Reza Pahlavi's Antidote
May 30, 2004
Iran va Jahan
Reza Bayegan
I said goodbye to an Iranian relative who had come to visit me from Italy at Paris's Bercy station before attending Reza Pahlavi's panel discussion at Sciences-Po, one of France’s elite academic institutions. As he was embarking his train he held my hand and said: "let me know what happens at the meeting."
As the situation in Iran becomes more devastating each day, the campaign trail of Reza Pahlavi who is fighting to bring an end to dictatorship in his homeland is followed by Iranians with an increasing sense of urgency. On 25 May 2004, at this French centre of learning and enlightenment, his message consisted in highlighting the great potential of his nation for being a beacon of modernity and stability in the troubled region of the Middle East.
Referring to the 'obscurantism' as the congenital and incurable disease of the Islamic revolution he elucidated its pernicious effect on Iran's material and spiritual resources:
"Turning into instruments of religious fascism, the Islamic Republic has sapped all the moral and spiritual bases of an ancient country with several millennia of civilization and history. The harmful effect of this type of fascism is dualistic - it is both temporal and spiritual."
All those Iranians who are able to look at their homeland and recognize the weakened body of their nation suffering a fresh blow everyday, undergoing another new humiliation and pain by the hour, can identify with the message of the king and fathom the depth of his anguish.
Keeping the country up to its neck in unceasing calamity, or as Reza Pahlavi calls it a "permanent state of crisis" has from the beginning of the revolution been the survival tactic of the dictators in Tehran. The prime objective of such a style of governance is to create a state of moral fatigue where the political esteem of the population is constantly assaulted and its spirit of resistance debilitated.
The main thrust of Reza Pahlavi’s campaign for the past two decades can be characterized as an antidote to this kind of moral and political infection. By constantly encouraging Iranians that they should not settle for any destiny except the best they deserve, he has kept alive a national dream: A national dream of human excellence, dignity, liberty and democracy that is bound to prove itself more powerful than any nightmare concocted by the tyrants of the Islamic Republic.
There is no doubt that the force of international pressure can play a major role in helping Iranians to fulfil their political aspirations. World solidarity in the past has played a major role in overthrowing tyrannies such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa. In Sciences-Po, the Iranian king reiterated what he has been saying all along: The removal of the Islamic Republic is a sine qua non to global security and a requisite step for establishing a democratic government in Iran.
Reza Pahlavi attends meetings, conferences and interviews around the clock. While owing to his stature, position and impressive character, all eyes are turned upon him, his own gaze remains focused on the plight of his people and their release from the claws of religious tyranny. He is a man moving from standing ovation to standing ovation without being distracted from the long term objectives he has devoted his life to accomplish. His real appeal comes from his modesty, sincerity and above all lack of any ambition for political power for himself.
http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2004&m=05&d=30&a=5
Nice write-up