Red Army Dreams

The article by Michael Ledeen ( Red Army Dreams) raises just a hypothesis (rather conspiracy theory) about Russian's support of Iran’s nuclear program , but it answers some important questions about Putin’s love affair with Ahmadinejad.

Persepolis

From the very heart of my generation

It has been years I hadn't been moved by Iranian's artworks until a couple of weeks ago that I happened to listen to Namjoo. I am not sure, I might be too impressed by Namjoo's music that I am ignoring the flip side of it!

I see a picture; it is me years ago with my friends trying to figure out how to deal with our mosaic life and how to make sense out of it. When we were scattered around the world, I was hoping to see one of us, someday, somehow, tell our story in order for others to hear it, and in order for us to get over it.

Listening to Namgoo's music, I felt a mild sense of envy overshadowed by a strong sense of euphoria. Namjoo was not from my city, nor was he in my gang; he is from my generation though who is drawing the kind of shapes I have been waiting for them for ever.

Messiah is killed again

The leader of an Iraqi apocalyptic group who claimed to be the Mahdi, a messiah-like figure among Shi'as, was killed in a battle on Sunday with at least two hundreds of his followers.

Shi'as killed another "Real Mahdi" to keep the "Mythical Mahdi" alive. This time Shi'as had the help of American troops as well-another sarcasm of history!

Here is the story by Reuters: Watch / Read

The Middle Order is Gone

1
Yesterday I saw Saddam’s execution video taped by a cell phone camera. It is quite strange since up to the last second, Saddam seems to be the same dictator he was for decades. Unlike Al-rabee’s account of the execution, Saddams didn’t seem to be broken. He is ferocious up to the end; probably he was playing his last act to immortalize his image as a proud dictator! I am sure that is what lots of Arabs wanted too. But it didn’t really mattered since in less than a second the trap door opened up and the dictator is gone. The guy with cell phone camera takes some shots from Saddam’s body hanging to make sure that he is dead…

2
Some historians have pointed the assassination of Naser-aldin Shah (eighteenth century Persian king) as the beginning of the authority crisis in Iran; since for the first time in Iran’s history a common man sets the destiny of a king. Saddam’s hanged body reminded me of Naser-aldin Shah! The Middle East has seen lots of assassinations and executions in twentieth century, but nothing like Saddams execution. At the most, a dictator is executed in order for another dictator to replace him. But this time, the scenario is quite different; neither was Saddam executed by another dictator nor he was replaced by one.

3
I think Saddam’s overthrow, which was “confirmed” by his execution, marks the end of an era: the era of secular dictators in the Middle East. I call this era “the middle order” as oppose to the old order (“old regime”) and new order.
Now, “sectarian violence” is the most frequent term used to describe Iraq. I think it can spread to other Arab nations soon. Of course, not because of Sheea revival! but because of the lack of “the middle order”. In Iraq the strong man is gone and in other Arab countries the legitimacy of the strong men is scattered.
I don’t know what is going to happen in the Arab world, but “sectarian violence” doesn’t seem to be a far away state. I am positive that the “middle order” is gone; I hope the new order comes soon!

Dogmalogy!

1
We can think of the external world with deterministic rules and yet we don't need to be determinists. As long as we have a skeptical view of our understanding, we stay relativists. I think this relativistic approach is quite relevant in history; we can talk about possible histories and most possible histories without emphasizing on a definite rout for the future. This is relevent for all deciplines but makes more sense in history since we are not aware of most of the playing factors in shaping the future.
We can understand this approach from top to bottom as well. If we identify a target for a society (for instance secularization of Iran's society as in my previous post), we can talk about different routs to reach that target instead of talking about the only possible rout.

2
One of the main threads in my posts is the idea of modernization (I know that it is not a clear concept!) for Iran's society. Since Iran is not a modern society (at cultural level), this idea becomes a target that might be achieved in future. Accordingly, we can talk about possible routs for the secularization of Iran. With our limited knowledge of internal and external factors affecting the process, it is impossible to talk about the only rout to secularization.
In my previous post, I mentioned that "the deactivation of the aggressive aspects of religion is a grave task which should be done by clergies". Well, there are lots of possible strategies to switch off the aggressive parts of Islam. Why am I saying that it should be done through religion and clergies? I think it is just a probable scenario that can happen; at most I can explain why it is more probable than alternative routs.

