WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?
http://ghandchi.com/102-Solution.htm
I once wrote the lesson of 1979 that the forces that overthrew Shah’s regime, hardly had any plans for Iran’s future. In fact, they all found out the overthrow was a lot easier than they thought but maintaining power and making a difference in Iran’s future was a lot harder and needed a comprehensive plan. This is what I wrote about it in April 2000:
http://www.ghandchi.com/08-One_Lesson_of_1979.htm
The proposed platform of the Iranian Futurist Party is at the following URL:
http://www.ghandchi.com/futuristparty/index.html
Ever since the proposed platform of the Iranian Futurist Party was published, almost everyone I know of has said that if it is formed, they will support it.
Now the question is how will practically the Islamic Republic change? This is how I see it as I wrote in Feb 2001:
http://www.ghandchi.com/69-change.htm
As far as Iranians abroad, I think addressing violations of human rights in Iran is very important and the following is what I wrote seven years ago and thanks to Dr. Hossein Bagher Zadeh and the members of IHRWG, IHRWG has become an important voice of human rights among Iranians:
http://www.ghandchi.com/27-Stoning.htm
http://www.ghandchi.com/index-Page4.html
At the same time, other human rights organizations such as MEHR (www.mehr.org) were also formed, which I did not know anything about them at the time, and they have also done great work in the last decade.
Moreover here is what I wrote two years ago about what Iranians abroad can do about Iran’s situation, especially with regards to calling for a referendum:
http://www.ghandchi.com/18-Theocracy_be_Voted_out.htm
http://www.ghandchi.com/78-do.htm
In short, what I see is that the sum of organizations that all have no plans and their arguments are much ado for nothing, will not make a dent in the reality of Iran and Iranians and at best the result will be another bitter experience like 1979. This is what I wrote about unity discussions a few weeks ago:
http://www.ghandchi.com/96-AboutUnity.htm
I think the organizations of the Iranian youth that are forming are the most promising organizations that I can think of. For example I have found the communiqués of the following student organization which are posted on Jebhe BB to be very interesting:
Finally I think each individual can help in a different way. For example, there is a very big need for translation of futurist literature to Persian/Farsi. Going at it in the old-fashioned way will take years to do and by the time any of these works are available in Parsi, they will be obsolete, and as it is, most of the philosophical, political, and social literature in Persian is leftist plus a little bit of old traditional and democratic writings. So it is not hard to see how important the new work of translation is.
Also, there are many quality Iranian discussion boards such as Jebhe BB and Mehdis and others where the discussions on these boards are very valuable for Iranian intellectuals and if they change their posting to Persian/Farsi, a lot of what can be posted will be lost. The solution is not to force Persian/Farsi to be the medium of exchange. Because there is a lot of good works that are coming to the Iranian community in English and other languages that help expand our perspective.
Thus the solution is to make automatic translation available from English to Parsi and since automatic translation from English to most major languages exists, such a device can in practice become automatic translation tool from Parsi to all major languages. Reading Parsi in Latin scripts is very hard for Iranians now and whether it makes any sense to go the path of Turkey in this regard or not is not going to solve the problem for us now.
I think nowadays automatic translation of European languages and many other languages is available on the web and this is the way to go and develop one such solution for Persian/Farsi. I hope the ones who have the expertise to solve this problem soon. This is worth a lot more than all the discussions about Latinizing our Parsi scripts or not. Already I hear from friends who do the Parsi typing, MS Word is very good for Farsi texts. I do not know who is developing it at the Microsoft. I think people like them can add automatic translation by themselves or with cooperation of companies like Vajeh-Negar who have always done quality work.
At any rate, what every individual can do is different depending on their abilities. But unless new ideas that are available in the world are presented to Iran and Iranians, we may make the same mistakes again and a lot of the arguments of Iranian factions in separateness or in unity may be just much ado for nothing.
Frankly I think most of the debates in our political groups and their splits and unities are basically dated. I am not criticizing their democratic right to unite and dissent and I think that is part of the democratic growth and there is no need to apologize for it, but I am seeing they are really behind what is available in the world today.
In the absence of having better alternatives, Iranian people will use what they have at their disposal using their ingenuity and they have been doing great.
Hoping for a democratic and secular futurist republic in Iran,
http://www.ghandchi.com/index2.html
January 8, 2002
P.S. The following two articles may also be of interest to the readers of this article:
http://www.ghandchi.com/34-Shiism_Iran_Rev.htm
http://www.ghandchi.com/index-Page15.html
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* The above article was first posted on Jebhe BB on January 8, 2002