In The Christian Science Monitor, Robin Wright interviews Abdolkarim Soroush, Iranian scholar and public intellectual, about the manifesto that he and four others published on behalf of the Green Revolution:
Q: What difference will this manifesto make?
A: It will make the goals and objectives clearer and better defined and articulated. At this stage, we need it. I’ve said for years that the revolution was theory-less. It was a revolt against the shah—a negative rather than a positive theory. I insisted that if there is going to be another movement, it has to have a theory. People should know what they want, not just what they don’t want. So we are trying – in a modest way—to put forward a theory for this movement.
Goals and objectives are based on theories and foundations. And we do have theories about liberty. We have not brought those theories into these points, but they underlie the points. They are invisible to the armed eyes, meaning the regime.
Read the full interview and a translation of the manifesto here.