Gastbeitrag von Nida Banou
Rise Iran & Javid Shah | anti-postkoloniale Ideologie & anti-Islamismus | Eure Freiheit ist heilig. Beschützt sie.
The Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom is awarding its 2026 Freedom Prize to the Iranian people – to people who have been fighting for freedom, dignity and democracy for decades and paying an unimaginably high price for it.
Shah Reza Pahlavi was asked to accept this prize in trust on behalf of the Iranian people.
Because we had to fight not only the propaganda of the Islamic Republic. We also had to witness how, of all people, high-reach Iranian-born female activists and journalists in Germany belittle the voices of millions of Iranians, disregard their sacrifices, ignore or reinterpret their will, simply because their political stance does not fit into their own left-wing worldview.
Anyone who calls for “listening to Iranians” cannot at the same time deliberately stop listening precisely when those Iranians Shah Reza Pahlavi call out.
Anyone who claims to want to give the people in Iran a voice while simultaneously selling books, building an audience and generating public appearances on the back of their suffering becomes a morally degenerate caricature when they deliberately exclude the overwhelming majority of voices simply because they call out „Javid Shah“.
Many of us have been fighting against this for years alongside full-time jobs, families and our own worries – for our brothers and sisters in Iran, whose voices are censored there and who must not be overwritten here once again by self-appointed experts and spokeswomen.
Today it is becoming clear whom the overwhelming majority of Iranians regard as their political voice and as their hope for a democratic transition – and for what future people in Iran are risking their lives.
That is why this decision means far more to us than an awards ceremony.
It means that our voice – which is the voice of the Iranians in Iran – is being heard. That others may no longer decide which Iranian voices in Germany are considered legitimate and which are better made to disappear.
And the fact that Shah Reza Pahlavi may accept the prize in trust on behalf of this courageous people fills many of us with a joy and satisfaction that outsiders may find difficult to comprehend.
After so many years in which others have spoken about us, explained us and replaced our voices with their own political goals, this moment means:
