Part I/II
Part II/II: The Farce of Iran’s Separation of Powers
RSF soberly wrote: Iran executes more people than any other country in the world except China. Based on the Sharia, Iran’s Islamic criminal law provides for the death penalty for many crimes.
An Iranian was trying to entertain his audience with the latest popular jokes in Tehran. No one was amused. More to the point, when the state of affairs is so preposterously calamitous, joking about any problems is depressing and could quite easily be perceived as cruel, especially the stories recycled over and over in four decades.
As the audience was in a pessimistic mood, a woman known for her sound judgement said: Domestic political freedom is very important to us, and we, as the oldest democracy in the Middle East, are proud of our democracy and will not trade our domestic freedom for foreign interference.
The audience, befuddled, stared at her. Unruffled by the reactions she added: I am quoting Hassan Rouhani.
Rouhani: The Buffoon
This was a fact. The 75th session of the UN General Assembly, held on Sept 22, 2020 was low-key. Amid the havoc caused by the US presidential elections, the spread of COVID-19 and the limbo created by the populist incompetent governments handling it, the leaders delivered pre-recorded video messages. In a total absence of unity for human development and betterment, they produced unbearable lists of their own beliefs and achievements, more often than not failures, leading to no tangible internal insight or harmonious external action.
The General Assembly was a parochial event. The UN is being dismantled and the bits piled into a heap of ineffectual materials thanks to the disputes among the five permanent members and the active role of the one US president in fuelling them, whose shame knows no limits.
No one, except a handful of sycophants in Iran, was interested in the video message spluttered by Hassan Rouhani.
In a mixture of Islamic Republic’s braggarts, lies and recycled obsessive ideas, using the best of his ayatollah-ish monologue, Rouhani succeeded to make at least twenty sentences in an attempt to demonstrate the pure diabolic villainy of the Amerika towards Iran. Further, he thanked Russia and China for standing up to the USA.
No one paid real attention, we should have.
People’s improvidence /عاقبت نیندیشی is our national affliction. After forty years, the same lies and ribaldries, over and over, do not affect us. A pity.
How come we are so lethargic, sluggish and devoid of any ideas of how to break down the defence of a bunch of geriatric morons?
In a recurring display of contemptible cowardice and abominable cruelty toward their own people, the Iranian authorities compete with each other.
Little else can better demonstrate the buffoonery and ribaldry in Iranian politics than the claim of a religious hypocrite, an authority on Islam and Muslims / حجت الاسلام و مسلمین , as is Rouhani’s title: Domestic political freedom is very important to us, and we, as the oldest democracy in the Middle East, are proud of our democracy.
Is this really so, man? Did you do something to prevent the assassination of the champion wrestler Navid Afkari? Were you moved by the fate of Nasrin Sotoudeh?
Except for words and empty promises, what have you done for the healthcare staff fighting COVID-19 empty-handed and bare of essential resources? Their basic wages have not been paid for months.
I did not hear you protecting the rights of protesters, unpaid workers, and distraught parents trying to find the corpse of their loved one wickedly killed by the regime you represent.
In a democracy, as you pretend is ours, any one must be able to safely tell the old fool, the vindictive Ali Khamenei, to clear out. Are we safe in our dictatorship?
In the Iranian media, the journalists, obedient servants of the regime, made headlines of this vainglorious statement. When would they all come out of their editorial boards, the sweatshop that churns out lies in a baker’s dozen?
The basic democratic right of every citizen is the right to protest, having their rights protected by an independent judiciary, and reading uncensored papers freely.
How come in a proven dictatorship a simpleton can claim Domestic political freedom is very important to us, be a puppet president and get away with it? Can buffoonery and ribaldry in Iranian politics explains it all?
People’s improvidence is our national affliction. After forty years, the same lies and ribaldries, over and over, do not affect us. A pity.
An eighty-million-strong population have let lies and ribaldry overtake society, and be inherent parts of the culture. Buffoonery and Ribaldry in Iranian Politics has become a matter of course.
Why is this so? Are we not mature enough to understand the basic notion of democracy and collective responsibilities?
Iran: A Totalitarian Theocracy
Iran is among the most corrupt dictatorships on the face of the planet and when a totalitarian theocracy rises to power, it is quite another thing from a secular regime. It has weaponised the sacred against its own population. When one criticises the politics, is one committing blasphemy by criticising the fundamentals of the religion?
