City boy

It’s always interesting to observe the opinion of someone who is a well known defender of the Islamic Republic (IR), now boasting about his defense of the IR in a conference at the Aspen Institute in Berlin.

Hossein Derakhshan (Hoder) - who has lost much face since the days when he got famous for popularising blogging in Iran - argues that Islamic Republic is legitimate, because in his weak argument, the main concern of the opposition is the human rights of Iran, which in his eyes are comparable to that of USA! This is not a surprise, as Khomeini and the other figures and supporters of the IR have previously said, and continue to say, that democracy as it is defined and seen by symbolic western countries such as United Kingdom and United States, is simply not in their interest.

Now to give that argument any credit, it is true that Bush and Blair acted against the wish of many of their people in their country in order to attack and/or stay in Iraq. However, there is little question about the fact that people there have had the freedom of expression and media exposing their feelings regarding such matters, for example the opinion of people about political parties and figures are well respected, and that’s why Blair is soon to be leaving the office with a party that is much less popular than when it first got to power. When was the last time there was a debate about any “wrong-doings” or less popular actions of head of the state in Iran, publicly? in the media? When was there allowed for large number of people to march against decision of a government without violent disruptions by the police?

Interestingly, Hossein chose his focus on the Patriotic Act and Abu Gharib. I am not sure which type of his readers he was trying to fool by saying that. You see, in a democratic society when there is a decision that law makers don’t like, they can actually change or limit it, which was the case with the Patriotic Act, and since the Act came in to power in October 2001, there have been many revisions to protect the civil rights, amending many of it’s points and powers. This is unlike the Islamic Republic which introduced strict barbaric laws when it came in to power, which took over 20 years until it was only debated by the parliament and the so called reformist movement! never mind the fact that in reality, most of the strict inhuman civil code never really changed and are still very much observed.

If that wasn’t enough, Hossein goes on further to legitimise IR, to say that the elections in Iran is something that many Arab countries don’t even have! This is an old one, when it comes to defending authoritarian regimes actually. Well let me ask you this, why should Iran, a country who has had 3 revolutions in the last 100 years be compared to any other country? An overview of the complexity in the Iranian’s thirst and search for democracy shows that it is a country that should be understood on it’s own and not compared to any other country.

If we want to compare, why not compare to Israel? The real “enemy” of the Islamic Republic, a country which IR calls illegitimate and does not recognise it. Isn’t it interesting that Israel is the only country in Middle East with a political system close to true democracy? In there we can find the gems of freedom of speech, media, religion, gender equality, etc etc. In fact, by reading that list anyone would find the comparison notable because those basic human rights are exactly the ones that are not found in Iran! Did we forget that Iran is also the biggest executioner of child offenders in the world?

Well dear Hoder, I want you to think hard and clear about this one - Don’t the people of Iran deserve all that? Which moral justification can you give to legitimise this regime that deprives the people from basic human rights?

technorati tags:Islamic Republic, Hoder, Hossein Derakhshan