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Gozaar
Mehrangiz Kar
A large number of citizens have doubted the fairness and impartiality of the recent presidential election and asked, “Where is our vote?” At first, they tried to enter into a discussion with the regime, hoping their demands will be examined by legal channels. This is not the first time in the world that an election’s results are contested by protests and demonstrations. The governments that respect their citizens and value stability prefer to activate legal mechanisms in such cases. It is not necessary for people to refer one by one to the related legal authorities and file their complaints. It will be enough if the authorities take seriously the crisis that such a broad protest incites, and instead of resorting to hasty behavior and closing their eyes to imminent dangers, utilize all legal levers to remove suspicion and mend people’s feeling of being deceived.
Gentlemen,
Your behavior has unnecessarily complicated the current problem. However, there is no need for this kind of approach. In the laws and regulations that your own legislature has passed, there are certain mechanisms that relieve the regime from committing the widespread violence that can make the system tremble. Now, you have discarded legal and peaceful mechanisms and replaced them with kicks, blows, daggers, and bullets.
Gentlemen,
The Constitution has predicted certain other procedures for the management of crises instead of taking up lethal weapons. Not only does the abandoning of these procedures deprive the protesters from any vestige of security, it also robs your staunchest followers from the pleasant feeling of safety.
Gentlemen,
Reassess your methods. You are not God’s representatives on earth. Your power is limited and breakable. Political stability depends on handling the crisis at hand wisely. But moment by moment, you have aggravated the vulnerability of a political system that you claim you are guarding and preserving. Stop. Do not assail people’s security more than this.
Gentlemen,
Take advantage of your own laws. The people’s sudden courage may have baffled the Special Forces that have filled the streets to such an extent that what is taking place has frightened you. That is why you constantly intensify your violence and issue threat after threat. Perhaps, a curtain of rage and anger has blinded your eyes and you see unarmed citizens as occupying armies. You have completely forgotten that these people have conferred power onto you and it is with their money that you have bought uniforms, daggers, straight poniards, and guns, and have fattened a group of flunkies who think their only duty is to trample on people. They attack people as if the latter were the sheep in a slaughterhouse or animals for sacrifice.
Gentlemen,
Control your rage. You are the inheritors of all Shiite values and not only your own selected and violent values. One value in Shia Islam is martyrdom, which depends on certain preconditions, and another value is jihad, which also derives its legitimacy from particular circumstances. But obedience to admirable peaceful values, a quality which Imam Hassan and Imam Musa al-Kadhim embody, is also vital. Model your behavior on these symbols of peace in this critical period of your rule. The times are calling you to mind these symbols, to dispel your rage and to behave tolerantly toward your critics. If the name al-Kadhim in the Shia Islam does not indicate the repression of one’s rage in the time of crisis, what else does it signify then? “Taqiye” (prudent concealment) is not only practiced by people. It is sometimes essential to fall back on “taqiye” when faced with the increasing rage of people. Breeding violence leads to the accumulation of this rage and destroys your lineage. Why do you refuse to study history?
Gentlemen,
In Islamic and Iranian culture, “if you can untie a knot with your hands, you won’t untie it with teeth.” Even better, “You don’t wash blood with blood.” Even if we suppose that the protesting and angry people—who have stood up against you in unequal battle and made their bare bodies the target of your imported helmets, shields and weapons—overstep peaceful demonstrations only to defend themselves or escape your kicks, blows and batons, such an unbridled assault on them reminds one of tribal vendettas.
Gentlemen,
So far, you have relied on your muscles and intend to set a whole district on fire for something negligible. You have said you will make examples of protesters so that others would never dare to challenge you again. Why have you not learned from history?
Gentlemen,
A nation will burn in the conflagration that you have started and it is not certain that your own loyal followers will survive its flames.
Gentlemen,
You have proper tools to resolve this crisis, an important institution such as “the Expediency Council” which, like all other decisive institutions, is controlled by the Supreme Leader. For once, advise the leadership wisely and open up an outlet by utilizing the absolute power of velayat-e faqih to extinguish the fire and not spread it.
Gentlemen,
Study the “National Covenant” whose many critics have been imprisoned and exiled by you. Consider the possibilities that it offers:
Look at Article 10. This article confirms the Supreme Leader’s unrestrained powers. The Supreme Leader can issue amending and swift decrees to activate the management of a crisis in order to protect the protesting citizens from being harmed and suffering losses more than this (Paragraph 8).
This article emphasizes that “if the resolution of the system’s problems is not possible through normal channels, they should be referred to “the Expediency Council.” This is within the power and among the duties of the Supreme Leader.
Gentlemen,
We have not written these articles and paragraphs. Your own group, and particularly your own fundamentalist faction, was involved in compiling these laws. Why do you disregard your own laws?
The members of “the Expediency Council” have served the Supreme Leader with all their might in the last thirty years. Why are you afraid of them as well? The council has the duty to act when problems cannot be solved through existing mechanisms. Of course, this depends on the Supreme Leader’s decree. Article 112 has turned “the Expediency Council” into an institution that supports the Supreme Leader and his policies unconditionally. For this reason, the council puts the interests of the Supreme Leader and the system before the interests of people. Article 112 stresses the convening of advisory sessions about the affairs that “the Supreme Leader refers to the Council.” The assertion of this article that “the Supreme Leader appoints the permanent and non-permanent members of the Council” does not leave any space for fear from this Council. The Council is a powerful and reliable institution. It can be employed to activate the management of the current crisis. At this moment, you have entrusted the management of the crisis to violence-seekers and, perhaps, the jurists who obey the regime flat out and have made the Constitution into a shop window for propaganda without the slightest respect for its contents.
Gentlemen,
As always, you may feel the joy of victory in the short-tem. But this is a temporary feeling. Stop shedding the blood of people on the streets’ cobblestones; they are the people that brought you to power.
Do not torture the unfortunate prisoners whose crime is participation in an undemocratic election and casting a vote for one of the four candidates that are approved by “the Council of Guardians.” Their confessions, in the atmosphere that you have set up, are not worth anything.
Gentlemen,
The announcements of spokespersons such as Mr. Kadkhodayi (the spokesperson for “the Council of Guardians”) have increased the tension and fueled people’s rage by turning doubts into certainties. Only one outlet of hope has opened up: the Supreme Leader has consented that “the Council of Guardians” can extend the period for reexamining the election’s results. We are praying that the Supreme Leader would declare a ceasefire. Citizens are not occupying armies. Apply ointment on their injuries. Give your condolences to families. Order “the Council of Guardians” not to weaken your cherished system more than this. Ask this council to hold another election. Do not lose hope. If your resistance is just, Mr. Ahmadinejad will certainly be elected once again with even more votes and people will return to the era of “taqiye” that has disappeared only for a few days and you will then sleep easy.
Gentlemen,
It is enough. Do not aim your weapons at the hearts of your sisters and brothers. Do not treat them like cattle. Fear the consequences of your action.
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