When one takes part in a religious ceremony like Ashura, are they acting according to their beliefs or adding their voice to the regime’s propaganda?
The totalitarian militaristic theocracy has brainwashed and confused its population with outdated religious superstition and the ideological dogmas of the Supreme Leader who has the last word on any temporal issue and enforces the rules with upmost violence.
Iran is politically and economically sick and socially paralysed.
The government can only espouse a self-aggrandising populist nationalism that is provincial in its attitude towards the rest of the world and will achieve nothing, except being nefarious wherever it is active.
The execrable clerics and their hired hands share masses of incompetence and poor judgement. Thousands of clerics have their say on every issue, from women’s scarf size to how to conduct mass killings. These criminals live big off palm-greasing, corruption and the inefficiency of a failed state.
The Supreme Leader Khamenei tends to be more amusing than his rag-doll, Rouhani: Wherever there is coercive domination, there is no Islamic society and system. Wherever there are rulers who do not allow their people to think and decide, there is no Islamic society and system. Religious democracy means paying attention to what people want, understanding what they say and pains they have, it means letting people to take roles. The logic of religious democracy revolves around human dignity.
Pour scorn on all who try to uphold and espouse his Political Islam in hollow words, not in actions.
Does having a parliament make a democracy?
In Tehran, an eye-catching building accommodates the 290 deputies. The website of the Islamic Parliament of Iran claims it to be a powerful and effective Legislative assembly.
In practice, the list of the candidates to the parliament are carefully vetted by various Islamic bodies, especially the Assembly of Experts /مجلس خبرگان made up of Islamic scholars and jurists, to back the regime, far from the idea of a decent and democratic commonwealth.
The Iranian Parliament is an aviary of dull addle-brained parrots. In this, we might actually be giving them much more credit than we intend.
A people’s deputy means nothing for the people who have been asked to vote for them, least of all representing their interests at national level. Count on the fingers of one hand the number of times MPs from a given province have sweated over helping and protecting the people they are supposed to represent.
Every citizen that participates in the legislative elections is an accomplice to the regime.
Does electing a president make a democracy?
The only right of the voters is to choose between the vetted candidates, A or B, acknowledged by the regime as fit to run and ready to be its rag puppet, and be controlled by the strings of his master, the Supreme Leader and his minions.
When needed, the Iranians make an appearance near a ballot box, cast their vote and are forgotten about till next time. Being a well-informed electorate is the most effective way to change a country’s political power.
However, the Velayat-e Faqih regime chooses the candidates for a ballot and then manipulates the results, hence giving itself a blank check.
In our old and proud democracy (quoting Rouhani), do various segments of the population, ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, have full political rights and electoral opportunities?
Ali Khamenei adds to Rouhani’s jest: This Majlis [parliament] is the manifestation of the people’s hope and expectations. Almost all spiritual capacities in our country are rooted in religious and revolutionary faith. QED.
In the elections, decade after decade, the long queues of voters at polling stations have never been a sign of maturity of the population. To the contrary, the voters have obeyed the Islamic clerics and their political agenda blindly, thus making a mockery of the dignity of the electoral process.
The only exception was in 2009. As the protests erupted against the saliently rigged presidential elections, the regime responded with what it does best: killing the protesters, imprisoning them and sentencing them in monkey trials.
Any elections under the Islamic Republic of Iran should be boycotted and people should stay home. What the regime fears the most is empty streets.
In four decades, there have been well oiled contrived spectacles of democracy between the legislative and the executive powers, in appointing ministers, later dismissing them in routine bickering between the political rivals involved in lucrative scamming.
The bills that fulfil the wishes of the clerics and the dogmas of the Velayat-e Faqih are passed high-handed.
Ridicule and the caricature of the democracy à l’Iranienne are the more obvious, when, in the writing-up process of a bill, and before any parliamentary debate, the elected deputy runs to Qom asking for the approval of the backward religious community.
Of course domestic political freedom is very important to the Iranian authorities. Providing that political freedom is only used to disseminate their propaganda and allows tough censorship to protect their Islamic values, in essence a heap of bigotry, discrimination, sexism and violence. In fact, one’s political freedom in Iran would not fill a thimble.
A hundred per cent of all bills passed regarding press, media, the Internet and publications during Rouhani’s presidency have throttled the freedom of expression essential for informing people in a democracy.
People’s improvidence is our national affliction. After forty years, the same lies and ribaldries, over and over, do not affect us. A pity.
