John M. Olin Institute for
Strategic Studies
Harvard University
Conference on The Study of Religion and Terrorism
November 20, 2002
Speech by H.I.M. Reza
Shah Pahlavi II of Iran:
From Theocracy to Democracy:
Our National Campaign for Secularism
Let me begin by thanking this
great academic institution and the organizers of this important gathering
for inviting me to share with you my thoughts about the role of religion
in contemporary Iranian politics, as well as my vision for the future of
my homeland.
Being among you, I am reminded of the important role academic institutions
such as Harvard University play in helping us understand and appreciate
the forces that shape our world; the nature and possibilities of the role
we may play in defining what the world ought to be; and, just as
importantly, what we must do to achieve the vision of a world that
reflects the best of our human nature. The freedom you enjoy in pursuit of
your academic endeavors – something that is taken for granted by most
present in this hall – is the envy of many, including student bodies and
faculty members of similar places of learning in my homeland.
I would like to briefly touch upon three topics: First, the relationship
between religion and politics in Iran; Second, the connection between the
Islamic regime and terrorism; and finally, the challenge posed by the new
US National Security Doctrine for Iran as well as the international
posture vis-à-vis my country.
This evening, I address you as an Iranian citizen committed to a
progressive agenda for the future of my homeland, and to the freedoms that
my compatriots demand and deserve. This commitment includes the
recognition of the important role religion has played historically, and
will continue to play in our lives. However, in order to achieve
secularism and democracy, I would argue that we must respect and uphold
the right of any of our citizens who choose to do so to practice without
fear of intimidation or persecution, not only our predominant religion of
Shi’ite Islam, but other faiths or systems of belief as well. This must
be guaranteed by the future constitution.
To respect religion is not the same as to submit to force, to abdicate
one’s judgment, or to yield to tyranny disguised as religious mandate.
To respect religion in Iran today is to separate it from governance, to
assign it the exalted place it deserves in the heart and mind of the
individual.
Using Islam to usurp power is to abuse it and ultimately discredit it.
This is precisely what the clerical regime has done since its inception.
The ruling theocrats have today overwhelmingly lost the trust and support
of the Iranian people. In simple terms, religion has been hijacked, by a
few, in order to provide a false pretense of legitimacy for a theocratic
order that denies the most basic human rights to its citizens.
The regime boasts of the number of presidential and parliamentary
elections it has staged in the course of the past 23 years. But cleverly,
it omits the glaring fact that elections under its so-called “religious
democracy” are limited exclusively to those candidates bearing the seal
of approval from the regime. Candidates are only allowed to run on proof
of indisputable allegiance to the established leadership. And even when
they are elected, their decisions are likely to be reversed by non-elected
constitutional bodies. Indeed, such organs as the Guardian Council, the
judiciary and the office of the faqih (Supreme Leader) – all with their
overriding legal powers – are embedded in the constitution precisely in
order to override the people’s will. The regime, of course, employs
various means to induce as many people as it can to participate in its
well-orchestrated elections in an attempt to claim legitimacy in the eyes
of the Iranian people and the world at large.
It is now more than five years since the serious inadequacies of the
current theocratic regime in Iran, evident to the majority of Iranians,
have also come to the attention of the international community. This
awareness has come about mostly as a result of the re-emergence of Iranian
youth on the political scene. This is to be expected. Nearly 50 million of
Iran's 70 million citizens are under the age of 30. These young people
desperately need and demand freedom, jobs, housing, education, healthcare,
and economic opportunity. They hold the key to Iran's transition from
religious totalitarianism to a secular representative government, complete
with economic promise, a civil society and guarantees for liberty, gender
equality and a better life.
The impetus for change in Iran’s political environment is to a great
extent a consequence of this resurgence. Our youth are the vanguard of the
movement for change and have achieved considerable success in undermining
the hardliners of the theocratic government. The student rebellion
initially met brutal suppression in July 1999. However, neither
imprisonment and torture, nor various intimidation tactics perpetrated by
their rulers, discouraged them from continuing the struggle for liberty.
