A young Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, was arrested by the regime’s morality police and died in hospital from ‘sudden heart failure’ after what many believe to be a session of torture. There are reports that Amini was hit with a baton and struck her head against a police vehicle.

The images of the resulting protests – where Iranian women are burning their hijabs – have been shared throughout the world. It represents the biggest wave of protests Iran has seen in the cycle of anti-regime protests which began at the end of 2017.

The images of Amini and her story depict an extraordinarily brutal crime by regime forces. That same regime is finding it difficult to contain the outrage that followed which has expanded its complaints beyond the morality police and into the general fury at a heavily surveilled and controlled state.

How hated the regime is among Iranians inside and outside the country, despite the assertions of regime lobbyists in the West (who have extensive ties to progressive politics), cannot be truly comprehended by non-Iranians. They want the regime gone, and they know exactly the kind of Iran they want.

Condemnation of the assumed crime against Amini has been conspicuous by its near absence among Western elites. As Brendan O’Neill highlighted on Instagram and in his recent article, the same politicians, athletes, celebrities, influencers, and corporations who took the knee in 2020 have been conspicuous by their silence. There is no alleged ‘systemic racism’ by which they can libel an entire race of people and demand the dismantling of a civilisation through venting their rage.

The death of George Floyd, police conduct in the United States, deaths in custody in Australia, and residential schools in Canada – are all deemed sins for which white people are collectively responsible and must atone for by dismantling their own civilisation on the altar of ‘diversity’. But none of this is demanded of the Islamic World after an act of savagery entirely consistent with the policy of the Islamic Republic in Iran since its inception.

There you have it.

No wall-to-wall coverage, flurry of tweets, Instagram posts, and stories by influences lecturing followers on how awful the Iranian regime is or those who support the religion’s morality police.

Leftist influencers living in the privilege of Western democracies have excused themselves from any care about the brutal misogyny practised as state policy in Iran and Afghanistan. Their claim to care about ‘oppressed’ peoples and ‘people of colour’ has been thrown out the window.

Perhaps the fear of ‘Islamophobia’ has also conditioned silence. Nowhere else is this more evident than the reaction of Germany’s ZDF. Ironically, political Islam is facing defeat throughout the Middle East, with both secular nationalism and demand for a return to a more traditional, non-politicised interpretation of the Islamic faith going hand in hand.

Indeed for conservatives this only serves to vindicate the long-held suspicions that the events during 2020’s Black Lives Matter riots were carefully coordinated to serve the Democratic Party and its allies in Western democracies (including Australia), and the vested interests of the race relations and indigenous industries tied to these transnational networks. Black Lives Matter appears to have been used as a mobilisation for that purpose.

Furthermore, one of the favourite devices of the Left, identity politics, is also likely to fail in hijacking the Iranian uprising. Ethnic activists intent on doing so have made common cause with radical leftists, while others have been foolishly embraced by neoconservative lobbyists. This has only angered anti-regime Iranians, who tend to be nationalist and monarchist. Patriotic Iranians who rally around the Pahlavi family and the rich ancient heritage of Iran are the people who deserve our support, because what they represent is the antithesis of the brutal regime currently ruling the country.

The downfall of the Islamic Republic will have profound consequences for the Middle East and Western democracies. Not only will it reveal the moral corruption of Western political and business elites who have profited from dealing with the regime, but also those of lobby networks that have profited from talking about the region in the years following 9/11. It may even reduce the pressures on the West’s social cohesion resulting from those very industries.