British campuses and the mourning of a tyrant
The death of Ali Khamenei has exposed a striking moral contradiction within parts of Britain’s university culture. While many Iranians—especially students who have lived under the Islamic Republic—have greeted the end of his rule with relief or celebration, reports from British campuses indicate that some student societies have instead organised tributes mourning the late Supreme Leader.
The contrast is difficult to ignore. In Iran, students who challenge the regime risk imprisonment, torture, and death. In Britain, students who enjoy the liberties of a democratic society appear, in some cases, to lament the passing of the man who presided over that repression for more than three decades. The episode raises a deeper question about the purpose of the modern university and the moral tradition it claims to embody.
The nature of the Iranian regime
Since the Iranian Revolution, the Islamic Republic has operated as a theocratic state in which ultimate authority rests with the Supreme Leader. Under Khamenei’s leadership, Iran developed a political system combining clerical rule with a powerful security apparatus dominated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The record of this regime is well documented. Political dissent has been met with imprisonment and execution; religious minorities such as Baha’is and Christians have faced systematic discrimination; homosexual acts remain punishable by death; and women have been subject to extensive legal restrictions enforced by morality police.¹
These realities were brought into sharp international focus during the protest movement that followed the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in September 2022. Demonstrations erupted across the country under the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom.” Students were among the most visible participants, and many were arrested, beaten, or killed during the ensuing crackdown.²
It is therefore unsurprising that among the Iranian diaspora in Britain—many of whom fled the Islamic Republic—public celebrations greeted the end of Khamenei’s rule. Gatherings in London and other cities have featured exiled Iranians expressing hope that the fall of the regime may now be possible. For them, mourning the architect of that system is not merely misplaced sympathy; it is a denial of the suffering endured by those who resisted it.
Universities and the liberal tradition
The controversy surrounding campus reactions is particularly significant because universities historically presented themselves as guardians of the intellectual tradition of liberty. Western political thought developed a robust defence of resistance to tyranny long before the modern language of human rights emerged.
One of the most influential early works in this tradition was Vindiciae contra tyrannos (1579), a French Huguenot treatise that argued a ruler who wages war on his own people forfeits legitimate authority.³ The same principle appeared in the anonymous pamphlet Killing No Murder (1657), which justified resistance to Oliver Cromwell.⁴
These ideas reached their classical formulation in Two Treatises of Government by John Locke. Locke argued that governments derive their legitimacy from the consent of the governed and that a ruler who violates fundamental rights becomes, in effect, an enemy of mankind.⁵
The liberal tradition therefore did not regard tyranny as a matter of cultural relativity. It treated tyranny as a universal moral evil against which citizens—and sometimes other nations—were justified in acting. Universities in Britain and Europe once considered it their mission to transmit this inheritance.
The spectacle of students mourning the leader of a regime so evidently hostile to liberty therefore raises uncomfortable questions about whether that intellectual inheritance is still understood.
Campus politics and ideological confusion
The debate cannot be separated from the broader political climate within British universities. Over the past two decades, concerns have repeatedly been raised about the presence of ideological movements on campus that treat Western liberal democracy as morally suspect while extending sympathy to regimes defined primarily by their opposition to the West.
Many Islamic societies on campus operate within the network of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS). The vast majority of their activities are religious or social. Yet parliamentary inquiries and media investigations have occasionally documented events in which speakers sympathetic to Islamist political movements were platformed at student gatherings.⁶
This ideological environment can produce a peculiar inversion of moral judgement. Governments that violate fundamental liberties may receive indulgence so long as they position themselves as adversaries of the United States or Israel. Meanwhile, the liberal democracies that allow these debates to occur freely are portrayed as the primary villains of world politics.
The result is a generation of students for whom the meaning of tyranny has become strangely ambiguous.
Security concerns and foreign influence
The issue is not merely theoretical. British security services have repeatedly warned about activities linked to the Iranian state on British soil.
