What's the alternative?
Send your ideas and visions on what Iran's government
should be like By Naghmeh Sohrabi
June 27, 2003
The Iranian
Anyone who has dared write anything on the pages of Iranian.com
that
somehow disagrees with the absolutist vision of some monarchists
is more
likely than not confronted with emails such as this:
We the Akhoonds
are ready for a long, deep, and extensive political
intercourse (bekon bekon) with you, jj, and the rest of the gang.
Best,
Pessar'e Khomeini
Or this:
Why is she allowed to insult the Pahlavis and I am not allowed
to call her
stupid --which she is?!!!!
Needless to say, these emails are essential in that they provide
much
needed laughter on a topic that is not, in and of itself, very
funny.
I was pleasantly surprised though that this time, in response to
my
article "You
the people" the majority of the responses
were thoughtful
analyses of the situation in Iran.
Most agreed with
me on
some points and disagreed on others. They took the time to come
up with
arguments for their positions that went well past the "go
fuck yourself" variety. What was common to most
of these emails was the question of
alternative and vision. If I am critiquing the current political
discourse on Iran, what else do I have to offer? What do I think
should
happen? There is a problem with this question itself. If we breakdown
the context
of these questions we come to a couple of assumptions. The first
one is
the idea that a critique to be valid needs to be followed by
a solution.
Were that the case, then the whole idea of journalism and criticism
would
fall apart and be placed within activism.
The problem is that activism, while absolutely necessary, begs
a kind of personality that chooses to see the world in black and
white, rather than shades
of
grey. It needs to believe that there is a right way and a wrong
way in
order for it to take its first steps. Criticism while admittedly
the less
nobler of these activities in some people's eyes, takes off from
the
belief that there are multiple sides to every issue, each of
which needs
to be taken into consideration and illuminated.
Not to say that we should go around critiquing everything under
the sun
and leaving it at that. Just that there should be room at least
for this
kind of division of labor and an understanding of the different
roles each
one plays in a political community.
Whether or not you agree with my previous assertions (and I am
the first
to admit that there are ample problems with them), there is a second,
far
more important assumption at work here. In email after email (including
my wonderful father's) the recurring question was "But what
other
alternative do we have?" or the somewhat less gracious "unless
you have a
better plan than that of Mr. Pahlavi, then I suggest you keep your
'same
old, same old' comments to yourself."
The issue here is the urgency in the request for the alternative.
We are
notoriously a rather impatient nation and history is the best
proof for
that. Viable alternatives are not born over night and the rush
to find
one the minute things go wrong is what put us in this position
in the
first place.
Just look at the current level of analysis on Iran. Protests
are treated
neither as reflections of dissatisfaction, nor as a STEP towards
something new. They're treated as beginnings of a revolution if
not the revolution itself.
Everywhere I go, I am asked "So, do you
think there's
going to be another revolution in Iran?" As the Persians say,
is it
written on our foreheads that change in Iran comes only in the
form of
mass (and often violent) protests? Do we have some kind of a predisposition
towards revolutions? Add to that the fact that every time there is a protest, the
most inflexible and absolutists of the Iranian opposition abroad
get
their
knickers in a knot and start salivating. They remind me of hyenas
who,
incapable of hunting themselves, can't wait to feast on a leftover
carcass.
But I digress.
My critique of the current Iranian opposition stems from my belief
that I
think we are, both inside and outside of Iran, in a situation
to be
idealists, to reach for the stars, in the hope that if we aim
high, we may
actually not have to settle for the first brand-name middle-aged
man not
wearing a turban.
The search for an overnight alternative will and actually has,
led Iranian
politics to focus on individuals as opposed to desirable systems
of
governance. Doesn't it make more sense that when things start
stirring, we don't rush to the first father figure that saunters
our way
and instead
see it as a time to come up with a blueprint, no matter how idealistic,
of
a system whose success or failure would not depend on one person?
I may be wrong but I don't believe there is going to be regime
change in
Iran over night and I think that itself is a good thing. Aside
from not
wanting what we have, what do we really want Iran in the future
to look
like? What do terms like secular democracy, which has become
the latest
catch phrase, mean to you?
 Is the absolute rule of the majority
something
desirable? What kind of a Constitution would you like Iran
to have? A
weak one like France or a strong one like the U.S.? What would
be the
role of elites? How desirable is the American system? Or any
other country's?
Send your ideas and your visions. What is your ideal system?
What are
your alternatives? Once we've gathered enough material, I'll
put them
together and reprint them (with or without your names) on these
pages.
What is the alternative? I don't have one yet but with your help
and with
time, a pretty good one may take shape.
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