Free Ganji

Shamed by the Ghorme-Sabzi of Liberalism

2006-06-06T15:38:00.000+03:30

Speech given in May 2006 at the anniversary of the 2-Khordad (May 23, 1997) with the title, "2-Khordad without Khatami's government," and the slogan, "Reform Movement or Reforming the Movement?"

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

The democratic movement in the land of Iran has a very interesting story: the story of liberals shamed by ghorme-sabzi.

First -- The ingredients of ghorme-sabzi: This is a traditional and very popular Iranian stew. It is a mixture of: peas, meat, onion, oil, water, salt, leek, parsley, and fenugreek. It is a human-made stew. One could call it by a different name, but its content won't change as long as it is made from its usual principal ingredients.

Now imagine people who voraciously eat ghorme-sabzi but feel ashamed by its name. A group that eat the stew publicaly in restaurants but when the observers tell them that they are eating ghorme-sabzi, they feel embarrassed and claim that they are eating ice cream. What one eats may be beneficial or harmful to one's health. In any case, one may deny what one has eaten out of different motives by changing its name. Consider the following three patients:

-- The nutritionist has advised a diabetic person to abstain from lamb broth, ice cream and cream puffs. The diabetic person eats all three and nevertheless claims he has in fact eaten zucchini, tomato and baked peas which are very beneficial to his health.

-- The nutritionist has told a weak and thin person to eat enough protein, fats and sugar, otherwise he would be bed-stricken. By reading medical instructions and observing other patients, our patient figures he has no other way. So, in order to save his life, he eats enough protein, fats and sugar, but at the same time, he claims he is only drinking water and tea that don't contain any calories.

-- The specialist has prescribed Albumin IV for a patient. The patient is given the IV, but the patient, being illiterate, claims it is lemon syrup, not Albumin.

After this introduction, we can take a cursory look at our democrats nowadays. The story of our intellectuals, leftists, and 2-Khordad (reformist) parties who demand democracy is very much like these three patients. The political theorists say at the theoretical level that: "democracy means liberal democracy," "liberalism precedes democracy historically and existentially," "without liberalism we cannot have democracy" and at the practical level they say: "liberalism is the necessary condition for the creation of democracy. First make your society liberal, so that it can become democratic afterwards."

But the intellectuals, leftists, political parties and activists [in Iran] take the position of the aforementioned patients.

One group strongly defends liberal teachings and works towards their practical realization. But due to ignorance and lack of knowledge about political schools of thought, they claim that their ideal is not liberalism and that all the teachings they believe in and advocate are democratic ones, not liberal.

The second group knows that liberalism solves their problems, so they knowingly defend liberal instructions but out of shame claim that they are only democratic principles.

The third group knows that liberalism is fundamentally at odds with their culture and religion and that it will make the root of their their beliefs tremble and fall apart. These, too, defend liberal teachings, but call them democratic.

Second -- The ingredients of liberalism: Like ghorme-sabzi, liberalism has some ingredients that together make up this system of thought. They are:

1. Skepticism about power (especially absolute power) and the endeavor to restrain the power of the state through:

1-1. Democratization: A democratic state is the most likely to provide for freedom and equality. The democratic government is viewed by liberals as a "minimal government." It is shrinking constantly. Its domain of activity is limited and it is sharply determined and controlled by law.

1-2. Acceptance, tolerance, openness: Pursuing policies that make tolerance, openness, and freedom of conscience possible. John Locke believed that the fist principle of liberalism (the first principle of humane and rational social life) is acceptance. Accepting the other, accepting differences and distinctions, accepting that we do not have monopoly over the ultimate truth. I have to relate to the other, to communicate with her, to reach an understanding, to clarify our differences. There is no other meaning to democracy. To build a common life with a different other in such a way that guarantees the freedoms of both of us. To try and to want to reach a common understanding of the world.

1-3. Rejecting paternalism: A good life depends on individuals. The government could not and should not enforce its own view of happiness and a good life on its citizens. People must be safe from the compulsory power of the state.

2. Separation of powers (separation of executive, legislative and judicial powers): We owe the principle of separation of powers to the liberals. Baron de Montesquieu put it forward. The principle that is included in the constitution of many countries and is often disregarded. This separation must be maximized. Liberals also emphasize an important point: the judicial power must be completely independent of other powers. Our experience in the past 10 years and the coming to power of the reformists [in Iran] attests to the central and fundamental importance of this point. Without independent powerful judges to defend the rights of the citizens against the state, democracy would be meaningless.

3. The rule of law: The famous liberal quote, that "in a constitutional government, law is the king, and in a dictatorship, king is the law" underscores the importance of a principle that everyone talks about today: the complete rule of law, equality of citizens before the law, ...

By accepting that "a bad law is better than no law", we, Iranians, must not forget the struggle for a good law. The struggle that liberals consider one of the most important. Any bill that simply passes is called a law. [But] A law must be just, and it must recognize the liberties and equality of all citizens.

4. Individualism: Protecting the independence and personal dignity of individuals before state compulsion, church and the society. Individualism, on the one hand means protecting people's independence and on the other hand, it has a deeper meaning: to expand the potentials and the creative abilities of the individuals. To accept the individual as a person who has rights and must be able to organize her life the way he likes. This means accepting her human dignity and rank.

5. Freedom: Protecting the basic freedoms of opinion, expression, assembly, and religion. Freedom in liberalism is so important that many consider freedom to be the essence of liberalism and define la iberal to be a person who, in case of a conflict between freedom and any other matter, chooses freedom (see Isaiah Berlin's discussion on the conflict between freedom and equality)

6. Equality: equality before the law, courts, equality of opportunities and possibilities. What was considered in classical liberalism to be equality as stated above has been improved and made more complete in today's modern liberalism. Liberal thinkers such as [John] Rawls, [Richard] Rorty, Putnam and [Ronald] Dworkin discuss justice as fairness and defend equality (especially in the domain of economy) on a new basis and take it to be equivalent to freedom. Modern liberalism takes equality to a new level.

7. Separation of church and state: Separation of religious and rational institutions. Rejecting state religion and religious state. Those who reject state religion and religious state do in fact offer a liberal teaching. As the next step, they must accept that the laws that organize people's lives must be taken from the real life, not from ancient texts, or in better words, from special interpretations of ancient texts. This is also a very important liberal edict that laws must depend on real life and be independent of any tradition or interpretation of texts.

Liberals always accept the religion in the private sphere. They protested the unity of the institutions of religion and government and still do. They are not anti-religion. Freedom of religion is a basic principle of liberalism. Contrary to orthodox Marxists who completely reject religion, even from the private sphere of individuals (since they considered it to be the opium of the masses), liberals believe that everyone must have the right to set up his life according to his religious beliefs. But the civic code must not be based on any particular religious teaching. It should guarantee the freedom of religion in personal life and personal morality. Incidentally, a law based on the teachings of a particular religion is unable to guarantee the freedom of all religions.

8. Capitalism: According to the Oxford Encyclopedia (1988), capitalism "is a system of economic coordination, based on market competition, in which the means of production, distribution and exchange are privately owned and managed by individuals or firms." In liberals' view, being committed to freedom means accepting the institutions of private ownership and free market.

The free market economy was taken as the basis for policy making during the presidency of Hashemi [Rafsanjani] and Khatami (1989-2005) and was accepted by almost all political players, 2-Khordad [reformist] parties, intellectuals and leftists. China's rapid growth since 1979 to the present is due to leaving the socialist economy and accepting and acting on free markets and privatization. If we look at this process from the point of view of democracy, [Hugh] Berrington was right to say: "No bourgeoisie, no democracy."

Marx had revealed the revolutionary role of the bourgeoisie in the progress of the West better than anyone else:

"The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations put together. Subjection of Nature's forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground - what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour? ... The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind. ... It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors" and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment." It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. ... The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. ... The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation." [Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, Sec 1: Bourgeois and Proletarians]

John Gray was a liberal at first. But starting from late 1990's he passed from Liberalism to Post-Liberalism. In his trilogy (on Isaiah Berlin, John Stuart Mill, and von Hayek) and in "Liberalisms: Essays in Political Philosophy" he gets away from Liberalism. But even he emphatically says: "Socialism, too, has been successful only to the extent that it has been absorbed in the essential elements of liberal civility"

The [free] market disintegrates and scatters the power and facilitates decision-making. It is also necessary for the realization of political freedom. When the state is the only source of income and employment there remains no room for real freedom or opposition. (Compare with Iran where %80 of the economy is run by the state and the oil acts as the biggest obstacle against the democratization of the political system. The government that does not depend or rely on the civil society and which has all layers of the society as its paid workers is not a democratic one.) [Friedrich] von Hayek considered socialism to be epistemologically impossible, in the sense that any political system in which the market is repressed or distorted is unable to efficiently use the knowledge of its citizens. According to Hayek's "self-generating order," social institutions are created by human action but not on a human design. Our knowledge of the world, especially the social world, is first reflected in our actions and skills and it is only in the second stage that it appears in our theories, thus at least part of the practical knowledge always remains unexpressed. The constructivist rationalism that wants, like a civil engineer, to build the whole society is considered undesirable and impossible by Hayek.

If we pay attention, we see that the European social democracy (especially in the form it has taken after World War II with the increasing growth of the "bourgeois" democratic governments and the development of the production means in the free market economy based on competition, ...) has no fundamental conflict with the capitalist life and methods of production. This is a point of which the Lenisist and Stalinist critics of social democracy tirelessly remind us, and in fact we observe that, both in theory and in practical life, social democracy has accepted "the economic basis of free market and free competition" and only makes certain suggestion for a fairer distribution of wealth, and for the larger welfare of citizens (in particular on the level of consumer life and the necessary educational and medical facilities, ...). These suggestion are not at conflict with the capitalist basis of the economical life, nor are they necessarily rejected by liberal thinkers and politicians.

Europe's social democrats have now understood very well that social justice is not possible without the realization of a democratic government and without the unconditional freedom of its citizens. The bitter experience of Soviet Marxism (and its satellites in Albania, China, ...) shows clearly to what kinds of repressive regimes such slogans of justice lead, to what frightening dictatorships and to absolute restrictions of citizens' democratic rights and civil liberties. Only those who truly believe that with the protection and expansion of civil liberties (and all their necessities including economic freedom) one could really establish a more just system and a [better] distribution of wealth and opportunities are the ones to have found the deep meaning of the word justice.

In contrast, those who talk about social and economic justice with no belief in, or practice of, the necessities of civil liberties, democratic and human rights, i.e. those who block the way to the realization of basic human rights (the most natural rights and freedoms) and who suppress them (or justify their suppression in theory), are the ones who do not suggest anything more than the "Fascistics justice" , and their proposed approach, in the best case, leads to the equal sharing of poverty and misery. A social poverty that is of course not shared by the ruling elite, who will on the contrary enjoy a well-off financial life together with safety and health.

9. Separation of civil society from the state: The civil society is a web of associations and self-governing groups independent of the state that interconnect the citizens in relation to the issues of people's interest, and that just by their existence or action can affect the public politics. The society can coordinate itself through such free associations and groups, harmonize its actions and determine state policies to a great extent or change its direction. These associations are an exercise in self-governence. For self-governece an infinite number of [great many] such associations is needed.

David Held is one of the current defenders of social democracy and global democracy. In his view "It is only a federation of states and democratic societies that could create democracy." A serious critic of liberal democracy, he writes: "We have no way but to accept a few fundamental liberal principles. Those that relate to the central principle of 'impersonal' public power, the constitutional guarantee and protection of rights, variety of sources of power inside and outside the government, and the mechanisms providing for competition and discussion between different political programs. This point also confirms the fundamental liberal idea that the 'separation' of civil society and state should be one of the elements of a democratic political system."

In the present time, Iranian reformist thinkers and activists, like many intellectuals [the world over] and even a number of leftists (especially those who believe in the necessity of a new reading of Marx's ideas), suggest that they should demand the separation of civil society from the state (by suggesting setting up professional institutions and associations, ... at the level of civil society) and also the separation of the public and private spheres. In a sense, they have based all their political project and programing on these ideas. In this case, they should be asked what are these suggestions (discussed as strategies) other than putting forward liberal principles? Why then can't they bring themselves to admit clearly that their most important suggestions have their roots in the liberal thought and practice?

10. Separation of public and private spheres: The function of the public sphere is to rationalize the authority of the state through the institutional effects of an informed discussion and rational consensus. Supporting the liberal teaching of public sphere and seeking to create it, is an approach that is correctly pursued by the liberals [freedom seekers]. About 44 years ago (1962) Jurgen Habermas published his Habilitation dissertation at the University of Marburg under the title "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere." He shows that the public sphere is the "offspring of the 18th century." We know that democracies shaped in early 20th century. In early 18th century there was no democracy. But liberals created the public sphere. In this respect, Thomas McCarthy writes in an introduction to Habermas' book: "The liberal public sphere that sat between the civil society and the state, and in which the public critical discussion of public issues was institutionalized, was shaped in special historical conditions and as a result of the development of free-market economy. The newborn bourgeoisie, in the process of the struggle against government's hidden acts and the bureaucracy of the unqualified government rule, gradually succeeded in eliminating the old form of public sphere in which the ruling power was reflected 'in opposition [to the people]' and replaced it with a new form of public sphere. In this new form, the authority of the government is controlled 'by' the people via an informed and critical discourse."

Liberalism is the very basis of Habermas' discussion that, in the public sphere it is the logic of dialogue that rules and even the form of rationalism (from its simplest to the most complex theoretical forms) is based on "conversational reason", i.e. communicative reason, and goes beyond the ancient form of instrumental reason. (This is the sphere in which, in Popper's words, a rational dialogue is made possible. In a sense, the Popperian World Three.) Habermas emphasized himself that he learnt about the public sphere from Kant. On the other hand, he writes that the "unfinished Enlightenment project" is the same as the "unfinished project of modernity." What was at a time (in the age of Enlightenment and the period of practical formation of liberalism) the basis for the progress of human creative abilities, is in our times bygone. Do we not hear the voice of the Enlightenment thinkers of past centuries? Has their belief in liberalism (in its most precise philosophical and political meaning) quenched?

11. Pluralism: Admitting variety and diversity of society and understanding and approving of different modes of life.

One can say with certainty that the experience of the 20th century reflects the following point: It is only based on liberal beliefs that variety and diversity in all aspects of life (every-day life, thoughts, arts) is accepted. Notice that all social and intellectual systems that were based on criticism of liberalism, ebded up blocking variety and diversity of life and thought with all their force. From Stalinist and Maoist Communism to Fascism and Nazism, they all sought "uniformity" and similarity. They sought the complete unity of all individuals (who were different with different opinions and human experiences). As Paul Ricoeur points out, the original basis of the "thought of accepting the diversity of thoughts" is liberal. In an intellectual system where the diversity of people is praised (ie. one that explicitly calls itself individualist) can one be certain of 1) the development of the individual's creative abilities, and 2) the possibility of dialogue and mutual understanding.

12. Rationalism (the critical reason of Kant, Popper, Habermas): Reason is shared by all human beings. We can improve our society through reasoning, [and] believing in convincing the other party through rational argumentation. Of the three thinkers mentioned above, Kant and Popper are clearly liberal. But Habermas, with his background in the Frankfurt School (and so in a critical, or as is known, "European" reading of Marxism) does not explicitly call himself liberal. But I would ask, is it not a liberal idea to place communicative reason before instrumental reason (whose unique feature is to convince the other of "my" certain truth)? Especially when we notice Habermas' definition of communicative reason whose basis is the logic of dialogue and the possibility of mutual human understanding. This discussion of Habermas, in which one finds through communicative reasoning a shared understanding with the other (in the sense of mutual agreement), is basicaly the acceptance of the other as an entity other than me, different from me. The origins of this idea is to be found in the works of liberal writers. Only there is it possible to say that my freedom means recognizing the freedom of others.

13. Human rights: Mark Haugaard says, "the usage of such terminology as human rights is liberal." Human rights are those collective demands that all human beings are justly entitled to ask for,simply because of being human. In the 17th century, these demands were called natural rights, [since] they were claimed to originate from the intrinsic nature of every human being. In later centuries it was replaced by, first the concept of the rights of man, and then that of human rights.

In Kant's view, people's rights must be respected since they are rational beings capable of obeying the ethical law. In his view, humans must be treated as the goal, and never as a tool. On this criterion, violating others' rights is the same as treating them as a mere tool, and hence impermissible.

Today's intellectuals, leftists, and reformists correctly defend human rights. A group of reformists even formed a front for demanding democracy and human rights, pointing to where the main problem lies. Then how can we justify forgetting the descent of human rights and ignoring the fact that human rights is the offspring of liberalism?

14. Reform vs. revolution: Revolutionarism is a leftist teaching and reformism is a liberal teaching. In the late 1960's an interview was made with [Herbet] Marcuse and [Karl] Popper that was published as "Reform of Revolution [: a Confrontation]." That interview shows two different approaches to solving social problems. Iranian leftists were revolutionaries too. But having read the works of Hanna Arendt, Karl Popper and other liberals and observing the practical consequences of the 1979 revolution [in Iran], it has been years that they have explicitly rejected revolutionarism and support reformism in its stead. If a leftist wishes to stay a leftist, he must still remain a revolutionary. But if he is "anti-revolutionary" he must know that he is a liberal, not a leftist. Liberals consider revolution, in the sense of abrupt changes in fundamental political, social, cultural and economic structure, as impossible and undesirable. But [Iranian] remorseful leftists and intellectuals do not have clear a view in this field either: Firstly, Hanna Arendt only rejected all-encompassing revolutions that seek to change everything. She supported the revolution that was aiming to establish freedom. Secondly, Popper did not rejected revolutions altogether either. After mentioning his reasons against revolution, he writes:

"I am not in all cases and under all circumstances against a violent revolution. I believe with some medieval and Renaissance Christian thinkers who taught the admissibility of tyrannicide that there may indeed, under a tyranny, be no other possibility, and that a violent revolution may be justified. But I also believe that any such revolution should have as its only aim the establishment of a democracy; {and by democracy I do not mean a vague concept like that of the 'rule of people' or the 'rule of majority'; what I mean is a set of institutions - especially public elections, that is the right of the people to change their government - that allow the public to control their rulers and fire them and to allow the people to attain without violence and even against their rulers' wishes, the reforms they want.} In other words, the use of violence is justified only under a tyranny which makes reforms without violence impossible, and it should have only one aim, that is, to bring about a state of affairs which makes reforms without violence possible." ["The open Society and Its Enemies", vol.2 , chapter 19, p.166 - the text in {} is translated from Persian.]

In socialist tradition, especially in the Marxist tradition of thought and practice, there were forces (quite powerful in their own right) that supported reforms against revolution. The old Marx himself has been quoted in the final decade of his life from some of his political speeches and correspondences, where he supported the possibility of the securing of power by the proletariat to be possible through parliamentary and legal campaigns, and has even talked about the "sin of revolution" when conditions for nonviolent taking of power are present. People like [Eduard] Bernstein and [Karl] Kautsky (after 1914, the same Kautsky whom Lenin considered apostate and traitor) talked about the possibility of talking power by the proletariat through parliamentary and legal means. (Kautsky called this the "strategy of attrition.") Even Antonio Gramsci went back to these teachings by putting forward the concepts of "civil society," the "hegemony of the proletariat," and the "strategy of taking power through long-term struggle within the civil society." The continuation of these debates is found in Habermas' understanding of "constitutionalism" and the basic ideas of the thinkers of the Frankfurt School (especially Herbert Marcuse). Another example is Anthony Giddens. He is a left-leaning thinker who gave the Liberal Party [in Britain] a new life by establishing a new foundation for understanding party and political organizations and is today considered a party theorist who makes suggestions for the welfare of people starting from liberal principles.

But the important point is that, accepting reform and making suggestions such as the strategy of attrition is a return to liberal teachings. To engage in legal and political campaigns instead of revolutions is to return to liberal ideas of "improving the matters."

