MADRID – The explosion that claimed at least 70 lives and wounded more than 1,000 people at Shahid Rajay Port in southern Iran was a national tragedy of a monumental proportion. The incident, which took place near the strategically important straits of Hormuz, an important corridor for global energy transport, not only shaking Iranian society from a humanitarian perspective, but once again reveals the mechanism by which the legitimacy of suffering is built within the international media space.
Hours after the explosion, major international media and certain Western commentators began speculating about the cause of the incident, in some cases accompanied by sarcasm or condescending innuendo. Faced with similar tragedy in other parts of the world, the approach would have been very different. Cool reporting focused on the human dimension with diplomatic gestures and institutional solidarity. However, in the Iranian case, theorist Jasbir Poor described as “necropolitical desires,” depicting the lives of a particular body (non-Western, racial, geopolitical hostile) as unworthy, even for acceptable and predictable losses.
This differential treatment is not a coincidence. It is engraved within the framework of colonial representations where Iranian bodies, such as the Palestinian and Iraqi bodies, are conceptualized not only as consumables but also as suspicious. The victims of Shahid Rajaei Port were not debatefully constructed as citizens and workers, but as an extension of the existence of the “enemy” state, its pain seems to have hints of poetic justice.
Irony of certain analysts – anything related to outlets like military think tanks and Iran International can be acknowledged as part of the “death training” logic, following Poor, a form of violence that does not appear only in physical acts, but that some bodies are allowed to die without lament, memory or recognition. In this sense, Western institutional silence on tragedy is in contrast to the rapid response from Iranian society. Artists, scholars, athletes and the public expressed solidarity with the victims and restructured social ties in the face of global enlightening separation.
In this regard, it is also important to consider the geopolitical aspects of the catastrophe. Iran is exposed to a long-term campaign of economic pressure, secret industrial obstruction and diplomatic isolation. The idea that this explosion could be part of a strategy of destabilization is still lacking in conclusive evidence, but has not been dismissed by a variety of voices both domestically and internationally. But even without direct evidence, what is important is to observe how highly doubt itself forms part of a discourse system that Iran appears to be permanently guilty even if it is suffering.
Furthermore, Shahid Rajaei Port is a strategic enclave not only for Iran but for the entire international trade. Because of its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, it becomes a symbolic and logistical target of its main importance. In this sense, the incident will affect not only local residents but the entire local infrastructure. However, the dominant interpretive framework continues to reduce Iranian pain to an annex of conflict, and continues to decrease to peripheral data points in geopolitics that rarely grant centrality to the daily lives of those who endure it.
Elimination of empathy, conscious or not, also has an internal effect. Opposition parties were openly pleased by the tragedy from exiles and foreign media, not only showed surprising ethical indifference, but also helped to reinforce the narrative that the happiness of the country was secondary to their own political projects. In some cases, explosions were treated with irony, such as monarchical television channels and specific platforms funded by foreign powers, or instrumented as evidence of the supposed structural instability of the Iranian state.
One of the voices he ventured to “make humor” in tragedy was the current Middle East editor of economist Greg Carlstrom, who posted the following comment on X: Karlstrom mentions the tragedy that took place in the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020, destroying most of the Lebanese capital, killing more than 220 people and injuring at least 6,500 people. It was one of the most devastating tragedy in recent Lebanon history. However, Karlstrom’s use of the event as “humor” related to the explosion at Iran’s Shahid Rajaei port reflects not only the lack of sensitivity, but also the prevalence of a stance that dehumanizes victims when they come from the context of the “enemy” politically or geographically.
Karlstrom’s comments reflect a negative and inhuman attitude of not recognizing human suffering, but choosing it trivial and marking a clear distinction between life, which is considered “valuable” of compassion, and, worse, what is still seen as part of a geopolitical game. These types of comments not only perpetuate racial and political bias, but also normalize indifference to tragedy that arises outside the Western framework. Instead of promoting solidarity and human discourse, dehumanization is preferred. There, the suffering of some people is presented as inevitable, even when viewed as enemies or actors who are not in line with dominant global interests.
Greg Carlstrom’s comments are neither satirical nor humorous. Or what is called “hegemonic humor,” a form of humor that tries to perpetuate the power structures rather than trying to dismantle them. This type of humor is done from top to bottom, laughing at the hostile bodies presented as objects of mocking rather than empathy. What Carlstrom doesn’t recognize or deliberately ignores is that this type of “humor” is a deeply rooted vision of a colony. This dehumanization is so sidious that it is not even given the dignity of mourning or recognition. Because they are politically constructed as organizations that are not worthy of disposable or memorable. Therefore, Karlstrom’s comments reinforce the global power structure in which tragedy is not only trivial, but the suffering of people from the global South is dismissed, treated as accidental or inevitable, and rejected without any value.
What lies with these types of comments is ultimately the ability to recognize the humanity of those suffering under the dominant geopolitical structure. The inherent dehumanization of comments from figures like the international community, the silence of Iranian tragedy, and Karlstrom are all intertwined with a broader pattern of indifference to the lives of people outside the Western framework. In this sense, the tragedy at Shahid Rajaei port should not only be seen as a local catastrophe, but also as an manifestation of the broader global force dynamics that shape the lives, suffering and death of millions of people in the non-Western world.
Iran’s suffering, like others in the Global South, remains subject to double moral standards. One moral standard gives value and dignity to the lives of Westerners, another moral standard, which considers death and suffering to be predictable and even necessary when outside of the racialized people and geopolitical dominant global interests. The tragedy at Shahid Rajaei port is not only an irreparable pain for the victims and their families, but it also reminds us of the deep structural injustice that continues to define international relations where the humanity of certain organizations remains a subordinate issue to political and geological strategic interests.
The silence of many international media, coupled with the lightly missiv attitudes of certain commentators, highlights how the life and death of racialized organizations remains a space treated with indifference, if not mildly empty. In this sense, the Iranian tragedy and comments accompanying this event invite us to question the logic of expression and the power structure that continues to dehumanize people outside the global centre.