I read Mostafa Tajzadeh's written reply to Mohsen Makhmalbaf and was glad that Mostafa (if I may call him by his first name) has done two things. First, unlike many members of the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization, he has not looked down on others as if from the throne of God Almighty, and he has been willing to engage in dialogue. Second, he has stressed the necessity of democratic dialogue as an indispensable prerequisite for achieving democracy, even if that dialogue is with people outside the regime's circle.
Why am I writing these few lines to Mostafa?
First, because I consider Mostafa to be honest and clean, and far removed from rent-seeking and corruption. With those who have acquired multi-billion buildings from the government for the price of a sweet halva, and who now draw their blades against the people and call them vultures, talking about the rights and demands of the people is, as a rule, pointless.
Second, because I do not count Mostafa among those Reformists who say they are unwilling to see the Islamic Republic's whole setup collapse, because in that case they would have to go and stand at the back of a queue at whose front non-Muslims have long been standing. Today I know Mostafa as a democrat who believes in the sovereignty of the ballot box, even if what comes out of it is a rejection of the Islamic Republic and of Islamism.
Dear Mostafa,
Please step out of the three-way choice between becoming Syria, a violent revolution, and the survival of the system of velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the Islamic jurist). The Shah also used to say that if he left, Iran would become "Iranistan." He left, and it did not. The Islamic Republic, too, says that if it goes, Iran will become Syria. It will go, and that will not happen.
No one endorses a violent revolution either. The Islamic Revolution itself triumphed through civil, nonviolent struggle. All the violence took place after the victory. The culprits behind that violence were jurisprudential Islam and a revolutionary, vengeful ideology that was the dominant discourse among all the factions and elites of society at the time. Fortunately, today the dominant discourse is secular democracy based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The overwhelming majority of the opposition and of society's elites believe in this discourse.
Over more than 70 years, civil resistance has gradually developed into a mature body of knowledge, and it has a brilliant record in transitions to democracy. The methods of civil resistance rest on three pillars:
– Mass protests,
– Non-cooperation and paralyzing the government,
– Defections from the forces supporting the dictator, especially the armed and repressive forces, and their joining the people,
Because this strategy relies, during the course of the struggle, on the maximum nonviolent participation of the people, it has a better chance than any other method of building democracy after the dictator is brought down.
Victory in civil struggle requires three minimum principles: unity, planning, and maintaining the discipline of nonviolent struggle. I know many Syrian activists opposed to Assad. Their great mistake was thinking that with only one tactic, namely taking to the streets, they would win within one to three weeks, like in Tunisia or Egypt, and when they did not, they did not know what to do next. They split into three groups. One group lost hope and sat on the sidelines. Another continued with that single method of street protest and was brutally suppressed by the Assad regime and its IRGC backers. The third group turned to arms and violence, and because the crackdown on the second group became more ruthless and widespread by the day, it found a receptive ear and open arms. This will not happen in Iran, because the opponents of the system of velayat-e faqih and the ruling religious despotism are very well aware of the fundamentals of civil struggle, and they will not fall into the trap of the regime's violence, as we saw in these recent protests. The government has arrested nearly 4,000 poor, hungry and protesting young people and sent them to safe houses and illegal detention centers. More than 70 deaths have been reported so far, at least 5 of them killed in prison under torture. The government's new trick is to force methadone pills on them and to portray them as addicts and drug smugglers. Yet we see that the protesters are exercising restraint. In a calculated way, like the waves of the sea, they draw back so that the bloody claws of the oppressors do not tear their throats, and in the next move they return with higher and stormier waves.
Agha Mostafa,
Could a nation possibly express its demands in a more democratic and civilized way than this? All the slogans and protests of the people can be summed up in three goals:
1. Half of the country's wealth is under the control of the Leader, the IRGC, and their cronies and associates. Widespread corruption has engulfed every pillar of the state. This wealth must be returned to the nation. The people's money must be returned to the people.
2. Not a single rial of the nation's money and not a single one of the country's young people should be spent in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen and so on. The nation wants to live in peace and tranquility with the whole world, even with Israel, America and Saudi Arabia. It objects to Russia's ever-growing influence and to the fact that the regime's leadership has become a puppet of Putin. When the nation says "My life for Iran," it means Iran must be returned to Iranians.
3. Very clearly, the people's slogan of a referendum is a demand to hold the referendum again with the same question as 38 years ago: Islamic Republic, yes or no. But this time under the supervision of international organizations and impartial observers, because the government has shown that you cannot hand the thief over to himself to take to the police station. It readily rigs elections, and when people protest, it resorts to killing and repression. The leaders of the Green Movement are still under house arrest and in chains.
