BY SHYAM K.C.
Last week's student elections in colleges across the country were miniature versions of state and local elections. What with the political heavyweights, including ministers, joining in the canvassing campaigns, one can conclude that political parties and their leaders unabashedly use students for their political ends. The scenes we watched on television were similar to those from non-student political elections. Many campuses witnessed violence, which is never a part of free and fair election. There were also reports that attempts were made to capture ballot boxes. Counting of ballots were put off at a few campuses due to tension between student groups aligned to different political parties. The violence took a more serious turn in east Nepal when one student was killed in police firing. The state run television reported that four persons including a college principal were abducted in west Nepal. It seems for political parties, the student elections are as important as other elections in obtaining political offices and seats. No wonder there were allegations that the students who used subsidised transport and other facilities spent lots of money on elections. The open involvement of political parties in student body elections gives rise to suspicions that the aim of student elections goes far beyond improving the quality of education in colleges.
Most students go to college to pursue higher education and become able citizens of the country and the world. But there are others who, in the guise of students, are there to indulge in politics and to keep the banners of their parties afloat by winning in union elections. And this kind of student power is seen mostly in least developed countries like Nepal and also in developing countries like India. It is not that students do not take part in politics. They do. For instance, in Nepal they were active in the pro-democracy movements of 1990 and 2006. During the Vietnam War, the usually peaceful college campuses in the United States erupted against the establishment. In other countries too, students have been a potent force in the change of governments or even political system. But once these goals are achieved, the primary concern of students is education and it is here that they need to concentrate. Places of learning should be kept away from power politics. The disturbance caused by elections based on party lines cannot bode well for the future of the students. But it is true that student bodies must be elected by the students to ensure that their academic life is not marred by poor quality education, incompetent teachers, absence of extra-curricular activities, and other distractions such as unnecessary politicisation of student bodies. Student unions work for the welfare of students in their respective campuses and should try to keep politics away from academic affairs.
The way political leaders, including top Maoist ministers, went on to campaign in campuses to ensure the victory of panels loyal to their parties is a development that must be deplored in no uncertain terms. The general feeling as this writer perceived in the course of talks with ordinary people was that this kind of political interference in student affairs should not set a precedent for the future. This puts at stake academic freedom which is necessary in all academic institutions worth the name. Student unions, apart from working for the welfare of students, can help their respective institutions strengthen their reputations and stand alongside the world's best institutions so that their graduates are respected everywhere and their degrees and diplomas not considered inferior, as they are today in many countries.
Students alone cannot and should not be blamed for what has happened to our present education system. Political parties that unscrupulously use students through their student wings are more to blame. Our political parties are a bane to our students' quest for educational excellence. The parties lack vision and do not seem to realise the long term implications of their present actions. Otherwise they would not be using students for their own political ends despite knowing that students would best serve themselves, their families, their country and even their parties by concentrating on studies and on campus activities instead of party-driven student politics. Student politics during the recent elections took a violent turn. Curfew had to be imposed in some places. And votes could not be counted in a few campuses till Sunday afternoon. But this is less a reflection on the students themselves than on the parties that condone and encourage such activities. Things are not going to improve unless political parties make it a point to stay away from student affairs and not to use students in any political activities designed for short term gains. But it would be futile to expect our leaders to take decisions that would benefit the nation in the long run at the cost of their short-term party interests. But unless this kind of decision is taken by political parties, we are doomed to see students used by political parties even for petty political activities. Educational excellence will remain a distant dream for us until party politics is kept away from college campuses.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
Too Much Politics in Nepal!
Raj
It is too much in Nepal. If not, how much is too much? We have anarchists both in government and outside. If the men in government make frightening comments at times then the men outside the government framework too contribute to create panic among the already panicked population.
The rhetoric of State Capture that we have been listening since a month or so is what has been sending spine chilling waves in the body of the common men considering what will eventually happen to this nation-state if and when such a capture gets materialized.
Ministerial suggestions that each and every Nepali citizen must carry weapons for their personal safety must not be taken as a joke as it tells the very mindset of those who forwards such hair-raising propositions.
