Let there be light

Iran’s Dark Ages


Balatarin
Share/Save/Bookmark

Let there be light
by Omid Parsi
13-May-2008
 

The Dark Ages have just begun in Iran.

In European historiography, the period from the fall of the Western Roman Empire (AD 476), until approximately the middle of the 11th century, is often known as the Dark Ages.

The fatalistic tendency of political theorists in the Dark Ages was to view all political power as granted by God and rulers as unaccountable to any human being (although they were accountable to God). Rulers were above the law, and everyone else was obliged to obey them.

The king was sacred, and most political theorists in the Dark Ages believed in unlimited submission to government.

Kings were considered Christ on earth.

With the fall of Rome also came a growing importance in the role of the pope. Leo the Great (Leo I) stands out in bringing the papacy into a leadership force of the Western world. The pope was expected to wear many hats, including not only spiritual leader, but also statesman, administrator, and scholar. During Leo I´s papacy is the first time the title Pontifex Maximus (Supreme Pontiff) was used. In Latin this is translated to “highest bridge maker” and Roman emperors had previously used this title to signify their role as high priests in the Roman religion.

Similarly with the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the idea of “absolute guardianship of the Islamic Jurists” (Velayat-e Faqih) gained influence and was advanced by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's leadership of the Iranian Revolution.

This doctrine, which now forms the basis of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, maintains that Guardianship should include all issues for which Prophet of Islam and Shi'a Imam have responsibility, including governance of the country.

The constitution of Iran calls for a faqih, or Vali-ye faqih (guardian jurist), to serve as the “Supreme Leader” of the government. The title “Supreme” Leader (Rahbare Moazzam), is often used as a sign of respect; however, this terminology does not exist in the constitution.

The Supreme Leader is the ultimate head of the Iranian political and governmental establishment, above that of Iran's president. According to the constitution, he has absolute authority over all individuals and in all public matters including internal and foreign policies, control of the army Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and control of state broadcast.

He has the power to overrule the decisions made by publicly elected politicians.

In this doctrine, it is believed that the Vali-ye faqih is the representative of the Hidden Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi (the 12th and last Shi'a Imam). So he has a divine right to ruling.

While the “spiritual virtues” and “status” of the Prophet and the Imams are greater than those of contemporary faqih, their power is not, because this virtue “does not confer increased governmental powers”. (Hokumat-e Islami or Islamic Government by Khomeini, p.62)

As it is evident, the Vali-ye faqih assumes the roles of not only spiritual leader, but also administrator, and scholar at the same time. And most importantly, he is also the king with the turban for the crown.

Iran has become the first nation-state in history to apply absolute Velayat-e Faqih in the government. “Guardianship” of the faqih in the Islamic Republic of Iran is represented not only in the Supreme Leader, who must be a cleric, but in other leading bodies, particularly the Assembly of Experts whose members must be clerics, the Council of Guardians, half of whom must be clerics, and the courts. Friday prayer leaders are appointed by the Supreme Leader as well.

The dominant political theories of the European Dark Ages and the premises of Iran’s present ruling establishment are more or less the same.

As the so-called divine rulers helped to destroy the Roman Empire and plunge the Western world into the Dark Ages, Iranian so-called divine rulers are doing the same with the Iranian nation.

During the Dark Ages in Europe, there was complete rule by the church and warrior elite, no human rights to speak of, and degenerate, and inhuman behavior. For human liberty, the period was indeed dark.

In Iran’s mullahcracy there is complete rule by clergymen and the commanders of the Revolutionary Guards Corps. Women are arrested for showing their hair or wearing make-up or colorful clothes and men are arrested for wearing their hair long. Young people are jailed or flogged for dancing together at house parties. People are fined for using satellite dishes.

People are stoned to death for having sex. An ayatollah issues a fatwa calling for the assassination of an author without any trial. It is only the organized hypocrisy that allows people to hold governmental posts. All pro-reform newspapers have been closed down. And there is no freedom of speech and press.

EVERY THING is just a show.

In the Western Dark Ages, the church bureaucracy, with the active cooperation of the imperial court, had seized complete control over education with a near-monopoly on literacy, and had formed the backbone of local government in much of the West; so the church could control people’s mind in terms of what to think and what not to think.

Intellectual development suffered from the loss of a unified cultural and educational milieu of far-ranging connections.

