Citizenship Rights; Moral Duty, Supertext, and Movement

The signing of citizenship rights by Rouhani faced widespread feedback, which can be described as predominantly "negative." But isn't citizenship rights or the rights of the nation what we have been pursuing for all these years? Why, despite the expectation that attention to the rights of the nation should be welcomed by the people, active social groups, and media observers, have the reactions been negative or at least not as positive as expected? In this note, I will attempt to examine the issue from two aspects. Both topics share a common introduction: citizenship rights are primarily perceived as a theoretical text rather than a legal and executable one. I believe it is worth reflecting a bit on this theoretical nature because the issue is much broader than it initially appears. From a historical perspective, it can be said that intellectuals among us have primarily engaged in theoretical work. Our society has a particular interest in theoretical texts. This tendency has a history among us and has been the dominant trend for at least the last 150 years. Therefore, it has gradually become part of our scientific, practical, intellectual, and managerial identity. Due to the lack of practical contexts, our elites usually act very slowly and unevenly in work, action, planning, and design, but they seem to be relatively advanced in speech, rhetoric, ideation, and visioning. If someone’s knowledge of contemporary Iran is limited to texts and documents, and for example, studies the strategic documents of the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council or the Expediency Council, they would logically conclude how well these texts are written and might think that a country with such texts should be something close to paradise on earth! But why does Iran, from a managerial and governance perspective, resemble hell more? Why do these texts remain on paper and do not translate into action? If a researcher today wants to examine the history of our paper-based rights and the unfulfilled promises between the government and the nation, they will encounter a multitude of documents that have been written and archived. Part of the problem relates to two aspects that I will briefly address here. One is unsupported text writing, and the other is the reduction of rights to ethics, or the inability to transition from ethics to rights and law. Returning to the topic of unsupported text writing, before that, it is essential to pay attention to a fundamental point that plays the role of a catalyst in turning gold into copper. Instead of helping the legal text to be implemented, it helps to prevent it from being implemented! This point has been noted by two Iranian experts. Kamaliz Nourouzi, a lawyer, in his critique of citizenship rights writes: "The question is, what is the legal nature of this document? In other words, does the Charter of Citizenship Rights fall under the category of binding government resolutions or not? This document is certainly not a law. In this case, it cannot be legally binding. All executive bodies are obliged to implement the law and cannot follow other documents apart from the law. Thus, the Charter of Citizenship Rights can be regarded as the views of the President that have been formulated and announced, and public bodies, especially those affiliated with the executive branch, should only ethically consider the President's views." In this critique, I focus on the same point of view and ethics; otherwise, in my opinion, this charter is equivalent to law since it is a compilation of various laws of the country, as specified in its references. So, there is no executive barrier. But why have these laws and the government's commitments to the nation not been implemented until now? And why should it be reminded to the nation and government again in the form of a new charter? Why do we write beautiful things but forget them in practice and justify our ugly actions? Why do we consider ourselves followers of the Quran but behave like Satan? Why do we think that beautiful words will solve the problem? Undoubtedly, one of the most skilled speakers in Iran is Mr. Khamenei. Like the previous example, if someone models Iran solely based on Mr. Khamenei's words and speeches, they should conclude that Iran is among the world's advanced countries in science, culture, politics, and management. But why is our country not an example of Mr. Khamenei's words? Why does he appear so religious, pure, and popular, yet his government's behavior is tainted by the worst worldly corruption and anti-people actions? This must have a logic. There is a blockage in our minds that creates this duality. Abbas Abdi's critique, who is a social issues expert, is very similar to Kamaliz Nourouzi's critique. He emphasizes the need for "strengthening the spirit of citizenship and accountability, and in a word, empowerment" for the realization of the Charter of Citizenship Rights and admits that no one in Iran is educating citizens. "We need responsible individuals who demand their rights or citizens so that they can claim their rights from anyone they deem necessary. In other words, we primarily do not need a responsive government; rather, we need a questioning nation. A nation whose questioning will hold the government accountable." But how can citizens be educated? "Observing and claiming rights cannot be reduced to ethical propositions. Our rights are respected when the cost of their violation is high. Therefore, the rights of citizens and the nation are respected by the government when a balance of power is established between them. The balance of power can only be achieved through the organization and formation of the people in civil institutions independent of power. The power of the people must be reflected in the media, economy, and independent organizations. People lacking media, organization, and economic power are too weak to think about something called rights." Although Abdi offers a solution for empowering the nation, he, like Nourouzi, believes that the Charter of Citizenship Rights has reduced rights to ethical propositions. If we reflect a little on this reduction, we realize that this is precisely why citizenship education in Iran is weak. Naturally, a weak citizen, meaning a citizen unfamiliar with their rights, cannot demand their rights or defend their charter of rights. And of course, if we accept this, we cannot easily declare our solution as the organization of the people. Because to organize, we must first have a "capable citizen." But why do we reduce law to ethics? In my opinion, this also has its own history. This is a chronic mental or discursive problem. For us, "ethics" is still the only real law. Because custom is fundamental for us. Custom is a collection of collective and interpersonal contracts that are usually accepted and executed without resorting to formal law and force. Custom is a network of ethical and behavioral systems in family, society, and market that has naturally settled. When our law is our "ethics," we have no way to confront its violation other than resorting to custom and its systems, for example, village leadership. And if custom has limited ability to confront immorality/illegality or is fundamentally incapable or does not accept our complaints about immorality, we have no choice but to