Even the Nepali media men were suggested February 8, 2009 by a sitting minister to keep weapons with them as the state may not be able to provide needed and the adequate security to the media men on an individual basis. A brilliant idea but equally a dangerous one in essence.
The media men are being killed on a frequent basis with no probability of receiving security from the nation-state. Thus the media is in a panicked state. The innocent civilians are being kidnapped in a broad day light. Cases of arson and loot continue unabated. The entire security system in the country appears to have become either lenient or defunct.
The entire Terai or say Madhesh is in turmoil with mind boggling demands unheard of. The Bundhs and closures of the national high ways have become a regular feature. If such Bundhs and closures bring in chaos in the industrial sector then those who are engaged in this domain, the industrialists and the workers, too have been feeling the brunt. If the industrialists now prefer to shift the capital to some, comparatively, safer places outside the country then the innocent workers who earn their living by spending their energies each day for two meals a day too have become jobless which surely has a multiplier effect.
Consider a poor worker who earns one hundred rupees by extending his personal services to any one factory will have no money to feed his children and other family members if the factories are told to close down under one pretext or the other by some groups, politically motivated or otherwise.
The repeated bundhs and the closures in effect are hitting the poor section of the Nepali society instead what is being given to understand.
The culture of Bundhs and Closures, a new phenomenon for Nepal indeed but it appears that such phenomenon have already taken deep roots in our country.
Who benefits or for that matter who or which section of the society is hit hard by such sad events is any body’s guess.
The Bundhs and closures continue but the government in Kathmandu has no time to look into the mater seriously. The government at best is busy in calculating the numerical numbers on how to continue in power. This is a cheat. This is unacceptable. No sane person on earth will praise such a government that remains averse to the plight of its own population.
The culture of Bundhs and Closures must come to an end. If the demands are political ones then the government must try to handle it politically. If the bundhs and the closures are made by miscreants then the state must deal with the emerging situation accordingly.
Alas! The nepali people haven’t felt that there is the presence of the government. Neither the government is present nor the State?
If so then we the people are left to the mercy of the Almighty who prefers not to speak when we need him to speak in our favor.
Perhaps this explains the situation prevailing in this country. That’s all.
It is too much in Nepal. If not, how much is too much? We have anarchists both in government and outside. If the men in government make frightening comments at times then the men outside the government framework too contribute to create panic among the already panicked population.
The rhetoric of State Capture that we have been listening since a month or so is what has been sending spine chilling waves in the body of the common men considering what will eventually happen to this nation-state if and when such a capture gets materialized.
Ministerial suggestions that each and every Nepali citizen must carry weapons for their personal safety must not be taken as a joke as it tells the very mindset of those who forwards such hair-raising propositions.
Even the Nepali media men were suggested February 8, 2009 by a sitting minister to keep weapons with them as the state may not be able to provide needed and the adequate security to the media men on an individual basis. A brilliant idea but equally a dangerous one in essence.
The media men are being killed on a frequent basis with no probability of receiving security from the nation-state. Thus the media is in a panicked state. The innocent civilians are being kidnapped in a broad day light. Cases of arson and loot continue unabated. The entire security system in the country appears to have become either lenient or defunct.
The entire Terai or say Madhesh is in turmoil with mind boggling demands unheard of. The Bundhs and closures of the national high ways have become a regular feature. If such Bundhs and closures bring in chaos in the industrial sector then those who are engaged in this domain, the industrialists and the workers, too have been feeling the brunt. If the industrialists now prefer to shift the capital to some, comparatively, safer places outside the country then the innocent workers who earn their living by spending their energies each day for two meals a day too have become jobless which surely has a multiplier effect.
Consider a poor worker who earns one hundred rupees by extending his personal services to any one factory will have no money to feed his children and other family members if the factories are told to close down under one pretext or the other by some groups, politically motivated or otherwise.
The repeated bundhs and the closures in effect are hitting the poor section of the Nepali society instead what is being given to understand.
The culture of Bundhs and Closures, a new phenomenon for Nepal indeed but it appears that such phenomenon have already taken deep roots in our country.
Who benefits or for that matter who or which section of the society is hit hard by such sad events is any body’s guess.
