Islam has bloody borders. Since the latest event in Iran, this formula has had to be reviewed. Generally speaking, political system funded on Islamic values haven't known such crisis, rather specific to western liberal rules, despised by countries like Iran. Nevertheless Islam, too, hasn't answers to all problems of a society. Is the Islamic rule facing a crisis? What importance could this fact have on the Islamic world? The Iranian revolution is considered to be the model for the Islamic revolution, and the Islamic republic established after it the canonical type for the functional Islamic country. Radical Islamic movements in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Turkey or Saudi Arabia found an example in Iran and sometimes a generous training base. After the wave of secular movements of Nasserian inspiration, that were booming back in the '60s, the Islamic world found a model of success in Ayatollah Khomeini's integrism and his successors. While the secular way institutionalised in countries like Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Irak, not to mention Turkey, seemed vulnerable and outdated, the Iranian-like Islamic movement was in a constant expansion. The protests of students in Teheran are changing something in this image. The main conflicts in today's Islamic world are generally concerning the will of Islamic radicals to establish a political rule strictly according to Islamic values. Once institutionalised, the Islamic rule has rarely been questioned so drastically, either because liberal groups are mainly very weak, or because political terror is unbelievable. The fact that such a revolt was possible is explained by Iran's specific condition: a closed society, without really being a totalitarian country. In Iran, the property, at least in certain forms is observed, the right to travel, there are relatively free elections, a certain freedom of speech, even higher than in countries acknowledged as pro-westerner, as Saudi Arabia is. The students' movement seized this space of freedom. In the mean time, all these become inefficient when it comes to religion and its activists. Not accidentally, Iran's present condition has been compared to the communist countries' situation, during Gorbaciov's rule or to China's, before Tien an Men. In a country where one can anytime be charged with plot against the rule or with espionage, the individual security or the property right don't matter. As long as the religious cast is controlling the country's main systems, any real political restoration is difficult to expect. Elected by universal vote, the president considered to be reformer Mohamed Khatamy is paralysed in his position by the all-mightiness of the clerical nomenclature. One can imagine several possible scenarios for Iran's getting out of this crisis, from catastrophic one, of an Afghan kind, to an optimistic one, according to which the political-religious elite in Teheran will understand the signal the student gave and will try a gradual liberalisation of the rule. But the third one seems to be certain: the students' movement will be severely repressed, and the mandarins of the rule will try to create a conflict among Iranian population, between educated and popular people, to better control and abate the legitimacy crisis of the regime. Is it possible the liberalisation of the Iranian rule? The Iranian revolution that ousted the shah's rule, that was pro-American, wanted to offer an alternative to the model of western inspiration the shah's rule tried to propose, especially as concerning expansion of corruption, secularisation trend, of social polarisation and as concerning the collapse of the traditional community. Effects of a peripheral "bazaar-like" capitalism, as it was called, bad functioning of some pseudo-liberal political rules, dominated by a military aristocracy, the force of the clergy cast that rallied the public opinion against the shah, favoured the Islamic insurgence. It is difficult to say whether this ethos has rarefied today, 20 years later after the revolution. Any reforming of the Iranian rule won't probably reach the country's Islamic character. That will allow the clergy cast keep its position and will block the system's real reforming. Globalisation, the natural need of freedom, temptations of the consumption society will put pressure on the ruling elite face more and more difficult problems. Iran is known to have great oil reserves, but its economy is ailing because of the American boycott and lack of foreign investment. It is a tradition in Asia for economic progress to occur out of time with political liberalisation. But there is one point when these two elements become incompatible. Iran hasn't probably got to this limit. For the time being, Iran seems to be not prepared to face a serious political crisis. The legitimacy rule is based on the idea of consensus around Islamic laws. When this consensus is threatened, authorities lose their minds and are ready for eveything.
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