Can people afford to get out of the Islamic Republic, and fall in the trap of monarchy again?
Only history will show. Dear Reza: As a student activist, when I was at University at Buffalo (hereafter UB), I initiated an experiment in democracy. There were then more than 400 Iranian students with various political affiliations — from monarchists, to nationalist, religio-nationalists, pro-Soviet communists, Marxists, “socialist Isamicists”… We formed a club to be all-inclusive. It was very difficult to hold the club together. For each group and member, “democracy” meant that they and only they had the rights to sociopolitical participation, freedom of speech and assembly,etc. In the first year, the President of the club was a monarchist, the second term, he was a pro-MKO, third year we had a pro-Tudeh party as president, and the fourth year, a pro-IRI, whose efforts led to the dissolution of the club. He told us later, this had been his secret aim when he was running and got elected. But we all learned many lessons. One was that the patriarchal nature of our social and family s
