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June
24, 2003
A Message from Tehran
Is It Worth
It to Risk Your Life?
By
ROYA MONAJEM
How awful it is when one feels and experiences
oneself absolutely ignorant and shaky and uncertain, unable
to decide and do anything. This is the kind of feeling I have
been increasingly experiencing as the 'political' events in
Iran escalate. The only thing I know is that I love Persia and
as soon as I start to say I hate Arab conquerors who brought
her downfall and a gift for her natives that must have supposedly
appeared more enchanting than what their own Persian rulers--I
really should say kings for a reason that will be discovered
soon--could offer them, I remember myself twenty three years
ago and also now during the recent uprisings. Surely, those
Persian ancestors who surrendered to the Arab conquerors--and
I can hate and blame them as much I hate and blame those foreign
conquerors--yes, as soon as I think of those Persian ancestors
I tell myself, most probably they thought and felt as many of
us did before the onset of the so-called Islamic Revolution
and as we are feeling here, now.
What is this feeling?
What we and perhaps many people of the
world share now and in the past under similar situations is
that we do not favor our ruling system. We crave for a "better"
one. And I suppose my ancestors who did not resist the Arab
conquerors for the supposedly better world and life they promised
them and betrayed their king for that reason--as all the nations
have been doing with their own ruling systems throughout the
history--yes, those ancestors must have thought and felt in
the same way as we thought and felt before the victory of the
Islamic Revolution (1978) and as a certain number of us have
been thinking and feeling all these years under the Islamic
Republic of Iran.
I wonder if this is not perhaps the same
feeling that many Afghanis and Iraqis had under the rule of
Taliban and Saddam Hussein as our closest neighbors. This certain
number of us share the feeling with another fewer number of us
in craving for a 'better' ruling system. Our difference, however,
lies in the fact that the former say "anything" (meaning
any ruling system) other than the present system--as Afghanis
and Iraqis must have said before the fall of their respective
regimes with the help of foreigners, that is Western Imperialism
[1]--and in practice depending on their courage play an active
role in any anti-governmental demonstration. The latter--that
might be called the apathetic, conservative, old-aged type,
depending on the perspective we take [2]--are only capable of
showing an active passivity, such as opening the door of their
houses to the courageous members of the first group when they
escape the hands of those 'unknown savages' or Anti-revolutionary
Guards.
They can't say 'anything other than Islamic
Rulers' if that would mean a ruling system like the ones that
came to power in Afghanistan and Iraq after the fall of Taliban
and Saddam Hussein. They can't imagine paving the way to anything
foreign or as our Persian Pre-Islamic Ancestors would say anything
An-irani (meaning not native or genuinely native).
Twenty three years ago many of us were
not happy to welcome Islamic Rulers--perhaps the contemporary
heirs of the Arab conquerors of the past--but we did not resist.
Instead we surrendered and have remained in such a state ever
since then. Why? In one word, because we could not conceive
of a better ruling system. Capitalism we had seen. Communism
we had seen. Neither seemed to be that 'better system.' So we
told ourselves "Come on, don't be prejudiced. Why do you
bother about the form, perhaps the content would prove to be
that 'better system?' Particularly when you can't conceive of
any other alternative."
So we kept quiet. And we shut our mouths
when they killed our intellectuals, our genius students, our
brave 'idealist' anti-revolutionary----in their view--young
people. And we kept quiet when we were whipped and our children
were beaten and whipped based on the most illogical reactionary
charges. We stood mute when we witnessed the plaque of increasing
corruption spreading like an octopus across all domains of life
and when we saw our intellectuals imprisoned on soundless, inhuman
ground and when we watched the most an-Irani raid and plunder
of our Persian inheritance and loot our country's wealth.
Do you want more examples of our voluntary
self-induced suffocation? Only our evolutionary rhinoceros skin
has helped us to survive so much self-induced suffocation all
these years!
Twenty three years ago, I was among the
first group, that is the group that wished for anything other
than the existing ruling system. And I repeated more or less
the same mistake some six or seven years ago, that is at the
beginning of the so-called Reformation Movement and voted for
Mr. Khatami.
How many times in life can we make essentially
the same mistake? How many times?
So now I belong to that active passive
second group described above. I can just sit in my flat and
clap for all those who are risking their life and freedom, but
at least release this long standing self-induced suffocation
in the streets. I envy them. And I envy you sitting over 'there'
(i.e. outside the country) encouraging the brave members of
the former group to protest and fight back and. When I say 'brave'
I automatically remember all those people killed before, during,
and after the Revolution and those killed during the eight years
of the war with Iraq.
This is the third time in my life time
that I have to decide: 'whose side should I take?' While now
the only thing that I know is that I love Persia and I can't
bear to see her betrayed by us again.
So the first question is: "Can
the present regime be overthrown without the obvious--as in the
case of Afghanistan and Iraq--or secret interventions of foreigners,
as seems to have been the norm ever since the rise of post-colonialism?
The second puzzling question is "Why
aren't they showing their habitual brutality? Why aren't they
acting as they did three years ago during the first serious
students uprising? Couldn't this be another stage of the internal
struggle over power among the Islamic rulers? As it proved to
be, in the case of the Reformation Movement and Mr. Khatami's
elections?"
And I tell myself, surely, you don't
wish to act as a toy again? But there times when the feeling
of thes "anything other than" movement overwhelms
me and I feel this maddening urge to rush to wherever there
is a demonstration, no matter who is pulling the strings.
But before being able to make a move
in this direction, the question arises immediately: "Are
you sure it is worth it? To risk your life?"
Please somebody help me. Would it be
worth it? I mean anybody's life? To sacrifice it for 'anything
other than the existing regime?' Is hatred and revenge enough
to decide here?
Roya Monajem
lives in Terhan and can be reached atL royamonajem@yahoo.com
Notes.
1. I think I should say post-imperialism,
forgive my political ignorance please, don't forget that I am
an 'enforced' apolitical craze-sapiens.
2. In reality again as a national group
of apolitical craze-sapiens they are perhaps an amalgamation
of all of these qualities.
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