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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Inside Iran I am a busy person this weekend so I haven’t time to do much more than to link to this fascinating interview with a former CIA operative on his experiences of living in Iran. With all the troubles in the world right now, it pays to keep an eye on a country and a regime that continues to be a serious threat. More optimistically, though, if Iran ever did move towards genuine openness and democracy, the impact on the rest of the Middle East region would be immense.
This struck me:
“If the Iranian regime dared for one day, for even half a day, to allow Iranians to come into the streets and say what they really want, then you would see tens of millions of Iranians in the streets shouting “Death to the Islamic Republic!”
“If there were a free referendum today, “yes” or “no” to the Iranian Republic, more than 90 percent would say “no.” If there were a free referendum today saying “yes” or “no” to establishing ties with America, more than 90 percent would say “yes.””
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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The odd thing JP is it is hard to know if the quote is optimistic of not.
On the plus side an overwhelming majority of Iranians don’t like the regime. On the negative side it shows such a vile operation can stay in power for over thirty years.
I remember reading about ancient Egypt in school, and there would be a phrase something like, “The 3rd dynasty lasted for 1350 years until its sudden, inexplicable collapse during the reign of Tutmosamun in 2200 BC.”
And, even then, I thought to myself that the obvious cause was that the ruling class had lost the confidence of the people over some failed prophecy or famine in which the theocracy seemed powerless, and the rulers were overthrown.
The same thing has happened repeatedly throughout history all around the world as various powerful states have suddenly imploded, most recently in the former soviet empire, or currently in the arab theocracies.
It is not a coincidence that the current totalitarian regime in Iran tries so desperately to prevent its people from using modern communications, and reacts so muderously when any protest is made against its policies. It, too, is nothing more than another repressive theocracy whose legitimacy hangs by the thin thread of acquiescence by a cowed populace.
My prediction—the theocrats in Iran will fall just as suddenly and “inexplicably” as the ancient Pharoahs and their priests did when their prayers for the spring floods went unanswered, and they lost the mandate of heaven.
China will follow soon enough, and even more bloodily, when the corrupt ruling party can no longer deliver the growth needed to sustain the boom.
As always, the CIA will be flabbergasted, and the media will be amazed that such a powerful regime could fall practically overnight.
But the strength of the repressive is, in fact, the weakness and brittleness of the repressive. These regimes are made of pot metal, and when the pressure rises, they crack and blow apart, because they cannot adjust.
Once again, the genius of the founders is revealed, as each of this implosions proves over and over the truth of that simple formulation—“deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
It is the conceit, and the fatal error, of the autocrat to believe that he can replace that consent with a blessing from heaven, or the convoluted interpretaions of some theory, or the sword’s edge.
It is liberty that is the creative mainspring that drives the progress of the modern world. Remove it, and the slide back toward poverty and stagnation begins, and accelerates, very quickly.
That this lesson must be learned and relearned again and again is a failure on our part to transmit the most vital knowledge we have—that the tumult of freedom is not weakness, but the indefatigable strength of creative minds unleashed.
And that the strength of the sword is the brittleness of the eggshell.
Such is the way of the world.
Wow, veryretired. That’s SQOTD material right there.
Uh-oh, smitten.
veryretired said:
Nor is it a coincidence that Cameron is now talking about taking steps to ‘control’ social media so the plebs can’t talk amongst themselves without others listening in…
I read the CIA operative’s narration of Iran.I am afreid the gentleman has wasted the agancy’s money during his years in Iran.The problem with CIA analysts is that they obtain most of their raw materials from sources that are against the regime.They are not connected with the root.
I am disappointed by the views expressed by the Ex-CIA officer who spent time in Iran.Very disappointed indeed.
Yep, problem is, some times it takes a while for such consent to be withdrawn – it may take 1300 years, or it may take a few decades (which seems to have been the case in Iran, if the CIA operative’s numbers are to be believed). I guess what I’m trying to say is that more often than not the governed are part of the problem.
It is not a coincidence that the current totalitarian regime in Iran tries so desperately to prevent its people from using modern communications,…
Nor is it a coincidence that Cameron is now talking about taking steps to ‘control’ social media so the plebs can’t talk amongst themselves without others listening in…
And perhaps someone could remind that effete clown Cameron that the roneograph machine was banned behind the Berlin Wall. I am sure that some people here are aware of the origins of the word “samizdata”
Alisa, I do not disagree. But it is worth noting that, in past ages, there was little to choose from between the theocrat of this empire and the god-king of this other.
Over these last few centuries, the unprecedented advances of free men and women have overthrown everything from stone age clan societies to millenia old empires led by a living god on earth.
These fools and petty autocrats around the world exist only at our sufferance, their economies utterly dependent on our wealth creation and continuous innovation.
If we fall because we have abandoned liberty for the suffocating comfort of the nanny’s shroud, it is their future which fails also.