3
My argument is based on two statements:
1) If we want to have a modern society in Iran, we have to modernize Islam.
2) If we want to modernize Islam, we have to work with clergies.
Lots of people through different postulates would disagree with the first statement.
The first group are those who don't consider Islam as an important player in Iran. I have noticed that lots of secular Iranians claim that their compatriots are not religious.These people mostly refer to Iranian's way of religion which appears to be less rigid than other Muslims such as Pakistanis and Arabs. Naturally, these people don't agree with my statement. Well, I strongly disagree with these people and assume that religious believes among Iranians are deep enough to shape their destiny.
Another presumption in my first statement is the possibility of reform in Islam; and normally those who regard Islam (or religion in general) impossible to go through reforms, would disagree with the statement. According to these people we have to get rid of Islam in order to achieve a modern society. Well, if some one can show that Islam has a rigid "nature" which defies modern achievements and modern way of life, then we secular should look for a way to weaken Islam. Since I don't care about religion, I don't have any problem with this approach. However, I don't think that Islam is impossible to go through reforms and since I am fearing the backlash of weakening Islam, I prefer to go for reform.

4
As for the second statement, again I don't think of it as the only possible rout. As a matter of fact, during these two weeks I was questioning this statement myself. If we are looking for reforms, why not using religious intellectuals? Haven't religious intellectuals in contemporary Iran (eg. Shariati and Soroosh) been influential enough to trust them for future reforms? and haven't clergies always impeded any progress in religion since their existence is based on the traditional version of religion? Well, we still can keep the clergies to act as the last chain of the reform process ( since they are those who are in touch with the mass); however, they would play a passive role in this scenario. Due to different external forces, clergies would be forced to go through reforms and convey that to the public, but they wouldn't be doing it willingly and creatively.
I am not sure about these answers though; for some reason, Islam has not been as open to denomination as Christianity. If Islam opens up to denomination, probably there would be clergies who are actively involved in reform. The examples in Iran are extreme: some revolutionaries like Bab (Seyed Ali Mohamad Bab) that started by Islam, ended up creating a new religion; on the other hand, religious intellectuals (looking for renovation/reform) either avoid or don't have the necessary apparatus to institutionalize their version of Islam. I think that is the kind of background that turns me pessimistic about the clergies role in religious reforms. But don't we need to resolve the problem of denomination in Islam in order to embark on any serious reform? and if we couldn't resolve that , wouldn't Islam be impossible to go through reforms?

About Zero Privilege Again!

Nowadays, lots of religious Muslims in Iran support the concept of separation of church and state since they think that the involvement of Islam in politics for the last 27 years has degraded religion in Iran and brought about corruption into religion. Although this statement seems to be true about Iran, I don’t believe that is neither a solid argument –for the concept of separation of church and state— nor a safe method for protecting religion from corruption.
I guess as long as religion is involved in social affairs—including charities, there is a risk of corruption and loss of sanctity; probably this a paradox innate to religion and there is no cure for that.
I think that the idea of separation of church and state can cause a large deal of confusion if we take it out of its historical context. Well, I agree that the kind of religion that gives specific “legal” privilege to its believers shouldn’t have access to political power. However, this rule is applicable to any other ideology that gives specific “legal” privilege to its followers too. It is the same if the party X gives more legal rights and liberties to a specific ethnic group or to its members- hence the separation of party X and state.
As long as there are people who believe in worldly privileges of specific people or groups, there is a threat of discrimination and violation.
Probably at the legal level of government, the separation of church and state is a formal antidote against religious intruders. However, the cultural cure for the problem of today’s Islam (or any other discriminatory ideology) is to somehow switch off its belief/efforts to discriminate against non-Muslimisms— which in today’s Iran have been extended to any non-pro-leader. This is something that has been done to some extend by Iran’s Muslim intellectuals; but I assume that the deactivation of the aggressive aspects of religion is a grave task which should be done by clergies. I am talking about a theological shift with practical outcomes; this shift can be initiated by intellectuals (as well as other factors) but should be lunched by clergies who believe and being believed that are owners of religion…

It is too late but to the point; "Dangerous Knowledge" seems to change the boring uniformity created by Said's Orientalism.
Read the post's review on this book.

