The Iranian Reform Movement by Majid Mohammadi

Author:Majid Mohammadi
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9783319909691
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Accommodation, Assimilation and Compromise

Accommodation and assimilation have not been on the agenda in contemporary Iran. This has made the prediction of future political events almost impossible.36 There is no primary, quarter-final and semi-final in Iranian political games to give a sense of the results in advance. By looking at the experience of the rise and super-ordination of clerics, every social group perceives the monopolization of power to be an easy task. While the system of the allocation of status and power and the relations of superordinate to subordinate have not been temporally fixed and are not controlled through the laws and the mores, the everlasting conflict generates further antagonism and hostility. More homogenization of the polity after the 2005 presidential election, which was widely said to have been rigged,37 has made the situation more volatile.38 Hence, the adjustment that could hold the antagonistic forces in balance has failed. Accommodation that is fragile and easily sidelined cannot be reached in a situation where every group is ready to get rid of others—a veritable circle of wolves.

The authoritarian camp also killed off the hope of assimilation that was supposed to be based on interpenetration and re-reading traditions and ideologies. This camp does not care about social fusion, in which persons and groups acquire the memories, sentiments and attitudes of other persons and groups. They can be incorporated into a common culture by sharing their experience and history. By shutting down the independent press, the authoritarian camp closed the public sphere and public discussion. As a result, the incorporation of ethnic, religious and non-religious groups into the wider society through assuming the common Iranian cultural heritage was interrupted. The results were the branching out of student organizations into more subdivisions and factions, the depoliticization of a large section of students and the extensive suppression of the Islamic student associations by the government; these are direct effects of the personalization and monopolization of power in Iran.

Compromise is almost absent from the Iranian polity. Each discourse is sealed off and the only interaction pursued by the authoritarian and totalitarian discourse is war. Islamic-democratic and liberal democratic students are not even allowed to invite activists and politicians to universities and have discussions in university halls. The leader has a representative in each university whose function is to control the students and faculty members and instigate propaganda. These representatives usually veto any activity that is not in accordance with the dominant ideology of the government. They usually close and ban Islamic student associations that choose their leaders democratically and have a democratic agenda, appointing loyal students to establish new associations under the same name.

The overall result is a cauldron of ideas and opinions that cannot coexist in mutual tolerance. Totalitarians are driving a vehicle without a steering wheel in the wrong direction, endangering everyone in the country.39 As a result, Iran has been top of the list of countries that export scientists and scholars to the West. The number of students who committed suicide rose in the 1995–2005 period.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.