Third -- Liberal democracy: David Beetham says: "The assumptions and fundamental institutions of classical liberalism were proven to be indispensable for the protection of democracy at the level of the nation-states of the 19th and 20th centuries, to the extent that attempts to eliminate them or acting without them has been detrimental to democracy... historically, liberalism has provided a necessary basis for democracy." "the principles and institutions of classical liberalism... that were created before universal suffrage, have proven to be necessary for the survival of democracy in the age of collective politics. What we learnt by the end of the 20th century was that the attempts to annul these liberal features, under the guise of creating a healthier democracy, have only resulted in the weakening of democracy."

(The transformations of classical liberalism, whether we call it "bourgeois" or by any other name, have made undeniable contributions to these democratic orders, which consist of the struggles of liberalism itself to compel the absolute [rule of] government to be publicly responsible and to be under public supervision. In this sense, if we define liberal democracy to be the kind of democracy that is founded on these particular liberal components, there will be no serious democratic substitute for it.)

Andrew Levin, a critic of liberal democracy, writes: "Liberal democratic political systems, according to almost any measure, are better than the ones that have replaced them and are also favored against other social and political relations."

Fourth -- Dictatorship and the majority: Democracy means elective government, i.e. giving power to rulers by people through free and fair (competitive) elections. It means taking the rulers away from power by non-violent methods through negative judgement in the judgment day of election. Democracy is the rule of the majority, not that of the minority.

[But] if the democratic system is not constrained by certain conditions it could lead to the dictatorship of the majority. All the fears of John Stuart Mill, de Tocqueville, von Hayek, Karl Popper, and others were not for nothing.

The first condition that constrains the rule of the majority, is the condition of "respecting the rights of the minority." The majority does not have the right to pass laws that violate the rights of the minority.

The important point is that the right of the minority (its legal right to becoming the future majority by criticizing the policies of the current majority) is not trampled on. The important point is not that elections are held constantly in a country. (Our government officials never tire of saying that elections have been held constantly in Iran.) The important point is whether the minority forces have had the opportunity to participate in every elections. Were the opponents of the current government able to make their ideas known, explain their programs to people, and ask for their votes? It is exactly here where we see the weaknesses of what is called the "rule of people" [mardom-salari] in Iran. This "rule of people" is not "democracy." Because different opposition and minority groups did not have the right of expression and the right to participate in a fair competition.

The second condition is "respecting human rights." Human, by the virtue of being human alone, has rights. The democratic government cannot pass laws that violate human rights.

The third condition that constrains democracy is the condition of recognizing the so called "self-creation of citizens." The political system is a social construct. A means to reach the ends and values. No system is the end in itself. Democracy is the best system which provides for the possibility of the self-creation of citizens. The citizens want this means (the democratic system) for these ends: they want to be free, to choose freely, to choose a specific lifestyle freely, to create themselves as a work of art.

The last point, i.e. one's right to choice, to dissent, to choosing the way to be, to freedom in the private domain of one's life (from the choice of outfit and the necessities of living, the choice of government to the choice of the modes of existence) is the essence of this discussion. I ask, what is democracy but this very right to creating one's self, the way one desires, in the fashion that seems right in one's own view? Free life in this sense (the same sense shared by [Charles] Baudelaire and [Michel] Foucault: creating life as a work of art) is not possible except in political systems that are based on liberal beliefs and teachings. There are no other historic examples either.

It is for this reason that democracy, without liberalism, is no democracy at all.

In David Beetham's view, "five liberal components are necessary for the democratic system and its duration. A) Providing the freedom of expression, of association and the likes, so that there is a special legal support for individual rights. B) Separation of executive, legislative, and judiciary powers, for without this separation, the idea of the rule of law is no more than a dream. C) The institution of the assembly of representatives. D) The principle of limited government, and the separation of public and private spheres, whether we define the private sphere according to an independent civil society, [free] market and private ownership, family and private relationships, or according to individual conscience. E) The epistemic assumption that there is no ultimate truth that states what the good of the society (ie. a truth based on revelation, divine inspiration or a special knowledge) is, but that the only measure of collective good is what the freely coordinated people choose and not those commanded by the experts or prophets based on a higher level of knowledge. Here we see that the anti-patriarchal nature of democracy is the direct product of the anti-patriarchal nature of liberalism, and based on a similar epistemological foundation."

Fifth -- Theoretical insight, practical honesty and courage: Idealism and democracy not only need courage but also honesty. Liberalism is a compound of what was said [above]. We should not promote and defend liberal teachings under the name 'democracy'. Western societies became more and more liberal over the course of a few centuries. When liberal constructs were formed democracy naturally stood over these constructs in a few waves in the beginning of the 20th century and western societies became liberal democratic societies. We could and we should criticize liberal democracy. Feminists question the separation of the public and private domains and claim that not all the oppressions and injustices have their origins in politics, but that many of them have social roots. In their opinion, private affairs must not be separated from political ones; private domain and the family institution must be democratic. Socialists question liberalism's market economy and seek a just distribution of wealth. Anti-individualists question the abstract liberal notion of an individual with no history, tradition, and identity. Every group, while accepting the liberal teachings, criticizes and improves one or more of those teachings in order to open the way to a more open, more egaliterian, and more just society that allows different styles of life. But no one changes the name of liberalism. Liberalism, good or bad, is liberalism. If someone believes the liberal teachings, he must honestly and courageously declare himself a liberal or a liberal democrat. An ethical "social democrat" is also one who honestly and courageously confesses to be a liberal.

[Mohammad] Khatami, [Abdolkarim] Soroush, and [Mohsen] Kadivar and many religious leftists correctly point out that liberalism and religion are inconflict but honesty demands that they, as religious people, explicitly reject liberalism, not that they accept all liberal teachings, call them democracy and claim that democracy and Islam are compatible and defend this so called religious 'rule of the people' [mardom-salari].

What is the purpose of insisting on the element of honesty? Why do I consider this ethical principle to be such a pivotal part of this discussion? The famous hermeneutic principle of honesty demands our interpretations of any text, event, or other people's actions, to be as following: an interpretation consistent with the whole. A conclusion that is not just compatible with one or some parts, but with the whole of the text. [One that] does not overlook the internal consistency of the event or the text. Those who accept a multitude of liberal beliefs and teachings, but are not willing to call them by their real name, claim to be fighting for the rights that are in fact liberal rights of the people, but do not admit their liberal name; either they do not truly know liberalism, or call it by contrived names out of fear or caution. Honesty requires that when we mention liberal teachings or claim to be supporting them (or do so in practice), that we should call ourselves liberals. That we call these teachings by their true name. Not to try to reconcile them with ideas and practices that would ultimately negate them.

Considering the conditions and the atmosphere in which we live today, where there is no guarantee for many of our basic human rights, what is the use of writing against liberal democracy? What pleasure does the leftist view, which considers itself to be radical as well, take by constantly looking for evidence for the shortcomings of liberalism? Is there anything else except the hostility of Marx towards "bourgeois democracy"? Except the fact that Marx talked about "parliamentary disease" and "democratic foolishness"? Except the fact that Marx, in his Communist Manifesto, thought of democracy only as the "rule of the proletariat" and denied the possibility of a democratic bourgeois government? What plays down Marx's theoretical mistake, but does not justify it, considering the historical era in which he lived (although one may ask why John Stuart Mill and de Tocqueville did not make the same mistake), appears as a tragic comedy in our condition today . [The tragic comedy] that in today's painful condition we are willing to forego this direct path that brings us near our goal (if our purpose is really to guarantee freedoms and equality) and instead constantly recall teachings to whose falsity the history of Gulags and Stalinist dictatorship have already testified.

Message for the Celeberation of Ms. Simin Behbahani

2006-05-23T04:35:00.000+03:30

In The Name Of Truth

To all the great Iranian mothers in diaspora, with greetings and best wishes for their happiness and prosperity.

As Jesus says, "the truth shall set you free" (John, 8:32). But which truth shall set us free? Which truth shall set us free from the clutches of ideology (false reason)? His eminence, Molana Jalal al-Din [Rumi] believed that the prophets have come to set the human kind free:

Since the prophets guide to freedom / to believers they bring freedom
O believers, be happy in your groups / Like cedars and lilies take in freedom

It is futile to think that the society and the political system will be democratized by sitting and playing with concepts like freedom, civil society, tolerance, approval, human rights, secularism and the separation of the public and private realms. The human rights are there for the protection of human dignity and the principle of personal autonomy. Freedom of expression is justified based on the right of the speaker to express her ideas, and the right of the listener to hear those ideas, and the collective good of a free society. But the society will not attain the freedom of expression, just by writing about it and its justifying bases. Belief without action, is no belief at all. It is not possible to claim belief in humanist values and ideals, but not to take a step to make them realize. We must leave a special place for courage, love and kindness in our moral value system. Courage is morally respectable since accepting dangers is selfless. It is a kind of devotion originating from being free of care, greed, and from going beyond one's own self. All moral values will be blind or a madness without reason, except for courage. Otherwise they are void. One wouldn't know how to fight injustice without reason, but without courage one couldn't even consider it. Philosophers need courage in order to think. But thinking alone does not make one courageous. This is why Kant considered the message of Enlightenment to be growing out of childhood and commanded: Sapere Aude (have the courage to know). We need courage in order to know. When a thinker faces the logical consequences of a reasonable claim, he may find the consequences to be theoretically or practically unacceptable or frightening, but a thinker must face the problems courageously and follow a reasonable claim to its logical conclusion. It may be that the argued claim pull the rug from under our feet, disconnect us from our tradition and our past, destroy the cosmos we were living in, without providing us with a new support. The truth-seeking thinker and intellectual, will courageously accept the practical consequences of his idea, so that the truth sets him free; but, at the same time, he does not consider his ideas to be immutable and absolute truth, unlike those who disguise egotism and selfishness in a sacred outfit and do not know that if one should worship anyone, it should be God and no one else. And an idea is not God. No one can think for us, suffer for us, fight for us. Intellectual courage, which is refusing to submit to fear in our thinking and refusing to accept anything but the truth, is now highly needed in our circles. Democracy and human rights need bold and courageous agents. People who believe in democratic values and show their belief by struggling against oppression and injustice. It is obvious [however] that courage in practice, without wisdom in thoughts, will not do.

The problem of the avant-garde intellectual before the revolution [in Iran] was the poverty of philosophy and not attending to theoretical studies. Theorizing was completely rejected as "bourgeois philosophy" and "capitalist abstraction." Everything was reduced to "pratique" and "struggle." Resistance and courage, if not based on a democratic-humanist theory, replaces one dictatorship with another. The 1979 revolution [of Iran] was the result of a 1970's discourse that was anti-West (anti-imperialist), anti-liberal, anti-democratic, based on a return to our selves ([alternatively] our Islamic, Asian, or communist class-free proletariat self), ideologic, utopian, and revolutionary. We should not think of that revolution as a detour. Trotsky wrote "The Revolution Betrayed" thinking Stalin had betrayed the ideals of the Bolshevik revolution. But no one betrayed the Russian revolution and what took place was the exact realization of the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary ideology. The classical all-encompassing ideological revolution is an irrevocably big mistake. [Such a] Revolution does not lead to democracy and does not create freedoms. Therefore, the 1979 revolution was not betrayed. It was the objective realization of the 1970's discourse. The experience of the 1979 revolution guided us all to the fact that without reason and thinking we cannot go past our childhood and become democrat adults.

In the first two decades after the revolution, we gradually went beyond the 1970's discourse and shaped a new one. The new discourse was, in complete contrast to the old one, modern, liberal, democratic, non-ideological, non-utopian, of human rights, and reformist. But why, even with this new discourse, the intellectuals could not take the big step towards democratization of the political system and hope and enthusiasm turned to hopelessness, depression and isolation? The problem of the ivory-towered intellectual of the 2000's is escaping action, rejecting struggle and resistance, and being busy with philosophy and conceptualization. It is thought that all our problems will be solved by philosophy. The metaphysical tradition of [Mullah] Sadra and the mysticism of Muhy al-Din Arabi have taken us enough away from the world and social life. Then what need is there to Heideger, Nietzsche, and Carl Schmitt whose philosophy doesn't have any practical liberating aspect for us? ([Of course] all philosophies must be freely discussed in the public arena, but not all philosophies are liberating or truth-seeking and do not set one free from the darkness of mind.) Deliberating and thinking is not only our right, but also, strongly and emphatically, our duty. My emphasis, however, is on two pints: (1) Deliberation is the necessary condition for our prosperity, not sufficient. In order to provide the sufficient condition, acting on our ideas is inevitable. (2) From the limitless ocean of possibilities for deliberation, morality and humanitarianism rule to choose those that are not only theoretical, but those that will have some practical aspects sooner or later and can effect an improvement of the situation of the people. The analytical philosophy of Kant alone cannot get us to democracy, freedom and human rights. In order to build a democratic system we need not only empirical social sciences, but also action, steadfastness, movement, perseverance, ideals, courage, and civil disobedience, and very much so. In order to escape social responsibility, the ivory-towered intellectual resorts to the tricks of sophistry. He says: democracy, freedom and human rights, are not the issues of the people of Iran, but bread, water, clothing and shelter. He says: the knowledge and social prerequisites of democracy do not exist in Iran. He says: Iran will not be democratized in a hundred years. He says: the people are not ready to fight and pay the price for democracy, so why should the intellectual shoulder their burden and pay the price for them. He says: the modern era, is the era of separation of roles and division of social labour. The intellectual, is not a party or political activist, his job is to create thoughts and invent theories.

Even though all these claims are subject to criticism and leave ample room for questioning, let us suppose that they are all true. The question is: how can we deduce from these assumptions, silence before falsehoods, injustices, violations of human rights, and oppression? If the entirety of the people of a country are dictatorial and their political system is authoritarian, should the intellectuals be, following the people, dictatorial and support the authoritarian system? In any case and situation, for instance in fascistic conditions, the intellectual, even if single and alone, must stand against falsehood and courageously attack the violations of human rights. If the intellectual is only to defend his own rights, he must still stand against the sultanist system; because when intellectuals are butchered for being dissidents and different, tomorrow it will be the turn of the ivory-towered intellectuals who will be put in prison, in reality for dissent, but in appearance for imaginary excuses. If on the day when the first person was arrested and imprisoned, we had protested, if on the day when the first person was assassinated, we had stood up, if on the day when the first political opposition member was executed, we had resisted, now it would not have been my turn, the ivory-towered intellectual, to be arrested, imprisoned or assassinated.

Courage, this philosopher's stone of the world of intellect and reformism, is not limited just to the Kantian courage, that is the courage to know. We also need the [Baruch] Spinozan courage, which is the courage to overcome any of our psychological and moral failures and shortcomings, let aside the [Paul] Tillichan courage that wants us to see and accept ourselves as we are and not deny ourselves. Is not today's intellectual very much in need of this Tillichan courage as well? Does not the intellectual, in [Carl Gustav] Jung's interpretation, have a duty to accept the dark side of his existence as well, and is not a big part of this dark side, the intellectual's own past? And is there an intellectual who doesn't see in his past more or less dark spots, ignorance, mistakes, working with less than desired quality or quantity? And which intellectual is it who doesn't know that a considerable part of the misery and misfortune that has taken over his society is the consequence of his own ignorance, mistakes, and miscarriage? Why should the intellectual be so pessimistic and doubtful of people and optimistic and sure of himself?

Ms. Simin Behbahani is one of Iranian heroines, who, in the past years, has been in the front line of Iran's liberal movement. In this path, she has been insulted and beaten. She was treated unjustly and endured magnanimously. Behbahani could move a generation with her poems, but her work is not limited to poetry and literature. She actively and bravely defends the victims whenever the civil rights are trampled upon. One day she shows up in front of a hospital to defend the disregarded rights of an imprisoned dissident. On another day she is in a park to protest the extreme, unbelievable, and painful inequality of women compared to men and to say we are human too and human, on being human alone, is entitled to rights and dignity, and no regime, ideology, belief or culture could not and should not discriminate between human beings based on imaginary and ancient divisions and ignore their need to dignity. Still on another day, in another setting, she protests the murder of dissidents and with her poems keeps their memory alive. She has the courage to think.

Here I want to examine this issue from a different angle, and point out a valuable characteristic of the lady of the sonnet of Iran, which may have been less noted beside her beautiful and deep poetry. What boldly distinguishes the best contemporary poet of Iran, is her civil courage. Civil courage is a rare element in the Iranian society. It brings pride and honor, that a lady in the realm of literature reminds her compatriots, with her pen and her pace, of courage and civic duties.

With all the suffocating taboos surrounding women, by stating the most creative elements of the private realm in her poems, Ms. Behbahani not only breaks taboos but also presents Iranians the gift of negative liberty. The oppressed quiet of the liberal soles afraid of demanding their rights in the private and public realms, finds a liberating boldness in the sphere of Behbahani's poems. A pluralism of demands and needs in Behbahani's poetic space, provokes the reader against all ideological impositions and compulsions, against neglecting the private realm and against depressing and uniformity of the public realm.

However, the lady of poem and sonnet does not only teach the lesson of civil courage with her poems. She is a citizen from whom we may, without exaggeration, learn citizenship. Despite all the sufferings and injuries on her tired and fragile body, she endures the hardship of defending the rights of the dissidents, women, and intellectuals and reminds the forgetful rulers, with serenity and patience, of the dignity of human being and its morality, and never falls short of, and knows no limits to, civil action to enlighten them. The courage of Iran's great poet is linked with a civil responsibility. Understanding civil responsibility in dictatorial Iran requires courage, and should be rightly distinguished, from other false and crooked forms of courage, as civil courage. Her poems and thoughts, her knowledge and character, whether in the sphere of literature or society, has this same description; being responsible for the protection of human rights and the dignity of citizens, as human beings intrinsically deserving respect, and taking them as the ultimate objective. Ms. Behbahani's poems are very important in the theory of literature. Her creativity in the domain of Persian sonnet (which was likened by a famous literary scholar to Nima's*: Behbahani is the Nima of sonnet) shows that the courage and the creativity we see seen in her social commitment, is apparent and influential in her artistic and poetic work as well. In the social commitment discourse, there is always a concern for "seriousness," "strictness," and "firm belief." These are the imperative elements for political and social activities, but literature (especially poetry) adds a humanistic and emotional aspect, and in a sense, a new moral aspect to all of this. It is the language of poetry that expresses both human problems and their solutions. They show what is decaying and declining and what is coming out from within this decline. Poetry is internally and deeply related to human freedom.

Yes, it is this valuable and rare characteristic that distinguishes the lady of poetry of Iran and bestows influence upon her words and honesty upon her manners, and with this influence and honesty invites us all, and mostly the rulers, to do the same.

What can we say about the lady of Persian poem and sonnet, who as an artist is in the service of beauty, but firstly: has put beauty in the service of two other psychologically valuable elements, that is truthfulness (truth) and goodness (good), and secondly: her art is not only to show the beauties of life and being, but also to make them more beautiful as well. There are many artists who show the beauties of the world, being and life--and this is very valuable in its own right--but there are few who moreover try to make the world, being and life beautiful and in addition to displaying the beauty, create beauty as well. And Behbahani's descent is of the latter.

Behbahani is the symbol of an unequal battle with different kinds of falsehood, which only with human dignity has kept her stead. In these chaotic times, in spite of illness, she still stands tall, in the manner of cedars, and guards the sublime human values. Celebrating her is celebrating human dignities, especially dissent and being different.

May her existence be everlasting and her kindness be evermore.

