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Feature: 'A President should create enemies'
Recently an article was published in Iran's press entitled 'An Ideal President' by Ali Motahhari. The article is worth pondering upon from various aspects. Ali Motahhari is the son of the prominent ideologue of the Islamic Republic, Morteza Motahhari who was assassinated in the first months after the 1979 Revolution. Hadi Bolouki, the staff of Iran's reformist daily Etemad has written an article analyzing Motahhari's remarks. His article is entitled 'A President Should Create Enemies'. The following are parts of Bolouki's article:
 Ali Motahhari believes that an ideal Iranian president has to firmly believe in the notion that Islam is a global power which does not need borrowing from other economic powers of the world, for Western economy and democracy are both rejected and unreliable.
| That's why Islamic societies are so productive, and we in the West always have to steal technological advances from them, buying anything more technologically advanced than a claw hammer from them. Democracy, as we all know, is a Jewish plot, foisted upon the world. The so-called "laws of economics" are overridden by the Koran, and can safely be ignored... |
Now I would like to ask him that based on which Islamic teaching we should avoid using others' experiences?
| 'Cuz if it didn't happen to Mohammad, it didn't happen. Everybody knows that. |
Accepting the power of Islam is not equal to the negation of the economic might of socialist and capitalist systems. Can Motahhari who says that the economic rules of Islam are enough for running a society, help me with a source or a reliable book on Islamic economics over which all Muslim figures have reached a consensus? What is the pattern of Islamic economics? Has the Islamic Republic of Iran's economic performance in the past 25 years been a symbol of Islamic economics? If yes, in which sector?
| The rubble sector. The rubble produced by the Bam earthquake puts to shame the amount of rubble produced in similar intensity earthquakes in other, less Islamic countries, like Mexico, Taiwan, and California. I'd also point out that the corpse counts from Bam are orders of magnitude higher. Why are the decadents states of the West (and the East) incapable of producing the heaps of deaders that are common in Islamic natural disasters? Even Turkey, caught up in the heresies of Kamalism and subject to regular earthquakes, is incapable of achieving numbers approaching those recorded departing this vale of tears in Iran. |
Why is Motahhari ignorant of the fact that the general economic principles of Iran's Constitution have been inspired by the world's common and already-tested economic rules? Although the Islamic Republic has tried to give an Islamic color to all its aspects by adding an Islamic suffix to everything, one can hardly consider the Iranian economy as an Islamic one.
| Adding the Islamic suffix seems to have made the economy fairly ineffective, though... |
The absolute negation of western democracy is neither possible nor useful. Who can deny the fact that on many occasions western democracy and civilization have served human societies.
| Ayatollahs deny it all the time. The principle is that societies need to be ruled by pious men with turbans and automatic weapons, with roving bands of fascisti keeping a contented Islamic populace in line. The ideal world government involves a caliph, seated on brocade cushions, wearing a jeweled turban and surrounded by bearded holy men, ruling the entire world, his coffers full of glittering gold provided by submissive dhimmis. On holy days, he can appear on his balcony, with Nubians fanning the flies away, and toss a few handsful of that gold to the cheering, beturbanned populace. Iran is only the first step in achieving that dream, an example to the rest of the world of what to expect. |
Ali Motahhari says that an ideal president should be able to create enemies.
| Now, I'd say that the ideal president should be willing to create enemies if necessary, but shouldn't go out of his way to do so. There's a good case to be made for pragmatism vs. warm milk G.W. Bush vs. Jimmy Carter but I can't see the case for truculence. Bob Mugabe and Kim Jong Il aren't what I'd call good role models for the world's governing classes, though I'd also add that the ayatollahs aren't, either. |
If Motahhari could take a look at the problems of Iranian society and the number of its present enemies as well as the isolation of Iranians at world level and the issue of brain drain, then he would perhaps give a second thought to his description of an ideal president. Doesn't he really know that the weak management system and the contradictory policies of different governmental sectors have made many detach themselves from the system? How is it that certain people believe that the key to the survival of the Islamic Republic is the isolation of allies and provocation of enemies?
