Belittling their achievements
Iranian modernists did drag Iran
out of medieval times
April 25, 2004
iranian.com
As someone believing passionately in the secular
republican cause for Iran I was hoping to read a well reasoned
case by Ramin Kamran [See: Deltangi
baraaye Reza Shah]. Yet I was bitterly disappointed
not because I disagree with one of its main conclusions -- that
"the biggest mistake the Pahlavis made was in the rush to
reform they
neglected
to build
lasting democratic institutions which is the main cause for the
mess today" -- but because of its misrepresentation of history.
It is typical of pieces written buy the left annoyingly pretentious
so-called scholarly intelligentsia.
The lack of equanimity or "ensaaf" does nothing to carry
the reader and convince his intended audience about his case as
right as some of his conclusions may be. Neither does it help progress
the debate on to the main problem facing the future which is how
to establish lasting democracy in Iran.
While the writer berates others for distorting history he is shamelessly
guilty of revising history making the reader incensed by its rubbishing
of our history and achievements of earlier generations who tried
to build a new Iran given the constraints (dictatorship and foreign
interference) of the time.
Reza Shah by his own admission
said was not an educated man and the ideas for reform came not
from him but by Iranians themselves. As an example, the same Davar
mentioned by the writer and his young Iranian modernist group,
whether Mr Kamran and the left like it or not, did
drag Iran out of medieval times.
I would challenge Mr Kamran to
write and explain his reasons for belittling their achievements:
A tiny example, what would Mr Kamran have against laws they
introduced to prevent White slavery? Are you happy
to see Iranian women exported for prostitution? What was wrong
with their education reforms?
The only conclusion one could draw is that the writer is completely
blinded by his prejudice.
For someone who talks about his research, it is a remarkably unbalanced
piece which does the cause of republicanism more harm than good. I
am further incensed by the usual baseless slanders and particularly
regurgitation of foreign propaganda of eons ago.
We will
never break out of this miserable circle of blaming our ills on
outsiders. The case against Reza Shah made by our pinkish intelligentsia
is almost verbatim copies of BBC Persian service broadcasts against
Reza Shah during the second World War as written by the self-professed
anti-Iranian British Ambassador to Iran, Sir Reader Bullard
(Bullard's Letters from Tehran).
Someday I will write about this and how
Churchill had to rebuke him about going overboard about his anti-Iranian
zeal (he was the main if not THE source of all the accusations
about the trans-Iranian railway which our intellectuals are to
this day happy to rubbish. Churchill knew the allies would
need the railway and was fearful of sabotage against it. He reigned
Bullard's constant invective against it through the BBC's Persian
radio broadcasts,
so Mr
Kamran and the rest of the so-called scholars keep going on doing
the work of foreigners by repeating the myths and untruths).
Mr Kerman accuses "Shahollahi"s of revering Reza Shah yet he reveres
in the same manner "Saint" Mossadegh, who by his own
admission made mistakes. In fact if I were to take a Western
selfish view of politics and ask What did he do for me? and treat
history with hindsight as Mr Kerman, I would have to
conclude
that
Dr Mossadegh did enormous damage to Iran.
Dr Mossadegh made a mess of the
oil nationalisation process and caused a substantial economic
loss through the loss of our shares in BP. This was a
long-term
as well, not to mention his stubbornness and bypassing of parliament.
So he may have been a saint but he was a failure in the end, playing
haplessly into the trap set by the Imperialists.
I have faith in the new Iranian generation. They could not
care less for this type of bickering. But the one thing which does
worry
me is that we have not completely given up revering the
dead. We continue to build icons. If I were to give any
advice as someone outside to the young people struggling for freedom
it would be to
shed icons of the past. They should look for someone of their generation
who knows what they are going through.
Despite its pretensions and use of embroider Persian, Mr Kamran's
piece is remarkably naive in its view of history: 2nd Parliament
was good, Shah was bad, Modernists working within the system were
bad, anyone educated on the right was bad, all of them agents of
Imperialism, "Saint" Mossadegh was the only good person
ever, his followers good etc). Moreover there is simply no allowance
for the decisions made within the historical circumstances.
There is not choice but to write and fight these prejudicial and
imbalanced views of history (for which WITH HINDSIGHT I do blame
the rule of Pahlavis because we do not know any better). By the
way ISNA has an interview with Akhound Kashani's son who
is a doctor of law in Tehran -- another interesting attempt at
revising history (Shah=Bad/British Agent, Mossadegh=Bad/British
Agent, the other Akhounds=Not as good, Kashani=Best ever).
If there is a god: please save us from ourselves!!!
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goodbye to spam!
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