Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Some Things Must Change | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Instead of adopting a reassuring tone to set the world and his neighbors at ease, Iranian President Ahmadinejad persisted in using the same inflammatory rhetoric when he gave his speech marking the 28th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.

The Iranian language [Farsi] is archaic and repetitive; it is derived from former languages of numerous regimes witnessed by mankind that ended in tragedy!

It is the discourse of ideology that believes its mission is to triumph over the ‘enemy’, defeat the ‘arrogant’ America and create a system for the powerless. It is a corrupted and modified language, one of the many ideological languages in the history of mankind for which mankind has paid dearly!

German Nazism tested the ideology of the German race [Aryan] in confronting other races and believed in the superiority of one race over all others. The same is true of fascism. International Islamic extremism put forth the two-camp idea – the eternal battle between faith and disbelief and the necessity that Islam defeats all other religions, vanquishing them until God inherits the earth and everyone on it. Thus came the 9/11 tragedy and the killing of innocent Muslims from Sanaa to Riyadh and Baghdad.

Zionism proposed the idea of God’s chosen people versus all the other peoples of the world. Saddam Hussein promoted the racist ideology of Arabism over the so-called ‘Persian Magi’ then proceeded to foster the notions of God’s soldiers against Satan’s legions and the battle of good that will triumph over evil!

Every human being has the right to think in the manner that best suits him/her, but no one reserves the right to manage society and the state and forcefully impose his/her opinion on people in the name of religion, race or doctrinal belief under the assumption that mankind is engaged in a permanent war of religions, beliefs and races. The world is a network of interrelated interests and the management of nations cannot take place in isolation from understanding the world and the conviction that a particular ideology can abolish all others and impose its terms by force.

Nazism was annihilated after humanity paid the price of over 80 million who fell in the battlefields. Zionism has built its state on the ruins of the homes of others and at the expense of their displacement, and Saddam ended up in his famous hole.

Revolutionary Iran will confront its historical dilemma if it does not transform into Iran the state, which is a matter that requires a sound understanding of oneself and of others… an understanding of the regional and international balances of power, a great deal of humility and the renouncement of egoism and the belief that the world’s convoluted problems can be solved using ideological wars!

Iran is in more need of bread than it is of nuclear arsenal. It needs the trust of its neighbors and the region at large over pleasing others. The language that might have been appropriate prior to the 28 years of the revolution is not necessarily suitable for this age, which is in a state of continuous flux no matter how much we resist or refuse to recognize that.