Free At Last, Free At Last, Thank God Almighty, They Are Free At Last!
America just voted the FIRST ever black president into the White House, but as we see in the reactions of the people from all over the world, Barack Obama is not only the president elect of the United States of America, he is identified as the President of the World!
Why? Because not only African Americans and every single person in the world who knows anything about America's Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s see in him the realization of Martin Luther King's DREAM, not only the entire population of the African continent see in him the vindication of their ancestors who were treated as subhuman possessions of the White English "gentlemen" savagely stealing and taking them to the New World as slaves, but also because almost ALL Muslims (the ordinary, God fearing, moderate Muslims who have no terrorism on their minds) identify with Obama and call him "One of Us"!!!!!
Simply by electing Barack Hussein Obama, America has just closed up all terrorist recruiting shops for AlQaeda, and ALSO, it empowered freedom seeking, pro-democracy reformists in Iran to stand up to the likes of Ahmadinejad!!!!
Contrary to what most anti-Obama Republicans tried to do by scaring the American people of this great man's middle-name, it is PRECISELY due to his Muslim roots and his middle-name that actually the world's extremist, fundamentalist, radical hate-mongers who don't even make up 0.1% of the Muslim world's population of 1 billion, will NOW have no leverage or credibility with their anti-American rhetoric!
Why? Because NOW the uneducated Muslim masses (who are very similar to the HATEFUL uneducated racist masses in America's deep south, among them 2 neo-Nazis who actually tried to assassinate him), the ones who have bought their leaders' nonsense about the dysfunctional nature of Western Democracy, can just point to America's PROOF (i.e., Obama's victory) to the contrary NOW and say: "but if that's NOT really a democracy, then how could a black man with a Muslim middle-name get elected to the highest office?"
This is a historic moment not only for Americans, not only for African Americans, not only for minorities in the United States of America, but for every SINGLE Human Being all over the world who EVER had a dream, ever dreamed of one day tasting the sweetness of Justice and Freedom, and every single person who has ever had the Audacity to Hope for a better tomorrow!
I for one (a Persian Canadian "Citizen of the World"), in the morning after that HISTORIC night, when I woke up on November 5th, in a +15 degrees Celsius Spring-like weather (not a normal occurrence in Canada!!!!!!!), had ONE song playing over and over again in my head, and that's the song that I remember (as a 9 year old wide-eyed exuberant kid, watching the beginning of the formation of a brand new Republic on the FIRST ever Referendum Day in Iran of 1979) being played on the radio, the song that our entire nation was singing all day long on that glorious day:
Doctor Mohammad-e Mossadegh, Mossadegh, mobaarez-e bozorg, Mossadegh, mobaarez-e bozorg! dar bahaar-e azaadi, jaaye Mossadegh khaali, jaaye Mossadegh khaali!
I guess my subconscious went back to that song because I was thinking about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and how the Americans must be missing him now! So, I started to sing that same melody with these words:
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. King, revolutionary man, Dr. King, revolutionary man! It is the "Spring of Freedom", we wish Dr. King was here, we wish Dr. King was here!
I really couldn't contain myself! I started imagining that today is the day that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s spirit up in heaven, together with the spirits of Mahatma Gandhi and Patrice Lumumba and John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln and many many more heroes of HUMANITY, are all having a celebration up there with God Almighty!
Then I thought of our Iranian heroes and martyrs who must also be invited to that bash, like Amir Kabir, Dr. Mossadegh, Mohandess Bazargan, Dr. Shariati, Dr. Chamran, Ayatollah Taleghani, ..., and then I sighed, thinking sadly that probably it won't be too long before this group of heavenly angels will have other heroes like Nelson Mandela and Teddy Kennedy, and Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, and Dr. Ebrahim Yazdi joining them up there in that garden of Eden.
I'm glad President Mandela and Senator Kennedy have already gotten the recognition and honoring that they deserve from their people, but can Iranians be allowed to honor such revolutionary heroes as Dr. Yazdi and Ayatollah Montazeri before they leave us behind?!
November 5th 2008 is the day HOPE is born in the world, and I think it has the potential to be the day that Iranians' "Spring of Freedom" in 1979 finally gets a chance to breathe its fresh air into the wet soil of humanity and see flowers of FREEDOM bloom!
It can be the day the Iranian revolution can begin anew, to reform itself, to reorient itself in the direction that its martyrs and founding fathers had in mind, and the freedom loving people of Iran can start to HOPE that they can join their brothers and sisters around the world in screaming:
Yes We Can!