Ammianus Marcellinus, Rome's last great historian lamented that, “Those few buildings which were once celebrated for the serious cultivation of liberal studies, now are filled with ridiculous amusements of torpid indolence. . . The libraries, like tombs, are closed forever.”

Iran’s education system has become one of the most backward education systems in the world, which is busy killing the students’ talents. The people in power have established an education system that does not really educate the people and do not provide them the skills needed to find employment in the Information Age. It corrupts their mind so skillfully that the average time that Iranians spend for book reading is less than five minutes in 24 hours.

The most talented students who survive this system and go to university end up escaping to Western countries.

A year ago, the International Monetary Fund said Iran had the highest rate of brain drain of 90 countries it measured. According to the IMF more than a 150,000 of the best young minds in Iran are leaving every year. And the cost to Iran of not stemming this brain drain - one government estimate put it at nearly $40bn a year.

Mass purges at Iran universities happen in the name of Cultural Revolution to get rid of secular and liberal professors.

In Europe, Christendom lost the art of brick and tile making, of bridge building and public sanitation. A despotic theocracy did not want people to think or to examine the world about them.

Iran’s mass media especially the state television are strictly monitored to control people’s minds and fashion a not-think-at-all mentality. To tell the truth it has been very successful in doing so.

Intellectual life and critical thinking, like tombs, are closed.

Like the Dark Ages in Europe, the patchwork of petty rulers are incapable of supporting the depth of civic infrastructure required to maintain libraries, public baths, arenas, and major educational institutions.

The social effects of the fracture of the Roman state were manifold. Cities and merchants lost the economic benefits of safe conditions for trade and manufacture.

Many Shia Iranians have also left the country. While the revolution has made Iran stricter Islamically, an estimated “two to four million entrepreneurs, professionals, technicians, and skilled craftspeople (and their capital)” have emigrated to other countries. Partly as a result, the economy has not prospered in terms of inflation, unemployment, and living standards. Absolute poverty rose by nearly 45 percent during the first 6 years of the Islamic revolution and on several occasions the mustazafin have rioted, protesting the demolition of their shantytowns and rising food prices. Disabled war veterans have demonstrated against mismanagement of the Foundation of the Disinherited.

Other symptoms of the Dark Ages which can be found in present Iran include:

Abandonment of rule by codified law, disappearance of monumental architecture.

Reduced literacy, loss of knowledge, a rigid and hierarchical society with an immense and widening gulf between rich and poor, Simplification of representational art, Abandonment of earlier religious forms, Increase in intra-group violence, and reduced inter-regional trade.

Like the European dark ages, over the past 28 years in Iran there have been little advancement in science, math, or even art, a complete subsistence based economy, a suspension of progress, and a period of intellectual and cultural retrogression, and social decline.

Some call the dark Ages in Europe a “time of ignorance”, the blame for which is to be laid on the Christian Church for “placing the word of religious authorities over personal experience and rational activity”. Exactly the same is going on in Iran.

An annual poll commissioned by the British Broadcasting Corp. ranked Iran as the country with the most negative influence on the world.

However, all these cannot and must not be blamed on Christianity or Islam. They should be blamed on the people who used Christianity and are using Islam to legitimize and make “divine” their own rule.

We should remember that while these Dark Ages were traumatic and destructive, they were, as the English Catholic historian, Christopher Dawson, had earlier noted in The Making of Europe, the very foundation of European and Western culture and paved the way for the Renaissance.

It should not be forgotten that Iran had never experienced a theocracy and the ruling of religious people before 1979 as it is now. So the Iranians needed these years to get rid of the divine-right-for-ruling mentality once and for all.

It took Europe almost 600 years to pass the Dark Ages. In the view of the fact that Iranians are living in the information age and a time of easy communication, if they are going to pass their Dark Ages five times sooner than the Europeans did, they need at least a hundred years to see their Reformation and Renaissance.

Italian scholar Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) who created the concept of a Dark Age in the 1330s said:
“My fate is to live among varied and confusing storms. But for you perhaps, if as I hope and wish you will live long after me, there will follow a better age. When the darkness has been dispersed, our descendants can come again in the former pure radiance.”


