From Reformist Democratization to Principlist Justice-Seeking

Shargh: In the days when justice-seeking is promoted and encouraged as the primary goal of Iranian statesmen, the students of the Democracy-Seeking Faction of the Islamic Association of Students at the University of Tehran's Faculty of Management held a three-day seminar entitled

Khashayar Deyhimi, as the first speaker on the second day of this conference, deemed it necessary at the outset of his remarks to note that “elucidating the relationship between justice and freedom in the theoretical realm and stating the place of these two concepts in Iran’s political system requires more scope than the time afforded by a short lecture.” Deyhimi, who had chosen the title “Freedom and Justice from a Liberal Perspective” for his talk, declared that the reason for understanding the necessity of speaking about liberalism at this seminar was the injustice that Iranian statesmen and intellectuals have done to this political theory over many years. Criticizing those who negate liberalism without critiquing it, Deyhimi posed the question: “I am very curious to know what aspect of liberalism these individuals do not want, and I would like to know what these friends mean by liberalism?” In Deyhimi’s view, the term liberalism in Iran has always been taken as synonymous with “America,” and no theoretical scrutiny of the meaning of liberalism has taken place. Deyhimi, who has also translated many books on the concepts of political science, considered justice and freedom to be concepts that have caused much controversy among political science experts, because those who use these two words bring to bear different conceptions and notions of them. In this way, Deyhimi, by stating that we must clarify what we mean by freedom and justice, criticized Iranian statesmen: “Just as the reformists’ religious democracy was a vague and ambiguous concept, the principlists’ justice-seeking is also a different concept, moving in the opposite direction of the justice-seeking prevalent in the world.” Deyhimi, with the preamble that justice and freedom in moral and political philosophy are not values in themselves and are considered valuable whenever they provide the means for human happiness and enjoyment, entered the main part of his speech and elaborated on what liberals throughout history have made of these two concepts. This political intellectual, dividing the history of liberalism into two eras—the pre-liberal era (the Middle Ages) and the post-liberal age (the Enlightenment)—stressed that in the Middle Ages, widespread and general belief in one religion meant that anyone who held a belief differing from the public creed was deemed corrupt and subjected to persecution and harassment. Deyhimi went on to identify the expansion of communications and the growth of science as the first spark for the emergence of liberalism in the Enlightenment era, saying: “With the expansion of communications, it gradually became difficult to accept the principle that only one belief exists, and John Locke, relying on ‘religious toleration’—meaning we have no right to persecute and harass others who have not arrived at the prevailing religious belief—became the vanguard of liberalism.” Deyhimi, with this statement, concluded that the essence of liberal thought is freedom of expression and freedom of thought, which over time led to the veneration of reason in the realm of knowledge and thinking. Deyhimi then, stating that “we must provide a mechanism so that different lifestyles can coexist peacefully with one another,” said: “It is through lifestyle that liberal thought becomes a political theory.” Deyhimi considered liberal thought that has become a political theory to be the guardian of freedom of expression and thought, and introduced its task as follows: “Liberal political theory seeks to design a state and provide an environment in which the existence of different beliefs does not lead to conflict and war.” Deyhimi, noting that in the post-Enlightenment age, due to the plurality of schools of thought, intellectual disputes increased and instead of convergence, a kind of divergence occurred in the realm of thought and political action, declared the mission of liberal thought in this period as follows: “Liberal thought, being a dynamic and living thought, had to harmonize itself with this clash of viewpoints.

