Here is my latest blog in Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mahmood-delkhasteh/the-irrelevance-of-irans-_b_3360506.html
Some excerpts:
"The
abandonment of their(the Reformists) conditions for participating in
the election, along with their support for a person such as Rafsanjani
who still takes pride in his past, tells us that the prime goal of the
reformists in political activity is power. For them, preserving the
regime through which they get their identity and financial well-being is
the ultimate goal, or, as Khomeini put it, the "ultimate duty" (ojebe
vaajebaat). Judging from their actions, their main goal for reform is
not, and never was, to change Iranians' political status from duty-bound
minors to full citizens, or to establish a democratic regime worthy of
such citizens, but rather to reform it enough to make it sustainable
while taking the edge off of simmering discontent."
"Here
we can see why the Green Movement, which preceded the Arab Spring,
failed to achieve its goals. It failed because it did not break away
from reformist discourse, and allowed itself to be controlled by
reformist leaders and intellectuals who used people in their political
game. They succeeded in doing this mainly because they were able to
convince their supporters to make few demands and have low expectations.
They equated the demands for democracy and human rights that could not
be accommodated by the structurally unreformable regime as radical, and
accused those striving for freedom, independence and human rights as
idealists who are detached from reality."
"Within
this discourse, reform became equated with nonviolent and rational
action and revolution with irrational, violent acts. In this way, they
succeeded in controlling political activity through twin mechanisms of
fear and hope -- the fear of structural change, and hope in the
reformability of the unreformable. Young people became full of fear of
venturing out and full of a vain hope in the power of asking for and
expecting little. Humiliation became a major ingredient in the discourse
of reform, as only a humiliated person who is convinced by a language
of "realism" and "pragmatism" and who has disowned "idealism" would be
able to support a political system which treats her/him as a minor, and
in which the vote of one single person can veto the votes of an entire
nation."
"The
long journey of Iranian people towards freedom and independence will
only end when they bid farewell to the reformists who have every
interest in preserving this regime which survives by moving the country
from one crisis to another. Boycotting the election would be a first
step."
