Signs of a Lasting Revolution

Claude Salhani (VIEW FROM WASHINGTON)

31 January 2010

The Islamic Republic of Iran has sentenced two demonstrators of the recent troubles that have perturbed the country since the contested election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to death by hanging.

In doing so, the clerics who rule Iran have proved once again that they are neither a republic, nor Islamic.In democracies governments do not kill their own citizens for partaking in demonstrations; even violent ones. Resorting to the death penalty is indeed a sign of weakness on the part of the establishment who fear its opponents to the point that it chooses to end a life, knowing that this is the only way to silence a voice of discontent. The death penalty is the extreme form of censorship. It is also a weapon of terror, meant to send a message to others.  Mess with the state and this is what will happen to you.

But what the ayatollahs, much as others before them, fail to understand is that a government can only muzzle its people for so long. Turning against one’s own people has never led any government to ultimate victory. One may, of course, point to exceptions, such as Cuba and North Korea, I would call them oddities, not exceptions, because the final victory is not in the hands of those in power. What is very likely to happen in Cuba after Fidel Castro dies and in North Korea after Kim Jong-Il dies is that their legacy will in all probability die with them. A true revolution and a true revolutionary leaves a lasting legacy for generations to come. Examples: the French Revolution of 1789 with its three powerful words -liberty, equality and fraternity -that still drive modern day French politics. Or yet the American Revolution and the American Constitution its founding fathers created is truly a masterpiece in political engineering. The American Constitution was centuries ahead of its time. It foresaw all the potential dangers that may crop up in a democracy and tried to place guardrails against them. And it has worked for the most part. America and American democracy is far from perfect but the Constitution remains a marvel of modern political thought.

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In fact being an ‘expert’ in one of the above-mentioned topics has become something of a lucrative industry for some. The problem arising from this new - or perhaps not so new - phenomenon is that some people, even some intelligent people (and at times some intelligence people) start to believe the rot that is disseminated by these ‘experts.’

New Book by Claude Salhani

 While the Arab World Slept