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HMI's Anti-Federalism is a Reactionary Position
http://www.ghandchi.com/194-hmi.htm
A month ago, Hezbe Mellate Iran (HMI) issued the following communiqué:
http://iona.ghandchi.com/Groups/hoshdar.pdf
As usual to push their old anti-federalist position, they tried to make up a news as if they know of some conspiracy, which they are supposedly uncovering, without giving any support for their claim, and the so-called conspiracy was supposedly about the breakup of Iran.
For decades, every time anybody spoke of federalism, or even minimal self-rule for different regions or ethnic groups, these pan-Iranists were alongside the extreme right wings of the monarchy or IRI to oppose any decentralization in Iran. Today, the only other group with an extreme anti-federalist position is a monarchist group headed by Dayani, who keeps calling people tajzieh-talab on every anniversary of 21-Azar:
Calling the opponents as vatanforush or khAen or tajzieh-talab is not going to buy any group good reputation. People like Forouhars are heroes of Iranian people, but to use their names to push a reactionary position against federalism is not the proper way to discuss issues of Iranian political platforms. These tactics are old and only show that these people do not have any substance to back up their obsolete platforms.
I have already written my views about federalism in the following article and there is not much I can add to it:
http://www.ghandchi.com/175-federalism.htm
Still pushing the same obsolete programs that caused us to get the IRI, after all the sacrifices of decades before the 1979, should have taught us to rethink all these programs which are basically useless and are more based on nationalistic prejudices than any real work about economics and politics of the world that we live in today. We do not need to go after programs that at best can make Iran another Eqypt or Syria.
There are now many people in all groups and political tendencies who are questioning the old platforms that had resulted in the IRI, after over a century of hard work and sacrifices by the Iranian progressive people since mashrootiat. These new thinkers are found among the monarchists, leftists, jebheiis, and others, and they oppose the obsolete programs of their own organizations. And having obsolete programs is not particular to any one group and if any of them writes a constitution, it will basically be the backward platform of their group expanded for whole Iran.
Those who think monarchy was the way or Jebhe was the way or the left was the way and think they should do the same program even with more push this time, are going to repeat the same tragedies.
1. We need a new constitution which abandons the allowance of Shi'a clergy in Judicial, Executive, and Legislative branches of government in Iran, which has had its destructive role in Iran both under monarchy and under IRI.
2. A constitution that would end the supremacy of state economy in Iran, a structure which is supported by old platforms of Jebhe, leftists, and monarchists, alike, when state economy is the basis of existence of dictatorship in Iran regardless of the form of the regime.
3. And the new constitution should put an end to the centrist state and should build a federal government in Iran. A centrist political structure must be abandoned, a structure that has been the political structure of dictatorships under monarchy and IRI in Iran, and has had the same role in other countries under communists or nationalists.
All those who want to push their old programs, and use their anti-Americanism to insult the ones who are asking for these new futurist approaches, are themselves the people who want to make Iran dependent, and fail again like IRI, and thus make us to become the beggars of the West, the real dependence which we see now with the poverty under IRI, although they do it under the banner of defending the so-called independence, a motto which is like the IRI pseudo-independence, which has made Iran and Iranians more dependent on the West. And actually the countries that they call as so-called US-dependent, countries such as Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea, have become the envy for Iran and Iranians.
So these shoArs (slogans) of independence will not solve the problems of Iran. Their shoArs of calling the ones who ask for Federalism as tajzieh-talab (separatist), is not going to cut it anymore either. They can keep on screaming and call people names such as vatanforush. Iranians are not going to fall for another Khomeini-type alternative again, by their intimidations, after 24 years of seeing what backwardness is. The only vatanforush are those who want us to go the failed paths, that we know will end up in another Egypt, Turkey, or Syria.
The so-called defense of independence has been used by IRI lobbyists for two decades now, to justify their support of IRI in the U.S., when they themselves have chosen freedom over independence by leaving Iran, and living in the U.S., and they throw all the rhetoric under the flag of independence, to justify defense of the reactionary programs, to keep backwardness in Iran, Afghanestan and Arab countries. I have already written enough about it in the past:
http://www.ghandchi.com/89-IRIApologists.htm
Having said all the above, I defend all groups who have spoken up against the murders of Forouhars, and have fought for human rights in Iran, and I emphasize that those individuals and groups were *not* limited to HMI.
Hoping for a Futurist, Federal, Democratic, and Secular Republic in Iran,
Sam Ghandchi, Publisher/Editor
IRANSCOPE
April 2, 2003
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