“Freedom Prize 2026” from the FDP | Glorification forgotten by history

Protest against the Islamic Republic, for the “Crown Prince of Iran” Reza Pahlavi: London in February 2026 Photo: DPA/ZUMA PRESS WIRE/Vuk Valcic Every two years, the FDP-affiliated Friedrich Naumann Foundation awards a “Freedom Prize”. This year's recipient of the award to be presented on November 7th in Frankfurt's Paulskirche: "The Iranian People". The FDP announced this in a press release published on September 14th. The Iranian "opposition leader" and son of the last Shah, Reza Pahlavi, is to accept the award "on trust for the Iranian people" and Bijan Djir-Sarai, the foreign policy spokesman for the FDP, will give the laudatory speech.

The chairman of the board of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Steffen Saebisch, explained: "We are pleased that Reza Pahlavi is accepting the prize on behalf of the Iranian people in trust until the day on which the prize can be handed over to the freely elected representatives of Iran." Reza Pahlavi is, the press release continues, "the best-known personality of the Iranian opposition" and is "dedicated to the return to freedom and democracy in Iran."

The autocratic rule of the two Shahs of the short-lived Pahlavi dynasty, which ruled Iran from 1925 until the Islamic Revolution in 1979, seems to have been forgotten. Its founder, Reza Shah Pahlavi, the grandfather of today's "opposition leader," was able to rule despotically with the support of the army he modernized. Among other things, he forced the numerous nomadic tribes, which made up around a quarter of Iran's total population, to settle in areas assigned to them, but often unsuitable for livestock farming. When resistance to this rigorous policy of sedentarization arose, the military cracked down harshly and mercilessly suppressed uprisings, executing most tribal leaders or expelling them from the country.

To transform Iran into a European-style secular nation-state, Reza Shah Pahlavi required all men (except clergy) and later all women to wear Western clothing. However, his ban on the veil could not be enforced even by force.

"A so-called 'freedom prize' for a fascist movement of Iranian imperial citizens..."

After Reza Shah Pahlavi's abdication in 1941, his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi ascended the throne. He initially advocated a constitutional monarchy before he got into heated arguments with Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who was elected in 1951. The background to the conflict was Mossadegh's attempt to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, in which Great Britain held the majority of shares. In the wake of this crisis, the Shah fled abroad in 1953, but shortly afterwards Mossadegh was overthrown in a coup by the army with the support of the US foreign intelligence service CIA, which wanted to prevent a possible rapprochement between Iran and the Soviet Union.

After Mossadegh's fall, the Shah returned to Iran and from then on developed more and more into a despot in the style of his father. In doing so, he relied in turn on the army, which he was able to modernize and expand thanks to generous US military aid, as well as on the secret service SAVAK, which was also set up with foreign help and which became a feared surveillance instrument.

Under pressure from then US President John F. Kennedy, the Shah initiated a brief phase of liberalization in 1960, but just three years later he violently eliminated the opposition again. In 1975, the last two permitted but only shadowy parties were dissolved and replaced by the newly created unity party Rastachiz (“Resurrection”), in which every adult citizen had to become a member.

In view of the almost completely organized domestic political repression, without any opportunity for political participation or free expression of views critical of the regime, only the religious opposition remained to resist the Shah's despotic rule. This simmering protest broke out in 1978 as a broad-based Islamic revolution against the backdrop of the political, social and economic crisis into which the Shah had led his country. A little later, in January 1979, the Shah fled Iran and died in Cairo the following year.

A few decades later, the son of the last Shah, who in an interview in a historical revisionist manner described an alleged "liberalization of society" as his father's legacy, is to be stylized as a symbolic figure of the fight "for freedom, civil rights and democracy." The Friedrich Naumann Foundation, which is close to the FDP, is trying to do nothing else with the awarding of its “Freedom Prize 2026,” and it is likely to be seen as a slap in the face by the victims of the autocratic rule of the two Shahs of the Pahlavi dynasty and their descendants.

Against this background, it is not surprising that an Iranian opposition activist who is fighting for a democratic republic in Iran commented on the announcement of the award ceremony on the short message service "X" under the hashtag "#No2ShahNo2Mullahs" with the following words: "A so-called 'freedom prize' for a fascist movement of Iranian Reich citizens..."

The award ceremony is probably a desperate attempt by the FDP, which finished behind the animal protection party in the recent state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, to draw attention to itself. The choice could have deliberately been made in the area of ​​foreign policy: here the FDP was able to succeed in times past, which it would like to build on again. Until 2013, the market-liberal party actually had four federal foreign ministers: Walter Scheel, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Klaus Kinkel and Guido Westerwelle. Today, however, it is once again in danger of sinking into political insignificance - this time perhaps for good.

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