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Reza Pahlavi-Tomorrow´s Iran

 
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Iranian Boy



Joined: 13 May 2004
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2004 6:24 pm    Post subject: Reza Pahlavi-Tomorrow´s Iran Reply with quote

http://www.rezapahlavi.org/speeches/paris42504-eng.html

Please add this speech to your front page admin.





Paris
Sciences-Po
(National Foundation of Political Sciences)

Chapsal Amphitheatre
Tuesday May 25, 2004

Reza Pahlavi's speech:
Tomorrow's Iran
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Born from a crisis, surviving only because of a crisis, the Islamic Republic of Iran, for the past 25 years, has turned the livelihood of my country and my compatriots into a crisis. Why such a permanence of crisis and such an absence of normalcy? As a generator of crises by nature, the theocratic totalitarianism sacrifices the wellbeing of my country in the name of the Sharia' - the divine law.

Turning into the instrument of religious fascism, the Islamic Republic has sapped all the moral & spiritual bases of an ancient country with several millennia of civilization & history. The harmful effect of this genre of fascism is dualistic - it is both temporal and spiritual.

Engulfed more than ever by three antagonisms, the Theocracy in Iran opposes the sovereignty of the people by forcing upon them the guardianship of the usurpers of these two spheres. But what are these antagonisms?

The first antagonism is one that opposes "referential legitimacy", emanating from idiosyncratic readings of sacred scripts, to "representational legitimacy”, rooted in the will of the sovereign people. Indeed, all the key components of the theocratic system are placed under the direct “absolute guardianship” of the Supreme Leader or that of institutions accountable to no other but to him. Within such a system, absolutism is the Fundamental Law itself and not just a drift from it. Here, a simple letter of a few words from the Supreme Leader suffices to force the “parliament”, putatively representing the will of the people and supposedly legislating in their name, to withdraw an amendment. Here, the will of 70 million people is subordinated to that of one man.


The second is the rejection of rational thinking by the obscurantism that was born out of the revolution. From the far east to the far west, from Japan to California, billions of people have embraced, through successive waves, the principles of rational, modern, and democratic governance. Such tenets of governance are judged incompatible with the theocratic reading that lays the foundation of the Iranian regime. What is considered as music the world around, is dismissed as "cultural invasion” by the theocrats.


And Lastly, the third is the antagonism of the laws in a system where any attempt at standardization, in essence any legal standardization, are rendered futile.

In no man’s land which separates these opposing front lines, are the people of Iran. Tightly bound as in a straitjacket in a constitutional dead-end, disillusioned with a dying revolution, the people of Iran aspire to an end to the attrition of life under theocracy.

Iran requires only one thing: to return to a democratic normalcy and mutual respect for & friendship with other nations. Is the Islamic regime able to return Iran to this status of normalcy - a status desired eagerly by its citizenry? No, if one fails to recognize the obvious notion that the patch of "reform" for the "Theocracy" in Iran never functioned - neither under the Rafsanjani version nor under that of Khatami's. With quarter of the oil incomes of the Theocratic regime, the pre-revolutionary Iran had made enormous economic and social progress. However, Iran today is an impoverished country. Why? The calamitous management of the theocratic administration and its multiple ramifications are simply one piece of the answer. The other piece, is due to the fact that the theocracy in Iran is expansionist in nature and by its Constitution. The balance, is the absence of a democratic legitimacy - that of the will of the sovereign people - which underlies this impoverishment and has turned disastrous on all aspects. However, democratic normalcy will never be born in Iran as long as this regime - this irreformable and expansionist regime - remains in place.

The question is whether Iran is destined to live in a permanent void of normalcy?

No, if all the protagonists accepted that anarchy is not an option.

No, if the entire Iranian political spectrum met around a joint project, turned towards the future, towards a common destiny.

No, if this spectrum, in all its diversity, agreed upon a single remedy: a constitutional overhaul,

No, if Iran's diverse array of political thought, with all its intellectual richness, armed itself with a powerful instrument: a national free and fair referendum.

No, a permanent state of crisis would not be the destiny of Iran, if western powers understood the reality of today’s Iran: that of the most pro-western population in the Middle East.

No, a permanent state of crisis would not be Iran’s fate, if western powers understood that continued business relations with the theocratic regime of such a country will, on the long run, engender a redoubtable backlash: the resentment of a predominantly young population whose eyes are turned for support towards the West.

No, crisis would not be a fatality if the West supported the people of Iran and not its theocratic regime. For, as long as this regime is in place, there will be no normalcy, neither internal nor external.

In Iran, the project of modernity and people's sovereignty, initiated over a century ago, is the only one that can put an end to the state of crisis - a crisis maintained by the theocracy in Iran. The lighthouse of a region whose restive young population is increasingly confronting the same fundamental flaws, tomorrow's democratic Iran, will know how to share its hard-won modernity and maturity with its neighbors. At the cross-road of peoples and beliefs, tomorrow’s democratic Iran will become once again the bridge of hope and the cradle of cultural synthesis which it has always been.

From the source of a modernity acquired by consensual entente, others will come to quench their thirst. From this maturity a harmonious modernization will be born - one that others will imitate. From its religious reformation, others will be inspired. From its political maturity, others will be impelled.

Such an alternative Iran is within reach. Never before has internal demand, in its largest expression, been so high for reform and coexistence in harmony with the rest of the world. Never before have external conditions been so ripe for the realization of such a demand. Stability, prosperity, and democracy are tied. Democracy in Iran will be the most decisive contribution to stability and reform throughout the region. The West has its share of responsibility in the project.

Tomorrow’s democratic Iran is our common denominator. Let us seize this historic opportunity.



Thank you very much Prince Reza Pahlavi for this speech.

http://www.rezapahlavi.org/speeches/paris42504-eng.html
_________________
Long live the memory of Shahanshah Aryamehr.
Long live Shahbanou Farah Pahlavi
Long live Reza Shah II
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