I saw a comment in another blog arguing RP should reconcile religion with his secular aims as required by the 1906 Constitution for any Shah to defend the Shia religion as the head of state. The tragedy is that it’s all been said before. The history of the period before the Pahalavis clearly shows the Constitution failed as direct result of the clergy’s plots and subterfuge. Disabuse yourself of the notion that the blame lays elsewhere. Moreover, is democracy a simple rule of majority or about protecting the rights of everyone? I quote part of a speech in the first parliament and these words should haunt all of us who are blindly searching for a way for reconciliation between the opponents of the Republic of Murder.
In his speech to the first Parliament one of the freedom loving progressive clerics in simple language summarised the essence of people’s aspirations beautifully: “We have this Parliament thanks to two inauspicious factors: the cruelty of Shah’s administration and the cruelty of Clergy”
