Some of you may have been wondering when I was going to talk about the civil unrest underway in Iran. Like many of you, I have been too caught up in events there to give it much analysis. Moreover, I do not know that much about Iran other than what I know about it from watching the media. Unquestionably, the recent election was rigged. The massive street protests and the predictable crackdown underway are compelling and heart-wrenching to watch, even if the snippets we see are posted days or hours later and taken from hand held cell phone cameras.
I do not know if a new Iranian revolution is imminent or whether a harsh repression by Iran’s clerics will stifle dissent for a generation, such as what happened in Tiananmen Square in China some twenty years ago. I do know that theocracy is not a natural fit for a country that is so well educated and technologically advanced. This means that Iranian clerics, if they were wise, would be working toward measured political accommodation of the people rather than repression.
Unfortunately, when you live in a theocracy you tend to get stilted thinking rather than pragmatism. Just as Pope Benedict cannot see reason when it comes to contraception, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will not adjust his notion of pure Islam to accommodate the reality that is modern Iran.
Much of the unrest is a consequence of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s attempts to turn Iran into a modern state. You cannot build a great state when it rests on the foundation of uneducated minds. It takes engineers, scientists, academics and many learned people to get there. In short, you need a society where education is valued and where modern technology is embraced. Iranians have done a remarkable job of embracing technology. The third most used language on the social networking site Twitter is Persian. Pictures of the rallies in Tehran show a crowd where cell phones were as numerous as the hundreds of thousands of protestors.
It is likely that Shi’ite Islam (as Ayatollah Khamenei interprets it) is not compatible with 21st century technology. Yet, this technology is here to say. Satellite receivers are technically illegal in Iran, but are pervasive nonetheless. Attempts to disrupt unwanted communications only lead to clever ways to circumvent these limitations and, to the extent they succeed, breed anger, hatred and resentment.
There are some societies where the culture accepts a high level of government censorship and control. China appears to be one of them. I am betting that Iran is not one of these countries. Iran is also an overwhelmingly youthful country. For many Iranians, the Iranian revolution is at best a distant memory or happened long before they were born. However, they do understand the present and the power of what they have in front of them, and they like their Internet connections and cell phones. Moreover, Iranians are a very chatty nation, with reputedly the highest number of bloggers per capita in the world. If Khamenei were reading tealeaves, he would be wary, if not very afraid.
It may take a generation or two, but widespread higher education (which has been underway in Iran for a generation) opens minds, broadens perspectives and retards insularity. In the United States, if you look at where the most highly educated people live, you will also find fewer churchgoers and greater tolerance for different ideas, cultures and beliefs. I certainly see it here in the Washington Metropolitan region. We have long been a melting pot of various ethnicities and cultures. Our attitudes are correspondingly relatively progressive.
With this in mind, perhaps our foreign policy toward Iran needs to be rethought. During the last presidential campaign, Senator John McCain was caught on camera (obviously in an unscripted moment) singing “Bomb, bomb Iran”. The implication was that the country was so intrinsically evil that there was no reasoning with Iranians, so we might as well bomb them into submission. It should now be clear that such actions would prove counterproductive, alienating the educated and increasingly liberal components of Iran who are becoming a majority. I am willing to bet that should a new Iranian revolution succeed then the next government will be far less hostile toward Israel. Educated Iranians already understand that the purpose of Ahmadinejad’s fixation on Israel is to cover his own deficiencies as a leader.
Repression may work in Iran for a month, or a year or possibly even a decade. However, the forces that have been unleashed in Iran because of this clearly fraudulent election cannot be kept bottled forever. A newer, more pragmatic and more progressive government will emerge from Iran in time. The United States should practice patience. The Iranian people have come around. In time, so will its government.
June 21st, 2009 at 06:55pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2009 |
no comments
I keep hearing from the right wing that liberal ideology is dangerous. Until Sunday, I did not generally associate liberalism with putting your life in danger. Sadly, that is what it has come to. You probably heard about this news story. A man named Jim D. Adkisson, an out of work truck driver, killed two parishioners at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville. He also wounded six others. This attack occurred in a packed church with over two hundred congregants. The attack occurred while children were performing a scene for the congregation.
