It’s the fag end of January, so that means it’s time for Davos – the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) gathering in the Swiss mountains, when the world’s smuggest men and the occasional woman come together to play dinner companion one-upmanship. Davos has always enraged a certain type of equally smug leftist – and now the MAGA crowd and their allies elsewhere – for whom the words ‘globalisation’ and ‘globalist’ respectively are rant catnip. I have always just found the whole thing more amusing than worrying or even important. Not this year, however: Davos 2026 is a shameful event, and those organising it deserve not just to be pilloried but to be covered in verbal red paint.
Davos 2026 is a shameful event, and those organising it deserve not just to be pilloried but to be covered in verbal red paint
Red paint, that is, to represent the blood of the thousands of Iranians slaughtered by the regime in Tehran. In autumn, the WEF thought it appropriate to invite Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, to this year’s event. Aragachi is not just the regime’s main foreign spokesman. He is also a member of its Supreme National Security Council, which in recent days is understood to have ordered the use of live ammunition on protestors. The theme of this year’s Davos event is ‘A Spirit of Dialogue’; some dialogue, when one side is seeking basic freedoms and the other is using machine guns to slaughter them.
After it emerged that Araghchi was due to give his thoughts on the question of ‘How can we cooperate in a more contested world?’ in an event moderated by Financial Times editor Roula Khalaf, Davos has seen sense. In a hastily-written statement published on X this morning, the WEF said: ‘The Iranian foreign minister will not be attending Davos. Although he was invited last fall, the tragic loss of lives of civilians in Iran over the past few weeks means that it is not right for the Iranian government to be represented at Davos this year.’
Good. But the damage is done. We know exactly the mindset – indeed, the amorality – of those behind the WEF. That cannot be undone. As the great and the good hobnob in Davos, innocent Iranians are dying in the streets and hospitals as they fight for their freedom from a cruel Islamist regime.
Do the assorted world leaders attending this year’s shindig in the mountains know the identity of one of their fellow invitees? They would, I’m sure, not have imagined a man like Araghchi would have been offered a platform to defend the bloodthirsty regime of which he is a part, so they cannot be blamed for their presence in Davos. But now they do know – and if they do not endorse Aragachi’s invitation, and do not wish to be seen as metaphorically spitting on the graves of the murdered Iranian protestors, they should leave immediately.
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