Neda travels the world.

Remember 500 years ago? When the Catholics and Protestants were torturing, murdering and generally kicking the sh** out of each other in the name of ‘state’ Christianity? Well the Islamic religion is 500 years younger than Christianity. This raises a question in my mind. Is 1,500 years, you do the maths, a difficult age for a religion? Just old enough for the state to get its grubby hands on it and turn it to its own uses but not old enough for rationality to temper its extremes. History is set to repeat itself. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a cruel religious dictatorship backed up by respected Muslim leaders. Ayatollah Khomeini sanctioned the repression of the recent protests in the name of Islam, as did Mary1st in the name of Catholicism. It was also supported by the US who shipped arms via Israel during the Iran/Iraq war and sent the profits to the Contras in Nicaragua. Said double-dealing precipitated Oliver North and other CIA top guns to jail who were then mercifully pardoned and re-employed into the Bush administration. But that’s another five-gallon drum of stale fish. In the ensuing repression a young woman demonstrator, Neda agha Soltan is caught on You Tube bleeding to death. Which they didn’t have in Tudor England. She is beautiful and has caught the heart of the world. A heart that will see the deceits of the Ayatollahs and the corruption and cruelty of the regime they uphold in the name of Islam. May her death move mountains.