Laicity

Intriguingly, given the recent developments in Iran as reported in my last posting, there has recently been formed an International Bureau for Laicite. It has taken its name from the French concept that was built into the law of the French Republic on 9th December 1905 which is understood here to mean "the total disinvestment of the state regarding religions" as opposed to the English "secularism" thought to entail equal tolerance towards all religions.

Whilst in many respects it is a good sign that people are willing to form new bodies that identify fundamentalist religion as a current and important threat to open societies and to positively argue for a view of the state that does not involve incorporation of religion there are still elements of the founding statement of the Bureau that bother me. Firstly, the general acceptance of the French republic as a model as indicated in the use of the concept of laicity is itself problematic. In France this concept is far from employed evenly. The recent ban on head-scarfs for Muslim girls was not one that applied reciprocally to other religions. For example the parallel drew with it for Christians was a ban on wearing "large" crosses and there was also no attempt on the part of the French authorities to deal with the meaning of the head-scarf as a symbol of modesty that is, in any case, only partially religious in nature. President Sarkozy also recently apparently welcomed the recent Swiss vote banning the construction of minarets and argued that members of religions should be "modest" in their demeanour but didn't follow his welcoming of the ban on minarets with an argument for banning construction of Catholic cathedrals or some form or other of "large" Christian symbol.

The truth is that the French view of laicity has consistently contained a preference for Catholicism over other forms of Christianity and for Christianity over non-Christian religions so I don't regard reference to it in the setting up of a secularist campaign as a particularly good sign. Secondly, the statement founding the group includes a vigorous denunciation, in all too French style, of "neo-liberalism" blaming this fictive creature for all the present ills of the world. It would be useful instead to look more closely at a number of elements that perpetuate injustice in the world including French support for protectionist measures for agriculture, measures that ensure that French products are given preferential treatment over those from much poorer countries. It might also be too much to expect that a campaign so correctly focused on secular principles would do much to demonstrate against the contraventions of such principles in France, Switzerland, the US and the UK. But perhaps that will come out of future work of the group.

Iranian Student Day

Yesterday's Student Day demonstrations in Iran occurred, according to what the world media has been able to discern, across a number of cities including Tehran, Kerman, Mashhad, Isfahan, Hamedan and Shiraz. Most importantly, the demonstrations yesterday included actions that directly targeted the notion of the "Islamic Republic". In Tehran there were reports of burnings of posters of Ayatollah Khomeini and marchers carrying flags from which the word "Allah" had been removed. At Sharif University protestors have been video-taped shouting: "Death to the oppressor, whether shah or supreme leader".

These actions show the protest movement in Iran is emerging in a direction that is flagrantly at odds with its official "insider" leadership. The movement to free Iran from "Islamic" dictatorship is central to the direction of the world today. If a secular, democratic, free and open Iran can emerge then the prospects for the Middle East will entirely alter. The success of this movement and its emergence as a force for secular democracy are key issues for anyone today concerned for a move towards open societies generally. Best wishes to the movement and to its increasingly secular direction and here's hoping for a leadership that catches up with the spontaneous movement against a regime led by clerics.

Iranian Solidarity

For all those interested in becoming aware of acts of solidarity in the UK with the protestors in Iran, check out this blog. Latest entry is from Alison Assiter whose guest contribution on a similar theme featured here last month.

Since Ahmadi is due to address the UN soon it is all the more important that acts of solidarity are carried out and that there continues to be witness to the injustice of the fraudulent "election" carried out there earlier this year, the same event that was discussed here in my initial posting.

The Supreme Leader, Philosophy, and Social Science

Last week the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made remarks at Tehran University, that indicated a problem with the teaching of humanities and social sciences in Iran. "Many of the humanities and liberal arts are based on philosophies whose foundations are materialism and disbelief in godly and Islamic teachings" he is reported to have said, adding that he wanted a review of any subject that "promotes doubts and uncertainties". According to some reports he specifically singled out philosophy and sociology as subjects that he is particularly concerned about. Apparently around 2 million students are currently majoring in human sciences and Iran is, after all, a country where more than 60% of the population is under 30.

Since the Supreme Leader made his remarks the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies has been given the task by the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council of revising the curriculum in the dangerous subjects with the head of the Institute, Hamid Reza Ayatollahi, indicating he would pursue this matter. One of the factors that may have prompted the original remarks - apart of course from the participation of students in demonstrations against the flawed election earlier this year - was likely the show trial of Said Hajjarian who, in his "confession", indicated he was "misled" by the works of Talcott Parsons, Max Weber and Jurgen Habermas.

It is hardly a new accusation against philosophy in particular that it "corrupts youth" and certainly it engages with "doubt and uncertainty" rather than simply trying to suppress it. Such engagement is, naturally, anathema to someone who, by contrast, promotes dogma, a term that evidently has a positive valuation for him. The idea of the office of the Supreme Leader promotes the view that someone has access to truth in an eminent way and that this access is precisely not open to "doubts and uncertainties". There can, when it comes to serious challenge to the authority of the Supreme Leader and his particular interpretation of sacred texts and divinely mandated laws, be no option other than to suppress dissent. After all, such dissent is, simply by definition, wrong!

