Iranian's watch the operation outside the Iranian parliament during an attack on the complex in the capital Tehran on June 7, 2017. Picture by: Parspix/ABACA/ABACA/PA Images. All rights reserved. The traumatic experience of a terror attack has “finally” reached the streets of Iran. Some have long expected this to happen, and shivered at the thought of it. While some others, have politically used the lack of a terror attack in Iran as evidence of the country’s support for terror groups, most notably ISIS.
For those in Iran, however, the event was, more than anything else, a shocking tragedy. You could hear the grief in the words of Tehranis: ‘I never thought this could happen so close to home’, resembling the now too familiar first reactions to terror seen across the world. The face of the capital, the face of ‘home’, was now unfamiliar and wounded.
The spot chosen by the terrorists to carry out their attack was highly symbolic. The parliament building in Tehran has been a symbol of Iranians’ demands for freedom and democracy for over a hundred years, while the shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini is one of the most powerful symbols of the Islamic Revolution and the current ruling system in Iran. Already by simply considering these symbols one reaches the conclusion that this highly political attack targeted the democratic elements of Iranian government. In essence, the attack targeted the Iranian people and the immense social force that only weeks before had come together at the ballot box, as the most recent show of desire for and movement towards democracy.
