McGill University law professor Payam Akhavan says Iran holds key to democracy in the Middle East

Akhavan claims that the Islamic regime is in its “death pangs”, which raises his hopes for more democracy in the region.

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      A McGill University law professor says that Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaged in a “proxy war” for control over large parts of the Middle East. And the impact is being felt in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria. Bahrain, and Afghanistan, where Shiite and Sunni Muslims are often engaged in violent confrontations.

      “These are often power struggles between Iran and Saudi Arabia,” Payam Akhavan, an Iranian-born expert on international human-rights and criminal law, told the Georgia Straight during a recent visit to Vancouver. “The Saudis are more than happy to eliminate Iran as a rival, but I think the biggest threat to Saudi Arabia will be when Iran becomes a secular democracy.”

      During a wide-ranging interview in a downtown restaurant, Akhavan suggested that Iran’s future will have a profound impact on the region’s transition from tradition to modernity, and from authoritarianism to democracy. He declared that the Iranian regime is in its “death pangs” because the vast majority of citizens are thoroughly sick of “political Islam” after more than three decades of Shiite rule. Akhavan, who recently spoke in Tahrir Square in Cairo, contrasted that with the situations in Egypt, Syria, Libya, Bahrain, and other Arab countries that have never suffered under a religious dictatorship in the modern era.

      “Egypt reminded me not of where Iran was in the 2009 uprising but where Iran was in 1979, when political Islam was still a romantic, utopian ideology,” he said. “The one place in the Middle East nobody wants political Islam is Iran, because people have lived for 30 years under this incredibly violent, brutal, corrupt rule and they see the reality. So why is Iran the epicentre of this wider transformation in the Middle East? Because Iranian civil society is 30 years ahead of Egypt’s. It’s 30 years ahead of Syria.”

      Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power in Iran after the 1979 revolution and, according to Akhavan, hijacked a secular, leftist national revolution against the Shah of Iran. The professor added that Khomeini’s successor as supreme leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Hoseyni Khamenei, continues exercising ruthless control over the corruption-riddled country. Akhavan claimed that the “green revolution”, which was brutally repressed following the 2009 election, reflected a widespread desire for change among average Iranians.

      “So civil society in Iran has turned against political Islam,” he stated. “It is thoroughly secular, including among Islamic reformists, who may be devout Muslims but who want a separation of state and religion. So Iran’s civil society is by far the most mature: its women’s movement, its students’ movement, its labour movement, its environmental movement. In a sense, they have become mature thanks to the excesses of totalitarianism.”

      Here’s where Akhavan’s views differ from those of many analysts of Iran, who liken the mullahs’ rule to a throwback to ancient times. The professor, on the other hand, characterized the Islamic regime as a thoroughly 20th-century aberration, similar to the rise of National Socialism in Germany or Stalinism in the former Soviet Union. He claimed that these “modern romantic ideologies” emerge to fill a vacuum, in effect becoming substitutes for traditional religion.

      “When the ayatollahs say that the union of state and religion is consistent with our true Islamic identity before western corruption, it’s absolute nonsense,” Akhavan said, “because the tradition of 500 years of Shia Islam in Iran from 1501, when it became the official religion, was separation of state and religion—because the orthodox clerics believe that until the advent of the messianic 12th imam, all temporal authority was illegitimate.”

      Under the Iranian constitution, however, Khamenei is the supreme temporal leader, and he decides who may run for president or be appointed to the judiciary. Akhavan noted that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s followers have complicated the picture by “circulating rumours that he has direct lines of communication with the 12th imam, which would obviate the need for the supreme leader”.

      “So they’re setting the stage for a significant conflict,” he stated.

      Meanwhile, Akhavan added, young people, who are the vast majority of Iran’s population, are highly literate and have middle-class expectations. And he claimed that they despise totalitarian Islamic rule. “They are Internet-savvy,” he said. “They are glued to satellite television. There is a huge diaspora abroad, highly successful, and a flow of information, so it’s not a country that you can indefinitely rule through terrorization.”

      It remains an open question if revolutions in Arab countries will bring about religious dictatorships. Akhavan noted that Saudi Arabia is trying to promote Sunni fundamentalist rule in Egypt, Syria, and other countries by supporting Salafist political parties. He added that the Muslim Brotherhood, which is emerging as a powerful force in Egypt, is more moderate than the Salafists and more likely to work closely with the Egyptian army.

      “Radical Islam is more like a modern totalitarian ideology, even though it speaks the language of tradition,” he stated.

      However, he pointed out that if democratic rule emerges in Iran, it could create a powerful beacon for supporters of greater freedom and secular rule in Arab countries. “You have this revolution from below and the most mature and secular and democratic social movement in the Middle East,” Akhavan said. “So Iran could very quickly transform from night to day and become a force for stability in the region.”