God Bless Barack Hussein Obama!
God Bless Seyyed Mohammad Khatami!
Long Live Freedom and Democracy for ALL!
Now, ...
In the spirit of seeking FREEDOM for Iranians, I would like to refine some of the predictions I made in my previous post here (about Iran's 10th presidential elections next June):
I still maintain that President Khatami will not nominate himself (because Iranians need him as their 3rd Supreme Leader one day), but also I still stand by what I read from that picture of him standing between Dr. Aref on one side and Dr. Zarif on the other! I still think he wants to endorse Dr. Aref as the Reformist candidate for presidency next year and recommend Dr. Zarif as his potential Foreign Minister. But what I would like to tell President Khatami is this:
Sir, I understand that in our Eastern culture, AGE and seniority is a very important virtue to be highly considered in all positions of power, which is why you will think of Dr. Aref or Dr. Kharrazi before you would ever recommend a 48 year old young man like Dr. Zarif for the job of president, but remember Dr. Martin Luther King's expression:
The Fierce Urgency of Now!
This was the reason Teddy Kennedy endorsed a 47 year old Barack Obama, and now that he is the leader of the FREE world, with whom Iran would like to one day have those "grand bargain" negotiations (about which you faxed George W. Bush in 2003), don't you think Iranians should send a counterpart who UNDERSTANDS America, understands the western culture PERFECTLY, is already considered by American politicians and scholars as "the MOST brilliant diplomat in the world", is called by western journalists "a suave looking Iranian who speaks with a flawless American accent", and has already made personal connections with President Obama's future cabinet members, such as Chuck Hagel? (the second picture in the page below)
http://american-iranian.org/multimedia/pictures/events/aic_june_25th_event/album0.html
Dear President Khatami,
PLEASE endorse Dr. Javad Zarif for president, PLEASE ask all your friends (like Mr. Rafsanjani and Karroubi and others) to endorse him, and make sure ALL Iranian voters know of the AMAZING service he has done to his country by saving Iran from the war mongering intentions of John Bolton, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney who said on the eve of Iraq's invasion:
"Everybody wants to go to Baghdad, but REAL men want to go to Tehran"!
Dear Iranian Youth,
Let's start a grassroots online campaign for Dr. Zarif, (something like the www.barackobama.com) and URGE him to run, URGE the elder leaders of Iran's pro-democracy movement to endorse him, and organize the ground operations needed to get ALL Iranians on board and have them learn about who this great man is!
I wrote many blogs on my.barackobama.com over the past 21 months, and underneath them all I always wrote "Obama All The Way", I will now dedicate that slogan to Dr. Zarif!
Zarif All The Way!
Showing posts with label Khatami. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Khatami. Show all posts
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Advice to Freedom Loving Iranians!
As someone who was born in Iran, lived through the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and then left that world behind in pursuit of her own personal freedoms, now having lived more than half of her life in the West, I think I have the advantage of being able to look at the situation in Iran from the proverbial "10000 feet view"!
I left Iran 21 years ago, and at that time, the fundamentalist hijackers of our revolution had managed to completely steal the Republic from its Founding Fathers. The future of Iran seemed as bleak and hopeless as it did in its worst periods in history, such as the Ghajar era, the Mongol invasion, the 2 centuries of silence, ...!
Of course, a lot has changed over the past couple of decades in Iran, and most significant of them is the Reform Movement of former President Khatami in 1997. However, the pace of CHANGE has been very slow and the success of REFORM has been hindered by the fact that unfortunately Iran's fundamentalists of the far-right have continued to maintain and exert their power and influence on the society more than any other group in that country's political spectrum.
Now a days, when I read about Mr. Khatami daring to extend a hand of cooperation to the once vilified Freedom Movement of Iran, and how he is trying to reintroduce the notion of "liberalism" to the Iranian public, it all seems hard to believe for me, and I'm shocked but quite pleasantly so!
However, I shouldn't perhaps be too shocked, because thanks to the new approach that seems to be taken by the rational, pragmatic, and smart liberals in America, such as Barack Obama and his friends and supporters (young and old), I think the Theocratic Dictatorship of Iran can see no other choice but to save itself through major and REAL reforms and course-correction! Hence, their need for the REAL revolutionaries of 1979! Thank God there are also rational, pragmatic, and smart people even in the clerical class of Iran!
