Less smarmy response because I have a bad habit of doing them:
To label Iran as a theocracy in this way feels very tone deaf to me. In addition to what Awoo said, the clerical elite/revolutionary leaders of Iran have sacrificed so much of themselves to defend the Iranian nation and its people. Not to mention how there is a whole electoral power system alongside the clerical class. This callous off-hand reference to reducing the material conditions of Iran to “just a theocracy” is the sort of ideological alienation Marxists should seek to avoid.
The US has repeatedly invoked religious rhetoric in the Ramadan War, explaining to its own military that this war is about securing Christianity (or something else I can’t remember). The Iranian side has not done the same, every diplomatic movement from Iran is made using calculated, materialist decision making that is aligned with “International Law” to a frustrating degree and repeatedly punished for it.
Also Persepolis (2003) and its consequences were a disaster for the western perception of Iran not rooted in veiled women and repressive “totalitarianism”
Less smarmy response because I have a bad habit of doing them:
To label Iran as a theocracy in this way feels very tone deaf to me. In addition to what Awoo said, the clerical elite/revolutionary leaders of Iran have sacrificed so much of themselves to defend the Iranian nation and its people. Not to mention how there is a whole electoral power system alongside the clerical class. This callous off-hand reference to reducing the material conditions of Iran to “just a theocracy” is the sort of ideological alienation Marxists should seek to avoid.
The US has repeatedly invoked religious rhetoric in the Ramadan War, explaining to its own military that this war is about securing Christianity (or something else I can’t remember). The Iranian side has not done the same, every diplomatic movement from Iran is made using calculated, materialist decision making that is aligned with “International Law” to a frustrating degree and repeatedly punished for it.
Also Persepolis (2003) and its consequences were a disaster for the western perception of Iran not rooted in veiled women and repressive “totalitarianism”