Sectarian Shadows in Bahrain

This is an older article I wrote regarding Bahrain. I thought I might share it with the readers of this blog. I personally think this is one of my better works, I wrote it emotionally and it addresses some of the main issues facing the region, in my opinion.

Sectarian Shadows in Bahrain


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The specter of sectarianism grips the Persian Gulf and greater Middle East — just recently Iraq “awoke” to a spate of brutal attacks all across the country. The truth is, Iraqis have been awake in a nightmare of violence and struggle for decades, a nightmare that that the rest of the region has also been experiencing to various degrees.

Just down the coastline of the Gulf, the ghosts of sectarianism eye Bahrain, where plans to construct an ambitious Catholic Church have been met with stiff opposition. For those who believed that sectarianism was limited to intra-Muslim conflicts, they were rudely awakened.

After construction plans of the Church were announced, more than 70 clerics signed a petition addressed to Bahrain’s king “saying it was forbidden to build churches in the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam,” according to the Associated Press (AP).

This is odd considering that the Quran formally recognizes Jews and Christians as “people of the book,” and the Prophet Muhammad as continuing the same message as the holy Jewish and Christian prophets before him.

According to the AP article,

“The uproar reflects the widening influence and confidence of hardline Sunni groups, who have been a key support for the monarchy as it faces a wave of protests led by Shiites demanding greater political rights. Shiites account for about 70 percent of Bahrain’s population of just over half a million people, but claim they face widespread discrimination and lack opportunities granted to the Sunni minority. The monarchy has also has relied heavily on help from ultraconservative Saudi Arabia, which last year sent troops to help crush protests.”

In response to the popular uprisings of the Arab Awakening, various governments throughout the region resorted to calling upon cynical religious affiliation to ward off completely legitimate demands and grievances against governments which did not fulfill their duties towards their constituents.

Bahrain is a glaring example of such blatant misuse of religious affiliation to hold firmly onto a power structure based on systematic discrimination of the majority Shiite population, and now as it seems, against anyone not to the liking of certain intolerant figures.

In March of 2011, just one month after mass peaceful demonstrations sprung up in Bahrain, neighboring Gulf monarchies led by Saudi Arabia invaded Bahrain and violently crushed thousands of protesters demanding reforms.

These forces, alongside the Bahraini government went on to destroy a reported 28 mosques and religious centers used by Shias. For a country with a such a small population, this is tantamount to what one resident called a “war against identity,” according to Al Jazeera.

A top Shia cleric, Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim, has contextualized these developments to also come out against the construction of the Church, “questioning why the government should donate land for a Christian site when Shiite mosques have been destroyed as part of the crackdown,” according to the previously cited AP article.

This is a potential missed opportunity given the shared assault the Shias, and now, Christians are beginning to feel. However, the motivations behind building this Church on donated monarchical land is suspect to Ayatollah Qassim who may view the move by King Hamad Al Khalifa as a defense against outside accusations of religious persecution while very real discrimination is happening against the population.

Regardless, Islam teaches for complete religious tolerance for Christians and if domestic constituents have demands for religious centers, there is no Islamic edict against such a thing. The Bahraini government has a complete responsibility to both Muslims and Christians in this regard.

Instead, by staking its defenses on being a shield against the specter of Shiism, the Bahraini government is now firmly entrenched and sensitive to backward religious discrimination, to a base of people it has scared into believing that disenfranchised citizens demanding completely logical and peaceful equality should be hated.

The way out is not through religious discrimination, but rather through ruling justly as the example of Prophet Muhammad provides, who lived peacefully with “people of the book,” (along with of course his fellow Muslims) and who built mosques, not destroyed them.

Perhaps it would be best for Bahrain’s clergy to rebuke King Al Khalifa with the lines of Ferdowsi, Persia’s master poet the next time the King approaches them (translation Dick Davis):

“It is not in my habit to shed blood / and besides it would be unworthy of my faith for me to do evil in this way.

You summon me, but to no purpose / I serve God, not kings”.

Reading Shakespeare in Kandahar - By Nick Schifrin | Foreign Policy

One of my favorite articles merging the relevance of literature to everyday life and politics. It has a highly pertinent message regarding the realities of vengence and hatred:

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Reading Shakespeare in Kandahar - By Nick Schifrin | Foreign Policy

"Thank you for coming," Prof. David Kastan told the half-full auditorium. "You did not have to be here this morning. I did. It means the world to me that you came." I looked around at my fellow classmates; we were all tired and dazed. The night before, the acrid, unforgettable smell of melted steel, atomized concrete, and human remains had drifted seven miles north, from southern Manhattan up to Columbia University's campus.

It was Sept. 13, 2001, and I was 21 years old. Two days earlier, I had walked into Kastan's Shakespeare class before the attacks began and walked out after the second tower had already fallen. Columbia canceled classes for two days. I spent my time at the daily student newspaper, the Spectator, where I was managing editor. On Thursday morning, the first class back was Shakespeare.

"I will not make a political statement today," Kastan continued. "But I will say this: This play we will discuss today is about revenge -- and what demanding revenge can do to a person. I only hope that the people who will be making decisions on how to respond to Tuesday's attacks read Titus Andronicus."

When he finished, the class gave him a standing ovation.

Nine-and-a-half years later, I found myself standing outside a large house in Pakistan. It was 1:00 p.m. on May 2, 2011, and I was a correspondent for ABC News. Twelve hours earlier, the United States had finally taken its revenge. In the middle of the night, Navy SEALs shot the man who ordered the 9/11 attacks in the head and chest. After loading his body onto a helicopter, they flew it to Afghanistan and then to a ship at sea, where they dumped the prepared body in the ocean. I was the first American reporter to arrive at Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. My team and I aired the first video from inside the compound and filed 11 stories in five frantic days.

It was only after I had returned to my home in Islamabad, about a 90-minute drive away, that Titus Andronicus and Kastan's warning came to mind. I was sitting with a group of American and British friends -- journalists, NGO workers, and diplomats -- having that familiar melancholic conversation about 9/11: "Where were you?" And, because we now lived where 9/11's plotters had fled: "Did you imagine you'd be here, 10 years later?"

No, I said. I hadn't imagined, sitting in my Shakespeare class a decade ago, that I would end up in Pakistan reporting the death of Osama bin Laden. But perhaps Shakespeare might have imagined the United States would be "here," 10 years later.

Titus Andronicus is a play about revenge. It is about how a general fighting for an empire -- Rome -- finally defeats the "barbarous" Goths and returns to his capital with prisoners, the vanquished queen and her sons. Despite the queen's pleas, Titus kills her oldest son to avenge his own sons' deaths, beginning cycles of brutal violence that end in the death of nearly every major character.

At its core, Titus Andronicus is a play about how good people can become unhinged and indeed overwhelmed by the need to avenge. It is about how powerful people surrender themselves to cycles of violence, how tribal and religious customs unequivocally demand retaliation, and how two tribes' or two religions' speaking past rather than with each other can lead to chaos.

"Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand,/Blood and revenge are hammering in my head," one of Titus's enemies says before the bloodletting begins.

Kastan was right to worry. The United States has made many of the same mistakes that Titus Andronicus and his fellow tragedians made: prioritizing revenge and killing the enemy over helping the local populations; choosing allies who help produce short-term gratification (security gains) but long-term trouble; refusing to truly engage with a population that seemed so different from themselves.

Had the Americans learned from Shakespeare's epic of vengeance, might Afghanistan and Pakistan, where I have lived for the last three years, been less violent and more welcoming of the United States today?

Roses from the Garden of Saadi

The poems of Saadi, unlike physical roses, are the literary roses which "always remain," as the poet himself claimed in his work, "Golestan." Below are some beautiful roses from his work, in a chapter fittingly called, "on the advantages of silence":

I said to a friend that I have chosen rather to be silent than to speak because on most occasions good and bad words are scattered concurrently but enemies perceive only the latter. He replied: ‘That enemy is the greatest who does not see any good.’

Virtue is to the eyes of enmity the greatest fault.  Sa’di is a rose but to the eye of enemies a thorn. 

 يكي را از دوستان گفتم : امتناع سخن گفتنم بعلت آن اختيار آمده است در غالب اوقات كه در سخن نيك و بد اتفاق افتد و ديده دشمنان جز بر بدي نمي آيد . گفت : دشمن آن به كه نيكي نبيند .

هنر به چشم عداوت ، بزرگتر عيب است
 
گل است سعدى و در چشم دشمنان خار است 

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A merchant, having suffered loss of a thousand dinars, enjoined his son not to reveal it to anyone. The boy said: ‘It is thy order and I shall not tell it but thou must inform me of the utility of this proceeding and of the propriety of concealment.’ He replied: ‘For fear the misfortune would be double; namely, the loss of the money and, secondly, the joy of neighbours at our loss.’

بازرگانی را هزار دینار خسارت افتاد پسر را گفت نباید که این سخن با کسی در میان نهی. گفت ای پدر فرمان تراست، نگویم ولکن خواهم مرا بر فایده این مطلع گردانی که مصلحت در نهان داشتن چیست؟ گفت تا مصیبت دو نشود: یکی نقصان مایه و دیگر شماتت همسایه.

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An ill-humoured man insulted someone. 
He bore it and replied: ‘O man of happy issue, 
I am worse than thou canst say that I am 
Because I know thou art not aware of my faults as I am.

یکی را زشت خویی داد دشنام		تحمل کرد و گفت ای خوب فرجام
بتر زانم که خواهى گفتن آنی		که دانم عیب من چون من ندانى

--- Source for English translation: http://www.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/far/hobbies/iran/Golestan/index.html

International Law and the Iran Impasse [Re-post]

I'm re-posting a highly interesting and well argued essay written by Asli Bali, of UCLA law school, on the legal implications of the sanctions and nuclear program of Iran. Well worth a thorough read by anyone interested in this issue.

It mirrors a lot of very accurate sentiments argued by Mehdi Mohammadi of Kayhan in an article I translated a while back.

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On any given day, provided her paper of choice still features international coverage, the average American newspaper reader can expect to be treated to one or two articles on attempts to halt advances in Iran’s nuclear program. These articles might cover efforts to levy fresh sanctions against the Islamic Republic; they might relay news of discussions among Iran’s primary interlocutors on the nuclear question, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (the so-called P5+1), about diplomatic overtures. Or the stories might echo the mounting calls for airstrikes or other military action to delay and disrupt the progress of Iranian nuclear research. Until October, indeed, breathless reporting on the increasing likelihood of Israeli military strikes on Iran was daily fare. The brakes were placed on this speculation in time for the US presidential elections, but the brief respite has come to an end.

Israel, the United States and their principal Western partners all now seem agreed upon a spring 2013 make-or-break deadline by which Iran must accept a Western-backed deal or face an array of threatened military operations aiming to damage or destroy its nuclear facilities. In the meantime, a crippling international sanctions regime, reinforced by even more extensive bilateral sanctions imposed by the US and its allies in Europe and Asia, chips away at the Iranian economy. Sporadic acts of sabotage kill off the cadre of physicists and other nuclear scientists who contribute to Iran’s nuclear program.

Amidst these developments, the one question that is rarely asked is what exactly Iran has done to occasion all of this international concern and pressure, let alone the rumblings of imminent attack. In one sense, the answer to this question is obvious: Because international actors fear that Iran wants to build an atomic bomb, they perceive its nuclear program as an unacceptable threat to Iran’s neighbors, especially the Gulf Arab monarchies and Israel. Put differently, the specter of an Iranian bomb strengthens the Islamic Republic’s claim to be a regional hegemon and counterweight -- read, political challenge -- to the pro-American distribution of power in the Middle East.

Yet if these answers seem self-evident, they do not answer another critical question. The UN Security Council is supreme arbiter of international law, and its repeated interventions on the Iranian nuclear issue have created an ambient sense that what Iran is doing is illegal. In what sense are Iran’s nuclear activities unlawful? In other words, to what extent does the illegality of Iran’s nuclear program legitimate the regime of sanctions and punishment to which the country has been subjected? The answer to this second-order question is far less straightforward and points to the gray zone of international law where politics most directly shapes, and at times even trumps, the normative order.
NPT Law

The first document relevant to the Iranian nuclear impasse is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968, to which Iran is a signatory. Article IV of the NPT specifies the rights of state parties to the treaty to engage in nuclear research geared toward peaceful uses, such as power generation or production of isotopes with medical utility. In 1975, Iran also signed a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), by which the UN nuclear watchdog is authorized to conduct regular inspections to verify that state parties are not engaged in pursuit of an explosive device.

From the time that it first revealed -- under pressure from prior revelations by an Iranian dissident group -- that it had resumed its nuclear program in 2002, Iran insisted that its activities were intended for the development of a civilian nuclear energy program. More specifically, Iran claimed that its centrifuge-based uranium enrichment program was designed to yield low-enriched uranium as fuel for nuclear power plants, as opposed to the high-enriched uranium that would be necessary to produce weapons-grade fuel. Further, the Iranians insisted, such an enrichment program was entirely consistent with their rights and obligations under Article IV of the NPT.

Confronting Moral Police on IRIB

I ran across a very interesting interview which took place on Iran's official Jaam-e Jam (IRIB) network with a young host grilling a official from the Islamic Republic police force tasked with upholding "moral security."

The clip is in Persian (unfortunately no subtitles), but it was a very interesting few minutes. We often think of all organs of the Iranian government as "sticking to the script" -- i.e. just praising all the policies and actions of the Islamic Republic. However, as the clip below demonstrates, there is a wide variety of opinions and outlooks, even within the government and its personel.