Where is the Roots, Where is the Branches?

1
I think in religious studies as well as other fields of social sciences ,we have to do a mythological refinement. We have to avoid talking about general topics such as religion or even Islam. As soon as I think about Islam, I encounter different historical or possible versions of Islam that don’t have necessarily anything essential in common. I guess giving any statement about Islam is either wrong or useless.

2
People who believe that Islam is such and such (ie Violent, political…) always try to find a theoretical aspect in Islam that can’t be changed since it is logically/correctly concluded/inferred from Koran or other Islamic resources. I think that is a sound approach in order to find essential aspects of a system (if we relate the violence in Islam to economic situation, we won’t be able to prove that violence is essential in Islam.) But the question now is if Islam has any solid theoretical structure that forces the believers to follow that…

3
Due to my philosophy background, I tend to look for essential aspects of phenomenon including Islam; however, I think it is nearly an impossible task. Since I don’t want to give up my essentialist tendency, I reduce Islam to different paradigms of Islam that has already practiced in Muslim’s history. As far as I can see, these paradigms are quit diverse. Jurists vs. theologs and theologds vs. theologs. Yes, there is common thread of believing in god, if it is helpful for essentialists! Other that that, I see amazing differences… I will talk about these differences.

Open Aristocracy

1
One of my friends send me an email commenting that in my last post I have confused freedom in philosophical sense and freedom in political sense, and by liberal society we are referring to a society with the highest level of political freedom... In my last post, I was trying to show that we can not define political freedom without defining freedom at a philosophical level. In this post, I will reiterate my comments from last post and try to understand the issue better.

2
Lets assume a society which puts the political freedom in practice through a republic system. In this system, people are allowed to influence the structure and the content of the political system by electing/dismissing their representatives/states persons. I argue that the importance of the majority's legal right to influence the system is limited/faded due to:
A) The majority's lack of interest for freedom:
Happiness is the ultimate goal of humans and it is not necessarily ingrained with freedom. Accordingly, although people always go for happiness, they go for freedom just if it brings happiness.The majority of people don't want to take charge of their life and accordingly they freely choose not to be free.
B) Deceptive power of elites:
Probably the elites are those who are getting the most out of a liberal system. They themselves are the product of the system, but they are who decide for the rest of people,thanks to the power of deception. This is not a difficult task for them anyways since the majority has already given up its right of being in charge.

3
With all these limitations of political freedom, what are the constructive elements of this type of liberal democratic systems? after all, liberal democracy has been the most favorable political system introduced so far. Answering the question, I can think of two factors:
A) Although the presence of political freedom doesn't act as a constructive force, the lack of political freedom seems to be destructive. For instance, the case of flag burning in the States is a good example of the neutrality of freedom to burn the US flag ( since the majority don't even think of burning it) and the destructive force of lacking it ( as soon as you ban the right to burn the flag, every one wants to burn it!) ... In this sense, freedom seems to be likable rather than constructive;something that we want to have even if we don't/can't practice it.
B)Although freedom in liberal society seems to be neutral for the majority, it is essential for the elites. liberal democracy is a method to provide a safe sphere for the elites to play the game of power.Although the elites will try to monopolize their power ,and actually they do so to some extends, the system is relatively dynamic in its alternation and change. For example, in the case of the States, political power is monopolized by just two parties.However, the power alternates between these two parties and the doors are not completely close for another party...

4
I prefer to do a terminology Chang: instead of Democracy, I prefer to use "Open Aristocracy" in reference to current democracies.Most of the political systems which are referred to as democratic are not a demo+crocy since the demo is consist of the majority of people who have no real participation at all. These systems are an open ended game of power among aristocrats, hence an open aristocracy.

Being Free or Feeling Free

1
Which one is more important: the right “to be free” or the right “to be alive”? What about the right to “be happy”. What is the point of living or freedom if you are feeling horrible? Wouldn’t we all (or most of us) prefer to be happy but not really free? It seems that the right to have a happy life is the most important goal for the majority of people.

