Generating fear is the only way criminal governments can stay in power. Dick Cheney knows that, Supreme Leader Khamenei knows that, every reactionary thug from the Guardian Council in Qom to the Republican National Committee in Washington knows that. Fear is the foundation of conservative power, it always has been. Fear compels people to submit to oppression, fear perpetuates their oppression, fear prevents most of them from ever taking a stand.
The Uprising in Iran is a confrontation between the forces of oppression and the forces of reform. It’s a struggle for power between fundamentalists and moderates, a high stakes contest with the future of an entire nation hanging in the balance. The world is watching the confrontations in the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities, but the confrontation that will determine the outcome and decide the future of Iran cannot be seen, it’s an inner confrontation, it’s a confrontation as old as human civilization, it’s a confrontation of the soul, it’s the confrontation within the hearts and minds of millions of Iranians between fear and moral courage.
Each of them must make a choice–no one else can make it for them. Will they give in to their fear? Or will they find the moral courage to overcome their fear?
Millions of Iranians are struggling to overcome their fear of being arrested and imprisoned, they’re struggling to overcome their fear of Basij savagery, struggling to overcome their fear of being killed. That inner battle has ended for many of them. Fear has won. They will not join the Uprising, they will not support it. There are too many police in the streets, too many Basij.