Comments on: Iran at the Intersection

By: Moign Khawaja

Moign Khawaja — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:12:14 +0000

Your comments regarding democracy are truly interesting and reflect reality and rationale. I think the bottom line of a successful lies on several factors rather than just democracy and universal suffrage and can be a mixture of autocracy, theocracy and democracy. We have seen horrible crimes against humanity committed by both autocratic dictators (e.g. Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein) as well as democratically elected presidents (e.g. Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, George W Bush). I also think that history decides the fate of any given system of governance and sovereignty.

By: Sadun Kal

Sadun Kal — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:19:26 +0000

I personally am not a full believer in the thing called democracy. At least not as it is being currently operated today. Why don’t we allow 5 year olds to vote? Because they are not old enough to have an educated opinion. That’s fine. But the assumption I consider harmful is that as soon as people reach a certain age, usually 18 in this case, people know enough about the reality. This is obviously irrational. If some people never have the time or motivation to educate themselves on relevant issues, then we can safely assume that they’ll go to the grave as ignorant as an educated 5 year old. Democratic system is fatally flawed in that regard. So I guess I’d prefer a benevolent dictatorship rather than risking to destroy ourselves while trying to be “democratic”. At least until the nice dictators succeed at educating the entire population.

Suppression of Islam in Ataturk’s Turkey had nothing to do with democracy; Atatürk (his real name is Mustafa Kemal, and he was a fairly educated guy) concluded that religion slows humanity down, rightfully I belive, and he decided to get rid of its strong effect on society with significant success at the time. The hypocrisy is that nobody, still today, dare to say that what happened wasn’t democratic. Because of the bad image of dictatorships and the ridiculously innocent image of democracy people go to extreme lengths to distort the reality of things. And even Mustafa Kemal wanted to make the country more democratic but he kept delaying a real democracy until he believed the nation was ready for it. Unfortunately it never was ready, despite his decision, and today we’re still suffering from that “democracy”. Secularism slowly began to lose the competition soon after multiple parties were allowed. That was partially because of the strength of religious convictions, but also because of the sneaky western separatists I suppose.

I don’t really know much about Khomeini’s Iran and the suppression of secularism . I guess it can be considered an example for the fatal flaw of democracy? For if people who do not seriously value anything but what’s written in a 1500 year book can be accepted as leaders, they surely won’t be able to make the best decisions for their people. At the time he may have also looked like the best option though, I have no clue.

By: Moign Khawaja

Moign Khawaja — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:06:12 +0000

Dear Sadun,

Thanks for your comment. I appreciate your effort to understand the dynamics of Iranian society and take women like Afshan’s aspirations into consideration. Its a truth that today’s women of Iran are craving for freedoms and equality. They’re right behind Mousavi and form the backbone of the reform movement.

Ahmedinezhad is not the ideal figure in Iran and neither of the others are but he still represents a majority of the Iranian people. A 62% majority can be disputed but there is no denial to the fact that his support in rural Iran is solid. Foreign media has attended massive rallies and opinion polls before elections conducted by them showed Ahmedinezhad is leading them.

What would you say about the suppression of other thoughts in a democracy? E.g. the suppression of Islam in Ataturk’s Turkey or suppression of secularism in Khomeini’s Iran? Is extremism of democracy not akin to extremism of religion?

By: Sadun Kal

Sadun Kal — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:08:39 +0000

All this is rather unfortunate. In the end it’s just a question of whether or not they should bow down to imperialism I suppose. It looks like Afshan is a bit naive about the West’s intentions, but her desires are also reasonable. Nevertheless how free can the women of a land be if the land itself is being oppressed by foreign powers? As a Turk, I feel that the independence of a land should come before individual freedoms. Otherwise eventually even the freest of women will either have nothing left to eat, the land being economically raped by the West, or they’ll have to become the west and sell out their own people.

Ahmedinejad may not be perfect, but at least he’s willing to fight for his people’s future. Mousavi on the other hand seems to be rather unaware of the threat the West poses to Iran. But that’s just my fairly uneducated opinion. If they could combine the good sides of both candidates, pro-secular-freedom + pro-sovereignty then it would be the perfect candidate I guess, pretty much like Turkey’s benevolent dictator Atatürk. (Since his death we became more and more dependent on the west, at present this dependence reached a ridiculous degree.) Such people are rather rare though, so under these circumstances I’m having a hard time opposing Ahmedinejad. In today’s world, guys like him (+Chavez, Mugabe etc.) help balance things a bit, in my opinion.