Ben Lowry: When Iranians danced for joy in Belfast at the fall of Ayatollah Khamenei, there was barely any media or public interest in such scenes
Over the decades I have been at many events in front of Belfast City Hall, but none quite like last Sunday.
I was there after the biggest of the Anglo Irish Agreement protests in 1985, after the memorial event on September 12 2001 following the attack on the Twin Towers. I have seen the late Rev Ian Paisley preach there to by-passers and have reported on union rallies and other celebrations or protests.
On Sunday, a planned protest by expat Iranians against the radical Islamic government in Tehran turned into a celebration of the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei by US and Israeli air strikes. They were literally dancing on the wide expanse of pavement between the gates of the city hall grounds and Donegall Square North.
Yet there was barely any media there. And two weeks previously, when I covered an earlier protest by the Iranians, I could see no other media present, and barely a non-Iranian Belfast person in support (apart from the Rev Chris Hudson, the non subscribing Presbyterian minister who is of a Dublin, Catholic, trade unionist background).
Rev Hudson talked on camera to the News Letter at that Valentine’s Day protest about his Iranian parishioners, how he believed there was majority support in Iran for regime change, and about the sophistication of the Iranian people. That was apparent at the protests, with some of those present holding professional jobs such as doctor or academic.
The unbridled joy on Sunday at the death of Khamenei seemed, perhaps, a shade tasteless. The death of an old man in a bomb is a grisly end.
Yet the Iranian regime since the 1979 revolution overthrew the shah has been brutally repressive, and a major sponsor of terror and extremist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. It is astonishing that many western liberals and leftists seem to hate Israel, America and indeed Britain so much that they turn a blind eye to the theocracy in Iran.
The very people who are most shrill about feminism and gay rights and most critical of conservative Christians have little to say about radical Muslims. In many cases it seems to be ignorance: they somehow haven’t absorbed the terrifying lessons of the Salman Rushdie fatwah, of the Taliban, of the 911 attacks, the October 7 massacres or, more simply, of the way in which Muslims more than any other major population in the UK are likely to spurn the sort of liberal values that have long held sway in Britain.
And if there is any growing awareness that the Iranian situation is more complex than some such liberals had realised, there was little sign of it in the aftermath of Sundays jubilant scenes in Belfast city centre (the web version of this article will have a video of the joy).
Some of the more radical left-wing activists in Britain and republicans in Ireland have actually made common cause with Iran, which they embrace as a foe of the west. Others, while not going that far, are certainly slow to criticise the regime.
Contrast the lack of interest in the Iranian expats, and the lack of curiosity in asking them why the feel the way they do about the mullahs back in their home country, with the huge media interest in anti Israeli protests. Think also of the thousands of people in Northern Ireland, and hundreds of thousands in England, who have joined pro Gaza protests or marches.
When a ‘Stop bombing Iran’ protest was held in Belfast city centre on Monday night at the very same location as the anti-ayatollah celebration the night before, there was a bigger crowd, there were scores of local supporters and there was a much bigger pool of journalists. From the side, Iranian opponents of the regime shouted over at the anti US and anti Israeli gathering.
The Sinn Fein first minister of Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill, refused to attend a UK government briefing for the devolved governments on the Iranian attacks. She said it was a military briefing and that attending would amount to lending support to an illegal war.
This is nonsense. The Scottish nationalist first minister attended. It is a privilege for a political leader to get such information, but it is also a duty to attend, even if you oppose the war. As it happens, I am hawkish on defence and Iran but wary of these strikes, lest they make things worse. I backed the 2003 Iraq war because I had followed the brutal career of Saddam Hussein for years and did not doubt what I was told by government – that he was trying to make weapons of mass destruction. That invasion made things much worse.