Revolutionary Saplings and Internet Hoarding
“The people fight while they hoard.” This banner headline ran in Kayhan newspaper during the summer of 1983, when Iran was locked in a brutal war with Iraq and unscrupulous speculators exploited public scarcity to hoard sugar and basic commodities for personal enrichment.
That headline appeared in the year of this author’s birth, yet the pattern remains chillingly familiar. Today, Iran faces intense geopolitical confrontations, and citizens once again find their daily sustenance constrained. In our digital age, the most vital daily utility is the internet itself. Yet a cadre of newly appointed hardline bureaucrats—often branded as "revolutionary saplings"—have choked the nation's digital arteries, turning access into a scarce, commodified privilege. By throttling, hoarding, and rationing connectivity under pseudo-religious rationales, they amass factional influence and financial windfalls, mirroring the wartime hoarders of forty years ago.
Beyond accumulating economic rents, these gatekeepers are amassing something far more explosive: public fury. At a historical moment when national cohesion is indispensable, the conduct of these bureaucrats pours gasoline on the smoldering embers of citizen grievance—alienating a populace that stood by the nation during dark hours despite profound political grievances.
During the 1980s conflict, judicial and parliamentary leaders treated hoarders as subversives undermining national security. Today, however, certain officials fail to grasp that in the contemporary world, broadband access is as foundational to public survival as water, power, and food.
Rather than recognizing that digital connectivity is essential for economic resilience, education, and civil defense, zealous newcomers impose maximalist prohibitions to display loyalty to conservative superiors who lack technical literacy. They criminalize ordinary connectivity, only to turn around and monetize premium bypasses under labels like "Internet Pro" and tiered enterprise subscriptions.
If the state wishes to preserve societal solidarity in perilous times, it must immediately restore unrestricted digital access to its citizens. Throttling the internet did not protect the homeland during wartime; it is precisely this digital siege that is alienating citizens from governance and dismantling national unity from within.