Quote

We've had 60 years of intellectual development in Iran. How can we have the same system? Even theories of secularism are constantly being revised and changed.

Akbar Ganji

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Akbar Ganji
Age: 54
Essayist
Journalist
Writer
Ghazvin
Akbar Ganǧī
Even
Theories
Years
Iran
Constantly
Intellectual
Development
Theory
Changed
Revised
System
Secularism

More quotes by Akbar Ganji

Image
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
Image
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
Image
Revolutions invariably don't solve the issue of justice, and in its place, suppression and limiting freedom replaces that idea.
Akbar Ganji
Image
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
Image
[In] every revolution, there is a great divergence between what the revolutionaries expect and what the revolution actually accomplishes.
Akbar Ganji
Image
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
Image
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
Image
When there is a crisis, the first thing that gets damaged and gets harmed is democracy.
Akbar Ganji
Image
I am only speaking of my own behalf.
Akbar Ganji
Image
The difference between us and the other side is that they use populist and...kind of slogans that are...they fool the people. They are the kind of dishonest and populist slogans that we are not willing to use.
Akbar Ganji
Image
I went to the front, but I never participated in the war itself.
Akbar Ganji
Image
Three of our provinces have seen mass uprisings. The three provinces are Khuzestan, Azerbaijan, and Kurdistan. Recently, we witnessed massive demonstration by Iranian woman in the 7th of Tir square, and it was brutally suppressed.
Akbar Ganji
Image
The regime kept saying that all of my opponents are lackeys of the United States. We used to say that this is all lie, that we are lackeys of the United States.
Akbar Ganji
Image
We should put away the militaristic outlook. The U.S. should start talking about disarmament, nuclear disarmament, of the region.
Akbar Ganji
Image
I, too, am against the dismantlement of Iran.
Akbar Ganji
Image
Religion is separate from the institution of the state.
Akbar Ganji
Image
Let me begin by saying not only you can't have democracy with $75 million. You can't even have it with $750 billion.
Akbar Ganji
Image
I have spent six years in prison, the last six years. Even if I was outside the prison, how much actual space was there for an investigative journalist to do his work in Iran? But I know one thing for sure: That we, the Iranian people, are much more in line of danger than the West.
Akbar Ganji
Image
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
Image
The Revolutionary Guard was created to help defend the revolution, but it soon was diverted from its initial path.
Akbar Ganji