2
If we believe that human behavior is determined by external causes, the process of decision making also becomes a part of this chain of cause and effects and there wouldn’t be such a thing as “free choice” in an ultimate analysis.
Some people might argue that humans can get out of the vicious circle of causes and effects by the help of their conscious decisions. Even if we accept the argument, the majority of people don’t want to go for “conscience choice”; not only don’t they want to be ruling other people’s destiny, but also they don’t want to take charge of their own life. I have the slightest idea about lots of critical scientific issues and I might not be even interested to read about them. Most of the people are like me and there is a minority of scientists who rule and define the field. That is the same with politics. The majority of people can’t or don’t want to take control of their political destiny.

3
We still can practice some sort of political freedom which can be translated to “being legally allowed to”; through liberal political system, a society gives an arbitrary definition for “self” and “other” first, and then prevents any physical force by “other” on “self”. This type of freedom sets the “self” free from lots of external causes (for example other’s physical force, other’s legal privilege, etc.);

4
I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but there is still one untreatable problem with this type of political freedom; it stays helpless about elusive forces such as the force of persuasion which easily acts as an external force. I call this problem an untreatable one, since those Utopians (I can think of religious states and communism) who tried to cure it, ended up with tyranny.
I don’t see any alternative for liberal political system, but I am wondering if this system provides us with freedom or makes us feel free?!

Discourse on Method

1
In my previous post on “zero privilege” I mentioned that "the western culture is an organic whole and in order to acquire one part of it, we have to accept other parts as well”. I think this statement is too vague to be defendable and useful. In that post, I was trying to understand the essential element(s) of the modern western culture and to examine the kind of association between these elements. If I find an imperative associate between these elements, I refer them as an organic whole and a package deal.

2
I think there is confusion among Iranians (including me) in their discourse on modernization. Iranian intellectuals started pondering on modernization when they found their culture dysfunctional in confrontation with Europeans. Accordingly, it seems to be normal to use terms such as “westernization” and “modernization” instead of talking about the “exact nature of Iranian cultural problem” and the “exact nature of Iranians’ desired/alternative culture”. In order to revise our methodology on this issue (which is the most important issue for Iranian intellectuals), I think we have to clarify: A) what are the Xs’ we want to achieve? B) Why do we want to achieve Xs’?

A) By saying that we want to be “modern”, we are not giving any defined information about what we want. We have to pin point what we want to gain in our cultural/social strive; democracy? Economic prosperity? Or social order? If we define our Xs’, we don’t need to talk about vague concepts such as modernity or tradition as our goal, and we will switch the discourse from “modernization” to X-ization (i.e. “Democratization”, “liberalization”, etc.)
B) We have to clarify the reason we are interest in the Xs’. Are we interested in democracy since it is the dominant political paradigm of the day (and we have to accept it even if we don’t like it) or because it is desirable for us? If the acquired Xs’ are also desirable for us, we don’t have to talk about unclear concepts of the west and westernization, and we will again switch the discourse from “westernization” to X-ization.

3
We have to clarify the “imperative condition for the possibility of Xs" as well. What are the imperative “states of mind” and “states of affair” for our desired/doomed Xs’? Are they just historically associated or imperatively related? For example, if our desired/doomed X is democracy, is it necessarily associated with religious tolerance (sate of mind) or free trade (state of affair)? Or are they just possible routs to democracy?

Political Paranoia

My parents came from Iran last week and I am having a refreshing course on Iranian's political psyche. We talk about lots of different issues and my father's political analysis follows the same rules over and over again. I am trying to list the main principles of his approach:

1—Impossibility of political understanding: My father believes that politics is so complicated which makes any political analysis absurd. Accordingly, he doesn't give any credit to anyone who tries to explain the political events through understandable terms (there should be some behind-the-scene talks and invisible hands as the main cause of any political event).

2— Shadow government is the most important element of [political] power: In all his analysis, my father gives the most important role to governments. The nature of government in his mind is ambiguous (rather mysterious) and is similar to the concept of a mafia type shadow government.

3— The world is ruled by three main powers: America, Britain and Russia. My father may agree to add China to the equation; however, he wouldn't negotiation on the omnipotent nature of these powers; he believes that there is no possibility of political mistake by these powers (and of course by referring to these powers, he is meaning shadow governments). Accordingly, everything (including the stuff going on in Iran) is precisely calculated by these political powers.

