THIS WEEK, building toward Independence Day, Americans recall the ideals of equality, rights, and self-government that formed the core of our revolution - yet far away events demand a fresh appreciation of what we are celebrating.
That the Declaration of Independence, by asserting a standard of justice against which the young nation would itself be judged, included mechanisms of self-criticism that continually expand the circle of equality and rights to include blacks, “savages,’’ the unpropertied, women, and an endless succession of immigrants makes the document a living treasure worthy of reverence.
That we look back now with a harsh understanding that the high Jeffersonian rhetoric was economically, racially, religiously, and sexually exclusive is less an embarrassment than a confirmation, since that understanding has itself been sponsored by the Declaration.
In recent weeks, tumult in the streets of Iran has made palpable an “inalienable’’ longing for power that respects persons. Each of the demonstrating Iranians crowding into streets, from which they populate traditional news reports and the various new media, from Twitter to YouTube, is a thinking, feeling human being who wants to be seen and heard.
It would be delusional to imagine that the mass of protesters harbor aspirations for American-style governance or culture, much less for overthrow of the Islamic Republic. But their fierce objection to evident electoral dishonesty, and to the abusive violence with which that deceit has been defended, is a manifestation of purposefulness that transcends cultural and political differences.
Every Iranian who takes to the street is thereby affirming her or his own autonomous dignity, and demanding to be honored as a citizen to whom government is obliged by law and truth. Such public demonstration can be an act of revolution to come, or an act of loyalty to a revolution that has already occurred - a distinction for Iranians to define.
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