Adkisson survived his attack, but left a four-page letter in his SUV, which he expected to be a suicide note. In it, he said he targeted the church because he “hated the liberal movement” and was “upset with liberals in general, as well as gays.” Moreover, according to the Knoxville News-Sentinel:
[The detective] seized three books from Adkisson’s home, including “The O’Reilly Factor,” by television commentator Bill O’Reilly; “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder,” by radio personality Michael Savage; and “Let Freedom Ring,” by political pundit Sean Hannity.
While the shooting appears random, targeting this particular church was probably not entirely due to its denomination, but likely had to do with some rage toward his ex-wife.
While police said Adkisson did not mention his ex-wife in the note, they said she attended the TVUUC years ago. That’s how he selected TVUUC to unleash his frustrations, police said.
I could be wrong, but I have yet to hear any case of a passionate liberal, inspired by ideological books written by the likes of liberal authors like Al Franken, going around killing right wingers for injustices like not supporting gay rights. I doubt that you ever will. Liberals may be wrong, wrong, wrong as noisy pundits like Rush Limbaugh tell us, but we also tend to be nonviolent.
This particular incident strikes close to home because I am a Unitarian Universalist too. It is certainly fair to cast the denomination as liberal. It was in fact one of the major reasons why I joined. More than ten years ago when I started attending services, I simply was not connecting with any liberals in my community. The church gave me a place to be with my own kind and work with others to promote my values. Thankfully, over the last ten years the area where I live has become much more progressive.
Yet, even in the relatively liberal community of Reston, our church has endured some harassment from those who do not share our values. Some years back we were at the forefront of the gay marriage movement. We put out two prominent banners on our property saying simply, “Civil Marriage is a Civil Right”. You would not think that by themselves they would inspire much vitriol. In fact, both were torn down and defaced by those who did not agree with our opinion. The church leadership was concerned enough that they stationed church elders in the foyer during services with their cell phones ready to dial 911.
Unitarians, like Quakers and other denominations, are often at the leading edge of change. Without us, there might still be slavery in the south and women might not have the right to vote. The minister that married my wife and I put his values on the line back in the 1960s when he marched in Selma, Alabama with the late Dr. Martin Luther King. The two congregants who died Sunday are not the only Unitarian martyrs. Among the dozens is the 18th century Unitarian theologian William Hamilton Drummond.
Perhaps incidents like this, as tragic, ugly and thankfully as rare as they are, come with the territory of being a liberal. Jesus was certainly a liberal and you can see what it got him. In general the more liberal you are and the more you express yourself, the more you subject yourself to danger. Yet, while many despise agents of change, without people willing to stand for change it is unlikely that any change would have ever occurred. We progress in part because of liberal denominations like Unitarian Universalism have the moral conviction to stand up peacefully when injustice occurs.
I am convinced that some right wing authors and talk show hosts like Michael Savage are indirectly culpable for these crimes. They pander to our basest prejudices and emotions, which frequently lurk close to the surface. The raw emotions become easier to expose if you are dealing with major life traumas like losing your job, as was true of Adkisson. Some personalities, like Michele Malkin, are clearly fanning the flames of hatred and perhaps help put mentally unstable people like Adkisson over the edge. It is doubtful whether they would be as passionate if their over the edge eloquence did not result in so many listeners and book sales.
In time, Adkisson will be tried. It is quite likely that he will pay for these murders with his life. In this event I already know what the response will be of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church will be. They will be petitioning the governor for his sentence to be commuted to life in prison. The irony is inescapable. In the event the tables were turned, it is unlikely that members of a right wing church would be so compassionate.
It is a shame Adkisson did not sit in the pews and listen for a few services. He might have heard this UU hymn and taken heed:
Come, Come whoever you are;
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving;
Ours is no caravan of despair;
Come yet again come.
July 29th, 2008 at 09:08pm
Posted by
Mark |
Sociology |
no comments
