They are approaching yet another so-called “election season” in Iran and the cards are beginning to stack up against the common Persian. Certain radical elements are being sent back to their little cages in Qom. The armed thugs are being rounded up and sent to the IRGC bunkers throughout the country. Money launderers, crooks and charlatans are curling up deep inside the creases of one of the most corrupt governments the world has seen in recent history. Meanwhile certain other ornamental elements within the Islamic Republic establishment whose sole purpose is to substantiate the illusion of dissent within the regime are being let out of their little hideouts. Ornamental characters waking like hamsters from hibernation in the periphery of whatever that is left of the socio-economic fabric of Iran. There is even a recent rumor in all the right corners of Webland that Misters Mousavi and Karubi are about to be released from house arrest. Everything is coming together for that “Necessary Illusion” of moderation and reform in the Islam-stricken Iran.
It is not the first time in the last twenty years that I borrow from a Chomsky argument in a totally different discourse in Iran with a reference to necessary illusions. My film Secret Ballot went through a working title of Necessary Illusions at a certain juncture in it’s early development. The film itself made reference to how a naive and misinformed element in that society, covered in layers of black protection for her modesty, is relying on a fascist vehicle (literally!) to spread her notion of democracy among the laity. On past occasions, I was accused by some of my learned friends and colleagues of being insensitive to the “uniqueness” of the Iranian psyche! I was further accused of being hasty in my desire for true democracy in Iran without going through what they considered a necessary period of reform and transition. My ears continued to fall deaf to the shallow examples of how the so-called “reformists” have instituted the most effective means to take society from where it is to where it should be. I continue to believe that the argument for facilitating a society’s natural need and drive towards freedom, liberty, independence and self rule through a “controlled” transitionary phase of subtle reform, is flawed at best, and malicious at worst. My questions persist;
Why do we need the religious factions who themselves were key components of dragging a vibrant society into the dark ages, to reform the country? Why can’t we start from the top of the evil pyramid that was erected over our society and question the fundamental discrepancies in the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran? Why do we need to continue to operate at the inconsequential level of the highly filtered and polluted parliamentary and presidential sectors where the real problem lies within the unelected imposed structures of the regime? Why do we think that the Iranian people don’t deserve direct engagement with their government and must go through a controlled transitionary phase of reform? Why do some think that the Islamic Republic can be reformed? Why do we need to sit back and wait for the most ignorant, yet most vocal and active products of the Islamic Republic to experiment with society and gradually be educated to catch up with the silent majority?
We won’t get fooled again? Maybe the fervor of the revolution after decades of oppression clouded our collective vision to see through Khomeini’s charlatanry. Maybe years of violent persecution, murder, execution and mayhem blended with eight years of war and economic turmoil and corruption didn’t leave enough energy for us to see through the necessary illusion of a clergy controlled promise of reform. Maybe we had to learn the hard way, the consequences of our disengagement with the political process which resulted in a planet of the apes scenario. Maybe we had to experience the rude awakening when heavily armed factions of the real government of the Islamic Republic of Iran were unleashed upon us with snipers, thugs and spies in 2009. Maybe we were so naive and ignorant that we had to see with our own eyes, the pillaging of our country by a corrupt regime exposed by others in that regime whose share turned out to be less! Maybe it had to take us over one hundred years to realize that the “foreigners” did not only have two functions; either to exploit us via puppet regimes, coup d’etat’s and political sabotage, or to save us by military action to remove our tyrants. Maybe our martyr complex of assuming we are good and everyone else is trying to kill us contributed most to the conundrum we are facing now.
Recently, I am a lot more worried. I am also inflicted with a certain degree of masochism by which I sincerely hope that I am wrong, misinformed and unnecessarily paranoid. I want to be confronted by some twenty year old from the depths of Iran to humiliate and embarrass me for being so cynical and wrong about my own country. I want to wake up a year from now by a slap in the face from that twenty-something year old who tells me the following;
See you old fool, we weren’t deceived by that illusion this time around. We didn’t buy their bullshit when they released some prisoners, brought down the price of currency and called their dogs off the streets. Shame on you for thinking that we were going to be lied to again and leave our destiny in the hands of some smiling mullah who preached “Islamic Republic” not a word more, not a word less. How ignorant of you to think that we were going to flock to the election booths to vote for some joker who had to be approved by the Supreme Leader up there in the sewers of his fiefdom. How corrupt of you to think that we would let half of our society be subjugated to the most vulgar attacks by religious thugs and covered up in black veils because they represented evil temptations? You cynical old fool, why would you even remotely consider that we will not be able to come together for a common cause? I want the young person to show me that Iran is a country which celebrates diversity and difference. I want him/her to tell me Iran is now a country which does not seek uniformity and conformity to a single ideology. I want to be told that we are a country which encourages diversity in thought, religion, ideas and life styles. I want to hear that we no longer think of foreign countries as either our enemies or our saviors. I want the youth to push for a country that seeks to co-exist in the global community who will only respect us if we respect ourselves. A self respect that helps us never to be fooled again. Wasn’t that a song by the Who? Won’t get fooled again… Well, I hope that young person listens to something else now….
bp
Toronto
December 2011