The young host is essentially telling the police commander that the method of Iranian police in enforcing moral behavior (telling people to wear better clothing, breaking up un-married couples, etc.) is way over the top. The style of confronting immoral behavior is wrong, says the host, not that immoral behavior should be allowed to go unchecked by the Iranian police. The host recounts personal stories of how he and others were treated like petty criminals instead of like regular citizens. If the role of the moral police is to guide people on the right path, then treating people roughly is not the right way to go about it.

I think he raises some good points.

Morsi Op-Ed Guardian

Below is an interesting op-ed which I think correctly approaches some of the issues confronting Egypt today. It's a bit weird to see a Western newspaper correctly identify the situation largely in favor of an "Islamist," but I suppose weirder things have happened.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/07/egypt-tug-of-war-editorial

As the crisis in Egypt develops, it is becoming increasingly clear what it is not about. It is not about the proposed constitution, many of whose provisions opposition members put their signatures to, before changing their minds and walking out of the drafting committee. Negotiations on the contentious clauses have been offered and rejected. Nor is it about the date of the referendum, which the Egyptian justice minister, Ahmed Mekki, offered to postpone. Again, this was rejected. Nor even is it about the temporary but absolute powers that the Egyptian president,Mohamed Morsi, assumed for himself – which will lapse the moment the referendum is held whatever the result.

Urging the opposition to shun dialogue, Mohamed ElBaradei said that Morsi had lost his legitimacy. So the target of the opposition National Salvation Front is not the constitution, or the emergency decree, but Morsi himself. What follows is a power battle in which the aim is to unseat a democratically elected president, and to prevent a referendum and fresh parliamentary elections being held, both of which Islamists stand a good chance of winning. Morsi, for his part, is determined that both polls be held as soon as possible to reaffirm the popular mandate which he still thinks he has.

In weighing who occupies the moral high ground, let us start with what happened on Wednesday night. That is when the crisis, sparked by Morsi's decree when he was at the height of his domestic popularity over the role he played in stopping the Israeli assault on Gaza, turned violent. The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party sanctioned a violent assault on a peaceful encampment of opposition supporters outside the presidential palace. But lethal force came later, and Islamists were its principle victims. Five of the six people killed in Cairo were members of the Brotherhood and one came from the opposition. Two more Islamists were killed outside the capital. Brotherhood offices were attacked up and down the country, while no other party offices were touched. This does not fit the opposition's narrative to be the victims of Islamist violence. Both sides are victims of violence and the real perpetrators are their common enemy.

Morsi undoubtedly made grave mistakes. In pre-empting a decision by the constitutional court to derail his constitution, his decree was cast too wide. The final draft of the constitution has many faults, although none are set in stone. The opposition on the other hand has never accepted the results of freely held elections, parliamentary or presidential, and is doing everything to stop new ones being held.

Iranian Internal politics

The case of Sattar Beheshti is a very intriguing one. It achieved a widespread following due to the newspaper Iran bringing the story to prominence. Iran is run by  pro-Ahmadinejad supporters and it is speculated that they revealed this case after Sadeq Larijani refused Ahmadinejad to visit his jailed press adviser, Ali Akbar Javanfekr. 

The lesson to be taken here is that the politics within Iran and the dynamics which play out within the borders are much more significant than having outside "human rights" group push the Iranian government to reform. In this case, a totally domestic series of events led to one of the most open investigations and debates over rights abuse in the country. This was also the case with the notorious "chain murders" during Mohammad Khatami's presidency when domestic journalists uncovered the case which led to reforms of the Intelligence Ministry and greater transparency (although as we now see there is a long way to go!).

As Middle East Online reports:

Beheshti, 35, was found dead in his cell in a Tehran prison on November 3 after being arrested on October 30, according to chief prosecutor Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie.

His death also provoked outrage inside the regime, in a rare case of Iran accepting international criticism over a human rights complaint.

Judiciary officials have promised a full investigation into the case, leading to seven arrests so far, according to Iranian media.

 Alaeddine Boroujerdi, who heads parliament's national security and foreign affairs committee, took issue on Saturday with claims by pathologists that Beheshti had died from shock and fear, saying he had "very clearly" been beaten while in detention.

MEO does a fair job of reporting, however with the vast majority of other outside press, when politics plays out in Iran, it's always framed as "de-legitimizing" and a sign that the regime is cracking. This is probably the case because Western media treats Iran as if it was Saddam's Iraq where one class of people, dominated by minority Sunni Baathists, autocratically ruled the country as their personal kingdom with zero regard for any politics outside of single-party Baathist dominance through pure fear. These commentators who make such ill-intentioned remarks about Iran do not understand the nature of Iranian politics and society. 

The Islamic Republic was established as a result of a popular revolution and referendum which followed. The Iranian political scene was full of factions with differing beliefs from the very start and despite institutional make up at the top, the momentum has always been with the Iranian people to change the status-quo. Yet, for some reason for Western press, when politics plays out in Iran, it is always a sign that the regime is breaking up. This is far from the truth, in fact it shows that differences are actually being negotiated in a society. In this instance, it led to very promising results, with open parliamentary questioning.

There is a long way to go in reforming the parts of Iranian government and society which are against Islamic morality and practices, such as prisoner abuse and overbearing censorship. However, these reforms will only be genuine if they are a result of a dialogue and practice happening within the country, not dictated by haughty groups from the outside who believe they know what is best for every situation and every nation.

The Character of 'Ali ibn Abi Talib

If I strike the nose of a believer with this sword of mine so that he will become my enemy, it will not create hostility and if I pour the (riches of the) whole world on the head of a hypocrite so that he may like me, he will never like me; because this has been decreed and laid down by the tongue of the Prophet when he said: "O `Ali, the believer will never be your enemy and the hypocrite will never love you!" [3]

-- Morteza Motahhari
http://www.al-islam.org/polarization/

شب آخر - The final night

The below poem is an amateur attempt at writing Persian poetry which I wrote as I was walking back home from campus... as you can see Autumnal nights in Chicago have a very special feel to them. I originally wrote the poem in Persian but have translated in English below as well. I hope you enjoy.

متن زیرین یک سعی بسیار ساده ای بر نوشتن شعر فارسی است که چند هفته پیش وقتی از کامپوس  داشتم راه میرفتم به سمت خانه ام  نوشتم... همانطوری که میتوانید ملاحظه  کنید، شبهای شیکاگو در فصل پاییزی  یک حس خاصی دارند:  

در این شب آخر پردهای  کابوسی بر چشمانم بسته شدن
 نفس تلخ در شش های بسته فرو نمیرود
ای چشم های رنگین پریده، ای ششهای نفس پریده
ای ذهن نفهم، بیدار شو که دم پیشین نشود دم آخر

In this final night, the curtain of nightmares have closed on my eyes

Bitter breath does not enter my closed lungs

Oh eyes whose color has leapt out, oh lungs whose breath has escaped

Oh ignorant mind, wake up so that the next breath will not become the last 

Talking in Taxis in Cairo

I recently finished reading a very engaging book written by Egyptian author Khaled Alkhamissi, titled "Taxi." It's a quick read and written in narrative form as the author recounts his technically fictional yet surely inspired by true encounters with Cairo's taxi drivers.