My father’s political mindset reminds me of the Iranians I knew back in Iran. In the States, we refer to this type of political approach as “conspiracy theory”. I prefer to refer to this mindset as “Political Paranoia” instead, and I think it deeply influences the political psyche of Iranians. I am trying to think if Iranians' religious tendencies are as decisive as their political paranoia…I am still thinking…

Synthesis or Antithesis

1
Religious intellectuals in Iran are the synthesis of a confrontation- confrontation of traditional Islam and the modern era. They want to be modern without sacrifying their piety. In this perspective, it is important to see how [far] modern these intellectuals are, in order to examine the success of their project.

2
What is the real nature of modernity? We can list the achievements of the new era (science, rule of law, democracy, etc.), but is it possible to trace these attributions back to some basic mind-sets as the “adequate basis for modernity”?
Some people try to show that modernity is not standing on anything and is just a dynamic force of negation. It is in this context that they put freedom as the real nature of modernity, since freedom is nothing but “being allowed to do…” and it doesn’t provide any content. It is the same with rationality which is “being congruent with…” You can fill the blank as you wish and it doesn’t really jeopardize our definition of freedom and rationality.

3
I don’t think that modernity is just about frameworks and I believe it provides some contents as well. I see continuity and order in modernity, which I can not explain it just with a void framework. I think beyond the modernity’s respect for freedom or congruity, there is a grater respect for individual’s values and drives, namely “individualism”. Rationality is nothing but congruity of “individuals’” drives and perceptions; and freedom is targeted to “individuals’” will. According to this model, individualism takes precedence to rationalism or liberalism.

4
Iranian religious intellectuals are willing to adopt some achievements of modernity; however, as long as they haven’t adopted the humanistic backbone of modernity, they won’t succeed in their project of modernization.
These intellectuals are quit bashful when it comes to deciding about “individualism”. They talk about the crisis of morality in the west and bring up post modern thinkers to support (or cover up!) their fear of a “full-fledge modernization”. I think all of these criticisms are nothing but defeating the entire purpose of Muslim intellectualism.

5
I think it is easy to sense a “latent individualism” in Dr. Soroush’s “doctrine of temporal interpretation of Islam” (and probably that is why it makes fundamentalis mullas frearful). The activation of this latent individaulism depends on lots of different causes and conditions with a little share left for intellectuals. However, as far as logose is concened, religious intellectuals should stop being bashing about individualism.

Sister Leonella is gone!

Political dissonance in the Middle East reminds me of a sine graph with periodical ups and downs…Now that the jarring noise of anger in the Muslim world is going down, I take the opportunity to raise two questions and offer some answers. Although these questions are targeting the current crisis, they are quite relevant to the Muslims general situation in today’s world as well:

1)
Why do we refer to the Muslims behavior as savage and medieval?
Muslims are overreacting and their reactions are not proportional to the corisponding action. For example, we would be less surprised if the same muslim crowds were as vociferous over the murder of one of their citizens. Probably even “overreacting” is not a good term to explain the situation. Muslim world's reaction is more of “paranoia”; the target of the protests is not clear and goes all the way to anyone Muslims are angry of and anyone with any “imaginary” affiliation with the initial object of the anger. In fact, there is not border line between the imagination and the reality in this entire show.
As a consequence of being paranoid and acting paranoid, Muslims don’t express their grievances through today’s acceptable channels. We can argue that these channels are initiated by the western world and are not necessarily universal; without getting to this argument, I just remind that the majority of those protesters want to be part of the international community and most of their grievances are based on the modern [=western] standards.
(I intentionally didn’t use “aggressive” as an adjective for these protests since the western world is not free from the blame of aggression either. However the westerner’s aggressions in most part have been proportional to the crime, had clear targets and been expressed through accepted channels).