Their hatred stems not only from our differences, but also their knowledge of their own dependence on us for everything they have beyond the grinsding poverty they knew since human time began.
We have been hamstrung by the small mindedness of the pc’ers and the multi-culti fools who demean the engine while glorifying the fenders.
As Nero Wolfe would say, “Pfui!”.
Without the liberty and creative energy of free, independent minds and spirits, the common people of the world would be back following an ox to plow their bits of land within a century, desperately attempting to stave off starvation, just as they had for millenia before.
Is freedom the anomaly? Of course it is.
But the rare and beautiful is often fragile, and must be protected and cherished by the best we can muster for it’s preservation.
We have been given the pearl of great price, a treasure sought after by countless generations long dead, and the inheritence of all our future generations only if we carefully guard and preserve it, and hand it down unalloyed and as free from contamination as we can make it.
This is a fine task, worthy of all we can do and all we can hope to accomplish.
For centuries, men have been searching for the holy grail.
Well, here it is, within the grasp of any person who decides to live as a human being, and will settle for nothing less. We have only to grasp it, and never let go.
VR: if I sound cross, that is because I am – not at you, obviously, but, I guess, at the human race. Sure, freedom is an anomaly, but so are, it seems, people who actually like it. Where I live, people have been demonstrating for weeks now, asking for more interference from the government, not less. I guess they have not been paying attention – otherwise all they had to do is to look south of the border and see how the protesters there are rapidly getting what they have been asking for, long and hard.
Plus ça change…
But don’t mind me, I guess I’m just tired from a long hot day, a good part of which was spent talking to people who have no clue – I’m sure tomorrow will be much better:-)
I don’t believe him. No dictatorship can work with 10% of support.
If he said 70%, 60% i would.
Of course some people will reject freedom, and long for the comfort of the corral, instead of the uncertainty of the open plain.
In spite of what some of our critics may say, liberty is not license, but the acceptance of an enormous responsibility.
To think independently, to work, to seek the weight of adulthood instead of shirking it, these are the signs of maturity in freedom that any system based on the rights of the individual demands.
It is the nanny state which requires nothing of those who have nothing to give, witness the recent riots in London, but everything, including their very souls, from those who have any creative spark left in their spirits.
I have always found it to be morbidly humorous that so many artistic types condemn capitalism for being destructive of their art, while fantasizing about the artistic paradise of the collective. They should be forced to spend their lives in a room with nothing but “socialist realism” all around them, in every form.
One would hope that might cure them, but impervious is impervious, and if all the millins dead and missing can’t impress them, I doubt a few crappy statues or some maudlin music would.
The default social organization humans revert to seems to be a variation of the ancient hunting clan—a few leaders, a shaman, and everyone else doing what they’re told. For millenia, you were either a friend of the strongman or you were one of the “little people”.
If you recall, one of the earliest complaints against the rise of the merchant class was that it allowed them to act out of their station in life, as if they were nobility.
I am never surprised when some people find freedom threatening. Liberty is restless, demanding, relentless in its requirement that each man and woman actually strive to deserve the liberty they have been given as their birthright.
As the book says, some are willing to trade it for a bowl of pottage. I am not.
Fereydoun-
What do you dislike in the original analysis?
“Reza Khalili” is about as much a “former CIA spy” as I am the Queen of England.
you could rule with trn percent active support, so long as the rest were not actively against you. The monarchies of Arabia get by without much active support, or active resistance. Perhaps people need lots of contact with outside media outlets so they can see how things are in the rest of the world, become dissatisfied, and then cause trouble for the despots.
A very interesting post and discussion.
However, Islam (including Shia Islam) does not depend on any particular thing (such as a rain at the right time) happening.
“The hand of God is not fettered” as Muslims say – He may do anything (even to the most just), and for (seemingly) no reason.
However, the Iranian regime are a pariticular type of Shia regime – and I do not mean that they are 12er Shia (most Shia are).
I mean they are “hasteners” – actually the orgininal revolutionaries (blood thirsty bad guys though they were) were NOT, but the present leadership (both the President and the Supreme Leader) ARE hasteners.
“Well what is a hastener?”
A hastener is someone who makes a specific claim – i.e. that if the faithful can spread “fire and death” all over the world, the 12 (or “hidden”) Iman will appear on his white horse and usher the faithful to control th whole world.
The President of Iran (as Mayor of Tehran) actually altered the street plan so that the hidden one, might ride more pleasantly when he came.
He has also often talked of his beliefs in his speeches – although only a few people in the West seem to be listening.
Now when (and it is when) the Iranian regime starts nuking places (“spreading fire and death over the world”) and the 12 Iman does NOT appear on his whitehorse…..
“And if the 12 Iman does appear and supports these actions Paul”.
Well I will then assume the man on the white horse is an imposter. Or (if he clearly is a supernatural being with special powers) I will declare he is the AntiChrist.
There I used the word.
But I am not expecting him to turn up just to please the Iranian regime.