Taxis are an interesting concept and expose riders to certain social realities especially in diverse and large cities such as Cairo.

I found one passage, in particular, to be worthy of transcribing and presenting to the readers of this blog.

Chapter 13, page 42:

"As we were driving along the Cairo University wall I let slip to the taxi driver how nostalgic I felt for my college days and confessed to him that the dreams for Egypt I dreamt within these walls even now shook me to the core, despite the passage of two decades since my graduation. I said that most of those who sold out had been handed the keys to the gates, while those who continued to dream had seen their towering hopes dashed to the ground by battering rams.

'And what did you study?' the driver asked.

'Economics and political science,' I said.

'So you studied politics, sir?'

'Yes.'

'That's great, an excellent opportunity, because for ages I've had a question I wanted to ask,' said the driver.

'What's the question? Maybe I can answer it.'

'What would happen if we said to America: "you have nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction and if you don't get rid of all these weapons, we will sever relations with you and declare war on you, and we will have to use military force to protect Cuba, because it's a small country and we have to look after it?"

'Of course, we wouldn't be serious, but we would stake out a position in the world. And the world would have to stand with us as they stood with them when they said the same thing against Iraq, and as they are saying now against Iran. I'm not saying we would fight them. Of course you know what I mean. But we would say exactly the same thing as they are saying to the countries of the world. I mean, for example, we'd ask to monitor the American elections because we're not confident their election procedures are sound, we'd ask for there to be international monitoring of the ballot boxes, and anyway we'd be right to say that. Everyone in America and the whole world said the Bush elections were rigged and that his brother fixed the elections and made him win his state. And we'd say we have to defend democracy and we have to send Egyptian judges from here to make sure the democratic process is sound.

'You know if we did that, we'd make them understand what they are doing to people, and we'd vent some of the anger that's inside us, just like when some calamity strikes and there's nothing to be done so you let off steam to whoever and you find yourself calmer, but the disaster's still the same as it was.

'We could also sue America for supporting international terrorism and taking sides with countries that aren't democratic, and get evidence of that an, as you know, it's very easy to get evidence, especially in this matter. By making a move like that, you're on the side of democracy and against terrorism and you'll find a few countries taking your side against America.

'We could also call for economic sanctions against America if they don't comply, I mean take what Rice says every day to all the poor countries in the world and say the same thing to their faces.

'The most important thing is that we all do away with the word "Americans". We should say a White Irish Protestant from America, or a Black Muslim from America, or a Spaniard from America, or a White Catholic from America, or a Black Protestant from America, just like they say these days: "six Shia and two Sunnis from Iraq died". The sons of bitc&^s at our newspapers repeat the same thing, and of course you find them saying: "a Christian from Egypt" and "a Muslim from Egypt". Surely we have to demand as loud as we can the right to defend the rights of the blacks in America, and sue if some White Scot from America kills some Black African from America, of course we have to make a big scene not least because he's African like us, I mean, he's much more closely related to us than a White Italian with a mole on his cheek from America is to some Copt from Egypt. I mean, protecting the rights of the black minority there, that's our role, and we have to intervene in everything big and small.

'I know I'm talking too much and repeating myself. I'm waiting for you to respond but you just hold your tongue and don't reply.

'I'm thinking about what you're saying,' I answered.

'You see, I leave the radio on all day and every day what the Americans say gets up my nose. It's enough to drive a man out of his senses. It's very serious because soon people will explode. "We feed you, we put you on your potty, do this, don't do that." Soon we'll burst and that'll be the end of it. So I had this idea, that we should do to them just as they do to us. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. And those people live in houses of cracked glass.'

'OK so why don't you send that suggestion to--' I started.

'I'm just letting off steam, man, I mean shooting the breeze. They're ready to let the Americans do anything to us. The suggestion they might like is for the Americans to put a camera in every Egyptian house so they can monitor the population explosion!'

The Dictator of Damascus - By David Lesch | Foreign Policy

Great article in Foreign Policy about Syria and President Assad from someone who has little political stake, is not polemical and who actually knows what he is talking about based off of extensive scholarship and research:

The "conceptual gap" between Syria and the West has only widened during the revolt. When Assad delivered his first speech to the nation on March 30, 2011, he said that Syria was facing a "huge conspiracy," directed by a highly organized network of the country's foreign enemies. Most of those outside Syria scoffed: He was blatantly diverting attention from the real socioeconomic and political problems that had brought the Arab Spring to Syria. But many Syrians -- maybe even Assad himself -- readily believe such claims. Their perception of the nature of threat is vastly different from ours. One might blame this on Syrian paranoia bred by imperialist conspiracies of the past, on the Arab-Israeli conflict, or on regime brainwashing to justify the security state. But it is, in large measure, a function of living in a dangerous neighborhood where real threats are indeed often just around the corner.

The Dictator of Damascus - By David Lesch | Foreign Policy

Caravan of Life

The caravan of life, how it passes!
Take in a breath, for it will pass with joy
Wine bearer, why worry about the foes of tomorrow

Bring for the cup, for the night passes
- Omar Khayyam

این قافله عمر عجب می گذرد
دریاب دمی که با طرب می گذرد
ساقی غم فردای حریفان چه خوری
پیش آر پیاله را که شب می گذرد

Knowledge and Description in Saadi's Golestan

Saadi's tomb in Shiraz. Taken in 2009.

The main question this extremely interesting discussion addresses is: "why do we need the instructive and ethical writings of Saadi [one of Persia's premier poets] in the age of science and technology?" Of course, this question also addresses the broader question of the role of ethics, religion, and spirituality in the modern world, not just as it relates to Saadi.

Gholamhossein Ebrahimi Dinani,  a wonderful professor has an engaging talk (below in Persian) regarding how the hard sciences and humanities should interact with each other in this regard.

Key quote in the discussion:

"are humans made to serve progress or progress to serve humanity?"

This line is something very key to keep in mind here in the West given our outlook on the role of knowledge in society and our view of history as a progression with the experience of the West being something that the rest of the world will eventually reach with time. The Western experience is thought to be universal, and that given time the rest of the world will conform to liberal Western political, economic, and social models (see Francis Fukuyama's End of History).

But the modern Western experience is one in which spirituality is seen as divorced from the "high sciences." This secular attitude carries certain strong biases which among other things tend to look at complex human phenomena as math equations or chemistry problems. This view of science and knowledge -- one where ethics, spirituality, and God-consciousness are ignored -- is deeply troubling.

Certainly, there has been fantastic scientific achievements made in the modern era, however this does not mean that the beautiful ethical writings and moral instruction of someone like Saadi can be ignored.
 