Akbar Ganji
May 20, 2006

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* Nima Yushij (1896-1959) is the father of modern Persian poetry

Letter to Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush

2005-07-30T18:55:00.000+04:30

In the name of God

Merry is the gambler who lost all he possessed
'Till he was left with nothing but the urge to gamble more

Dear Professor Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush

I have received your compassionate letter of July 12, 2005. My dear teacher and professor you have shown kindness to your humble student and used titles for me that I do not deserve. Our relationship goes back to the beginnings of the revolution. To your classes of general philosophy, philosophy of science, philosophy of ethics, the [divine] origin and the resurrection, the evolution of the essence, the private sessions of the two of us where I posed my endless questions and you answered them with patience and I learned a lot from you. Our friendship began in 1979 and it never ended, we always learned new things from you. It is only fair to state that our generation owes you greatly, it was through you that we became familiar with modernity, various interpretations of religion and the concept of a human being with rights of his own. We stepped into new worlds with you, you washed our eyes to see differently. It was not all about analytical philosophy and critical rationality either. You kindled a fire in our heart by introducing us to Rumi and Hafez [great classical Persian poets], a fire that will never die out. Is it possible to get to know the love experience of Rumi and not flee afterwards from the fanaticism of populists? Hafez, who revealed and criticized the hypocrisy of mullah-style faith and religiosity, warns us that

The sign of a man of God is love, but keep this secret in your bosom
For I don't see even a resemblance of this among the sheikhs of our town
[Hafez]

He taught us that the preachers "do all that is contrary to what they preach / once they find themselves alone and unseen by others," and that since "they do not really believe in a day of judgment they change and cheat in [representing] the works of the ultimate Judge of All." They hide their corruption under their robes and their function is to open the gates of hypocrisy and deceptions. They are immersed in corruptions, but claim to be innocents. Their other service is to defend killers and murderers. They know nothing, but claim to be the holders of divine secrets. They are experts in breaking promises. The critique of Hafez of the religious society and its maladies is indeed endless, but his critique has to be complemented today. Hafez had no knowledge or experience of totalitarian societies and fascistic movements, because fascistic systems came to being only afterwards, after his time. The totalitarian system is one of pure fright and fear. It is the single-voice society where only the leader’s voice is to be heard, where civil society is completely crushed and the individual sphere is not recognized. The leader reaches the status of a god, and since he is a pathetic being full of fear of himself and of others, he covets to be feared by the people. The tyrant leaders see everyone in the shape of an enemy. Yesterday's friends are the enemies of tomorrow. He can't be satisfied even with the death of his competitors, but wants to annihilate every name and trace of them in history and memory of all. He alone is what people must see wherever they go and wherever they look. We are faced with the passionate lust to create such a system. All our efforts and struggles are directed towards fighting this aim. Hafez is not among us to criticize this lust, so others like the lady of Persian sonnets (Simin Behbahani) must picture this lust, and critique it relentlessly. Slaughtering the intellectuals and dissidents, shutting down all newspapers and imprisoning journalists, beating university professors and attacking universities like savages and barbarians, beating gatherings of pro-democratic forces with clubs and boxing-knuckles are no longer mere wishes and lustful dreams. They are real instances of that lust whose endpoint is fascism. These are part of Nazi legacy that has reached Iranian fascists. Imprisoning dissidents in solitary confinements and torturing them to write letters of repentance and confess to crimes they have not committed, are exact imitations of Stalin. Stalinism means solitary confinement, means self-destruction to please the leader.

My dear friend, Dr. Ghazian has disclosed only a tiny fraction of the mess behind the case of the pollsters and the filthy acts committed by Saeed Mortazavi to please the leader. If Abbas Abdi begins to talk about this case one day and reveal the truth about other parts of it, only then will the depths of rascality and meanness behind it become clear to everyone. Others must tell how they were tortured to confess they committed adultery with a certain married woman. Yes, Mr. Khamenei knew and knows of all this. As Khomeini used to say about the Shah, if he has no knowledge of all that was going on, he was no real shah (king), if he did, then he shared the burden of the crime. Yes, because Mr. Khamenei considered the media to be the base of the enemy and the intellectuals to be agents of cultural invasion [of the West], some of them were slaughtered and assassinated, some were thrown in jail, several of them were tortured, some were beaten and some other eliminated. It was supposed that by this not only the theories of the leader would prove right, but the imaginary enemies, the product of ‘His Excellency's’ [Leader's] mind, will be destroyed. You certainly remember what a fuss was made when the great espionage (the pollsters case) was discovered. But Abbas Abdi is now acquitted in the Supreme Court and Hossein Ghazian reveals part of the truth about what went through. Mortazavi made spies by using torture and fabricating false documents because Mr. Khamenei liked there to be spies among the reformists. They murdered intellectuals because Mr. Khamenei regarded them as enemies.

Dear Professor,

I'm sure you remember how ‘His Excellency’ [Leader] sent club-bearing fascists to beat you in the Technical Department of Tehran University and had it not been for Reza Tehrani and I, to surround you and bear some of the beatings and had you fallen into their hands, you would have been in a different situation today. Certainly you recall one of the heads of the gang on that day who has now become a theoretician on IRIB (Iranian TV) channel one and philosophizes for other fascists several times a week on television and rides to fight with the modern world in the style of Don Quixote. The theoretician of violence and the defender of slavery [Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi], the enemy of you and Dr. Shariati; once during the first years of the revolution sent someone to buy 2 kg of cheese, when that person returned with 3 kg, he quarreled with him a lot saying he didn't have enough money until the end of the month! Now the two children of the theoretician of violence are billionaires and he himself receives money-order to the amount of 70 billion Rials of sugar and sells it in free market with tens of billions of Rials profit. You know what a sophisticated system and order he has created for himself in the city of Qom. All of this are his rewards for attacking you and other dissidents and for his defense of violence, terror and assassinations. Why else is he called the next Allameh Tabatabi and Motahari? This is one example of the regime's fight against economic corruption! In other words shouting the motto of social justice and fight against economical corruption, and at the same time filling the pockets of agents of oppression, denying the likes of Dr. Soroush the career they deserve and handing it instead to the hooligans of the town.

Dear Professor,

We fought for freedom of speech and human rights, while dissidents were denied the right to live in this country. Once the terror and assassination machine was turned on inside and outside of the country to eliminate members of the regime's opposition, it knew no limits, and every single dissident had to be eliminated.

It astounds me that Mr. Khamenei calls Iran the freest and the most democratic country in the region. We should ask what freedom are you talking about, when dissidents have no right to live. If you believe in free speech, then the measure for freedom of speech should be open and clear criticism of you (Mr. Khamenei) in the media. If criticizing the political leader of the country is not possible, then no one can claim there exists freedom of speech in that country. The fact that someone has to bear extremely heavy costs for indirect critique of the leader is no sign of freedom, but of tyranny, and of a totalitarian version of it for that matter. In June of 1997 I gave a talk about the foundations of fascism in Shiraz University. I didn't think anyone would file a complaint against me, but with great surprise I was tried and convicted to one year of imprisonment by the Revolutionary Court under the charge of insulting the leader, instead of Hitler and Mussolini. When critique of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin is considered critique of the leader, how can anyone speak of freedom of speech and claim democracy? In a democratic system critique of fascism is not punishable. More interesting still is Mr. Khamenei's claim of democracy. How is it seen by men of knowledge when someone who has absolute power for life still claims his system is a democracy? It would be better if Mr. Khamenei only answers this one question: how can he be displaced without violence? How can one even talk of displacing him in power without getting slaughtered by knives? Mr. Khomeini used to say if the leader can’t or won't answer when he is questioned or impeached, he is automatically disqualified. Let us ignore all previous questionings and impeachments. I now want for Mr. Khamenei to be replaced as the political leader of the country. Mr. Khamenei must respond clearly how I can reach this goal in a non-violent manner?

It is said that Reza Shah once asked Modarres what he wanted and Modarres responded: I want you not to be anymore. Mr. Khomeini too used to say Shah must go. Even if I could ignore my 2000 days of imprisonment, I can't ignore the widespread breach of human rights by Mr. Khamenei, the tyrannical sultanist government, widespread governmental corruption, assassination of opponents and thousand of other cases. Khamenei must go, because he does not tolerate the others. Khamenei must go, because chain killings of dissidents took place during his reign. Khamenei must go, because more than one hundred journals were shut down and many journalists thrown in prison under his direct orders. Khamenei must go, because during the election process of the seventh Majlis (parliament) and the recent presidential elections he eliminated his opponents and elevated his devotees using oppressive and unjust methods. Khamenei must go, because he has forced millions of Iranians to disperse around the world and does not accept that Iran belongs to all Iranians. Khamenei must go, because hundreds of Iranian professors, Dr. Soroush is one example, do not have the right to teach and work inside Iran and instead of teaching the Iranian youth, they ended up teaching the youth of other nations. Khamenei must go, because he has brought to power those who decreed the murder of dissidents and the perpetrators of the murders of the prisoners in the summer of 1988.

Murderers became overlords
And the wise kept quite out of fear

Dear Professor

It saddens me considerably to see some who are under the impression that it is possible to confront the sultanist system by cautious words about democracy and free speech, and to make the transition to a democratic system this way. We must never forget the wise words of Montesquieu that force can only be limited by force. Only by mobilizing the masses and by forming the front for democracy and human rights through civil disobedience can we confront the sultanist system. In the appendix to the second volume of my Republican Manifesto, I showed that the front for democracy and human rights cannot and should not be bound to the present Constitution. Otherwise we couldn't move even a single step forward. Non-violence should be without a doubt a necessary condition for membership in this movement, but being bound in practice to the Constitution will never bring us to democracy and human rights.

Our intellectuals will achieve nothing if they choose to sit aside and leave politics. The need to participate in politics is our inevitable destiny. Today everything is bound in the pangs of politics. Ignoring this fact will not liberate us from it. Emigrating from the country and settling in the West might solve part of one's personal problems, but wouldn't help the liberation of Iran. The immense intellectual and human resource of Iranians living abroad must return to Iran and they must pay their debt to the Iranian people. We need the ideas of our elite. If courage exists it has to be watered with theoretical wisdom to be able to walk in the correct path. All the freedom loving and justice seeking Iranian democrats should move hand in hand and form the movement of liberation of our country from the coil of sultanism. Agreeing upon freedom, democracy and human rights can open up a bright future for us. Corruption, injustice, various forms of inequality can be reduced considerably within a democratic system. The aim should be a progressive democratic government.

Dear and beloved Professor,

The reason I have stood firm is to show that it is possible to stand against darkness and ruthlessness. The letters and notes I have written are all nourished from the essence of my life. For tens of pages that I have written, I have lost 25 kg of my very own flesh and blood. I wanted to show that even in the darkness of night, one can shine the light of hope. Otherwise, in the heat of July in Tehran, I lie down in a room with closed windows, with the air conditioners turned off, wearing two headbands over my ears and sinuses and with a blanket covering me to escape the cold, the coldness of winter that sorrounds me.

It's unfair how cold it is, it is that cold ... oh... .
...
The air heavy, doors shut, heads down, hands covered;
Breath coming out like clouds, hearts tired and sad,
Trees like skeletons made of crystals,
The earth dead, the roof of heavens low,
Full of dust sunshine and moonlight,
It is winter.
[lines of a famous Persian modern poem by Mehdi Akhavan-Sales]

During 2002-2003 I did a full study of the relationship between "Islam and democracy and human rights." The result of my research turned out to be a text of 500-600 pages of a completely dissident nature and stand point. That work was meant initially to be published as the second book of my Republican Manifesto, but since I preferred to complete it outside of Evin prison and after discussions with specialists, I have left it with trusted people in a safe place so that it would be out of reach. If I die, that text will be published as the third book of my Republican Manifesto.

Dear Professor,

I have always relied on God's blessings and I know that he always looks down on his creatures with kindness and generosity. I miss you a lot. I wished circumstances made it possible for me to meet you again so that you could talk about Rumi and take me with you to his universe, the universe of death pondering birds, amorous gambling ...

God knows without you the city is but prison for me
Wandering in the fields and deserts is what I desire

My soul is sick of Pharaoh and his oppression
The light of Moses son of Amram is what I desire
[Rumi]

I am certain that this night of darkness will not last long. The moon of freedom will finally step out from behind the clouds of religious tyranny, and will shine rays of joy upon us all.

In a moonlit night, the moon
will enter my dream
take me out of this jail
like a butterfly of night, with itself
take me to the pitch black night
there, until the light of dawn, the martyrs of our town
will yell and shout, holding lanterns of their blood
in all the streets, in all the squares
O uncle Yadegar [souvenir]*, you who bear an old grudge
are you drunk or you're sober? are you asleep or you're awake?
we are drunk and we are sober, O martyrs of our town
we are asleep and we are awake, O martyrs of our town
at last, in one of these nights
the moon will come out
behind that tall mountain, over that valley
will pass over the square, all smile and all laughter
in a moonlit night, the moon will come o-o-out.
[lines of a modern poem in folk language by Ahmad Shamlou, turned into a famous song by musician and singer Farhad]

Akbar Ganji
July 22, 2005
43rd day of hunger strike

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[* Uncle Yadegar was a coded expression in Shamlou's poems for the ruling tyrant of the time]

Letter to Ayatollah Montazeri

2005-07-25T08:30:00.000+04:30

Parrots of sugar-sweet words and pleasant songs we were
By you turned into birds that do naught but on death ponder

Freethinking clergy, fighter for justice and supporter of the oppressed
Grand Ayatollah Montazeri,

Your kind letter on 16 July sent fresh blood in my bloodless veins once more. For many years you have become the symbol of courage and resistance against the tyrants in my eyes and I have always wanted to learn courage from you.

After the widespread executions of the [political] prisoners in the summer of 1988 and the general silence against this crime against humanity, you were the only one who stood up against it; everybody else seems to have forgotten that whoever remains silent against crime, shares equally in that crime. Afterwards, when they kept you prisoner in your own house, you still defended all political prisoners regardless of their different beliefs and views and you were and still are a serious patron of their families. Your courage and consistency is such that even your serious enemies have had to acknowledge it many times.

Although you were one of the main writers of the constitution [of the Islamic Republic] and one of the theoreticians of the theory of the rule of the jurisprudent, you realized very early that the main problem is because of this very theory. This theory, once it descends from the abstract world to our earth and becomes reality, shows its true inhuman face. You tried to reduce the rule of the jurisprudent to the “supervision” of the jurisprudent so that the stagnation that the Islamic Republic is faced with might be resolved; but Iran’s problem can only be resolved through the decline of the concept of the rule of the jurisprudent and [the stepping down of] its instance.

My dear friend Mr. Hajjarian and I consider the sultanist system to be the most central problem of the Iranian political arena. Mr. Hajjarian published a long article prior to 22 May 1997 in the magazine “Etela’at-e Siasi-Eghtesadi” (Political-Economic Ettela’at monthly) about the sultanist system and the methods of transition from it to a democratic system. Hajjarian wants to reduce the power of the sultan and to turn him into a figure like that of the Queen of England [in the British political system]. But I say we don’t need any king or queen. The issue in dispute is the choice between constitutionalism and republicanism. In my view, civil disobedience is the most important tactic in the transition from sultanism to democracy. Saeed Hajjarian has coined the term “pressure from below” for civil disobedience. He wants to reduce the power of the sultan (the leader) through pressure from below.

"Non-cooperation" with the personal ruler, is another tactic on which I have stressed. Here me and Hajjarian are on the same side. The day after Abdollah Nouri was imprisoned in Evin, we held a meeting with the late Dr. Nouri [Note: a different person] in the office of the daily paper "Sobh-e Emrooz" about the question “What should be done". It was decided that Dr. Nouri should tell Mr. Nouri to turn back the leader's decree by resigning from his seat in the Expediency Council, since someone who is convicted of propagandizing against the system is obviously not qualified to decide the expediency of the system.

This is an example of the above mentioned non-cooperation with the personal ruler. Mr. Karroubi followed the same tactic after the present election, when he resigned from his position as an advisor to the ruler and his seat in the Expediency Council. All the rulings of the sultan are devoid of any legitimacy and for the transition to democracy we must choose the path of non-cooperation with the tyrant.

As far as Mr. Khatami is concerned it is clear that after August 3 [when his second and last term as President finishes] Mr. Khamenei [the Leader] will appoint him as a member of the Expediency Council, and the High Council of the Cultural Revolution as well as an advisor to the Leader. Mr Khatami lacks the courage of Mr. Karroubi, so he is going to accept the decree and take part in the sessions [of these assemblies]. But he will gradually participate less and less until he won’t participate at all, ie what Mr. Mirhosseyn Mousavi and Mr. Mousavi Khoeiniha have done before him; but the transparent non-participation is something else altogether.

Doesn't Mr. Khatami know how Mr. Khamenei used him to hold the illegitimate seventh Majlis and the [ninth] presidential elections in order to unify the government, and how he forced him to declare both elections sound and democratic? Mr. Khatami knows what a fair and free election is. Nevertheless, he calls Mr. Khamenei's life-time rule democratic and introduces him as the role model for the youth.

In my opinion, our elite are familiar, more than any other time, with the culture of democracy. The pioneers of democracy and those who developed the democratic process in undemocratic societies never consisted of as many philosophers and theoreticians as do our elite today. Our problem is not "lack of knowledge on democracy", but rather not being ready and willing to pay the price. Democracy needs men of action, women of courage, and resilient youth. Self-sacrifice and selflessness open the way to freedom and human rights, not just knowledge of modern culture. We should get to know modernity and modern society, and we should build a bridge between our knowledge and our actions in order to set up a democracy.

You know well why there was an attempt on Hajjarian's life that forced him to sit in wheelchair and why Ganji was imprisoned and became a death-pondering bird. Why Mohsen Kadivar and Abdollah Nouri were jailed for 18 months and 3 years respectively. Mohsen Kadivar has been showing for years that the theory of the Rule (or Guardianship) of the Jurisprudent is baseless and shaky, and Mr. Nouri stood up to the person of jurisprudent. In fact, Mr. Khamenei has occupied the whole place to such an extent that no matter where one steps, his space is trespassed and wherever a hand is laid, it will come into contact with him.

Esteemed Ayatollah!

You are well aware that the world of politics is different from the world of poetry. Ambiguity and equivocation are in the nature of poetry, but clarity and frankness are natural to the arena of democratic politics. So, Mr. Khomeini frankly said: "Shah must go!" Now we must say with perfect clarity and frankness: "Mr. Khamenei must go!" Why? Since based on Mr. Khomeini's theory, Mr. Khamenei is now automatically removed from Leadership. Mr. Khomeini says: "Any individual from the people of a nation has the right to directly question, in the public, the ruler of the muslims and the ruler has to give a convincing answer; otherwise, if he, ie. the ruler, has acted against his Islamic duties, he is automatically removed from the office of the ruler." (Ayatollah Khomeini, Sahife-i Nur, vol. 4, p. 190)

In the past years, Mr. Khamenei has been repeatedly questioned by different people, but he has not only, not answered their questions, but has suppressed his questioners with force. According to Mr. Khomeini's thinking, Mr. Khamenei is not the ruler of the Islamic Republic of Iran any longer and has been removed from his office.

Eminent Jurisprudent!

For this opinion I have so far endured more than 2000 days in jail in the period of Leadership of Mr. Khamenei. But now the media arm of the chain murders [project] [ie. Hardliner outlets like Keyhan newspaper etc.] talks about the project of Ganji's death, that is they are after killing me. Sunday night, July 17, 2005, Saeed Mortazavi came to visit me and said, my death is 100% in the interest of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but if you die and the foreigners make noise, it is a 50% loss for the system. We brought you to the prison to decrease the level of loss. Death in hospital is natural. He said he would deny it if I reveal his words. On the other hand, Martazavi has told one of the minsters that Ganji's wife has coerced him into the hunger strike with foul language. In an interview on Monday July 18, 2005 he claimed: "Those friends who are advising him to end his hunger strike, according to our intelligence sources, are his main patrons in unconventional activities." Your excellency, Dr. Soroush, Mr. Hajjarian, Mr. Kadivar and other friends have advised me to break my hunger strike and this has been broadcast in the media, but Tehran's prosecutor claims these dears are encouraging me to continue my hunger strike.

The issue is clear: they want to kill me and blame it on my wife and friends. But they must know that Ganji is not Zahra Kazemi. If Ganji dies in any way, his murderer is Mr. Khamenei. Mr. Khamenei may get rid of Ganji by activating Saeed Mortazavi and the media arm of the chain murders, but he cannot deny his responsibility for my murder. If Ganji is killed, his death is not the death of freedom, democracy and human rights. Ganji's death could be as water in the desert and irrigate the sprouts of freedom.

Akbar Ganji
Friday July 22, 2005
Forty-second day of hunger strike

Second Letter to the Free People of the World

2005-07-15T16:00:00.000+04:30

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Second Letter to the Free People of the World, 6.

