How Hitler must be turning in his metaphorical grave. The 20th century’s leading Jew hater did not get to enjoy a state funeral. His fellow Nazis were left to mourn his passing in private.
But for Hitler’s successor to the title of his century’s leading Jew hater, things are very different. There’s only one global gathering that matters at the moment for the world’s loons, bigots, racists and – oh yes – “anti-imperialists” and it’s not the World Cup. All eyes are on Tehran and Qom and the spectacle of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s state funeral.
Like flies to faeces, the funeral of one of the most evil men in living memory has drawn a collection of appropriate visiting dignitaries. Hamas political bureau chief Mohammed Darwish is there along with a Hezbollah delegation under Mohammed Fneish, including the families of dead terrorists. A nice city break for the martyrs’ kin.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah has come, as has senior Houthi Dhaif Allah al-Shami. They’re joined by Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif and army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, Tajikistan's President Emomali Rahmon and Armenia's PM Nikol Pashinyan. Russia, China, and Turkey have also sent representatives.
It’s like a mash up of Smersh, Spectre and all the baddies from Team America: World Police. Of course it is: what else to expect from a funeral organised by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)? The organising committee is headed by Brigadier General Hassan Hassanzadeh of the IRGC's Tehran Command. Indeed, the funeral has seen the public re-emergence of Ahmad Vahidi, the newly appointed IRGC commander-in-chief. For months he has been in hiding, doubtless as a result of the previous IRGC command structure being wiped out.
Not that you’d know any of this from the cloying coverage of so much of the media. The state funeral, reported with route maps and breathless commentary of the millions on the streets, has been staged and choreographed by an organisation which is about to be prescribed by legislation in the UK and is already a designated foreign terrorist organisation in the US, the EU, Canada and Australia. For the BBC, ITV and Sky, however, it’s just a state funeral like any other, with the usual language: "mourners throng", "sea of mourners", "paying their respects", accompanied by vox pops of weeping “ordinary” Iranians and royal-funeral-style logistics coverage and credulous regurgitating of the IRGC-supplied crowd figure of 20 million (so far), with no hint that these might – could you ever credit it? – be exaggerated. Then again, as we know all too well now, it’s par for the course for broadcasters to recycle uncritically figures supplied by terrorists.
For CNN, the Ayatollah was “slain” – as if the leader of the world’s largest sponsor of terror was some sort of innocent victim gunned down in a terrible mistake. The broadcaster had a team embedded in the processions, which reported on the chants of “Death to America”, “Death to Israel” and “Death to the West” with the description, “Funeral crowds fill Tehran streets in show of defiance". Defiance is one word for screaming for the murder of millions.
If you’re looking for alternative perspectives on the funeral, I’d suggest avoiding social media. The Iranians have flown in a group of the usual suspects to do their usual thing. Max Blumenthal, for example, tells us how he has “met people from around the world who've come to pay respects, including many from across the West…These days of mourning will amount to one of the most resonant moments in the history of anti-imperialist movements…What we're witnessing in the Mosala consolidates the Islamic Republic and its revolutionary society as a political reality that can not be erased through regime change war or sanctions. This is a turning point in the region that will echo for a generation.” Not that he is a shill for the world’s leading sponsor of terror. Of course not.
Or there’s Jackson Hinkle, who seems never to have come across a terrorist whose death he wouldn’t mourn. Having attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, Hinkle is now in Iran, where he is leading chants of “Down with USA” (the English sugar-coated version of usual regime chant “Death to America”).
Irish “comedian” Tadhg Hickey is there, too, chanting “Death to Israel” and thanking Iran on behalf of all the “free peoples of the world”. A bit presumptuous, I think. My own preferred message to Iran would be spit on a picture of Khameini. But still, each to their own. (If his name is familiar, it’s likely because a Hickey video was posted by Gary Lineker weeks after the Irishman had returned from Nasrallah’s funeral.)
For American “journalist” Christopher Helali, reporting by video as he walks with the crowd, “it’s clear that he was very much a man of the people, very much a man for justice, for solidarity with the oppressed…Imam Khamenei will go down in history as one of the greatest revolutionary leaders and thinkers… Imam Khamenei was beloved by his people and beloved by the world.” Ah, he had me right up until those last three words. Another “journalist”, Bushra Shaikh (who is British, aren’t you proud?), is also there and describes the former Supreme Leader on a Press TV video as a “man of peace”.
Meanwhile Palestine Action US founder Calla Walsh is there to pay tribute to the “greatest anti-Imperialist leader” in her lifetime, although it doesn’t seem to have dawned on her that we can see her hair in the video. Khamenei would have had her whipped.
These are what one might loosely call the highlights; there are, I’m afraid, far more of them. It’s a nauseating spectacle altogether: news organisations treating the burial of a monster as some sort of tragedy, with some of the world’s worst terror-junkies using the occasion to spout more of their vile hate. Welcome to the modern world.
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