The point being made in the lecture is that literature and the humanities provide inspiration and narratives (revayat) of reality in which the hard sciences play a role of description (towsif). There is an interplay here in which the hard sciences, so to speak, are tools through which to serve the grander narrations of ethics and piety. Instead of looking at advancing our material positions and scientific understanding for their own sake and having the rest of the human experience subsumed under purely materialistic and non-cosmological thought, perhaps it is appropriate to pay attention to the vast possibilities of rich thought and spirituality before us: the union of scientific advancement and spiritual fulfillment. This is the mission of Islamic intellectualism and one that I hope will become my own life track in which a moral mission and spiritual ambition drive the curiosity and research into the earthly domains of science and the study of  phenomena I hope to undertake.

Indeed, the words of Saadi are apt here:
"
یک شب تأمل ایام گذشته می کردم و بر عمر تلف کرده تأسف می خوردم و سنگ سراچه دل به الماس آب دیده می سفتم و این بیت ها مناسب حال خود می گفتم

هر دم از عمر می رود نفسی
چون نگه می کنم نمانده بسی
ای که پنجاه رفت و در خوابی
مگر این پنج روزه دریابی
خجل آنکس که رفت و کار نساخت
کوس رحلت زدند و بار نساخت

I was one night meditating on the time which had elapsed, repenting of the life I had squandered and perforating the stony mansion of my heart with adamantine tears. 1 I uttered the following verses in conformity with the state of mind:
 
Every moment a breath of life is spent, 
If I consider, not much of it remains. 
O thou, whose fifty years have elapsed in sleep, 
Wilt thou perhaps overtake them in these five days? 
Shame on him who has gone and done no work. 
The drum of departure was beaten but he has not made his load. "




[an interesting historical aside Dr. Dinani stated that I was not aware of: Saadi and al-Ghazali both happened to study in the Nizamiyeh college of Baghdad which was under the supervision of Nizam al-Molk Tusi the great political philosopher]

به سراغ من اگر می آیید

به سراغ من اگر می آیید 

پشت هیچستانم 

پشت هیچستان جایی است 

پشت هیچستان رگ های هوا پر قاصدهایی است 

که خبر می آرند از گل واشده دورترین بوته خاک 

روی شنها هم نقشهای سم اسبان سواران ظریفی است که صبح 

به سرتپه معراج شقایق رفتند 

پشت هیچستان چتر خواهش باز است 

تا نسیم عطشی در بن برگی بدود 

زنگ باران به صدا می اید 

آدم اینجا تنهاست 

و در این تنهایی سایه نارونی تا ابدیت جاری است 

به سراغ من اگرمی ایید 

نرم و آهسته بیایید مبادا که ترک بردارد 

چینی نازک تنهایی من

Islam and Science

This is a very interesting interview done with my very insightful and smart friend, Rouhollah Rahmani. I really enjoyed it, lots of good points made.
Video streaming by Ustream

Morsi in Tehran

There's been a lot of buzz in the American press regarding President Morsi's comments in Tehran about Syria. I don't wish to write too much about this except that the main issue here is about balance -- not being one-sided. 

For Iran, a balanced "Morsi Egypt" > one sided "Mubarak Egypt". 

This means the Islamic Republic of Iran gains. 

All that Iran wants is for neighboring countries to act independently and to take into consideration regional problems responsibly -- not to rely on America to cover for disastrous foreign policy measures such as backing war, invasions, and insurgencies.

The fact that Morsi could be so open during the NAM summit about his position is not a bad thing! In fact, Morsi's statements are essentially outlining Iran's position on Syria.

It’s no longer acceptable at all to respect the foundations of democracy on the level of the state and to ignore them on the international level, between states. And it’s also no longer acceptable to observe the principles of pluralism and put them aside in the field of international relations. And from here, and with these meanings, and with this will, and with this conscious look to the future, Egypt believes that one of the core pillars of this new ... international system that we want mainly lies in enhancing the contribution of developing countries in managing and reforming the institutions of global governance to guarantee the fairness of participation in decision making and framing the directions on the international arenas politically, economically and socially.

That could have easily come out of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's mouth. In fact, it essentially did at the very same session of NAM.

Even as this extremely misleading article states (in spite of the title, Morsi did not back the armed rebel insurgency -- in fact rebuking it outright):

Morsi has proposed that Iran take part in a four-nation contact group that would include Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to mediate an end to the Syrian crisis. Ban also said Iran has a key role to play in finding a solution to end Syria's civil war, which activists say has claimed at least 20,000 lives.

This is what I previously meant by "responsible regional rivalries" -- it's only by fairly including all the players involved that a just resolution can come about.

To end with some of the reasons behind Morsi's statement regarding Syria and why he stayed silent on Bahrain:

"His visit signifies that Iran is an important regional power that cannot be ignored," said Mohamed Abbas Nagi, an Iranian affairs analyst at Cairo's Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "However, Morsi's rise came out of Egypt's own revolution, so how can Egypt pursue better ties with Iran now when that country is suppressing a revolution in Syria?" added Nagi, noting that Egypt's immediate priority appears to be restoring relations with Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Gulf states that were close to Mubarak.

History Quote

"To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child" -Cicero

Return to Responsible Regional Rivalries

A return to normalcy. Today's New York Times article highlights how a new Egypt will orient its foreign policy and demeanor in the region.

Instead of relying primarily on heavy-handed foreign powers (i.e. the United States), a post-Mubarak Egypt will look to assert its own independent agenda which for any reasonable power means keeping a balance.

This is good news for the entire region because up until now it was an alliance of interests most fervently pushing for war, occupation, and violence. This alliance was not bearing the brunt of the costs. Mubarak, AIPAC, Neo-cons, and extremist groups who upheld unrealistic ideological agendas resulting in violence and horror were by no means the proponents of justice. They relied on occupation and dictatorship to carry out their agendas.

Now, however, the rules of the game are beginning to shift. Egypt will be at the forefront of a "return to responsible regional rivalries". This means a balance of power and responsible rivalries, not foreign infused, jacked up insurgencies, murdering, and bloodshed in the name of spreading democracy and stability.

As the Washington Post writes,

In the past, “Egypt could not move except with instructions from America and in a direction that benefited America’s interests,” Abdallah el-Ashaal, a former Egyptian deputy foreign minister, said. “Today Egypt does not require permission from Washington.”

It's not just Egypt, either. The new dynamics of world power are seeing justifiably assertive countries assuming their natural roles. Even India, a close celebrated US ally, is sending messages through its Prime Minister's attendance at the Non-Aligned Movement meeting in Tehran.

“This is India’s signal to Iran that we are still balanced and we are not entirely in America’s camp,’’ said Lalit Mansingh, a former Indian ambassador to the United States.

Turning back to Egypt, as the Times article records:

“This is a reconfiguration of the regional and international politics of the region,” Mr. Shahin said. “It will, of course, raise concerns in Washington and Tel Aviv, but I don’t think this is a confrontational foreign policy. It is a regional foreign policy, tacking a regional problem through the capitals of the four most influential regional states, without looking through the prism of Washington and Tel Aviv.”

