Change in Iran
Visiting professor Mohsen Kadivar says protesters want new election results, not a revolution
Thursday, June 25, 2009
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DURHAM, N.C. -- A Iranian intellectual who is a visiting professor of religion at Duke warns that the world should not make more out of the recent demonstrations in Iran than is necessary.
“Iranian Muslims want Islamic values and freedom, democracy, and liberty,” says Mohsen Kadivar. “This movement is for canceling the presidential election and we should not bear more than this on the shoulders of this movement. They don’t want to change the government; they want to change their president. If we go faster than the movement, we destroy it.”
Kadivar thinks the recent unrest could play out one of two ways: either with violence or with government acknowledgment that peaceful protests and demonstration are legal.
As he settles into his office near Duke Chapel, Kadivar will focus on the latter: supporting the legal justification for peaceful demonstration.
“We can have Islamic values and democracy. Islamic law and values are compatible with human rights -- there is no contradiction,” he says. “You can be a good believer, a good Muslim, and still be democratic.”
Because he is a member of the clergy and presents ideas that are critical of the current regime, Kadivar says he is considered “dangerous” by the Islamic Republic. A key theorist behind Iran’s democracy movement, his scholarship led to a jail sentence during the late 1990s.
Kadivar studied Islamic jurisprudence and philosophy at the Qom Seminary, and went on to receive a doctorate of philosophy and theology in Tehran. He has written more than 13 books reconciling Islamic traditions and modern democracy.
Kadivar will spend the next year at Duke, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on ethics in contemporary Iran, Islamic political theory, and Islamic philosophy and jurisprudence.
Though supportive of democracy, Kadivar is quick to emphasize that Iran should develop democratic ideals from within, exclusive of outside involvement from the United States or other world powers. He does not join calls for President Obama to adopt a stronger stance.
“Iranian democracy should be domestic democracy, compatible with the religious and Islamic values there,” Kadivar says. If countries like America want to help improve democracy abroad, he says it should support things like economic development and social programs.
“I think it will come within,” he says. “It is an independent movement and they want to show domestic, Iranian democracy with the emphasis on independent.”
