Imagining The Crumbling of A Post-Oil Mullahtocracy In Iran
I made these out of frustration with the loopholes in the model of boycott, divest and sanction. This follows on I’ve found from the comments of the Carnegie Endowment Fund for Peace on a “post-theocracy” Iran.
These measures mean nothing if they remain unimplemented by those who claim to be applying them. The UK government continues to buy oil from Iran via third party countries, to invite them to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s for tea, to play at FIFA or host human rights councils at the UN which means also bringing regime dignitaries along with bags of cash for backhanded deals and bribes in hotel rooms. All this while we in our spare moments, exhausted from work and family duties, from the toxicity of the air we’ve inherited, from ageing, from selfishly petty betrayals, from the callousness of anything ranging from a passer by to a nearby, televised war, still find the energy and time to fill the streets and call to the media to spread our message: that the regime in Iran is not a legitimate government, that our friends and loved ones are literally dying to be free, that the mess the UK foreign policy around first tobacco, and then oil has left behind continues to ricochet into our lives today like a wrecking ball that never ends, that those in power in the UK owe it to us to at least uphold what they say is right with their actions not just words. BDS!! It is the only way to be rid of them without war. And what would a world divested from oil look like altogether? It would certainly smell better and have a better future.
For those of us who saw BDS unfold successfully with South Africa, we are waiting.