January 21, 2004 Opinions ¢ the other press © lran’s Failed Experiment Crt Right Hook J.J. McCullough OP Columnist ‘ Perhaps one of the worst kept secrets of the contemporary Muslim world is that Iran’s radical Islamist government is simply not working anymore. In the last few years, dozens of west- ern newspapers, magazines, and TV news reports have done breathless stories detailing the wild antics of Iran’s rebellious youth. Such stories inevitably detail how the teenagers of the Islamic Republic are seeking to under- mine or ignore the nation’s harsh Islamic laws at all avail- able opportunities. The girls are wearing tons of makeup and perfume, placing their colourful headscarves as far back on their heads as possible. In private, they discard the scarves altogether and wear form-fitting provocative outfits as they lounge about and watch pirated Hollywood DVDs. The boys get away with even more, wearing western fashions, going to clubs, and (gasp) even holding hands with their girlfriends in public places. To be sure, Iran is not Vancouver, and if the average Canadian teenager was transported into the country, he would likely be shocked and frustrated at the archaic reli- gious laws imposed upon him. However, the increasingly defiant antics of the Iranian youth are a definite trend, and not one that is likely to be reversed. Often, when these trends are reported, they are often wrongly presented as signs that Iran is “reforming” or that the country’s Islamic government is more moderate than we in the West generally give it credit for. In real- ity, Iran remains a country that is divided into two extremely distant and uncoopera- tive factions—the progressive youth who desire a return to Iran’s past, and the revi- sionist Islamic politicians who have spent the better part of the last two decades try- ing to erase Iran’s legacy of liberalism. Twenty-five years ago, Iranian teenagers ~ could wear makeup and go to clubs. | Women in skirts could walk around with their hair uncovered and no police officer | would bat an eye. Men were not forced to grow beards, and holding hands was not _ taboo. Throughout the 60s and 70s Iran was a vibrant and prosperous country, one of the most westernized and liberal in the Muslim world. Today, it remains rather controversial to even discuss this Iran of the recent past, for doing so only serves to bolster the rep- utation of the man who led it, Shah Reza Pahlavi. Ah yes, the infamous Shah. Like most Muslim leaders of his time (and indeed, today) the Shah was a rather authoritarian absolute monarch who had achieved power by rather dubious means. Though his rule was often harsh, espe- cially to his opponents, the undeniable fact of history remains that the Shah was the man who was almost sin- gle-handly responsible from pulling his country out from the dark ages, and into 20th century western modernity. Under his rule highrises and apartments were built, west- ern products flooded the market place, women were given the vote, and Iran had a prominent role on the world’s stage. Church and state were separate, and the country was wealthy to the point where many accused the Iranian people of being spoiled and arrogant in their success. Unsurprisingly, the progressive, westernizing Shah was also an enemy of the political Left. The fact that the United States and Britain had overtly protected the monarch from being deposed by his own radical socialist Prime Minister in the early 50s remained a sore spot among the West’s intellectual elites. The Shah is a pup- pet, they cried. He’s just a cog in the vast US/British/Capitalist/Zionist conspiracy! As with so many other leaders, the radical left, of the time was unable Wooed by th to see the forest for the trees with the Shah. He was taint- ed by the American bug, and thus was a horrible, illigit- mate leader who had to go. Eventually even US President Jimmy Carter soured on the Shah, and looked the other way when a group of fringe Islamists deposed him in 1979. Though the Shah was a visionary leader in many ways, he was also somewhat of a wimpy coward. The so-called “revolution” that deposed him was little more than a series of street protests, but the frightened Shah quickly packed his things and fled the country, not prepared to take any chances. With the American “puppet” gone, lefties across the globe rejoiced. Ayatollah Khomeni, the coup leader was hailed by leftist literati like Michael Foucault and Norman Mailer as a brave progressive who would challenge “global hegemony” and _ restore faith and legitimacy to to the Iranian people. Khomeni became the leftist hero de Jour, the Ho Chi Minh of Iran, who was facing down the evil American Empire in his tireless pursuit of freedom and democracy for his people. Of course, as everyone knows, in reality Khomeni was a brutal Islamist thug, who painfully pulled Iran out of the 20th century and tried to steer it back to the Stone Age. Iran went from being an urbanized metropolitan (<4 country, to a theocratic police state, with floggings and stonings for those who didn’t follow fundamentalist Isam to the letter. The government was purged of all moderate and secular politicians, as clerics were installed on every level. Anyone who questioned the system was crushed. In a few short weeks Khomeni and his Islamist crew had alreay killed more people than the Shah had in four decades. The left bet on the wrong horse in Iran. Wooed by the lusture of a revolution against an American “puppet” leader, they threw their support behind a cause whose leader turned out to be a thousand times worse. Today, Khomeni’s legacy lives on in Iran, through the lusture of a revolution puppet” leader, government of the Islamic Republic. The clerics still hold all the power, as we saw recently when Khomeni’s succes- sor vetoed the political futures of thousands of Iranian politicians on the basis that the men were not sufficient- ly dedicated to Islam. Though this recent gesture was rightly condemned as the shallow act that it was, it’s also important to realize that despite the rhetoric of the west- ern press, Iran is in no way a democracy, nor is it’s cur- rent President a “reformer.” President Muhhamed Khatami is more moderate than Khomeni, to be sure, but this is a lot like saying that Kruschev was more moderate than Stalin. The much lionized “reformers” in the Iranian government are thoroughly dedicated to preserving Islamic law, and the Khomenist vision of a theocratic republic. When the Iranian people go to the polls, their choices are thus limited to Islamist A or Islamist B. No one else would be allowed to run. The only true “reformers” in Iran are those who are out of power. Many Iranians know that the so-called “revolu- tion” was in fact little more than a brutal coup by a fanat- ic minority faction. Though the Shah’s rule is demonized to an absurd extent by the current government and the state-run media (not to mention western leftists), many Iranians no doubt know that it was under his rule, and not the rule of the clerics, that they were able to live socially liberal, successful lives and have their country embraced by the global commu- nity, instead of being ostracized as a terrorist state. The young people of Iran are thus not radicals, nor are their ideas revolutionary. Their efforts are little more than an attempt to return Iran to its pre-1979 western modernity, and / waway from the rules of the artificial theocracy. wo-thirds of Iran’s 68-million population is under the age of 30. The widely paraded exam- uples of “youth rebellion” in Iran that we read about in magazines are thus the result of a sim- ple numbers game. The government and its upporters will soon be the minority. Already, e have seen Iran’s educated student popula- tion emerge as the regime's only true critics, as unlike western journalists and European politicians the young educated class realize the farce of the whole “Reformist vs. Conservative” debate in the government. All the theocrats can do at this point is turn a blind eye to some of the rule-breaking, and attempt to further indoctrinate and suppress the new generation before it gets too out of control. But someday, the hard-line Khomenists will die off, and Iran will be free to return to freedom and modernity it has been denied for so long. Iran’s theocratic experiment has stunted the growth, freedom, and success of a dynamic and intelligent people for over two decades. The Islamic Republic was a failed experiment. It is truly one of history’s most tragic. 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