Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over

[Rezwan]

Trying to show hardliners here that free speech is…well, even though it’s very annoying (let’s be honest) – its worth it in terms of creating a generative society that can, paradoxically handle major threats.

Glenn! Actually have a question for you. I only read “All the Shah’s Men”. And having read that, I was surprised at how little it took to effect a coup. It seems that Iranians were in such awe and fear of America, and the legend of the CIA, that they were very easily manipulated. Just a few people showing up in the streets, having been paid to go there and shout certain things, effected panic. The actions taken were quite minimal. And now, naturally, every little thing is a major threat.

So, my argument is that a society with more robust press and speech would not succumb to this because a bunch of people shouting on the streets would just be another bunch of whiners. In the US, the arguments are plentiful, the opinions widely ranging, and they often shrilly cancel each other out and trivialize each other.

Unfortunately, the Mossadeq coup is not studied here. “Everyone knows” the CIA pulled a coup, but the only thing they’ve learned from it is to fear public protests, label them CIA backed, and clamp down on them. So, a lot of hostility and regret, but no constructive lessons learned, or policies developed.

So, you’ve read that other book. And others besides. What I’m trying to get at is, what was the actual mechanism by which the CIA effected it’s mischief in other places, and could better intra-national communication institutions and free speech institutions in those countries have prevented that (rather than served it, as they suggest)? I suppose not, if we’re dealing with power hungry, petty dictator wannabes. But that brings the flaw back home. It’s your own rulers that betray you, not the foreign powers. They succumb to temptation.

Do you see the case I’m trying to build?

Personally, I think it would be more empowering for Iranians to blame themselves for the Mossadeq mess, to say the CIA is incompetent and just trying to take credit for our own local power hungry people that used them for their own gain. I don’t know why most Iranians prefer the CIA conspiracy theory and the role of victim. And I honestly don’t know what the truth is. Maybe Mossadeq was incompetent and in over his head with the leading of Iran, and actually relieved for the uprising. And I wish we had a more robustly open society that debated these things. The level of argument her is really limited/stifled. What a shame.

More speech, not less. More topics, not less. More disagreement, not less. Hours of fun.