This does not mean that Egypt will place itself firmly in one camp over another. Pundits and journalists who are used to operating in US government dictated boundaries of thought can only think of things as strictly "pro-US" or "pro-Iran" in the region. Anything Morsi says that is not an outright pledge of allegiance to Iran is seen as a victory for US foreign policy.

However, for those of us unwilling to make neighbors into enemies, the emergence of an awakened Egypt is just what this region needs. Egypt is the most populous Arab country and a cultural, social and political center of gravity in the Middle East. Egypt, like any other mid-ranged power, will yearn for peace, prosperity, and stability.

The most troubling road block to this vision is the Morsi government's eager acceptance of financial handouts from all over the place -- from Qatar and Saudi Arabia to the IMF and American government. If Egypt cannot build its own prosperous economy it may always be held hostage to foreign conflicting interests.

Modern Gender Roles

These are the types of women that are glorified and promoted in our society. As this recent CNN article outlines regarding the death of Gurley Brown, a former major force behind Cosmopolitan Magazine:

"Gurley Brown's 1962 book 'Sex and the Single Girl' encouraged young women to enjoy being single, find fulfillment in work and non-marital relationships with men, and take pleasure in sex, Hearst said. The book was on the bestseller lists for more than a year and became a movie starring Natalie Wood, Tony Curtis, Lauren Bacall, and Henry Fonda.

When Betty Friedan's book 'The Feminine Mystique' ushered in the modern women's movement in 1963, the two books and their authors helped lead the growing national dialogue about the place of women in society and popular culture, Hearst said."

Each society has its own models and types of behaviors that it promotes. Before we rush to judgement about how backward the Middle East is or how oppressed Muslim women are we should take a look at our own gender roles at home and think about the kind of cheap material values we promote.

Breaking the Arab News - By Sultan Al Qassemi | Foreign Policy

"When Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera do comment directly on Syrian affairs, they tend to paper over the rebels' flaws and emphasize the conflict's religious fault lines. Perhaps the low point of both channels' Syrian uprising coverage was when they gave a platform to extremist Sunni cleric Adnan al-Arour, who once said of Syria's Alawite minority that Sunnis "shall mince them in meat grinders and feed their flesh to the dogs" for their support of President Bashar al-Assad. While Al Arabiya referred to "the sheikh" as a "symbol of the revolution," Al Jazeera introduced him as the "biggest nonviolent instigator against the Syrian regime...


A large segment of Al Jazeera's and Al Arabiya's audiences, appalled by the Syrian regime's brutality, no doubt genuinely believes that this is strictly a battle of good versus evil. For the Saudi and Qatari governments, however, Syria's fate directly affects their political future -- they want to see the fall of the regime for either personal or strategic reasons. The looming end of Assad's Syria is yet another chapter in the transformation of the old Arab state order, which began with the fall of Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the end of Hosni Mubarak's Egypt. It is a story that is simply too important to be left in the hands of media outlets looking to advance their own narrow interests."


Breaking the Arab News - By Sultan Al Qassemi | Foreign Policy

Mr. Friedman, Are we going to be O.K.?

This is from an actual article by Tom Friedman:

When I was in Cairo during the Egyptian uprising, I wanted to change hotels one day to be closer to the action and called the Marriott to see if it had any openings. The young-sounding Egyptian woman who spoke with me from the reservations department offered me a room and then asked: “Do you have a corporate rate?” I said, “I don’t know. I work for The New York Times.” There was a silence on the phone for a few moments, and then she said: “ Can I ask you something?” Sure. “Are we going to be O.K.? I’m worried.”


http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/06/11/when_the_young_women_of_egypt_need_answers_they_turn_to_tom_friedman

Given Friedman's magnanimity, it's only logical to ask more questions:

Mr. Friedman, I’m about to marry my childhood sweetheart and couldn’t be happier. Any idea what color wedding dress will attract the fewest Predator drones?

- Amina, Wadpagga

http://friedmanforher.tumblr.com/

Time's 1952 Man of the Year Mossadegh Article

This article is quite insightful and revealing of elite American attitudes to a man who tried to pursue what he believed to be in Iran's best interests. Interesting to keep in mind this is long before Ayatollah Khomeini and the specter of Islam was constructed in American minds.

----------

January 7, 1952

Once upon a time, in a mountainous land between Baghdad and the Sea of Caviar, there lived a nobleman. This nobleman, after a lifetime of carping at the way the kingdom was run, became Chief Minister of the realm. In a few months he had the whole world hanging on his words and deeds, his jokes, his tears, his tantrums. Behind his grotesque antics lay great issues of peace or war, progress or decline, which would affect many lands far beyond his mountains.

His methods of government were peculiar. For example, when he decided to shift his governors, he dropped into a bowl slips of paper with the names of provinces; each governor stepped forward and drew a new province. Like all ministers, the old nobleman was plagued with friends, men-of-influence, patriots and toadies who came to him with one proposal or another. His duty bade him say no to these schemes, but he was such a kindly fellow (in some respects) that he could not bear to speak the word. He would call in his two-year-old granddaughter and repeat the proposal to her, in front of the visitor. Since she was a well- brought-up little girl, to all these propositions she would unhesitatingly say no. “How can I go against her?” the old gentleman would ask. After a while, the granddaughter, bored with the routine, began to answer yes occasionally. This saddened the old man, for it ruined his favorite joke, and might even have made the administration of the country more inefficient than it was already.

In foreign affairs, the minister pursued a very active policy—so active that in the chancelleries of nations thousand of miles away, lamps burned late into the night as other governments tried to find a way of satisfying his demands without ruining themselves. Not that he ever threatened war. His weapon was the threat of his own political suicide, as a willful little boy might say, “If you don’t give me what I want I’ll hold my breath until I’m blue in the face. Then you’ll be sorry.”

In this way, the old nobleman became the most world-renowned man his ancient race had produced for centuries.

In this way, too, he increased the danger of a general war among nations, impoverished his country and brought it and some neighboring lands to the very brink of disaster.

Breathing in the Rose Garden

نبیند مدعى جز خویشتن را / که دارد پرده پندار در پیش

گرت چشم خدا بینى ببخشند / نبینى هیچ کس عاجزتر از خویش

May the accuser see no one but himself / He who has drawn curtains before his thoughts

If that he were endowed with eyes of God consciousness / That he would see no one weaker than himself




-- Saadi in Golestan or the "Rose Garden": باب دوّم ‐ در اخلاق درویشان : حکایت ۷ 

Once in a garden where we have not yet been

We may meet and find flowers no one has ever seen

Lovely classical style Arabic music

Islamo-Fashion Awarness Week

As controversial as this may be, it's still pretty awesome! Turkish-Islamic fashion:

http://www.tekbir.com.tr/

New Iranian TV Station

Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi's followers lauch Paydari TV station:
http://www.shabakepaydari.com/index.php?idservis=27

Interesting development.

Random thought...

Social scientists criticize clerics when clerics weigh in on economic or social matters, but when it comes to analyzing religion, social scientists believe their analysis is supreme and unchallengeable.