      According to Akhavan, any political transformation would be blocked if Iran were to be attacked, because this would strengthen the hands of fanatics ruling the country. “We jokingly say that Ahmadinejad prays every Friday at the mosque for Israeli air strikes because it’s the only thing that would prop up his regime: creating a common enemy, exciting people’s nationalist sentiment,” he said. “An Israeli air strike would set back the democratic movement by a decade, and it would give a pretext for mass execution of the regime’s opponents under the cover of war. And, at best, it would delay Iran’s acquisition of nuclear capability by a few years, so I think, for the most part, the Americans and the Israelis understand this.”


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      Comments

      21 Comments

      Halabi

      Jan 5, 2012 at 7:18am

      He has no clue as to what he is talking about.

      fereydoun barkeshli

      Jan 5, 2012 at 9:14am

      By imposing sanction on Iran's crude oil exports and the Central Bank,the United States and western countries virtually block any chance of a reconcilliation with the Islamic government in Iran.The current admistration considers such a sanction a prelude to an all out military confrontation.As such Iran now believes that such a confrontation is better to happen sooner than a later date when the country's economy is too weakened to stand a confrontation.Dr.Akhavan is right in that Iran is key to a true democracy in the region,a capacity that no Middle Eastern country may have.

      asdf

      Jan 5, 2012 at 12:19pm

      Islam itself is in it's death pangs. It got a shot at revival solely due to petro dollars, otherwise it is a lost cause. Islam will not survive criticism hence it's furious attempts to shut down criticism as a survival mechanism. Internet is now full of websites by ex-muslims detailing the true history of islam and life of muhammed constructed from islamic sources - quran and the hadiths.

      Etienne

      Jan 5, 2012 at 2:49pm

      The man either does not know what he is talking about or is catering to gross anti-muslim prejudice among his readers: the brutal *fact* is that it is *after* the 1979 revolution that the westernisation of Iran (basically, spread of mass literacy + collapse of birth rates) took place. Thus, the notion that the present-day regime is an obstacle to westernisation is, to put it mildly, preposterous.

      He is correct that an outside threat gives anti-democratic forces a boost: Cuba and North Korea are both countries whose regimes remain in power because of the (quite grounded) fear of outside attack. Hence I am disappointed that he does not push his analysis to its logical conclusion: people who wish Iran to become a democracy should hope/wish that it obtain a credible nuclear deterrent. This is because fear of an outside attack will definitely give local authoritarians a boost: but if a nuclear deterrent means that an attack on Iran is not a realistic scenario...now that would embolden a lot of local Iranian activists and would-be politicians, and ultimately make the democratisation of Iran a much faster process than it otherwise might be.

      Janie Jones

      Jan 5, 2012 at 4:04pm

      Say where does the CIA sponsored 1953 coup against a democratically elected government that saw the installation of the brutal regime of the Shah fit into this brilliant analysis?

      Lawson1945

      Jan 5, 2012 at 6:43pm

      Of course he would say that he is one of them, how did he get into Canada by they way, did you bother to check this out Georgia Strait

      Jaded in Vancouver

      Jan 6, 2012 at 12:41am

      In 1979, during the Iranian Revolution, I met many students from Persia who were fleeing the conflict. I was still a student at university, and I remember one of my professor's comment : " What are these people doing ? Trading in one dictator for another ! "

      Abdali

      Jan 6, 2012 at 5:28am

      Most so called modernized iranians are basically atheists or non-islamic in their stance. While I dont know how true the western-iranian claims are - but it is true that,

      - CIA and its UK allies tried its best in recent elections to create a TURMOIL.

      - US sanctions through its IMMORAL LOBBY IN UN against Iran are neither democratic, nor moral.

      Ahmedinijad is there despite ALL sanctions possible, while 2 of the US presidents passed him - with scandals surrounding them.

      Jews who hate Iran/president are living as a minority for centuries - note they are NOT MASSACRED despite what they like to do against the Iranian nation from israel. They live freely like any minority in other democratic nation - rather fairly better than muslims (and even people of color/spanish) live in USA!

      Ghazanfar

      Jan 6, 2012 at 1:56pm

      Payam Akhavan has a genuine interest in not seeing an Islamic system anywhere in the world. This is the crux of the matter and the root of his anti-Islam analysis. This is an agenda driven analysis.

      He may also need to talk about his U.S founded human rights organization.

      In fact, he has never visited Iran during Islamic Republic era that means at least 33 years. How on earth somebody like him can be a reference for anything regarding Iran? his contacts are mostly upper-middle class Iranians living out of Iran. It's no coincident that he finds it acceptable to claim that Iranian people as a whole want a "secular democracy" and despise an Islamic system of governance.

      In the past, he claimed that nearly 700 people were killed in Tehran only during post-election turmoil while the numbers for the whole country stand bellow 40. while every loss of life is important, it's time for open minded people to ask Dr.Akhavan to give the names of those 700 people he passionately buried in. it seems, people like him have no shame for telling "lie".

      here is the link of his article:

      http://www.david-kilgour.com/2009/Jul_24_2009_02.php