In October 2022, MI5 director general Ken McCallum disclosed that authorities had disrupted at least ten plots connected to Iran targeting individuals living in Britain, including journalists and dissidents associated with the London-based broadcaster Iran International.⁷
The British government has since imposed sanctions on Iranian officials and entities linked to repression and human-rights abuses.⁸ These developments have prompted growing debate about whether the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps should be formally designated as a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom.
The presence of sympathetic narratives about the Iranian regime within parts of the university environment therefore intersects with broader concerns about foreign political influence.
The deeper question
The deeper issue raised by the controversy is not Iran alone. It concerns the moral clarity with which Western societies understand their own intellectual foundations.
Universities once regarded the defence of liberty as integral to their mission. Students were expected to study the philosophical and historical struggles through which constitutional government, religious freedom, and civil rights were achieved. The liberal tradition did not demand uncritical loyalty to any government; it demanded clarity about the difference between free societies and tyrannies.
If students in Britain are unable—or unwilling—to recognise that difference, the problem lies not with events in Tehran but with the condition of Western education itself.
The Iranian students who marched through their campuses chanting for freedom understood the stakes. They risked their lives confronting a system that denied them the liberties that British students take for granted.
It would be a tragic irony if the heirs of Europe’s liberal intellectual tradition proved less capable of recognising tyranny than those who endure it.
- United States Department of State, 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Iran (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, 2024).
- Amnesty International, Iran: Security forces’ brutal crackdown on protests after Mahsa Amini’s death, 2022.
- Vindiciae contra tyrannos (Edinburgh: Robert Waldegrave, 1579).
- Edward Sexby (attrib.), Killing No Murder (London, 1657).
- John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (London: Awnsham Churchill, 1689), Book II, chapters 18–19.
- UK Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights, Freedom of Speech in Universities, HC 589 (2018).
- Ken McCallum, Director General of MI5, speech at the Royal United Services Institute, London, 19 October 2022.
- UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, UK sanctions Iranian officials responsible for human rights violations, press release, 2022–2024.
RELATED ARTICLES
Latest ARTICLES
- “Who Is Tearing the Tunic?”: The SSPX Consecrations and the Unravelling of Postconciliar EcclesiologyThe upcoming episcopal consecrations by the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) on 1 July 2026 signify a critical moment for the Church, challenging the effectiveness of current authority structures in safeguarding Faith. Fr. Pagliarani argues that the crisis lies in the divergence of official teachings from Tradition, necessitating theological clarity over mere administrative solutions.
- Today’s Mass: April 25 St Mark, EvangelistThe feast of St. Mark, celebrated later in the Roman Calendar, commemorates his role as the first bishop of Alexandria and author of his Gospel. The Rogation Days focus on seeking God’s mercy for agricultural blessings. The Greater Litanies processions reflect ancient customs, merging pagan and Christian traditions while emphasising prayer’s importance.
- 26.04.26 Nuntiatoria CIII: Patrocinii St. JosephThis 103rd edition of Nuntiatoria breaks from predictable commentary. It does not merely critique policy—it exposes the legal architecture behind buffer zones, interrogates the theological ambiguity of Fiducia Supplicans, and documents how ideology enters classrooms without parental consent. Precise, sourced, and unsparing, it offers analysis rarely articulated with such clarity or scope.
- Mary’s Month of May: The Queen Crowned in the Springtime of GraceThe Month of May is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, reflecting deep theological significance rather than mere sentimentality. It emphasises Mary’s integral role in salvation history, illustrating her influence through obedience and fidelity. The observance seeks to align personal devotion with doctrinal foundations, inviting imitation of Mary’s virtues amidst contemporary challenges.
- ORDO w/c 26.04.26The content details a series of commemorations and liturgical celebrations within the Catholic Church for the week beginning 26 April. It includes notable figures such as St Joseph, St Peter Canisius, and St Catharine of Siena, reflecting on themes of protection, martyrdom, and doctrinal fidelity during the Paschal season.
Leave a Reply