SECULARISM

Respect other people ideas

I think to change other people ideas by force is not right. We should accept the people as they are. In Iran we have many real problems, like jobs, education, production, so we should work together and solbe these problems. We should respect other people way of life and idea. Amir Ghiassi

To "I Wonder"

Dear “I wonder”,

Thank you for commenting on my response to Mr. Nooriala’s piece. I also read Abarmard’s comment, and your response to him. (By the way, thank you for your support Abarmard!) Your question “Is this ‘own brand of modernity’ the same as oxymoron non-existent ‘Islamic democracy’ and ‘Islamic human rights’?” is an important one, and as such deserves a long and thorough answer. However, I won’t be able to give you a complete answer here in a few lines. What I’ll do instead is to try to scratch the surface, and here it is. 

Let me just take the case of “Islamic democracy”. The answer to your question depends on what you mean by Islam and also by democracy. By Islam, do you mean its long history of strong commitment to values of equality, community, and social justice; or you mean its harsh and oppressive practice in Iran during the last three decades?  Also, what do you mean by democracy? Do you mean “liberal democracy”? If so, then do you want to emphasize the latter’s commitment to civil liberties (the “liberal” part in liberal democracy), or you want to underscore its value of formal equality (the “democracy” part)? It all depends on which aspects of these two concepts you want to emphasize.

If by Islam you have the recent practice of the regime in Iran in mind, and by liberal democracy its “liberal” part, then you are right: “Islamic democracy” is an oxymoron. However, if you take Islam’s commitment to equality, community, and social justice, and democracy’s commitment to substantive equality and community (which are the values affirmed by the original and true meaning of democracy), then you would be wrong: “Islamic democracy” is not an oxymoron. To have the question answered thoroughly, it will require a deep philosophical-historical discussion of both democracy and Islam, and of course, a lot of time and energy on my part, and a genuine and inquisitive attitude on your part. Hopefully we can do this at a different time.

Now, about my notion of “own homegrown brand of modernity”. My point is that we ought to take the values that we cherish in Western modernity and try to search for some elements in our 2500 years of history of civilization that would help us develop our own set of values that would match or surpass their Western counterparts, and at the same time have Iranian-Islamic roots, flavors, contents, and forms. The following may sound a bit simplistic, but would work as a good example to illustrate what I have in mind. We can take a few elements from Cyrus Cylinder, Ferdosi, Saadi, Haafez, and Moolavi (and from other sources of Iranian cultural heritage as well), and with a little bit of Iranian creativity and imagination, develop our own notion of the dignity of the human individual, and from there work our way toward developing our own concepts of rights, social values, political culture, etc. As long as the new values that we end up developing are anchored in our own civilization and history, traditional forces have to reckon with, and eventually accept, rather than dismissing them.

One thing that constantly points me toward our own cultural heritage is my experience of living in the West. After long years of familiarity with Western civilization, I have come to see the internal inconsistencies, shallowness, and superficiality of some, if not most, of its values and ideal, including political ones. Most of these values are rooted in materialism, exploitation of nature, disregard for deeper meanings in life, and unabashed egotism. I am inclined to think that we would be better off in Iran if we developed our modern values out of our own cultural constructs, a good number of which are rooted in spiritual, egalitarian, and communal values.

Let me ask you a question. Did you get the gist of my comments on Mr. Nooriala’s piece? My argument there was that knowing the experience of Iran under Shah and his father, imposing or artificially transplanting Western values and models on Iran would backfire again. My other argument was that given the power of political Islam in Iran, trying to export these concepts and models to Iran once again (assuming that we disregard lessons of our history) will lead to civil war and bloodbaths. Putting it differently, exporting these models, concepts, and values, as they are, is not within the realm of practical politics, unless you are willing to resort to violence and force, and face the same predicament over again.

My solution is that we need to direct our energies toward understanding and engaging our history of civilization and tradition. This would help us develop concepts and values that would help us go forward without doing violence to our tradition as Shah and his father did. Finally, I argued that this may take a decade or two, if not longer, and we need to be patient, positive, and remain engaged.

Of course, it is much easier to dismiss all of these and instead take the easy road. That is to say, to live in denial of the past, take the higher moral ground, remain idealistic and “pure”, and hope that somehow or magically we would be able to transplant Western political ideals and models in Iran for the second time around. This attitude will not get us anywhere. We will still remain stuck with our tradition. The fact is that we cannot throw it away. If we don’t engage our past, we will not be able to mature as a civilization and enter the future with a healthy attitude because our presence will remain as tormented as it is now.

