by Fatemeh Sadat-Serki
This article was written and submitted to Antiimperialista.org by Fatemeh Sadat-Serki in Tehran under fire, on the thirty-fourth day of U.S. and Israeli aggression against Iran. Fatemeh is a leftist social activist and a well-known researcher in the field of venture philanthropy in Iran, with several successful economic empowerment and community development projects among the country’s most vulnerable communities.
Thirty-four days have passed since the beginning of the war, and the figures emerging from various neighbourhoods across each and every city paint a horrifying and shocking picture of the blatant violation of humanitarian principles. According to reports from the Red Crescent, as of April 2, more than 3000 civilians have been killed. At least 117,239 civilian residential units have been damaged. More than 300 healthcare centers, schools, Red Crescent facilities, and even several rescue helicopters have been targeted or destroyed. These are targeted by the most precise technologies of destruction in the context of defenceless Iranian air. These numbers are not merely statistics; they are a living testament to the collapse of the boundaries of humanity in the face of the ruthless logic of war.
The United Nations was established after World War II with the aim of preventing such catastrophes; the Geneva Conventions were drafted to protect civilians and human infrastructure; human rights institutions emerged one after another. Yet today, in the face of such destruction and massacre, these institutions have turned into bronze statues: beautiful, lifeless, and ineffective. The silence of all the international institutions in the face of the bombing of hospitals and schools is not the silence of one who lacks power; it is the silence of one who feeds at the power. Their hollow statements of the so-called human rights organizations are not instruments of defence, but cosmetics designed to conceal the ugly face of domination.
Demonstration in Tehran against the US-Israeli aggression
Here, the naked truth reveals itself: these institutions are no longer defenders; they are observers, but not neutral observers. They are observers whose silence stamps approval on crimes. In the face of children dying beneath rubble, they are not merely indifferent; through their silence, they are saying: “You may continue.”
It is in the shadow of this silence that power sharpens its language…
Before the flames of war were ignited, Trump spoke under the motto of “Make Iran Great Again”; he spoke of freedom, of prosperity for Iran, of saving Iranians. History has shown time and again that before every war, language changes first. Power knows that if it cannot conquer minds, it cannot conquer lands. Dominant powers attempt to redefine words so that violence may appear justified. In this new narrative, an attack is no longer “aggression,” but “preemptive defense”; occupation becomes “liberation”; destruction is called “reconstruction.” This is where imperialism operates not only through armies and weapons, but through language and narrative, and global silence of the left is its greatest accomplice to it. This is the moment when the language of liberation and freedom is weaponized.
Thirty-four days into a war he had apparently expected to end in three, Trump, in a speech setting a deadline for agreement, presents two visions for Iran’s future: either acceptance of a fifteen-point plan, each word of which amounts to nothing but complete domination and imperial conquer, or a “return to the Stone Age” through the total destruction of infrastructure. This blunt and unvarnished rhetoric is, more than anything, a sign of desperation, not strength. One who is winning has no need to threaten; this language belongs to one in a position of weakness, who resorts to the language of coercion.
Yet the more important point in this speech is that there is no longer even an attempt to mask these sinister actions. Trump speaks openly of destroying Iran’s infrastructure, while fully aware that the cost of such attacks will be borne by the most vulnerable segments of society. The left across the world decides to turn its eyes on the labour class in Iran who might be left to hunger after Trump is done with them.
To return to the Stone Age, bombs and missiles are not even necessary…
To return to the Stone Age, cities need not be destroyed; infrastructure need not be shattered. The Stone Age is already here, in the very moment when imperial powers decide the fate of millions of innocent people behind closed doors; in the moment when sanctions, war, and domination-driven policies target the lives of millions, and the world, the same voices that claimed hypocritically to support the labour revolution in Iran during the former periods of chaos in Iran, remains merely a spectator to their massacre.
But the truth hidden behind the silence of the masses is even more terrifying: for peoples that consider themselves the owner of truth, nations whose governments are not recognized by imperial powers, are not worthy of life. If a state is not deemed “legitimate” in the eyes of the imperial powers, its people have no right to development, no right to a future, no right to live. This is the grotesque logic that allows imperialism to sit behind a desk and, with a red pen, cross out the fate of nations, while the left, having accepted this equation, remains silent. The United Nations and the hypocritic “universal values,” which was meant to be a pillar of justice, issues nothing but statements in the face of these crimes, statements that have neither words to offer nor power to stand.
We are already living in the Stone Age: an age in which power is the final and loudest language; an age in which human beings are not ends, but instruments; and an age in which justice is not a principle, but a luxury good sold only to those who can afford it. This is not the end of the story; it may well be the beginning of an even darker chapter.
Yet the fate of nations remains in the hand of the hardworking people…
The Iranian people have lived through crises for many years and have built through resistance. They will continue on the same path: they will not break; they will endure, recover and rebuild their country. A society that has withstood the harshest sanctions and economic wars, and has grown through them, now witnesses the destruction of its whole industrial infrastructure and suffering in a matter of seconds, by the decisions of those few who see themselves as entitled to determine the fate of a nation. Why should those who consider themselves the owners of truth decide to destroy what millions of hands have spent years building? What grants them the right to impose their will, if not the very silence that legitimizes them? Why the left is following this footsteps.
And yet, despite all the suffering they endure, Iranians will not hand over their homeland to any imperial power. A nation that has stood against storms for centuries will stand again, relying on the knowledge that has risen from this soil, the pride that has not been extinguished even beneath rubble, and the dignity that refuses to submit to oppressors and dominators. And this, above all, is the greatest answer that power can hear. Let the international “left” know that the hardworking labor in Iran stood alone and resisted alone under the sanctions and wars that were legitimized by their intentional silence.
Picture by Sadra Noori, a famous Iranian fotographer, who lends his work to the solidarity movement