The Bundhs and closures continue but the government in Kathmandu has no time to look into the mater seriously. The government at best is busy in calculating the numerical numbers on how to continue in power. This is a cheat. This is unacceptable. No sane person on earth will praise such a government that remains averse to the plight of its own population.
The culture of Bundhs and Closures must come to an end. If the demands are political ones then the government must try to handle it politically. If the bundhs and the closures are made by miscreants then the state must deal with the emerging situation accordingly.
Alas! The nepali people haven’t felt that there is the presence of the government. Neither the government is present nor the State?
If so then we the people are left to the mercy of the Almighty who prefers not to speak when we need him to speak in our favor.
Perhaps this explains the situation prevailing in this country. That’s all.
Nepal: Rearming of the Himalayas?
Dr. Upendra Gautam
In addition to Nepal Tarai, clandestine supply and use of arms have systematically been on rise in Nepal's northern mountain and Himalayan frontier. Latest news reports (7 February, 2009) had it that an armed group mounted an assault on Syaulibang police post, located on the border of districts of Pyuthan and Rolpa. It killed policeman Suman GC. It looted all 10 weapons including five 3-knot-3 rifles from the post. High mountain district of Rolpa was known for its "red base" during ten (1996-2006) years of Nepali Maoists' "war of liberation." In the words of Rita Manchanda, "Rolpa is the heartland of the 'People's War' launched by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists)."Strangers who come, we arrest. And if it's an Army-police patrol, we melt away into the fields and jungle and wait it out," Manchanda wrote quoting a 'People's Army' guerilla (Frontline, 31 August-13 September, 2002).
Girija Prasad Koirala, the then prime minister, earned accolades from Chinese leadership for his initiative in ensuring security of the Mt. Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) area from the Nepali side during (April-May, 2008) ascent of the special Olympic torch to the Everest summit. China's profound concern about this historic event was well reflected in its elaborate security preparedness for this area. According to AFP 2 April, 2008 report, Hao Peng, deputy governor of Tibet, carried out a personal inspection of the Everest base camp in Tibet. He was joined by top officials from regional military, police and border security headquarters. Hao was reported to have said that the Everest leg of the Olympic torch was a target for the Dalai Lama following March 2008 deadly unrest in Tibet. The visiting Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi did repeat China's appreciation of Nepal's alertness and role in controlling anti-China protests from Nepali soil during his meeting with prime minister Prachanda in Kathmandu (3 December, 2008).
Arming of Nepal's northern Himalayan frontier has its long-drawn out history. The history is linked with the governance change in China in 1949 and the ideological Cold War, which influenced Dalai Lama to flee from Tibet in 1959 and help "legitimize" establishment of "Tibetan government-in-exile" in the newly created Republic of India. Even then more than 40 years ago, Ajit Bhattacharjea, borrowing extensively from an article written by George Patterson in weekly the Reporter had this separatist story to tell: Khampas and other Tibetan troops are being quietly recruited and trained in modern arms in north-east India…Today almost the entire Khampa force in Tibet is still intact except for about 4,000 who either died or were imprisoned in 1959. It totals perhaps as many as 150,000 or 200,000 able-bodied fighting men. The majority have guns…The shortest line of supply for the greatest number of Khampas is from Assam through NEFA… through Wa-long... But it is from Nepal that the most serious threat to China could be launched. For in northern Nepal, where great numbers of Tibetan refugees have settled, there are some 5,000 Khampas.
After meeting with these Khampas through Nepal route in March, 1964, in company with two British television co-workers, Patterson gave these details of the planned raid: “Twenty-three men were selected to take part in this raid, including the three of us, and we all would have to leave the valley without arousing suspicion…The arrangements were the responsibility of the underground organization in Tibet — the Mimang Tsongdu — which would also post guards at all exits of the valley, prepare food and supply guides.”
Now about the raid: A convoy of four green, three-ton military vehicles, each flying a red flag on its nearside mud-guard, appeared on the road. Tendar’s (the Khampa leader) shot rang out the signal for the others to fire. The driver slumped at the wheel. In the rising fusillade the second and third trucks were also stopped in their tracks and the drivers killed. The fourth driver and the other Chinese soldiers leaped out and took cover under the trucks. “The Khampas were merciless. With rifles, hand-grenades and machine-guns they kept up a withering fire until all the Chinese except one, who made a desperate run for the boulders beneath our ridge, were dead” (Hindustan Times, 18 March, 1965).