To finish, I want to use the following analogy from psychology. Suppose you have a troubled past. You might be able to psyche yourself into believing that the past did not exist, or succeed in burying it deep in your consciousness. You might also succeed in making yourself believe that you are an entirely different person now. This may work for a while. However, your past will come back to haunt you, over and again, until you find yourself in the grip of a breakdown. (This is exactly what took place in Iran in 1979.) To become a healthy person, you must deal with your baggage from the past, and develop your new identity through confronting the baggage and coming to terms with it. No matter how horrible your past may seem to you, you must anchor yourself in it by finding, and further developing, those elements that you regard as positive and worthy of salvaging.

Human rights and democratic rule have universal meanings

Iran is neither Saudi Arabia nor Sweden but respect of basic fundamental human rights are respect of basic fundamental human rights (a.k.a. freedom) and democracy or rule of majority where the right of minority are fully respected and preserved mean the same universally and do not require any unique brand or culture. Well of course if you want to take off your clothes and run naked on the streets and claim that is your basic human right to express yourself, you will be arrested in the most advanced countries as well because you are violating other people's rights by forcefully subjecting them to your naked body!

The late Shah also claimed that Iranian culture/tradition always needed/believed in/demanded a father figure (the person of the Shah) or shepherd as translated in Khameneii's dictionary, to watch over them, and for them to look up to and to blindly follow.

There is no way for anybody to know what "the majority of demands" are in Iran, since there is no freedom of expression in Iran (or as they say freedom after expression) and no independent survey can be conducted. By the same token, nobody could automatically assume either that the majority FIRMLY wanted continuation of theocratic rule by going and voting in millions (if we believe all the figures) for Khatami in 1997.

I wonder

Before getting too much in to the meaning of the quoted comment, let's start from the top. Democracy is not the same as Freedom. They have politicize the word specially during Bush, democracy is based on majority demands. In Saudi Arabia, if democratic, some social restriction won't be lifted, by the traditional forces. Hamas was democratically elected by the majority, so was Hezbullah.

Civil Society and modernity is the key to this debate, arguments and hopefully change (for better) the cultural modifications that comes with modernity. If not copied, they need to rise within the society. That's the meaning of "own Brand", the formation that naturally arises from the majority of demands of the society to be satisfied by the government/system. These would be home grown and have embedded with them the concerns about the changes of the culture along with changes of tradition.

Hope this helps. 

Own brand of modernity?!!!!

"You can help develop our own brand of modernity by trying to engage and argue with these forces, rather than attacking or demonizing them. "

Is this "own brand of modernity" the same as oxymoron non-existent "Islamic democracy" and "Islamic human rights"?

I fully agree with Behzad Majdian

The general problem with Mr. Nooriala's stance and people who follow that ideology is the lack of reality in their arguments. The best analogy that I can put Mr. Nooriala's point of view in perspective is the game of chess.

Suppose that you are looking at the board and see your a few moves a head, a chance to mate your opponent. Two things here needs to be considered:

1-Can you clearly identify the opponents moves?

2-What are the proper steps to take to achieve the winning pattern if the moves end up defeated?

Mr. Nooriala disregards both considerations above and focuses in check mate without the logic of the game. Replace the word game with the realities of culture and social structure of Iran. A mistake that Mr. Majdian has also noted existed by Reza Khan and his son.

The structure of the social foundations of Iran is still traditional and in many aspects religious. Mr. Nooriala believes that if you have a good product, people will buy it if the price is right. I would argue that politics is different and to implement an ideology that directly affects the social behavior and ultimately culture, one must first clarify the historical and present realities and move from that point to form a hypothesis (solutions).

With all due respect to Mr. Nooriala, I found Mr. Majdian's comments more informative and real than the piece above.

