Message on the Occasion of Dreadful Ramadan

Sam Ghandchi

http://www.ghandchi.com/451-PayameRamadanEng.htm

پیام بمناسبت ماه محنت بار رمضان
http://www.ghandchi.com/451-PayameRamadan.htm

http://isdmovement.com/2020/0420/042420/042420-Sam-Ghandchi-A-message-for-Ramazan.htm

https://ettelaat.net/1399/02/05/34192/

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P.S. 03/09/2024: I wrote the following article 16 years ago and it is about the writer's experiences in Iran during Ramadan! This year, the month of Ramadan coincides with the days of Nowruz, and personally, I have not been in the month of Ramadan in any other country whose official religion is Islam, so that I can make a comparison! However, perhaps re-reading this article and comparing current Iran with what was written 16 years ago is worth considering! SG

P.S. 04/13/2020: In Honor of Iranian Political Prisoner Soheil Arabi

P.S. 04/13/2020: Quoted from Saied Ohady's Facebook Page about stomach bleeding of political prisoner Soheil Arabi

Not that I am personally that important or to think I am the leader of people that anybody would be waiting for my message on the occasion of any event, whether the event to be cultural or political.  I am a futurist thinker and in fact because of the reason that I will explain below, always avoided to write my political goals under the pretext of cultural occasions, let alone to issue a message on an occasion of a cultural event.

Of course I have written articles about issues such as Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) 's attempts to destroy Norouz which has been political discussion about regime's political action and not an attempt to misuse a cultural tradition of Iran for political purposes.

But why today I see the need to give a message on the occasion of the dreadful month of Ramadan?  Dreadful because in Iran as a nonreligious person I always suffered because of Islamic religious people forcing me to be deprived of the left to easily eat in the public realm for a realm for a month, and all this compulsion to me and the likes of me in the public realm on the streets and office with the reason that *they* want to fast.  Before I continue this discussion, let me first to explain my opinion clearly about messages misusing cultural occasion for political purposes that I mentioned at the beginning.

I always hated speeches by politicians on the occasions of cultural celebrations or the beginning of school year or playing national anthem before the start of movies in cinemas .  The reason was that these actions are compulsion by political power in the society on the people and that at the time that people want to celebrate a cultural tradition or want to have fun to go see a movie not to stand up and listen to a national anthem when they have not gone to a movie for patriotic purpose to be forced to stand up and pay respects to a national anthem.  Even commercial advertising in the middle of cultural events is more understandable for me than these political compulsions on TV, radio, and cinema that have always been used in Iran.

Today on the occasion of the beginning of month of Ramadan world politicians despite many of them not seeing any value in this month just to please the Muslims to have friendly relations, issue greeting messages.  I also as an individual who has been in Iranian political arena for years, would like to present my take of this politicized issue.

Of course if religion and specifically this fasting of month of Ramadan was not accompanied with political compulsion, and was treated as a private matter in Iranian society, just like the time of other cultural events, I would not have used this occasion to present my political views.  But with politicization of religion in Iran and the working of Islam as a religious ideology of Iran's government, reaction to the experience of another month of Ramadan is not the private issue of religious people anymore.

Regardless of how the Islamists succeeded to rise in Iran and elsewhere which I have discussed a lot, one reality is that like an Octopus this has put its claws on the life of Iranian people and others in the Middle East, making Islamism the main problem of the region and anyone under any pretext to think the overthrow of this fascistic system to be secondary and for example those who scare people of ethnic breakup and the like and implicitly support some factions of IRI whether they are monarchist or Jebhe Melli, whether leftist or melli-mazhabi, whether Green or Futurist, they are either spiteful or ignorant not to know that the existence or destruction of Iran depends on whether Islamism remains or is overthrown because if it lasts in Iran not only Iran but the who of Middle East can regress hundreds of years.

Regardless of whatever reason that Islamism succeeded in the region, today this fascist current is the main obstacle for any progress in the Middle East and those who want the removal of Islamism, whether they be states or political movements, they are the allies of Iran's progressive and secular movement, and those in contrast who support the stay of this current of Islamism in the region and beyond, whether they are movements like the Non-aligned movement or to be governments like Cuba, are enemies of progress and democracy in Iran.  In fact, the governments like the U.S. may think that those allies of them like Israel are able to defend themselves whereas they may be worried about allies like Saudi Arabia and Persian Gulf Sheikdoms that may be overthrown by Al Qaida and thus they may be willing because of the bigger danger of Al Qaida to their interests, to give some concessions to Shi'a Islamists and Islamic Republic of Iran.

Not only the progressive movements because of their anti-colonial struggle had dual approach to the Islamists and thus strengthened them at different historical turns, the use of one kind of Islamism by major powers against a government close to their competitor, whether because of their own competition or because of seeing more danger from various groups of Islamists at different time periods, is not anything new and has been the reason for many defeats of secularism in the Middle East.  It is enough to remember the use of Taliban by Western governments against the secular pro-Soviet regime of Afghanistan.  But what is new is that Islamism is showing itself a a major global force of threat itself and not as an agent of this or other world power.

And a very important point is that at the world scale the the Sunni type of Islamism, namely Al Qaida, is the main problem and not its Shi'a version which is the main issue of Iranian progressive forces.  Thus in Iran, contrary to the view of many political analysts and contrary to all the loud words, the foreign threat to the regime is not the main threat of this regime and basically the overthrow of Islamic Republic, whether we see it as a blessing or as a curse, is all the main problem of Iranian people.

I went too far away from the discussion of the month of Ramadan.  Let me return to the discussion of the message for Ramadan.