US bombing will never bring peace

Since Iran’s women’s football team refused to sing the national anthem before a game with Korea on Monday, 2 March, the mainstream media has framed it as a silent act of resistance against the regime.

However, since then, in a game against Australia, the team proudly saluted and sang along to Mehr-e Khavaran.

And the mainstream media are only telling us what the US and Israel want us to believe. What they don’t want you to know is that the players are struggling to come to terms with the US and Israel illegally bombing their home country.   

Iran’s game against Korea was only one day after the US and Israel murdered Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader. Iran lost 3-0, which is no surprise, given that the US and Israel are blowing their home country to smithereens.

According to Al Jazeera, Iran’s team and management have voiced fears for the families back home.

The internet blackout has made it nearly impossible for players or staff to contact anyone

Sara Didar, Iran’s 21-year-old striker, was on the verge of tears as she told reporters:

Obviously, we’re all concerned and we’re sad because of what has happened to Iran and our families and our loved ones.

Bombs don’t help

In a Guardian article, Cyrus Jones claims:

These women [the footballers] are prisoners

Iranian security is up on their floor [of the hotel] at night. They can’t leave their rooms. They can’t use the public bathrooms. They’re monitored when they go for breakfast, when they get on the bus. They’re monitored in a way no other players from other teams are.

Advertisement

We could not find Cyrus Jones anywhere online, so we will take their comments with a pinch of salt. But the debate about the cost and nature of this attack is urgent. And let’s be clear, this war isn’t ending anytime soon.

The other source is Ara Rasuli. She is a member of the “Iranian diaspora in Australia” and a key contributor to the Women Life Freedom movement. The movement demands the end of the compulsory hijab laws in Iran.

Of course, anything which empowers women with agency and choice is a good thing. But, it cannot be forgotten that white, Western women will take any chance they can get to seize movements which involve Muslim hijabis taking their scarves off. Western Orientalism is obsessed with turning Muslim women into passive symbols, who once they shed their scarves, shed patriarchy along with it.

Such viewpoints must be viewed with suspicion, and require contextualising. Unfortunately, the Guardian has only shown one viewpoint – and completely ignored and disregarded the grief and heartache the Iranian players must be feeling as they watch the US and Israel bomb their country.

As author Trita Parsi explained when discussing BBC bias:

I was on BBC last night, following a clip with voices from Iran. All the selected voices welcomed war, saying they cheered every time they heard an explosion. Those views exist. But when you ONLY air those voices, you are doing war propaganda.

Bombing cannot bring freedom

Essentially, the Guardian framed the story as “these women are prisoners”, anti-regime, and pro-US attacks. But as Irene Montero, Spain’s MEP, said – when has any woman ever been freed by American bombs or illegal aggression?

It’s never happened. Not in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Lebanon. And it will not help in Iran, either.

You do not free women, or anyone else for that matter, by bombing them, or their families, or their livelihoods to pieces. You simply make them hate the people bombing them, and it’s not going to be any different this time around.

Featured image via Football Australia/ YouTube