An Iranian Rapper’s Death Sentence And The “Selective Solidarity” Of Our Times

-Analysis-

His name is Toomaj Salehi, but he’s known simply as Toomaj, his rapper name. Since 2021, the 33-year-old has spent more time in prison than out. And now, an Iranian court has sentenced him to death, an outrageous penalty for the crime of protesting through music.

Toomaj is one of the faces of a generation that stood with Mahsa Amini, the young woman who died at the hands of the so-called “morality police” for wearing an improper veil. Now, an international campaign is taking shape to save the musician and demand his release.

Several well-known figures in France, including Iranian-born artist Marjane Satrapi and actress Golshifteh Farahani, wrote to French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday asking him to intervene on the musician’s behalf. Yet Toomaj is also caught up, unwillingly, in the divisions generated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that leads us to choose our preferred victims.

Yes, our world has selective emotions, where disturbing rivalries between victims take place too often.

Choosing your victim

Those mobilizing for Toomaj — there were rallies in several countries on Sunday — deplore the fact that those vehemently protesting against the massacres in Gaza are nowhere to be seen. Perhaps this is because Iran is in open confrontation with Israel, and, in a twist of fate, to support an adversary of the Tehran regime would be to play into the hands of those bombing Gaza.

In the Middle East, where passions run high and winds of madness blow, this kind of selective empathy has contaminated the rest of the world.

Solidarity has become selective, as if we can’t defend principles if we mourn all the victims equally.

Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, which killed 1,300 people, the majority of them civilians, and the Israeli response, which claimed tens of thousands of mostly civilians victims in Gaza, there has been an expectation that we must choose our victims. Solidarity has become selective, as if we can’t defend principles if we mourn all the victims equally.

The fate of this Iranian rapper, condemned to death, should be a rallying point for solidarity. The “women, life, freedom” movement that arose from Mahsa Amini’s death had aroused support and admiration in much of the world; —Toomaj’s defense should be an extension of this.

Ruthless regime

But conflicts in the region have taken their course. The Iranian regime is trying to ride the wave of solidarity with the Palestinians to make the world forget its sins — taking advantage of the fact that Western campuses are focused on Gaza and ignoring other causes.

And yet, a simple defense of human rights should allow us to express our solidarity, in the same breath and without reservation, with the Palestinians suffering unbearable collective punishment in the Gaza Strip; with the Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas, which again constitutes a war crime; and with an Iranian freedom-loving rapper facing execution by a ruthless regime.

This basic defense of humanity has become impossible in 2024.