The events surrounding this election are a sad reminder that many Iranians are not ready for the practice of democracy.
Democracy requires the tolerance of the opposite view, the acceptance of majority’s wish, and more importantly the respect of the law.
Instead what we saw in this election is that many Iranians are not only intolerant of each other’s views but simply can not accept the fact that the majority may have a different view than there’s. And the accusation goes both ways and not just Mousavi's supporters.
If you haven’t seen the movie Gangs of New York I encourage you to see it. It’s a movie about early America and various ethnicities in New York and the early days of democracy in US. There the different groups would go as far as killing each other prior to election and it shows the voting frauds by the political parties. But after the elections people accepted the outcome. We saw the modern version of the Western culture of democracy in Bush vs Gore election. Even though Gore won the majority of popular vote and had strong suspicions about voting fraud for Bush he and his followers nevertheless accepted the Supreme Court’s decision which was clearly biased as well because for them setting the precedence of the respect of the law and their democratic values was more important than the election result itself.
In Iran however, it’s almost the opposite of US. Both groups had already made-up their mind that they would not accept anything but a win and were ready to challenge it (be it by demonstration, violence, or use of force). Regardless of what the outcome of these current events I’m afraid that Iranians have taken one huge step backwards from a democratic future. Because now they have set the precedence for future elections that it’s OK for the losing side to simply dismiss the result of an election through non-legal means.
People can argue all they want that the regime is corrupt and the law is biased but all dissidents (at any time and any place) can make the same argument about any system and then decide to bypass the law and try to get what they perceive to be their rights by breaking the existing laws. For example, imagine a secular and democratic Iran in the future where a minority separatist group would accuse the government of favoritism and decide to get hold of the power by breaking the law and then citing the current event as their precedence.
Democracy requires the tolerance of the opposite view, the acceptance of majority’s wish, and more importantly the respect of the law.
Instead what we saw in this election is that many Iranians are not only intolerant of each other’s views but simply can not accept the fact that the majority may have a different view than there’s. And the accusation goes both ways and not just Mousavi's supporters.
If you haven’t seen the movie Gangs of New York I encourage you to see it. It’s a movie about early America and various ethnicities in New York and the early days of democracy in US. There the different groups would go as far as killing each other prior to election and it shows the voting frauds by the political parties. But after the elections people accepted the outcome. We saw the modern version of the Western culture of democracy in Bush vs Gore election. Even though Gore won the majority of popular vote and had strong suspicions about voting fraud for Bush he and his followers nevertheless accepted the Supreme Court’s decision which was clearly biased as well because for them setting the precedence of the respect of the law and their democratic values was more important than the election result itself.
In Iran however, it’s almost the opposite of US. Both groups had already made-up their mind that they would not accept anything but a win and were ready to challenge it (be it by demonstration, violence, or use of force). Regardless of what the outcome of these current events I’m afraid that Iranians have taken one huge step backwards from a democratic future. Because now they have set the precedence for future elections that it’s OK for the losing side to simply dismiss the result of an election through non-legal means.
People can argue all they want that the regime is corrupt and the law is biased but all dissidents (at any time and any place) can make the same argument about any system and then decide to bypass the law and try to get what they perceive to be their rights by breaking the existing laws. For example, imagine a secular and democratic Iran in the future where a minority separatist group would accuse the government of favoritism and decide to get hold of the power by breaking the law and then citing the current event as their precedence.
