Iran - the Complexities of Race, Religion and Ethnicity

This blog is courtesy of "Woody", a former colleague and currently a good friend.

It isn't East and West that never meet but Kipling was partially right: it is the fist world and third world countries which never meet. Asking a third world country to rid itself of 'corruption' is asking it to stop breathing.

Take Iran. There are Iranians to be sure, in Tehran and maybe three other cities. But there are three major semi-autonomous tribes who do not love one another. Ten there are Jews, Kurds, Arabs, Turki, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Assyrians and a dozen other tribes sects, ethnic groups and powerful extended families, each with its own culture to be accommodated. The government of Iran cannot hope to control the country; it must be content to dominate it. Which it does with its army, gendarmerie, paramilitary forces and internal security units. The numerous controlling forces are a primitive but efficient heart.

The Iranian government? think of a border collie with a herd of cats. The controlling hearts pump life-giving, if tainted, blood into a primitive body, but it works. Asking it to dissolve itself when there is nothing to substitute is asking it to return to the caves.

Is there crime in first world corruption? It is practically all crime. Third world corruption? Much less, for crime needs enforced laws to violate. And third world corruption is often a way to circumvent bad law or substitute for lack of law.