I have been writing (on Persian Paradox = Dr. Ebtekar's weblog) about my Utopian "dream" of a push by the Assembly of Experts to revise the wisdom of keeping "Supreme Leadership" as a lifelong term, and instead, to change it to a finite term of 25 years, at the end of which there can be celebrations and hoopla and fanfare to commemorate and recognize the achievements of the outgoing Supreme Leader, and passing the torch of our revolution's "Principles" to the incoming Supreme Leader!
Why do I have this dream???
Even though I was only a kid during the revolution, but I do remember somethings and I'm sure people like Dr. Ebtekar who were young adults and university students at the time, and actually involved in the revolution, MUST remember the slogans and the ideals and principles that their fellow revolutionary students sacrificed their lives for:
"Independence, Freedom, Islamic Republic"
Let's look at these slogans carefully:
Independence? What did PEOPLE mean when they shouted for Independence? Iran was not a colony, it wasn't under the occupation of any other country, so why was it so important to DEMAND "Independence"??? They were talking about political, technological, and economic INDEPENDENCE from the Shah's Western masters (i.e., United States of America, United Kingdom, and Israel)!
Freedom? That one was much more obvious to most people, due to the despotic and dictatorial nature of the Shah's rule which made it impossible for people to exercise their basic and inalienable rights and freedoms, like Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press, Freedom of Opinion, ...
Islamic Republic? This one of course has TWO parts to it, and I would like people like Dr. Ebtekar and other politicians in Iran to pay attention to the origin of this term! Let's remember 1979!!!
What were PEOPLE referring to when shouting and screaming these slogans in front of the bullets of Shah's Imperial Guards? What were they expressing as their HOPES and ASPIRATIONS for the future generations as they were taking their last breaths, wounded and on the verge of ascending to heaven, lying in the pool of their own sacred blood? Those martyrs (shaheed) of the 17th Shahrivar who gave their lives for this revolution of which you have now become custodians, what did they mean when they said "Islamic Republic"? Did they simply mean "Islamic rule"? Were they referring to the sermons of Ruhollah Khomeinin in Najaf about "Velayat Faghih"????!!!! Did those young university students mean to say we want to just replace the Shah (king) with a Faghih (priest) and that's how we hope to insure our country's Independence and Freedom????!!!! I'm sure you know the answer to that!!!!
Maybe there were a number of clerics involved in the revolution, who were inspired by Ruhollah Khomeini's sermons about an Imam-Ali-like regime in which social justice could be promoted in the style of that Imam's moral teachings, but the youth, the majority of the revolutionary activists who GAVE their LIVES for that revolution did not learn their principles from those sermons, they learned and were inspired by the theories put forward by Ali Shariati, Morteza Motahhari, Jalal Al-e-Ahmad, Ayatollah Taleghani and other such Islamic intellectuals who had written books and given speeches at the Hosseyniyeh Ershah for years, had been taken to jail, had been tortured by the Shah's secret service (SAVAK), and had a REAL moral authority to speak of the principles of the REVOLUTION they were inspiring in the youth! Ayatollah Khomeini was in France by then! Safe and Sound!
So, what did that two-word term of "Islamic Republic" really mean? What did those Founding Fathers have in mind when they specifically said Islamic REPUBLIC?????
We had a draft of what they meant in the original constitution which scholars such as Dr. Beheshti, Ostad Motahhari, Prime Minister Bazargan and others wrote in the first few months of 1979, in that glorious "Spring of Freedom"! It was a REPUBLIC based on the rule of law, by the PEOPLE, of the PEOPLE, and at the same time, under the moral guidance of Islamic laws, headed by a high priest (=Faghih) called "Supreme Leader" as a supervising arbiter of its moral direction! It was NOT meant to become an "Islamic Hokoomat" (Islamic Rule), but an "Islamic Republic", in actuality, and not just in name!
Now, with respect to these 3 slogans and principles of the revolution, where is Iran after almost 30 years? Do people feel that they have "Freedom of Speech", "Freedom of Opinion", "Freedom of Press", "Freedom of Religion", "Freedom of Expression"????? Do people feel that they are totally "Independent" of both Western AND Eastern influence in their political, technological and economic standing in the world? and most importantly, is this "Islamic Rule of the Clerical Class" what people had bargained for 30 years ago? Is what Iran has right now, truly a REPUBLIC? Do people vote freely and elect their representatives according to what they know of them? or according to what the clerical class allows them to know? Are presidents and members of the Parliament allowed to express opinions and put forward agendas that are not 100% in agreement with ONE doctrine and ONE alone, which is that of the "Supreme Leader"? Then what does the title of president even mean? If the policies of the regime are set by the "Supreme Leader", then isn't the president only a slave to those policies? Isn't the Parliament bound by the policies of ONE and only ONE person alone???? Isn't this more reminiscent of the Pahlavi monarchy than what any of those martyrs of 17 Shahrivar ever dreamed of as they took their last breaths on earth hoping that their bloods could pave the way for a better society in which there was:
Independence, Freedom, and Islamic Republic?
