On The Inside

Well, if anyone has an inside seat to what's happening in Iran it should be an Iranian with a varied background like that of Akbar Ganji. He's had the life experiences to ensure his pronouncements and insider knowledge are taken seriously. And so we should. Because his message is, after all, intriguingly hopeful.

He is a journalist who is actively defying the current government of Iran and its Ayatollahs, the real power behind the maundering idiocy of President Ahmadinejad. His credentials are impressive; as former Revolutionary Guard, he has the insight of what life looks like from that perspective, as one who once was an enthusiastic supporter of the Islamic Revolution.

How refreshing that this man is now the leading dissenting voice, a symbol of resistance who has paid his respectable dues by a long incarceration in the dread Evin Prison. His stay there was not without its own drama, where a hunger strike of resistance nearly took his life when he was reduced to 47 life-tenuous kilograms. He served ten years in prison, with lengthy periods of solitary confinement and the special treat of torture for a recalcitrant outcast.

While in prison he authored a formula, later smuggled out and published, titled Republican Manifesto, setting outlines for a secular, democratic Iran. How's that for hope and determination? Mr. Ganji agrees that human rights violations and repression under theistic totalitarian Iran have increased recently, but that oppression has not weakened the resolve of the country's pro-democracy movement.

He claims that in Iran civil society is more united now, with differing interests making common cause for the good of an eventual revolution leading to democracy. He cites groups such as feminists, students, labour unions, academics and journalists, all of whom remain committed to changing the direction of their country from one of politically stifling religious zealotry to one of democratic reform.

He affirms, furthermore, that fundamentalism does not express the core values of the society itself.

And, he argues, regime change must come from internal pressure, not from external boycotts and and threats of aggression, which will only serve to alienate the population by the outside world's violent intervention. Instead, he recommends opening a dialogue with the ruling theocracy and continuing to press the government to commit to honouring human rights.

He correctly points out what should be obvious, if we were not so fearful of the threat posed to the world by Iran's nuclear-aspiring trajectory.

"Economic sanctions and military attacks against Iran are the first and foremost enemies of democracy and human rights." Yes, he says, Iran is a dictatorship, but one which is being confronted by an increasingly aware, educated and articulate civil society. Since his release from prison he has travelled extensively around the world with his non-violent message.

An emissary for peace and patience, while the world nervously awaits serious symptoms that change inspired by Iran's population determined to become what they are not yet, a respected nation among nations, comes to fruition. Before the anticipated disaster of either invasion or successful detonation of a nuclear device occurs.

Some choice.