2005-07-15T15:05:00.000+04:30

6. Rejecting Sultanism, the Pre-Condition for Demanding Democracy:

Today, the opposition groups in the Middle East have opted for the strategy of fighting personal rulers. Egyptians demand the resignation of Hosni Mubarak, Syrians, of Bashar Asad, Libyans, of Moammar Gadhafi, Saudis, of Malek Fahd, etc. In the Republic of Azerbaijan democrats demand that Ilham Aliev, and in Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov should resign. Dictators for life are under attack everywhere. This is a time when democracy has worldwide appeal and lifetime rule is not at all defensible and should be sent to the archives of history. As if the personal dictators of the Middle East are not satisfied with decades of tyrannical rule over their countries, they want to extend their dictatorial rule in any possible way. We are witnessing in Egypt now that people in the streets of Cairo publicly demand that Hosni Mubarak should step down.

In the political arena, there is competition over attaining political power. But the necessary condition for such a competition is the presence of alternative leaders (with alternative programs). The person who wants to take control of the political leadership of a country should compete with other leaders in a free and fair election so he can hold the power for a limited time, and [later] peacefully relinquish his power to other leaders through free elections and the negative vote of the people.

I have clearly said time and again that 16 years of personal rule is enough for Mr. Seyed Ali Khamenei. Although expressing such demands in the Middle East has become commonplace and harmless today, the ruling regime of Iran considers such demands as equal to blasphemy. It is interesting to note that the regime of Iran broadcasts the demonstrations against Mubarak on the IRIB [state television] and shows that Mubarak's opposition do not get into much trouble, but here [in Iran] demonstration against Khamenei is impossible and costly, and even expressing the demand for his resignation by a dissident will cost that person dearly, i.e. the system [of Iran] admits that it has fallen behind and is less tolerant than the regimes of Egypt and Azerbaijan.

I do not believe at all in the theory of the Guardianship of the Jurisprudent [Velayat-i Faqih] and I think it is anti-democratic and violates the human rights. I will not stand the master-slave relationship, the kind of relationship in which the Leader ascends to the ranks of a god and people descend to the level of slaves. I apologize in place of Mr. Khamenei to students, journalists, bloggers, isolated clergies who are Objects of Emulations [maraje'], families of the victims of serial murders, the family of Zahra Kazemi, ... for all that they have gone through these years. I strongly apologize in place of Mr. Khamenei to the families of the executed prisoners of the summer of 1988 all over the country. I ask for forgiveness in place of Mr. Khamenei from the noble people of Iran for what the Council of Guardians and the judiciary system have done in these past years. Six days from now (Saturday July 16, 2005) will be the 2000th day of my imprisonment (90 days in the first arrest in 1997 and 1910 days in the current one). That is, I was forced to endure 2000 days in prison for expressing my dissenting opinions and beliefs. But two thousand days of jail in the sultanist system is not sufficient for otherness, for being unconventional, and for dissent. The punishment for "difference" is much heavier. Tolerating difference is the essential and inseparable component of democratic politics. Intolerance and oppression are the main components of authoritarian regimes. I have never resorted to violent methods and have only demanded change in the current political regime through peaceful means.

In the first book of the Republican Manifesto (March 2002) I suggested that the regime should hold a referendum. But since it is clear that the regime will never accept such a demand, I saw the only way to reach this goal to be civil disobedience. I have preferred a republic to the system of the Guardianship of the Jurisprudent since many years ago and I have considered civil disobedience to be the road that would lead to it.

This candle is about to die out. But this voice will not be silenced. This is the voice of peaceful life, tolerating the other, love for humanity, self-sacrifice for people, seeking truth, seeking freedom, demand for democracy, respecting the opponents, welcoming different lifestyles, separation of the state and the civil society, separation of the private sphere and the public sphere, separation of religion and state, equality of all humans, rationality, federalism within a democratic Iran, rejecting violence,... .

This candle is about to die out, but this voice will raise louder voices in its wake.

The black coffin of night
Resided in his eyes
The star turned off
And fell on the ground.

Akbar Ganji,
Evin Prison
July 10, 2005

Part 1 >> Part 2 >> Part 3 >> Part 4 >> Part 5

Second Letter to the Free People of the World, 5.

2005-07-15T14:01:00.000+04:30

5. Dracula, The Bloodsucking Vampire:

Franco Moretti writes in a psychoanalytic-marxist analysis of the novel Dracula: "Dracula does not like shedding blood. He needs blood. His ultimate goal is not to destroy and waste other people's lives out of indulgence, whim or fancy, rather his goal is to use their lives…. His nature forces him to fight to become unlimited and to dominate over the entire society. For this reason it is impossible to "co-exist" with the vampire. One must either surrender to him or kill him to rid the world of him and him of his curse… . Dracula is a real monopolist. He is lonely and a dictator and will not accept any competition… . He does not limit himself to joining to himself (in the literal sense) the physical and moral powers of his victims, he is up to making them his, forever… .man's condemnation before Dracula, like before the Devil, is "not for a definite period" but for entire life… . The vampire, just like the monopoly, destroys the hope that man's independence can one day return to him. He threatens the idea of personal freedom… . When Dracula threatens the freedom of an individual, that person is incapable of resisting or defeating him alone and by himself. Man's individuality is under the threat of being dominated by the Vampire. "a handful of isolated people don’t have the power to face the concentrated might of the vampire, either".

Although the dictators have managed to bring my body under their domination, since they have not succeeded in taking away my spirit and my thought and in making them theirs forever, they can't stand my face and so crave for my blood. Recently Saeed Mortazavi has told some officials in a meeting: "So what? What happened when Zahra Kazemi was killed? Human rights organizations condemned Iran in a couple of declarations and the case was closed. Zahra Kazemi is in her graves now. Ganji's death will also end after a couple of similar declarations. Ganji is better dead than alive".

In the alley screams an owl wet from rain
Someone's biting the dust by a tall wall
I have been imprisoned by the shadows of night
The night imprisoned by the cold net of the sky
I have to go on along with the shadows
Every night to the dark town of madness
The light of my star is fading out
I have been caught between life and death once more
Darkness comes along with his cold claws
In the cold earth my heart…….

The person who recounted these sentences to me, swore to me that "Your death is their dream. You are an obstacle for them. They can’t wait till you die". That compassionate person wanted to convince me by this to break my hunger strike. But I was reminded of Milan Kundera. In his novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", recounting the situation after the "Spring of Prague", Kundera writes:" Is it better to shout out and hasten our death or to keep our silence and lengthen our slow and gradual dying"

With my silence of the past couple of years I was lengthening my gradual dying. My Acquiring all sorts of diseases in prison, only made them happy. Whenever my medical documents were presented so that I could be sent to medical centers out of prison, the prosecutor’s office prevented my leave so that I would gradually die inside prison. Now that I have shouted out I have hastened my death, but I have also managed to show to the entire world how ruthless and inhuman the sultanist system ruling Iran is in reality and what it has in store. This system has not yet actualized its complete tyrannical potential. Let the world learn what goes on inside "Hotel Evin" and its "Suites".

Hafez used to say:

The ease of the this world and the next is in the interpretation of these two words
With friends, compassion, with enemies, tolerance

But Motahhari used to say Islam has gone even further than this:

"With friends, compassion and generosity, with enemies, compassion and generosity too... to have compassion is to be compassionate towards one’s enemies as well."

Forget about compassion with friends and enemies: They aren’t strong enough to fight their enemies and have to retreat continually before them, so, they try to satisfy their frustration by pouring all of their wrath on the heads of internal dissidents.

Part 1 >> Part 2 >> Part 3 >> Part 4 >> Part 6

Second Letter to the Free People of the World, 4.

2005-07-15T11:09:00.000+04:30

4. Socratic Death:

Socrates was in pursuit of two things at once. First: Autonomy of the individual against the society (the right to live as an individual). Second: Thinking freely and questioning everything. Socrates did not falter for a moment to put his personal life in danger and invite death in order to show the significance and superiority of individual thought over the group, the society and the government. He proved himself before the city as an individual, by welcoming death. By his death Socrates became the symbol of an individual who existed and lived for himself and independent of the city. But one must not forget that his death was a defeat for the city-state, because it revealed a fundamental deficiency ie. the weakness to recognize the freedom and the autonomous existence of the individual, it revealed that the city-state could not accept the individual's freedom and his autonomous existence.
Tokvil correctly notices: "Our fathers did not know the word "self-belief" that we have devised for ourselves, since in their days no person could have been found who didn't belong to some group, or who was able to consider himself absolutely alone." In the pre-modern times, the idea of an individual, an individual free in his choices and alone in his privacy, was unknown. The birth of a subject who was the master of himself, who was defined by the commitments brought about by his choices, is symptomatic of the fact that he no longer understood himself primarily as a part of an organic whole. A person dissolved in a community cannot make use of the creative and critical facilities of his mind and thought. This is not possible unless the person can see himself as separate from the group and the community.

Foucault quotes Baudler as saying that modern man is an individual who creates himself as a work of art. The autonomous individual is a dissident, he "differs" from others, he is a maverick. Not only does he create the style of his own living, but he chooses the fashion of his death by himself as well. Isn't death also the creation of a work of art? Particularly in a system where individualism and freedom of thought are not recognized.

Difference is the necessary condition of man's growth and flourishing. It bestows upon each member of the human race, man and woman alike, the choices that give value and meaning to his or her autonomy. Individual autonomy can only be realized in a "multi-cultural" society, a society where the presence of different cultures makes meaningful choices possible. It has to be accepted that autonomous individuals are capable of choosing between several teachings and life patterns. According to Ulrich Beck, the German sociologist, individualization in modernity means that people have to create their own life story in the absence of certainties and fixed obligating traditional norms, and by the emergence of new ways of living that are constantly under change and evolution.

Socratic death is a style of living, a style of living that men of wisdom have not ceased to praise throughout the history. The choice of death, if one is forced to deny one's individuality, and is deprived of the opportunity to think freely, talk freely and live freely, is a choice, against which reason has no objection left to present. Unconditional freedom or indefinite hunger strike is based upon such theoretical background.

Part 1 >> Part 2 >> Part 3 >> Part 5 >> Part 6

Second Letter to the Free People of the World, 3.

2005-07-15T11:05:00.000+04:30

3. The Project of Heroism and Myth-Formation:

The age of heroism and looking for saviors is gone. It is as if heroes and myths cannot be approached. They belong to the forbidden quarters. Some are of the opinion that Ganji has created a situation where he cannot be criticized; so the way out of this dilemma is for him to somehow change this situation. I do not know what kind of reasoning is this that argues that since the unwanted outcome of enduring and resisting tyranny and human rights violations in undemocratic societies is that those who act as such, turn in some people's minds, into heros or mythical figures, then we must not confront tyrants and human rights violators. This approach is, in my opinion, completely false for the following reasons:

3-1. Instead of giving up the resistance against tyrants and those who violate human rights, we should refute the pre-modern illusions of the people. We should point out that there are no saviors. All men are regular people and prone to error. Earthly human is sinful and erring.

3-2. We should relentlessly criticize everyone's opinions and beliefs, including those of the dissidents, through deconstruction. Criticism occurs in the public arena. When Sadegh Hedayat, Ahmad Shamlou, Shariati, Motahari, Khomeini, Soroush, Mojtahed Shabestari, Malekian, Shayegan, Ashouri, Javad Tabatabaei etc. could not escape criticism, how then could an average journalist? It is not at all important that a person is not tolerant of criticism, neither is it important that the disciples of a political thinker or activist consider him immune to error, what is important is that criticism should be possible, so that everyone would get criticized in the public arena, and no one could deceive the people with totalitarian ideologies. Brave intellectuals and thinkers are the ones who should be building the public arena, instead of waiting for the ruling regime to build it for them. Critical rationality is the only weapon in fighting heroism.

3-3. The issue at hand has nothing not to do with heroism. The issue is the following: An individual has been thrown in jail for years due to his dissenting opinions and views, but they haven't stopped at this unfair, unjust and illegitimate act, and have forbidden him communication by telephone and medical treatment; they say: "you must write letters of repentancee and criticize and reject all your previous beliefs, otherwise not only will there be no improvement in your conditions, but after the current sentence is over we will keep you in prison for many years to come by setting up new trials." Is resisting this unfair process heroism? Do my critics invite me to write letters of repentance? The goal of the system is to break and destroy me. Although I have been broken physically during these years, I have been trying not to break mentally and spiritually, and to say "no" to the ruling tyrants. A "no" that is costing me my life. This body is on the verge of complete deterioration, but since I believe in the conjectures I have made (all my opinions), I see no reason to deny their truth. It is a trivial fact that all these conjectures must be tested with the sword of falsification. Commitment to "critical rationality" is different from "giving up our beliefs by force of prison."

3-4. The political regime of a society is a dress cut to fit the build of its people. If the people prefer a tyrannical political system and think it will answer their needs, no one can prevent them from getting what they have chosen. The people can choose a dictatorship or a democracy, to raise the flag of democracy or to put on the veil of dictatorship. Is being a hero for people who compromise with and tolerate tyrants worth anything, to induce one to sacrifice his life for its sake? "The people, who obey dictators and who are at the same time aware of the redundancy of these same dictators one way or the other. The way they mediate between these conflicting view points is by assuming that they themselves are the cruel rulers and oppressors."

Prison has not trapped me in illusions. Dejection, hopelessness, despair, isolation, escape from politics and abandoning public arena, going after life and its pleasures, all have become prevalent in our society today. I have never been under the illusion that someone (people) will be awaiting me outside of prison. Not only that, but my closest friends do not accept my thoughts, talks, writings and attitudes. But none of these facts obliges me to bow before the tyrants so that they may release me from prison. Life in slavery is not worth a dime in my eyes. In the same way that some allow themselves the option to cooperate with tyrants, or to remain silent before human rights violations, I too have the option to oppose the tyrants and to say "no", in a loud voice, to them and to their attitudes. This is a right that the Mohammedann law confirms:

La yuhibbu Allahu aljahra bialssoo-i mina alqawli illa man thulima wakana Allahu sameeAAan Aaaleeman [An-Nisah:148]

God loveth not the utterance of harsh speech save by one who hath been wronged. God is ever Hearer, Knower. [Women:148]

Part 1 >> Part 2 >> Part 4 >> Part 5 >> Part 6

Second Letter to the Free People of the World, 2.

2005-07-15T07:09:00.000+04:30

2. Fascistic Social Justice:

Fascists are against freedom of speech, tolerance, distinction between public and private spheres, civil society, free competitive elections, human rights etc. They defend social justice and use it in order to reach power and not lose it afterwards. But what kind of justice is this fascistic social justice? Theodor Adorno and Sigmund Freud have exposed the content of this kind of social justice. Adorno writes: "The half hidden current of insidious egalitarianism and the universal brotherhood in humility, is one of the elements of fascistic propaganda and fascism itself. Hitler's famous decree for the formation of 'Eintopfgericht' (the One-Pot-Dinner) was a symbol of this very concept. The less their desire is towards changing society's internal structure, the more they rant about social justice and by that they mean, of course, that not one member of the 'society of the nation' must be indulging himself in personal delights. Oppressive egalitarianism instead of the realization of true equality through elimination of oppression, is an essential element of the fascistic mindset."

Freud has also written about this kind of social justice: "Social justice means that we should forbid ourselves a lot of things so that others too would be forced to forbid themselves of these things, or in other words, wouldn't be able to ask for them."

Mr. Khamenei has proclaimed the country's agenda to be the pursuit of social justice and fight against social corruption, not freedom and democracy. When the real opponents of structural changes and fundamental reforms start singing the motto of social justice, it is clear that they are not sincere in their claims. Is it possible to consider human beings (women and men, muslims and non-muslims, clergies and non-clergies etc.) not equal from a legal standpoint and still claim social justice? What has regarding people as minors and one's own guild as their guardians got to do with social justice? Isn't political justice an important part of social justice? Then how can they prohibit important sections of the society from participating in the political arena and trample on their civil and political rights by various tricks, and still claim social justice? Even if social justice is reduced to the distribution of wealth and the fight against economic corruption (abuse of public resources for private use), then there still remains the question of what sort of wealth distribution will an undemocratic sultanist system bring about? Can a system busy in producing loyalists for itself allow a just distribution of wealth? Is it possible, in the absence of free and independent media, to fight those who take advantage of extralegal government funding and those who plunder people's possessions? Only free media, brave journalists and independent civil institutions are able to reveal and disclose the corruption of those in charge. Tyrannical regimes distribute poverty, corruption and prostitution in place of social justice. In whose times did the Ministry of Intelligence get involved in economic activities and business? And who could dare to reveal the economic activities of Ministry of Intelligence while Ali Fallahian was in charge of it? The economic activities of the rulers of the Islamic Republic and the new class produced in the sultanist state have always been immune against any confrontation and still remain that way. The economic corruption of the rulers is the forbidden quarter where people and the media are not allowed to enter. Porta⁽¹⁾ says: "One of the variables that is strongly related to corruption is government's interference in the structure of economic life. Increase in the number of laws and regulations, growth of the public section and expansion of the welfare system all increase the opportunities for getting infected by corruption. Such opportunities also increase by the authority that government officials have in their disposal."

Human experience has shown that corruption is much more probable in absolutist totalitarian systems, where public opinion and the media are not allowed to disclose instances of corruption, than it is in other systems. Minimal government reduces corruption. In dominating maximal governments, who dares to ask, via the media, the question of why that certain "mister" had indecent relations with a married woman and used her to smuggle drugs and weapons out of the country and then killed her once he realized his indecent relations with her was about to be exposed? Why that other "mister" had indecent relations with a married woman and when his case came to get processed, order came from "above" to shut the case down? When even the "honor of muslims" is not spared what is there left to say about corruption. The sons of the privileged can easily gun down someone and be acquitted in public courts.

(1) Donatella della Porta [?] GO BACK.

Part 1 >> Part 3 >> Part 4 >> Part 5 >> Part 6

Second Letter to the Free People of the World, 1.

2005-07-15T05:29:00.000+04:30

[Disclaimer: there are many quotations of other thinkers in the following letter. Unfortunately references are missing from the Farsi text of the letter published on the internet. We have translated the quotes back into English from Farsi, so they might not match word for word with their original. We will try to amend this in future revisions.]

This candle is dying out, but its voice will not

Today, Sunday July 10, 2005 exactly 30 days have passed since I started my hunger strike. In two phases of hunger strike (11 days in late May, and 30 days since June 11) my weight has reduced from 77kg to 55kg, which is a loss of 22kg in 41 days. Many inside and outside the country ask why I have gone on hunger strike and why I am trying to reach legitimate ends through self-destruction. Is it not true that practical rationality demands that the ends and the means to those ends be in proportion with each other? Is it not true that theoretic rationality demands that for all claims (opinions and beliefs) suitable reasons should be offered? Is my action consistent with practical and theoretic rationality? Am I not considered a madman by intellectuals and liberals and human rights defenders? Here I shall try, despite the extreme physical weakness that has completely worn me out, to share my views clearly with everyone.

1. The Crime of Dissent: A person who defends human rights and democracy via free expression, and fights authoritarian systems through peaceful means is called a dissident. Freedom of expression is a common goal of all dissidents. In ideological systems, dissidents challenge the ideology of the system by offering rival models. Their only weapon is moral courage in exposing the violations of human rights and the tyranny of the rulers. Wherever human rights are violated and dictatorship and tyranny prevail, and an ideology is there to back these two up, courageous dissidents will appear and despite the hardships oppose this process boldly. If this definition is correct, then given the history of my activities and what I have said and written, I am considered a dissident who is in jail for his dissent. The following two points confirm this claim:

1-1. Demanding democracy: In the words of Claude Lefort, the legitimacy of the power is based on the people but the image of the rule of people is intimately related to the image of an empty space that the executives of the public power cannot occupy. Democracy connects these two conflicting principles: first, that power derives from the people, and second, that power is not owned by anyone. However, democracy continues to live with this conflict; once this conflict is resolved or if it has already been resolved, then democracy will collapse or it has already collapsed.

In Lefort's terms, power is like an empty space and those who hold it are ordinary people who have occupied it temporarily. We are not dealing any more with a know-all, do-all guardian. In this system, there is no law that is unchangeable, whose statements cannot be criticized or protested and whose bases cannot be questioned. In a democracy those who govern are directly chosen by the people to serve and be accountable for a limited and definite time span. Conditional limited power will end by the judgment of people.