Iran, Islam, and Secularism

Mr. Nooriala,  Here is my two cents: 

1. Your discussion of the concept of “civil society” puts too much emphasis on the views of ancients, which seems to me are more relevant to the discussion of “citizenship” than “civil society”. What is missing is a thorough treatment of how moderns have viewed the concept. Your discussion completely ignores Hegel’s view which, in a way, undergirds most, if not all, of modern concepts of civil society. What you also ignore is the crucial point that the demand for civil society in Europe accompanied the rise of modern forms of property, and hence capitalism (starting with mercantile capitalism and continuing with the rise of industrial capitalism). The new propertied classes (mainly rich merchants and industrialists) needed the rule of law, including a constitution, in order to protect their properties against the absolute power of rulers and kings who only respected the feudal form of property. Those who raised the demand for “civil society” wanted to carve up a social space that was outside of the domain of influence of the “political society”, or “the state”. In the 18th and 19th century Europe, this meant the protection of non-feudal forms of property, constitution, freedom of trade, rule of law—and alongside them, political freedoms. As it turned out, the civil society that eventually came into being, ended up falling under the sway of market forces as they developed new relations of production and new market-based political institutions and values, including the liberal-democratic form of government which is but a market-driven form of democracy. The United States is a glowing case in point where market forces dominate politics, education, and cultural or intellectual productions.

2. It was unfortunate that the concept of “civil society” gained currency in Iran during Khatami’s presidency. As far as the history of civilization in Iran is concerned, “civil society” is an alien concept for us, and perhaps this is one reason why the project failed. (This is not to say that we are culturally incapable of having a social domain outside of the control of government. What I mean is that we need to develop our own equivalent concept that can be planted in our past experiences, e.g., experiences of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution.) Another reason why the demand for civil society failed was that at the time, there were no secular social or economic strata or forces powerful enough to lead the civil society movement, and exert leadership on the social space (i.e., civil society) that was supposed to be freed from the domain of influence/control of the Islamic regime.

3. As far as philosophical discussions are concerned (especially in political philosophy and political theory), there lies a dark and dense forest between concepts of “civil society” and “secular society”. Your discussion seems to enmesh them, or rather, move too quickly from one to the other.

4. In theory, I am all for a secular form of society and government for Iran. Ideally, I wish that we could establish a secular social democracy or a semblance of direct democracy in Iran (something similar to Swedish or Swiss models). However, in terms of practical politics, or what is achievable in the foreseeable future, I find your avid advocacy of an aggressive form of secularism for Iran a bit disturbing. To me, what you demand appears so unrealistic that it could only be introduced to Iran through violence and brute force.

5. Islam in Iran has a strong political presence as it has become conscious of its power since 1979. The social and political strata that represent Islam in Iran have organized themselves into a powerful set of ideological, intellectual, and military institutions and forces, and will not give up their power easily to make way for what you advocate. I don’t see how you will convince these forces to give up their power and accept your secularist agenda, unless you are counting on a massive Islamic-cleansing, and bloodbaths, something similar to what happened in Algeria in the 1990s. A secular regime cannot take root in Iran naturally or freely in the foreseeable future, unless one plans to establish it artificially and violently, risk a civil war, and in the process, massacre tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of stubborn supporters of the Islamic Republic who will resist secularism violently, and fight you to the bitter end.

6. The only natural way to bring secularism to Iran is to allow the dialogue between forces of tradition (represented by political Islam) and forces of modernity to unfold, and to follow its natural course that re-started with the rise of Khatami to power in the late 1990s. I say “re-started” because this dialogue actually began during, and after, the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906. However, Reza Shah, and later on his son, put an end to the dialogue by suppressing traditionalist forces, while imposing a distorted and artificial form of modernity on Iran. That is to say, they brought Western technology, science, clothing, fashions, life-styles, cars, music, discos, etc. while brutally denying to Iranians democracy and freedom of expression, both of which could have helped us reconcile modernity with our own history of civilization and tradition. (What Shah and his father introduced to Iran was artificial and alien, and that is why they had to do it through force, i.e., dictatorship.) We all know the rest; the traditional forces did not go away or disappeared. Rather, they came back with fury and thunder, and took their revenge; and this is why we have the Islamic Republic of Iran now.

7. In case of the West, I am assuming you know, the dialogue between forces of tradition (represented by the church and feudalism) and forces of modernity took a few hundred years of hard struggles (waged in all fronts and in all realms) to bear fruit. This dialogue lasted until the rise of the secular liberal-democracy (which you seem to be very fond of) in the late 19th/early 20th century. It was in this very long process that Christianity eventually accepted to give up its direct hold on political power, and agreed to play second fiddle. In the case of Islam in Iran, the reformation process began in the Khatami era, and is continuing now, albeit at a slower pace and in harsher circumstances under Ahmadinejad. We should feel very lucky if the ongoing dialogue in Iran ends up bearing fruit in the next decade or so.

