Talk to the Iranian Nation

While the mouth of every so-called ideologue in the Islamic regime is salivating to engage in talks with the US, and Iranian authorities have been sending officials and non-officials around different capitals to talk with what used to be called the Great Satan, the key party on the Iranian side has been pushed out of mind. And this is none other than the Iranian nation.

It is because of this disregard that teachers are banned from teaching, rather than being engaged in talks about their problems and grievances. Women are arrested and sent to prisons, while Keyhan opens his mouth to use whatever foul language against them. Students are summoned to disciplinary-security boards, while workers are denied their right to expess, and people are barred from speaking to them because their legal suits are still in progress.

And unlike the international talks, these are only a few examples who authorities believe do not deserve to be engage in a dialogue or hold negotiations with. This perspective believes that there is only one place for the Iranian people to engage in talks: the prison and interrogation chambers. The places where these authorities say the things, that others are expected to repeat. That is the place where accusatory dossiers are created against individuals, while their victims must sign the documents. This is the place where “talks” with “outsiders” result in beatings with a shoe (which is what happened in the criminal case of journalist Zahra Kazemi), and talks with “insiders” lead to hair-removing gel (which is what happened to Saeed Imami, a senior intelligence official who was found dead in his prison cell after playing the role of a lead in the murders of Iranian intellectuals).

But this is how authorities loose sight of the fact that their survival is not strengthened or guaranteed through secret talks with foreigners, unless talks at home produce positive results. Iran’s fate was not decided in Guadalupe (a reference to the talks major powers had on the even of the Shah’s downfall in 1978). It was decided because of the executions of young Iranians, the banning of writers, the cries of the imprisoned, the pleas of the hungry, etc. Today too, neither Sharm al Sheikh nor the White House will bring the solution, just as neither ElBaradei nor George Bush can provide the regime with a “survival guarantee.”

Such guarantees have no future anyway. The future belongs to the country, to its people. It belongs to those who work with its occupants: students, women, workers, teachers, writers, journalists, etc. In short, everybody with whom the authorities have closed the doors to talks. This house must be respected, because when the day of reckoning comes, Carter will not remain a friend, just as won’t his successors.

Only God knows which dictator will on that day extend a sanctuary to the Shah, and a proposal to his wife.