I have stressed many times before that the ruling sultanist system of Iran is an undemocratic system. Unelected life-time leader is at odds with democracy. His power does not derive from the people, but rather he is claimed to have been appointed by God to rule over the people. He is not a regular person like all other human beings; his gap with ordinary people is the gap between the shepherd and the herd. This is the content of the incorrect theory of the Guardianship of the Jurisprudent [Velayat-i Faqih]. The ruling jurisprudent [faqih] is the custodian of the people and holds absolute guardianship over them. Whereas, a kind of anti-paternalistic argument is behind both democracy and human rights. That is, there exists no superior person who is qualified to decide for individual or collective good (good or prosperous life), unless we have especially and within completely defined limitations given him such a power for a definite time. A virtue is only good if it is chosen freely, and for the choice to be free, there should exist a variety of options so that one could exercise his free will. The highest political figure in democratic systems is a regular human being capable of making mistakes, with definite powers, under the control of the people, and one who is elected by the people for a limited time. However, the theory of Absolute Guardianship of the Jurisprudent and what has been enacted in this regard in the constitution of the Islamic Republic, is essentially at odds with this approach. He [the jurisprudent] is not accountable to anyone, while all the power of the country is in his coil. We are facing two separate issues here. The issue of concept and that of the instances. Not only the theory (concept) of the Guardianship of the Jurisprudent is in conflict with democracy, but it also leads to an undemocratic system once it is realized in the outside world. The original theory is incorrect and undemocratic, and as a result its instance, in complete disagreement with democracy, has swayed all of the political arena in his hold and has formed a singular rulership under his orders.

1-2. Struggle for human rights: Human rights form a set of necessary minimum criteria for an individual to be able to lead a life in dignity and honor. David Beetham also considers human rights as the minimum necessary conditions for the individual's healthy and humane life. In the opinion of John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin, justice as fairness, is based on the assumption that all men and women are entitled to the natural right to equality in attention and respect; not a right that they have attained due to birth or trait or merit or moral distinction, but the right they hold as merely being humans capable of planning and demanding justice. In Dworkin's opinion, rights are not a divine gift but derive from the primary right to equality. [John] Finnis, too, shares Durkin's opinion and believes the main root of rights is the equality of human beings. In his words, the modern usage of rights correctly emphasizes [the concept of] equality, the truth that every human being is a fertile land for developing human characters, and that the importance of this development should be considered equally for all. In other words, the discourse of rights keeps the justice in the foreground of our considerations.

The connection between democracy and human rights is one of the problems of contemporary philosophy. Michael Freeman says: "the theory of democracy asks: who should rule?, and answers: people; the theory of human rights asks: how should the rulers behave?, and replies: they must respect the human right of all individuals. Democracy is a collective concept and democratic governments may violate human rights of the individual. On the other hand, the concept of human rights is created to limit the power of governments, and to the extent that it puts the governments under public control, it has a democratic character. However, human rights limit the legitimate power of all governments, including democratic governments."

David Beetham considers public supervision of collective decision-making the core of democracy. In his opinion, the principle of equality of all citizens gives them the right to express their views on public issues through associations of civil society, and participation in the government. If the right of all citizens to express their opinion on public issues, and to supervise the government is the essence of democracy, "to implement this right we need, on the one hand, political institutions such as elections, parties and legislative assemblies and, on the other hand, guarantees for a category of human rights that includes civil and political rights, and which are listed in conventions such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights."

In Beetham's opinion, the common human nature provides a single philosophical justification for democracy and human rights. Man's ability to make informed and logical choices, or to act out of thought and purpose about the issues that affect his life, is a philosophical assumption about the nature of man. Democracy is founded upon admitting "the assumption that man is able to solve the problems that influence his communal or governmental life, such as the right to vote or run for public office." Human beings are capable of making decisions in public and private arenas and of managing their lives. Ronald Dworkin believes individual rights are like trumps in the hands of individuals, trumps that the state cannot overrule even with the excuse of public interest. In his view, the moment these rights are recognized, they cannot be pushed aside. He says if a person has the right to publish his views, government officials cannot violate this right, even if they happen to be correct in believing that it would be in the interest of the society in general if they did so.

The author of these lines has exposed the cases of human rights violations in Iran several times. Here I point out a few examples of widespread human rights violation in Iran:

In the past few years, about 100 journals were banned all at one time and journalists were sent to prison, following the explicit and public speech of Mr. Khamenei claiming that the press has become the base of the enemy. The judiciary officials have announced formally in interviews that they have persecuted the press following the words of the Leader. This is the meaning of freedom of expression in the sultanist regime. After years of hard work and keeping journalists in solitary confinments they were unable to discover even a single enemy base. But the judiciary system never asked Mr. Khamenei to submit his evidence to the court, or documents showing that the press are the base of the enemy, and now that it has become clear that that claim was false, the Leader is not prosecuted for trampling on the right of the press and journalists.

That is, the Leader is not equal to other people. He can accuse citizens with no evidence whatsoever without being prosecuted.

When Mr. Khamenei took hold of the Leadership of the system, he talked about "cultural invasion of the enemy" and the necessity to resist it. This was followed by [TV] programs such as "Hoviat"⁽¹⁾ and intellectual dissidents were butchered in the most brutal way, as agents of enemy's cultural invasion by the top-officials of the Ministry of Intelligence.

Assassinating the opposition outside the country by "Foreign Servicemen"⁽²⁾ was another part of the project dubbed 'healing through murder'. The terms, Eminence and Gray Eminence were forged to refer to the principle commanders of this project. The killing of Zahra Kazemi was formed on the same background. Zahra Kazemi is the only murder victim of the world without a murderer.

The brutal attack on the dorms of Tehran University and widespread arrests of beaten and oppressed students is another instance of human rights violation in Iran. Nowadays the students are not even permitted to hold a simple commemoration in one of the universities for the occasion. Sweeping political oppression is implemented in order to create a single-voiced society. In such a society only one voice must be heard: the voice of the Leader. There must be only one speaker and the rest should be listeners.

My pen is unable to describe the horrors that occurred in the pollsters' case. In my short leave [May 30 to June 11, 2005] I had a meeting with bloggers. They said that they were all taken to a bathroom naked, and were filmed. Saeed Mortazavi had told them: "One day while you are walking in the street a car may hit you and you'll die. There are many accidents everyday; it would be just one of them."

(1) "Identity," a series of TV programs made to "expose" the foreign dependence of intellectuals and writers, at the direction of Saeed Emami, Deputy Minister of Intelligence. Emami was arrested in the arrests made after the project of murdering writers and intellectuals in the Ministry of Intelligence was exposed and mysteriously "committed suicide" while in custody. GO BACK.
(2) Perhaps a pun intended in the original Farsi: "farangi karan" is used to refer to "Greco-Roman wrestlers," a national sport in Iran. GO BACK.

Part 2 >> Part 3 >> Part 4 >> Part 5 >> Part 6

Letter to the Free People of the World

2005-07-01T18:07:00.000+04:30

Today is the 19th day I'm on hunger strike. I was on hunger strike for 11 days in late May. The second phase of my hunger strike started on June 11, 2005. In total, my body weight has reduced from 77kg to 58kg in 30 days of hunger strike; that is, 19kg loss in one month.

I have been put in solitary confinement in section 240 [of the Evin prison] and subject to extra punishments such as being denied telephone communications, having visitors, newspapers and taking a walk in the open air.

In authoritarian systems, lying turns from a vice to a virtue. Liars claim: we don't have any political prisoners, any solitary cells, there is no hunger strike in Iran's prisons, prisons are like hotels. They solve their problems by changing the names. They call solitary cells suites and falsely suppose the problem is solved. Would an ass transubstantiate into a parrot, if we called it so? Prison means deprivation of freedom. Does prison change in essence into a hotel by calling it so? (I am using essentialist terminology since Islamic philosophers are essentialist and consider transubstantiation an impossibility.) A political prisoner is one who is imprisoned because of his opinions and the expression of his dissenting views. All global human rights organizations have confirmed that during recent years hundreds of people have been sent to jail in Iran for being dissidents.

Tehran's lie-making prosecutor [Saeed Mortazavi] claims one day that Ganji is sent to a solitary cell for his hunger strike. Another day he says Ganji is taken to solitary confinement so he learns a lesson and he will stay there until he learns it. Yet in his last statement he says: "Since Ganji has respiratory problems, doctors have recommended that he stay in a quiet environment away from disturbance." Liars forget their previous lies, and make new ones. They have forgotten that the head of Tehran's Justice Department (Alizadeh) claimed a month ago that Ganji was not sick. Now they say that doctors have diagnosed him with respiratory problems (read asthma). Have doctors recommended that Ganji stay in solitary confinement, be denied telephone communication, visitors, reading newspapers, fresh air and sun? Did they order to forcefully put a drug dealer, sentenced to 15 years in jail, in Ganji's cell at 12:20am on June 17 to finish him off? (They took that drug dealer on Thursday June 16 to Tehran's prosecutor and Saeed Mortazavi had briefed him well on what he had to do that night. The person who had accompanied him from Mortazavi's office to my cell on 8:12pm was telling the wardens that if it had been up to him, he would have tossed Ganji's dead body on the floor himself. Of course I refused and did not let him in my cell and left the cell myself. I have explained that night's complete story in a separate letter.)

Let it be known that if learning my lesson is to denounce my previous opinions, Ganji will never learn his lesson; that all my writings, especially the first and the second book of the Republican Manifesto are the result of deliberation and knowledge. The relentless critique of my writings is the job of others. Let it be known that Ganji will not cease his indefinite hunger strike until he achieves his goal. Forcing repentance letters on prisoners is the method of Stalin's interrogators inherited by Iranian Stalinists.

Today my broken face is the true face of the system in the Islamic Republic of Iran. I am now the symbol of justice. The justice that, if viewed correctly, puts on display the full extent of the opression of the rulers of the Islamic Republic. My outworn body and face reveals, paradoxically, the claimed justice and the true oppression. Anyone who sees me now asks in surprise "Are you Akbar Ganji? What have they done to you?"

Yes, I am neither sick nor on hunger strike [sarcasm]. They have made me lose weight from 77kg to 58kg through improvised tortures. They hide this outworn body from the public to hide the reality of the Islamic Republic. Why do they not allow reporters to take and publish my pictures?

Happy it is when the touchstone of experience cometh in play
So are left disgraced those who conceal impure alloy.
[a line from a sonnet by Hafez, the 14th-century Persian poet]

As I have said many times before, if I die in prison, it is on the orders of Mr. Khamenei [the Leader]. Mortazavi gets his orders via Mr. Hejazi directly from Mr. Khamenei. I have opposed the unelected and indefinite rule of Mr. Khamenei. I have said that [his] life-time unaccountable absolute power is at odds with democracy. I said expressing this opinion will be faced with Mr. Khamenei's quick and harsh reaction. What took place proved me right. He does not tolerate any personal criticism. Karroubi, Moeen and Hashemi Rafsanjani all tasted Mr. Khamenei's "religious democracy" in this election. The widespread and organized interference of the Guards Corps and Basij caused the outcry of even Larijani's campaign staff and the person of Mohsen Rezaei. A sultanist system is at odds with democracy. In such a system the sultan rules supreme and everyone else is at his service. Mortazavi has told my wife: "What will happen if Ganji dies? Dozens die everyday in prisons; Ganji will be just one of them." These are Mr. Khamenei's words that are uttered through Mortazavi's lips. Ganji dies, but the demand for freedom, democracy, political justice, hope, aspirations and ideals won't. Love for others and self-sacrifice for people will always continue to live.

Akbar Ganji,
Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Note:
1. The prosecutor [of Tehran, Saeed Mortazavi] said: The door of Ganji's cell is open and he has contact with other culprits (accused of distributinging and selling the nation-wide university exams) in this section. This is a lie. The culprits of the same case are kept separately in different solitary cells so they cannot collude and [so they] give in to staged confessions under the pressure of interrogation and complete isolation. Sometimes I hear other prisoners in solitary confinements who ask for open air time and the opening of their cell's little windows. The claim that the cells' doors are open and that the prisoners can contact each other is an utter lie. Recently one of these same prisoners (of the national exam case) went on a hunger strike for 14 days.

Republican Manifesto II

2005-06-18T00:09:00.000+04:30

Preface
Section 1
Section 2
Section 3
Section 4
Section 5
Section 6
Section 7
Section 8
Section 9
Section 10

Republican Manifesto II, 10.

2005-06-17T20:20:00.000+04:30

10. The leadership of the noncooperation: Some think that actions such as boycott, hunger strike, referendum, ... must not be aimlessly wasted. They must be saved for a rainy day. But we should notice that we won't achieve anything, if no hunger strikes are staged and matters are left at the level of mere threats. If no (unfair) elections are boycotted and we participate in elections in the hope that we could use this lever in an opportune time [in the future], the weapon of boycott will become useless. One who doesn't play soccer, won't learn how to play it. Any sport is made into a skill with practice. If the people of a country never play football, they will never learn it.

The transition to democracy is like the game of chess where, on the one side, dictators and, on the other side, democrats are sitting. We must enter the game and use all the pieces in order to check and mate the opponent. Hunger strike, boycott of the elections, staging protests, noncooperation, etc. are tactics to attain the goal, not things never to be used.

The boycott of the elections in current conditions is a necessary act. The boycott does not cost the boycotting people anything, since there is no law requiring everyone to take part in the elections so that it is broken [by the boycott] and entails punishment. The number of those who will certainly boycott the election (minimum 30% = 15,000,000) is so high that the possibility of any retaliation is ruled out. If half of the electorate boycott the election this number will reach 24,000,000 people. For the boycott to be effective, well-known political, cultural and social figures from all over the country must officially call for it in an announcement.

If a thousand of the country's elite sign such an announcement, in and by itself, such an argued announcement will be an act of noncooperation and delegitimization. Moreover, the signatories can choose, through a democratic election, a council from among themselves to plan the next steps and act as the organization front of the democrats. The hope is that, in this way, the democratic movement could shape its leadership democratically. If civil disobedience needs leadership and planning, we must go after creating organizing bodies and leadership, not shut down the struggle for freedom with the excuse of lack of leadership. These actions will set the stage for the appearance of the leadership of the republican movement. The boycott of the elections will create an opportunity for the republican democrats to gather together through the announcements and then elect a leadership council democratically. The common denominator of the gathering's agreements can be put into a draft and given out to all signatories to be used as an agenda. Collecting a thousand signatures for the announcement of the boycott might be beyond the wherewithal of the republican democrats. But we must make the leap. To achieve a goal, we must step towards it. What is important is to issue a boycott announcement that is signed by well-known liberals. The uneven path to freedom will be opened by our efforts. Freedom is not free.

Preface >> Section 1 >> Section 2 >> Section 3 >> Section 4 >> Section 5 >> Section 6 >> Section 7 >> Section 8 >> Section 9

Republican Manifesto II, 9.

2005-06-17T17:09:00.000+04:30

9. Transition to democracy through diffusion processes: Samuel Huntington is of the opinion that democracy has spread in three waves. In the opinion of Philippe Schmitter the spread of democracy has been accomplished in four very compressed waves. The third (or fourth) wave began on 25 April 1974 in Portugal by the military coup that succeeded practically without bloodshed. The range of the fourth wave from a global point of view has been more than that of previous waves. This wave affected more countries and was much more widespread in its local influence than its previous counterparts. Countries that have been engulfed by the fourth wave so far, had to deal with the return of tyrannical and totalitarian regimes much less than countries affected by previous waves. How is the third (or fourth) wave of democracy explained? The most straight-forward hypothesis is that the waves of expansion of democracy are formed through diffusion processes. The successful example of a country’s transition to democracy, establishes it as a role model for other countries. Once a region is saturated with democratic political regimes, the pressure reaches its peak and the remaining tyrannies are forced to adapt themselves to the newly established norm. The advance of supranational communication systems has brought with it the high confidence that the mechanism of distribution and spreading is effective. Countries that join this wave late are influenced more everyday by countries that are ahead of them in this road. Latecomers can adopt the methods and value [systems] of their forerunners without having to pay some of the costs of discovering them and starting everything from the beginning.

Iranian democrats must not focus all their attentions solely on structural factors. The theory of distribution presents us with a different image. Recent developments in central Asian republics are an instance of this. Similarly Middle Eastern rulers have, one after the other, been forced to adopt a “controlled reform from the above” in order to prevent rose revolutions.

Preface >> Section 1 >> Section 2 >> Section 3 >> Section 4 >> Section 5 >> Section 6 >> Section 7 >> Section 8 >> Section 10

Republican Manifesto II, 8.

2005-06-17T16:12:00.000+04:30

8. Civil disobedience: Some are of the opinion that the dominance of the democratic and reformist discourse in Iran leaves no room for a revolutionary approach, thus: "these restrictions have made them unskillfully defend the ways of 'civil disobedience,' which are specific to post-democratic social movements in the West."

The general statement, "civil disobedience is specific to post-democratic social movements in the West," is refuted at least by such counter-examples as Gandhi's movement in India during British colonialism and Nelson Mandela's movement in the apartheid South Africa. In both countries, in the pre-democracy period, Gandhi and Mandela resorted to the method of civil disobedience in their struggle. In terms of genealogy, one of the most important origins of civil disobedience goes back to Gandhi's negative resistance and his thesis of nonviolence.

Fundamental Hindu beliefs, drove Gandhi towards civil disobedience. According to the first belief, each one of us is in the depth of our souls united with the great Atman which, deep among us all, is the same even though it is divided into infinitely many different conscious entities in this life. God [in Hinduism] is not a distinguished being, but exists inside all objects. "God is faceless" but since we are persons, we personify that faceless being. Gandhi deduced from this belief, the innate unity of humanity and a fortiori all exhibits of life. The political meaning of unity of life to Gandhi was that nobody can be a complete stranger and irredeemably an enemy.

According to the second belief, there is divine element in all of us. (Atman is the same as Brahman.) He concluded from the "existence of God in every human being" that "I see a sign of God even in my opponents." Thus, nobody could be completely and eventually an enemy since everyone contains some of that divine glimpse.

The third belief, Ahimsa, means abstaining from killing, or more generally violence. Ahimsa is clearly related to the belief that all manifestations of life are one and the same and that there is a divine element in each person. We conclude [from this] that in doing harm to others we are doing harm to a whole of which we are ourselves a part. We are damaging the ultimate truth or absolute reality, which we call God. In practice Ahimsa means that in the event of oppression, injustice and tyranny, the correct way of dealing with the tyrants is not violent revolt but reaching to their inner nature through rational reasoning along with civil disobedience of unjust rules, even when civil disobedience brings about pain, violence and imprisonment for the rule-breaker. Readiness for withstanding pain for the sake of justice, which calls the common humanity of both the oppressor and the oppressed to judgment, is the moral force for which Gandhi coined the term satyagraha, or the truth force. Being prepared to suffer is an important part of the policy of nonviolence and disobedience. Gandhi used to say: "I know that for 90% of the people of India, nonviolence means civil disobedience and nothing else." Consciously disregarding unjust laws is the essence of Gandhi's nonviolence thesis.

The first civil disobedience occurred in 1920. The second movement of civil disobedience in the early 1930's was more effective. This movement astonished the British, since millions disregarded the British law, endured beatings and went to jail. Gandhi argued that the way to fight the British rule on India was not violence. The military might of the colonial power can always defeat the oppositions' violent struggles, whereas the colonial rule cannot sustain the violence directed against the people who, while protesting, do not fight back. Nonviolence leaves the rulers out of their resources by turning the use of force into a morally loathed act. Thus, the British should not be killed, they should be defeated politically. Nonviolent resistance against unjust laws--civil disobedience--halters the British and makes a powerful nation out of India.

