We must struggle for creating a democratic system that is dedicated to democracy and human rights.
AKBAR GANJIIt was universal pressure on the regime to secure my release. International pressure was certainly helpful in my release.
More Akbar Ganji Quotes
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Khomeini obviously had many problems, but he had one clever side to him.
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You cannot bring democracy to a country by attacking it.
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Even theories of secularism are constantly being revised and changed.
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In a totalitarian state, the state views any act of an individual to be political in nature. For example, the clothing that a person wears in a modern state is a private affair whereas in the Islamic Republic all women are forced to wear the hijab (Islamic attire).
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Recently, we witnessed massive demonstration by Iranian woman in the 7th of Tir square, and it was brutally suppressed.
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They are the kind of dishonest and populist slogans that we are not willing to use.
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It began early in the revolution. It was a process that was unfolding on a daily basis. We expected the system to be dispensing justice, but every day that passed by.
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The situation began to change, revolutionary conditions was created…we simply wanted to change the regime.
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We see that the ecological movement, environmentalist movement, organizes all kinds of demonstrations against these.
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All manners of freedom, including freedom of expression, freedom of conscious, freedom of thought…it accepts tolerance. But it is not an atheist society.
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When I talk about secularism, I’m talking about theories today. To give you for example, one example: Those who consider themselves followers of Mosaddeq today are adamantly against federalism.
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The solutions to the problems of the distraught lower strata of society are problems that can only be solved in the context of an overall political, cultural, economic development.
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When there is a crisis, the first thing that gets damaged and gets harmed is democracy.
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We believe in equal rights for all people in all nations. If Israel, the United States, Russia, Pakistan, other countries, China, have the right to have a nuclear program and nuclear bomb, Iran, too, must have that same right.
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There’s all kind of evidence that there is enormous corruption in the distribution of that money. For example, they gave about $100 to $150 dollars to each of the teachers. They gave about $500 dollars to those who were getting married. Through this process.
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But I know one thing for sure: That we, the Iranian people, are much more in line of danger than the West.
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The difference between us and the other side is that they use populist and…kind of slogans that are…they fool the people.
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If you look at the discourse before the revolution, whether it is the left communist, whether it is the right secularist.
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Supporters of the national front, Mosaddeq, believe that in Iran, we don’t have a nationalities problem, we don’t have an ethnic problem.
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Today, as a result of a miraculous set of circumstances,
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Whatever Iranian people have bought, they have bought in the black market.
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It is not clear what they have bought, how many secondhand materials they have bought. I am very worried that something like Chernobyl will happen to Iran.
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The ecological movement is concerned about this, and this is in here, where everything is public.
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There are varieties of theories of revolution. According to one of these theories, only one of these theories, revolutions occur when there is an explosion of rising expectation.
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I, too, am against the dismantlement of Iran.
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And amongst the lower strata in Iranian society, we are witnessing an increasing rise of the expectation and it’s clear that the regime is incapable of satisfying these demands.
AKBAR GANJI