In his thoroughly researched and meticulously
documented book: The Fall of Heaven: the Pahlavis and the final days of
Imperial Iran, Andrew Scott Cooper refers to Abadan’s Cinema Rex fire
carried out by Ayatollah Khomeini’s direct order on 17th August
1978, as "the worst inferno anywhere since the Second World War”, which
“was at the time modern history’s deadliest recorded act of terrorism".[i]
The chapters of Cooper’s outstanding book are hard to stomach, and I doubt
anyone could go through his account of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and not
feel angry as for how a gang of ruthless Islamist-Nazis succeeded in derailing
Iran’s path to prosperity, while world democracies recognised the barbaric
mullahcracy, purely for economic and financial gains.
Forty years on and the same gang who burnt 430
innocent moviegoers alive in Abadan and blamed the Shah’s regime for the crime,
have successfully managed to stay in power, threatening the stability of the
entire region, enslaving a nation and destroying and damaging unfathomable
facets of everything Iranian. During the 1970s and particularly since the
Shah’s refusal to renew Iran’s oil contract with the international oil
consortium in January 1973, human rights organisations began blurting out their
accusations on baseless facts and claims from sources such as People’s
Mujahedin and the Leftist Fadayie Partisans terrorist organisations. This
well-orchestrated global campaign against Iran, used every media outlet to
demonise the Imperial government. However, since the
advent of the Islamic regime in 1979, the same Human Rights organisation has sufficed to
a few scattered condemnations and a number of useless statements. It is
mind-boggling that a UN watchdog organisation in the age of the Internet and
instant communication has been silent against one of the most inhumane dictatorships that the
world has ever witnessed.
On the 41st anniversary of one of the
most heinous acts against humanity in recent centuries, the leaders of the
Islamic theocracy are still tolerated by most countries around the globe. It is
time for the world to stop supporting a gang that have hijacked a nation’s
aspiration for their rightful place among the civilised nations.
Forty years since, and the killing apparatus of
this republic have never ceased. I sometimes wonder as how and where the
families of those who burnt alive in Cinema Rex, are today. Some have for sure
emigrated to other Western countries and live in exile, some have perhaps never
recovered from the atrocity and some are too busy struggling to make ends meet
in the dire social and economic situation that this regime has brought upon my
nation. But the troubling question for me still remains, as how many of
them are participating in the regime’s staged elections?!
It is a painful thought but unfortunately a reality
that the Islamic system has managed to convince the nation to believe in a
mirage that their Islamic republic could be reformed. Reformers and
hardliners are the two sides of the same blade, which have been drying the
roots and the essence of everything Iranian for four decades. It is time that
Iranians respect the memory of all those who have been, and still are perishing
in the hands of this bloodthirsty religious establishment by refraining from
participating in their organised masquerade - presented to the world, as an election.
We must stop giving legitimacy to a regime that has
destroyed our country, killed so many of our loved ones and has denied us that
prosperous and democratic future we were so close to achieving in the late
1970s.
[i] Cooper,
A.S (2016). The Fall of Heaven - The Pahlavis and the Final Days of
Imperial Iran. (1st ed.). United States: Henry Hold and Company.
p.376
