A culture of prevention

All totalitarian systems, which mean power systems without democratic checks and balances, are inherently violent and disregard human rights. It’s the power of the stronger over the weak, those with the relevant knowledge over those without. But governments are ultimately responsible for the conditions under which their citizens live.
The facts mentioned above leave me with an ominous feeling. My impression is that, under the pretext of total protection of its citizens, human rights are ignored and citizens are cowed into obedience by strict forms of punishment, which sometimes have all the characteristics of revenge.
This is a life-threatening path, dangerous, and, if taken to its conclusion, leaves no way out. I would like to deal with two aspects; aspects that make me afraid.
First, the unresisted spread and use of evil.
Second, and in many ways related to the first, the totalitarian state.
In his play “The Skin of our Teeth”, Thorton Wilder presented the history of humanity through the story of the Anthropos family. One of the sons is Cain, who is evil and therefore cast out. One day he comes back, armed with a gun. Since there is no escape, the family has the choice of either accepting Cain back in the family fold or being killed by him. The family opts for the former and survives.
C.G. Jung calls this process the integration of one’s shadow.  Dealing with our shadows, our dark sides, is of decisive importance for the individual and for society. The way the shadow is dealt with ultimately decides whether health or illness, peace or conflict, will prevail.
This is also the issue when we talk about the quality of young people’s lives in Iran. How can we identify the shadow, how can we deal with it?   I have, among many Iranians, seen hopelessness take on the form of listlessness, the wilting of the will to live. Not to mention the absence of any “joie de vivre”.
And what happens to all the timorous young people who cannot find a job? They are filled with bad premonitions, but these are usually suppressed, since no normal human being can live with a permanent vision of horror. This leaves feelings of helplessness and senselessness. A general attitude of “There’s nothing we can do anyway”. And events run their course.  
What is needed is a general, broadly based and undogmatic debate involving all sectors of the population, a debate that could generate ideas, forces and movements that would eventually secure this large country of such rich cultural history its proper place in the international community.
A lot will have to be set in motion before Iran can overcome its unhappy recent developments and once again draw on the full potential of its natural and intellectual resources for the benefit of its own people and for the benefit of the entire region.
fks