Page 42 - Shahrvand BC No.1244
P. 42
English Section
entered the race with the feeble figure of 42
Mohammad Aref, of whom they are now trying to
create a national hero after he dropped out of the 42
race to help Rouhani, before the main body of the
Greens finally resolved to flock around him.
This extraordinary ability of the public to transform
politicians into the personification of their
democratic or rebellious will has a magnificent
antecedent in 19th century Iran that is even more
radical.
During the Tobacco Revolt (1890-1891), there was 1392 دادرخ31 جمعه- 1244 شماره/ سال متسیب
a famous fatwa issued by Ayatollah Mirza Hassan
Shirazi against the use of tobacco that was widely
believed to have inaugurated the revolt.
To this day, many historians are not quite sure that
Shirazi actually issued that fatwa, or whether it
was the collective will of the people in Shiraz that
wished and willed it to have been issued.
In this most recent election, the democratic will of
the people was even more pronounced.
and a reference to Green Movement leader Mir give us the proverbial Molla Nasreddin (a popular Those who did not vote told Khamenei he could In touch with Iranian diversity
Hossein Mousavi. folkloric character) and we will turn it into the not get away with murder - he could not order
poster boy of our democratic hopes and dreams." the maiming and murdering of people in 2009, Vol. 20 / No. 1244 - Friday, June 21, 2013
For the moment, it did not matter that Rouhani incarcerate and torture those who object, put the
did not reciprocate these cries and remained It makes absolutely no difference if Rouhani symbolic leaders of the Green Movement under
deafeningly silent in response. delivers or not on his campaign promises (though in house arrest and then in 2013 come back and call
his first nationally televised address to the nation, he on them to vote.
The die was cast - people were out in the public has specifically promised to do so) - what matters is
domains and claiming their space. Suddenly that people used the small crack the ruling regime Those who voted, meanwhile, told Obama and his
June 2013 looked, sounded, and felt like June offered them and turned it into what Elias Canetti allies that Iranians are perfectly capable of using
2009. Though he scarcely mentioned Mousavi or calls "people power". whatever means available to manage their own
Karroubi by name, Rouhani otherwise rose to the democratic future.
occasion and touched many bases: demilitarising Pursuit of public happiness
the public space, returning joy and energy to It does not matter that people are out in Gezi Park
university campuses, attending to women's rights What we witnessed during this and previous Iranian but not in Azadi square. In this grand chorale of
issues, and following a nuclear programme that presidential elections is how the superior social democratic uprising in the Arab and Muslim world,
was not at the heavy cost of other Iranian interests. intelligence of a democratically defiant public takes each nation does what it does best - and they will all
what the theocratic regime throws its way, breathes benefit and learn from each other.
The Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, tried to new life into it, and creates their own leaders.
micromanage the election, but the intention of The Egyptians and Tunisians do one thing, the
Iranian citizens went far beyond his or anyone They did this with Hashemi Rafsanjani in 1989, Turks another, and the Iranians the next.
else's control. People, in their collective actions, soon after the devastating Iran-Iraq war; in 1997
took the pen from Khamenei's hand and authored they did this with Khatami; in 2009 with Mir In Iran proper, the first sentence that will be
their own history. Hossein Mousavi; and now in 2013 the same with uttered by the next leader of any significant social
Hassan Rouhani. movement will have to start from the very last
How to outwit a tyrant? sentence of Mir Hossein Mousavi's magnificent
How this democratic will performs, conscious of statements and his Manshur/Charter of the Green
In Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an its public power, is a lesson for our understanding Movement.
Author (1921), the curtain rises for the audience to of the larger democratic tsunami that is running its
see a theatrical company getting ready to rehearse course through the Arab and Muslim world. Neither Khatami nor Hashemi is that leader - nor
Pirandello's own play The Rules of the Game should they try to pull the force of history backwards
(1918-1919). For four gruelling and punishing years, Iran has by falsely arguing that the Green Movement was
been in a state of limbo: Mir Hossein Mousavi was too radical and they are more moderate.
