Vassalam,
amen, gesundheit
Some still refuse to realize that God is dead
February 24, 2004
iranian.com
It's been no bed of roses,
No pleasures cruise...
We will,
We will rock you.
- Ormus Cama
1. It was 25 years ago today
A few days before the twenty-fifth anniversary of the ruin of Iran,
in Tehran's Golestan Palace, an Islamic theologian turned
president of the Islamic Republic met with the future king of
Great Britain. Of course there will be more on this. The Economist quickly
drew attention to the symbolic function of both Hojjatoleslam-val-Moslemin
Mohammad Khatami and the Prince of Wales. The problem for Iranians,
should be, that as the actual head of Government the Brits have
Tony Blair, while Ali Geda and his army of medieval thugs commandeer
Iranians as the reformists try to enact Greek tragedies and can
only come up with a pathetic and over-melodramatic soap opera.
Perhaps the only thing I can say about that is: the only reason
Charles has gone to Iran is to see Bam in ruin, all the other stuff
is a mere mission he has to accomplish for Britain; it is in his
job-description. You see: he has no claim to be an Iranian Shahanshah,
- which is obviously an impossibility, - so his idea of royalty
is something developed largely via the renaissance and Shakespeare
up into post modernity.
Meanwhile there are ongoing protests in Iran, and
in the protests there are slogans:
"Guardian Council Against Democracy", "Long Live
the Unity of Republicans",
"Reform Died, Long Live the Reform", and finally, "Referendum
Is the Way
to Free the People." (Because they wouldn't take away the word "Referendum"
from their banners, there was no official news coverage of this
gathering of the Islamic
students at Shiraz University on February 9, according to gooya.com.)
The message to the international
community is that the Guardian Council is the problem; other than
that, there is a democracy going on here. Shirin Ebadi can tell
you all the legalistic
ways
of proving that Islam and Democracy are compatible, and we know that change
has to be "slow", as the matter of fact "slow" is our philosophical
fast, ask Heidegger etc. etc.
Another one of the slogans of the Islamic Students
Association of Shiraz University reminded me of an article published
in iranian.com by professor
Ahmad Sadri,
to which I had replied a while back. Long before the recent visit by Prince
Charles, the British support for the regime - and the regime's dependency
on this
support - had become more and more overt. Chairman Sadri had introduced
us to: "Reform
is Dead, Long Live Reform."
But first a look around the web:
"Charles' reign reminded people too much, of
the old regime, and this led to the July Revolution of 1830. The
July Monarchy elected a
king, Louis
Philippe (the
Duke of Orleans). His reign lasted 18 years (until 1848) and was a period
of
prosperity. In 1848, Louis Napoleon, the nephew of Napoleon I, was elected
the first president of the Second Republic. He was then proclaimed Emperor
Napoleon
III in 1852 by national plebiscite. It was Napoleon III who commissioned
Baron Haussman to redesign Paris and started the French industrial revolution."
2.
Reforming the revolution beyond Khatami: the Pars and the Farce
When Saddam was captured, he reportedly said: "I want to
negotiate."
In a related story, Khatami has again brought up the matter of the
"Dialogue of Civilizations" with the poor Prince of Wales
who has had to sit there and listen to it. My suggestion to the crown
prince
is
to introduce
his
learned friend, upon their next visit, to the works of Oscar Wilde
as in a sort of
reading-list for the seminar on Dialogue.
Civilization? Culture? Nothing is sacred for
Iranians today. But some still refuse to realize that God is dead,
and that we have killed
him. Hence the tragicomical attempt to reform God or those who are
in direct contact
with
him. Nokhost mihan az dast raft, sepas Shah, va haalaa ham khoda:
nihilism.
When first unveiled (only slightly to give a wink,
and to arouse,)
the idea of a "Dialogue of Civilizations" did smashingly
well with intellectuals all over the world and even sounded vague
and grandiose enough for the
UN.
"Reform ideology" for export and international consumption.
Montaged in Iran.
But apart from the performances by none and all
on the general theme of "dialogue," in the September
of the year of Dialogue Amongst Civilizations (UN, 2001),
the ongoing
war beneath politics brought the filibuster (and chit-chat in a
flowery learned language between the new and improved orientalists
and occidentalists)
to
a screeching halt.
September,
streets capsizing,
spilling over,
down the drain.
Shards of glass,
splinters like rain,
You could only feel,
Your own pain.
So, what do you have to say? Just open your mouth and burst out,
go through the rage, dare out of fear, explode in obscenity, and
then
begin to talk,
without forgetting power and the will to power, the laws of grammar
and good taste.