Today, this struggle is, in fact, spearheading a national crusade against
theocratic rule and is redefining the very role of religion in our
society.
What our youth demand is what has been historically sought by their
counterparts in free societies the world over. They no longer accept the
suffocating space and the sterile intellectual atmosphere ordained for
them by their rulers, whom they consider abusers of religion in pursuit of
unholy agendas.
Particularly noteworthy is the valiant role Iranian women have played in
defying the clerical establishment. Constituting 51percent of the
population, Iranian women were the first to bear the brunt of the
regime’s suppression. They were among the first to rise against the
tyranny of a system that from its inception sought to force them into the
confines of a second-class citizenry. On this defining issue, it is clear
that the regime’s inherent failure lies in its dogmatic rejection of
equal rights for women. Similarly, its denial of equality under the law
for religious and ethnic minorities is yet another glaring violation of
the fundamental principles of human rights.
The failure of the theocratic system to resolve Iran's serious
socio-economic problems has caused a growing number of Islamic
theologians, who themselves were founders and theoreticians of the Islamic
Republic, to openly question the very doctrine of “velayat-e faqih,”
although many still promote the contradictory concept of “religious
democracy.”
More importantly, the people today attribute these shortcomings to the
root cause: the clash between theocracy on the one hand, and modernity and
democracy on the other. Iranians today clearly understand and openly
debate this principal: that democracy presupposes the sovereignty and
inalienable rights of the individual in the context, not of divine law,
but of the law of the people.
Democracy is based on the free expression of thought and respect for human
rights, including full recognition of equal rights for women and for
ethnic and religious minorities. A system such as the Islamic Republic, in
which the Sovereignty of God exercised through the faqih and his
paraphernalia of governance is intricately woven into the constitution,
can never become democratic.
Since the abrogation of its Constitution would amount to loss of raison
d’être for the regime, and thus would never be volunteered by the
ruling clergy, only a complete “regime change” could usher in real
democratization. It is clear that other than promoting an illusion of
democracy and thus prolonging the era of political repression and economic
decay in Iran, these "reformed theologians" fail to provide
effective solutions for rectifying popular grievance, reviving Iran’s
economy, and rebuilding the country’s damaged relations with the outside
world.
The rift between the regime and the people is widening daily. The regime
is losing legitimacy in the eyes of the people; but it must persevere in
its ways in order to maintain legitimacy in its own eyes. People have
lost, and are increasingly losing, their cherished beliefs in Islam
because religious institutions and practices are inextricably intertwined
with the failed institutions of the government. They are also confronted
with a dilemma of colossal proportions in that they are faced with a
judicial ruse. On the one hand, the judiciary claims independence, which
is how a good judicial system ought to be; on the other hand, the judicial
system is constitutionally and therefore practically biased against the
fundamental rights of the people, which is precisely what a good judiciary
ought not to be. As such, the real struggle today is between the
theocracy, and the people who pursue modernity, secularism and democracy.
The clerical regime is both unwilling and unable to deliver the types of
reforms that can begin to address peoples’ fundamental needs. After 23
years of despotism and sharp socio-economic decline, most Iranians reject
the current regime and more than ever wish to free themselves from the
shackles of a medieval system, clearly out of tune with the needs of a
modern society. The regime’s efforts to curb dissent and ignore the
public’s outcry has proven ineffective in preventing the Iranian
people’s march towards a secular and progressive society – one in
which state and religion are once and for all separated. In essence, the
people of Iran have reached the conclusion that the system is inherently
non-reformable, and that theocracy and democracy are incompatible.
Let me turn to the issue of terrorism and the Islamic regime in Iran. The
clerical rulers of Tehran cannot become loyal partners in the global war
against terror. In its 23 years of rule, the Iranian theocracy has in fact
used terror as an instrument of policy. The prime victims of this practice
have of course been the people of Iran. But the regime has also championed
terrorism of global reach, and since 1983 persistently topped the lists of
states sponsoring terrorism. The record is unmistakable. Details are set
forth in official reports of the United Nations, Amnesty International,
the U.S. State Department and numerous other sources. More tangibly, they
are reflected in terrorist indictments against the most senior Iranian
officials, issued by courts in Germany and the United States.
