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Iran: A potential ally under US
fire
By Vahid Isabeigi
Recent
developments in Iran have once more revealed the
enthusiasm of the Iranian populace to integrate with the
outside world and terminate the enduring marginalization
the country has endured for the last 20 years. In fact,
this ground-breaking change, which is being spearheaded
notably by students and young people, has gained a
totally new dimension with the willingness of students
to unconditionally embrace secular democracy (an
expression which has been the nightmare of the ruling
elite).
In fact, given the nature of the ruling
class in Iran, and the country's location in an
embattled area where such notions have long been seen as
heresy, it is astonishing how the Iranian population
has, by and large, come out overwhelmingly in favor of
the separation of church and state. This general
viewpoint, if realized, could well prompt a substantial
change in a region where secularism has been losing out
recently to notions of government based on Islamic law
(eg, in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Persian Gulf emirates
and even the more-or-less democratic states of Turkey
and Pakistan).
None of this should come as a
surprise; the 20th century had, for Iran, indeed been
characterized as a long pursuit for secular democracy.
This pursuit began with the constitutionalist movement
of the early 20th century, which, to restrict the powers
of the Shah, succeeded in having a written constitution
embedded in government and establishing the foundation
of a parliament. This movement adopted Western-style
democracy as its model in a region where, even today,
democracy is an avant-garde concept. That this movement
did not succeed totally is largely a result of the
machinations of the ruling Shah (along with the
indifferent stance of the United States).
The
aspirations of Iranians for democracy reached the level
of culmination in the early 1950s in the wake of the
popularly elected Iranian Prime Minister, Mohammed
Mossadeq, whose bona-fide aim was the establishment of a
pluralist and well-functioning democracy to address the
needs of all Iranians. Nonetheless, he and his policies
became the victim of Cold War machinations. Mossadeq was
deposed by a stratagem orchestrated by the British and
Americans, who objected to his contentious
nationalization of the Iranian petroleum industry. In
the context of the times, this policy was equated, in
the West, with communist tendencies despite the
democratic nature of the government. Mossadeq's
deposition and the resurgence of the monarchy marked the
end of the fleeting mid-century experiment with
democracy in Iran.
However, the stultification
of the monarchy, coupled with the exponentially growing
popularity of democracy worldwide and in Iran, became
pivotal in mobilizing the masses against the autocratic
rule of the Shah. However, the repercussions of this
Iranian Revolution proved very deleterious, since it
ended with the replacement of one kind of dictatorship,
a monarchy, by another, a theocracy.
After more
than two decades, the populace is again disillusioned;
as a matter of fact, Iran is endowed with one of the
youngest populations of the world, with an estimated 70
percent of the population being under the age of 30.
Today’s students of Iran, in whose minds democracy has
further been crystallized, are congregating in masses on
most campuses of the country to complete the actions of
their grandparents: the procurement of democracy.
In fact, as is evident, nowhere in the Middle
East does such a democracy-oriented movement appeal to
such large numbers. Unlike their parents and
grandparents, however, today’s students have learned not
to fall for the threadbare blandishments of the ruling
elite. Moreover, the persistent stance of the students
in stressing the separation of religion from state is
quite noteworthy, especially in the context of today's
Middle East.
A conscientious look at the news
attests to this highly paradoxical fact: when the
remnants of the Taliban were being ransacked for
terrorists in Afghanistan, not a single Iranian was
found amongst the thousands of members of the cabal. The
numbers of members from such countries as Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, Pakistan, various Persian Gulf emirates and even
secular Turkey (all, incidentally, staunch American
allies) was substantial.
Despite the negative
connotations about Iranians rampant in Western media,
the people of Iran were among the first to demonstrate
their sympathy for the United States after the September
11 attacks by holding candle-lit vigils. Moreover,
despite what the regime has been instilling into the
minds of Iranians with respect to the United States, a
recent poll conducted by an independent institution
revealed the fact that three-fourths of the Iranian
population endorsed rapprochement with the United States
unconditionally. This is illustrative of the fact that
Iran arguably boasts the most pro-American population in
the Muslim world.
Despite the incessant American
intervention throughout the 20th century and President
George W Bush’s recent characterization of the country
as part of the "axis of evil", the Iranian people have
consistently displayed sympathy for the United States at
every available opportunity - and they have done so
despite the threat of vigilantes who have many times
brutally suppressed such agitations.
And yet,
the only thing Iranians have attained in pursuit of
democracy has been an upsurge in discrimination and
further humiliation. For instance, personalities like
Abbas Kiarostami, who is reputed to be one of the most
proficient film directors in the world with a multitude
of international awards, and Googoosh, the
pre-revolutionary pop icon in Iran who made her first
debut recently in Canada after a silence of two decades,
have born the brunt of the discriminative American
policy in their efforts to promote their art. Their
applications for visas were spurned by the American
embassy. As a result, Googoosh, who was scheduled to
give a concert addressing thousands of fans who had
already purchased tickets, had to cancel her concert,
while Kiarostami, who had been invited to the US as a
guest, declined the invitation in protest.
President Bush, in his addresses to Iranians,
many times spelled out his infinite support for the
establishment of democracy and stressed that Iranians
were yearning for the same rights and freedoms enjoyed
by the citizens of the developed world. However,
although in theory he seems to be in favor of the
re-emerging democratic movement in Iran, in practice he
has demonstrated his ineptitude at differentiating
between ordinary Iranians and the ruling elite.
The recent crackdown by immigration officials in
southern California on people of Middle Eastern descent,
in which hundreds of Iranian-Americans have been
apprehended for alleged links to terrorism (or, more
precisely, for simply being Iranian), is indicative of
Bush’s lack of knowledge about Iranian-Americans, who
have successfully contributed to the prosperity of
America. There are more than 2 million
Iranian-Americans, an ethnic group that comprises
successful artists, engineers, doctors, lawyers and
professors. With respect to the alleged links to
terrorism, the trends have demonstrated the fact that,
both in Iran and abroad, Iranians are the most lukewarm
and uninterested when it comes to fundamentalism or
fundamental tendencies.
In conclusion, given the
precarious political and social situation in Iran, which
is characterized by a remarkable skirmish between
students and the ruling elite, the US should not follow
the discriminative policy of targeting ordinary
Iranians, who are fighting for the acquisition of
democracy, a painstaking task that has proven quite
mammoth and bloody over the decades. In fact, by
alienating common Iranians, George W Bush may be
alienating the very ones who could prove the US's
greatest ally in the Middle East. Let's hope it's not an
irreversible mistake.
(©2002 Asia Times Online
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