8. My sense is that you are impatient, and your advocacy of an unyielding form of secular liberal democracy for Iran is too out of touch with reality of Iran to be taken seriously. Moreover, the direction and tone of your arguments and language are not helpful at all. You come across as wanting to obliterate your ideological enemies (forces of tradition) as you pour scorn and insult on them left and right, and show unwillingness to grant them any sort of legitimacy or respect. Shah and his father made the same mistake that you are making now. The tradition forces will not go away just because you ignore or insult them. You, and the rest of us, have to deal with them in order to develop our own homegrown brand of modernity, including our own concept of civil society.

9. Copying Western models of development, modernity, and their concepts (e.g., “civil society”), and imposing them on Iran will backfire, as they did with Shah and his father. You can help develop our own brand of modernity by trying to engage and argue with these forces, rather than attacking or demonizing them. I suspect that you have too much disdain, and downright too much hate, for them to consider my suggestion—I hope I am wrong.

10.   To summarize, whether we like it or not, political Islam will exercise immense influence over politics in Iran for the next few decades. It is here to say for a long time. It is a formidable force that needs to be dealt with judiciously and carefully. We can accept this as a fact, and try to channel the dialogue in a positive direction and help speed it up in order to make our own way into modernity. Or, we can deny this fact altogether, and find our intellectual self-satisfaction in being steadfast and pure secularists and idealists—we can also take pride in promoting our unrealistic political ideas and programs that we have photo-copied from experiences and realities of the Western civilization.

  (My apologies in advance for not editing this. I wrote it in hurry as I was pressed for time.)    

For the unity of mankind

دشمنی بین ادیان و مذاهب و گروه ها و اقلیت ها و اقوام ریختن آب به آسیاب غارتگران بین المللی است. با سلام نمیدانم یادت هست که گفته سعدی را که میگفت ای که پنجاه رفت و در خوابی شاید این چند روز را دریابی. بهر حال فکر کردم شاید تجربه های من برای جوانتر ها راهی و خدمتی باشد. من داستانهای زیاد واقعی نوشته ام که نمیدانم کدام آنها میتوانند برای مردم مفید باشند. همانطوریکه نوشته ای زندگی مردم بهم در شرایطی خیلی شبیه هستند. مثلا دانشجویان طبقه متوسط مشگلاتشان نظیر هم دیگر است. و یا مردم زحمتکش و کارکن دارای مشگلات مشابه ای هستند. ولی بطور کلی سیستم موجود در دنیا مردم را دو دسته میکند یا بی تفاوت باش و کناره گیر و یا ظالم . آنانی هم که برای مردم میخواهند خدمت کنند با زور به کناری گذاشته میشوند. این است که تنها راه رهایی داشتن گروه های بیشمار مردم دوست و دانشمند است. یعنی اکثریت مردم بایست به زره دانش و بینش مجهز باشند. زیرا این همه دین و ملیت و تاثر های ملی و مذهبی و قومی و گروهی را چطور میتوان یک کاسه کرد. مثلا بایست صفات مشترک و مواردی که مردم با هم توافق دارند انها را مورد توجه داد و نه فرضیاتی که مردم را از هم دور میکنند. مثلا بین بی دین و با دین این مطالب میتواند مشترک باشد مهربانی با هم دوستی باهم بد بودن دزدی و فساد همکاری و همگامی انسانیت و خوبی اعتدال و همکاری و عدل و مساوات. احترام به عقاید دیگران و ارج نهادن به دانش و میبینی که میشود هزاران نقطه مشترک بین بی دین و با دین پیدا کرد. بعد ادیان را مورد مطالعه قرار داد و نکات مثبت و مشترک آنان را برجسته نمود وآنان را به همکاری دعوت نمود.

ولی اینکه مثلا شیعه بگوید راه من درست است و دیگران به راه خطا میروند و یا مسیحی بگوید که من راه درست را پیداکرده ام و دیگران راه اشتباه میروند

ولی متاسفانه سیستم حاکم بر جهان این را نمیخواهد آنان میخواهند نفرت و انزجار حکمفرما باشد تا بتوانند محصولات مخرب خود را بفروش برسانند. وگرنه روشن است که یک بچه کلیمی کلیمی میشود و یک بچه مسلمان مسلمان و یک بچه هندو هندو و همه آنان فقط برای یک اسم است که از هم جدا میشوند وگرنه در انسان بودن همه یکسان هستند. بعبارت دیگر اگر ما اصل مشترک را که همان خوبی و انسانیت همکاری و همراهی است برجسته کنیم و عوامل فرعی را که چونگه بایست عبادت کنند کنار بگذاریم و به شخص واگذار نماییم تا اندازه ای مشگل حل میشود.

