A Global Silence That Becomes a Scream in Iran

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Highlights

• In political history, there are moments when silence is no longer a sign of caution or neutrality, but becomes a form of action in itself—an action that can have consequences as deadly as direct decision-making.
• Deciding which catastrophe is treated as an “urgent crisis” and which suffering is turned into a case that can be postponed is itself a form of exercising power. The suffering of Iranians has been held in precisely this kind of suspension for years.
• When politics is reduced to the logic of bargaining, the suffering of nations also becomes a negotiable variable. Backroom agreements, delayed decisions, and sudden retreats replace ethical principles. In such an atmosphere, even at the height of killing, action is replaced by talk of “needing more time.”
• The silence of Russia, China, and parts of Europe, along with prolonged hesitation in formally confronting repressive institutions, intensifies the question of whether geopolitical calculations have come to outweigh the value of human life.
• It is in this context that the invitation of a senior Islamic Republic official to the World Economic Forum in Davos takes on a meaning beyond an ordinary diplomatic event. Lindsey Graham’s sharp reaction to the invitation exposed the depth of the moral crisis. His comparison between this decision and the world’s behavior toward Nazi crimes before World War II was a warning about the normalization of violence. The implied message of such invitations to Iranian protesters is clear: the world hears your voice, but prefers to continue with business as usual.

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Cyrus Kangarlu – In political history, there are moments when silence is no longer a sign of caution or neutrality, but becomes a form of action in itself—an action that can have consequences as deadly as direct decision-making. What is taking place in Iran today is of this kind. Open repression, street killings, and the deliberate erosion of human capital have turned Iran into a scene that can no longer be explained with phrases such as “a complex crisis” or “a situation under review.” The central question is how a world that presents itself as a defender of human rights has remained so silent, for so long and with such meaning, in the face of this situation.

Cyrus Kangarlu

This silence is neither accidental nor the result of ignorance. For more than four decades, the Islamic Republic has been the subject of analysis, reports, and diplomatic dialogue. Yet at critical moments when Iranian society has paid the price with human lives, the dominant response of world powers has been limited to cautious statements and expressions of “concern.” This is the kind of condition Hannah Arendt described in terms of the normalization of evil: a situation in which moral responsibility is lost within bureaucratic layers and inaction becomes an accepted routine. Under such circumstances, silence is no longer the absence of action, but a form of indirect participation.

The issue, however, is not merely moral; it is deeply political. Michel Foucault shows that modern power operates not only through naked force, but through controlling meaning and framing reality. Deciding which catastrophe is treated as an “urgent crisis” and which suffering is turned into a case that can be postponed is itself a form of exercising power. The suffering of Iranians has been held in precisely this kind of suspension for years: violence that is real, yet pushed to the margins in the official language of the world.

In the tradition of political sociology, Max Weber understood politics as a field of tension between an ethics of conviction and an ethics of responsibility. What is seen today from many governments is a cold and reduced version of the ethics of responsibility, in which stability, economic interests, and geopolitical considerations take precedence over human lives. Weber warned that a politics emptied of every horizon of values will sooner or later lose its legitimacy. The world’s treatment of Iran is a clear example of this erosion of legitimacy.

At the regional level, the issue is not merely silence either. In some cases, there has been active obstruction of effective support for the Iranian people. This behavior must be understood in the structural fear of the spread of protest and freedom. Within such calculations, preserving the status quo—even at the cost of thousands of lives—becomes a “rational” decision, and politics becomes detached from ethics and reduced to pure calculation.

When politics is reduced to the logic of bargaining, the suffering of nations also becomes a negotiable variable. Backroom agreements, delayed decisions, and sudden retreats replace ethical principles. In such an atmosphere, even at the height of killing, action is replaced by talk of “needing more time.”

Meanwhile, narratives concerning the global order, the role of financial elites, and the transfer of crises from West to East—regardless of whether their details are correct or incorrect—reflect a deep distrust among nations toward the transparency of global power. The significance of these narratives lies not in proving a hidden plan, but in revealing a logic that reduces human suffering to a manageable cost in the organization of the international order.

For many Iranians, a feeling has developed that their country has become a place where crises accumulate—a place where violence can continue without provoking a proportionate global response. The silence of Russia, China, and parts of Europe, together with prolonged hesitation in formally confronting repressive institutions, intensifies the question of whether geopolitical calculations have come to outweigh the value of human life.

From Giorgio Agamben’s perspective, such a condition resembles a “permanent state of exception,” in which human beings are reduced to bare life: lives that can be taken without their deaths immediately becoming an ethical and political issue. Images that emerge intermittently from repression and killing can be understood precisely within this framework: real violence that is systematically pushed to the margins.

It is in this context that the invitation of a senior Islamic Republic official to the World Economic Forum in Davos takes on a meaning beyond an ordinary diplomatic event. Lindsey Graham’s sharp reaction to the invitation exposed the depth of the moral crisis. His comparison between this decision and the world’s behavior toward Nazi crimes before World War II was a warning about the normalization of violence. The implied message of such invitations to Iranian protesters is clear: the world hears your voice, but prefers to continue with business as usual.

If we return to John Rawls’s theory of justice, the final question is simple but merciless. Can an order be called just if it allows violence and death to be concentrated disproportionately upon one nation simply because geography and politics demand it? The answer is clear. Every silence in the face of such a condition is an explicit violation of fairness and justice.

From the position of a peace-seeking Iranian, this question is no longer merely political, but existential. What has our crime been? Why should our country, culture, wealth, and young people pay the price for equations in whose formation we have had no role?

This essay is not written to prove a hidden conspiracy, but to record a historical protest. Even if the narratives remain disputed, the casualties are real. Even if decisions are made behind closed doors, blood is shed in the streets. And perhaps the most dangerous moment in history is the moment when the world becomes accustomed to this condition.