Balatarin
Share/Save/Bookmark

 
default

swindler rulers

by ImTheKing (not verified) on Wed May 14, 2008 02:04 AM PDT

Aya midoonestid que Khamenei yek shabeh as hojatol-esslam be ayatollah tabdil shodeh. Dar in shab tamameh rishash-ro ham ringue seffid kardeh que be 'patriarche' shabih-sheh.

Ina vala be regimeshoon ringueh mazhabi zadand. Vali dar assl yeh mosht dictateur be tarzeh regime shoravi sabegh hastand. Be nazaram nemisheh regime felli iran ra be 'moyen age' Europe tashbih kard. Oon zaman mardoom chareh nadashtind va vassaelleh ertebati allan vojood nadasht.

Tool omreh in akhondayeh doroogh-ghoo ba noche-hashon messleh 'Mahmood khareh' kamtar as olgooyeh shoravishoon khahad bood. Khoda be hamamoon tooleh omr enayat koneh que akhareh inaro bebinim.


  •  
Ranapanah

just pointing out the mistakes in the article.

by Ranapanah on Wed May 14, 2008 01:38 AM PDT

You have used the constitution of Iran
to make a few points, although I'm under the impression that if that
constitution with all its possible flaws was actually executed in Iran,
we would all have been better off. However for the sake of the argument I will
use the constitution as well. I also have problems with many things you have
mentioned here, I do believe that Iran
is struggling but I don't think we are in a Dark Age, and I am going to
challenge some of the points you have made here to prove otherwise. In
addition, I am only challenging some of the points you have made here so not to
make this longer than it should be.

And to the people who just say "what a great article," Just because an article is written against the current government, you don't
have to wag your tail at it, you might want to think about it first.

If otherwise noted the quotes are from the article itself.

-----

”kings were considered Christ on earth"

"It should not be forgotten that Iran
had never experienced a theocracy and the ruling of religious people before
1979 as it is now."

I don't expect you to have read all history books, all of shahnameh, or
anything, I just expect you to have read maybe ten pages of shahnameh to
familiarize yourself with the term "far-e Izadi”, the kings were
actually the ones with "divine authority" as you call it.

----

"In this doctrine, it is believed that the Vali-ye faqih is the
representative of the Hidden Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi (the 12th and last Shi'a
Imam). So he has a divine right to ruling."

Article 5 of constitution of Iran:
"During the occultation of the Wali al-'Asr (may God hasten his
reappearance), the leadership of the Ummah devolve upon the just and pious
person, who is fully aware of the circumstances of his age, courageous, resourceful,
and possessed of administrative ability, will assume the responsibilities of
this office in accordance with Article 107"

Article 107-1 mentions how the leader is elected

Article 107-2 mentions that the Leader is equal with the people in the
eyes of the law.

Based on the constitution of Iran
the leader does not have a "divine right to ruling"

---

“Absolute poverty rose by nearly 45 percent during the first 6 years of the
Islamic revolution"

After any revolution business ties with different countries will be broken, this
would not allow for a growth in the economy. Now lets add A WAR to all that and
see how the economy will survive. America
itself has been in a war for only 5 years when it was the "most
powerful" nation and didn't have a recent revolution and its economy is
still suffering tremendously and I believe poverty has risen in this country.
Only in California 1000 houses foreclosed
everyday during the month of April.

---

"Women are arrested for showing their hair or wearing make-up or
colorful clothes and men are arrested for wearing their hair long. Young people
are jailed or flogged for dancing together at house parties. People are fined
for using satellite dishes."

"Abandonment of rule by codified law"

The arrests are made based on the "codified law”, now maybe first we
need citizens that respect the law who would challenge the law using a
legal path or we just need different laws. Although I still doubt that people
would respect the law then.

It’s just like when Americans call their cops pigs only because they are
arresting them when they break a law. I think we (Iranians) don't respect laws,
and don't say we don't do it in Iran because the laws are unfair, unethical, inhumane,...
because I can bet you all know more than one Iranian who breaks the law in
business, taxes, driving outside of Iran.

---

Now let’s go back to the education issue, because I don't know when
was the last time you went to Iran,
or went to a school in Iran,
or talk to students in Iran?
Even if it is 30 years since you left the country, you should at least take the
time to go to a university or a simple high school classroom in whatever
country you are in, because I assure you, it would open your eyes to some
facts.