But in practice it arrived at the realization that honoring reason will not always lead to convergence, and thus it incorporated pluralism in order to prevent the outbreak of violence.” Deyhimi then stressed that in this period the political took on a new definition, such that according to this new definition politics must be separated from beliefs and ideology in order to prevent conflict and violence. Deyhimi therefore emphasized that liberalism, through these arrangements, legitimized pluralism in the political sphere, and then said: “There is absolutely no necessity that the free exercise of reason should lead us to uniform conclusions; what matters is that we live together peacefully through prudence.” In this way, Khashayar Deyhimi drew the main conclusion from his remarks by stating that “alongside peaceful coexistence in the vicinity of freedom, justice too will be realized, and on this basis liberalist justice-seeking emerges from within liberalism as a school of thought.” However, when Khashayar Deyhimi was faced with a question from the students present at the session, who had asked him to introduce the promoters of liberal thought in Iran, he replied as follows: “Liberal thought in Iran has truly been stunted. During the Constitutional era, liberal thought was pursued in Iran, and the constitution emerged from within liberal thought. But when the Constitutional Revolution failed in Iran, liberalism failed in parallel with it. Therefore, in Iran, both the opposition and the holders of political power have always been anti-liberal.” In response to another question, Khashayar Deyhimi also criticized the performance of the reformists and, addressing them, said: “The reformists were unable to correct the dominant understanding of freedom and justice, and when we cannot convey these issues to the people, the fault is certainly ours. The initial slogans of reformism were very correct and precise. The greatest criticism is that the reformists retreated from these slogans and were defeated, and ultimately, instead of criticizing themselves, they criticized the slogans themselves and said that the people did not want democracy but wanted a livelihood.”

• Babak Ahmadi:
Justice Is Impossible Without Freedom

The criticism that Khashayar Deyhimi leveled at the reformists was repeated verbatim by the other speaker at the event, Babak Ahmadi, who made it the starting point of his own talk. Babak Ahmadi, who was speaking to political science students under the title “Why Justice Is Impossible Without Freedom,” described the incorrect defense of freedom during the Reformist administration as the cause of that government’s failure, and said the reason he had chosen this topic for his lecture was the misplaced emphasis on justice-seeking by Iranian statesmen over the past seven months. Noting that in the past seven months the word democracy has not been heard from the president and that statesmen have not counted freedom as a virtue, Ahmadi remarked: “Social equality in a political system will not be realized except in the shadow of the realization of freedom and people’s rights.” Stating that workers in society need justice and equality more than any other group, Ahmadi stressed: “Years ago, in a class on modernity, I said that wherever freedom is restricted, you can be sure that a right is being trampled and social inequality is deepening.” This author on political science, noting that by freedom and justice he meant them solely in the political sense, described the realization of a democratic state as the result of political freedom and, emphasizing that political scientists do not agree on the concept of justice, concluded thus: “Whatever definition of justice I consider, I still claim that in the realm of political and social life, justice cannot truly be realized unless the state is democratic.” Ahmadi then defined the democratic state he had in mind as follows: “A democratic state is one in which civil rights and freedom of expression are recognized.” Posing the question, “Why can no form of social justice be advanced without freedom?” he continued: “Just as John Stuart Mill emphasized in the 19th century, without freedom, social equality will not be realized, and moving toward civic equality under conditions where the government is not democratic can be dangerous.” According to Ahmadi, the democratic state took shape after the Second World War and made social equality more possible: “If the state is democratic, problems can be discussed, and as a result we can reduce the problems related to social inequalities.” Ahmadi then cited the collapse of the Soviet communist regime as an unsuccessful example of the slogan of social equality and, emphasizing that the Soviet regime spread “equality in poverty,” offered this sentence in support of his view: “When the Soviet system fell apart, the unequal class that existed before 1917 reappeared, showing that the fantasies of the Soviet rulers had created the harsh seventy-year communist situation.” Thus, this Iranian intellectual, while defending the democratic movement, also declared that this mode of governance has its limitations, saying: “A democratic government may, at any stage of its development, also deepen the struggle against social inequality.” He ended his talk, as he had begun it, with criticism of the reformists, saying: “The Reformist administration created enough economic problems and inequality, but it is wrong to think that this happened because it defended freedom. They even defended freedom badly. The previous government did not defend freedom properly, and this is one of the lessons our nation must learn. It must create pressure for the formation of a democratic state, freedom of speech and the press, and the creation of unions. When these are formed, we will no longer face defeat and retreat. Our problem was not that we wanted democracy; our problem was that we did not stand up well for democracy and did not persist. We must learn to live together democratically in the future.”

• Taghi Azad Armaki: We Ourselves Were the Cause of Failure

Taghi Azad Armaki, former head of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Tehran and a member of the sociology department of that faculty, was another speaker at the