My guess is that the Islamic Republic is following a path similar to the one Saddam Hussein was following: taking upon itself the trappings of a superpower without building the economic and civil base to support it. That's why the fascination with nuclear weapons power, long-range missiles, this or that group of "special" revolutionary guards, and the involvement in the Wonderful World of Terror. And it's also why their economy sucks, the unemployment rate's high, and 41,000 people can be killed in a single earthquake what money doesn't go into the ayatollahs' pockets and subsidizing new mosques and other religious institutions (basically the same thing) goes into projecting power, rather than into bettering the lives of the citizenry. This makes sense from the Fascist (true meaning of the word) point of view of Fearless Leader and his henchmen, as the citizenry's there to serve the state, rather than the state being there as a reflection of the citizenry. |
"An ideal president has to be well aware of his legal authorizes within the framework of the Constitution and has to be a defender of civil rights." says Motahahri. But according to Iran's Constitution, what are the authorities of the president?
| For startsies, he's two steps down the power ladder, behind Fearless Leader and behind the Expediency Council. He's basically a mid-level manager, responsible for keeping the majlis in line... |
If as an example a president can win 90% of the votes, will he be granted the same authorities or not? Is the president allowed to tackle the violation of other state organizations? As the one in charge for the security of its citizens, is the president allowed to replace the police head of even a small town? So through which means can a president defend civil liberties? Does Ali Mortahhari know that President Khatami won more than 80% of the votes, but he is not given even 20% of his legal authorities?"
| He may have noticed, but he prob'ly doesn't care, since Khatami's not of his party. But a lot of that fault lies with Khatami and his warm milk personality. If Rafsanjani was president, even with 50.0001 percent of the vote, the Islamic Republic's presidency would be wielding a lot more power. But Khatami doesn't have his own bands of blackshirts roaming through the cities, armed with everything from sticks to automatic weapons, willing to do battle with his rivals. |
Motahhari notes that a good president has to be interested in cultural issues and should try its best to correct peoples' social behavior even their driving. He says that the Hashemi Rafsanjani administration under the pretext of development ignored justice and describes Khatami's government a cultural invader.
| "I mean, if he had his way, we'd hardly kill anybody!" |
I would like to ask Motahhri who is really in charge of cultural affairs in Iran? Who draws up the general principles in this field? The theological schools? Universities? Friday prayer leaders? The state Broadcasting Organization or the press? Which one of the mentioned sectors is supervised by the president and which one of them feels obliged to find an answer to its misdeeds once questioned? This is while after a quarter of a century since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the rates of divorce, accidents, unemployment and addiction are all on the rise while respect for civil rights has declined."
| Could have something to do with a deadlocked government, whose real priorities lie with power projection rather than with the state of the national economy. But more likely it has to do with a contempt for and impatience with the gummint as a whole, both the hardline black turbans and the warm milk "reformers" who haven't been able to reform anything. Khatami's a Karensky, not a Lenin. Rafsanjani's a Bukharin, not a Stalin. But don't feel too threatened. The Papal States languished in backwardness, ruled by holy men, for hundreds of years, Italia's black hole of poverty and misery. If it drops the silly great power pretensions, Iran could enjoy a similar run. |
Motahhari who refers to the Iran-Europe negotiation as a black spot in Khatami's record has to be reminded of the fact that the general policies of the system are drawn up somewhere else rather than in the presidential palace. Motahhari notes that it's better for the Iranian president not to be a cleric and to justify his assertion he says that clerics are responsible for guiding people and propagating Islam, however as a president you should handle executive tasks and thus you are always prone to criticisms and protests, so your image may be tarnished.
| At least we can agree on something, if for different reasons... |
Therefore it's better for the clerics to keep away from such posts which may hurt their status!! According to Motahhari it's only the clerics whose status has to be safeguarded. Doesn't it mean that for Motahhri the non-clerics should serve the clerics as a scapegoat in times of hardships? Where does this discriminatory approach come from?
| That's a reflection of the fact that the citizenry exists to serve the state, and the clerics are the embodiment of the state. |
In all one can say that Ali Motahhri's article is full of contradictions and flaws and is in direct contrast with the Iranian Constitution and the realities in Iranian society.
Posted by: Fred 2004-12-13 |