2)
Is Muslims’ anger toward the west defendable in anyway?
Some Middle Easterns regret the way Muslims express their anger toward the west, but they sympathize with their anger as a defendable response toward the west’s exploitation of the Middle East.
When we are talking about the root cause of Muslims aggression and anger, we should be careful not to confuse “explanation” with “justification”. I am not denying the fact that the Middle Eastern countries have been the subject of western super powers exploitation; however, I can not deny the imperialistic ambitions of Iran over all her weak neighbors in recent years, so as Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan’s misery. Nations are in interaction and it would defy the common sense if they were not protective of their own benefits. In this interaction, weak partners have always been exploited. As a matter of fact, if there is any exception to this general rule during the history, it is in our time that the States as a super power (due to her prosperity and isolation) has used some altruistic measures to interact with other nations. The key to the problem is not resenting over the past but gaining more and more power to prevent further loses. As long as we look for justice and compassion in international relationships, not only will we stay in our past and get obsessed by it, but also we will grow a tendency to forget our own unscrupulous behaviors toward other nations (Does any Iranian even know that Iran left Azerbaijan alone and took Armenia’s side in Garabagh conflict?!)


3)
I finish my post with some excerpts from Waleed Aly’s thoutful article on the subject: “Pope Benedict XVI quotes the 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus asserting before a Persian Islamic scholar …Pope Benedict's speech was an academic address at a German university on an esoteric theological theme that had nothing to do with affronting Muslims. The apparently offending remarks were almost a footnote to the discussion. The contrast is manifestly stark. But it seems some elements in the Muslim world are looking avidly for something to offend them… I would be interested to have heard how the Persian scholar responded to Manuel's argument. I'm fairly certain, though, he wouldn't have called on Muslim hordes to hunt down Manuel and kill him”.

Where is Sister Leonella?

I got this email from my friend this morning:

"…Are you gonna blog about this whole Pope craziness. I know it is obvious,but it is just so insane…"How dare the pope say we are a violent religion!!!! Let’s burn him in effigy & kill him & attack Christians & churches!!!! & further it is ok for us to defame the pig Jews & their religion in any way we want!!!...Your old world is so backward".

What can I say! The pope makes a not-so-prudent remark and the Muslim world is trying its best to prove the pope’s point! I am trying to figure out if this entire noise from the Muslim world is just a political game or an inescapable manifestation of a medieval culture, namely “ISLAM”. Well, I don’t think it matters much since the way Muslims are playing politics is also Medieval in its nature and fits the rest of the picture.

I don’t believe in God. I am an agnostic most of the time and I become an anti-theist when I get furious. Today is one of those days…I will post my thoughts on this story when I get back to my agnostic mood…

WHAT IF...

Rationalism and Skepticism

1
I think Iranian Muslim Intellectuals are rationalists since that is what they are trying to be. Of course I am referring to rationalism based on my definition of reason: Human kind’s ability of analyzing and synthesizing any given data. Hence, rationalist is anyone who is using this cognitive ability and is loyal to its rules and consequences. So far there is no mention of content, and the input data for a rational system can be anything from Islam to the most recent scientific data. We stay rationalist as long as we are not contradicting ourselves. Based on this definition, Dr. Soroush has always tried to have a rationalist approach. I agree with my fellow bloger Varahram (see my previous post) that mystics such as Rumi are anti-rationalist; but Souroush’s references to Rumi is more of a “rhetoric” rather than any “proof”.

2
Although I regard the Iranian Muslim intellectuals as rationalists, I can not consider them Modern as well. These intellectuals are struggling to make peace between their religious piety and the modern world, and that is why they are engaged in reviving rationalism. However, I am not sure if loyalty to reason (as I defined and as it is practiced by Iranian religious intellectuals) is adequate to make them Modern. Rationalism is a method to answer questions; but what about question itself?

3
Is there anyway to move from a rationalist responder to a “skeptical” inquirer? I am bringing up the concept of “skepticism” since it is an important element in European modernism. It is good to remember that Descartes' “Cogito”, as a milestone in the western civilization, is following his “Dubito” in an inseparable fashion. If we accept that Dr. Souroush’s project is a reconciliation of Islam and reason, Muslim intellectuals still need another venture to reconcile skepticism with Islam. Islam and Skepticism! Doesn’t it sound like an oxymoron?

Modern Traditionalist!

