Ayatollah Montazeri’s son says it doesn’t matter what form Iranian society takes in the future, as long as the people live in freedom and prosperity. Like virtually every mainstream analyst, he seems to think that all systems are equally capable of bringing about that freedom and prosperity. It does not appear to occur to him that just maybe the repressiveness and inhumanity of the Islamic Republic of Iran is not incidental to its Islamic character, but intrinsic to it: Sharia, with its draconian punishments and institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims, as well as its discouragement of free speech and free thought, is hardly conducive either to freedom or prosperity. Which Sharia state has ever had those qualities, except accidentally (oil wealth) or insofar as it departed from full Sharia enforcement?
“Late cleric’s son warns of more Iran turmoil: report,” from Reuters, January 2:
BERLIN (Reuters) – Iran’s rulers must compromise with opposition figures to avoid a worsening of the political turmoil, the son of the late dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri said in comments released on Saturday.
In an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, Said Montazeri said he hoped Iran’s rulers would come to their senses and called on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to resign.
“Things can’t go on for long like this,” Montazeri was quoted as saying in an interview conducted by mobile phone from his home in Qom. It was unclear when the interview took place.
“I think the future structure of our society is not so important. It could be an Islamic Republic, a secular republic, or as far as I am concerned, even a monarchy. The main thing is that people can live in freedom and in prosperity,” he said. Anti-government protests have flared repeatedly since a disputed presidential election last June, throwing Iran into its most serious internal crisis in the Islamic Republic’s 30-year history….