It is clear that the rulers will not accept these three demands of their own accord, and these demands must be won through the three paths of civil struggle while maintaining its three minimum conditions. In fact, in most cases such authoritarian systems are first removed and overthrown by the people, and only then are these demands, especially the demand for a referendum, realized. Of course, there have also been cases like Poland, where in the final stages the communists sat at the negotiating table with the freedom-seekers and retreated step by step, or Chile, where after the referendum the dictator retreated in two stages over several years. The door to dialogue is open, but from a position of strength grounded in the will of the people, not from a position of weakness, head bowed, pleading with the dictator: "For God's sake, let us play too." Dictators understand only the language of force, and no force is greater than the united will of a nation.
Dear Mostafa,
The whole point we are making to sincere Reformists is this: the framework of the current Constitution and the existence of the institution of velayat-e faqih, with instruments such as the Guardian Council, a judiciary under its control, repressive forces under its command, and the plunder of more than half the country's wealth, does not allow a transition to democracy. The entire theory of Reformism on day one was that a rift would be created at the top of the state between the President and the Leader, space would open up for the growth of civil society, and by handing the economy over to the people, empowering social classes and growing civil society, society would cease to be a shapeless mass and could make a calm and calculated transition to democracy. This plan very quickly ran into the narrow walls of the Constitution, and it became clear that within the framework of the current Constitution we have a religious despot called the absolute Guardian Jurist who can do anything and answer to no one. That is just what he did, and he is accountable to no one. Instead of handing the economy over to the people, he took over the country's most important institutions and arteries; through the Guardian Council and "approbatory supervision" (the Council's power to vet candidates) he controlled every election and did not allow even a single law contrary to his wishes to be passed. (The press law, the law on presidential powers, and the election law under Khatami and the Sixth Majlis are three examples out of dozens.) With the judiciary under his control, he shut down newspapers, threw civil society activists in prison, institutionalized corruption in the country, and placed the corrupt in the seats of honor. He strengthened the forces of repression, and wherever the people raised their voices, he resorted to the harshest brutality. He turned the country into a puppet of Russia. With a fruitless nuclear project, terrorist interference in other countries and smuggling, he isolated the country in the world and reduced the people to utter misery.
Dear Mostafa,
In my view, twenty years is enough time for the Reformists to understand that within the framework of the current Constitution no reform in any direction is conceivable. This rusty train of reform will no longer run on the same old track. In every election, the people shrewdly vote for individuals or lists they think are as far as possible from the Leader, in order to show their opposition to him. But they have learned from experience that no matter how much they take part in the regime's elections, the result is a Khatami or a Rouhani or useless parliaments. And the people's situation gets worse day by day in every respect. I understand that accepting this simple fact requires a revision of intellectual and theoretical foundations. In fact, the Reformists must abandon Islamism, in the sense of a maximalist reading of religion, regard government as a matter of reason, and accept religious pluralism as the indispensable prerequisite for cultural and political pluralism. Such a transformation requires moving beyond the revolutionary ideological reading of Islam (the Dr. Shariati model) or the jurisprudential reading of Islam. Belief in a rational and minimalist reading of religion, like that of Dr. Soroush or other religious reformist thinkers, is a prerequisite for this transition. But there is no alternative; the Reformists must take this step. In Tunisia, which you consider a good model, the Ennahda Party and Rached Ghannouchi declared very clearly that they were no longer Islamists and that they wanted religion for God and the hereafter. For that reason, since they no longer wanted to build a religious state and did not regard governing as their religious duty, after losing the election they quite readily handed power over to the rival secular party. In terms of intellectual evolution, Rached Ghannouchi is very similar to our own Engineer Bazargan, who said in the last speech of his life that religion did not come at all to make the world prosperous, but for faith in God and the hereafter. And when his friends said his words had come to resemble Dr. Soroush's, he said, with the honesty and courage one could expect of Bazargan, "I do not deny that I have been influenced by this young man." Unfortunately, unlike Ennahda, the Freedom Movement did not follow its secretary-general.
Mostafa jan,
The two-fronted corner shop of regime Reformism, with one front facing the people and the other facing velayat-e faqih, no longer works. The inevitable fate of this shop is to split apart. You have to close one of these two doors. I hope you will be among those who keep the door facing the people open and close the other one.
In closing, so as not to have soured your mood too much, I will pass on to you one of the jokes that young people have posted on social media about the Reformists, or as they call them, the "Continuationists." I remember you had a fine taste for humor and jokes, and even in the hardest circumstances you would lift everyone's spirits with a well-timed joke. I hope the hard years in prison have not killed that taste of yours.
I wish you ever-increasing success, by the grace of God.
Mohsen Sazegara
Bahman 1396 (January/February 2018)
Us and the Reformists
Should we boycott the elections?
+No, that's not the way
Should we pour into the streets and protest?
+No, that's not the way
Should we engage in civil resistance?
+No, that's not the way
Should we engage in civil disobedience?
+No, that's not the way
Should we ask the world to sanction the regime?
+No, that's not the way
Should we take part in the elections and vote for the Reformists?
+Bravo, bravoo, that's the only possible way
Bi-Zaboon (The Voiceless) & Co.