On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Alberto Monteiro wrote:
> I am just trying to point that Iran *is* a democracy,
> by deconstructing [:-)] every argument against this with
> examples from *obvious* democracies that show that
> Iran's "restrictions" to democracy are just "shades
> of gray" of the analogous phenomena that happen in
> the unquestionable democracies.
I would argue that Iran is not a democracy, because it is a theocracy.
Iranian governance is not the rule of the people, but the rule of
religion, more particularly the theologians. I seem to remember reading
something by an Iranian ayatullah in which he describes their system of
government as a dictatorship of the ulama (learned people, or religious
scholars). That may have been Khomeini, but i cannot recall.
cheers
Ibrahim Underwood
