The Plague of Unrest

Dr. Seyed Mehdi Hosseini, PhD in Political Science

That a segment of the new generation—through exposure to search engines and cybernetic knowledge, and in accordance with their age—may display ill-considered behavior and, unfortunately, choose the streets as the arena for expressing their demands is not particularly surprising. What is truly astonishing and alarming, however, is the incompetence of certain profit-oriented state agents on the one hand, and on the other, the consequences of digital transformation and the functional role of electronic shocks, which from time to time hurl our beloved Iranian society into the realm of turmoil and unrest, bringing the danger of urban warfare ever closer.

Fundamentally, the twenty-first century can be described as the century of a foundational conflict between modern power and traditional power in societies undergoing transition. In this struggle, more than anything else, the so-called concept of a “dignified life” faces a crisis of meaning. In this context, if rebellion is to find a philosophy, it will be a philosophy of calculated ignorance and risk-seeking.

Therefore, the flare-up of the fire beneath the ashes and the recurrent spread of the plague of unrest, casting society into a novel form of periodic crisis, calls for phenomenological reflection and inquiry.

In this regard, borrowing the metaphor of the plague from Albert Camus—who won the Nobel Prize in Literature with his enigmatic novel The Plague—and citing one of his remarks may suffice:

“Amid such clamor, organized violence or imposed silence, and calculation or continual lying, inevitably become the rule.”

In general, understanding any complex social phenomenon is impossible without grasping the hidden psychological mechanisms at its core. The scale of unrest, unprecedented bloodshed, and the imposition of astronomical costs indicate the successful outcome of repeated experiments in the artifice of suggestion through the flat web page, penetrating all aspects and dimensions of life—an achievement that emboldened the malicious adversary.

Delay in seeking remedies encourages schemers to ride the social wave generated by the insufficient familiarity of the emerging generation with the true nature and reality of the digital realm, along with media charlatanism.

This false hope leads to the creation of a deep rift between power and the practical application of religious governance doctrines—a rift that no sermon can repair.

Moreover, remaining halted in the holidays of history by those responsible for education, moral cultivation, and teaching is in no way justifiable. One solution is to introduce the Janus-faced nature of the digital phenomenon to the new generation. According to ancient Greek mythology, the image of Janus, the mythical king endowed with the ability of clear-sighted retrospection and foresight, was engraved on Roman currency. This two-faced figure—one looking forward and the other backward—today symbolizes, in contemporary political literature, the functional essence of digitalism.

It goes without saying that the achievements of the digital phenomenon and its bright, radiant face possess countless benefits, and the profound work of trans-political engineers—at least since 1940—deserves sincere admiration. Yet, according to a well-known saying, the dark face of digitalism resembles a cat that catches and devours a mouse, but regrettably pretends that it has done so for the mouse’s own good; it even theorizes about the equality of all beasts and, worse still, offers prayers to the God of all animals.

Through understanding the tremor produced by the plague of digitally grounded unrest, the fault lines that gradually emerged with the arrival of the internet in Iran in 1372 (1993)—between the thought patterns and motivations of the newly emerging class and the ideals of parents and the commands of religious governance—can now be observed more clearly and starkly.

One of the main factors exerting a significant impact is the frightening rise in prices, which will further complicate the situation, such that in the foreseeable future “the cries of the oppressed and the deprived may merge with the footsteps of enraged ‘affluent groups’ seeking to distance themselves from the society of the poor.”

The regrettable reality is that in the post-war period, as well as during the recent unrest, the knot of life for the underprivileged classes has tightened even further. It now seems that a privileged minority has harvested the spoils of that upheaval and this chaos, placing the mind and soul of the disadvantaged class between the two blades of a pair of scissors.

“Inequality fuels very deep contradictions. At this stage of scientific progress, thought, culture, and development become impossible.”

The ethereal impact of the continuation of this situation on a dignified way of life will be explosive and catastrophic for the history of tomorrow.

Following the success of media charlatanism in steering the compass of thought of a segment of the emerging generation, the appearance of urban chaos, and the rampage of etiquette-breaking ignoramuses, one can now say with confidence that from 2026 onward, deep understanding and clearer comprehension of the meanings of social events and their consequences will be attained solely through media, while other sources will be pushed to the margins.

“Mass media possess social functions as important as those of schools.
While they disseminate information, they also standardize it.
Mass media create new and diverse experiences, increase social mobility, and ultimately lead to emotional unity and political participation.”

Despite the astonishing skill of the emerging generation in utilizing the internet, the unrest of the new era demonstrated that ignorance of the nature and the Janus-faced character of the digital phenomenon has become extremely perilous. Education has always been regarded “as a powerful and reliable factor in cultural and psychological transformations.” With the entry of the internet into Iran in 1372 and the neglect of education regarding its cultural effects, the unknown nature of this phenomenon has become clearly evident in all the unrests of recent years.

The manifestation of modern barbarism in this unrest brought forth, in the month of January of the new Gregorian year—whose very name is derived from Janus—a new form of “the cruelty of human-like wolves against the modern human,” along with a kind of violence even stranger and beyond articulation! …

The totality of this behavioral structure and this new mode of violence—particularly the affront to the sacred sanctity of the Ahl al-Bayt of purity and infallibility (peace be upon them) in the city of Dezful, the capital of Iran’s resistance—demands that global cultural organizations such as UNESCO abandon mere spectatorship. It is fitting that one of the seasoned veterans of cultural policy issue a stern admonition to the world:

“So long as a civilization, on the basis of the endowments entrusted to it by nature and history, resorts toward others to negligent political, intellectual, and moral pressure, no hope for peace for humanity can be sustained; for denying the cultural characteristics of any people is tantamount to denying their dignity and worth.”

It appears that electronic knowledge has enabled the holders and pioneers of this power—unjustly and for debatable reasons—to usurp the position of global supremacy.

In the early twentieth century, some thinkers believed that factors such as means of communication, population, and industry constituted the determining elements of power. Yet with the continuation of the war of minds and the emergence of inventions such as “cognition-based / soft, non-lethal warfare,” a downpour of new ideas began, realizing—through ultra-micro technologies—the most extraordinary dreams of imaginative minds. …

Conclusion:

The eloquent depiction offered by Jalal Al-e Ahmad of Albert Camus’s The Plague can help us arrive at a deeper understanding of the nature of the plague of unrest:

“The Plague is the story of a city in North Africa; it is unclear why or from where the plague infiltrates it. People are stricken and die…
The city is sealed off, and within its plague-ridden walls, each inhabitant pursues his own struggle: one seeks escape, another seeks narcotics, and another chases a chaotic market. In such a city, beyond the dominance of death, humanity’s desperate attempts to flee it, and the grief that hangs like dust in the air, what stands out most is that the presence of the plague—this barren demon—has merely quickened everyone’s steps along the very path they were already walking. Whether that path was just or unjust, moral or immoral, the plague diverted no one from it; rather, it hurled each person further along the same road. For Albert Camus, the plague is mechanization—the killer of beauty, poetry, humanity, and the sky.”
(Occidentosis, p. 186)

Indeed, this process ought to shake the conscience of the modern human. For although social realities resemble iron filings that assume the shape imposed by a magnet beneath a metal plate, that which the spirit and mind fail to grasp cannot be uncovered by levers, screws, and bolts; and a knot that can be untied by hand should never be taken to the teeth.