The history of externalized insecurity in the Himalayas has further been instigated now by the agents of the New Cold War. These agents use Nepali soil for anti-Chinese activities in complete violation of Nepal's policy and laws; thus undercutting in effect Nepal's sovereign standing from within. The Himalayas extending to Afghanistan in the west, Sikkim and Assam in the east with the south-north Trans-Himalayan passages in between render them more vulnerable to the New Cold War agents. The impetus of new US administration in Afghanistan against anti-US forces and Chinese concerns to have safeguards in Afghanistan against "the “East Turkistan separatist force" (The Rising Nepal, 20 January, 2009) together add unprecedented angle to the Himalayan continuum.
China, which used to typically describe Sino-Nepali relations in terms of "the traditional friendship," appears to have recognized the added angle in the continuum. In a meeting with Nepal's visiting foreign secretary Gyan Chandra Acharya in Beijing Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi gave expression to this recognition when he said, China always viewed "dealing with and developing ties with Nepal from a strategic and long-term perspective" (Xinhua, 18 February, 2009).
About the same time around the US secretary of state Hilary Clinton was in China that was also the start of her inaugural year and the 30th anniversary of Sino-U.S. diplomatic relations. She described her engagement with China as "the beginning of a new era" of cooperation in the Sino-US relations. Chinese leadership and the new US secretary of state seem to have clicked well with each other leading to forge an initial common understanding between them on "the complicated and ever-shifting international political and economic situation" (read US war in Afghanistan and global economic recession). So much so that in the new era of bilateral cooperation they are not only prepared to "cross the river in a common boat," but also to "progress together hand in hand" (China View reports, 21 February, 2009). The post-Bush Sino-US relations appear to be inspired by proverbial strategies contained in "The Art of War." This book is China’s oldest treatise extant on the principles of warfare. Sun Tzi, a Chinese military strategist, wrote this book more than 2500 years ago. Given the pragmatism flourishing between the two countries, one can be hopeful that the Sino-US joint strategy of cooperation will have positive impact on enabling peace in the Himalayas.
In addition to Nepal Tarai, clandestine supply and use of arms have systematically been on rise in Nepal's northern mountain and Himalayan frontier. Latest news reports (7 February, 2009) had it that an armed group mounted an assault on Syaulibang police post, located on the border of districts of Pyuthan and Rolpa. It killed policeman Suman GC. It looted all 10 weapons including five 3-knot-3 rifles from the post. High mountain district of Rolpa was known for its "red base" during ten (1996-2006) years of Nepali Maoists' "war of liberation." In the words of Rita Manchanda, "Rolpa is the heartland of the 'People's War' launched by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists)."Strangers who come, we arrest. And if it's an Army-police patrol, we melt away into the fields and jungle and wait it out," Manchanda wrote quoting a 'People's Army' guerilla (Frontline, 31 August-13 September, 2002).
Girija Prasad Koirala, the then prime minister, earned accolades from Chinese leadership for his initiative in ensuring security of the Mt. Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) area from the Nepali side during (April-May, 2008) ascent of the special Olympic torch to the Everest summit. China's profound concern about this historic event was well reflected in its elaborate security preparedness for this area. According to AFP 2 April, 2008 report, Hao Peng, deputy governor of Tibet, carried out a personal inspection of the Everest base camp in Tibet. He was joined by top officials from regional military, police and border security headquarters. Hao was reported to have said that the Everest leg of the Olympic torch was a target for the Dalai Lama following March 2008 deadly unrest in Tibet. The visiting Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi did repeat China's appreciation of Nepal's alertness and role in controlling anti-China protests from Nepali soil during his meeting with prime minister Prachanda in Kathmandu (3 December, 2008).
