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You cannot bring democracy to a country by attacking it.

Akbar Ganji

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Akbar Ganji
Age: 54
Essayist
Journalist
Writer
Ghazvin
Akbar Ganǧī
Country
Attacking
Democracy
Bring
Cannot

More quotes by Akbar Ganji

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The lower strata are suffering all kinds of oppression and the injustice that is inflicted upon them has many faces and many facets. Well-to-do classes are using all kinds of obvious and not-so-obvious benefits that this regime has created for it.
Akbar Ganji
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What I'm worried about is that, in case that happens [nuclear explosion], then the Iranian people are the ones who are going to pay the heaviest price. But none of the Western countries have seriously talked about this.
Akbar Ganji
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When I was on my hunger strike, and I was in a hospital, the guards who inflicted all manner of injustice against me, and all manner of hardship...I could witness that as a result of Ahmadinejad, they lived in a dream. They believed that paradise is around the corner and that all their demands shall be met.
Akbar Ganji
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The Revolutionary Guard was created to help defend the revolution, but it soon was diverted from its initial path.
Akbar Ganji
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We have two kinds of oppression. Oppression that is universal - everyone in Iran is subject to it. But everyone has also their own, unique way of experiencing this oppression.
Akbar Ganji
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If you look at the discourse before the revolution, whether it is the left communist, whether it is the right secularist...the entirety of this discourse was such that it encouraged the kind of ascendancy for a man like Ayatollah Khomeini.
Akbar Ganji
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Revolutions invariably don't solve the issue of justice, and in its place, suppression and limiting freedom replaces that idea.
Akbar Ganji
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I did join the Revolutionary Guard, but I was simply a simple Revolutionary Guard, never a commander.
Akbar Ganji
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It began early in the revolution. It was a process that was unfolding on a daily basis. We expected the system to be dispensing justice, but every day that passed by, we recognized that the justice we expected and hoped for was not about to be achieved.
Akbar Ganji
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Religion is separate from the institution of the state.
Akbar Ganji
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When I talk about secularism, I'm talking about theories today. To give you for example, one example: Those who consider themselves followers of Mosaddeq today are adamantly against federalism.
Akbar Ganji
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Negotiation talks are the best way to solve anything. We must replace wars and weapons with negotiations and talks.
Akbar Ganji
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It was universal pressure on the regime to secure my release. International pressure was certainly helpful in my release.
Akbar Ganji
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I went to the front, but I never participated in the war itself.
Akbar Ganji
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I, too, am against the dismantlement of Iran.
Akbar Ganji
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Khomeini obviously had many problems, but he had one clever side to him. He never made economic promises to people and as a result, he never led to dissatisfaction in this perspective. Because they need to get votes, they use misleading slogans. And this leads to rising expectations. I had a personal experience.
Akbar Ganji
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Supporters of the national front, Mosaddeq, believe that in Iran, we don't have a nationalities problem, we don't have an ethnic problem. It is like living with your wife, with whom you are in love and you are intensely involved in, but you also have tensions. And their position is that they want to deny that these tensions exist.
Akbar Ganji
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Whatever Iranian people have bought, they have bought in the black market. It is not clear what they have bought, how many secondhand materials they have bought. I am very worried that something like Chernobyl will happen to Iran.
Akbar Ganji
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[In] every revolution, there is a great divergence between what the revolutionaries expect and what the revolution actually accomplishes.
Akbar Ganji
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The Shah's regime was an incorrigible regime and after a while, when the revolution happened, the situation began to change, revolutionary conditions was created...we simply wanted to change the regime.
Akbar Ganji