Akbar Ganji famous quotes

07-07-2025

You cannot bring democracy to a country by attacking it.
-- Akbar Ganji

#Country #Democracy #Attacking
Negotiation talks are the best way to solve anything. We must replace wars and weapons with negotiations and talks.
-- Akbar Ganji

#War #Weapons #Way
The modern infrastructures that exists in the world all contribute to the advancement of human rights and democracy.
-- Akbar Ganji

#Rights #Democracy #World
I am against revolution and am proud of it. Democracy cannot be created through revolutions. The most important dichotomy that I make for a society is between those who support democracy and human rights, and those who oppose it. In a totalitarian state, the state views any act of an individual to be political in nature. For example, the clothing that a person wears in a modern state is a private affair whereas in the Islamic Republic all women are forced to wear the hijab (Islamic attire). When women push their headscarf back an inch or two, this is interpreted to be a political act,
-- Akbar Ganji

#Islamic #Two #Rights
We should put away the militaristic outlook. The U.S. should start talking about disarmament, nuclear disarmament, of the region.
-- Akbar Ganji

#Talking #Nuclear #Outlook
We must struggle for creating a democratic system that is dedicated to democracy and human rights.
-- Akbar Ganji

#Struggle #Rights #Creating
There's all kind of evidence that there is enormous corruption in the distribution of that money. For example, they gave about $100 to $150 dollars to each of the teachers. They gave about $500 dollars to those who were getting married. Through this process, they obviously collected a lot of votes, but these monies could not solve the structural problems that these people face. But the only result, the only consequence, was that a big sum from the budget was wasted this way.
-- Akbar Ganji

#Teacher #People #Faces
Religion is separate from the institution of the state.
-- Akbar Ganji

#States #Institutions
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

#Talking #Giving #Example
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

#Believe #Iran #Wife
Revolutions invariably don't solve the issue of justice, and in its place, suppression and limiting freedom replaces that idea.
-- Akbar Ganji

#Issues #Ideas #Justice
When there is a crisis, the first thing that gets damaged and gets harmed is democracy.
-- Akbar Ganji

#Democracy #Firsts #Crisis
All manners of freedom, including freedom of expression, freedom of conscious, freedom of thought...it accepts tolerance. But it is not an atheist society. Religion is the private affair of an individual...be present in the public domain, but state has to be clearly separated from religion. When I'm speaking, I'm speaking only for myself. At the same time, I know that these ideas have wide support among the Iranian population.
-- Akbar Ganji

#Atheist #Expression #Ideas
Would Americans accept if we decided to come here and decide who your rulers should be? So why do you expect us Iranians to accept the idea that the United States shall come in there and decide who shall govern us?Of course, everyone knows that I'm also opposed to the Iranian regime and I have said that we must change the regime. But it is us, the Iranians, that must change the regime.
-- Akbar Ganji

#Ideas #United States #Accepting
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

#Class #Suffering #Faces
There are varieties of theories of revolution. According to one of these theories, only one of these theories, revolutions occur when there is an explosion of rising expectation. And amongst the lower strata in Iranian society, we are witnessing an increasing rise of the expectation and it's clear that the regime is incapable of satisfying these demands.
-- Akbar Ganji

#Expectations #Revolution #Rising
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

#Clever #Expectations #Perspective
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

#Dream #Hunger Strike #Paradise
Today, as a result of a miraculous set of circumstances, Iran is going to get between $50 to $55 billion in oil revenue, which is unheard of in the history of the revolution.
-- Akbar Ganji

#Iran #Oil #Today
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

#Democracy #Let Me #Billions
We can certainly be on the same side and the same front with the workers and with the oppressed people of Iran. We can certainly be on the same front with them.
-- Akbar Ganji

#Iran #People #Sides
I did join the Revolutionary Guard, but I was simply a simple Revolutionary Guard, never a commander.
-- Akbar Ganji

#Simple #Revolutionary #Commanders
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

#Men #Revolution #Looks

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