surrender. The situation of many of our abused women in families is unsolvable from a customary perspective for this reason. Custom is powerless. Law is ineffective. Therefore, the solution is either surrender or misguided paths like running away from home, murder, or self-immolation. Thus, a phenomenon emerges that we call "helplessness." Neither custom, ethics, religion, law, nor God come to our aid. Here lies a missing link. Our citizenship rights are also subject to a type of local and familial custom; a place where the head of the family and the elder of the clan is the main decision-maker, justly or unjustly. At the head of the family, "citizenship rights" in Iran is the leader. It does not matter what a large part of the elites think. He can always keep some people under house arrest, imprison others, force others to make forced confessions, and insist on his views against the opinions of advisors, righteous individuals, and reformers (for example, recall Ayatollah Ardabili's reference to the leader to resolve the issue of house arrest in a village leadership manner, which remained unresolved). In the face of such a situation, law and rights are meaningless. Custom does not work. Therefore, the legal system is closer to a system of serfs and lords than to a system of a state and a citizen with a vote. In other words, this system makes individuals "helpless." Abdi and many other experts say that the solution is the organization and formation of the people. But this path is neither easy nor short. Aside from the issue of weak citizenship that I mentioned, this group of experts must first have solutions for the systematic suppression of organizations and groups. How can and through what means can one prevent the suppressive authority? And if one cannot stand against suppression, how can one expect that this authority will speak of citizenship rights and remain faithful to its words and, for example, play the role of a benevolent dictator? The Charter of Citizenship Rights and the Supertext Now we arrive at the discussion of unsupported text. In the twentieth century, a new conception of humanity was taking shape. A conception in which humans are capable of anything because they are armed with knowledge and rely on themselves. Communists sought a new model of man, Germans promoted the idea of a superior race, and Americans proposed the superman, which in many ways encapsulated the idea of a superior human. It can be said that every group and community in modern times has its own superman. Where the real superman of Iranians is and in what form it appears is a very interesting topic for discussion, but it is not the subject of my discussion now. It can only be said that whatever this Iranian superman is and whatever problem-solving traits it possesses, its aspect of common good and public interest is weak or negligible. However, aside from the "real superman," where can we find our modern and ideal superman? In my opinion, the Iranian and modern human who would be the ideal of our modern world has not yet been created or updated and thus remains marginalized. Instead, what we and our modernists show interest in is more about the theoretical design of that superior and promising human and the presentation of views and writings. By the testimony of modern experience in Iran, we have not shown much interest in educating the model human, or if we have, it appeared during the Constitutional Revolution and the first Pahlavi era (or in the golden generation) and was lost with the coup of August 19. In the past 60-70 years, we have mostly wanted to create foundational and epoch-making texts, perhaps because our hands have been short of practical education. We have sought to repeat Western philosophers and Eastern thinkers. We want to conduct education through texts. We consider the creation of humans to be a mental task. Perhaps because the creators of our foundational texts have had no way to practical education and the design of a state and nation or have been hopeless about it. Therefore, it can be said that instead of the superman, we have tended to create a "supertext." From this perspective, citizenship rights are a supertext that seemingly solves every knot and makes every problem easier. A text that is unclear about who "can" implement it; the superman of this supertext is not specified. If we closely examine the tradition and history of producing foundational texts in Iran, we see that this is a persistent problem. On one hand, we have been and are constantly producing supertexts, and on the other hand, the agent and executor of it has not been clear. For example, one of the latest supertexts has been produced by Ayatollah Javadi Amoli: Mafatih al-Hayat. "The esteemed teacher, with comprehensive insight into the divine sources and fully utilizing the book and tradition as well as rational proof, has sought to provide the principles, foundations, and branches of meaning-making in life in moral, cultural, social, and political dimensions" (from the book's preface). You see that the supertext is supposed to address all aspects of life and leave nothing out. If someone reads this 750-page text, they will find an image of Islam and being Muslim that has no shortcomings. This text creates an ideal world. Its method of implementation is also ethical. That is, the ideal recipient and agent of it is a Muslim committed to ethics. But there is no other guarantee except faith and ethics. The text of Mr. Javadi Amoli has sold at least one million copies. That means it has demand and is not distributed for free like citizenship rights. But can we imagine that the buyers and audiences have accessed the keys to life (or the same Mafatih al-Hayat)? Can we imagine that this text can solve major social, environmental, and political problems in Iran? It may be assumed that the interest in supertext is inherently wrong. This is not the case. All societies produce their own supertexts. But what has weakened among us, at least in the last 60-70 years, is the transformation of supertext into a set of actions and behaviors, meaning the absence of agency. In my opinion, it can even be said that our current supertexts are mainly produced for not being read! Look at our classical supertexts like Shahnameh and a large part of our literature. These texts are not read, even though they are present everywhere and are referenced. This is a special contradiction of our era that we talk about something and are unaware of it. But if these texts are not read, why do we have such an interest in producing them? The issue again is ethics. We consider the production of supertext a "moral duty." Just as we consider holding the mourning ceremony for Sayyid al-Shuhada a duty. Even if we do not have a proper belief, we consider the observance of Ashura ceremonies a duty or at least respect it. Interestingly, the government's efforts in Iran to create a link between these moral duties and political duties often face skepticism. Because these duties are supposed to remain secular. They are not supposed to take the form of law and official rituals. They are not supposed to have Sayyid al-Shuhada's mourning ceremony enter our lives and become a standard for lifestyle, measuring everything by what the followers of Imam Hussein do. We can live our entire lives secularly and customarily or make life difficult for the people.