Dear friends and colleagues,
Ramin Jahanbegloo, an Iranian-Canadian intellectual, has sent us this statement, asking us to solicit the signatures of our editors and writers. Both of us have signed it and urge you to do so. We plan on posting the letter and the names of signatories on our website, and Ramin also plans to send the statement to the New York Times and various other news sources.
If you would like to be added to the list of signatories, please respond to this email or email David Marcus at marcus@dissentmagazine.org
-Michael Walzer and Michael Kazin
We, the undersigned scholars, academics and writers around the world, are concerned about the human rights crisis in Iran. We request the United Nations to condemn the current coup d’état and support Iranians in their demand for a fair and democratic election. Deeply worried by the reports of Iranian paramilitary groups and security forces firing upon and arresting peaceful civilian demonstrators, we demand that the international community act now to prevent further violence and bloodshed. We call on the government of Iran to respect and uphold the right to peaceful protest. We call upon democratic institutions and organizations around the world to condemn government-sponsored violence against peaceful Iranian protestors. We also call on governments around the world to ask the UN Secretary General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Human Rights Council to appoint a UN special commission to monitor the post-election situation in Iran and to inform the Security Council about the arbitrary arrest and detention of student activists and leading reformists in Iran.
Great effort - I would sign if I didn’t have family back home.
Excellent initiative, and with Michael Walzer’s signature, solid. Worth bringing this effort to facebook.
“to condemn the current coup d’état”
I don’t think the events in Iran can be described as a “coup d’état”.
According to wiki:
“A coup d’état… is the sudden, unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, by a small group of the State Establishment — usually the military — to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military. A coup d’état succeeds when the usurpers establish their legitimacy if the attacked government fail to thwart them, by allowing their (strategic, tactical, political) consolidation and then receiving the deposed government’s surrender; or the acquiescence of the populace and the non-participant military forces.
Typically, a coup d’état uses the extant government’s power to assume political control of the country.”
Why use this term in reference to the protests and demonstrations that are taking place in Iran?
Noga,
The term “coup d’état” is being used by the authors to refer to the totalitarian actions of the totalitarian Islamic-Supremacist regime in power in Iran. The term is not being used to refer to the actions of the demonstrators who have been protesting the totalitarian actions of that regime.
However, it is not quite accurate to use the “coup d’etat” is not a term which is quite accurate describe totalitarian actions of that regime.
An accurate description of the actions of the regime of IRI is - the holding of an election whose candidates have been selected by the regime itself, the totalitarian stealing of that election in order to appoint the candidate which the regime favored and had planned on having be the winner of the election, and the brutal, violent, murderous totalitarian attempt, by that regime, at suppressing the demonstrations, by millions of people in Iran, who have been protesting against those actions of that regime, and against the the totalitarian Islamic-Supremacist regime itself.
Daniel: The message reads:
“We request the United Nations to condemn the current coup d’état and support Iranians in their demand for a fair and democratic election”.
so of course it is clear that it’s the regime being accused of a coup d’état.
I still don’t get how Walzer could make that mistake. One possibility is that the term is used metaphorically, to suggest that the duly elected and legitimate president of Iran is being pushed away by something akin to a coup d’etat, by a show of force and violence.
Still, I don’t think it is clear enough which is a pity. It is important to call this suppression of democracy exactly what it is.
Noga,
I apologize for assuming that you misunderstood the message.
Yes you are right. It extremely important to communicate accurately and clearly.
I agree that using the term “coup d’etat” in this case is inaccurate, and therefore unbeneficial.
Dan
I’ve just read this blurb on Sign and Sight, in which the term “election coup’ is used to describe what Walzer’s message called “coup d’etat”. This may be an infinitely more accurate term:
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 17.06.2009
Exiled Iranian legal scholar Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari explains why the alleged electoral rigging in Iran is not only a breach of the constitution but also of basic Islamic law. “Individuals who have been granted a mandate by society are obliged to fulfil the criteria of justice. … If the results of the election are false or imprecise, the votes of the majority of the population are disregarded and the president elect is no more that the product of an election coup, then it must be recognised that the elections constitute a violation of republican principles – and also a deliberate breach of the Islamic principles of sharia.”
http://www.signandsight.com/intodaysfeuilletons/1886.html
I looked up the word “coup” on dictionary.com and the following were listed as definitions of the word “coup”:
“1. a highly successful, unexpected stroke, act, or move; a clever action or accomplishment.
