On The Virtues Of The West

By Mohammed Khatami

Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, in an essay submitted to TIME, articulates his case for a freer Iranian society and analyzes the reasons why his country has always been ruled by autocrats. Excerpts:

We can say with great assurance that a society intending to reach development cannot succeed without understanding Western civilization and the spirit of Western civilization. Societies unfamiliar with this spirit shall never succeed in introducing a positive change in their lives. Many Islamic societies, such as ours, are still regretfully deprived of such knowledge. We are not yet aware of the various facets of Western civilization, and our encounter with the West is mostly on the surface; that is, we have approached the West either with fascination or abhorrence.

Why is it that Muslim societies are still stuck with the same questions: What is development, and why are we underdeveloped? For centuries our historical destiny was in the hands of autocratic and capricious governments instead of the hands of thoughtful people of the land. Human dignity was not respected, and thought, the greatest manifestation of human character, was contained, and the freedom of opinion was also denied.

We can take Iran as an example. In the past five decades, we have never been successful in our experience with freedom. The Islamic revolution of 1979 was Iran's only real opportunity to experience freedom because of two exceptional features of that revolution: it uprooted the colonial sponsored dictatorship without resorting to the power of weaponry, and the revolution started with freedom rather than suppression. But the alien agents who had affected our destiny in the past did not stay idle, and hatched plots and therefore prevented us from enjoying the fruits of freedom.

Naturally the revolution-based government could not remain indifferent to these plots, and certain strict measures were taken to thwart chaos. Some blamed freedom itself for the cause of the instability and even used religion as a mask to justify their shortsightedness. Autocracy has become our second nature. We Iranians are all dictators, in a sense.

Freedom is the essence of growth and development, but the path to freedom is risky and rough. I am of the view that thought cannot be contained and if we live in a free atmosphere, opinions shall balance each other and logic shall prevail. Without freedom, the thought sparkling in the minds of thinkers shall be channeled into hidden communities and may emerge one day in the form of bitter and violent reaction.

In my opinion we must not search for a uniform model of freedom for all people. We must endeavor to create a desirable milieu in which people can more easily tolerate one another and come up with an agreed definition of freedom and, accordingly, streamline the society.