On Tuesday Iranian students at Sharif University held an antigovernment protest. The cause for the protest was the controversy with the current president of Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. There are beliefs that he unjustly swayed the election in his favor. The Minister of Science and Higher education, Kamran Daneshjoo, was supposed to pay a visit to the University on Tuesday morning, but due to the protests, the visit was cancelled (for more information please click this link: nytimes article)
The acts of the students and the steps they have taken closely resemble the steps Dr. Martin Luther King outlines in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”. The first resemblance would be the simple fact that, as to this point, the protests held by the students have been non-violent. The four steps addressed by Dr. King are the, “…collection of facts to determine whether injustice exist; negotiation; selfpurification; and direct action” (page 2, 2). In the article it is implied that the government has done some unjust, and what seems to me as Machiavellian, things. Soon after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the election hundreds of former government officials and activist were thrown in jail. Although not for the most thorough of reasons, the Students have collected enough facts and witnessed enough unfairness to say that injustice exists. The students achieved self-purification by openly accepting their punishments of jail time and being banned from attending class. They took the direct action of nonviolent, persistent protests; something Dr. Martin Luther King was an activist for, as long as injustice was proven.
I would also like to take the time to point out the Machiavellian actions the Iranian government has taken. The article states, “Dozens of student activists were jailed or barred from attending classes this month, according to student Web sites, in an effort to intimidate students” (1). In chapter eight of “The Prince” Machiavelli explains the need a ruler has for cruelty (3). In my discussion session we talked about why Machiavelli believes a ruler must use cruelty from time to time. A majority of the class agreed it was a way of establishing and maintaining power. If you kill someone who committed a crime such as theft, then that is an example to all others what will happen to them if they commit the same crime. Cruelty is a way to ensure that as a ruler you have the upper hand and keep your legitimacy as the authority. The Iranian government seems to be following this same idea; if they put some of the student protesters in jail it will send a message to the others what they will face if they continue their actions. The second Machiavellian action taken by the government is that once the new President came to power he made sure to get rid of those who were in power previously, “More than a hundred activists and former government officials were arrested after the election” (1). In chapter seven of “The Prince” Machiavelli lists the things a ruler should do when they come to power, among other things he lists “…destroy one’s enemies…” (page 21, 3). According to Machiavelli, by imprisoning the former officials President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad secured his power as the new leader and showed his people the control he has.
Works Cited
- Fathi, Nazila. “The New York Times Log In.” The New York Times – Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 29 Sept. 2009. Web. 29 Sept. 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/world/middleeast/30iran.html?hpw>.
- King, Martin L. “Letter from a Birimingham Jail.” Letter to Fellow Clergymen. 16 Apr. 1963. Historicaltextarchive.com. Historical Text Archive, 2001. Web. 27 Sept. 2009. <http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=40>.
- Machiavelli. “The Prince.” Ed. David Wootton. Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub Co Inc, 2008. 9+. Print.
This article and post was very interesting and really jumps out at considering all the pressure and fear these students face and fell in Iran. While the civil rights component had violent aspects they conducted by vigilantes the government knew about but did not specifically endorse or provide for. Protesting in such a place like Iran the potential consequences for these actions could be so much graver and thus makes me consider what courage these students have even more.
This story of, non-violent protest in modern times closely resembles how Martin Luther King preached was the most effective method of evoking change. The students followed both Machiavellian and Martin Luther Kings’ principals. In Machiavellian terms they used a moral means to justify a moral ends. They believed the election was unfair and to retaliate and publicly express their discontent they staged a protest, it caused no physical harm but solely helped to project their ideas of justice to the community. With regard to Martin Luther King’s standards, they acted in a non-violent manner and direct fashion to achieve a direct result towards hopes of causing a greater change.
Somewhat contrastingly I would like to point out that the Iranian government is acting in relation to Hobbesian theory. They are watching out for their own self-interest by “eliminating the enemy” and making an example of what will happen if more citizens protest the government’s authority. As is true in most circumstances, bias plays a large role in the interpretation of situations. This article can be viewed and analyzed in an infinite number of ways, and to which theorist, and political actor has most “influence” will never be definitively determined.
Nicholas Hanni section 013
Though written well, I feel this post lacks an argument. True the students were participating in a MLK-like protest and true the Government of Iran might have been acting in a Machiavellian manner, but why should we care? Not to say that the suffering of the individual is good, but the overall control of the sovereign is important. If it were not for the Machiavellian aspects inside each individual the world would be a much different place then it is now. Some control needs to be exerted upon those disrupting the peace. Looking back on the entire situation now, Ahmadinejad may have tampered with the votes, but it looks like he would have won anyway. This leads one to question whether or not the students truly understood what was going on. In the end, working through Machiavelli’s “the ends justify the means” approach, the students achieved nothing, and the Government was able to silence dissenters. Though the plight of the students was honorable, I believe that in the end, nothing was truly achieved and so the protest may be considered a failure in both MLK’s and Machiavelli’s eyes.
At least as Machiavelli argues in “The Prince,” power is not exerted for its own sake, but for the stability of the state. Machiavelli might well believe that the rulers of Iran do a terrible job of exercising virtu as they have not succeeded, in large part, to bring either stability or glory to their country.
There could also be an argument made that the students were successful in trying to replicate Martin Luther King Jr’s ways of protesting on a count that we have heard about it. As aforementioned in the original post, the students appeared to go through MLK’s four steps, and while yes in the end they were put down and sent to jail, they received attention, and this attention draws us to their perspective of what is happening in their country. How many times was MLK sent to jail without any real results in the south? Protests do not need to inspire immediate action from the opposing party to be considered a success, and I feel as if there would be no harm done in MLK’s eyes, not considered a failure but a work in progress.