Mandela and the African National Council (ANC) learned civil disobedience from Gandhi and acted upon it. Mandela writes: "We said that the leaders of the ANC must finally violate the laws and if necessary, like Gandhi, go to jail on their beliefs." "Walter Sisulu first broached the idea to a small group of us of a national civil disobedience campaign. He outlined a plan under which selected volunteers from all groups would deliberately invite imprisonment by defying certain laws. The ANC conference endorsed a resolution calling upon the government to repeal the Suppression of Communism Act, the Group Areas Act, the Separate Representation of Voters Act, the Bantu Authorities Act, the pass law, and the stock limitation laws by February 29, 1952. ... The council resolved that the ANC would hold demonstrations on April 6, 1952, as a prelude to the launching of the Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws." ["Long Walk to Freedom", pp. 123-124] "On that first day of the Defiance Campaign, more than 250 volunteers around the country violated various unjust laws and were imprisoned. It was an auspicious beginning. Our troops were orderly, disciplined, and confident. Over the next five months, 8,500 people took part in the campaign. Doctors, factory workers, lawyers, teachers, students, ministers, defied and went to jail. They sang, 'Hey, Malan! Open the jail doors. We want to enter.'" [Ibid, p. 132] "The stigma usually associated with imprisonment had been removed. This was a significant achievement, for fear of prison is a tremendous hindrance to a liberation struggle. From the Defiance Campaign onward, going to prison became a badge of honor among Africans." [Ibid, p. 139] Thus, civil disobedience is neither a revolutionary method, nor does it belong to post-democratic societies. Yes, violence is the red line of the republican democrats. They will never resort to violence. The ceiling for noncooperation is civil disobedience, not violence. Civil disobedience is the conscious and deliberate violation of cruel and unjust laws. One consciously accepts the punishment (cost) for breaking the law. Disregarding unjust laws in practice and enduring the punishment is a method that eases and strengthens the democratic process.

The cost of civil disobedience depends on two things. First, the particular law that is broken. Second, the number of people who break the law. In the following two example, first the costs are low, and second due to widespread breaking, the system has retreated before the people.

According to the note under the article 638 of the Islamic Punishment Law: "Those women who appear in the public without Islamic covering [veil] will be sentenced to prison from 10 days to two months or a fine of 50,000 to 500,000 Rials [equivalent of US $8 to $80]." Insubstantial punishment for improper veiling on the one hand, and its spread on the other has forced the system to overlook and tolerate it.

According to article 9 of the Ban on Using the Satellite Receiving Equipment Act (enacted on February 12, 1995): "The users of the satellite receiving equipment will be sentenced to a fine of 1,000,000 to 3,000,000 Rials [equivalent of US $120 to $360] in addition to the requisition of the equipment found." In this case too, the low cost of breaking the law on the one side, and the appeal of satellite programs on the other side, has led to a widespread breaking of the law and the regime has been forced to accept the situation. In the time period when VCRs were banned, people forced the regime to retreat through widespread violation of the law. Current efforts of the regime to enforce legal restrictions on the usage of the internet, faced with people's extensive violations, will have no way but to retreat.

These examples show that civil disobedience is by no means a violent and revolutionary act and could be very effective and fruitful, if prevalent. Democracies learned civil disobedience from pre-democracies, not vice versa. Ignoring the court summonses by student political activists and intellectuals because the judiciary system is not impartial and fair and the political trials are pre-ordered, is an instance of civil disobedience that could expose the illegitimacy of political practices. Article 500 of the Islamic Punishment Law is one of the unjust laws that must be violated. According to this article: "Anyone who has had activities against the system of the Islamic Republic of Iran or promotes its opposing groups and organizations will be sentenced to 3 months to 1 year of prison." According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the choice of supporting the political system or opposing it is a human right. Any individual has a right to choose his desired system and if he did not like the established system, a right to publicly oppose it and by attracting others in this way and through peaceful means establish his desired system. Didn't Ayatollah Khomeini do the same in his speech in the Behesht-e Zahra [cemetery] on February 1, 1979 and theorize it for the future generations? This law is unjust and unfair and the rulers of the country want to deprive the people from their human right in any possible way. So, the citizens must break this law, and publicly express their opposition to the regime and ask why they do not want this system and what properties are there that their desired system should possess. Civil disobedience here does not entail a high cost: 3 months to 1 year in prison. But if this law is broken extensively, the regime will not be able to send many people to jail for expressing their opposition to the system of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Preface >> Section 1 >> Section 2 >> Section 3 >> Section 4 >> Section 5 >> Section 6 >> Section 7 >> Section 9 >> Section 10

Republican Manifesto II, 7.

2005-06-16T14:37:00.000+04:30

7. Revolutionary action vs. Reform: Some believe boycott of elections, non-cooperation, delegitimization and holding of a referendum are revolutionary and deconstructive actions and are thus irreconcilable with reformism. It should be noted that one can be a revolutionary in one respect and a reformist in another. What is important is to separate these two aspects from one another.

a) Reformist in method: Human beings have goals and to reach those goals they choose certain methods and instruments. Let us suppose the goal is to change the tyrannical political structure and to replace it with a democratic one that would recognize freedom and human rights. To reach this morally laudable goal one can use two different methods: reformist or revolutionary.

-Someone is called reformist in method if he uses peaceful methods and instruments to reach his goals and objectives and who follows social reforms that are gradual, temporary, empirical and reductionist.

-Someone is called revolutionary in method who uses methods and instruments that are violent and aggressive to reach his goals and who looks for explosive and sudden changes.

Using bloody methods to reach one’s goals is morally unacceptable and condemned.

All that is said until now about revolutions and their negative consequences are true for classical revolutions that follow holistic or utopian changes through violent methods. A classical revolution was [there to tell] a completely new story. It was new in its entirety, even in its nomenclature. The goal of [such a] revolution was to change all the political, economical, cultural, social and military structures through political changes. In other words all problems were reduced to political ones and the foundations of the society had to be turned around by political means in order for all the problems to be resolved at once.

But at the ending years of nineteen eighties, peaceful revolutions took place in Eastern Block countries and the ice of totalitarian regimes melted by the demonstration of candle-holding men and women and the age of freedom dawned. Czechoslovakia’s velvet revolution became the symbol of modern revolutions without bloodshed. Then came the non-violent revolution of the people of Belgrad against Milosevich and later the rose flowers revolution in Tbilisi against Shwardenadze. Afterwards we witnessed the orange revolution in Ukraine and the yellow or tulip revolution in Kyrgyzstan. Two major differences set apart these revolutions from classical ones. One is that there was no trace of violence, bloodshed and vengeance in them and the other that getting rid of tyranny and gaining freedom were the aims of these new revolutions, not a holistic change based on a totalitarian ideology, which is an impossible and futile endeavor with a high price to be paid. Peaceful revolutions, aiming at freedom and rule of the people, are both possible and desirable and the critiques that exist against classical revolutions do not apply to them. For instance, Karl Popper, who was against classical holistic revolutions, supported and defended the peaceful revolutions in the Eastern Block.

It might be argued that revolutions have two sides: the ruling regime and the people who are opposed to it. Modern non-violent revolutions did not take place because the people adopted non-violent methods, but more importantly because the ruling regimes showed reserve and did not use force to crush the people. But in Iran, the system’s leadership has the will, power and intention of using instruments of suppression and thus any widespread peaceful demonstration by the people will be brought to a bloody end by the regime.

This claim is based on two important premises with no supporting arguments. According to the first premise, the ruling regime has the power of widespread suppression and the new international and internal conditions allow them to go ahead with it. According to the second premise, the ruling system in Iran is worse than the ruling systems of the former Eastern Block, Yugoslavia and Georgia and the rulers of this system are more tyrannical and suppressive than the rulers of the Eastern Block countries and Milosevich.

If the ruling system is so unreformable that it can’t tolerate even the peaceful demonstration of its opponents and crushes it by bloodshed, so that the opponents won’t be able to express their opinions and gradually bring everyone on their side, then the case is clear even to a liberal person like Karl Popper:

"I am not in all cases and under all circumstances against a violent revolution. I believe with some medieval and Renaissance Christian thinkers who taught the admissibility of tyrannicide that there may indeed, under a tyranny, be no other possibility, and that a violent revolution may be justified. But I also believe that any such revolution should have as its only aim the establishment of a democracy... in other words, the use of violence is justified only under a tyranny which makes reforms without violence impossible, and it should have only one aim, that is, to bring about a state of affairs which makes reforms without violence possible." ["The open Society and Its Enemies", vol.2 , chapter 19, p.166]

Based on what was said, democrats advocate non-violent means (boycott of elections, holding referendum) for the establishment of a full-fledged republic and do not believe in the use of violence for reaching their aims. However since authoritarian rulers are not willing to hold a referendum, civil disobedience, which is a non-violent method, is proposed. After victory, the principle of "Forgive but not forget" must be adopted by truth-finding committees. That's because democracy will not be established and consolidated by seeking vengeance. The people of the land of Iran know better now than the year 1979. The revolution of 1979 was against modernity, but the current movement is modern and democratic. The fight for freedom and democracy is justified and desirable, but sacrificing human life on the feet of utopian ideologies and authoritarian systems, which has no other outcome but fear and violence, is wrong and unjustified. Every single human being with flesh and bones is an end by himself and the endeavor and struggle to prepare free and democratic state of affairs where individuals can reach their ideals by exercising their free choice, is allowed on moral grounds; indeed it is a moral obligation.

b) A revolution to reject doctrines: Theories, models and ideologies are devised or invented to solve theoretical problems and resolve practical difficulties. If a theory or tradition claims to be able to solve theoretical problems or practical difficulties, but can’t accomplish that, there are two options. One is to [try to] change the world, society and human beings until they become an instance of that theory and tradition, the other is to discard that theory or tradition. Theories and traditions exist in order to serve man and are devised to solve problems, not the other way around, for men to be their servants and to be obliged to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the tradition.

Popper's methodology, that is adopted by the present paper, is based on the "revolutionary use of trial and the elimination of error by criticism". ["The Myth of the Framework", p. 7] "Thus we can can get rid of a badly fitting theory before the adoption of the theory makes us unfit to survive. By criticizing our theories we can let our theories die in our stead. This is of course immensely important." [Ibid, p. 7]

Revolutionary rejection of theories, doctrines and schools of thought that don't succeed in practice to solve men's problems and resolve their practical difficulties, instead of violent elimination of humans, is rationality itself. The growth of rationality hangs on the collapse of the most admirable and beautiful theories and doctrines: "In this way we arrive at a fundamental new possibility: our trials, our tentative tests, may be critically eliminated by rational discussion, without eliminating ourselves. This indeed is the purpose of rational critical discussion. ... If the method of rational critical discussion should establish itself, then this should make the use of violence obsolete. For critical reason is the only alternative to violence so far discovered. It is the obvious duty of all intellectuals to work for this revolution - for the replacement of the eliminative function of violence by the eliminative function of rational criticism." [Ibid, p. 69]

Approaching the truth is through bold and genial acts of revolutionary criticism of old theories, and bold and genial acts of creatively devising new theories: "This is not only true for empirical sciences, but it is true for all fields of knowledge."

In Popper's view the most advanced form of rationality is to be prepared to critically discuss your beliefs, to correct them in the light of critical discussion with others and to revolutionarily eliminate those beliefs that are not able to solve the problems.

Being revolutionary in this sense has different consequences in the field of politics that must be noted. At this level we are faced with two problems, one theoretical and the other practical:

- The theoretical problem: Is the regime of the Islamic Republic reformable or non-reformable? (if the aim of the reform is to evolve the established political structure to a democratic one). A non-reformable system has to be set aside.

- Practical problem: What are the methods of transition from the current system to a democratic one? (The tactics and strategies that would lead us to that goal.)

Theories and models that have been proposed by reformists up to now in order to solve the problem of tyranny and transition to a democratic political structure, have not been able to solve that problem and so it is necessary to reconsider them and devise new models. The topics of the boycott of elections, non-cooperation, civil disobedience and delegitimization have been presented in this framework

Preface >> Section 1 >> Section 2 >> Section 3 >> Section 4 >> Section 5 >> Section 6 >> Section 8 >> Section 9 >> Section 10

Republican Manifesto II, 6.

2005-06-15T02:29:00.000+04:30

6. Different types of undemocratic regimes and transition processes: Undemocratic regimes are of various kinds. In one sense, these regimes are categorized as military, party and personal dictatorships. In a military dictatorship armed forces rule. In a party dictatorship, a dominant (communist, fascist, nationalist) party rules. In a personal rulership, the ruler is so obstinate that he becomes a tyrant. Max Weber called this sultanism. Sultanism is a system in which the ruler enjoys maximum authority and discretionary powers. Linz has identified four types of political systems based on personal rulership: modern sultanism, oligarchic democracy, military paternalism and supremacy of local influentials (rule of local political chiefs). He considers sultanism to be the most central and the most obstinate form of personal rulership. Modern sultanism is based on modern organizations and officially or publicly on bureaucratic norms. In some thinkers' opinion, lack of efficient political institutions results in the domination of a personal authority that could only be limited by a moderating power and not by already existing institutions. They believe personal rulership is a system of personal associations based on the relationships of the ruler with his collaborators, followers, supporters and rivals. In personal rulership, government positions and authorities are personal "properties" of the leader-for-life. In other words, government is the leader's personal wealth. Max Weber uses sultanism for a state in which absolute rule or supremacy reach their maximum. Usually "structural" characteristics results in the consolidation of leader's personal position in the regime. Such as the control of executive authorities that are vast from a legal point of view. For example, legal tyranny guarantees the leader's position against legal procedures that could lead to his dismissal. (In Iran, the Leader picks the members of the Council of Guardians, who choose the members if the Assembly of Experts. That is, the Leader indirectly picks those who are supposed to supervise and dismiss him.) Moreover, personal leader is the chief commander of the armed and security forces. So, he does not feel threatened by the military.

The ruling system in Iran is not a totalitarian system, but a sultanism. Thus, considering this fact and the distinctions among different kinds of regimes, we must answer this question: How a certain kind of regime has submitted to the democratization process.

Rousteau divided the transition to democracy into three stages:

Long-term fights among opposing political forces that are equal in power.

Negotiation in order to reach a compromise agreement among the leaders of political forces that leads to institutionalizing democratic conducts, and

Adapting to democratic conducts that gradually results in an increased degree and spread of consensus [among political forces].

The compromise agreement, on the one hand, redefines the rules of the political game and, on the other hand, is based on mutual commitments and guarantees to protect the vital interests of the involved parties. In an agreement of liberalization of power, usually military leaders give guarantees for citizens' rights to be reestablished and free elections to be held. In return the non-military leaders agree not to punish the rulers who have committed extreme acts of suppression (the principle of forgive but not forget) and to advance the democratic process without violence and chaos. In fact, military and party dictatorships will come to the negotiation table [only] after huge social pressures. A negotiated transition is the result of a situation in which the two sides are equal in terms of political power. Negotiated transitions in authoritarian regimes is the product of major differences between extremists (conservatives) and moderates (reformists) inside the regime on the one side, and the coalition of the ruling reformists and the democrats outside the government on the other side, to remove the regime's extremists. But the transition process is very different in personal dictatorships. In Huntington's words: The leaders in personal dictatorships are less likely to voluntarily relinquish their powers compared with the military or single-party leaders. [Guillermo] O'Donnell and Philippe Schmitter think the only way to change sultanistic dictatorships, such as the Somoza's previous regime in Nicaragua, to democracies is an "armed non-military revolt" since personal rulers typically are not inclined to give up the power. Their general inclination is to avoid relinquishing the power. So in [Richard] Snyder's opinion, if the army lack the necessary independence to remove the personal ruler (military or non-military), then the only way to topple him is the formation of a revolutionary movement. Personal rulers not only do not wish to give up the power, but also take life-time control of it and use it for tyranny. The problem of transition to democracy in this situation differs a great deal with that of such a transition in authoritarian military or party regimes. Here cooperation with the personal ruler and legitimization of his rule do not help the democratic process at all. On the contrary, the democratic process is eased by noncooperation and delegitimization. Thus the liberals must make it clear, which kind of regime they are dealing with in Iran? And what type of process does the transition from that kind of regime to democracy depend on? Political sociology has described and explained the processes of democratization of different kinds of regimes based on human experience.

My friends in the Islamic Revolution Mujahideen Organization [IRMO] and the Islamic Participation Front [IPF] oppose the boycott of the elections based on a particular analysis and support instead active participation in the elections. In the words of the representative of the Organization [IRMO]: "The transition in developing countries is made possible when at least two of political factions within the ruling power are unable to eliminate their rival [ie. each other]... ." That is meant to say that the society must reach a stage where its elite inside the government (irrespective of their equal or different social standings but with distinct ideological views) cannot eliminate each other. In the words of the representative of the IPF: "In countries where the transition to democracy has successfully been made ... government democrats made deals with the leaders of the movements and democracy has been, in fact, the end product of these deals."

The empirical social sciences, unlike metaphysical knowledge, do not belong to the category of priory knowledge, but to posterior sciences. One can sit in his seclusion and think and talk about existence and nature or substance and form, but without paying attention to the transitions that have taken place in three or four waves of developments of democracy one cannot utter a single word or issue a statement about "transition to democracy."

Retrospective observations of the countries that passed through the third wave points to three types of transitions and three kinds of dictatorships. Dictatorships come in three kinds: military, party and personal dictatorships. Three types of transitions from dictatorship to democracy has occured:

Abdicated Transition: A weak dictatorship is forced to give up the power to others.

Dictated Transition: In this transition, the dictatorship is in the position of power, nevertheless widespread popular demonstrations make the regime think of consciously pursuing a dictated democratization process. Between 1990 to 1995, 24 military regimes achieved democracy through [dictated] planning, but there was no sign of the "phenomenon of the agreement among elite." Brazil, Taiwan, Thailand ... are instances of this transition.

Pacted Transition: this transition has two important characteristics. First, the ruling regime is divided into to sides of extremists (conservative) and moderates (reformist). Second, the democratic opposition outside the regime create a balance of power between the regime and themselves through widespread popular demonstrations, strikes and noncooperation. If the quarrels take long or become costly and fruitless, the elite [on both sides of the quarrel] will be more interested in an agreement on their most serious disputes. Eventually, through roundtable negotiations between the democrats outside the regime and the ruling moderates, a pacted transition takes place. The most important instance of this type of transition is Poland's transition to democracy in 1989.

In the negotiation process first the most powerful and experienced leaders if the most important groups must cooperate in secret (or in public) to achieve a mutual agreement that is acceptable to both sides. Then they need to convince their supporters to agree to the practical consequences of this agreement. In the end, they must practice tolerance to assure [the people] that this agreement and its ensuing political etiquette is part of the culture of the [political] elite. The establishment the democratic system is in return for the immunity from revengeful and retaliatory actions.

Thus, firstly, not all transitions are pacted (roundtable negotiation) transitions. Secondly, a pacted transition does not mean a pact between the two sides of the ruling regime, but one between the moderate side of the regime and its democratic opposition. Thirdly, fair and the negotiated free elections are held so that the ruling regime could be replaced by its democratic opposition, not as a show game in a subset of the original power. Fourthly, the situation in a personal dictatorship is completely different from that of a military or party dictatorship.

The governmental reformists [in Iran] think the only method of transition to democracy is to penetrate into the government, to turn it into a dual government, to create a balance of power between the two sides and to win a necessary agreement on the transition to democracy. Even if this is true, there must be a strong democratic social opposition movement in order to force the regime to compromise and negotiate through demonstrations, strikes, election boycotts, ... (pressure from below and bargaining from above, to use Saeed Hajjarian's metaphors). So, it is better for the reformists who want to play the role of the regime's moderates to take part in the elections and if the conservatives allowed them, create a dual government. But they should let others establish a strong movement for demanding democracy, through noncooperation, boycott and delegitimization in order to make negotiation and compromise possible. Without pressure from below there will be no bargaining from above.

But we must note that the regime in Iran is neither a military dictatorship nor a party dictatorship (where a single party is ruling). The ruling regime in Iran is a personal dictatorship. The process of transition in such a regime is different. This type of transition is often named by the sociologists, the anti-personal transition type. This transition usually requires the toppling of the personal ruler (Markus in the Philippine, Chaushesku in Romania, Stroessner in Paraguay, Saddam in Iraq) or his death (Franco in Spain). For example, a personal dictator rules in Egypt. Democrat opposition ask for Mobarak's removal. A free and fair election would be one against Mobarak to bring him down not to participate in the power under him. It seems Mobarak has retreated and agreed to multi-candidate elections. But in Iran, the Leader won't even run in a single-candidate election, let alone running against rival candidates. It is clear that he does not have the people's votes. Some personal rulers hold single-candidate elections and make claims as to having the support of 90% of the electorate, but here [in Iran] the Leader is not even ready to accept the risk of receiving legitimacy though people's votes.