Arming of Nepal's northern Himalayan frontier has its long-drawn out history. The history is linked with the governance change in China in 1949 and the ideological Cold War, which influenced Dalai Lama to flee from Tibet in 1959 and help "legitimize" establishment of "Tibetan government-in-exile" in the newly created Republic of India. Even then more than 40 years ago, Ajit Bhattacharjea, borrowing extensively from an article written by George Patterson in weekly the Reporter had this separatist story to tell: Khampas and other Tibetan troops are being quietly recruited and trained in modern arms in north-east India…Today almost the entire Khampa force in Tibet is still intact except for about 4,000 who either died or were imprisoned in 1959. It totals perhaps as many as 150,000 or 200,000 able-bodied fighting men. The majority have guns…The shortest line of supply for the greatest number of Khampas is from Assam through NEFA… through Wa-long... But it is from Nepal that the most serious threat to China could be launched. For in northern Nepal, where great numbers of Tibetan refugees have settled, there are some 5,000 Khampas.
After meeting with these Khampas through Nepal route in March, 1964, in company with two British television co-workers, Patterson gave these details of the planned raid: “Twenty-three men were selected to take part in this raid, including the three of us, and we all would have to leave the valley without arousing suspicion…The arrangements were the responsibility of the underground organization in Tibet — the Mimang Tsongdu — which would also post guards at all exits of the valley, prepare food and supply guides.”
Now about the raid: A convoy of four green, three-ton military vehicles, each flying a red flag on its nearside mud-guard, appeared on the road. Tendar’s (the Khampa leader) shot rang out the signal for the others to fire. The driver slumped at the wheel. In the rising fusillade the second and third trucks were also stopped in their tracks and the drivers killed. The fourth driver and the other Chinese soldiers leaped out and took cover under the trucks. “The Khampas were merciless. With rifles, hand-grenades and machine-guns they kept up a withering fire until all the Chinese except one, who made a desperate run for the boulders beneath our ridge, were dead” (Hindustan Times, 18 March, 1965).
The history of externalized insecurity in the Himalayas has further been instigated now by the agents of the New Cold War. These agents use Nepali soil for anti-Chinese activities in complete violation of Nepal's policy and laws; thus undercutting in effect Nepal's sovereign standing from within. The Himalayas extending to Afghanistan in the west, Sikkim and Assam in the east with the south-north Trans-Himalayan passages in between render them more vulnerable to the New Cold War agents. The impetus of new US administration in Afghanistan against anti-US forces and Chinese concerns to have safeguards in Afghanistan against "the “East Turkistan separatist force" (The Rising Nepal, 20 January, 2009) together add unprecedented angle to the Himalayan continuum.
China, which used to typically describe Sino-Nepali relations in terms of "the traditional friendship," appears to have recognized the added angle in the continuum. In a meeting with Nepal's visiting foreign secretary Gyan Chandra Acharya in Beijing Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi gave expression to this recognition when he said, China always viewed "dealing with and developing ties with Nepal from a strategic and long-term perspective" (Xinhua, 18 February, 2009).
About the same time around the US secretary of state Hilary Clinton was in China that was also the start of her inaugural year and the 30th anniversary of Sino-U.S. diplomatic relations. She described her engagement with China as "the beginning of a new era" of cooperation in the Sino-US relations. Chinese leadership and the new US secretary of state seem to have clicked well with each other leading to forge an initial common understanding between them on "the complicated and ever-shifting international political and economic situation" (read US war in Afghanistan and global economic recession). So much so that in the new era of bilateral cooperation they are not only prepared to "cross the river in a common boat," but also to "progress together hand in hand" (China View reports, 21 February, 2009). The post-Bush Sino-US relations appear to be inspired by proverbial strategies contained in "The Art of War." This book is China’s oldest treatise extant on the principles of warfare. Sun Tzi, a Chinese military strategist, wrote this book more than 2500 years ago. Given the pragmatism flourishing between the two countries, one can be hopeful that the Sino-US joint strategy of cooperation will have positive impact on enabling peace in the Himalayas.
Iran, the Jews and Germany
ROGER COHEN
So a Jerusalem Post article says that I'm “hardly the first American to be misled by the existence of synagogues in totalitarian countries.”
The Atlantic Monthly's Jeffrey Goldberg finds me “particularly credulous,” taken in by the Iranian hospitality and friendliness that “are the hallmarks of most Muslim societies.” (Thanks for that info, Jeffrey.)
A conservative Web site called American Thinker, which tries to prove its name is an oxymoron, believes I would have been fooled by the Nazis' sham at the Theresienstadt camp.
