Iran Elections: Hope, Excitement, Concern

by Jim Wallis 06-16-2009

Elections — indeed the democratic process itself — shape countries, culture, and the future, no matter what their outcome.

The results of the hotly disputed Iranian elections are still in question. The meaning of the peaceful protests, the riots, and the reaction of the government is still unclear. But what many in the world are now seeing clearly for the first time is a cultural and generational shift that demands something new for their own country and a different kind of engagement with their world.

I continue to be moved by the images of people in the streets, many of them young, as they protest and march to ensure that their votes are counted. Some of my younger staff members are following updates from protesters their age all day on twitter in real time. They read within minutes their global peers’ concerns for missing friends who have not yet returned from the marches, desperate searches for doctors to tend wounds inflicted by riot police, and growing concerns that the government would track their cell phones and end their online protests. They have quickly formed relationships with those half a world away and feel a deep sense of loss when a young person whose updates they had been following are suddenly stopped, their account gone dark.

There are reports of mass kidnappings from universities and rumors of student organizers being killed. As I watch events continue to unfold, I realize with great concern and cautious optimism that the last time I felt this hope, excitement, and concern was in the days preceding the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The signals are strong and the opportunities they portend are hopeful. But, no matter whom this election eventually installs into office, this democratic process will shape the country, the culture, and the future of the Middle East and the world.

Jim Wallis is CEO of Sojourners.

Categories: Activism, Faith and Politics, Global Issues, Human Rights, Violence and Nonviolence

Lord_Voldemort

I'm pleased to see Jim and Sojo staff siding with the protestors. But will this influence their outlook on Iran and our relations with that country? For the regime to survive it will need to stamp these protests out and that operation is likely to be ugly. The nature of the regime itself will change -- from a nominally democratic society operating under the heavy influence of a small number of hard-line clerics -- a religious authoritarianism -- into an outright religious dictatorship.

Confusion over the nature of the Iranian regime was understandable up until this weekend, Iranian government had a democratic element that had some real influence. (Though not much over Iranian foreign relations.) The velvet glove is coming off of the iron fist now however. Will Sojo and Wallis be humble enough to adjust?

LV

BlueDeacon

I don't view it quite like that. I understand that about three-quarters of Iranians are under 30, and when enough of them decide that the ayatullahs have had it they will be able to withdraw their support because they will have already networked with each other. We may not see results right away, but we will see them.

JamesM

Sojo never had any love for the Iranian regime. It just never assumed that war was the answer. No need to adjust and there is certainly no need for humility when Sojo wasn't prideful to begin with.

smokem

Good Question.

SisterMarie

Ironically (and tragically), our intervention in Iraq has ensured that it will be governed by the same sect of Islam that has controlled Iran since the overthrow of the Shah. Given the extent to which our armed forces are already stretched, our ability to influence events there is very limited. Even vocal support for the mass demonstrations only will backfire as the religious fundamentalists there will use it to group the protestors with the "Great Satan."

jkc1945

At some point, we in the "west" are going to have to wake up to the unassailable fact that it is Islam, not democracy, that truly governs much of the middle eastern and western Asian area of the world. And though we would like very much to conclude that Islam is composed of a
broad bell-curve' of belief and subsequent life-conduct, the facts, at least in that area of the world, demand that we understand the Islam that exists there differently. It is despotic. It is authoritarian. And it is evil, when it comes to such issues as 'blind justice,' women's right, children's rights and welfare, anti-Jewish antisemitism, and other such issues.

I believe we are making an error in judgment here in the 'west.' That error is this, pretty much: we are excited about the three great monotheistic religious faiths currently in the world. But we have largely failed to remember that, simply because a religion acknowledges and worships one god, doesn't mean that god is the True God. The danger of thinking like this is - - we could use that type of thought to literally go to war to 'cleanse' the world of false religions - we Christians have done it before, in a much less enlightened age than this one. But the other danger is this - - we could simply go along, assuming that Islam, because it is a monotheistic religion, worships the same god as we do - - and one day, we might be awakened rather rudely with the sudden realization, brought about by world events, that Islam is not true to the God Who has made us all.

And at that point, all bets could be off. So . . . .Christian Evangelization, rather than elections and campaigns and military actions, even in places such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and all through that region and 'all the world' - - is still the only answer.

