University life in Iran

[ucsd_ucla_dad]

<p>“Students Cry Out for Freedom in Large Demonstration at Tehran University”</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,235062,00.html?sPage=fnc.world/iran[/url]”>http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,235062,00.html?sPage=fnc.world/iran&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>

As many as 2,000 students turned out to demand personal freedom in the Islamic state, which has cracked down on political activity on campus this year in what some have called the Second Cultural Revolution.
…
The student protest was openly defiant of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who at the beginning of the school year asked students to speak out against the secularization of the education system.</p>

<p>The students apparently didn’t, but an unknown number of professors who had been critical of the regime were forced into early retirement.</p>

<p>At the same time, students returning to the university were given “star” ratings by the administration. Students with borderline political leanings were assigned one or two stars. Students deemed to be vocally anti-regime were assigned three or four stars.</p>

<p>In many cases, three- and four-star students — regardless of their academic performance — were barred from returning to campuses this fall."
…
Student and academic sentiment could pose a problem for the Iranian regime. Seventy percent of Iran’s population is under the age of the 30, and 90 percent of the under-30s are literate, well-read and seemingly aspire to greater personal and political freedom.
…

</p>

<p>I think we in the US need to be thankful for the freedoms we enjoy despite the grumbling we sometimes do.</p>

[Hanna]

<p>True. We should also appreciate that sometimes left-wing student activists dissenting against their government are, if you’ll pardon the irony, doing God’s work.</p>

[katliamom]

<p>Good one, Hanna.</p>

[system]

<p>I salute those brave students who stand up for freedom in such an oppressive environment. </p>

<p>Keep in mind abusing freedom is almost as bad as having too little of it. </p>

<p>Many of us are conditioned to belittling our government (US) at every opportunity…Do it often without thinking…is bringing about destruction of American values – unless you say belittling your own country actually helps it, and self-gouging is a perverse form of building for the future.</p>

[mini]

<p>I am glad that they still have so much freedom in Iran that 2,000 students feel they can gather in a single location and openly speak their minds, and that the country boasts one of the highest literacy rates – especially among women – in the world (among under 30s, about the same as the U.S.) And in the next election, (which will be the 7th national democratic election since the U.S. was booted from the country), these students will get to vote for a new President, and (if history is a guide), there will likely be a new one with views and policies very different from the current one.</p>

<p>Would I like to live there? Not in the least. But when’s the last time you saw 2,000 students gathering and protesting in Saudi Arabia?</p>

[ucsd_ucla_dad]

<p>I’m encouraged they were permitted to protest but discouraged that the students who don’t go along with the current regime’s politics are barred from returning to campus in the fall to continue their education.</p>

[fundingfather]

<p>

And in the next election, (which will be the 7th national democratic election since the U.S. was booted from the country), these students will get to vote for a new President, and (if history is a guide), there will likely be a new one with views and policies very different from the current one.

But if history is a guide, he will be someone who has been pre-approved by the Ayatollah Khamanei.</p>

[coureur]

<br>

<blockquote>
<p>And in the next election, (which will be the 7th national democratic election since the U.S. was booted from the country), these students will get to vote for a new President, and (if history is a guide), there will likely be a new one with views and policies very different from the current one.<<</p>
</blockquote>

<br>

<p>It’s highly unlikely that the next president of Iran will be very much different from the current one, because to get on the ballot in Iran a candidate must first be approved by a council of very conservative religious leaders. In the last election none of the reform candidates made it onto the ballot. The same will happen next time, and once again the voters will be left to choose between slightly different shades of the status quo. A rather bogus form of democracy in my opinion.</p>

<p><a href=“http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/06/12/iran11114.htm[/url]”>http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/06/12/iran11114.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[JHS]

<p>“Once again the voters will be left to choose between slightly different shades of the status quo.”</p>

<p>I wouldn’t belabor the point, but our system tends to produce Presidential elections that people often criticize in almost the same terms. Certainly lots of people felt that way in 1988, 1992, and 2000.</p>

<p>As mini often points out, the situation in Iran is a lot more complex than we sometimes bother to notice. Notwithstanding the blackballing of a number of reform candidates, in the last election there was a fairly clear choice between relatively liberal and conservative candidates. The electorate chose the conservative, something that most observers seemed not to expect, in large part out of anger at the West for demonizing Iran and invading Iraq. I haven’t seen any suggestion that the election itself wasn’t legitimate (as opposed to the candidate-vetting process that preceded it).</p>

<p>One of the things that is interesting is that today’s students grew up entirely under the current regime, and they still have a taste for protest and academic freedom. They must be getting that from somewhere. To me, Iran is another example of a country where we would win the battle of ideas if we would only stop trying to conduct debate with guns and bombs.</p>

[coureur]

<br>

<blockquote>
<p>I wouldn’t belabor the point, but our system tends to produce Presidential elections that people often criticize in almost the same terms. Certainly lots of people felt that way in 1988, 1992, and 2000.<<</p>
</blockquote>

<br>

<p>Yeah, but that is due to choices made by the voters themselves, not by some gang of conservative bishops.</p>