Recently, a third-rate TV opinion host proved yet again that “We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.” Chris Hayes went “All In” to join the herd of Iranian regime propagandists against the main democratic opposition, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). He is toeing the line of a totalitarian regime that is fresh off their November killing spree when at least 1,500 innocent demonstrators, including many children, were viciously murdered and 4,000 more wounded by security forces.
#MEK: At Least 1500 #Protesters Killed in #Iran https://t.co/x8AOUd6lrq#FreeAllProtesters #StopIranBloodshed
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) December 16, 2019
Inexplicably, Hayes has launched a malicious tirade against the primary opposition movement to those murderers. The MEK was founded in 1965 by Muslim intellectuals that sought to establish democracy in Iran.
Such a long-standing political identity, with deep roots in Iran, is too proud to respond in a serious way to Hayes’ amateurish assemblage of ideological sound bites and talking points on Iran, the sources of which are the grotesque intelligence services of the regime (describing the MEK as a “fringe group” and a “cult”).
Suffice it to say that Hayes is way out of his league.
The MEK is a “cult”? Tehran has a multi-million-dollar campaign to demonize the MEK because it is the largest democratic opposition. For example, the head of a security-minded think-tank told the media that he was “offered $80,000 by a man tied to Iran’s mission in Canada … ‘They wanted me to publish a piece on the Mujahedin-e Khalq… to label it as a terrorist cult.'” Many U.S. military officers, who had direct and personal contact for six years with the MEK at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, testified under oath in Congress and rejected such ridiculous allegations, telling lawmakers that they, too, had been exposed to the same smears, but quickly realized that the allegations had originated from the regime in Tehran.
The MEK has an extensive presence in Europe and the U.S., and availed very open access to the media and the public. It has organized annual rallies in Paris attended by over 100,000 people, as well as senior ranking former officials and international personalities from dozens of countries. This past July, 350 current and former senior government officials and lawmakers from 47 countries, as well as dozens of journalists, spent several days at Ashraf-3, MEK’s new home in Albania. This is something that fringe groups can’t do.
So, what’s the real story? The mullahs, understandably, see this movement as their existential threat. Having failed to eliminate MEK physically, they have spent a fortune, trying to vilify it, demonize it, and spread misinformation about it. In summer 1988 alone, the Iranian regime massacred 30,000 MEK political prisoners. The perpetrators of that crime against humanity are the current rulers in Tehran, whose talking points Hayes has regurgitated. Every year of every MEK member’s life has been defined by pain, suffering, torture, death, yet determination, activism and unrelenting quest for democracy. How can an amateur entertainer seriously grasp this heart-wrenching tragedy, and at the same time proud and dynamic resistance, in Iran’s history?
The MEK is a “fringe group”? This is a 55-year-old political movement, founded 14 years before Hayes was even born. He should have taken Iran history 101 courses before rushing to slander a movement, 100,000 of whose members have sacrificed their lives for the cause of freedom and democracy. Instead of referring to the MEK as a “fringe group,” Hayes should worry about getting out of the “fringe group” of political talk shows. His show is one of the lowest-rated political programs on TV (he has said he wanted to improve his show’s ratings because “we want to be the most-watched show in our time slot.” Sadly, that was three years ago). So a bit of advice: Stop trying to punch above your intellectual weight.
The MEK is “rooted in Marxism”? That is rich coming from someone who started his career by working at a Marxist newspaper in Chicago as a labor reporter. And, in 2017, he tweeted: “The crudest Marxist analysis of current American capitalism is much closer to being right than a lot of what passes for conventional wisdom.”
The MEK is “toxic”? Not so! What is truly toxic and “out there” is a TV entertainer that picks the first result from a clumsy mid-night Google search and still has the audacity to repeat it on TV with a sense of prissy and hectoring self-righteousness. This is while he is too dimwitted to grasp cogent historical arguments or to make sense of the shifting terrain of Iran’s complex political landscape. Instead, he grasps onto any emotionally and ideologically satisfying trope, even if their source is the Gestapo of Iran’s dictators. In doing so, Hayes is totally oblivious to the life and death consequences of such irresponsible commentary on the lives of thousands of MEK members inside and outside Iran, and their families and friends all over the world.
Hayes should jettison the arrogant and self-righteous attitude regarding Iranian politics. His tirade is a moral tragedy. While independent journalists suffer under the regime’s censorship and lack of freedom of expression in Iran, not to mention those murdered or languishing in prisons, it is astonishingly ironic that halfway around the world in the United States, Hayes, who can exercise his God-given right to speak freely, chooses instead to parrot Islamic fundamentalist talking points in Tehran.
Hayes has been quoted as saying: “My theater training I think is with me every day because I perform for a living at some level, making a show.” What is truly toxic, then, is the way Hayes’ brain has been colonized by calcified mullah propaganda, bringing him to grotesquely disrespect the memories of thousands of democracy activists killed by a tyrannical regime, simply to “make a show.”
T. Barnum once said, “Clowns and Elephants are the pegs upon which the circus is hung.” Instead of clowning around a serious life-and-death topic by hurling vulgar epithets against Iran’s brave democracy activists, Hayes should seriously consider closing down the circus and seeking moral therapy.
Hayes’ loopy commentary is an exercise in intellectual indolence cohabiting with tired tropes of Iran’s tyrants. The definition of moral toxicity is the image of Hayes goose-stepping incomplete formation with the regime’s intelligence service propagandists. That is the real “show.”
Ali Safavi, a sociologist by career, is an official with the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