Knawmean? Leila Ahmed, Ali Rahnema.

An actual singer with a good voice

Persian Patriotism

I thought it might be apt to project some Persian patriotism today through two beautiful anthems/songs:

State-dominated media and Iran

State-dominated media and Iran By: Glen Greenwald

Excerpt:

I want to focus here on the reporting methods of the NYT...

Both in methodology and conclusion, it is pure state-run media propaganda, by definition: shaped exclusively by official government assertions, amplified without skepticism or challenge. It’s not even hidden: Iranians are the Terrorists and its menacing aggression is proven by its attempt to “stir unrest” in Afghanistan. And then there’s this:

Iran appears to have increased its political outreach and arms shipments to rebels and other political figures in Yemen, and it is arming and advising the embattled government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria [from NYT article].

So Iran is supporting rebels fighting a dictatorship in one country (Yemen) and supporting the dictatorship in another (Syria). In those two countries, the U.S. is doing exactly the reverse: propping up the Yemeni dictatorship while arming the Syrian rebels. Why is one better than the other or a greater sign of aggression and threats? One would think this way only if one is a U.S. government national security official, or — obviously — if one is a New York Times reporter and editor purporting to publish “news reports.” That the mentality of those two groups is indistinguishable — even though one is supposed to be “adversarial” to the other — is the point. I actually think the methods that led to the Iraq War journalism debacle have intensified and worsened since then, not improved. The uncritical relationship and overlapping functions of government officials and establishment media organs are more severe than ever.

Ayatollah Khomeini and Reform

Americans usually caricature Ayatollah Khomeini as the epitome of a Muslim "traditional hardliner" -- but he was far from mainstream when it came to the ranks of the clergy. The academic tradition within the clerical theological seminaries, or howzehs, at the time of Khomeini's ascent was (as it still is) obsessed with fiqh (jurisprudence) and political quietism.

While Khomeini was certainly very learned in jurisprudence he held two notable qualities rarely found within the upper echelons of the ulema: deep knowledge of erfan (mysticism) and political charisma/understanding. The tradition up until then for the clergy was to remove themselves from almost all political matters and concern themselves with Islamic law. Ayatollah Khomeini rejected this quietism, and admonished these Islamic scholars whom, in his eyes, had social and political responsibilities alongside religious ones. In other words, Ayatollah Khomeini was truly revolutionary in all senses of the word.

Ayatollah Khomeini in his youth. Bottom row, 1st from right

Khomeini's thought was very "Islamist"; he saw the message of Islam permeating in both personal ethical affairs and in society as well. The path towards building a better society through Islam was first reforming oneself then approaching society from a sense of heightened cognition.

Below are some excerpts from his wonderful work,  Jihad-e Akbar ya Mobarezeh ba Nafs (The greater jihad or struggle with desire). Side note: Jihad translates as struggle; in Islam it is generally recognized that there are two types of main jihad: Bigger jihad (jihad-e akbar) and smaller jihad (jihad-e asqar). The bigger jihad, or struggle, is with one's own desires such as greed and lust. The smaller jihad is usually said to be physical jihad against an enemy such as a foreign invader. This is an indicator as to where the emphasis tends to be focused in Islam.

Khomeini addresses clerical students in the book, stating: "don't believe that your only responsibility in the seminary is just memorizing a bunch of terms... within this seminary you must build and train yourself so that when you enter a town or village you can guide and refine the people within there." (2)

He goes on to talk about a saying of, Ayatollah Haeri Yazdi, who said: "'becoming a Mullah is so easy, becoming a [decent] person so hard!"... 'It should be said 'becoming a Mullah is difficult, becoming a [decent] person is impossible'"! (8).

Ayatollah Khomeini was all about building oneself and preparing for the day of judgement in which every individual must account for his/her sins. He viewed political and social matters as important but secondary to the big jihad: resisting temptation and reforming oneself on an individual level. Understanding this aspect of Khomeini's thought will put into perspective much of how this man acted both before and after receiving power.

Re-Post: "Wearing a veil does not make a person a terrorist"

http://www.juancole.com/2012/03/basic-facts-on-clothing-and-murder-for-american-bigots.html

----------------------

Dear American bigots:

Basic Fact: Wearing a veil, as Iraqi-American Shaima al-Awady did before she was brutally murdered in her home as part of a hate crime, does not make a person a terrorist. You don’t mind it when pious Roman Catholic women wear a nun’s habit, and you recognize that dress as a sign of dedication to God. You don’t blame all the violence ever committed by Roman Catholics, or events like the Inquisition, on a nun in your neighborhood. Be as tolerant to pious Muslim women.



Basic Fact: Wearing a hoodie is not an invitation to murder, as Geraldo Rivera suggested it was in the case of Trayvon Martin. In fact, if you think about it, St. Francis of Assisi wore a hood, as did many other saints and monks. In the United States, we don’t kill people for how they dress, but how dressing like St. Francis is a crime is a special mystery.



Basic Fact: And, by the way, there is nothing worse than being both a bigot and a f*ck-up. So for God’s sake leave the poor Sikhs alone. Few Muslim men wear turbans, so if you see someone with a turban and a beard, he is likely from Indian Punjab and not a Muslim. I mean, you shouldn’t be bothering Muslims either, but your sad ass is definitely going to clown hell if you shoot down a Sikh because you mistook him for a Muslim.



Basic Fact: And by the way, all this emphasis on clothing as a motive for murder is just a smokescreen for sidestepping the real issue, which is that bigots shouldn’t be allowed to have hand guns. In fact, since you can’t hunt deer with a hand gun and most owners of a hand gun are not reservists in the National Guard of their state, it is unclear why the US tolerates so many hand guns. In countries like Britain, which do not, the murder rate by gun is vanishingly small compared to the annual carnage in the US.

"Too Crooked to Fail": Matt Taibbi Says Bailouts, Fraud are the Secrets to Bank of America's Success

"Too Crooked to Fail": Matt Taibbi Says Bailouts, Fraud are the Secrets to Bank of America's Success

From Democracy Now:

In his new article, "Bank of America: Too Crooked to Fail," Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi chronicles the remarkable history of the rise of Bank of America, an institution he says has defrauded "everyone from investors and insurers to homeowners and the unemployed." Taibbi describes how the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly propped up the financial institution, which received a $45 billion taxpayer bailout in 2008. Bank of America has also received billions in what could be described as shadow bailouts. The bank now owns more than 12 percent of the nation’s bank deposits and 17 percent of all home mortgages. Taibbi also recounts how fraudulent practices by Bank of America and other companies ravaged pension funds. "Most people think of [the mortgage crisis] as some airy abstraction — you know, bankers ripping off bankers," Taibbi says. "That’s not what it is. It’s bankers stealing from old ladies and retirees."

