Letters

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Wednesday
August 1, 2001

The goal: Civil Rights

I thank Minou for her response. ["One way, his way"] There is no discernable diffrence between our two views, except in wording. It is reminiscent of Molana's antidotal story of the three travelers who wanted to buy grapes, each saying it in a diffrent tongue. It is also the story of the opposition to the IRI.

A brief overview of basic civil rights should have been given in my article, "Case closed". It would have cleared a whole lot of innocent misunderstandings. One given by the Legal Institute, follows at the end of this letter.

As for South Africa, you are right in saying that it was the international boycott coupled with the domestic one that finally put an end to apartheid. In essence, the oxygen supply to the monster was severed. The demand for "one man one vote", a fundamental civil right, was the unifying factor that brought all the bickering factions together -- from the Zulus on the right, to the Communists on the left, and all the rest in between. It was a tangible call that people of the world could identify with and consequently pressure their governments to end their overt and covert relationship with the aggressor. The boycott was the chosen tactic in achieving the goal of civil rights. Perhaps that is the reason the leaders of IRI never tire of mentioning the number of "democratic" elections held and the percentage of voters participating in them.

According to Nehru, Mahatma's brilliant idea for the Salt March from Ahmadabad to the Indian Ocean (salt was a legal monopoly of the British) came to him when there was a lull in the struggle for civil rights. Again that march was a tactic to force the issue. The brilliance was in his simplification of the goal in something tangible, which every single Indian could understand. Nehru says it was as though he had switched on an "electric shock". By the way, the late Martin Luther King's idea of championing trash collector's cause, amongst others, was inspired thusly.

Civil Right(s) is a general guide line, within which every one is given a fair chance, no more no less than the next person. It is apt in countries where discrimination is institutionalized. It is also dynamic, and the beauty of it is that the onus for it's enforcement is on the government, with private watchdogs making certain of its implementation.

Civil right(s) is only the foundation. On top of it one can have a monarchy, a workers' utopia or any other chosen system of governance. It really does not matter, because the end result would be the same.

The appellate court's ruling in the case of Akbar Ganji was made public yesterday. I am in the midst of translating it. There are three clear cut cases of violations of his civil rights, and I am only one fifth through.

"A civil right is an enforceable right or privilege, which if interfered with by another gives rise to an action for injury. Examples of civil rights are freedom of speech, press, assembly, the right to vote, freedom from involuntary servitude, and the right to equality in public places. Discrimination occurs when the civil rights of an individual are denied or interfered with because of their membership in a particular group or class."

Shahriar Zangeneh

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