The Disadvantages of the Theocracy in Iran

Fred Xiang

SA10D

January 8, 2018

Prompt 5

The Disadvantages of the Theocracy in Iran

        “All civilization began with theocracy and ends up with democracy” Victor Hugo once said. As what Victor Hugo said, the theocracy is the beginning of the civilization and gathered people together to let the world have a chance to have enough resource to improve, because before the existence of the theocracy, the resource was held by different people and there is no one faith for them to allow them fighting for one goal. And theocracy helped to establish that, but it dose not fit the the society after development, because the theocracy limited the modern society to go further. As a government which is based on certain religious doctrine and its related system, theocracy has negative impact on righteousness. In the book Persepolis: A Story of a Childhood written by Marjane Satrapi, the whole society was negatively influenced by the theocracy because the theocracy persecutes people , worsens the harm of the war and lies to their citizens because the government’s own profit.

    First of all, the government tried everything to persecute people in order to prevent them from perpetrating in their meaninglessly religious way. They killed Mohsen Shakiba and Siamak Jari’s sister (Satrapi 47), and Marji’s favorite uncle, Anoosh (Satrapi 54). Those people who were killed by government are revolutionists or their families. But their political beliefs are different from current government, they were killed. The revolutionists only want the real republic which is more civilized and good for people, not the extreme theocracy. The government also shut down the university for two years, like what is in the book, “The educational system and what is written in school books, at all levels, are decadent. Everything needs to be revised to ensure that our children are not led astray from the true path of Islam. That’s why we’re closing all the universities for a while. Better to have no students at all than to educate future imperialists” (Satrapi 73). It shows how ridiculous the government is, and the persecution towards students, teachers and whole educational system. Students who just study foreign knowledge can not be turned into imperialists, just because they learn foreign knowledge. It is really unnecessary to close all the universities. And it makes Marji’s another dream went to smoke (Satrapi 73). Also, the persecution changed its form. It is not only from the government but also the people who believe in the new government. The theocracy gives those extreme disciples reasonable excuse to punish others who do not do the obligatory things, like wearing veils, covering all the body. After Marji’s mother had been through humiliating things from two fundamentalists, she taught Marji to defend her rights as a woman right. So they joint a parade, but things got nasty. Many men appeared and hurt those demonstrators and it is the first time Marji saw violence with her own eyes (Satrapi 76). The theocracy change things ideologically, it makes its disciples more crazy to defend their religion, because they have appropriate reasons. The theocracy hurt those demonstrators indirectly, because it made its disciples to fulfill its tyranny. Those phenomenons show that the theocracy persecutes people in different ways to prevent them perpetrating, and it makes the theocracy a bad regime.

    Secondly, the Iran government rejected the peace, wanted the war and worsened it. It is another behavior shows the disadvantage of theocracy. In the book, “The Iranian fundamentalists tried to stir up their Iraqi Shiite allies against Saddam. He is been waiting for the chance he is always wanted to invade Iran. And here is the pretext. It is the second Arab invasion” (Satrapi 79). Although the government could avoid it and certainly the government knew that, because all the countries wanted the oil in Iran, the theocracy still ignores the consequences of war and stir up their allies to against the Saddam. It reveals that the theocracy is so crazy about their religious hatred and dose not concern about people’s safety, so it gives Saddam a reason to start a war. The theocracy only cares about their religious justice, so they think that if someone against their doctrine, no matter who he is, he must be punished. So the rejection of peace happens undoubtedly, “In facts Iraq proposed a settlement, and Saudi Arabia was willing to pay for reconstruction, to restore peace to the area. But our government was against it” (Satrapi 114). The Iran government also declared that they refused this imposed peace and wanted to conquer Karbala (Satrapi 115). It make the war worse than before, and more people died, but the government said the death of a martyr is to inject blood into the veins of society (Satrapi 115). It infers that the survival of the regime depends on the war and the government admitted it (Satrapi 116). The theocracy tries their best to protect their hypocritical honor and precarious position and does not care about how to protect it and what it takes, so children were also sent to the battle and died because of mines (Satrapi 102). The damage of war caused by theocracy reveals that the theocracy is not a good regime.