is that Tehran does not give a toss to the victims of the Gar-Gar, but flattering a yes-man can serve the purpose of many grovellers.
The Gar-Gar encapsulates the miseries that people face in many aspects of their lives, but the stories go unnoticed beyond the province. The lavish expenditures on Islamic propaganda, missiles, nuclear technology and the Islamist henchman’s national funeral ceremonies attract attention and fit the national pride.
Spending a few thousand dollars on a bridge that would alleviate the hardship of yokels and hicks to the West of Iran is a waste of money in Velayat-e Faqih, the Idiots Supremacist realm.
If anyone asserted the Political Islam as a doctrine of compassion, kind-heartedness, and humanity, it can only be a lunatic flat-earther who believes that pigs fly.
Links:
Below, we provide the links to the Iranian news sites reporting the stories and a few additional providing the context. In our search we did not find a single message from a social media user or a line of sympathy from other citizens. We will welcome to publish them, if any.
(all in Farsi)
- Gar-Gar (the fright of the commuters from Ebrahimabad village)
- Gar-Gar was not just a nightmare for the villagers
- Finger amputation of 30 people in a village due to lack of crossing
- Dangerous transportation of mother and baby of a tribal area with Gar-Gar
- Alongside death with the cart of fear / fingers that “Gar-Gar” cut off
- I think in Lory/ Why do they think I am having a bad accent?
- The autumn migration of nomads to Dezful
- The amputated fingers of the villagers will be operated on by the surgeon
- Final measures for the residents of Gavdaneh village: A new cable car was built
- Amputation of the fingers /Must swim in the revier instead of using Gar-Gar
- Seyed Ali Mohammad Bozorgvari
- Dr. Abdul Jalil Sheriff Hormozi
- Promise to build a bridge in Gavdaneh village
- Farmers’ cry to prevent disaster: Gar-Gar nightmare
- Terrifying transit of the villagers of Silozdeh with Gar-Gar
- Kashkan lives with the Gar-Gar nightmare: a 10 years old demand
- Gar-Gar symbol of unbalanced development in Iran
