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Iranian Philosopher Says Iranâs Educated Youth Embracing Freedom and Justice
If Iranâs democratic reform movement has a house intellectual, itâs Abdolkarim Soroush. .... Although he once worked for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiniâs revolutionary government, he now advances a powerful argument for democracy and human rights -- and he does so drawing not only on John Stuart Mill and John Rawls, but also on the deepest intellectual traditions of Shiâite Islam. Religion must remain aloof from governance, he is fond of saying, not because religion is false and would corrupt politics, but because religion is true and politics corrupts it.Soroushâs work is heady, abstract stuff. And yet, its hold on throngs of young Iranians -- hundreds of students show up to the typical Soroush lecture -- is so strong that Iranâs ruling mullahs consider him a threat, and pro-clerical militias regularly harass and beat him when he speaks in his native land. ..... The success of the reform movement, says Soroush, will be measured not in parliamentary seats but in attitudinal shifts, as Iranâs educated youth embrace such notions as "freedom, justice, political participation, and the rights of man." ... Initially, Soroush believed in the democratic and spiritual promise of the revolution. ... In 1980, scant months after revolutionary forces had closed Iranâs universities, Khomeini invited Soroush to return to Iran as a member of a committee of seven scholars who would revise the countryâs higher education curriculum. At first Soroush was enthusiastic, working with his colleagues to develop courses that would educate students about their Islamic heritage and traditions. But as the revolutionary government exerted increasingly dogmatic control over the committeeâs work, Soroush soured on the project. He didnât approve of separating men and women in the classroom, forcing rituals on students, restricting the subjects professors could teach, or marginalizing the sciences or social sciences. ... He resigned in 1983, never again to work for the government. Instead, he would become its critic. ... In `92, Soroush established the Faculty of History and Philosophy of Science. It was Iranâs first program of its kind. At the same time, his philosophical writings on Islam and democracy began to circulate through an eclectic intellectual journal called Kiyan. In these writings, Soroush directly challenged the political power of the clerics, even advocating that they cease working for pay so that they would no longer be corrupted by worldly interests. "They must remain lovers rather than dealers of religion," he explains in an e-mail. With these and other writings, Soroush became a professor with a following.... Soroush, who considers Khatami a friend, believes the president squandered the hopes reformists had vested in him. .... But Khatami was a cautious ruler, refraining even from criticizing such obvious abuses as the beating of students and closing down of newspapers, Soroush laments. In July 2003, Soroush issued an open letter to Khatami in which he pulled no punches. "The present generation as well as generations to come must never forget this ominous message of religious despotism," he wrote. .... The slide toward despotism had advanced past the point where Khatami could stop it, though he might have done so earlier, in Soroushâs view. .... In his seminal Kiyan essay, "The Expansion and Contraction of Religious Knowledge," Soroush argued that the essence of religion, which is immutable, eternal, and sacred, can be separated from religious knowledge, which is mutable, relative, and historical. The implications of this simple theory were far-reaching. The interpretive work of the clergy, therefore, was not itself divine; rather, the pursuit of religious knowledge was human and historically situated. Religious ideology, like religious knowledge, also stood apart from religion itself as something ephemeral and, in Soroushâs view, dispensable. .... Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-03-16 |
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