The indignation stems from my recent column on Iranian Jews, which said that the 25,000-strong community worships in relative tranquility; that Persian Jews have fared better than Arab Jews; that hostility toward Jews in Iran has on occasion led to trumped-up charges against them; and that those enamored of the “Mad Mullah” caricature of Iran regard any compromise with it as a rerun of Munich 1938.
This last point found confirmation in outraged correspondence from several American Jews unable to resist some analogy between Iran and Nazi Germany. I was based in Berlin for three years; Germany's confrontation with the Holocaust inhabited me. Let's be clear: Iran's Islamic Republic is no Third Reich redux. Nor is it a totalitarian state.
Munich allowed Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland. Iran has not waged an expansionary war in more than two centuries.
Totalitarian regimes require the complete subservience of the individual to the state and tolerate only one party to which all institutions are subordinated. Iran is an un-free society with a keen, intermittently brutal apparatus of repression, but it's far from meeting these criteria. Significant margins of liberty, even democracy, exist. Anything but mad, the mullahs have proved malleable.
Most of Iran's population is under 30; it's an Internet-connected generation. Access to satellite television is widespread. The BBC's new Farsi service is all the rage.
Abdullah Momeni, a student opponent of the regime, told me, “The Internet is very important to us; in fact, it is of infinite importance.” Iranians are not cut off, like Cubans or North Koreans.
The June presidential election pitting the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, against Mohammad Khatami (a former president who once spoke in a synagogue) will be a genuine contest as compared with the charades that pass for elections in many Arab states. No fire has burned the Majlis, or parliament, down.
If you're thinking trains-on-time Fascist efficiency, think again. Tehran's new telecommunications tower took 20 years to build. I was told its restaurant would open “soon.” So, it is said, will the Bushehr nuclear power plant, a project in the works for a mere 30 years. A Persian Chernobyl is more likely than some Middle Eastern nuclear Armageddon, if that's any comfort.
For all the morality police inspecting whether women are wearing boots outside their pants (the latest no-no on the dress front) and the regime zealots of the Basiji militia, the air you breathe in Iran is not suffocating. Its streets at dusk hum with life --not a monochrome male-only form of it, or one inhabited by fear -- but the vibrancy of a changing, highly educated society.
This is the Iran of subtle shades that the country's Jews inhabit. Life is more difficult for them than for Muslims, but to suggest they inhabit a totalitarian hell is self-serving nonsense.
One Iranian exile, no lover of the Islamic Republic, wrote to me saying that my account of Iran's Jews had brought “tears to my eyes” because “you are saying what many of us would like to hear.”
Far from the cradle of Middle Eastern Islamist zealotry, she suggested, “Iran --the supposed enemy -- is the one society that has gone through its extremist fervor and is coming out the other end. It is relatively stable and socially dynamic. As my father, who continues to live there, says, 'It is the least undemocratic country in the region outside Israel.' ”
This notion of a “post-fervor” Iran is significant. The compromises being painfully fought out between Islam and democracy in Tehran are of seminal importance. They belie the notion of a fanatical power; they explain Jewish life.
That does not mean fanaticism does not exist or that terrible crimes have not been committed, like the Iran-backed bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires 15 years ago.
But the equating of Iran with terror today is simplistic. Hamas and Hezbollah have evolved into broad political movements widely seen as resisting an Israel over-ready to use crushing force. It is essential to think again about them, just as it is essential to toss out Iran caricatures.
I return to this subject because behind the Jewish issue in Iran lies a critical one --the U.S. propensity to fixate on and demonize a country through a one-dimensional lens, with a sometimes disastrous chain of results.
It's worth recalling that hateful, ultranationalist rhetoric is no Iranian preserve. Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's race-baiting anti-Arab firebrand may find a place in a government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. He should not.
Nor should racist demagoguery -- wherever -- prompt facile allusions to the murderous Nazi master of it.
Courtesy : The New York Times
So a Jerusalem Post article says that I'm “hardly the first American to be misled by the existence of synagogues in totalitarian countries.”
