Tehran is a city floating on sewage, literally. In the absence of an interconnected sewerage network, we have been building our homes on wells specially dug for our discards. They are natural septic tanks, in which wastewater seeps into the soil and who cares what happens to the rest. In fact, the same is true about the country as a whole, since all settlements in Iran, with the exception of a few recent ones, follow the same method, from the mega-capital all the way to the tiniest village. It is why occasionally, when things get out of control, we need to call upon someone to bring his tanker and drain the jam.
A project, partially funded through loans from the World Bank, for creating a sewage system for Tehran – and many other cities – has been in progress for many years and according to some estimates, it will take until 2025 to complete. In Tehran, the plan is to lay a network of underground pipes and have homeowners connect to it, which will lead to tunnels in the east and west of the city, and eventually to treatment plants in the south. Until today, thirty percent of the pipes have been laid and in most areas homes are not connected to them yet.
Iran’s political system too has been floating on sewage. The year is 1388. On the very day a Doodle celebrated the 400-year-old telescope of Galileo, a man who was later convicted of defending the Heliocentric view of the world, we put on trial another man and had him confess to reading foreign books on political philosophy. Accounts of political prisoners, torture, rape, murder, fraud, corruption, injustice and general unlawfulness have always been part of the backdrop in Iranian politics in the past, surfacing occasionally, quashed swiftly and flushed into the drain. The difference is that they are rampant now. The delusional fairy-tales of the fantastic that constitute the political philosophy behind this method of governance have been with us as well, and the decades-old efforts of some to install treatment plants have been met with fierce resistance so far.
Many Iranians had been non-voters for years. Aside from the lazy, most of them have had an ideology behind this attitude. Some believed that by not voting, people could strip the government of its legitimacy, while others were mistrustful and discouraged by the lack of transparency in the process. There was yet another group who believed that passively allowing the system to pick its worst would eventually lead to its implosion. By all accounts this election was an exception, even in its turnout, and many of the naysayers voted too. But the winners, whether there is any merit to their argument or not, were this last group: Ahmadinejad, the crème de la crème, has occurred. It seems we needed to put a man of his caliber inside the well, to make all the doo-doo bubble up for everyone to see and smell, and for some, to touch.
“Who ya gonna call”? Production of grime has reached a peak and someone has turned the fan on. We need the tanker man, and this is yet another irony which some in Iran are grappling with. Reactions to the trials vary. While most people show solidarity with the accused, there are those who point to the fact that a number of them were the jailors not so long ago. There is confusion about turning for salvation to the very men who had a hand in making this system, and who have had pasts not unlike their captors today. “What comes around, goes around” is what I hear frequently in Tehran, which eventually leads to the famous “they are all the same”.
I believe in reform, in sewage networks and treatment plants. From 1388 to 2025 is a long way, even in a world of communication. If we let go, it will probably take many more years for the madmen in our current government – at least those for whom there is some hope – to wash away their delusions, reform themselves, and perhaps be eaten by a new generation of madmen rising once more. There is no World Bank for this either. We already have a system to work with, with some of the pipelines already in place. In a discussion about Karroubi, someone said, “I completely forgive him. And may all the money he gobbled up be Halal for him. At least he’s been doing something with it. Without forgiveness, we have nothing.” Galileo’s telescope wasn’t something new, but an improvement to an older and cruder design. The same is true for the men on trial this week.
Tags: elections, politics, propaganda, show trials