The beauty of the Reform Movement headed by former president Mohammad Khatami, is that these short-comings are recognized!!!!
So, according to my Utopian dream, ... if the next president of Iran (anyone BUT Ahmadinejad) manages to make that "grand bargain" deal with President Obama within the first term of his presidency, and therefore allowing Mr. Khamenei to claim HIS own leadership's success in demanding respect for Iranians and achieving Iran's technological and political INDEPENDENCE, then it can be packaged (by the pragmatic and realistic ones in the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Council) as this:
1) Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini achieved the first goal of our revolution = Islamic Republic
2) Seyyed Ali Khamenei achieved the second goal of our revolution = Independence
3) Seyyed Mohammad Khatami is the only leader who can pave the way for us to achieve the third goal of our revolution = Freedom
At this very crucial time in history, all Iranian reformists and Freedom-seeking leftists, with the backing of Mr. Khatami and Rafsanjani, NEED to prove to the world that Iran is on its way toward that Utopia! You need to demonstrate the non-monolithic nature of Iran and the MODERATE and peaceful characteristic of an IRI regime that can be possible within the next 9 months!
Good Luck!
I left Iran 21 years ago, and at that time, the fundamentalist hijackers of our revolution had managed to completely steal the Republic from its Founding Fathers. The future of Iran seemed as bleak and hopeless as it did in its worst periods in history, such as the Ghajar era, the Mongol invasion, the 2 centuries of silence, ...!
Of course, a lot has changed over the past couple of decades in Iran, and most significant of them is the Reform Movement of former President Khatami in 1997. However, the pace of CHANGE has been very slow and the success of REFORM has been hindered by the fact that unfortunately Iran's fundamentalists of the far-right have continued to maintain and exert their power and influence on the society more than any other group in that country's political spectrum.
Now a days, when I read about Mr. Khatami daring to extend a hand of cooperation to the once vilified Freedom Movement of Iran, and how he is trying to reintroduce the notion of "liberalism" to the Iranian public, it all seems hard to believe for me, and I'm shocked but quite pleasantly so!
However, I shouldn't perhaps be too shocked, because thanks to the new approach that seems to be taken by the rational, pragmatic, and smart liberals in America, such as Barack Obama and his friends and supporters (young and old), I think the Theocratic Dictatorship of Iran can see no other choice but to save itself through major and REAL reforms and course-correction! Hence, their need for the REAL revolutionaries of 1979! Thank God there are also rational, pragmatic, and smart people even in the clerical class of Iran!
I have been writing (on Persian Paradox = Dr. Ebtekar's weblog) about my Utopian "dream" of a push by the Assembly of Experts to revise the wisdom of keeping "Supreme Leadership" as a lifelong term, and instead, to change it to a finite term of 25 years, at the end of which there can be celebrations and hoopla and fanfare to commemorate and recognize the achievements of the outgoing Supreme Leader, and passing the torch of our revolution's "Principles" to the incoming Supreme Leader!
Why do I have this dream???
Even though I was only a kid during the revolution, but I do remember somethings and I'm sure people like Dr. Ebtekar who were young adults and university students at the time, and actually involved in the revolution, MUST remember the slogans and the ideals and principles that their fellow revolutionary students sacrificed their lives for:
"Independence, Freedom, Islamic Republic"
Let's look at these slogans carefully:
Independence? What did PEOPLE mean when they shouted for Independence? Iran was not a colony, it wasn't under the occupation of any other country, so why was it so important to DEMAND "Independence"??? They were talking about political, technological, and economic INDEPENDENCE from the Shah's Western masters (i.e., United States of America, United Kingdom, and Israel)!
Freedom? That one was much more obvious to most people, due to the despotic and dictatorial nature of the Shah's rule which made it impossible for people to exercise their basic and inalienable rights and freedoms, like Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press, Freedom of Opinion, ...
Islamic Republic? This one of course has TWO parts to it, and I would like people like Dr. Ebtekar and other politicians in Iran to pay attention to the origin of this term! Let's remember 1979!!!
