Azadeh Thiriez-Arjangi, doctor of Philosophy – researcher and teacher, elected official of the 16th arrondissement of Paris in charge of higher education.

Tragic wisdom, in Ricœur, reminds us precisely that human action often unfolds in situations of irreducible conflict, where the abstract application of a rule is no longer sufficient and where one must learn to exercise concrete judgment. It is this idea that I transpose into the Iranian context.

The lie of reform, carried out from within the regime itself, is for me one of the greatest tragedies experienced by Iranians. Indeed, the arrival of the era of reforms, with the ruse of installing—disguised as an election—President Khatami on the throne, was decisive for the continuity of the ideological rule of the Islamic Republic.

It was precisely at that moment that they began producing their own celebrities, developing increasingly sophisticated scenarios to influence public opinion beyond Iran’s borders, sending their journalists or artists abroad in the name of the opposition so that they could, when the time came, convey their message, even creating protest movements in the name of civic action or women’s conditions—but also accelerating their nuclear and ballistic programs, and above all, disorienting Iranians’ gaze by directing it toward a mirage.

But once this illusion dissipated, a great many Iranians understood that they themselves had the responsibility to act and to redirect their action, of course at their own risk and their own expense. And Ricœur’s tragic wisdom, in the Iranian context, is precisely this. It speaks to the painful passage from an abstract belief in the possibility of reform to a concrete judgment: that of putting an end to this regime and its ideology—a judgment formed at the end of a profoundly painful experience.

This experience destroyed the simplistic certainties regarding the possibility of reforming the regime. It also made clear that the price to pay to put an end to this system would be extremely high. The political judgment that Iranians have reached is that this regime cannot be reformed and that the only real way out remains regime change. This judgment has become increasingly visible since the killing of Mahsa Amini in 2022.

The Iranian tragedy also lies in the gap between this concrete judgment, formed by those who live daily under the Islamic Republic, and certain Western discourses that continue to reason from abstract categories, as if reform or moderation of the regime were still possible.

To finally answer your question: yes, religious totalitarianism carried Iranian secularization in spite of itself. By seeking to fully identify religion with power, it made religion bear the responsibility for the violence, the........

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