2. (among the Plains Indians of North America) a brave or reckless deed performed in battle by a single warrior, as touching or striking an enemy warrior without sustaining injury oneself”
Therefore, I think that, because the word “coup” has those meanings, which are different from the meaning that one might think that it has based on the definition of the term “coup d’etat”, it is unbeneficial to use word “coup” in order to create and use the term “election coup” in order to describe the totalitarian actions of the totalitarian regime currently in power in Iran, because the term, if it would be used in this case would be, according to the definition of the word “coup”, inaccurate, and it would be generally unclear and it would be able to be perceived wrongly by someone who is ignorant about the situation, and it would be able to be wrongly unconsciously cognitively “framed” by someone who is ignorant about the situation.
I think that the term “election fraud” is a more accurate, and, therefore, a more beneficial, term.
Dan
I have been thinking, and I have realized that it was wrong of me, myself, to suggestion using the term “election fraud”, because I, myself, am currently not informed enough, because I have not read enough about the election, to know for sure whether or not the election was fraudulent.
From what I have read, it seems likely that the election was fraudulent.
The process of the election is a fraud. The authoritarian dictatorial leaders of the totalitarian regime themselves select the candidates, and the authoritarian dictatorial leaders of the regime are in authority to whoever is elected to the position of President.
The regime is a brutally, violently, and murderously totalitarian fanatical Islamic-Supemacist regime which funds and arms Islamic-Supremacist militias throughought the world, which produces and distributes libelous, genocidally anti-Israeli propaganda, which has sponsored and hosted a holocaust-denial conference, whose leaders repeatedly deny the holocaust, threaten the destruction of Israel, and refer to Israel as a “filthy black microbe” and a “cancer”, and it is a regime which is developing nuclear weapons.
Very many people in Iran dislike the regime, and very many of, I think, probably, all of, the very many educated secular politically democratic people in Iran abhor the regime, and over a million people in Iran have been risking harm to themselves by demonstrating against the brutal, violent, totalitarian regime, which has been violently and murderously trying to suppress the people who are demonstrating.
Dan
As a Australian and a Christian, while sometimes our cultures and ideologies dont see eye to eye, my heart goes out to the people of Iran. In this day and age, people should have the right to demonstrate and whether right or wrong, they should not be slaughtered by armed para military. Our attention should be on the peole rather than trying to box it in words, either way what the government is doing is wrong. Time they listened to their people….
It all sounds good in a perfectly worded letter doesn’t it? Too bad we’re dealing with an idiot who announces to the world that the holocaust never happened, Iran has no gay people, and Israel needs to be blown off the map. The Supreme leader is just as ignorant as Ahmadinejad. He’ll consider recounting 10% of the vote??? That was laughable. Then it was declared that 3 million votes were invalid BUT it did not change the outcome of the election?? Again, laughable. Then the high and mighty declares that anyone who peacefully protests will face the thugs, aka Police. We’ve seen the aftermath in the past few days. As the death toll mounts.
These bozo’s must not realize that there’s a great big world out there, and we’re all watching. They’ve tried shutting down all the websites, and any other way to network the in and out of Iran. Again, laughable. They’ve put people they’ve arrested on their local news stating “they looted, and protested because foreign media told them to”. They’ve banned soccer plays who wore green arm bands during last week’s game. Banned for life from playing soccer. Only ones safe were those who wore a “I voted for Ahmadinejad” button. These bozo’s try to correct the horrific things they do by blaming the world, and then announcing on their local news. I guess these bozo’s don’t realize that the reason the people of Iran are protesting is because they’re no longer willing to be puppets on a string. It makes me sick. Truly.
As much as I appreciate the letter that’s being sent to the UN, and the message it sends, I’m afraid it will fall on deaf ears when it comes Iran, North Korea, Syria, and the others who just don’t ‘get it’. Just like Saddam.