What were PEOPLE referring to when shouting and screaming these slogans in front of the bullets of Shah's Imperial Guards? What were they expressing as their HOPES and ASPIRATIONS for the future generations as they were taking their last breaths, wounded and on the verge of ascending to heaven, lying in the pool of their own sacred blood? Those martyrs (shaheed) of the 17th Shahrivar who gave their lives for this revolution of which you have now become custodians, what did they mean when they said "Islamic Republic"? Did they simply mean "Islamic rule"? Were they referring to the sermons of Ruhollah Khomeinin in Najaf about "Velayat Faghih"????!!!! Did those young university students mean to say we want to just replace the Shah (king) with a Faghih (priest) and that's how we hope to insure our country's Independence and Freedom????!!!! I'm sure you know the answer to that!!!!
Maybe there were a number of clerics involved in the revolution, who were inspired by Ruhollah Khomeini's sermons about an Imam-Ali-like regime in which social justice could be promoted in the style of that Imam's moral teachings, but the youth, the majority of the revolutionary activists who GAVE their LIVES for that revolution did not learn their principles from those sermons, they learned and were inspired by the theories put forward by Ali Shariati, Morteza Motahhari, Jalal Al-e-Ahmad, Ayatollah Taleghani and other such Islamic intellectuals who had written books and given speeches at the Hosseyniyeh Ershah for years, had been taken to jail, had been tortured by the Shah's secret service (SAVAK), and had a REAL moral authority to speak of the principles of the REVOLUTION they were inspiring in the youth! Ayatollah Khomeini was in France by then! Safe and Sound!
So, what did that two-word term of "Islamic Republic" really mean? What did those Founding Fathers have in mind when they specifically said Islamic REPUBLIC?????
We had a draft of what they meant in the original constitution which scholars such as Dr. Beheshti, Ostad Motahhari, Prime Minister Bazargan and others wrote in the first few months of 1979, in that glorious "Spring of Freedom"! It was a REPUBLIC based on the rule of law, by the PEOPLE, of the PEOPLE, and at the same time, under the moral guidance of Islamic laws, headed by a high priest (=Faghih) called "Supreme Leader" as a supervising arbiter of its moral direction! It was NOT meant to become an "Islamic Hokoomat" (Islamic Rule), but an "Islamic Republic", in actuality, and not just in name!
Now, with respect to these 3 slogans and principles of the revolution, where is Iran after almost 30 years? Do people feel that they have "Freedom of Speech", "Freedom of Opinion", "Freedom of Press", "Freedom of Religion", "Freedom of Expression"????? Do people feel that they are totally "Independent" of both Western AND Eastern influence in their political, technological and economic standing in the world? and most importantly, is this "Islamic Rule of the Clerical Class" what people had bargained for 30 years ago? Is what Iran has right now, truly a REPUBLIC? Do people vote freely and elect their representatives according to what they know of them? or according to what the clerical class allows them to know? Are presidents and members of the Parliament allowed to express opinions and put forward agendas that are not 100% in agreement with ONE doctrine and ONE alone, which is that of the "Supreme Leader"? Then what does the title of president even mean? If the policies of the regime are set by the "Supreme Leader", then isn't the president only a slave to those policies? Isn't the Parliament bound by the policies of ONE and only ONE person alone???? Isn't this more reminiscent of the Pahlavi monarchy than what any of those martyrs of 17 Shahrivar ever dreamed of as they took their last breaths on earth hoping that their bloods could pave the way for a better society in which there was:
Independence, Freedom, and Islamic Republic?
The beauty of the Reform Movement headed by former president Mohammad Khatami, is that these short-comings are recognized!!!!
So, according to my Utopian dream, ... if the next president of Iran (anyone BUT Ahmadinejad) manages to make that "grand bargain" deal with President Obama within the first term of his presidency, and therefore allowing Mr. Khamenei to claim HIS own leadership's success in demanding respect for Iranians and achieving Iran's technological and political INDEPENDENCE, then it can be packaged (by the pragmatic and realistic ones in the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Council) as this:
1) Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini achieved the first goal of our revolution = Islamic Republic
2) Seyyed Ali Khamenei achieved the second goal of our revolution = Independence
3) Seyyed Mohammad Khatami is the only leader who can pave the way for us to achieve the third goal of our revolution = Freedom
At this very crucial time in history, all Iranian reformists and Freedom-seeking leftists, with the backing of Mr. Khatami and Rafsanjani, NEED to prove to the world that Iran is on its way toward that Utopia! You need to demonstrate the non-monolithic nature of Iran and the MODERATE and peaceful characteristic of an IRI regime that can be possible within the next 9 months!
Good Luck!
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