It ought to be our mission to elevate the level of political understanding of Iran, first of all on the part of us leftists, and then on the part of the general public. Our self-education is as important as education of the public, for, if we don't know what we are talking about, we'll be merely spreading disinformation to others.
Now, the question of Iran's leaders and dissidents.
As in any country, there are leaders, and there are leaders, and there are dissidents, and there are dissidents, in Iran. Some leaders and dissidents advance national, class, and social interests of Iran's working people; others set them back, some to the point of destroying their nation. It is the former we should support, and it is the latter we ought to criticize.
However, most leftists in the West tend to be guided by a mythical contest between the BAD Leadership and the GOOD Dissidents when it comes to picturing politics in Iran in particular and the global South in general. That is a misleading guide. It's time for us to cast away both dissident mystique and leadership phobia.
Hamid Dabashi, to his credit, sometimes helps us question the aforementioned mythical contest, which is why liberals such as Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson disparage this aspect of Dabashi's work.
But by far the most atrocious aspect of Bollinger's
statement is that because of the slanted relation of
power it flaunts it ipso facto shifts the center of gravity
of contemporary Iranian political predicament away
from Iran and Iranians themselves and places it in
the self-righteous domain of a white man and his
civilizing mission. It is precisely the same colonial
attitude that is perpetrated in the statement written
by Akbar Ganji and circulated for signatures among
exclusively non-Iranian signatories. Not a single Iranian
was allowed, even if he or she insisted, to sign that
statement. Akbar Ganji's deeply colonized mind,
denying Iranians themselves the right and responsibility
to have a say in their national destiny, tallies perfectly
well with Bollinger's deeply racist mind to presume
that he is telling Iranians something they do not know.
Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of Lee Bollinger's
statement is the appearance of the name of Akbar
Ganji in it, for in that single reference Lee Bollinger and
Akbar Ganji appear as the two-sides of the same colonial
coin that denies nations agency and assigns to white men
the authority and audacity to civilize the world. Is it even
conceivable for Gandhi to launch his movement to liberate
India and systematically deny Indians a say in the affairs
of their homeland, or for Mandela to write a statement on
behalf of civil liberties in South Africa and disallow South
Africans to sign it? This is precisely what Akbar Ganji has
done, and that is precisely the reason why he is so easily
incorporated into Bollinger's racist assumption that he
has to bear the heavy burden of liberating Iran and
civilizing the world. To avoid that trap, it is long overdue
that people like Akbar Ganji look at movements led by
Gandhi and Mandela as example of their struggle, rather
than come to the United States, go on a Shi'i pilgrimage
of collecting white talismans of names he considers worthy
of defending the cause of liberty in his homeland. (Hamid
Dabashi, "Of Banality and Burden," Al-Ahram Weekly 866,
11-17 October 2007 <http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2007/866/focus.htm>)
Dissidents who become "native informants" for the empire, like Ganji for instance, cannot and should not be supported. -- Yoshie