NCRI – At a conference to discuss a solution to the crisis in the Middle East, American politician and activist, Kenneth Blackwell assessed that those in the Western world had a responsibility to take a bipartisan approach and amplify the disenfranchised voices of the Iranian Resistance.
Amb. Blackwell recounted his teenage activism within the civil rights movement where Democrats and Republicans worked together to “reach a consensus as to what was right and to give amplification to the voices for change, voices that challenged the status quo.”
The former Republican Secretary of State of Ohio said this same bipartisanship diplomacy was seen during the Cold War to help dissidents within and outside the Soviet Union and during the ending of the apartheid system in South Africa. Even though both sides had different approaches, they had the “consensus of opinion and direction in America that we, in fact, must be on the side of the victims of apartheid”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCdJDcVsC3I
He highlighted the oppression faced by political dissidents, religious minorities, and women by the Iranian regime. He said that the U.S.’s foreign policy must amplify the voices inside and outside of Iran, especially those who have suffered the cruelty of the regime.
Amb. Blackwell said: “I would suggest to you that in the case of Iran as we’ve heard from expert after expert the same pattern of human rights abuses, the same pattern of oppressing religious minorities, the same patterns and practices of exploiting terrorism are still in place. The question for us is whether or not we will embrace this ruptures to that status quo in Iran or if we will play patty cake with that regime.”
Speaking at a round-table on July 8 in Paris, a day before the major “Free Iran” rally was held, Amb. Blackwell said: “I would suggest to you that is going to take the same sort of bipartisanship and consensus-building and resolve to win in our struggle against that regime.”
He said that members of the main Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK) in Camp Liberty, Iraq, represented so much more than just the residents of the particular camp, but the whole resistance movement.
He quoted Martin Luther King’s speech at Lincoln University in 1961 which proclaimed that we are all heirs to the worthiness of dignity or to the dignity of worthiness. Amb. Blackwell compared this with the implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
He said: “[The Declaration] doesn’t pick and choose, it doesn’t engage in relativism. It says that each one of us on this planet is in fact obligated to recognize the dignity of others and to have our human dignity recognized.”
Amb. Blackwell said: “Let’s spend our time figuring out how to light candles and build and expand unity and not get bogged down in petty politics or blacks would still be second-class citizens, Soviet Jews would still in some shape, form or fashion be less than full citizens and apartheid would still exist. We, in fact, must build the coalition the bipartisan and universal coalition to fight a regime that has outlived its time.”
Mr. Blackwell is a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.