1
As I mentioned in my previous post, it seems that the verbal confrontation between two shi’a theologians (Dr. Soroush and Dr. Nasr) is more than a scholar argument and going to become a serious conflict between two different Islamic schools of thought. I have always been under the impression that the main opponents of Soroush are Islamic fundamentalists who are actively involved in the regime of terror in Iran. I have been wondering why Soroush consider a traditionalist scholar such as Nasr as his main challenge. In this post I am trying to answer this question.

2
AbdolKarim Soroush, the intellectual godfather of Iranian Muslim reformists, talks about the reviving of Islamic rationalist theology (See Mu'tazilah) these days. In fact, with all his intellectual ups and downs, Soroush has always been a proponent of religious rationalism which has embodied itself in his famous “doctrine of temporal interpretation of Islam”. Soroush is loyal to Islam (as a text) as well as analytical reason (and its historical achievements). According to Soroush, the synthesis of religious scripts and reason, gives a timely-fashioned version of Islam.

3
Seyyed Housein Nasr is an active figure among Perennialist scholars (See Nasr and Perennialism). Perennialists seek truth (nomenon) rather than incidents (phe-nomenon), through intellect (knowledge by revelation) rather than reason (knowledge by attainment). This type of Perennial wisdom has been historically practiced and claimed by mystics. According to mystics, the truth either reveals itself directly to a master or is revealed indirectly to a follower. In both cases, Perennialists claim that they see some portions of the truth and are capable of witnessing more.

4
I assume there are two characteristics which is inherent consequence of Perennialism: “self-righteous ideology” and “hermitic lifestyle” (both in a static mode).
Prennialists are self-righteous since they claim that the truth, the absolute truth, won’t be revealed to anyone but them. They are also hermitic, since the kind of approach they are putting forward is not easy (if possible at all) to teach or convey; I guess that is why classic mystics have mostly abstained social life.
Although Nasr has inherited the self-righteous ideology of his fellow mystics, he is far from a hermit. He has repeatedly emphasized that there is no separation of church and state in Islam since Islam is a social religion as well as an individual one. (See Bill Moyor’s interview). His involvement in Iran’ politics before 1979 revolution and his willingness to reconcile the Ayatollah and the Monarch suggest that Nasr has a political agenda.

5
Now I can put two and two together: Nasr is a “modern traditionalist”. We are dealing with an ancient alchemist who wants to patent his drugs with the help of his pupils in the FDA! And, you know, Nasr is under the impression that he has discovered the elixir of life, and the rest of the market is just a sham! I am wondering what is going to be the next?

The elastic world of Shi'a

A couple of days ago an editorial column in an Iranian newspaper grabbed my attention. The author is talking about a dispute between two important Iranian theologians: Dr. Nasr and Dr Soroush. Although these two scholars are both Muslim and Shi’a, their ideas about Islam and religion differ dramatically in theory and practice. Studying the contrasting theologies of these two full-fledged Shi’a scholars, makes me think about the real nature of Islam; is Islam such an elastic concept that can be manipulated by two scholars in completely two different ways? If that is the case, I am really interested to discover the logic of Islam’s elastisity. I am sure you know why I want to discover that!
I will give a repot of the editorial in my next post. Until then, go to the website of these two scholars ( click on Nasr and Soroush) and have fun with the elastic world of Shi’a !

On regime change; a priori conditions and a posteriori problems

1
In my last post, I was trying to show some "a priori" conditions which make a democracy possible; conditions which are not necessarily democratic. If we accept these a priories, we won't be bashful about enforcing them.

2
I want to get back to the last question of my previous post: “…Can we use force to convert Iranians to liberalism without their consent? If we manage to convert them, don't you agree everyone would be better off…?" Here comes the challenge: how confident are we about this "if"? Defiantly it is not an easy question; but how difficult is that? Is it possible to answer this question at all? Proponents of regime change normally will be positive about this “if”. However, it is not enough to be optimist. If we claim that something is achievable, we should be able to show how we go about achieving it.

3
“ Iraq the model ” is a very interesting and successful blog from inside Iraq. I frequently read the blog since it gives a first account information about the development of enforced democracy in Iraq. I am also planning to read an in depth analysis of democracy development in West Germany and Japan after the World War II. We have to figure out how iffy this “if” gets!

Converting Iranians to liberalism; paradox or contradiction?