As the rehearsal is getting under way, suddenly under house arrest, scores of democracy activists
six strange characters appear onstage and rudely were subjected to kangaroo courts and jailed, the Is Rouhani bypassing the Reformists and recapping
interrupt the rehearsal. Khatami-led Reform movement had been rendered onto the vast ocean of people's democratic will for
obsolete by the far more potent and progressive the next phase? It is very hard and too early to say,
The cantankerous director, incensed by the Green Movement, all while Ahmadinejad's and almost impossible to imagine.
intrusion, asks who they are. One of them says that divisive presidency created infighting among the
they are six unfinished characters in search of an conservatives. People have cleared the air for him to fly, or else
author to finish them. if he prefers the metaphor to change, a warm and
When this presidential election began, the inviting sea to swim in - he can pick his metaphor
That by now legendary opening gambit of what Reformists at first hoped to beat the dead horse of and become part of history.
later would develop as the "absurdist" movement their cause and get Khatami to run. He wiggled for
in European theatre just had a real life simile in the a while, but then wisely realised he wasn't the man Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor
course of the presidential election in Iran, when for the job, while Mousavi was alive and well under of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at
eight "unfinished" presidential candidates entered house arrest. Columbia University in New York. Among his most
the Iranian stage; the contenders, undaunted by the recent books are Iran, The Green Movement and
absurdity and handpicked by the Guardian Council Then the outmanoeuvred Reformists began placing the USA: The Fox and the Paradox (2010) and The
to meet the strict demands of clerical rule, searched wagers on Hashemi Rafsanjani, but he too was Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism (2012).
for a way to complete their characters and have one roundly rejected by the Guardian Council - an
picked, reinvented and delivered unto history. exceedingly important development that requires a The views expressed in this article are the author's
critical reading of its own. own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's
Forget about Rouhani - the Iranian public effectively editorial policy.
told Khamenei and the Guardian Council: "You So the discredited and outmanoeuvred Reformists
Source: Al Jazeera
entered the race with the feeble figure of 42
Mohammad Aref, of whom they are now trying to
create a national hero after he dropped out of the 42
race to help Rouhani, before the main body of the
Greens finally resolved to flock around him.
This extraordinary ability of the public to transform
politicians into the personification of their
democratic or rebellious will has a magnificent
antecedent in 19th century Iran that is even more
radical.
During the Tobacco Revolt (1890-1891), there was 1392 دادرخ31 جمعه- 1244 شماره/ سال متسیب
a famous fatwa issued by Ayatollah Mirza Hassan
Shirazi against the use of tobacco that was widely
believed to have inaugurated the revolt.
To this day, many historians are not quite sure that
Shirazi actually issued that fatwa, or whether it
was the collective will of the people in Shiraz that
wished and willed it to have been issued.
In this most recent election, the democratic will of
the people was even more pronounced.
and a reference to Green Movement leader Mir give us the proverbial Molla Nasreddin (a popular Those who did not vote told Khamenei he could In touch with Iranian diversity
Hossein Mousavi. folkloric character) and we will turn it into the not get away with murder - he could not order
poster boy of our democratic hopes and dreams." the maiming and murdering of people in 2009, Vol. 20 / No. 1244 - Friday, June 21, 2013
For the moment, it did not matter that Rouhani incarcerate and torture those who object, put the
did not reciprocate these cries and remained It makes absolutely no difference if Rouhani symbolic leaders of the Green Movement under
deafeningly silent in response. delivers or not on his campaign promises (though in house arrest and then in 2013 come back and call
his first nationally televised address to the nation, he on them to vote.
