Death to Dictators

December 15, 2002
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
www.nytimes.com

Sometimes you're reading the newspaper and a quote just
jumps out at you. I had that experience last week while
reading an Associated Press story from Iran about the
mounting student protests against Iran's hard-line clerical
leaders. Deep in the story, I came upon this sentence: "On
Sunday, more than 2,000 protesting students chanted `Death
to dictatorship' and condemned anew the death sentence
against a prominent university professor."

I had to rub my eyes. Did I read that right? The Iranian
students who had practically invented the chants "Death to
America" and "Death to the Great Satan" had - on their own
- changed the tape. Now they are chanting "Death to
dictatorship." And because they are, there is hope for the
post-9/11 world.

No, I am not getting carried away by one chant. Iran's
hard-line clerics have the power to crush the student-led
democracy movement anytime they please. Yes, Iran's bad
guys have all the power to do that - but none of the
legitimacy to do it. And that is why they are hesitating.
The hard-line clerics have lost their legitimacy with a
wide swath of Iranians, particularly the young, who have
concluded that it's their own hard-liners - not America -
who are to blame for Iran's economic woes, political
paralysis and isolation.

The Iranian students chanting "Death to dictatorship" may
not be able to do anything about it, but the fact that
they've identified their real problem as their own bad
mullahs, not outsiders - and their real solution as true
democracy, not some rigged Islamic version - is a big
change. When Arab Muslims on the other side of the gulf
draw the same conclusion - that it is their own autocrats,
religious fanatics and education systems that are holding
them back, not America - we will be on the road to curing
the madness of 9/11.

What are the chances of that? Some days they feel very low.
Look at the shameful comments just made by Saudi Arabia's
interior minister, Nayef bin Abdel Aziz, who told a Saudi
weekly that the Zionists "are behind these events" of 9/11.
Yes, yes, there were 15 Saudi hijackers, but the Jews did
it. How pathetic. It is that sort of escapism - "Death to
the other guy" - that has retarded Arab development for
decades.

But here's the good news. The events of 9/11 have had a
bigger impact than you might think. They have intensified
something I would call "the conversation" among Arabs and
Muslims. It has been going on in private for years, but
lately some courageous voices are taking it public -
shouting in their own press, "Death to the old lies."

Consider a strong piece that just ran in Okaz, a major
Saudi daily, by the columnist Abdullah Abu Sameh, who
decries the fact that Muslim extremists "have stuffed the
minds [of some of our youth] with a fanatic ideology and a
faulty interpretation of Jihad - that it is a tool to
oppress and dominate others." He quotes an essay in the
Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat by the gutsy Abdul Rahman
al-Rashed, who said that while Saudis were shocked to find
so many of their youth involved in 9/11, "it is better to
confront the fact than make excuses. . . . The cause of the
radicalization of [our] youth was the culture of violence
that has infiltrated religious education, deviating from
the traditions of the conservative . . . Saudi society." To
regain peace and reconciliation with the world, Mr. Abu
Sameh said, "our youths must be re-educated and violence -
a concept alien to our society - must be discarded."
[Translation by Memri.]

Or consider a fine piece in Al Ahram, the main Egyptian
paper, by Usama Ghazali Harb, who says the Muslim world's
predicament today is not the result of some external plot
but the fact that "while the vast majority of Muslims keep
silent, an extremist minority has hijacked the faith and is
steering it into a confrontation with the world. . . .
These extremists are supported by conservative forces that
fear progress and modernity." What the Muslim world
desperately needs, Mr. Harb says, is a progressive model
that works - a role Egypt could play even better than Iran.
"But," he asks, "is Egypt ready to assume such a role?"

We should not exaggerate the influence of these writers or
ignore it. We should understand that they are there, that
9/11 has emboldened them to emerge and that the quicker we
get this Iraq thing over, and the more we can quiet the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the more their "conversation"
will gain momentum.

Wish them well. They're our best hope for change from
within - which is the only change that matters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/15/opinion/15FRIE.html?ex=1041265870&ei=1&en=08067b3f9bf0a9c8