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Iran's Upcoming Municipal Elections
On December 15 Iranians will cast their ballots for municipal elections. Reformist candidates across the country, particularly in Tehran, have a credible opportunity to win, if their constituents emerge from their hibernation and actively participate in these elections. The government has hindered the domestic media's attempt to generate a celebratory environment for the electorates to exercise their constitutional right. Iranian media around the world need to realize that a dampened down election will only perpetuate the status quo and will reinforce a growing messianic belief that Iranians need to be rescued.
The famous American sociologist Harold Garfinkel observed that people become conscious of the order of things around them only when that order is disrupted. The taken-for-granted thus exists invisibly until its existence is breached.
Since his election in 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,'s administration has ceaselessly restricted civil liberties and political rights. Numerous opposition parties and personalities rightfully publicize these violations, and emphasize the importance of legal and political protection of civil liberties as the foundation for any future transformation of the Iranian society. But many of these same groups have been relentlessly denying the existence of these liberties in the Islamic Republic in the first place. If the Ahmadinejad administration has banned the publication and the reprint of numerous books, if they have reinstituted secret prisons, if they refuse permits for demonstrations, if they close newspapers indefinitely without a court order, if government officials have refused to be accountable for their actions to the Majlis, if all of these changes are indeed happening don't they suggest that there had been a different political configuration in place before they were effected? Could it be that the Khatami presidency accomplished things that are now being disrupted? We become more aware of the achievements of Khatami when we witness their disappearance.
In his first interview after leaving office, in response to a reporter who asked about his best moment as president, Khatami referred to his address at Tehran University on the occasion of Student Day in 2004. During his speech, enraged students interrupted and denounced him for yielding to the conservative judiciary in pursing his project of strengthening the institutions of civil society. He listened quietly with open displeasure and left after hearing out his opponents. He told the reporters, that was his finest moment in office! For the first time in the country's history a leader faced shouting critics in an open forum and not a single person was arrested afterwards. Before Khatami, this would have been unimaginable in Iran, and is perhaps no longer possible even in the United States today.
More
http://www.counterpunch.org/ghamari12092006.html
Since his election in 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,'s administration has ceaselessly restricted civil liberties and political rights. Numerous opposition parties and personalities rightfully publicize these violations, and emphasize the importance of legal and political protection of civil liberties as the foundation for any future transformation of the Iranian society. But many of these same groups have been relentlessly denying the existence of these liberties in the Islamic Republic in the first place. If the Ahmadinejad administration has banned the publication and the reprint of numerous books, if they have reinstituted secret prisons, if they refuse permits for demonstrations, if they close newspapers indefinitely without a court order, if government officials have refused to be accountable for their actions to the Majlis, if all of these changes are indeed happening don't they suggest that there had been a different political configuration in place before they were effected? Could it be that the Khatami presidency accomplished things that are now being disrupted? We become more aware of the achievements of Khatami when we witness their disappearance.
In his first interview after leaving office, in response to a reporter who asked about his best moment as president, Khatami referred to his address at Tehran University on the occasion of Student Day in 2004. During his speech, enraged students interrupted and denounced him for yielding to the conservative judiciary in pursing his project of strengthening the institutions of civil society. He listened quietly with open displeasure and left after hearing out his opponents. He told the reporters, that was his finest moment in office! For the first time in the country's history a leader faced shouting critics in an open forum and not a single person was arrested afterwards. Before Khatami, this would have been unimaginable in Iran, and is perhaps no longer possible even in the United States today.
More
http://www.counterpunch.org/ghamari12092006.html
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