Lecture: "Recent Elections and the Future of Religious Democracy in Iran" by Dr. Abdulaziz Sachedina (August 31, 2005) - Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy (CSID)

Lecture: "Recent Elections and the Future of Religious Democracy in Iran"
by Dr. Abdulaziz Sachedina

Wednesday, August 31, 2005
CSID Conference Room
12:00 - 2:00 PM
Brown Bag--Cold Drinks Provided

CSID Conference Room
2121 K Street, NW , Suite 700
Washington DC, 20037

RSVP to Layla Sein: sein@islam-democracy.org

Summary

The unexpected victory of Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the new president of Islamic Republic was a show of electoral power. It was actually the victory of the politically and socially marginalized groups, like the disenfranchised university students and academics, as well as the mainstay elite groups, who were neglected or bypassed by the governments of Rafsanijani and Khatami. For the first time in the Islamic Republic, the privileged members of religious elite had to beg for people’s support. Their plea for the people’s vote made them share the same platform as other candidates, thereby breaking down the barriers between turbaned and non-turbaned politicians. Despite the US criticism of the whole process of sifting the candidates for their loyalty to the state ideology under the religious leader as undemocratic, the last elections demonstrate that democratic culture has taken root since 1979 when the Islamic republic was constitutionally established. Prior to this period, under the monarchy, the Iranian religious establishment stood outside the system and acted as the only serious critique of the state’s policies. Under the present system, when the religious establishment is at the center of the state politics, the people view the members of this class like any other politically ambitious leaders who are engaged in advancing their own agenda, sometimes through fair and at other times through unfair practices. That aura of sacredness that once surrounded some of the ulema has been eliminated through their direct involvement in the dirty politics of the country. Rafsanjani’s appeal to his special relationship to the late Imam Khomeini, who, according to Rafsanjani’s claim, held his hand during his last moments and advised him to support Ayatollah Khamenei, did not impress even the hardcore religious masses.

The marginalized groups who once favored religious candidates were determined to vote out their elite representative, Rafsanijani. Little known Ahmadinejad, and in some ways no different from other candidates, spurred the interest of these groups, including the now revived Hojjatiye, who do not believe that the ulema should be politically active, for a simple reason: they saw him as a lesser evil than the “fat cat” of Iranian politics since the revolution. No one believes that Ahmadinejad will fulfill his campaign policies of equal distribution of wealth and power. Moreover, everyone knows that Ayatollah Khamenei had endorsed his candidacy as a person who could be pushed around more easily than the powerful Rafsanjani to whom the Imam had left the responsibility of supporting Khamenei. In other words, support for Ahmadinejad demonstrated frustration with Khatami and distrust of Rafsanjani as the one who would continue the failed policies of reform and support of the well-to-do classes. What is remarkable is the openness with which the issues were debated and support formulated.

There is no return from this highly intricate development of democratic culture in Iran. The religious establishment for the first time acknowledged the power of polls. The media openly debated the pros and cons of the qualifications of each candidate. In some sense, the institutional structures needed for democracy are visibly and actively in place. The future of democracy is certain, provided the US administration as well as the expatriate Iranians stop derailing this process by giving excuses to the religious establishment to hold on to the power that at one point during the 1980s and 1990s seemed guaranteed to them. No more, it seems, any religiously crafted privilege can survive the rage of the people in Iran. Iranians are by nature freedom loving; and even when they bear with dignity, the injustices hurled at them by a super power or their lackeys in the Muslim world, they can take their destiny in their own hands under unbearable circumstances and show the world what they can achieve. Democracy and the rule of law it guarantees is the dream of every man and woman in this country. Islam, as I see it, will find its own place as a guiding force in the culture that is deeply spiritual. Religion and democracy are not seen as incompatible as long as Islamic tradition is not employed as a political tool for repressing basic individual freedoms.

About the Speaker:
Born in Tanzania, Abdulaziz Sachedina (abdelaziz.sachedina@islam-democracy.org) is professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and B.A. degrees from Aligarh Muslim University in India and Ferdowsi University in Iran. He has been visiting professor at Wilfrid Laurier, Waterloo, and McGill Universities in Canada, as well as Haverford College and the University of Jordan, Amman. He has lectured widely in East Africa, India, Pakistan, Europe, and the Middle East. Dr. Sachedina is a core member of the Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism Project in the CSIS Preventive Diplomacy Program and a key contributor - along with Rabbi Marc Gopin and the Reverend David Steele - to the program's efforts to link religion to universal human needs and values in the service of peace-building. He contributed to Human Rights and the Conflict of Cultures: Western and Islamic Perspectives on Religious Liberty (University of South Carolina Press, 1988) and recently published his study The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism (Oxford University Press. 2001). Dr. Sachedina areas of expertise are political Islam, religious conflict resolution through analysis of Islamic legal tradition; Islamic roots of religious and political pluralism and human rights in the Middle East, Pakistan, and East Africa

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