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Wednesday
August 1, 2001

One way, his way

Shahriar Zangeneh's letter 'More money, more torturer' contains several inaccuracies and misconceptions.

His claim that 'the people of India, South Africa, Chile and enumerable other nations achieved their emancipation once they concentrated all their energies and resources on establishing civil rights in their respective countries' is not entirely accurate. South Africans struggled for many years for civil rights and got nowhere until they persuaded the rest of the world to announce sanctions against everything from South African diamonds and wine, to the refusal to play rugby with the South African team. The South African struggle was very much about economic justice - i.e. the belief that those who labor should enjoy the fruits of their labor.

India did not focus on civil rights alone during her struggle for independence, Ghandi's strategy of passive resistance was aimed at the economic controls the British held over Indian natural resources and labor. In fact it was the steady return of key industries from British to Indian control that had cut the British off at the knees by 1947. The great Salt March organized by Ghandi in 1930 was not about civil rights it was about economic justice - the 200-mile march to the Arabian Ocean was arranged to collect untaxed salt for India's poor and to protest the taxes that had been levied by the British.

One has only to look at the civil rights of African Americans to understand that without real economic justice their community will continue to suffer from the lack of access to higher education, proper health care, and decent housing and the many attendant problems poverty brings. Economic justice has never meant 'economic boom' or even prosperity - it is simply the right to enjoy the fruits of one's own labors. Shahriar Zangeneh illustrates his own need for the people who know more about such subjects than himself.

My tears in no way account for Shahriar Zangeneh's failure, they are a sincere expression of the grief I feel for injustices wherever and whenever they may happen. Shahriar Zangeneh's failure is only perpetuated by his belief that reform can only happen one way, his way. If he is only going to give places to economists, journalists, engineers, craftsmen and lawyers after the emancipation of which he speaks, who will be working with him to achieve that emancipation in the first place? Perhaps the role of 'liberator' has already been assigned?

If Shahriar Zangeneh truly wishes to set an agenda for people to discuss he will need to find a way to include the mother who is raising her children, the teacher who is concerned with test scores, the artist who seeks unthreatened self-expression, the lawyer who is working to free his/her client, the economist who is working to find ways to encourage small businesses and help them survive, the editor who is judging carefully how much can and should be said in his/her paper. Shahriar Zangeneh is right that we are each affected by the lack of civil rights in Iran, but the civil society he seeks is one that is bonded and united in the struggle for freedom and justice. Civil society cannot be delivered to citizens by grand and arrogant liberators, it is born from the united actions of citizens working together.

We do not impose our notions of 'emancipation' on our 'traumatized compatriots' we build with them, include them, and the working together forges something new - a coalition of priorities and goals to strengthen and protect the emerging civil society. We may not end up with our own perfect versions, but if we allow each person to bring their skills, concerns and efforts fairly to the table, we will be building something better than perfection and that is participation.

Minou

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