Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Hitchens: The Election That Wasn't

The always amusing Christopher Hitchens' article, "Don't Call What Happened in Iran Last Week an Election", over at Slate.
Iran and its citizens are considered by the Shiite theocracy to be the private property of the anointed mullahs. This totalitarian idea was originally based on a piece of religious quackery promulgated by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and known as velayat-e faqui. Under the terms of this edict—which originally placed the clerics in charge of the lives and property of orphans, the indigent, and the insane—the entire population is now declared to be a childlike ward of the black-robed state. Thus any voting exercise is, by definition, over before it has begun, because the all-powerful Islamic Guardian Council determines well in advance who may or may not "run."
The current gerontocracy of mullahs is feeling Mousavi's youth movement. They may not be able to hold power as they did for much longer.

Source: Slate

No comments: