[lbo-talk] Tell them we are democrats (was: freedom to swim)

[Bryan Atinsky]

Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Jun 25, 2009, at 10:18 AM, Chris Doss wrote:
>
>> Of course we can't know, which is my point. However, one thing you 
>> can be almost certainly sure of is that a lot of Iranians are 
>> A-supporters, and an even larger percentage are for reforming the 
>> theocracy in various ways, not for abolishing it. I mean, as far as I 
>> can tell the protests are couched in religious terms, like, you know, 
>> the color green. Probably there are people who think that A is too 
>> secular. That's generally how societies work.
>
Religious symbolism isn't always about religion, it can very well be 
simply part of the understood cultural language. For instance, every 
atheist, purely secular politician in Israel uses quotes from the 
tanach, and not always cynically, but because it is part of the 
historical and cultural aether through which Israelis understand 
themselves and the world around them. Same would be true for 
cultural/historical/religious Shi'ia symbolic references in Iran, no 
matter their secular/religious outlook, and it definitely says nothing 
about their desire for a continued theocracy. Second, and more simply, 
in the existing theocracy, religious symbolism is about the only 
symbolic positioning one could take if one wants some semblance of 
legitimization.