bahmani

I am one who believes that the Green Movement showed the tremendous potential that freedom-wanting Iranians have.

But it also showed that from an organized peaceful and legal opposition, we have a long way to go towards achieving the kind of change most secular freedom advocating Iranians like me, want to see Iran thrive under.

The current path of the Iranian government through the insistent mis-use of an outdated, ill-fitting, inaccurate analysis, and highly creative adaptation of the ghoran vis-a-vis the "Twelver Jaafari School" is utter nonsense operationally, especially when applied to the governance of a modern state in a modern world.

While eslam may yearn for an altogether different kind of world. God has blessed us with this one.
Let me be clear, I am not suggesting anything about eslam's value as a modern religion or it's use as a guide to living a moral faith-filled life. We could all actually use a lot of eslam's teachings to become better people. Although, I have to say that I am about as good as I will get!

But I can also say this about any other religion too. I refuse to continue the assumptive line that eslam is the greatest religion ever invented and can run everything from Macs to PCs. It can't, and more importantly it shouldn't.

A modern world demands that we now actually deserve the right and freedom to choose how we implement any religion into our day to day life, not the other way around.

The Green movement really showed that Iranians want this kind of change. As Prof. Hamid Dabashi suggests, it may very well have been the simple exasperated expression of a budding civil rights movement, and I can get on board with all of that. But I think the next movement needs much more in the way of operational adjustment to achieve the next step, which is an Iran that is not governed by eslam, but rather the enlightened thought of free Iranians, some of whom might very well happen to decide to be modern moslems.

While this is not good for those who insist Iran's 30 year-old failed experiment can still succeed if everyone would simply listen to the call for prayer loudspeakers and do as they are instructed, it is ultimately better for eslam to be freely chosen rather than forcefully imposed.

Free choice cuts both ways. While you gain the freedom to to choose your form of secular government, you also gain the freedom of choice of religion that comes hand in hand.
But what the ruling elite in Tehran fail to accept and are unwilling to risk, is that "need to be free first" part. The outdated insistence that people need to be roughly hewn into moslems, by force, by oppression, and by archaic and barbaric laws that haven't applied since Mohammad suggested them, simply won't work in this modern world.

As has been demonstrated, you can't force someone to be good and just and fair.
As much as the current incarnation of eslam wants it to be, the world has developed far past the point where men can't manage to control themselves when they see a scantily clad woman. I am living proof it can be done without harm, on a nightly basis!

I have suggested on numerous articles, that eslam is in need of a serious update and reformation if it is to survive, never mind remain valid. And I'm not talking (just) about porn. If even one Taliban has a cellphone with even one half of one bar today, even if that bar drops the minute phone grazes a single curled black hair of his beard, you can kiss eslam goodbye.

Interrupting international video conference calls with European business partners, or taking a "time-out-to-pray" break isn't going to allow Iran or any moslem nation to thrive in the global marketplace. Why should it? Is God on a timetable? Plus, praying is by now completely overrated and about as transparent as one of those sheer Harry Potter cloaks of invisibility the Mollahs wear these days (what's that all about?). Can we all finally agree that everyone now knows, prayer is merely cleverly constructed series of faith affirming chants, in the case of eslam, combined with a bit of yoga. And streeeetch...and beeeend...and reaaach...now release...and now repeat....

Eslam, as has been amply demonstrated since 1979, is in fact outdated, and in need of an upgrade. 2.0 at the very minimum, but I am thinking it needs a complete architectural overhaul, possibly going straight to open source.

So freedom to choose to be moslem is the first requirement of it's ensured survival. For the Mollahs, it will be a far better task to shepherd the flocks of willing converts and believers and help them deal with the everyday pressures of the modern world, than it is now, requiring clerics to almost have masters degrees in IT to solve international monetary currency decisions, or satellite telecommunications exchanges, or more relevantly how to get commercial energy (or weapons) at the mind (and Natanz) blowing sub-atomic level. Never mind manage the war Israel and the US is more than willing to unleash.

So yeah, freedom to choose benefits all.

You could say therefore, that the next movement needs to change it's "color". Metaphorically, green never worked for me to begin with, because the West mistook the color as "environmental" or "organic", meanwhile it was merely chosen by the Mousavi election campaign as an obviously advantageous "Mohammedan" color. Although a historically prevalent color in the flag of Iran, Green isn't all that Iranian to be honest.

I suggest the next color be Turquoise. It is traditional and organic, and natural, as Iran in-arguably produces the best Turquoise in the world, and it is a traditional color hearkening back to Persia, a linear relevance connection that we have all but lost in our many post-modern discussions.

Even though we may disagree on many lesser things, I bet that we can ALL agree that Turquoise is our most, best, national unifying color.
Once we are unified behind a color that no one owns, or is freely Iranian, adding to it the simple requirement to have freedom of choice, or at the very minimum the freedom to say NO to choices given to us through oppression, we should be able to make this final adjustment to our current predicament.

If you think about it, this next incarnation of resistance really merely only requires 2 things, none of which involves all that much action;

1) Wear Turquoise, or turqiose colored shirts, wrist-bands, and generally appealing gear, to claim your position visually.

2) Simply (and most importantly) refuse to abide by or participate in ANY suggestion that is imposed without the qualifier of having been freely chosen.

So let's see if we can gain freedom by waking up and realizing that we can simply refuse to be oppressed. Everything else will fall into place and is relatively obvious after that.

But if we aren't FREE, we are sadly invalid in this world.