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Democracy after elections may encourage change in Iran — Kadivar
 A successful transition to democracy in Iraq would increase pressure for change in Iran, a leading Iranian clerical dissident said on Wednesday. Mohsen Kadivar, whose views have earned him time in jail, also urged Iraq not to follow the Iranian model of granting ultimate power to a senior cleric. "I think the Iraqis can make what we wanted to create but were unsuccessful: a real Islamic Republic," he said in an interview. "By that I mean a republic with Islamic values, democracy with Islamic values ... (where) the clergy has no special rights."
| It seems to have been done in Kurdistan. Maybe it'll work in Iraq as a whole... |
"If they have a good government with Islamic democracy and without any special or divine rights for the clergy, the Iranian government won't be able to justify its situation to the Iranian citizens," the 45-year-old philosophy professor added.
| Which is why they're determined it's going to fail... |
His views echoed those of Iran's leading clerical dissident Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who told Reuters last month that Iraq should learn from Iran's experience and not allow clerics to take a political role for which they are unqualified. After the Islamic revolution toppled the US-backed Shah in 1979 Iran erred by adopting the system of velayat-e faqih, or "rule of the Islamic jurisprudent," whereby a senior cleric, or supreme leader, was accorded ultimate power over all state matters, Kadivar said. "We replaced a kingdom with an Islamic kingdom," he said.
| Goddammit. Every time I get on a role, expounding on how Islam is incapable of anything but rule by holy men and convoluted, self-contradictory logic, we have a day like today: Bahraini women demonstrating for their rights, Egyptians demonstrating against hereditary rule, the Kuwaitis on a serious Bad Guy hunt, the Kurds making the pseudosecular Turks look like conniving, brutal bastards, and Danish imams telling the Hizbis to piss off. Then we have this guy pop up, taking his life in his hands to express his opinions, and the opinions actually make sense and hold out hope for Iran, of all places. Good luck to him, and I will now attempt to return to my practice of actually thinking, rather than just reacting to the continuous steam of hackneyed cupidity and vitriol that's the normal day in the Muddle East. |
Posted by: Fred 2005-02-05 |
