Real Life with Ryuei

Some Thought about Neda and Iran

I was just reading an article on yahoo about Neda, the young woman who was martyred for Democracy over the weekend. The article said something that I told my family on Friday and which I dearly hope is true:

The bloody imagery alone could have an important impact on public opinion in Iran, where the idea of martyrdom resonates deeply among a populace steeped in the stories and imagery of Shiite Islam, a faith founded on the idea of self-sacrifice in the cause of justice.

The deaths of protesters during the 1979 Islamic Revolution fueled a cycle of mourning marches that contributed to the overthrow of the U.S.-backed dictator, Shah Reza Pahlavi.

I wonder though if all of this won't just blow over the way Tienmen Square did.

There are many things that I think some American's don't understand.

One is that the USA used to back a very oppressive dictatorship in Iran. Many Iranians remember that and many do resent the fact that Americans and Europeans look down on Iran (the home of one of the oldest civilizations on Earth) as a backward third world country. Now whatever their status vis-a-vis current prosperity (or lack of it) and current standards of living and civilized way of doing things (which I won't grant to ANY fundamentalist religious tradition) - they are very wary of outside interference.

I agree - so far - with how President Obama has been handling this - a cool measured response so as not to allow the ayatollah's to link Mousavi with American provocation. That will not help their cause.

I am glad and I do think it appropriate that our Congress had condemened Iranian actions.

On the whole our government has to be careful here - as much as we might like to be able to free the Iranian people and we should show our support - gone are the days when we should be inciting riots and guerilla warfare in other countries.

Not that I don't think the ayatollah's aren't villains. I do. There may be some moderates and even sincere good hearted ones (maybe - perhaps) but on general principles I think that a fundamentalist theocracy of any sort is one of humanity's evils - like slavery or warfare or genocide. I agree, at least in sentiment, with Diderot who said, "Mankind will not be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

Now I hope the Iranian people continue to rise up against their oppressors. My emotional side (the world of hell and fighting demons) would like to see the bullying ayatollahs and Revolutionary Guard subject to a French style revolution - their heads rolling in the streets for all they have killed over the past few decades. But the more well-reasoned compassionate side of me knows that the French Revolution was a paroxysm of chaos and evil - a cure worse than the disease. May there instead be a more peaceful revolution.

My concern, however, is that the majority of people in Iran are not middle-class students but basically poor fundamentalists in the countryside, the one's who probably make up the bulk of the Revolutionary Guard. These are the one's who buy into the Shi'ite theocracy - who believe that without them not only would there be chaos, but life would be meaningless.

One cannot underestimate the fact that poor uneducated people grab their guns and their scriptures in an insecure world - and cunning clerics use this for their own gain and power.

I wonder if the educated middle-class urban people of Iran are strong enough to rise up and overthrow the theocracy imposed by their own "red state" brethren. Or are the "red state" Iranians of the countryside too strong and their backing of the Shi'ite theocracy too strong. Ahmadinejad is, afterall, the leader and voice of these red-state people.

So I wonder if the blue-state Iranians will simply have to take their lumps and shut up.

Neda's martyrdom or no.

Let me put it in real simple terms:

On one side Red State Evil Theocracy backed by insecure uneducated rural fundamentalists who wish to reject modernity so they can live in some medieval vision of paradise and will kill anyone who threatens their worldview.

On the other side Blue State cosmopolitan educated middle-class people who wish to live in a secular democratic state (and the Iranians I have met in San Francisco hate hate HATE Islam with a virulence that really takes me aback - I guess you have to grow up in a Muslim theocracy to hate Islam that much - their hatred is genuine and well earned).

I hope this doesn't just blow over the way Tienmen Square did.

I hope it doesn't degenerate someday (I doubt today) into a French style revolution (the asura in me does slaver in anticipation of ayatollah's guillotined in the public square).

We should all pray that there is a peaceful sustained uprising that brings some form of sanity and authentic democracy to Iran and that there will be little or better yet no bloodshed.

If I were going to bet a million dollars however - I would bet this all just blows over. Remember that it took 70 years for Soviet Communism to fall, and Chinese Communism (well, that's what they call it) has yet to fall. Islam is a tougher nut to crack because people believe that without it their lives are meaningless and that it is sanctioned by God Himself.

Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei

Posted by Ryuei at June 22, 2009 10:02 AM