Preface >> Section 1 >> Section 2 >> Section 3 >> Section 4 >> Section 5 >> Section 7 >> Section 8 >> Section 9 >> Section 10

Republican Manifesto II, 5.

2005-06-15T01:52:00.000+04:30

5. US attack on Iran: The US military attack on Iran is another issue that has captivated the minds of many [in Iran]. The wise correctly stress that one shouldn’t do anything that would place Iran under US military attack. According to some, boycotting the elections and delegitimizing the system can pave the way to a US attack on Iran. Republican democrats are in no way in favor of a US invasion of Iran. But some points should be noted:

5-1. All predictions about a possible US invasion of Iran are based, on the one hand, on the conduct of the US government in Iraq and Afghanistan, and on the other hand on the verbal warnings of the officials of that country. But nobody knows for certain what plan has been prepared for Iran in the American National Security Council and that country’s other decision-making institutions, and what the detailed phases of that plan are. That plan depends more on the behavior of the Iranian regime than it does on the conduct of the opposition forces.

American officials believe that this regime has to be replaced by a democratic one, based on the conduct of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the four fields of nuclear energy, terrorism, peace between Israel and the Arab countries, and the issue of human rights. But there exists serious disagreement between US officials about the right option for Iran’s transition to democracy. Regime change due to unanimous international pressure is a point of view that can create a consensus among them, but proposing a military attack would not only create a gap between the United States and other countries, but also cause divisions between American officials and the people of that country. Independent of these problems, we must see whether the US has the power for a military attack on Iran in the present situation or not?

5-2. Real conventional war with the aim of occupying Iran: the US military attack on Iraq and the occupation of that country during the last two years has had a monthly cost of about four billion US dollars, a daily average of 2 dead (around 1500 dead during these two years) and the stationing of 150,000 troops [on Iraqi soil]. Taking into account Iran’s vast area and population, the US would need a minimum of 300,000 troops for a military attack on Iran. The biggest problem facing a conventional war is that the US does not have enough man power for such a widespread war at the moment. In addition to that, the US needs about twice the cost and military facilities for such a war than it did in the case of Iraq. The US is now preoccupied with Iraq and Afghanistan and must organize the security and political conditions in Iraq as fast as possible.

5-3. Limited war: In a limited war, only limited strategic targets will be under attack, from long distance and by air. In this case Iran’s nuclear capabilities will be destroyed and her missile arsenal, sea power and centers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will be attacked. Assuming that these attacks are completely successful, there will be two different analyses possible for their outcome:

According to American hawkish conservatives, the government would be completely weakened after the attacks, the fear of the people will vanish and the people will storm to the streets and topple the regime.

According to the members of the Democratic Party who are against the war, the regime will crush down the opponents harshly after such an attack and will close the political atmosphere completely. Iranian People and patriotic intellectuals will rise to the regime’s support in case of a foreign attack and the regime will be strengthened instead of being toppled.

5-4. The excuse for a US military attack: American government can attack Iran only by the excuse of nuclear weapons and terrorist operations. So far, Iran has retracted in nuclear talks in the best way possible. The Additional Protocol (AP) is practically ratified. All the requested sites have been shut down for the time being. There is still room for further retractions. This way the US cannot take Iran’s case to the UN Security Council. As far as terrorism is concerned, it is important to note that since June 1997 no member of Iranian opposition groups has been assassinated in Europe. The issue of Iran’s backing of Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad will eventually cease, because of Syrian army’s withdrawal from Lebanon and the policies of the interim government of Mahmoud Abbas in disarming all armed groups. So, if the issues of nuclear weapons and terrorist operations are out of the picture, the US can't attack Iran militarily, solely under the excuse of human rights violations. Of course if Iran does not continue to retract, the possibility will increase for Iran's case to be forwarded to the Security Council.

5-5. We republican democrats believe that the only way out of a US-Iran face off is the establishment of a democratic system in Iran. With the current system and the continuation of its policies, the possibility of a military face off can always increase. By boycotting the elections, which is a completely nonviolent move, the democrats follow [the goal of] democratization of Iran. They believe a widespread democratic social movement can pre-empt an American military attack on Iran. With such a movement, a military attack will no longer be an issue.

On the other hand, freedom lovers can’t stop their struggle for freedom and democracy because of a possible US invasion (They can’t stand behind tyranny to face imperialism, as the motto goes). Did Afghan Mujahedeen stop their fight and join the Taliban? Did Iraqi freedom fighters stop fighting Saddam and join his regime because America was going to attack Iraq? If they had done so, wouldn’t they have been condemned by freedom lovers around the globe? It is possible to be against a US military attack on Iran and still continue the fight for freedom.

Preface >> Section 1 >> Section 2 >> Section 3 >> Section 4 >> Section 6 >> Section 7 >> Section 8 >> Section 9 >> Section 10

Republican Manifesto II, 4.

2005-06-12T09:35:00.000+04:30

4. The possibility of Iran's disintegration: Some liberals and reformists worry about Iran's break-up and constantly warn against its danger. In their opinion, boycotting the elections and delegitimizing the system could strengthen the separatists' positions and their foreign support and lead to Iran's dissociation.

Even a tiny probability of such a danger would worry anyone who cares about Iran. Iran's geographical integrity is a principle on which all republican democrats [of Iran] have consensus. To assess the degree of reality of this possibility we must analyze it on two grounds:

4-1. Domestic background: Iran's ethnic differences and the system's discriminatory ethnic treatments are undeniable facts. Sunnis play a far less important role in the political system compared to Shiites and so do the Kurds and Arabs compared to the Fars. Government positions are discriminately taken by Shiites and the Fars. There are huge economical differences among provinces. All this is due to the central government's wrong policies. But there is no noticeable domestic separatist movement that would demand the cessation of specific regions of Iran. Different ethnic notables are after the elimination of discrimination and fair participation in the political system. Federalism within a democratic framework is the maximum that could be realized and that the democrats support. Those who take the danger posed by disunion seriously think certain provinces may have such a potential: Kurd provinces, Turk provinces, Sistan and Baluchistan, and Khuzistan. Naturally the people in the separatist provinces should participate in elections in much lower turnouts. However, the voters in Kurd provinces (12.83% of the eligibles) and Sistan and Baluchistan (34.39% of the eligibles) who had shown low turnouts in the first presidential elections, took part in the eighth presidential election in turnouts amounting, respectively, to 53.45% and 70.13%. The turnout in Khuzistan (except for three elections), though always lower than the national average, has been close to it regularly. The turnout in East Azerbaijan has been lower than the national average and declining. It's interesting to note, however, that the economic situation in East Azerbaijan is better than the countries deprived provinces and its people have a fair share of government positions. The Leader of the country is Turkish speaking, and so is the head of the Assembly of Experts.

Provincial turnouts in presidential elections (first to eighth)
Elections	East Azerbaijan	West Azerbaijan	Khuzistan	Sistan and Balushistan	Kurdistan	Entire Country
First	53.53%	40.11%	74.03%	34.39%	12.89%	67.43%
Second	63.56%	45.83%	45.55%	29.8%	43.72%	64.24%
Third	78.66%	58.73%	54.49%	47.6%	48.46%	74.26%
Fourth	49.02%	53.63%	56.9%	31.92%	51.57%	54.78%
Fifth	50.6%	55.23%	59.02%	38.68%	58.68%	54.59%
Sixth	43.98%	48.8%	45.6%	42.87%	54.96%	50.66%
Seventh	67.76%	73.71%	74.08%	65.28%	79.04%	79.92%
Eighth	53.07%	56.41%	59.3%	70.13%	53.45%	66.77%

4-2. International background: The most important plan for the Middle East is the Great Middle East Plan of the US and its allies. The basic assumption of this plan is that tyrannical governments, on the one hand, and economic poverty, on the other, are the sources of fundamentalism and terrorism. Dictatorship feeds terrorism and spreads poverty. If the region is democratized, terrorism and fundamentalism will vanish, security is restored and the region's economy will flourish. This will benefit the global capitalism, which looks for safe markets.

In this, and similar other plans, there exists no category for the break-up of a country. Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, ... must be democratized not broken up. Even in the most radical democratization models of the region, that is democratization through military invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, not only has there been no plan of dissociating these countries, but every effort was made to create pluralist democratic governments by bringing together all ethnicities, sects and factions. George Bush recently announced "the success of democracy in Iraq sends a message to the lands from Beirut to Tehran that freedom could be any nation's future." If Iraq is the Americans' democratic model for the region, there will be no talk about disintegration of any country. Furthermore, in terms of ethnic threats [to geographical integrity] Iraq was far more prone to disintegration than Iran. But Iraq did not dissociate and there was no plan to that effect. Not only that, a Kurd was chosen as the President. He (Jalal Talabani) says: "an independent Kurdistan cannot survive. The Kurds like any other people would like to determine their own destiny. But they have realized that this is not consistent with reality and is not possible. Since although our neighbors do not attack us but they will close their borders with us and an independent Kurdistan will not be able to survive. The dream is one thing and the reality another. The majority of Kurds voted for our list, the Kurds faction. The faction that asks for a federal Iraq, not independence." These are the words of a person who has fought for independence for years and has experienced 15 years of independent Kurdish rule.

In 1974 Turkey occupied the northern part of Cypress and divided the country into a Turkish and a Greek part, and in 1983 declared an independent Turkish republic in Northern Cypress in an attempt to separate it [from the rest of the country]. But no country recognized the Turkish Cypress and the international community univocally demanded the union of the two parts. Turkey and the Northern Cypress had no alternative but to retreat. In the referendum of April 24th, 2004, 70% of the Turkish part voted for the UN General Secretary's [peace] plan so that some of the sanctions imposed by the US and the EU be lifted. In April 17, 2005 elections Mehmet Ali Talat replaced Rauf Denktash. He supports the union of the two parts. The EU has given Turkey till October 2005 to resolve the Cypress crisis. If the international pressure, especially that of the US and Europe did not exist, Turkey and the Northern Cypress would still defend separation, not union.

Due to their economic interests and in order to safeguard their national security, Americans and Europeans are after spreading democracy in other countries and especially the Middle East. Countries' disintegration does not help this process in any way. We should not forget that democracies do not go to war with each other.

Preface >> Section 1 >> Section 2 >> Section 3 >> Section 5 >> Section 6 >> Section 7 >> Section 8 >> Section 9 >> Section 10

Republican Manifesto II, 3.

2005-06-06T10:43:00.000+04:30

3. The effectiveness of the boycott: How efficient will the boycott of the elections by freedom-loving democrats be and what percentage of the population is going to boycott the elections, following the intellectual elite?

Those eligible to participate in the elections form, as a whole, a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum are 30% of those eligible who would definitely participate in the elections and, on the opposite end another 30% who certainly wouldn't participate in the elections. The remaining 40% is comprised of people who haven’t made up their minds, and who are the main target of propagandas waged by the two sides, for and against participation in the elections.

Participate	Undecided	Don't Participate
30%	40%	30%

Usually 20% of those eligible will vote for the conservatives. All the efforts of the conservatives are directed towards increasing their votes up to 30% of all those eligible. (In big cities like Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan, Tabriz, Mashhad, etc. the conservative votes usually does not exceed 10% of the total.)

The reformists, in order to win, try to persuade people to participate actively and widely in the elections and thus to bring the number of the actual participants to around 70% of those eligible. (Because of the relative stability of the pro-conservative votes, victory of the reformists hangs on widespread participation of the people in the elections).

On the other hand, the supporters of boycotting the elections must try to increase the number of those who would not participate from 30% to 70%, by attracting the 40% who haven’t made up their minds yet.

The table below displays the various possible distributions of votes in this framework. In this table, the number of those boycotting the elections increases from 30% to 70% and based on this, the number and percentage of votes for conservatives and reformers is calculated. In this table, the number of conservative votes varies between 20% and 30% of the total number of the eligible.

Total Eligible	Conservative Votes	Reformer Votes	Boycotting
48,000,000	20% = 9,600,000 30% = 14,400,000	50% = 24,000,000 40% = 19,200,000	30% = 14,400,000
48,000,000	20% = 9,600,000 30% = 14,400,000	40% = 19,200,000 30% = 14,400,000	40% = 19,200,000
48,000,000	20% = 9,600,000 30% = 14,400,000	30% = 14,400,000 20% = 9,600,000	50% = 24,000,000
48,000,000	20% = 9,600,000 30% = 14,400,000	25% = 12,000,000 15% = 7,200,000	55% = 26,400,000
48,000,000	20% = 9,600,000 30% = 14,400,000	20% = 9,600,000 10% = 4,800,000	60% = 28,800,000
48,000,000	20% = 9,600,000 30% = 14,400,000	15% = 7,200,000 5% = 2,400,000	65% = 31,200,000
48,000,000	20% = 9,600,000 30% = 14,400,000	10% = 4,800,000 0% = -	70% = 33,600,000

The widespread boycott of the elections by the cultural and political elite can lead to the nonparticipation of the people in the coming elections and show clearly the illegitimacy of the system. If this is done, the number of those who would not participate would be between 55% and 77% of the total.

Participating	Boycotting
45% = 21,600,000	55% = 26,400,000
40% = 19,200,000	60% = 28,800,000
35% = 16,800,000	65% = 31,200,000
30% = 14,400,000	70% = 33,600,000

Objection: In some democratic societies usually 35% to 40% of the people participate in the elections. Boycotting the elections in Iran, even if it results in 60% to 65% of the people not participating, still wouldn’t be able to bring the number of Iranian electoral votes outside the range of those democratic systems mentioned above. So, as the lack of participation of 60% to 65% of the people in some democratic countries does not make their system of governance illegitimate, the lack of participation of 60% to 65% of the people in the ninth presidential elections would not make the system of the Islamic Republic of Iran illegitimate either.

Answer: There are some differences here that must be taken into account.
Firstly, in democratic systems the legitimacy of the system and the legitimacy of the people in charge are separate issues. As a result, in case the ones in charge lose their legitimacy, this would not diminish the legitimacy of the system. While in tyrannical systems, the legitimacy of the system is identical to that of the rulers. The illegitimacy of the rulers is tantamount to the illegitimacy of the system.

Secondly, holding free elections is a necessary condition (but not a sufficient one) for the legitimacy of democratic systems. Democratic systems are legitimate because they accept the judgment of the people in public arena, they allow freedom of speech and public gatherings, they respect human rights, officially recognize the rights of minorities and the separation of public spheres from private spheres, hold free and just elections, have widespread civil societies, exhibit tolerance, do not punish individuals for their dissenting views and opinions, etc. In these societies, because of the power and stability of democratic institutions, and the certainty that citizenship rights will always be recognized, it is possible for the majority of people to feel no need to participate in the elections. But totalitarian systems are illegitimate because they violate human rights, the tyrant ruler acts like a god, there is no responsible government and opponents are imprisoned and tortured. These kinds of systems and their tyrannical rulers need the image of the favorable votes of the majority of their people, in order to legitimize their regimes. Therefore in such societies it is quite common to witness allegations of the participation of more than 90% of the population in the elections, all voting in favor of the ruling system. As a result of this, not participating in elections in such societies definitely would mean an act of opposition to the ruling system.

Besides, the [number of] votes in the elections must be understood in the following way; some of the participants belong to the system itself and have a direct share in system’s benefits. Others participate out of fear. They try to avoid the negative consequences of not participating. (for example, the fear of being disqualified [on “moral” grounds] after successfully passing the university entrance exams for not having participated in the elections; the fear of soldiers, military personnel and the prisoners, of punishment; the government workers' fear of being fired or hindered from making progress in their careers; and fear of not being able to get a passport).
In addition to all this, a huge number of votes are due to cheating. In other words the ruling system announces a higher turnout than it is the case in reality, in order to show its legitimacy.

So, any kind of elections in totalitarian systems, without the supervision of respectable international organizations, is illegitimate and unreliable.

Thus any comparison between the turnout in these societies and the turnout in democratic societies has no scientific basis.

Preface >> Section 1 >> Section 2 >> Section 4 >> Section 5 >> Section 6 >> Section 7 >> Section 8 >> Section 9 >> Section 10

Republican Manifesto II, 2.

2005-06-06T08:38:00.000+04:30

2. The ninth presidential elections must be boycotted for the following reasons:

2-1. Unfair and unfree process: According to the Constitution (or more accurately the interpretation of the Constitution according to the Council of Guardians) women and Sunni muslims cannot become President. Next to this, the most important problem with the elections is the approbatory supervision of the Council of Guardians. All citizens are divided into two groups in the first step: those who believe in the constitution and those who don't. The people who do not believe in the constitution are deprived of their civil rights and naturally do not have the right to run or vie for many positions and occupations. That is, Iran does not belong to all Iranians and only the insiders [from the ideological point of view] are counted as citizens.

In the next step the believers in the constitution are dealt with. It is not enough to be committed in practice to the constitution and Velayat-i Faqih⁽¹⁾ [ie. the individual who happens to be the leader at that time], but one should also believe in the theory of Velayat-i Faqih and its embodiment. That is, those who accept Islam and the constitution but do not believe in the theory of Velayat-i Faqih or its embodiment will be disqualified.

In the next step, the Council of Guardians disqualifies numerous people by illegal excuses; because they are not practically committed to Islam, the Constitution, Velayat-i Faqih, Ayatollah Khomeini, etc. It is in this step that the Council of Guardians eliminates serious rivals of the authoritarian faction.

Discrimination in using the media is the next problem. Not only has the rival candidate no right to use many of the media outlets, but also major elements of the system come in favour of the candidate supported by the Leader, and take away the possibility of a fair competition from the rival candidate.

Fraud is another cause that makes the elections process unfair. Organized fraud has become commonplace in Iranian elections in three ways:

First, elections are held in places where conservatives could cast forged ballots. It is said that usually a few million fraudulent ballots are cast at this stage. Second, at the time of counting the votes, a widespread cheating in favour of the conservative candidate takes place. Rival candidates' votes are counted for the conservative [candidates]. Third, orders are given from "above" to add, for the expediency of the system, a certain percentage to the total votes in order to increase the turnout and provide the system with legitimacy. It may be said that these are problems of execution. Yes, elections are executive issues. If there is fraud in executing (holding) elections, the process and the outcome of the elections are unfair and undemocratic.

Another aspect of the unfair process is that if, despite using all the methods described above , the conservatives still fail to win the elections, the Council of Guardians will declare the elections void so that their desired candidate could come through, using extraordinary methods. On the other hand, according to the Council of Guardians' interpretation of the constitution, the Leader can still decide not to authorize the President's decree.

The reformists have proposed two solutions to this problem: First, a change in the body of the Council of Guardians and the appointment of new members who would act fairly. Second, holding free elections supervised by international organizations (such as the United Nations).

If we could overlook, for a moment, the fact that the Islamic Republic will never accept these solutions, we cannot forget that the electoral law requires the Council of Guardians to legally disqualify many people. It must be noted, of course, that any statistics on the level of participation in elections is not acceptable without the supervision of independent international organizations.

2-2. A product with no authority: assuming that the problem of the undemocratic process could be resolved, there remians an even more important problem that would still necessitate the boycott of the elections. Here's the problem: the product of the democratic process lacks the necessary authority to effect structural changes and fundamental reforms. Moreover, the main elements of the system will resist a truly elected President. Isn't the President supposed to work within this constitution with the same Leader, legislature, Council of Guardians, Expediency Council, city councils and municipality, state TV and Radio, Basij, Revolutionary Guards and Police, etc.? Isn't he supposed to execute the fourth five-year plan that is ratified by the seventh Majlis? Isn't he supposed to work within the perspective twenty-year plan of the Leader? Isn't he supposed to work within the framework of the general policies drawn out by the Leader?

The question is: Forget about democracy, what kind of reform is possible within these constraints?

Some propose, as a solution, to nominate a candidate like Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq⁽²⁾ A candidate who would stand up to the Leader and the organizations under his control. Firstly, there is no one among the nominated candidates who is, even slightly, like Dr. Mossadeq. The reformist groups constantly point out that we should limit the expectations; not much can be done [in these situations]. Secondly, a Mossadeq-like person will not be approved [as a candidate].

