PROPAGANDA BARAT LAIN: "MENYERANG" EKONOMI IRAN

Gambar: Subway di Iran. Iran adalah satu-satunya negara Islam yang memiliki sistem transportasi modern seperti ini.



Tampak nyata sebagai propaganda untuk menghancurkan kredibilitas Iran yang berhasil meraih kemenangan politik dengan keberhasilannya menyenggarakan berbagai acara internasional termasuk KTT Non-Blok,
serta pertumbuhan ekonomi Iran yang mantap meski menghadapi berbagai sanksi barat dengan indikator ekspor dan produksi baja yang terus meningkat, media-media massa barat akhir-akhir ini ramai-ramai menuliskan berita miring seputar perekonomian Iran.

Baru-baru ini dua media besar barat, Financial Times dan Washington Post (beritanya juga dijiplak mentah-mentah oleh sebuah televisi berita nasional) membuat laporan pers yang lebih mirip sebagai karya fiksi.

Berjudul "In Iran, Isfahanis shrug off risk of attack", laporan itu berupaya menggambarkan keadaan ekonomi rakyat Iran yang dipenuhi penderitaan dari hari ke hari akibat pemerintahan Presiden Ahmadinejad yang gagal serta sanksi ekonomi yang diterapkan barat, 2 sasaran dalam satu tembakan.
Namun sebagaimana berita propaganda lainnya, berita tersebut tidak memenuhi standar jurnalisme yang semestinya, apalagi untuk media massa sebesar dua media massa di atas. Tidak berbeda ketika media-media barat ramai-ramai memberitakan tentang "senjata pemusnah massal" Irak yang ternyata fiktif. Atau juga tentang senjata nuklir Iran yang sampai sekarang tidak pernah terbukti meski berita-berita itu tidak pernah
berhenti sejak beberapa tahun lalu. Atau juga tentang kekejaman pemerintahan Bashar al Assad.

Salah satu keganjilan laporan tersebut adalah tidak disebutkannya lokasi sang wartawan sebagaimana biasa sebuah laporan "pandangan mata". Dan ini bukan yang pertama kali. Kebetulan wartawan yang sama, Najmeh Bozorgmehr melaporkan laporan janggal lainnya kepada Financial Times bulan Februari lalu. Kala itu ia melaporkan terjadinya "kerusuhan di Teheran", namun ia tidak menyebutkan nama tempatnya. Ia juga
mendramatisir jumlah demonstran yang terlibat dengan menyebutnya, "jauh lebih banyak dari perkiraan para analis", sementara sebenarnya hanya berjumlah belasan orang.


EKSPOR IRAN "MEROKET"

Meski menghadapi berbagai sanksi ekonomi barat, ekonomi Iran terus tumbuh dengan mantap. Selama 6 tahun terakhir ekspor non-minyak Iran mengalami kenaikan tajam sebesar 514 %, atau hampir 100 % setahun. Jika pada tahun 2005 nilai ekspor non-minyak Iran hanya sebesar 7 miliar dolar, pada tahun 2011 lalu nilainya mencapai 43 miliar dolar. Demikian  laporan kantor berita Iran, IRNA baru-baru ini.

Dalam periode tersebut total produksi industri petrokimia Iran mengalami kenaikan dari 15 juta ton menjadi 45 juta ton. Produksi mobil juga mengalami kenaikan sebesar 66 % selama periode yang sama. Bahkan Iran mentargetkan akan mengekspor 1 juta mobil pada tahun 2025 mendatang.

Produk-produk ekspor utama Iran di luar minyak adalah produk-produk industri petrokimia, plastik, buah-buahan, kacang-kacangan, biji-bijian dan karpet.

Kemudian bandingkanlah dengan berita propaganda barat berikut:

In Iran, Isfahanis shrug off risk of attack

Najmeh Bozorgmehr – Washington Post September 7, 2012

Isfahan is home to several thousand historic monuments, many of which UNESCO recognizes as world heritage sites. The central Iranian city is also the site of one of the country’s nuclear installations. As speculation grows over whether Israel will attack sites such as the Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility, on the city’s outskirts, or Iran’s main uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, 87 miles to the northeast, Isfahanis themselves shrug off the danger.

“I am struggling with so many miseries every day, like the increasing rent of my shop and my house, that I do not have time to think about an Israeli attack, let alone be prepared for it,” said Saeed, the owner of a grocery store.

Near the historic Naqshe Jahan Square, which is surrounded by magnificent mosques and a palace, Rozhin, a 30-year-old homemaker, says she lives “very near” to the Isfahan nuclear site. But she voices no concern about the danger of a possible attack.

“Food has become like gold,” she said. “Now I can afford to buy meat only for my daughter. That is what I am worried about, not a strike.”

Inflation and unemployment is perceived by Isfahanis to be far higher than is suggested by official figures, which put inflation at 23.5 percent and youth unemployment at 28.6 percent.

“Inflation is 100 percent, or maybe 200 percent,” said Razieh, a 27-year-old homemaker, as she walked through the 17th century Si-o-se Pol, one of the city’s most beautiful bridges.

State-run “television says prices of meat have come down. I suppose we should go and buy meat from the television,” she added.

Razieh and other residents of the city blame their economic problems on both the populist policies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the international sanctions over the country’s nuclear program.

The value of the Iranian rial has fallen by more than 50 percent this year because of the tightening of U.S. banking sanctions and the European Union’s ban on Iranian oil imports. That has dramatically increased the price of imported products and raw materials for local industries.

Sahar, a 22-year-old student of psychology with a part-time job at an upmarket toy shop, said that Thursdays, the first day of the Iranian weekend, used to be very busy but that now “you hardly see anyone
walking into this shop on a Thursday.”

“Only those families who are well-off now buy imported toys for their kids,” she said.

Pessimism over the economy has been exacerbated by the drying of the city’s Zayandeh River, blamed on a combination of drought and a decision in Tehran to divert its waters to farms and factories.

The once-picturesque waterway is now a dismal stretch of scrub that cuts through the city. According to Mayor Morteza Saghaeian-Nejad, the sight has demoralized residents and could partly explain their angry
comments on the economic situation.

Saghaeian-Nejad said he is not worried about a possible Israeli strike on Isfahan’s nuclear facilities, although he noted that it is the responsibility of UNESCO to protect a city with 4,000 historical sites.

The lack of anxiety over an Israeli attack may be due as much to the government’s well-publicized rhetoric that the Jewish state would not dare launch an attack on the Islamic republic as to a preoccupation
with economic concerns.

But for Nader, a 55-year-old retired teacher, his beloved city appears threatened on all sides.

“I do not pass by the Zayandeh River anymore and would rather forget about it,” he said. “If the situation continues like this … people will eat each other up without any need for Israel to destroy this city and this country.”