The 21st Century Has No Sheriff: Why the World Remains Silent in the Face of Cultural Terrorism

According to CinemaDrame News Agency, literary critic Shaygan Rahnama writes in an exclusive note:

History has always borne witness that in the flames of war, before politicians are displaced, it is culture that turns to ash. Yet what we are witnessing today goes far beyond the collateral damage of military conflict. We are facing a form of global anarchy in which the historical and artistic identity of a nation is being systematically destroyed under the boots of war.

When the news of serious damage to Tehran’s Shokufeh Cinema is published, it is not merely a military miscalculation, but an attack on the “soul” and “collective memory” of a nation. When they mock the Pope, take jabs at Islam in tweets, or attack Jewish synagogues, they are screaming that the audacity of war knows no borders. Shrapnel hitting the house of Abbas Kiarostami—the man who conquered the world with Taste of Cherry and the language of peace—is a symbol of the moral collapse in today’s equations. We expected to see a decisive statement condemning the damage to the home of the “Conqueror of Cannes” on the eve of the Cannes Film Festival, but it seems the global artistic community has also closed its eyes to its own stars.

This destruction does not end with symbols. Reports indicate that the home of Maral Farjad, an Iranian film actress, has been completely destroyed. All film and television productions have been brought to a halt, and the sound of “action” on set has been replaced by the deafening resonance of explosions. Even the sphere of science has not been spared: Iran’s most important universities have reportedly come under attack, in what appears to be an attempt to suffocate the roots of knowledge itself.

We must be explicit: any political strategy that pushes young citizens away from universities and the arts, and instead normalizes the carrying of weapons in the streets, is part of an unrestrained war-mongering policy. Any force that redirects a society—once ranked among the highest in artistic inclination—toward a “culture of war” is, above all, an enemy of art.

A society is being punished into silence. When sanctions are imposed so that young people cannot even afford a simple camera to make documentaries, or a laptop to write screenplays and books; when bridges and towers are destroyed so that cities lose their symbols and memory—these are not incidental consequences. These are the very conditions in which cultural terrorism begins to operate. Such policies suppress “frustrated aspirations” and transform the dreams of a generation into resentment. When you close the path of creation, you inevitably push people toward hatred of those who closed it.

Destruction of cultural heritage: More than 140 historical sites—part of Iran’s civilizational identity—have reportedly suffered serious damage.
Cultural and human catastrophe: More than 5,000 people in the arts and media sectors have lost their jobs.
Information warfare and censorship: While journalists are being killed, there is a lack of transparent reporting on the full scale of destruction, obscuring the true dimensions of this cultural terrorism.

The naked reality is this: the 21st century has no sheriff. There is no global court capable of stopping a war machine that views cinemas, universities, and artists’ homes as legitimate targets. If those who oppose war do not rise to confront and sanction the perpetrators of this global anarchy, then nothing will remain of our civilization but rubble—rubble in which there is neither a home left for memory nor a camera left to document truth.

Perhaps, in this context, even the language of international awards deserves to be re-examined. One is left to wonder whether those who claim to represent peace will ultimately be remembered not as laureates, but as symbols of sanctioned destruction.

History may not record this era as one of peace or justice, but as one in which cultural terrorism was normalized—and those responsible for it were neither stopped nor held accountable, but allowed to remain on the stage of history.