Re-post: UNDER THE THREAT OF WAR, IRANIANS AFFIRM THEIR SUPPORT FOR THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC

*This article originally appeared on raceforiran.com, a website run by Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett:
----------------
As we have discussed in multiple posts, major Western media outlets brought an agenda-driven and intellectually sloppy approach to their coverage of the Islamic Republic’s 2009 presidential election. From their coverage of the Islamic Republic’s recent parliamentary elections, it would seem that there has not been much of a learning curve.

One all-too-typical example is The New York Times’ main “analytic” piece about the parliamentary elections, see here; the article, entitled “Elections in Iran Favors Ayatollah’s Allies, Dealing Blow to President and his Office,” was filed by Neil Macfarquhar from Beirut. This specimen of bad journalism cites a former reformist parliamentary now living in the United States, an editor for the opposition Rooz online, and the Washington commentator Karim Sadjadpour (who favors the Islamic Republic’s overthrow), to assert that the elections were carefully stage managed (by Ayatollah Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, working on behalf of his father) as part of an ever increasing dictatorship to abolish the presidency and turn the Islamic Republic into a parliamentary-based, prime ministerial system. One can find these themes in many other Western media stories about the elections.

To re-introduce a note of terrestrial reality into international discussion of Iran’s parliamentary elections, we asked our colleague, Seyed Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran, to offer his observations. We are pleased to present Mohammad’s article below.

–Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett

**********

UNDER THE THREAT OF WAR, IRANIANS AFFIRM THEIR SUPPORT FOR THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC

By Seyed Mohammad Marandi

Most of the Western so-called reporting on the Islamic Republic’s recent parliamentary election displayed very limited direct knowledge about Iran and often, as its authors’ acknowledged, derived its their information primarily from Western-backed opponents of the Islamic Republic. As long as this goes on, Western countries will continue to miscalculate about the Islamic Republic’s internal politics and foreign policy—and then be left wondering, again and again, why they always get things wrong.

Five points of fact illustrate the shortcomings in this approach to “understanding” Iranian politics. First of all, contrary to unsubstantiated “green” propaganda intended to damage the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei’s son Mojtaba is not an important political figure. Claims of this sort that are recycled in the Western media have little effect inside Iran. Regardless of what they think about his policies and beliefs, Ayatollah Khamenei is recognized even by his opponents (like Ataollah Mohajerani) as super clean. Moreover, people recognize that, if Mojtaba had such an important role, he would be seen regularly involved in politics and high-level decision-making processes and institutions. He isn’t.

Second, changing the structure of government by removing the presidency would require a change in the Constitution, a process that has little to do with this year’s parliamentary elections. It would require a referendum—not a decree from Parliament. The current parliament has had somewhat poor relations with the incumbent President; if the parliament to be formed out of this year’s elections also turns out to be critical of the President, this will neither be new nor have anything to do with changing the Constitution. And, in any case, Ayatollah Khamenei never spoke about any imminent change in the Constitution. A few months ago, in a question-and-answer session with students and academics, he said in response to a question that there could be changes in the constitution in the distant future if it were concluded that a different governmental structure would work more effectively. He then gave the example of the current presidential system.

It is also inaccurate to suggest that eliminating the presidency would make the elected branches of government weaker. If Iran were to have a prime minister it would make the parliament even more powerful. Either way, it would have no effect on the combined scope of authority of the executive and legislative branches.

Third, the turnout was very high in the recent parliamentary election, around 65 percent. In fact, the turnout in Iran was much higher than in analogous off-year congressional elections in the United States (for example, turnout was just under 38 percent in the 2010 American congressional elections), and higher even than in U.S. presidential elections (turnout was just under 57 percent in the last American presidential election, in 2008).

The decisions of former Presidents Khatami and Rafsanjani to participate, along with other reformists like Majeed Ansari, Seyed Mehdi Emam Jamarani, Kazam Mousavi Bojnourdi, and Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandson Hassan Khomeini, reflect this. If turnout had been low, why would they vote and increase the “legitimacy” of the voting process and of the election results? (This assumes, of course, that they are opposed to the current political order as implied by much of the Western media, for which there is no evidence and which I don’t agree.) If turnout had been low, why would they want to be seen standing apart from the majority who did not vote?

In fact, they knew that turnout was going to be high; they also recognized that such high turnout shows that the public trusts the voting process, that people feel their votes count, and that they are deeply committed to the Islamic Republic. By casting their ballots these reformist leaders have stated that they accept the accuracy, validity, and legitimacy of the voting process and that they have no link to the “greens.” If they believed the results were unreliable, why would they vote, thereby strengthening a “corrupt” system? Instead, they have effectively stated that they do not accept claims that the 2009 presidential election or any previous presidential election was fraudulent, even though the voting process has not changed. Merely through their participation, they have given the voting process a clear vote of confidence.

Other major reformists who campaigned to win seats had different calculations. People like Mostafa Kavakebian (who lost), Mohammad Reza Khabaz (who lost), Masoud Pezeshkian (who won), and Mohammad Reza Tabesh (who won) wanted a high turnout from the very start. While they are Reformists, they wanted a display of unity and strength among Iranians against what is widely seen in Iran as Western acts of war against ordinary Iranians through embargos and sanctions. Indeed, there is evidence from polls and follow-up panels that the publication on election day in Iran of President Barack Obama’s interview, in which he proclaimed “I don’t bluff” in the context of a military attack on the Islamic Republic, may have driven up turnout, at least in Tehran, among those who might otherwise have stayed home.

Fourth, the fact that Ahmadinejad’s sister participated and lost (by a small margin), that many independents won seats, that reformist candidates stood for seats, and that there were numerous “principlist” coalitions taking part in the elections (e.g., Jebheye Motahed, Jebheye Paydari, Jebheye Eestadegi, Sedaye Edalat, each with a different list of candidates) and that many independents won seats shows that the elections were meaningful. There was a broad choice of candidates and the counting process is trusted and reliable.

Fifth, I do not know who will be the next speaker of parliament. But, contrary to uninformed Western speculation, Ayatollah Khamenei never involves himself in such issues. If, as many Western analysts and reporters claim, the Leader is out to have a subordinated parliament under the speakership of Gholam Haddad-Adel, then based on this logic he would have told Ali Larijani four years ago not to stand against then-parliament speaker Haddad-Adel and, as Mr. Larijani is an ally of the Leader, he would have acceded. In fact, the reason why the majority of parliamentarians voted to make Mr. Larijani their speaker four years ago was their perception that he would be more critical of President Ahmadinejad. If, as Western pundits now commonly assert, the Leader wants to weaken Ahmadinejad, he should support Mr. Larijani’s continuation as speaker. The logic underlying such speculation is clearly flawed—in no small part because it is based on information produced in the imaginary world of Western-based and funded greens and anti-government commentators.

Despite sanctions and other forms of international pressure, the Islamic Republic has the strong support of the public. In contrast to many countries allied to the West, it has meaningful elections that include candidates with very different political views. In my view, there is no doubt that the Islamic Republic is here to stay and that it will outlast the dying dictatorial regimes on the other side of the Persian Gulf.