مثلا اگر اسلام سعی کند که همه مردم را مسلمان کند و مسیحی سعی نماید همه مردم را مسیحی مسلم است که راهی دور و دراز و پر خطر و مشگل اتنخاب شده است.
در حالیکه اگر سعی کنیم مردم را همان طور که هستند دوست بداریم و نه اینکه سعی کنیم آنان را مثل خود نماییم مسلم است که مشگل حل شدنی است.

مثلا در آفریقا رابطه بین زن و مرد بسیار آزاد تر از اروپا و آمریکا است بدین معنی که مرد علاقه خود را به زن و یا دختر مورد نظر ابراز میکند و دختر و یا زن با او رابطه بر قرار میکند که این در فرهنگ آمریکایی که روابط محتاج به شناخت و رفت آمد و رستوران رفتن و معاشرت است نوعی فاحشگی است و یا رابطه بین دختر و پسر که بعنوان دوست پسر و یا دوست دختر ابراز میشود در فرهنگ خاورمیانه نوعی فاحشگی است. یا هندو ها بایست تمام ثروت خود را دودستی به داماد بدهند و این خانواده دختر ها هستند که به خواستگاری پسر ها میروند.

اگر قرار باشد یک فرهنگ و یا یک تمدن را با معیار های فرهنگی دیگر اندازه گیری کنیم مسلم است که راهی به خطا رفته ایم و اثرش جز بد گویی و نفرت و جدال چیزی نخواهد. بود. در خاطرات آتا تورک خواندم که سلطان عثمانی جدال در میان مردم کشور بزرگ عثمانی را به نفع خود میدانست و به آن دامن میزد حتی او نفرت و جنگ بین ترکان را دوست میداشت. و این راست است که حکمرانان غیر مردمی همیشه از این جدال و نفرت سود میبرند و چون مردم بخود مشغول میشوند لاجرم وقتی برای کنترل غارت و سو استفاده آنان ندارند و این ها از قانون تفرقه بینداز و حکومت کن سو استفاده مینمایند.

همانطورکه اسکندر گفته است که کارهای بزرگ را به اشخاص پست واگذار کن که همیشه میتوانی آنان را کنترل کنی. متاسفانه این قانون هم اکنون در جهان ما بکار برده میشود و با دامان زدن به اختلافات جزیی مردم کم شعور را مشغول و خود سرمایه آنان را غارت میکنند. تنها راه رهایی از این تله داشتن دانشگاه های مستقل و احترام به عقاید دیگران و بردباری و تساهل و قبول اینکه حتی قوانین هم مطلق نمی باشند و با زمان و مکان قابل تغییر میباشند.

جوانانی که از یک شکست عشقی به خودکشی دست میزنند و یا به دامان اعتیاد پناه میبرند و یا انان که در اثر ناملایمات زندگی به مرگ و نیستی پناه میبرند و برای زنده بودن و زندگی کردن خود عزا میگیرند همه محصول همین سیستم کذایی هستند که تخم بد بینی و فساد و بی تفاوتی و گرگ بودن و ظالمانه رفتار کردن را بما آموزش میدهد. یک دادگستری بی تفاوت و یک لشگر قاضی و بازپرس بی مصرف و بی تفاوت چگونه میتوانند عدل و داد را مراعات کنند. سرگرد شهربانی که بی غرور تقاضای دریافت وجه نقد رشوه دارد چگونه میتواند قانون عدالت را رعایت کند و یا قاضی گرسنه دادگستری که چشم به دستان رشوه دهنده دوخته است میتواند عدل را مجری باشد. یکی میگفت ایرانیان بجای تولید و کار و یگانگی به جنگ مشغولند جنگ بین مذاهب و مکتب های سیاسی و قومی و گروه بندی های متفاوت بی آنکه هیچ برداشت علمی از این گروه ها داشته باشند. جنگ آنان در حقیفت جنگ نام های مختلف است.