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Edited on Fri Jun-11-10 04:39 PM by Boojatta
There's an old saying that people who want to complain about something should begin by getting their own house in order. Now, I don't actually agree that writing or translating a work of fiction should be grounds for someone to be forced to appear in court or to be sentenced. After all, if war is going to ever be obsolete, then political differences between nations must be resolved non-violently, and that requires communication in words. Non-fiction ordinarily has more potential than fiction for eliciting controversy and violence. Non-fiction about political topics is particularly sensitive. Thus, a world where fiction provokes homicidal violence from the central government of one of the world's nation-states is a world that is far from ready for either a hidden imam or messiah to appear or re-appear and actually bring world peace, rather than suffer assassination or crucifixion.
However, if there are citizens of Iran who have some political or bureaucratic authority and who believe that, without any trial, it is actually appropriate for a sentence of death (a very serious sentence) to be imposed by the government of Iran on a citizen of the U.K. who was born in India and who isn't associated in any way with Iran, then those citizens of Iran should get their own house in order. They can use their influence to ensure that Iranian writers are put on trial. If the trial proceedings are published (perhaps on the internet), then they would serve to give some notice to writers around the world of the criteria used to determine whether or not a given story, novel, poem, dramatic work, or other kind of fiction is such that the writing of it would be a criminal offense in Iran. After all, we presume that the government of Iran hasn't been bloodthirsty since 1979, and that the post-revolutionary government of Iran would prefer to deter what they consider to be crime, rather than hope for someone to do something that they can after the fact arbitrarily label as a crime, as a pretext for the government of Iran to kill a human being.
Who in Iran who has a position of political or bureaucratic authority will acknowledge that the leader of the revolution of 1979 was not merely fallible but, to at least some extent, evil? After all, if Muslims have a duty to do what is needed to hasten the return of the hidden imam, then they cannot delay the return of the hidden imam without violating that duty.
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