I won’t even bother to compare the education system in united state and Iran
because that would just be an insult to both the students and the teachers in Iran.
I will only give you an example, after arriving in United
States I went to a high school and attended
a world history class were the teacher was the school's football coach who
didn't know where Iran
was. I expected a little more than that, seeing that I had just left a high
school class in a public school in Iran
where I had to explain the difference between socialism and capitalism, and the
history of countries involved during the cold war era and that was maybe 1
point of my grade.

Now lets just assume that you don't know much about the education system in Iran,
it is just a bit funny when you say

"According to the IMF more than a 150,000 of the best young minds in Iran
are leaving every year.” And then say our education system sucks. If
that's even one third of the educated young minds of the country and this has
been happening for just 10 years, we are looking at 4.5 million very
bright and educated people, who do become successful when they leave the
country.

Based on that, could you explain again how an educational system that has
trained 4.5 million bright minds is a bad one? That’s not to say the rest
might not be the "best young minds" but are still great.

------

And on the point that government is trying to keep people from getting
educated,

From the constitution of Iran:

"
Article 2- 5b
Sciences and arts and the most advanced results of human experience, together
with the effort to advance them further

article 3-2

Raising the level of public awareness in all areas, through the proper use of
the press, mass media, and other means.

article 3-3

free education and physical training for everyone at all levels, and the
facilitation and expansion of higher education

article 3-4
strengthening the spirit of inquiry, investigation, and innovation in all areas
of science, technology and culture, as well as Islamic studies, by establishing
research centers and encouraging researchers

article 21-1

create a favorable environment for the growth of woman's personality and the
restoration of her rights, both the material and intellectual

Article 50

the preservation of the environment, in which the present as well as the future
generations have a right to flourishing social existence, is regarded as a
public duty in the Islamic Republic. Economic and other activities that
inevitably involve pollution of the environment or cause irreparable damage to
it are therefore forbidden.
"

I just added article 50 because I thought it was a pretty decent law
and maybe if countries like USA and China had suck a law we would have had less
of an environmental problem.

---

It is after the revolution that volunteers have gone all over the country to
raise literacy. It is after the revolution that we have things like
International Book fair, Fajr Festival, Shahr-e Ketab, Farhansara, and increase
in interest in muesumes, art galleries, theater,and books and libraries.

All you have to do is compare movies that were made before the revolution to
the ones made after the revolution to see intellectual growth. I'm not a big
fan of Iranian cinema but to be honest pre-revolution movies pretty much just
suck. There are only a few good movies made before the revolution, but when you
compare that to the abundant of good movies made after the revolution we can
see when we were actually in the dark ages.

Or maybe you can just go to a bookstore in Iran,
stand in line for 10 min to be able to buy the book you want. No don't even go
to the bookstores, just ask random people where the closest bookstore is , or
what is the last book they've read, then see if older people read more than
younger people or visa versa. It is only after this revolution that you
have children philosophy books published that become bestsellers.

the lack of interest in reading books doesn't come from this
revolution , but it is after this revolution that more people are reading ,
more libraries are being built, and more authors are emerging, and more books are being published and bought.

Because I like to be just, I am going to say no this government has
done
some great things for education and raising awareness and creating
research
facilities. However, there is much much more to be done. Remember that
it wasn't this government that made us into a developing country. Now
it might not have done enough to develope the country but to say that
it hasn't done anything and has kept the country in the "dark ages"
is just not fair or true.


  •  
Mort Gilani

What Experience!

by Mort Gilani on Tue May 13, 2008 10:15 PM PDT

I am sick and tired of those who say Iranians gained experience from the Islamic Revolution.  There is not an iota of positive experience for Iran or Iranians from the revolution in 1979.  One does not have to set themselves on fire to realize how burning feels like.  Islamic revolution was a suicide by Iranians who thought they deserved to rule the world.

Now, it is gonna take decades to clean up the cultural garbage that has infected Iranian society after the Islamic Revolution


  •  
Jahanshah Javid

Correction

by Jahanshah Javid on Tue May 13, 2008 09:41 PM PDT

This article was written by Omid Parsi not Khorshid. My mistake. I had to reprint and copy comments front previous post. Sorry about this.