“The liberty of the individual must thus far be limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people”
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

The first premise of this statement—my freedom—is easy to accept. But what about other people’s freedom; why should we care about other people’s freedom and worry about turning to a “nuisance” to them? If I exclude absolute altruism, I can think of two approaches in support of Mill’s thesis:

1) Utilitarianism: Based on utilitarian approach, we religiously defend other’s freedom since: a) it creates a more diverse network of people, which in turn provides us with better/more resources, b) By preventing our self to breach other people’s freedom, we prevent others to breach our freedom.
Question: Could we think of any possible scenario that lack of consent serves our freedom? What if we enforce a democratic system without asking people if they like it or not in the first place? After all, even under the auspicious of our liberal democratic system, elementary education is mandatory!

2) Relativism: Based on relativism, we don’t posses the truth. Since nobody knows who is right and who is wrong, nobody has any right to force others toward any specific direction.
Question: how far are we loyal to this relativism? What if it jeopardizes our life? Are we going to stand still when our life is being threatened since we are not quit sure about our existence? What about jeopardizing our freedom?

Let me be honest; I am bringing up all these doubts about the universality of Mill’s theses to raise this question: Can we use force to convert Iranians to liberalism without their consent? If we manage to convert them, don’t you agree everyone would be better off?

The worst political system apart from all the others!

Regime change; form or content?

(1)
"The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that."--Vice President Dick Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press," March 16 2003

(2)
I was reading Ayatollah Sistani’s treaty on Islamic law the other day.The main body of his work is almost identical to the work of other Ayatollahs: an obsessive/detailed Shia jurisprudence with medieval solutions. Sistani’s work can be viewed as an obsolete and even comic piece for our time. However, it is neither obsolete nor comic when we learn that sixty percent of Iraqis are his followers; people who cast ballot since his majesty endorsed the election! (just imagine if Sistani— like Khomeini— believed that the political power inherently belongs to Shia clergies. Well, we are lucky that he doesn’t believe so; just lucky)

Question
We have liberated Iraqis from Saddam Hussein; is this freedom going to liberate them from their medieval culture as well? We have managed to change the form of Iraq’s political regime; will Iraqis manage to change its content?

Akbar Ganji and financing democracy

Akbar Ganji-Iranian famous dissident-wrote an article (NYTIMES) opposing the US financial helps to Iranian dissidents. There are two different questions involved in this debate: First one is if the US dollars are helpful for Iran’s democratic movement at all; and the Second one is if the Americans’ decision in funding dissidents is prudent at this time. The good news is that Ganji seems to be concerned with the second question and criticizes Americans from a tactical point of view rather than an ideological one. However, Ganji and other Iranian dissidents should put forward a practical alternative for anything that they go against; after all, republicans love to stay in power and democrats yearn to gain it back.

Do we deserve democracy or does democracy deserve us?

Striving for democracy seems to be the most important social goal for Iranian intellectuals. However, in practical debate, people have serious doubts about the possibility and the consequences of this project. Here are some related questions:
Are Iranian mature enough to choose their destiny and tolerate each other's freedom? Aren't we going to face ethnic unrest by opening up the society?
Aren't we going to sacrifice short term economic development by practicing a newborn democracy? Isn't this situation going to act against itself?
These are some important questions which should be addressed by any democracy advocate. Our answers depend on how we define democracy and how we view today's Iranian culture and society. We don't have to completely agree or disagree with a democracy project for Iran; however, we have to decide where we stand and how far we want to go...

Iranian dissidents and the States

Two weeks ago I was caught up in a heated argument about the earlier meeting in the white house that day. Some thirty Iranian political activists attended a whit house meeting hosted by top U.S. officials including the National Security Council's Elliot Abrams and State Department's Iran nuclear negotiator Nicholas Burns ( NYSUN report ) . Later that day, I attended a dinner party in honor of famous Iranian dissident Akbar Ganjee. Most of the crowd that night was against the white house meeting;they were assuming that Iran and the US interests are mutually exclusive. ..What If we are convinced that the states' and Iran's interests at this historical period are not contradicting each other; if so, couldn't Iranian political activists play an informative role and act as a voice for Iranians' interests by attending such a meetings?