Freiheit, na und?

Wie sehr vornehmlich Linksintellektuelle dazu neigen, die Zustände in nahöstlichen Diktaturen mit dem Verweis auf vermeintliche Parallelen hierzulande zu relativieren, weiss ich aus eigener Erfahrung nur zu gut. In “Why is the liberal/leftist discourse of the West incapable of including Iranian voices of freedom and democracy?” führt Naheed Rasa all die tumben Denkfiguren westlicher Linksintellektueller im Demokratiediskurs vor und erklärt, warum die neokonservative Aussenpolitik der USA soviel Zuspruch unter der iranischen Bevölkerung findet:

For years — since before the 1979 Revolution in Iran — we considered ourselves part of an international progressive discourse whose defining elements included issues of democratic movements in countries such as Iran. However, we have had a growing sense that, in this new era of “New World Order”, the international Liberal/Leftist discourse has left us out. And here is what I think is the underlying reason: this discourse is now defining itself simply as Anti-Conservative discourse, nothing more. And simplistic Anti-Conservatism is incapable of addressing real issues of democratic movements in Iran (and, I believe, many other countries in the region).

(…) So once again here is our dilemma: We believe the Leftist discourse is correct in pointing out the inconsistencies of the Conservatives’ position, but this does not help us at all because it does not address our main concern, namely the deterioration of the situation of Iranian people with regard to fundamental freedoms.

Take for example the issue of Hejab (Islamic covering for women) in Iran. Everybody knows that it was imposed on Iranian women after the 1979 Revolution. To this very day, the Islamic regime has to use force to persuade Iranian women to conform to their culture! Officials of the Islamic regime are never challenged when they refer to Hejab as a cultural phenomenon, and what is worse, scholars then try to theorize about this exotic phenomenon.

One of those culture-specialist scholars who had done “research” on this topic argues that Islamic Hejab gives women more power because they can see while they cannot be seen! I really wish these so-called scholars would go to Tehran in the summer and ask women who are forced to cover themselves head to toe out of doors in more than 100-degree heat about the balance between power and overheating! I understand that some people here need to publish in order to get their tenure, but do we not also need a minimum level of intellectual integrity?

(…) Even when they have been instigated in Western countries by agents of the Islamic regime, they have led to no meaningful reaction. One needs only think about the killing of the opposition figures especially in Germany (1992) which led to a ruling by a German court that implicated a number of public officials in the Islamic regime. Yet today Germany is one of the main economic partners of Iran; only recently the leaders of the Green Party asked the Iranian ambassador to convey their message to Iranian officials concerning Akbar Ganji. This is the full and entire extent of their efforts!

(…) I should add that, in my opinion, this “tolerance” has led to a belief among many Moslems that it is their right to attack and kill whatever and whoever they think acts against their sacred beliefs. Indeed, this is one of the reasons why I am publishing this piece under a pen name (…) Some damned fool might issue a fatwa to kill me: another damned fool might be tempted to carry it out in order to end up in a garden filled with virgins, Paradise according to the Qoran. This might sound farfetched, but it is impossible not to think about the Dutch filmmaker, Theo van Gogh, who was foully murdered for daring to make a movie criticizing the way Islam treats women. (By the way, let us not forget that the strongest reactions to van Gogh’s murder came from conservative discourses and not liberal or leftist ones.) (…)

We further realized that this so-called Leftist discourse has become totally enmeshed with an academic version of spinelessness that continues to regurgitate benign clichés whose sole purpose is to protect the undeserved perks of the members of academia. That is why this discourse is not even thinking about tackling taboos.

Well said! Und hier meine Vorhersage: Auch für diese Stimme werden die europäischen Linksintellektuellen wieder einmal taub sein.

Tags: Bush, Demokratie, Freiheit, Iran, Islam, Israel, Opposition, Religion, UN, USA

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 9th, 2005 at 10:50 pm and is filed under Europäische Union, Irak, Iran. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.