Try
to normalize, explain the reason or the conspiracy, rationalize,
conceptualize, try and have understanding... Are we just starting
again?
I have always disagreed with the assertion that
power, or in fact
anything else should be viewed as good or evil. However I see no
escape from this line of thinking; it's an impossiblity in as far
as I long for dreaming - that is as an insomniac.
The upshot of the Reformists' new line, developed
over the past few years has gone now from the still talked about
difference between
an Islamic
Republic and a Velaayee Republic to the juxtaposition
of "Islamic Republic" to a certain "Iranian Caliphate"
(Professor Sadri, whose
words
have again and again mirrored the latest self-representation of
the Islamic Republic). [See: "From
Islamic Republic to Iranian Caliphate"]
What is a republic? What is reform? What is enlightenment?
And if you like, Mrs Ebadi: what is Islam? These words and concepts
make
good
playthings (sokhanhaa hameh baazi shavad) and building
blocks for ideologies and thought
patterns.
October,
Talk getting nowhere,
November,
December,
Remember?
Are we just starting again?
Yes, it is February. It is fucking cold.
My schedule is full. They have this weird election in a weirdly
conceived and operated "Islamic Republic"
and
oh, it was 25 years ago today...
They say people are disengaged, that they don't
matter, that they are thugs and "susuls" and drugies. They think
that the new generation
is
suppressed, repressed, depressed and sidelined enough after the
fake high of early
Khatami never to
matter again. They don't know about synchronicity, despite what
they profess,
they don't know about the inexplicable and misjudge the coming
rapid social change.
In all these lies and taarof, pathetic games and Don Quixote maneuverings,
one thing keeps Iran going, and that is the news that Farvardin is coming. It is
no din like we know it, it is a rebirth, a new day; it is coming
again, not for the first time, it eternally repeats itself, and
it is only
very few
who truly
have it in their tradition to respect this. But to get to Farvardin,
we still have to go through the great winter of Bahman, and then
start scaring
the
old year away, shedding our yellow and taking on the red of fire
once again.
Meanwhile apparently the Islamic Republic is currently
in the process of fucking itself in the ass, but isn't sure whether
it might lead
to pregnancy,
and
therefore the dicks – purely for the benefit of the ummat
or the Islamic Iran or something else, - have decided to pull out
of parliament's
hole. This donkey show unfortunately will not stop broadcasting
if you simply change the channel, and in fact as it was reminded
to many of us in September,
you can run from it, you can think that it is not your problem
and you are over it. But you cannot get away from it.
I can't stop
to dance, maybe
This is my last chance.
Two hearts beat as one.
2.1 The Islamic Republic
"The Islamic Republic" is the mixture of a Greek (and Latin) word that
is supposed to be the translation for the Arabic Jomhurie ("Republic"
with
a genetive ending,) followed by the translation/literation of
Eslamie, the adjective made from
the religion Eslam or what
we "Iranians" are
supposed to understand of it. Then comes Iran.
Currently the word Jomhuri is very important for
some, who have conferences and such to promote their thought and
create a united
front against
one empirical manifestation of their own ideology, the Islamic
Republic. The National Front,
in France and in Iran, is another way of thinking about "Jomhuri"
as they are both Republican parties.
While I do not know much about it through any Iranian
or Persian tradition, I know a bit more about it in the English
and the
German form of the
concept and
through the canon of Western humanities and politics. Of course
one can find ways of connecting Islamic to republic, but the
merit of
a country
that calls
itself republic over a one that has a king is not clear apart
from a possible debate on petty-cash.
At any rate, most of the
Iranian
republicans, Islamic
or otherwise, have been at it for quite sometime now, and surely
have reasons for
doing what they are doing. But in the final analysis, it really
doesn't matter. It is a debate held up by those who continuously
want to
perform their experimental theories of political science by holding
a nation
hostage.
"The Islamic" part is also not very clear.
It appears that the reasons why the Shiite seminaries in Iran are
followers of their Imam
come not from
their learned understanding, but from the fear of and respect
for the powers that
be. I would personally rather not even attempt to decide what
Islam is. Those who
are interested in it should respectfully do it in private and
not force their particular discourse upon others.
The "Iranian Caliphate" as introduced by professor Sadri is a lot
more interesting to get to, since there has been so much talk about the
"Islamic Republic" in the past 25 years, that it has acquired a certain
muddled
meaning.
2.2. The Iranian Caliphate
Iranian Caliphate much like the Islamic Republic is a very creatively
invented donkey with three asses: again the possibility of the
creation of such
a thing must surely be at hand, but it is not clear why one should
want to
make that
possibility an actuality.
