"The ones who did it can always rationalize their actions and even forget what they did. They can turn away from things they don't want to see. But the surviving victims can never forget. They can't turn away. Their memories are passed on from parent to child. That's what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories."
"Inside Iran, contrasting memories are already being brought into even sharper relief and made more traumatic by the blanket propaganda from Iran state TV portraying protesters as drug-crazed or pawns of a foreign power attracted to a violent terrorist culture reminiscent of Islamic State. But underlying this battle for narrative lies a wider political challenge for the opponents of the Iranian government inside and outside the country."
The Iranian state has responded to protests with overwhelming repression and state violence, producing unprecedented brutality since the 1980s. Reformist president Masoud Pezeshkian initially promised to listen but proved unable or unwilling to control the security apparatus or counter the supreme leader's prejudices. The scale of the crackdown has been disastrous and numbing, with many Iranians now knowing someone killed. State television deploys blanket propaganda portraying protesters as drug-crazed or foreign pawns, deepening contrasting memories. These traumatic memories will be passed across generations and pose a wider political challenge to opponents of the government.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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