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Why I'm not a monarchist
We cannot turn back history

By Amil Imani
October 29, 2003
The Iranian

While I was contemplating unveiling my interior motive of writing an article about why I am not a monarchist, I recalled the words of Sophocles. He said, "Man is only a trivial shadow", and the words of Calderon that life is only a dream. If this is indeed true, any active-minded human being should ask himself why a man must obey another man for life in that dream?

When ordinary circumstances dwell within the secret depths of our being, we must start questioning and coming up with the right answers as to why a man should unconditionally worship and praise another man or woman in the most disgusting and insulting fashion?

History is replete with many tales of despotic kings and tyrant queens and a variety of little despotic princes and princesses. Since the beginning of time, the egomaniacal tyrants wrecked havoc on humanity and have steadily tended to efface those who stood up and faced this monster, this serpent who calls himself the shadow of God, the light of the Almighty and the Lord of his servants.

In the words of Samuel Rutherford, "that since all men are born free, there is no reason in nature why one man should be king and lord over another." Rutherford went on to assert that "no man bringeth out of the womb with him a Sceptre and a crown on his head." Therefore. said D.H. Lawrence, it is the "public, which is feebleminded... will never be able to preserve its individual reactions from the tricks of the exploiter. The public is and always will be exploited."

As we march through life, we all are followed by an invisible and ever present recording device that registers everything we do and all that we have done and accomplished. This is called history. In the era of the Internet and information, no sovereign, no dictators can hide in their palaces and ignite their torture chambers, without someone else on the other side of world hearing about it.

John C. Calhoun said, "The very essence of a few governments consist in considering offices as public trustees, bestowed for good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or party." And followed by Billy Mitchell, "The best guarantee of a just, equitable and pluralist society lies in a system of representative democracy where all power is vested in, and derived from, the common people. It is imperative that government is not only composed of representatives of the people but that it is accountable to them at all times."

Our own Persia has also gone through her share of many kings. Some good kings and some bad kings. It is like good cops, bad cops. This is part of our history and it cannot be changed. The secular press of the day and secular historians would consider Cyrus the Great, who established the first human rights charter some twenty-five hundred years ago, a good king. However, we have also had our share of terrible kings who were brutal, merciless, and ruled with iron fists. We do not need to go too deeply into the history books to find such men who ruled Iran.

My question to my compatriots is this: is it fair to a nation, which lost hundreds of thousands of people to end this dogmatic, absolute, despotic in nature serpent, to resurrect and revive the rule of crowned boots? Should we make the same mistake we have made before, simply because our country is in worse shape than it was before becoming Islamic?

Allow me to answer this with a sweet Parsi axiom, "Nish-e aghrab nah az rah-e kin ast, eghtezaa-e tabiatash in ast." (The scorpion doesn't bite because it is mean, but because it in its nature.) Monarchy, by its nature, is a corrupt system. It is a system that totally contradicts human progress towards enlightenment.

As for the future of monarchy in Iran, I am happy to leave that decision to the will of the people. But, I believe it is the responsibility of our intellectuals to enlighten people, who at this point, may even choose the devil himself because of their hatred of the Islamic butchers in Iran.

We all know that over-zealousness is a human flaw; we need to use our brain, not to be overcome by emotions. This is how the Islamic Republic came to power. People stopped thinking and now they are paying for it. But our new generation does not have to be as inept as the older generation and make the same mistake. We cannot turn back history. We cannot bring the venomous serpent back, just because another poisonous snake is eating people alive.

In The Republic, Plato wrote, "The people always have some champion whom they set over themselves and nurse into greatness. This is the root from which tyrants spring; at first as a protector."

Let us think free, read free, breath free the God given oxygen and choose our own elected representatives freely and intelligently.

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