- The writer started his communication education in Iran and studied journalism in Turkey, and continues his freelance journalism activities about Iran in Turkey.
ISTANBUL
Right after its outbreak in China, the coronavirus drew attention to its new reach in Iran, taking lives of many victims in Iran after China.
But the outbreak has been brought to the fore by the nonchalance of the administration, as well as the rapidly rising number of cases since it emerged in Iran.
As Iranian officials defied the clear warnings of medical science, they insisted on not quarantining the city of Qom, which has been identified as the center of the virus.
The Iranian authorities, who did not do the slightest health check even in overcrowded places such as shrines in the city, soon saw the coronavirus among themselves.
The mayor, lawmakers, and a deputy minister tested positive for coronavirus, and there are rumors that many other senior officials have also been infected.
As for the impact of the virus, which has become a nightmare for the world, also on the streets of Iran, there was a seriousness at first influenced by the administration's attitude.
But as the days progressed and the deaths caused by the virus showed their face, there was a huge infestation in the community.
The lurking cases and the death toll, and the lack of transparency that has become a state tradition in Iran, have fueled public panic, but have also shaken confidence in the administration.
All this showed that the real crisis was not coronavirus, but the fact that the people's trust in the state was completely lost.
The Iranian public thinks that the crisis is not being handled well while the fear of coronavirus grows.
Coronavirus was to be looked forward to
Iranians knew that the coronavirus was going to come to their own country sooner or later right after it has occurred in China.
Although the whole world has shut down its doors to China as a precaution, Iranian Mahan Airlines was continuing its flights to China.
Iran's Cabinet banned any transfers and direct flights to China, but only on Feb. 1.
But despite that decision, Mahan admitted it had only carried out at least nine flights to several cities in China on Feb. 1-5.
Also on Feb. 2, China's Ambassador to Tehran Chang Hua shared on Twitter that he had met with company officials and that they wanted to continue cooperation.
Some Iranian lawmakers have criticized health officials, saying there is a danger of a coronavirus outbreak in the country because of the rant provided to the airlines.
Since then, reactions to these flights have increased and there has even been talks on Iran becoming a terminal for third countries due to its flights, and of the claims that the airlines of this country have transferred passengers they do not want to take directly from China through this Iranian company.
When we revisit the process from the emergence of the virus in China to the present day, we can see that the coronavirus was actually almost “looking forward” to Iran.
“A significant outrage occurred in the society as the deaths caused by the virus had shown their faces.
The lurking cases and the death toll, and the lack of transparency that has become a state tradition in Iran, have fueled public panic, but have also shaken confidence in the administration.”
They always failed
Iran probably lives the most surging period of its history.
Even listing the events occurred in the last few months is now hard.
Moreover, they all have something in common: In each crisis, the state gets a little further away from the public.
The widespread public reaction to the suddenly announced petrol hike in November was gorily suppressed.
Although the street movements that spread to many cities in Iran started with the petrol hike, the negative effect that this hike would bring to the rising cost of living was enough to lift all cities up.
Parliament's attempt to undo the resolution was turned down by the intervention of the revolutionary leader, and the government's irresponsible attendance at the process was the last straw.
The petrol hike, which is thought to repair the Iranian budget weakened by the embargoes, has almost had an ember effect on the country's life.
Despite all these reactions and negative developments, there is no change in approach in the administration.
Even though the claim that 1,500 people were killed in three or four days was always refuted by the administration, the real death, wounded or arrested toll is not explained despite all the reactions.
Later, the killing of Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force in Tehran's hands in the region, by the U.S. in Iraq, severely damaged Iran's reputation in the region.
Iran, which had spread Soleimani's funeral in several cities for days, was intent on taking the maximum advantage of this affair, but it did not happen.
This success of the administration, which knew how to bring the Iranian people together around Soleimani to a considerable extent, was largely overshadowed by the lack of organization at the funeral, with dozens of people killed in the stampede in Kerman.
There are also claims that Iran, which announced its attack on the U.S. base in Iraq, had gotten in touch with the U.S. officials and informed them of the operation at issue.
But Iran has tried to make the situation propaganda material to a maximum extent inside and outside the country, saying: “We got our revenge by shooting down the U.S.” But that joy did not last long.
In a sense, the shooting down of the Ukrainian airliner from Tehran by the Revolutionary Guards Army, which was supposed to be a U.S. missile, has caused serious damage to Iran's prestige by zeroing in on its military strength and self-confidence.
The fact that all these matters were hidden from the public and from the world has moved the events to even more grave points.
This incident, despite its severity, was kept for three days with the knowledge of its senior officials.
Different theses and conspiracy theories were produced to distort the matter and -- in its simplest form -- the public was lied to.
Afterwards, upon the pressure by the Canadian and Ukrainian authorities and external pressure, they had to admit that the passenger plane had been shot down.
Following this incident, no Iranian official, especially members of the Revolutionary Guards Army, has been removed from his post and no one has been prosecuted and brought before the law.
On the other hand, Iranian society, who had reacted towards the incident, had faced the steel fist of the administration just like in similar incidents.
Iran, which had thought to clench the public by using, especially, the death of Soleimani and unite people against the state-defined enemy, had lost everything in one moment and found the public against its own self.
In Iran, which has already broken nation-state relations, the public's trust in the state has been severely shaken and the public has become even more suspicious of everything.
How many votes count for public lives?
A case of coronavirus was identified in Iran by authorities for the first time on Feb. 19.
But what aroused public suspicion was that coronavirus was made public with the first deaths, not with one suspected case in Iran.
Taking into account that the incubation period of the virus lasts from 14 to 27 days, we can see again what a catastrophe it is on the verge of.
Given the rapid transmission of the virus, it is clear that each minute could cost more people their lives.
It is no secret that the Iranian state, especially the Revolutionary Leader Ali Khamenei, cares about the high turnout in the elections, especially in terms of an image of legitimacy against the world.
Therefore, the high turnout at all costs was treated as a matter of life-and-death, especially in the last parliamentary election, when the competition was not possible due to political pressures.
When one looks at the pulse of the public in this context, it appears that the presence of coronavirus is hidden from the public eye due to election concerns.
The political approach that Iranian officials have taken on a fantastically sensitive humanitarian issue such as health is in fact proof of how true this point of view can be.
“The enemies started a propaganda war by using coronavirus as a pretext and attacking the country,” Khamenei said in his first statement.
President Hassan Rouhani made a similar comment, stressing that the enemy should not be given an opportunity to deal with coronavirus.
It is possible that we see health officials among the ones who had approached the incident in a political way since the beginning.
As a matter of fact, Iranian Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi said Iran was engaged in a propaganda war, claiming that “28 million people died in the U.S. in the same time period in which 108 people died of the flu in Iran this year alone” by suggesting that the state channel had misrepresented the country's health status on the issue of coronavirus.
The gasoline hike and those killed in November, the ones that lost their lives in the stampede at Soleimani's funeral, the downed Ukrainian plane, an uncompetitive election whose candidates were vetoed, and many other issues that caused Iranians' dissatisfaction, have now been replaced by coronavirus alone.
The point Iranians -- who were mentioning radical issues like the regime change just a couple of weeks ago -- have reached now is a matter of life.
The question of whether the Iranian people -- who have lost confidence in the state and lost hope for tomorrow -- would choose to surrender or rebel to the "fate of the regime" imposed upon them after this crisis, is difficult to find an answer to before the coronavirus crisis is over.
* Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu Agency.
* Translated by Merve Dastan for Anadolu Agency English
