Revolution not reforms
I recently posted a blog entry of a video clip where Roozbeh and I explain how to organize political campaigns in Iran. An Iranian posted a comment explaining that these “velvet”, “orange”, and other colorful “revolutions” are not possible in Iran, and I completely agree.
To begin with, a revolution means a 180 degree change, however various entities have wrongly attributed the label ‘revolution’ to the various reforms that have taken place in Eastern Europe and else where.
If a political movement is working within the framework of the constitution and electoral laws and they are able to have their preferred candidate voted into office, that is not a revolution. Rather it’s the electoral process working. These countries in which these colorful ‘revolutions’ took place did not have a vetting institution for candidates like the Islamic Republic’s Guardian Council. In addition, these countries’ constitution did not decree that they are the government of God, as the Islamic Republic’s constitution states. Therefore, the relevant democratic institutions and processes existed, very much unlike the Islamic Republic.
As such, the previously- mentioned events that have taken place should really be labeled as ‘reforms’ because there is nothing revolutionary about it.
Just because Iranian reformists were / are able to have one of their candidates vetted by the Guardian Council, and as a result of the [s]election process the reformist candidate wins, does not mean that this constitutes a <pick a color> revolution.
Establishing a secular republic (by default overthrow of the Islamic Republic) in Iran is a real revolution.
So let’s call those working within the system of the Islamic Republic as what they are, reformists and changes within as reforms, not revolutions.
Tags: reformists, reforms, revolution, velvet revolution
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:12 pm
You hit the target!! Bull’s eye. When you are dealing with a regime armed to teeth, who does not understand (or perhaps respect) anything but the language of brutality, you have to leave all options open, including armed struugle, violent overthrow, mass demonstrations, you name it. It would be ideal if the regime gave way to a democratic process. It might even make some sense that it might collapse under its own weight. But all options need to be explored, with an eye towards practicality of those options. Yes I am aware of turbulence in the society, upheavel, and even open civil war. But if we really mean it, we need to bring all our weight to get rid of this tyranny, or else……….
Pirouz bashid.
Best regards,
mehrdad
February 8th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
dear babak
I am manager of be soye azadi weblog and supporter of marze por gohar party
I need to ask a question from you about safety of my blog
i am thankful to you if you give me your email address to contact you
many thanks
best regards
February 9th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Dorood, I see your blog is posted on blogspot so I don’t think there’s a whole lot you should have to worry about as far as security goes. If there are any exploits in the code that runs blogspot it is usually patched fairly quickly.
I would say the weakest link is your password. Make sure you have a strong password that uses symbols like ‘< % ] }’ and use upper and lower case characters.
You can make a simply sentence be your password:
1lik3 su|\|ny d@ys
which reads: i like sunny days
Let me know if the above doesn’t make sense.
Seppas.
February 9th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
dorood
Dear babak
thank you for your helping
im so sorry to take your time but i got what you meant
there is a important security question dear
this blog has been censored in iran and users need proxy to get this weblog ,but i am using webgozar that gives me information about users
and i can send for registered users my daily posts
i have heard because of censoring my blog there is no danger for users
but i am not sure
could you plz give me some information about this topic?
many thanks
best regards