Arzu reviews her 2012 blog, Ten Days in Tehran, looking at life under an ever increasing sanctions regime in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
It’s been eleven years since this blog about a trip to Tehran was posted. Its aim was to give a snapshot of life in a country being targeted by an ever expanding sanctions regime. Not long after I returned, more sanctions were imposed by the US on Iran in what is now understood to be part of its hybrid warfare strategy.
Since then, bar one short let up, sanctions have been increased even more. The stated aim is to destroy the country’s economy and cause such popular dissatisfaction that people turn against the system of governance and – one assumes in a US militarily backed operation – prompt a coup to replace it with a neo-liberal US friendly regime. That, or the rejection of Palestinian liberation and the support offered by Tehran for resistance against the settler regime in exchange for US legitimacy (like much of West Asia and North Africa). Well then and now, whilst dissatisfaction is an obvious by product of such attacks, self-reliance and autonomy have also been the outcomes of these punitive actions. This is not to say that things haven’t been made hard for Iranians or that the combination of sanctions, immense soft power operations and interference and the vagaries of the various governments since the revolution haven’t created societal dissatisfaction. Just not enough to get what the US wants.
The snapshot is linked below. Ironically, the experience of UK anti-terrorism laws apropos Schedule 7, was part of this blog. Before even leaving the UK, my husband, myself and two of our children aged 9 and 12, were stopped by anti-terrorist police and questioned. This event was picked up in Hugh Muir’s diary in The Guardian, describing the ever increasing purview of the surveillance state in the UK.
Looking back at a time when, as a UK born and based citizen, I find the limits of political speech and political association increasing and civic space shrinking, the contrast between London and Tehran of 2012 and 2024 become ever more stark.
This is my 2024 review piece #3
Header photo: With Dad in Tajrish by Kaymar Adi CC2.0