  •  
default

They' re last trace of Sunlight

by Monaa (not verified) on Tue May 13, 2008 09:37 PM PDT

...O chiefs and leaders! Why did ye cause this Mighty Nation to fall from the heights of its former glory, to pass from its place at the heart and center of the civilized world? Ye were well able to take hold of such measures as would lead to the high honor of this people. …. Did not this people once shine out like stars in an auspicious heaven? How have ye dared to quench their light in darkness! Ye could have lit the lamp of temporal and eternal glory for them; why did ye fail to strive for this with all your hearts?...O heedless one! Rely not on thy glory, and thy power. Thou art even as the last trace of sunlight upon the mountain-top. Soon will it fade away as decreed by God, the All-Possessing, the Most High. Thy glory and the glory of such as are like thee have been taken away, and this verily is what hath been ordained by the One with Whom is the Mother Tablet.


  •  
default

wowwww

by VATAN (not verified) on Tue May 13, 2008 09:36 PM PDT

"Iran’s education system has become one of the most backward education systems in the world, which is busy killing the students’ talents. The people in power have established an education system that does not really educate the people and do not provide them the skills needed to find employment in the Information Age".

THAT IS SUCH A LIE, COME TO THE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES IN AMERICA AND YOU WILL SEE THE MOST EDUCATED IRANIANS ARE THE ONES WHO WENT TO HIGHSCHOOL IN IRAN!!! PLEASE DONT EVER SAY SUCH A THING LIKE THAT


  •  
default

Excellent comparison

by mm (not verified) on Tue May 13, 2008 09:35 PM PDT

Excellent comparison. That is exactly what has befallen our country, the most debase, corrupt, immoral cast of characters have the lives of millions of people in their hands because they are brainwashed by demogouges and lunatics like Ahmadinejad. May we overcome this age of ignorance and inhumanity.


  •  
default

I really enjoyed your article .

by Tahirih 1 (not verified) on Tue May 13, 2008 09:34 PM PDT

You said it all especially this part:

It should not be forgotten that Iran had never experienced a theocracy and the ruling of religious people before 1979 as it is now. So the Iranians needed these years to get rid of the divine-right-for-ruling mentality once and for all.

Bahaullah told it over 150 years ago and no one listened ,He said:

BECAUSE of you the Apostle (Muḥammad) lamented, and the Chaste One (Fátimihs) cried out, and the countries were laid waste, and darkness fell upon all regions. O concourse of divines! Because of you the people were abased, and the banner of Islám was hauled down, and its mighty throne subverted. Every time a man of discernment hath sought to hold fast unto that which would exalt Islám, you raised a clamour, and thereby was He deterred from achieving His purpose, while the land remained fallen in clear ruin.

We needed to see their true faces and the depth of their corruption.

So to all my dear Hamvatanan, the light will be there and our homeland will be glorious.

Tahirih


  •  
default

It's all dark, bleak and hopeless

by Mehdi 1 (not verified) on Tue May 13, 2008 09:33 PM PDT

I'd say the only solution we have is to pray and hope that Bush and Cheney do go ahead with their plans and flatten Iran so that we can have some light. According to the writer, there is no other hope - wink, wink ;)


  •  
default

Let there be light

by Payam1979 (not verified) on Tue May 13, 2008 09:32 PM PDT

This is an absolutely remarkable describtion of the dark age in present Iran.
This is exactly the belief Ive had since I started to ask questions about what is going on in my country.
Since I've moved to the UK (to study)my english was not good enough to describe the present situation in my country for foreign people who have wrong stereo type of Iran and Iranians.
What you have said above is exactly and pefectly what I would say to them.
So I would like to spread your words under your name to everyone who would like to know more about Iran or have wrong opinions about my dear country which is suffering the bloody dark age in the bloody information age.

Kind regards

Payam


  •  
default

Iran will have its

by azadi55 (not verified) on Tue May 13, 2008 09:31 PM PDT

Iran will have its Renaissance too, eventually and gradually. One day all these religious so called leaders ,and fanatic followers, will be contained in a city like Qom just like the pope is contained in Vatican. And they can do whatever they like in there, while other people have the free will to choose and live their lives the way they like to. And in today's information age, this will not take centuries to accomplish. IRI is doing its best to censor all information outlets, like newspapers, internet, satellites, tv, books, and radio, cause they know access to free and unfiltered information is poison to their foundation.


  •  
« first‹ previous123