But to be honest, it is, - as it was the case with
Prof. Sadri's somewhat older slogan, "Reform is Dead, Long Live Reform" now on banners that
are "allowed," - the foreign imagery involved in his
fabulous tropes that has grabbed my attention and pinched it
away from Lichtenberg's
The Waste Books. Like all Iranians, I love foreign things.
But in fact, the Iranian Caliphate is another malfunctioning
holodeck program on a lost spaceship. Apart from that, like the
Islamic
Republic, it is
a mishmash of international idealisms courtesy of post-modernity
and professors of sociology.
Let's look closer at Iran and at Caliphate separately
first. We'll get to that after these words:
"Man aavaaze khish bedu khaaham zad"
(I will vote for her instead of myself!)
-- President of Tajikistan when asked by
Alireza Nourizadeh to speculate on
what he would do should
Googoosh run for his office
2.2.1. The Iranian
Iranians as such could not and cannot be Caliph (but they are
very respectful and tolerant of all religions and beliefs). Or
perhaps:
the problem is
that taarof when re-formed over and over, gives one
the impression of truth,
and one begins
humoring the overdubbing of traditions in a parallel universe
or on the holodeck too baselessly.
Nietzsche in fact moves from the Romans and the Greeks and speaks
as an Iranian. For him the Persians spoke the truth and shot
their arrows
straight.
Not
bribing, not taarofing, not as some orientalists observe, Persian
Mirroring, but having
the courage to speak the truth and shoot a moving target while
in motion. This is what is lost and is replaced by ideology,
religion, or the
official lines
of political parties, expanded upon by the middlemen "channeling" people's
demands, as professor Sadri has put it.
At the time of the Greeks and the Romans, there were Persians
and other Iranians. The later Iranian dynasties also carried
on the
political tradition of Iranshahr in different
formats. It is simply not true that their political thoughts
were in anyway inferior to the European's on the subject
and in fact a case
can be made, and has been made by none other than the great GWF
Hegel himself that the Persian Empire has provided the beginnings
of the
history of spirit,
because unlike the Chinese and the Indians in the orient or the
great Asia, it has ended, died, and yet remains... as a spirit
perhaps, haunting the Greeks, the Romans, and whoever has connected
himself to their tradition, the Europeans,
the first world of today, and even their leftists, etc. The Bible
was written through the grace of Cyrus the Great. And Salman
the Parsi... we'll
let's not get into that, they are after his ass too.
The Persians is the earliest available
Greek tragedy in the Western tradition. The ghost of Darius the
Great appears
after the tragic
defeat of the
Persians at Salamis, to Atossa, the queen mother, and to the
messenger of doom,
just arrived from Europe, before the return of the beaten little
boy, Xerexes.
At the very origin of Greek thought, we find that
upon which the Sassanids expanded in their Iranshahr,
- from the perspective
of
the Greek victors. Socratic
thought, criticized by Nietzsche for having ushered in the end
of the golden age of tragic Greek culture, was also a veteran
and a
product
of the Persian
Wars.
2.2.2. Caliphate
Caliphates, however only appeared in the long silence of Iran
after the defeat of Iranshahr by the Islamic armies over and
about a
thousand years
after
the time to which the Greek tragedy testifies. It was introduced
to Iran only after
the murder of the last Shah and the inability of the last Sassanid
prince with a claim on the thrown, to win back Iran with the
help of the Khaqan
of China,
now his father.
Although the Islamic victors incorporated the administrative
system of the empire they had taken over, they did not recognize
themselves
as
the inheritors
of the
Persian and the Iranian tradition. That was before the rebirth
of the Parsi for the mere Adjam: The Shahnameh. From
then on, whenever a conqueror
wanted
to achieve
any sort of legitimacy he would appeal to the spirit of Iranshahr and Iranzamin, and not to the Caliphates (Baghdad or Damascus).
The
Shiite
survival of
Islam itself was only dependent on its use of the Iranian Shahanshahi (the
Safavids et al.)
There has in fact never been either an Islamic Republic
or an Iranian Caliphate. It is true that one could attempt to conjure
these.
But why? What is the
plan, what is the program, what is the benefit, why should we
care, why should we
support the roozeye siasi - Prof. Sadri uses "hunger
strike" for the
American consumption of this religious maneuver, - or the tahassone
eslaah-talabaan (the reformists' sit-in portest)?
It is very important for us to realize at this stage, that we
cannot get anywhere anymore by following these debates either
way. But
at the same time, we also gain nothing by simply overstating
our tradition without realizing and actualizing
it. We have all the possibilities and much work to do, and we
won't get that done by imitating what we might imagine to be
the progressive
line
of thought or clothing.