The die was cast - people were out in the public has specifically promised to do so) - what matters is
domains and claiming their space. Suddenly that people used the small crack the ruling regime Those who voted, meanwhile, told Obama and his
June 2013 looked, sounded, and felt like June offered them and turned it into what Elias Canetti allies that Iranians are perfectly capable of using
2009. Though he scarcely mentioned Mousavi or calls "people power". whatever means available to manage their own
Karroubi by name, Rouhani otherwise rose to the democratic future.
occasion and touched many bases: demilitarising Pursuit of public happiness
the public space, returning joy and energy to It does not matter that people are out in Gezi Park
university campuses, attending to women's rights What we witnessed during this and previous Iranian but not in Azadi square. In this grand chorale of
issues, and following a nuclear programme that presidential elections is how the superior social democratic uprising in the Arab and Muslim world,
was not at the heavy cost of other Iranian interests. intelligence of a democratically defiant public takes each nation does what it does best - and they will all
what the theocratic regime throws its way, breathes benefit and learn from each other.
The Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, tried to new life into it, and creates their own leaders.
micromanage the election, but the intention of The Egyptians and Tunisians do one thing, the
Iranian citizens went far beyond his or anyone They did this with Hashemi Rafsanjani in 1989, Turks another, and the Iranians the next.
else's control. People, in their collective actions, soon after the devastating Iran-Iraq war; in 1997
took the pen from Khamenei's hand and authored they did this with Khatami; in 2009 with Mir In Iran proper, the first sentence that will be
their own history. Hossein Mousavi; and now in 2013 the same with uttered by the next leader of any significant social
Hassan Rouhani. movement will have to start from the very last
How to outwit a tyrant? sentence of Mir Hossein Mousavi's magnificent
How this democratic will performs, conscious of statements and his Manshur/Charter of the Green
In Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an its public power, is a lesson for our understanding Movement.
Author (1921), the curtain rises for the audience to of the larger democratic tsunami that is running its
see a theatrical company getting ready to rehearse course through the Arab and Muslim world. Neither Khatami nor Hashemi is that leader - nor
Pirandello's own play The Rules of the Game should they try to pull the force of history backwards
(1918-1919). For four gruelling and punishing years, Iran has by falsely arguing that the Green Movement was
been in a state of limbo: Mir Hossein Mousavi was too radical and they are more moderate.
As the rehearsal is getting under way, suddenly under house arrest, scores of democracy activists
six strange characters appear onstage and rudely were subjected to kangaroo courts and jailed, the Is Rouhani bypassing the Reformists and recapping
interrupt the rehearsal. Khatami-led Reform movement had been rendered onto the vast ocean of people's democratic will for
obsolete by the far more potent and progressive the next phase? It is very hard and too early to say,
The cantankerous director, incensed by the Green Movement, all while Ahmadinejad's and almost impossible to imagine.
intrusion, asks who they are. One of them says that divisive presidency created infighting among the
they are six unfinished characters in search of an conservatives. People have cleared the air for him to fly, or else
author to finish them. if he prefers the metaphor to change, a warm and
When this presidential election began, the inviting sea to swim in - he can pick his metaphor
That by now legendary opening gambit of what Reformists at first hoped to beat the dead horse of and become part of history.
later would develop as the "absurdist" movement their cause and get Khatami to run. He wiggled for
in European theatre just had a real life simile in the a while, but then wisely realised he wasn't the man Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor
course of the presidential election in Iran, when for the job, while Mousavi was alive and well under of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at
eight "unfinished" presidential candidates entered house arrest. Columbia University in New York. Among his most
the Iranian stage; the contenders, undaunted by the recent books are Iran, The Green Movement and
absurdity and handpicked by the Guardian Council Then the outmanoeuvred Reformists began placing the USA: The Fox and the Paradox (2010) and The
to meet the strict demands of clerical rule, searched wagers on Hashemi Rafsanjani, but he too was Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism (2012).
for a way to complete their characters and have one roundly rejected by the Guardian Council - an
picked, reinvented and delivered unto history. exceedingly important development that requires a The views expressed in this article are the author's
critical reading of its own. own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's
Forget about Rouhani - the Iranian public effectively editorial policy.
told Khamenei and the Guardian Council: "You So the discredited and outmanoeuvred Reformists
Source: Al Jazeera