This view is precisely the same as the one that condemned Socrates for promoting unbelief and which was the basis of a Royal decree in Prussia forbidding Kant from publishing on religion. Numerous similar episodes are familiar to us all (such as the expulsion of Spinoza from the Jewish community or the more recent fatwa against Salman Rushdie issued by - who else - Ayatollah Khomenei!). The struggle for free speech and the right to cast doubt on whatever we please has been a long one in the states of the West and one that should win the support of all those who think that teaching and thinking in a way that remains open to doubt is to be encouraged not suppressed. As Kant wrote, in words that remain as relevant today as when he published them in the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781:

"Our age is, in especial degree, the age of criticism, and to criticism everything must submit. Religion, through its sanctity, and law-giving through its majesty, may seek to exempt themselves from it. But they then awaken just suspicion, and cannot claim the sincere respect which reason accords only to that which has been able to sustain the test of free and open examination." (A xi n)

It may well be that Max Weber, Jurgen Habermas, Talcott Parsons, and many others from the social and human sciences, in addition to philosophy, promote views that require searching questions that are often uncomfortable but such enquiry is the basis of a life worth living, not one that requires unconditional submission to self-selected leaders who apparently can read God's intentions in all matters from the growing of beards to the understanding of the relationship between desire, fantasy and action. Such leaders are supreme only in being ridiculous and scorn is all they deserve. Iran's future lies in being republican in the true sense, that which involves embrace of constitutions that meet the condition of a public will not private revelations.

Guest Contribution: Hunger Strike and Mujahadeen

Professor Alison Assiter of the University of the West of England has requested that the following text by her be posted on this on this blog as part of her campaign to get publicity for the situation described here:

"Outside the US Embassy in London, a group of exiled Iranians have staged a hunger strike and 24-hour protest. A number of them have been on hunger strike for two weeks. They began their protest on Tuesday 28th July, when Iraqi police set out to establish a station inside the headquarters of the PMOI or MEK – Camp Ashraf in Iraq. A number of their members were killed and hundreds more were wounded. The protesters want US or UN protection for their members in Ashraf City. The raid from Iraqi police coincided with demonstrations inside and outside Iran against the clerical regime.

The politics of the issue are complex. Supporters say that the MEK forms the backbone of the Iranian resistance to the Islamic fundamentalist regime. Critics question this. There are many more differences of political view and feelings run high on both sides. The position of the Obama administration remains unclear. There are hunger strikers also demonstrating opposite the White House in Washington.

One thing, however, is clear. This is that followers of the Mujahadeen, now residing in Europe and the US, place a fundamentally different emphasis on the individual and on the value of individual human life from the value attached to the separateness and distinctness of persons by most people in the liberal west. For many years, now, the Mujahadeen have renounced violence. The politics of the suicide bomber are not for them. Indeed such politics are associated with their opponents: the fundamentalist Islamic regime of Iran and their supporters. The Mujahadeen are Muslim, but they claim to advocate a secular democracy for their country.

However, the Mujahadeen value the collective over the individual. The collective welfare of the group takes priority over individual human rights. If the collective welfare of the group demands the sacrifice of some, then those individuals are prepared to sacrifice their lives for the cause.

As one hunger striker put it:’ my blood is no more red than that of the next person and the whole movement is my family’. Another, a 19- year old girl said ‘ I am ready to join Neda’ (the Iranian girl who died in fighting for democracy in Iran recently and who has become a symbol of resistance).

The courage and the resilience of these people is immense. One very significant problem, however, is that few people in the UK know that this hunger strike is going on. Londoners walk along Oxford Street in their thousands doing their shopping, oblivious to the hunger strikers round the corner. Just as it is no longer possible to travel anywhere in the world that some human being has not already visited, so too the ultimate political weapon – hunger strike to the death – has been downgraded. When Bobby Sands went on hunger strike in the early 1980’s, few people in the UK would not have heard of him. Now the use of the hunger strike as a political weapon has become more commonplace. If the cause of the exiled Iranians is to be successful then some version of their story needs to be heard."

Green Dam and the Great Firewall of China

It appears that, at least for the moment, the government of China has drawn back from vastly extending internet censorship. The development of software, to be installed on all new PCs manufactured, that would have blocked a host of significant web-sites and further interfered with the running of the machine when certain banned keywords were used at all, has, in the form currently developed, been dropped.