This realization of oneself, however, does not have
to fit any stable identity. It is in fact all a matter of interpretation,
and this
has to be clear.
There is no "Pakistan" not because they are not Islamic
enough or Iranian enough or Indian enough. Nothing like that.
Pakistan does not exist,
simply because it is not "pure/clean", as its name promises.
But before getting to the undecidable, what we can
say is that no matter what the outcome, we want to decide it for
ourselves.
It all starts with having the courage to come to
vote, to find a voice. Here is Immanuel Kant on this:
Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbst verschuldeten
Unmündigkeit. Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes
ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen. Selbstverschuldet ist diese Unmündigkeit,
wenn die Ursache derselben nicht am Mangel des Verstandes, sondern der Entschließung
und des Mutes liegt, sich seiner ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen. Sapere
aude! Habe Mut dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen! ist also der Wahlspruch
der Aufklärung.
(Enlightenment is the exit of the human being
out of his self-imposed immaturity ((mouthlessness, voicelessness,
votelessness)). This
immaturity is the inability
to serve one's own understanding without the direction of
another. The human being is himself guilty of this immaturity
if it be not for a lack
in understanding but rather because of a lack of courage
and decisiveness in regards
to serving
one's own understanding.)
Here we have a slogan above
all others: "Sapere aude!" Have the courage to serve
your own understanding. It is a slogan I find worth repeating: "Sapere
aude!" Have the courage to serve your own understanding; this is
the slogan of Enlightenment.
3. Rapid social change:
how the second world was
dismantled
The reformists - and all the other groups that continued
with their revolution after it was truly over for the sensible
majority
and
heroes like Shahpur
Bakhtiar all those years ago - have now discovered that to
come to democracy one has
to go through stages and learn by doing. And they intend
to do this as soon as the
powers to be allow for it. And also, that, evolution is ...
so to say ... better ... than revolution ... as it were...
For the doctors of religion and philosophy to come
of age, orate beautiful words interrupted by shinny smiles, and
shed
pathetic
tears in daytime
soap-opera productions, we have had to go through 25 years
of a medievalist religious tyranny that
has
done everything it could to destroy the Iranian tradition.
And now to the master reformists the lesson seems to be that
we should
expect
much
more
of the same
to come; we might even in the time to come, - perhaps even
before the return of the Shiite savior or the coming of Habermas'
Europe,
- be
able to negotiate
on human rights in the name of cultures and civilizations...
and reason away. Jolly good.
The Queen is Dead, Long Live the King
It seems to be part of the reformists' strategy to drag things
to a stalemate with the conservatives while people who have
very little
to live for
are forced to watch every move of this irrelevant
sham
of a
chess game.
So, The Fundamental Law must be revised by the true
representatives of the people in an atmosphere of no threat, fear
or terror;
and the condition
of
possibility
for this should come about without any unnecessary violence
and despite the powers that be.
The reformists have proven themselves unable to
bring about this atmosphere chiefly because despite their collaborative
methods,
they have not
managed to attain
any power at all. In fact they had all the power in the world
in the late spring of '97, as the students and the intellectuals
and
the true
professional
reporters showed willingness to put their necks on the line
for their "elected officials," (wink wink) but
the elected officials never did have any allegiance
to the people.
Now the more the reformist go through their camellian
colors and drag on the obscene farce that is going on, the more
they force
a rapid
social change upon
which they will have no influence. Of course they will
then
claim it and
all its merits. Nushe juneshun, whatever.
Unfortunately in the case of Iraqis, there was no
honorable king to simply allow the transfer of power, say to his
son, or to
a representative counci. It
turned out to be a bloody war of all against all, until
the end, good
and evil, all or nothing, hatred without bounds. Today
there are terrorists/guerrillas fighting civilians and
armed personnel
alike.
In Iran on the other
hand, it
is precisely the perpetuators of horror that need protection
from the average
citizen,
in the name of the very laws they have broken.
If the terrorists, who, as even the Prince of Wales
knows, do not represent the people of Iran, come to in fact
acquire nuclear
capability,
it
will in no way
benefit the emancipation and enlightenment of Iranians
in sciences, humanities, or anything else. And it would
also
be too predictable
to ever qualify
as a tragedy.
For now we are making darts, growing greens
and cleaning the cupboards. We are getting ready for the Noruz.
London calling to the faraway towns
Now that war is declared-and battle come down
London calling to
the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, all you boys and girls
London calling,
now don't look at us
All that phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust
London calling,
see we ain't got no swing
'Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing
Comedy & Satire in
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