The Atlantic Monthly's Jeffrey Goldberg finds me “particularly credulous,” taken in by the Iranian hospitality and friendliness that “are the hallmarks of most Muslim societies.” (Thanks for that info, Jeffrey.)
A conservative Web site called American Thinker, which tries to prove its name is an oxymoron, believes I would have been fooled by the Nazis' sham at the Theresienstadt camp.
The indignation stems from my recent column on Iranian Jews, which said that the 25,000-strong community worships in relative tranquility; that Persian Jews have fared better than Arab Jews; that hostility toward Jews in Iran has on occasion led to trumped-up charges against them; and that those enamored of the “Mad Mullah” caricature of Iran regard any compromise with it as a rerun of Munich 1938.
This last point found confirmation in outraged correspondence from several American Jews unable to resist some analogy between Iran and Nazi Germany. I was based in Berlin for three years; Germany's confrontation with the Holocaust inhabited me. Let's be clear: Iran's Islamic Republic is no Third Reich redux. Nor is it a totalitarian state.
Munich allowed Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland. Iran has not waged an expansionary war in more than two centuries.
Totalitarian regimes require the complete subservience of the individual to the state and tolerate only one party to which all institutions are subordinated. Iran is an un-free society with a keen, intermittently brutal apparatus of repression, but it's far from meeting these criteria. Significant margins of liberty, even democracy, exist. Anything but mad, the mullahs have proved malleable.
Most of Iran's population is under 30; it's an Internet-connected generation. Access to satellite television is widespread. The BBC's new Farsi service is all the rage.
Abdullah Momeni, a student opponent of the regime, told me, “The Internet is very important to us; in fact, it is of infinite importance.” Iranians are not cut off, like Cubans or North Koreans.
The June presidential election pitting the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, against Mohammad Khatami (a former president who once spoke in a synagogue) will be a genuine contest as compared with the charades that pass for elections in many Arab states. No fire has burned the Majlis, or parliament, down.
If you're thinking trains-on-time Fascist efficiency, think again. Tehran's new telecommunications tower took 20 years to build. I was told its restaurant would open “soon.” So, it is said, will the Bushehr nuclear power plant, a project in the works for a mere 30 years. A Persian Chernobyl is more likely than some Middle Eastern nuclear Armageddon, if that's any comfort.
For all the morality police inspecting whether women are wearing boots outside their pants (the latest no-no on the dress front) and the regime zealots of the Basiji militia, the air you breathe in Iran is not suffocating. Its streets at dusk hum with life --not a monochrome male-only form of it, or one inhabited by fear -- but the vibrancy of a changing, highly educated society.
This is the Iran of subtle shades that the country's Jews inhabit. Life is more difficult for them than for Muslims, but to suggest they inhabit a totalitarian hell is self-serving nonsense.
One Iranian exile, no lover of the Islamic Republic, wrote to me saying that my account of Iran's Jews had brought “tears to my eyes” because “you are saying what many of us would like to hear.”
Far from the cradle of Middle Eastern Islamist zealotry, she suggested, “Iran --the supposed enemy -- is the one society that has gone through its extremist fervor and is coming out the other end. It is relatively stable and socially dynamic. As my father, who continues to live there, says, 'It is the least undemocratic country in the region outside Israel.' ”
This notion of a “post-fervor” Iran is significant. The compromises being painfully fought out between Islam and democracy in Tehran are of seminal importance. They belie the notion of a fanatical power; they explain Jewish life.
That does not mean fanaticism does not exist or that terrible crimes have not been committed, like the Iran-backed bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires 15 years ago.
But the equating of Iran with terror today is simplistic. Hamas and Hezbollah have evolved into broad political movements widely seen as resisting an Israel over-ready to use crushing force. It is essential to think again about them, just as it is essential to toss out Iran caricatures.
I return to this subject because behind the Jewish issue in Iran lies a critical one --the U.S. propensity to fixate on and demonize a country through a one-dimensional lens, with a sometimes disastrous chain of results.
It's worth recalling that hateful, ultranationalist rhetoric is no Iranian preserve. Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's race-baiting anti-Arab firebrand may find a place in a government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. He should not.
Nor should racist demagoguery -- wherever -- prompt facile allusions to the murderous Nazi master of it.
Courtesy : The New York Times
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