Human Rights

2001-2022 | 21 years

This is a great episode, which Allison Janney won an Emmy Award for. In the episode, CJ is especially upset that the US is working with and supplying weapons to the (fictional) nation of Qumar, where women and treated brutally, with CJ saying “They beat women…They hate women. The only reason they keep Qumari women alive is to make more Qumari men.”

Currently, there are protests in Iran because a woman, Mahsa Amini, was apparently beaten to death by the Morality police after being taken to a detention center to be given a re-education class about the hijab. This sparked ongoing protests in the streets of Iran against the Hijab and other mistreatments of women. Mahsa however has started to represent more to the people of Iran, with them believing that they no longer can Iran be reformed into a better nation with a better system, but that the only option is for an end to the Islamic Republic, chanting “I swear by Mahsa’s blood, Iran will be free”. Today protests were reported in Tehran, Esfahan, Arak, and several western cities with Kurdish-majority populations and in the south. The government is also continuing to use the protests to block internet access. Through all this, however, it seems that the US government hasn’t done much.

Currently, the US is also in nuclear talks with Iran, and many speculate this is one reason that the American government isn’t taking great action. Some also believe that it is simply because of the belief that foreigners won’t be able to affect change the way the Iranian people could. Some also believe that American intervention would only hurt the campaigns, as the Iranian government is trying to spread the rumor that the protests are terrorist organizations organized by the west and other enemies, with their Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying “These riots and insecurities were designed by America and the Zionist regime, and their employees”.

Of course, there is another side of people asking how a country that thinks itself the World’s beacon of freedom, democracy, and equality could not intervene when Women are being so obviously persecuted and murdered.

The idea of whether the US should work with, or fight against regimes that are so brutal is one that obviously is still relevant today. We also deal with these issues when working with Saudia Arabia, a country we are forced to depend on for oil but don’t have the best relationship with. In the episode, C.J. lays out why the US should be fighting against these regimes, while everyone else seems to argue that it is better to work with these types of regimes than put resources and bodies into conflicts with them.

The conflict isn’t one that is black and white and has definitive answers, so it is important to be educated on different schools of thought on the situation.