BlueDeacon

I think you're skating on thin ice here because replacing one despotic religion with another -- and Muslims know from experience that Christianity at times also has been despotic -- is no solution. (A strain of my theological heritage, Reformed, is especially that way.) Indeed, there are far more similarities than differences in conduct regulated in both the Bible and Qur'an, for most of the same reasons. (We overlook that the majority of Muslims in the U.S. voted for GWB in 2000 over concerns about "morality.")

jkc1945

I didn't say anything about replacing one despotic religion with another. I speak of evangelizing Islam with the Truth of honest and good Christianity, and I stand by what I essentially said - - that we can really "live with" Islam, in the long run, only by successfully offering them the Gospel of Christ. And I specifically suggested that I was speaking of Islam as it exists in the area of the world including the middle east and western Asia. That Islam, whether truly representative of some kind of "real Islam" or not, is dangerous. It is dangerous to the world, and it is dangerous to the people of its own countries. Ask the women there; ask the children there; ask those young people spoken of, now in the streets of Iran.
And I specifically spoke of the danger to "Christians" - - and I put quotation marks around the word here, to differentiate between "Christians" who would win the Kingdom by some kind of chicanery or violence, and Christians, who would win the world for Christ, as He called us to do. They are different.

BlueDeacon

What you say about Islam, I repeat, under certain circumstances can also be said about us. See, you're comparing our "good stuff" with their "bad stuff"; however, any religion if given enough power can become corrupt because, frankly, we still at times act under the old sin nature. How do you thus know that a "Western" version of Christianity won't go the same way? Besides, what you're saying about Islam generally isn't necessarily true; in the aftermath of 9/11 I interviewed a number of Muslims from India who certainly rejected terrorism.

oldersixties

We are only seeing what the Iraq governmental press coverage is allowing us to see and hearing the rhetoric that they want us to hear. The clerics still hold sway in the country and are primarily the puppets of the clerics. President jimmy
Carter stood aloft in this same instance and this is what we are reaping. I sometimes feel that we tend to see all adherents to any religious group and mindless victims.
When religion and polics start mingling and intertwining their stories.....something gets lost and we end up with nationalistic religion.....I believe that their are scores of Christians in Iran who are influencing the non-violent underground movement. We have had 4 muslim converts to Christianity in the past year.... and one convert is going back to Iran as a believer.....

BlueDeacon

Actually, Iran's problems with the U.S. go back to the Eisenhower years, when in 1953 we overthrew a democratically-elected government and installed the shah; Carter just happened to be the unlucky guy on the watch when the revolution happened.

JamesM

Most will not see your point-- after all, America can do no wrong in their book.

neuro_nurse

Most Americans have never stepped outside of their comfort zone and seen our country the way those outside of it do.

TheLastTemplar

I think your comparing our 13-14th century bad stuff to their modern day bad stuff. Osama discribed them best "In the West you embrace LIFE, here we embrace death".

BlueDeacon

That's not a good comparison because there's also a war within Islam itself. The division between the Sunni and Shi'a sects, each of which sees the other as apostate, are so vast that they will probably blow each other up before they do it to anyone else. Iran, of course, is mostly Shi'a but much of the Arab world is Sunni (bin Laden fits into the latter category).

JohnH54

"before they do it to someone else"

In case you haven't noticed, they already are doing it to someone else.

BlueDeacon

In case you haven't noticed, they're also doing it to each other. That's the way the devil works -- self-sabotage.

neuro_nurse

I've been asked to come out of retirement and comment on this thread.

First, as a Catholic, I don’t believe that Islam is evil. We believe that Muslims worship the same God that we do.

Second, let’s remember that there would have not been a revolution against the Shah and everything that followed it if the U.S. had not sent the CIA into Iran in 1953 to overthrow the DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh (Operation Ajax – look it up).

I lived in Tehran in 1978 – I watched the motorcade carrying Jimmy Carter travel up Pahlavi Avenue. Carter had little, if any, influence on the revolution and subsequent overthrow of the Shah – Iranians, very justifiably, HATED the Shah. He was a dictator of the worst stripe (try to keep that in mind). The CIA trained the SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police, in methods of torture. Iranians (as well as U.S. expatriates living in Iran at the time) were terrified of the SAVAK. People disappeared for publicly criticizing the Shah.

The outcome of this election should not have been unexpected. The current regime is despotic and repressive and will hold on to power for as long as it can.

With that in mind, I think we should remain hopeful for Iran’s future. The fact that there are Iranians who are now bold enough to protest against the current regime may be an indicator that its days are numbered.

Peace.

SisterMarie

Welcome back.

During the mid-70s, our kids took swimming lessons at the Submarine Base pool and we met several Iranian sailors who were training to operate the diesel-electric submarines that our government was selling to Iran.

neuro_nurse

Most of the U.S. expatriate workers in Iran in the 70s were, in some way or another, there to support the Iranian military - including my father.