The software in question, Green Dam Youth Escort, was ostensibly designed to block pornography and hence protect immature minds from being corrupted. It is clear that this was not the main point of the software. On the one hand, there are presently existent a number of tools for parental control and the Green Dam in fact blocks them. It is even less effective than such existent tools since it is simpler to uninstall it. On the other hand, it was intended to include in its reach any sites that had gay or gay-related content, regardless of whether this included visual material or was primarily concerned with political campaigning. In any event, the Green Dam only works on Windows client applications, blocking Internet Explorer but doing nothing to Macs. Finally, not signposted within the public material surrounding the software, was its real rationale for being developed, namely, to extend control of political discourse.

There are three general points worth making about the development of Green Dam and its failure. Firstly, the development of it was a further reach of government censorship in the sense that it was intended to apply to specific individual machines. In this respect it marked a departure from the general Great Firewall of China. The general firewall acts as a filter on internet content overall and is not a device for spying on specific machines. The general firewall operates by two main mechanisms. These are tampering with the domain name system and blocking the internet protocol. The latter is the more important as it means internet connection can simply be terminated when a banned keyword is loaded. This happens by connection back to the remote server which is first blocked and then re-set.

The second point is that the reason why the Green Dam has failed is not primarily due to political pressure though that has arisen both within and without China. Rather, the software in question was intrinsically vulnerable. On testing it was discovered that it opened machines that had it installed to being turned into remote drones for malicious external users. This severely compromised the security of all machines that had it loaded and it was this that was the focus of complaints from the US and the EU. Hence its defeat was not undertaken in defence of free-speech but in defence of general trade specifications.

The third point is that the authorities in China continue to show the wish to censor both individual machines and the general internet. The clear reasons for this remain the same as always: to suppress dissent and retain control of the narrative as to what is understood as the right political view of any given event or situation. This censorious control is obviously not limited to China but, given the size of China and its increasing importance in global economic and political affairs, the acts of its government in this regard are especially significant. This clearly raises a question about human rights, particularly free speech. However the point that is worth stressing here is that free speech itself has changed its character in a situation in which the public sphere has become global. 

Kant's original argument in What is Enlightenment? that the freedom of the pen was the most important freedom can now be connected closely to his general argument that in the modern world violation of right anywhere can be felt everywhere. The reasons why violations of right can be felt everywhere are because the pen has been superseded as the means of communication by a force of publicity that is much greater than Kant would have expected. The global expansion of the public sphere enables transparent checking of sources, free flow of information and ideas with the potential for criticism of each and every political regime, a key point for anyone who wishes to argue for the need for societies to be open.

The centrality of such extension of the public sphere has also been at the centre of the continuing political upheaval in Iran where the general control of telecommunications has been challenged by the proliferation of contacts between netizens of different states. In terms of political struggle the campaign for internet freedom has hence become a central battle-ground.

Iranian Election

The recent debacle over the so-called "Iranian election" is one indication of the need for salient philosophical thinking about international affairs that can be set out in a way that is not only rigorous but also related to ongoing events. The majority of the commentary on the events that have taken place so far has either been restricted to reportage of the in-fighting within the elite or to speculations concerning the motivations behind the evident fraud. Little has been written thus far addressing the masses of people who mobilized and demonstrated at great personal risk. Yet it is the fact of these demonstrators mobilizing on such a large scale in the heart of the Middle East that renders these events worth watching. A revolutionary upheaval includes within itself democratic potential. It is, naturally, always possible for this upheaval to fail to attain this potential and be headed off either by following leaders who wish to divert the events to other ends of their own on the one hand or to be repressed by the regime they are challenging on the other. These potential problems are what the movement of the Iranian masses have to confront. 

With regard to the leaders who could close down its potential it is clear that the revolt has thus far not chosen its own leadership with any clarity. Mousavi, ex-Prime Minister from the period of the Iran-Iraq war, has a record that bears no examination. Similarly, Rafsanjani is engaging in in-fighting with the Supreme Leader and his lackey Ahmadi. The mass movement has, however, its own momentum and the circulated request for a general strike makes possible a confrontation with the regime that cannot be responded to by the brute mechanisms of repression. Similarly, the emergence of women as a serious force in this movement opens its own possibilities. How could the regime seriously attack a women's demonstration? The difficulties it has encountered over the killing of Neda already indicate its vulnerabilities in this regard.

The content of this revolution as one that could burst open the stranglehold of repressive regimes in the whole Middle East makes its monitoring essential to anyone serious about the Kantian demand that all governments should become republican. In declaring that violation of right anywhere is felt everywhere in the new world of globalized communication Kant made clear that there is open in modernity a new calculus of power in which information takes on its own force. This has been strikingly demonstrated in the contemporary events in which new technology has disseminated information with a speed and clarity that has repeatedly disturbed the clerics. Publicity is the basis of political action that can destabilize entrenched regimes and force the passage to openness. The watchword of pressing for such openness and orchestrating it to favour futural groups such as the young, women and the oppressed is the centre of a political analysis that can focus on something other than the tired repetitions of Kreminologists who do little to assess either the mood or the possibilities of movements that are beyond the fixed structures of power.