Let there be no doubt, similar to the old soviet doctrine of
"communism international," the clerical regime's raison d'être
is the export of the "Islamic revolution," first regionally and
then globally. This is embedded in the very same constitution that the
present leaders have sworn to uphold at any cost.
No wonder the involvement of the Islamic regime in terrorist activities
stretches well beyond the Persian Gulf, to Europe, Africa and Latin
America. Furthermore, having lost legitimacy domestically, the regime is
in dire need to score points beyond its borders in order to retain such
legitimacy in the eyes of all extremists, from Bin-Laden to others. So
long as the Islamic regime in Iran exists as a model and epicenter, it
would provide solace to radical Islamists across the world, and as we have
realized, such a role is far more dangerous and pernicious than weapons of
mass destruction.
As a pivotal country in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf region, and
with the largest population and one of the oldest civilizations, I am
convinced that the institutionalization of democracy, secularism and the
rule of law in Iran will have positive ramifications, not only for our
country, but also for our neighbors. A secular and democratic Iran will be
a force for stability and moderation in that volatile region and
consequently a positive and constructive influence for the promotion of
international peace and security.
Finally, let me address a few points regarding US Foreign Policy and the
international reaction and posture vis-à-vis Iran. There are two
categories of countries or governments: those who separate the people of
Iran from their rulers, and those who still believe the conflict to be one
between two camps, the so-called moderate and conservatives. It appears
that the current US administration has finally shifted to the first group.
Subsequently, the symbolic gesture from Iranian citizens, holding a candle
light vigil subsequent to September 11th, was acknowledged and responded
to by the President and his administration. For the most part, these
gestures and demarcations were positively interpreted and received by most
Iranians, to the detriment of their disagreeing rulers.
The European Union, on the other hand, appears to still be stuck with the
old cliché, and has succumbed to a carefully orchestrated good cop/bad
cop game masterfully played by Tehran. What preoccupy most Iranians –
myself included – are the ongoing negotiations between EU
representatives and the clerical regime. It is imperative that any trade
considerations should be preceded by major changes in the regime’s
domestic behavior in the overall context of human right violations. The
worst thing that could happen is for the world to condone these violations
while pursuing short-term economic interests, and to be literally throwing
a lifeline to a sinking regime. That will not bode well for people’s
moral, and will in fact alienate them vis-à-vis all those who chose to
ignore their plight at this critical juncture. I therefore caution the
world community in realizing the consequences of their actions and
policies regarding Iran, particularly in the short term, and in light of
recent dramatic upheavals.
Having said that, I have told my compatriots time and again, that we
should not depend on anybody but ourselves in our nonviolent fight for
freedom, democracy, and progress. We do not expect other nations to have
our interest at heart more than their own. We expect them however to
recognize that a civil and reliable government in a country like Iran, in
a region like the Middle East, is to everyone’s interest. And for
advocates of freedom and human rights, we hope that they will continue to
stay true to their stated principles, especially when they clearly witness
the plight of our people under the rule of the Islamic Republic.
But let me emphasize this: There is no “single formula” for the Middle
East. Iran need not be confronted with military action. Iran’s problem
will be resolved by Iranians alone. Naturally, in bringing momentum and
direction to the process of change, we expect the world to give moral
support to our people, thus further empowering acts of civil disobedience
and the quest for liberty and secularism.
Unlike the 20th century when governments invested in regimes, the 21st
century will prove that ultimately investment in people and democracy far
outlasts investment in unpopular regimes.
Our world has witnessed the dawn of new democracies brought about by
nonviolent civil disobedience movements, from Africa to Latin America and
throughout Eastern Europe. Let there be no doubt that Iranians thirst for
the same chance to restore their inalienable right to self-determination,
thus restoring the civility, dignity, tolerance and sovereignty for which
my homeland was known for so many centuries.
The world must care and make the right choice in favoring the winds of
change that will usher in secularism, human rights, and democracy for Iran
– reversing the cycle of violence, and directly translating into
regional peace and stability for the world.
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