Others emphasize the point that, in countries where rose revolutions took place, people participated in the elections instead of boycotting it. But it must be noted that there, the election process was a fair one and was held under the watch of international community. The leader of the opposition was not eliminated. If the ruling system cheats in counting the votes, a velvet revolution backed by the international forces takes place. Moreover the struggle is over the main power in the country. But here [in Iran] the main power is in the hands of the Leader-for-life and he rules supreme. The appointed institutions will turn a liberal⁽³⁾ President into a mere caretaker. There, the opposition candidate stands against the leader of the establishment and publicly exposes his tyranny and corruption. But here, all candidates must prove their practical commitment, belief in, and devotion to the Leader. Not only is the judiciary system not impartial and independent, but it follows every word of the Leader by the letter. When the reformists could not do anything for democracy, eventhough they took control of the cabinet and the sixth Majlis with the majority of people's votes, what can they do now with these candidates and a distrusting population? Let's suppose that the reformists win the presidential elections and in three years' time take control of the Majlis again. Then they must continue with the project of [establishing and consolidating] the civil society. Their first move must be changing the trades [and syndicates] law. But it will be rejected by the Council of Guardians. Didn't the Council of Guardians reject the independence of lawyers, which was in the fourth [five-year] plan, and didn't the seventh Majlis remove it altogether? The medical profession law needs the political system to approve the legitimacy of physician candidates [who are nominated for their syndicates]. Reforming the law in order to increase the power of trade syndicates and assemblies and non-governmental organizations will not appeal to the Leader and the Council of Guardians appointed by him. Any attempt to reform the law of the press was found by the Council of Guardians to be against the sharia [Islamic law] since the Leader was opposed to it. That which became of issues pertaining to the [state of the] jury [in Islamic courts], the definition of political crime, etc., is well known to all. They only recognize governmental assemblies.

Democracy is an evidence of the existence of a strong civil society that is based on various intermediary groups, from women assemblies and labour unions to cooperatives and trade councils. Such groups serve as probably the most effective tools in communicating social demands to decision-makers. They can also play an important role in explaining the meaning of democracy to the people they deal with. From the start, the theory of liberal democracy considered volunteer assemblies essentially as complementory to the official represenative political institutions such as political parties, legislating houses and elected executives. The freedom of citizens in organizing a civil society forms a foundation for the diversity of people's interests and opinions, and makes a multi-party democracy possible. A society of active, independent and organized citizens is a guarantee that the government will not exceed its boundaries, and will not infringe the powers and freedoms that individuals should be able to enjoy without any governmental intervention.

This is what the current establishment does not allow and what cannot be attained through legal means, unless true independent assemblies are formed through civil disobedience. That, in turn, is inconsistent with the reformists motto of legalism [ie. remaing within legal boundaries of the current system].

2-3. Transition to democracy: The path the reformists have taken does not lead to a democratic system. Transition from sultanism to democracy needs the "delegitimization" of the ruling system and "noncooperation" with the personal ruler. But reformists create domestic and international legitimacy for the tyrannical ruler by cooperating with him. The tyrannical system is weakened through "continuous noncooperation" and so the conditions for transition to democracy are set. Democratic forces and groups must consciously and deliberately spread and popularize the idea of noncooperation in the society. All [political and intellectual] elite must refrain from cooperating with the tyrannical system. There are thousands of different ways of noncooperation that could be effectively used in practice. "Human resources" are one of the important origins of political power. The number of individuals and groups that obey and cooperate with tyrannical rulers plays an important role in stabilizing the tyrannical system. If noncooperation is utilized by a vast proportion of people, the tyrannical system will be faced with essential difficulties. Taking back "support" and "protection" is the most important step in eliminating dictatorships.

Additionally, the regime's moral and political legitimacy must be questioned. Any system should receive obedience and cooperation only to the extent that it is legitimate (has a right to rule). The more legitimate a system is, the more reliable is the obedience (conforming to the laws and orders) and cooperation that it receives [from its subjects]. The rulers' right to rule and the citizens' duty to obey is one of the main issues of the legitimacy of political systems. Delegitimizing the tyrannical ruler must show itself in practice.

Gaining legitimacy affects the regime's official goals and principles, its way of policy-making and even its political structure. Lack of legitimacy forces tyrannical regimes to widely use relatively costly methods of commanding the government and the society. Undemocratic regimes use the two methods of ideology and democratic elections to gain legitimacy. Ideological legitimacy secures an indirect legitimization for the regime, based on the principles and goals guarded in the respective ideology. The domination of democracy in our age has caused legitimate governments to be those that are based on people's choice, the public will or other democratic foundations. Semi-competitive elections are the most infamous method, using which a dictatorship can claim electoral/democratic legitimacy. Democratically disguised dictatorships use, as a source of legitimacy, semi-democratic elections for government officials with very limited powers who are all approved by the regime. Rigged semi-democratic elections are the legitimacy shop window of tyrannical systems. Dictatorships that put on a democratic mask abuse governmental resources and protective opportunities to decrease the competition in elections. In fact, elections in these regimes are played with rigged dice. Lack of freedom, fairness and impartiality in their conduct and execution are the main characteristics of these elections.

The reformists' false idea that only through active participation in the government can one achieve anything has, in practice, only led them to function as mere shop windows for the system, both inside and outside of the country. Although the reformists' widespread cooperation in the past 8 years through participation in the executive and legislative powers did not achieve anything for democracy in Iran, it did create legitimacy for tyrants. Ayatollah Montazeri's conduct in the past years is the best example of noncooperation and delegitimizing tyranny. Ayatollah Sanei too is blacklisted due to his noncooperation with the regime (= The Jurisprudent Ruler).

Why was Mohammadreza Shajarian's⁽⁴⁾ letter to the IRIB forbidding them to broadcast his voice and face considered important? Since it was an example of "noncooperation" and "delegitimization." Why was Ayatollah Taheri's resignation from his position as Isfahan's leading cleric [imam] of Friday prayers important? Because it was an important instance of "noncooperation" that lead to delegitimization. Farhad's⁽⁵⁾ wife announcement that he never let his voice be broadcast on the IRIB is an instance of noncooperation.

It is not clear how the silence of Mousavi Ardebili, Mousavi Khoiniha, [Mir Hossein] Mousavi, Abdollah Nouri, Gholamhossein Karbaschi, Ataollah Mohajerani ... should be interpreted. If they are consciously and deliberately abstaining from cooperation, their actions are, in proportion to their credibility [in the society], delegitimizing the system.

Participating in the elections (as candidates and as voters) is the best way to cooperate with, and legitimize, the system. Whereas boycotting the elections is an important instance of noncooperation and deligitimization of tyranny. Boycotting the election is the first step in noncooperation. Boycotting governmental occupations and positions, governmental departments and institutions, not accepting (and not cooperating with) officials appointed by the government, refusing to dissolve independent organizations and institutions, ... are other methods of noncooperation that must be considered. There are also social and economical ways not to cooperate that must be realized.

Reformists do not help the democratic process by turning up the heat of the ninth presidential elections, the same way they didn't help it in the [previous] city council elections and the seventh Majlis elections. The only outcome of their actions will be the use the conservatives will make of it after the elections to legitimize themselves and the ruling system.

(1) [The Rule of Jurisprudence; the central thesis of Islamic Republic put forward by Ayatollah Khomeini and enacted by the Islamic Republic Constitution. In brief it requires that all governmental activity be supervised and sanctioned by a Mujtahed, a scholar of Islamic law (Sharia) and rules (Fiqh) who will do so as the Supreme Leader.] GO BACK

(2) [Mossadeq was the prime minister during the oil nationalization movement from 1950 to 1953 who resisted Shah's power to the point that he left the country. Mossadeq was toppled shortly after Shah's escape in a CIA-backed coup.] GO BACK

(3) [Again "liberal" is used in its broad sense here, meaning freedom-loving, not as the title of a specific political or focus group.] GO BACK

(4) [Iranian traditional singer and musician, praised as a master of Iranian traditional music.] GO BACK

(5) [Late Iranian singer and musician, famous and popular for his social and political songs. He was banned from public performance after the revolution till a few years before his death in 2003.] GO BACK

Preface >> Section 1 >> Section 3 >> Section 4 >> Section 5 >> Section 6 >> Section 7 >> Section 8 >> Section 9 >> Section 10

Republican Manifesto II, 1.

2005-06-02T02:47:00.000+04:30

1. Political activism and critique of the ruling system are important: intellectuals have a moral obligation to reduce the pain and suffering of human beings (Popper, Rorty). Dictatorships and Tyrannical systems impose pain and suffering on their people in various ways. The endeavour to rid people of the evil of authoritarian systems and to replace them by free and democratic ones is valuable in its own right. In today's world dictatorship has become so infamous and the appeal of democracy so universal that even tyrants try to present their systems as a kind of democracy (native democracy, religious democracy, Asian democracy, African democracy, people's democracy, etc.).

Intellectuals and the elite should not excuse themselves of their moral duty. The intellectual elite have been injecting disappointment and hopelessness, passivity and indifference into the Iranian society in the past years. Whereas one must create hope, inject life and passion and exuberance into the society. Doing this demands self-sacrifice, boldness and intrepidity. History has shown that giant steps have been taken only by men who were brave, idealistic and self-sacrificing.

They say the age of heroism and awaiting saviors is gone, and thus pull the rug from underneath the struggle for justice and freedom, unaware that one can't deduce from "The age of heroism is gone," that one shouldn't fight the tyrants. The struggle for freedom is on and by itself valuable. Neither is it true that democratic societies are devoid of heroes. In such societies one encounters a myriad of heroes. While in dictatorships the leader acts as a god and his self-sacrificing opponents turn into heroes. In such societies ordinary people expect heroes to solve all their historical and social problems. But neither can any single human being accomplish such a feat nor is democracy the solution to all the problems of humanity.

Yes, it is true that all the problems and dilemmas aren't going to be resolved by politics alone or solely through democracy. Neither is the only, or even the biggest, problem of society the ruling political system, so that by changing it all the problems would be resolved. Cultural problems have cultural solutions. Economic problems have economic solutions. Social problems need social solutions. It is also clear that neither our people, nor our intellectuals are democrats ⁽¹⁾ [in the true sense of the word]. But from none of these correct premises can one deduce the false conclusion that political activity is useless, fighting tyranny is a waste of time or that the endeavour to establish a democratic system is futile. The same goes for the conclusion that, even if a democratic system were to be established, it couldn't achieve much since not all our problems are of a political nature; that the cultural tradition (cultural system) that encompasses us is the root cause of all our problems and that, as a result, one must instead change and correct the corrupt and incorrect aspects of our culture.

When we become disappointed and hopeless, we try to find excuses for our passivity. It goes so far that even previous struggles for freedom are regarded as those of mere dreamers. Anyone who accepts the ruling system in its totality and participates in the [Iranian] presidential elections has supposedly stepped out of this world of dreams, but those who pursue radical goals through nonviolent methods are just walking on clouds. So anyone who boycotts the ninth presidential elections is supposedly a day dreamer.

Some are of the opinion that people are through with politics and no longer pay any attention to the political battles between those in power and the Opposition inside and outside Iran. People want to live, have fun, have comfort. They want to be left alone. They don't want to be bothered. It is not important for them what system or which individuals are in power.

Let us suppose this description of the social situation in Iran is accurate, what conclusion are we to deduce from it? Is the duty of the intellectual, the dissident and the political activist to be a follower of the people on the street? Wouldn't such an approach turn them into mere populists (those who follow the observations, beliefs, assumptions, suspicions, illusions and imaginations of the masses)? What argument has been forwarded that all thoughts and actions of the populace are correct? Aren't all men full of faults? Then why are we to suppose that masses are completely innocent and infallible? Instead their modes of behavior must be challenged and criticized the same way that political systems are criticized. Not all the problems come from the political system. One must criticize and judge the people (an intellectual is also one of the people). We must not look for what people like or dislike, but must defend freedom, democracy and justice for the sake of the people. In this sense one must be an idealist instead of a populist. If populism is condemned, as it indeed is, then the flag of political activism can’t be left in the hands of the masses who, in times of crisis, have no goal other than to destroy or take vengeance, and who only think of punishing former rulers instead of establishing and consolidating a democratic system.

If there is some just demand, it must be shared with the people. If the struggle against totalitarianism in order to establish an open society and a democratic system is just, then even if all the people of a country happen to be in favor of a tyrannical system or indifferent to its existence, a freedom-loving democrat still has the right (nay, the duty) to stand against such a system, alone and by himself. The struggle for freedom is always initiated by a few people. Others will eventually join them. A political player cannot give up with the excuse that people aren't politically motivated or do not support the fight for justice and freedom. The dissidents in the second half of the 20th century constituted a small minority in all non-democratic societies. But that small minority opened up the difficult road to democracy by their steadfastness and bravery in the face of suffering.

On the other hand, even if the demands of the people are the ones claimed here, who says that the people have chosen the right way to get them or that they can ever achieve their goals within the framework of the current system? In a more technical language, who says that the best understanding of the collective actions of human beings is the one that they themselves have of their actions, and not that of the analysts. Isn’t the meaning of pragmatic rationalism the proportionality between methods and means on one side, and the goals and objectives on the other? We must show the people that by adopting those kinds of methods and means they won’t be able to achieve their goals. We must bring the people on the scene. We must show them that running away from political struggle is not the remedy to their despair. The public arena is very important. Politics is a noble endeavour and all the people should be engaged in it, when it is taken to mean the creation and distribution of political power, critique of the ruling power, collaboration in the public arena and judging the ruling system and those in charge. A political player and intellectual knows that he shouldn't have a rash analysis of the public arena and shouldn't expect tyranny to be overcome easily and in a short span of time. Democracy is a process that needs people who are not only democratic-minded themselves but who can help others become democratic-minded as well.

Yes, democratic people build democracies. But history shows that democratic systems were not the product of societies whose members were all democrats. "Tolerating the other" and "trust" are necessary conditions for building a democratic system. But human beings learned, only out of necessity and after many wars and strives throughout history, to tolerate each other, to acknowledge cultural differences and be respectful towards them, and not to base the humanity of others on their belief systems. So we shouldn't believe that democracy is impossible unless all the people become democratic-minded. It is said that Sir Karl Popper despite being a pro-democracy thinker was himself not a democrat, meaning that he did not tolerate his opponents. But this man contributed greatly to the expansion and development of democracy in the 20th century. A democratic political culture is the necessary condition for the establishment and consolidation of a democratic system. The sum of fundamental values and beliefs that give the political process its shape and structure is known as the political culture. The political culture establishes fundamental principles for doing politics. It determines the common beliefs and visions which shape the main foundations of a country's political life. It is impossible for the political culture of all the people to be democratic. But the culture of the political elite, who push the process of democratization forward, must definitely be democratic. A political culture based on mutual trust, tolerance towards variety and difference, and preparedness for compromise, is a pre-condition for a stable democracy. According to learned opinions, a set of accidental (unwanted) historical and economical changes created such a culture in the West, and democracy appeared upon the basis of this culture in Western countries. Our intellectual elite agree on democracy and freedom now more than any other time. Everybody wants a democratic system. But the point of greater importance is for all of them to agree to resolve political strives through democratic methods and principles. They should give higher significance to the democratic process of resolving strives, than to the outcomes of such processes. Martin Lipset says: "In the democratic political culture, processes and institutions give legitimacy to their outcomes, even if the outcomes are unfavorable." Of course it is clear that the process of getting rid of a tyrannical system does not need to have a democratic character or political culture at all. But establishing, consolidating and stabilizing a real democracy needs the consensus of the political elite on democracy. Most researchers agree that agreement among the elite on democratic institutions and official political principles is the main condition for a stable democracy. The political elite must accept freedom of speech, freedom of public gatherings, freedom of religion and freedom of the press.

The process of creating a democratic system needs a program with its main steps laid out clearly. In our opinion, given the current state of affairs, the boycott of the presidential elections by the political elite and the people is the first necessary step of any program that will finally lead us to a democratic system.

(1) ["Democrat" is used in this context in its broad sense, meaning democratic-minded, not as the title of a political group, such as the Democratic Party in the US. So it is not at odds, for example, with being also a republican in its broad sense.] GO BACK

Preface >> Section 2 >> Section 3 >> Section 4 >> Section 5 >> Section 6 >> Section 7 >> Section 8 >> Section 9 >> Section 10

Republican Manifesto II, Preface

2005-05-30T10:34:00.000+04:30

Republican Manifesto, Book 2: Boycotting the presidential election, a step toward democracy and open society. By Akbar Ganji

Preface

1. The Republican Manifesto, on the one hand, offered a model for transition to democracy and, on the other hand, expressed the opinions of an imprisoned dissident. The reason for the author's subsequent silence was that he felt he did not have more to write and that he had said what he should about the current regime. The Republican Manifesto stated that all future elections that would take place in the Islamic Republic thereafter had to be boycotted. Now, while insisting on boycotting the presidential election in the continuation of the first book of the Republican Manifesto, a few suggestions are given as to the transition to democracy in Iran. The second book is shorter, since the arguments for some statements and the answers to some questions are given in the first book.

2. Many, especially abroad, critiqued the Republican Manifesto. The author is not only happy that his opinions are read and critiqued, but is also grateful for he has benefited greatly from the critiques. It is important to mention one point, however. The most serious alternative to the republican model is the constitutional ⁽¹⁾ model of my dear friend, Mr. Hajjarian. In a discussion in the occasion of the 1500th day of my arrest, despite defending the ideal of republicanism, he rejected the republican strategy, considering the possibilities and capabilities of the involved parties. The author of these notes is still a republican and has tried here to make his stands more clear.

3. The author was arrested after giving a talk at Shiraz University on the theoretical foundations of Fascism (May 1997) and spent 90 days (Winter 1998) in Evin prison. (9 months of that sentence is outstanding, which must be cashed after the current imprisonment.) Now, in his second sentence, he has been in Evin prison for 1855 days. The prison sentence (denying freedom), forbidding telephone communication, various illnesses due to long-term imprisonment, psychological pressures on my family, various rumours and lies that were fabricated and propagated, are all part of the price that a dissident must pay in the sultanism of the Islamic Republic of Iran (I.R.I.).

It is clear that the publication of the second book of the Republican Manifesto, will cause new costs for the author. The issue is evident. The Leader does not tolerate the smallest criticism. The Leader is a god who must only be worshiped. He understands only the relationship between the god and his subject. He has made himself private modern jails in Evin prison: wing 2A (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Security Service prison), the first floor of wing 240 (Judiciary Security Service prison), and another part of wing 240 which is sometimes used by the Police Force Security Service.

In solitary cells of these prisons all sorts of physical and psychological tortures are being implemented to force prisoners to write "declarations of repentance" (Bloggers' case, Zahra Kazemi's case and the pollsters' case are but a few of examples of these methods). Naturally, any new restriction or deadly accident to the author is only possible with the Leader's direct orders. So, Mr. Khamenei is personally and directly responsible for any event. Confessions and repentance in solitary confinement are worthless and will only add to the shame of those who use Stalinist methods to banish the dissidents.

The author's long imprisonment is one of the examples demonstrating what the "religious democracy" claimed by the Leader has in store. Not only the chain killings project [of dissidents] but also the torture of those accused of perpetrating the chain killings, and the killing of Zahra Kazemi show what kind of paradise the so called religious democracy will be like, if it is given the chance to become reality! The bloggers' TV show was but a tiny exhibition of the wish to attain the goals through Stalinist methods.

Annihilating the author may make the Leader happy, but there is no fear of death when it is for the sake of freedom and respect for human rights. The "game of death" began a long time before today. It is not possible to block the flood of freedom by criminal acts. Be assured that the horizon of freedom will open and the children of the land of Iran will witness, in not so distant future, a government that is obliged to respect human rights.

Akbar Ganji
Evin Prison
May 2005

(1)[Constitutional in the sense of working within the current structure of power in Iran: An unelected Shiite cleric is the head of the regime and sits at the peak of power pyramid for life. His title is: Supreme Leader of the Revolution and the Jurisprudent Ruler (Vali Faghih).] GO BACK

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