English Fukuyama vs. Persian Fukuyama

On October 13th, an article from Francis Fukuyama was published in News Week titled “The Fall of America, Inc.”. The article was highlighted in Tehran governmental dailies, however the title was deliberately mistranslated: “Collapse of Western Civilization”. The same day, Iran Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, made a speech for the masses and remarked that recent worldwide financial crisis is the beginning of downfall of western liberal democracy. “Marxism proved its absurdity after implosion of the Soviet bloc twenty years ago, and today the world can hear cracking bones of Capitalism skeleton one after another.” he cited. The metaphor is implying bankruptcy of investment banks which started in Wall Street and continued in Europe and other parts of the world. This crisis looks to anti-Americanists like a dead-end for liberal democracy which they have been anticipating, while liberal-democrat commentators note that Wall Street meltdown marks the end of an era within Capitalism context, not the end of Capitalism itself.

Fukuyama is from the latter group. He is the author of “The End of History and the Last Man” in which he argued that the progression of human history as a struggle between ideologies is almost at an end, with the world settling on liberal democracy after the end of the Cold War. However, since 2002 he has been trying to distance himself from the neoconservative agenda under the Bush Administration, citing its overly militaristic basis. His criticisms of America’s militaristic interventions in the name of promoting democracy are enthusiastically reflected by Iran state controlled media. The Persian version of his last analysis of the global financial crisis sounds like a retreat from his famous doctrine of “The End of History”.

In the original version however, there is no implication of diminishing liberal democracy. It only argues that consequent to Wall Street meltdown, American ideas and advice will be less globally welcome. Fukuyama explains that most important export of America is its ideas and two fundamentally American ideas have dominated global thinking since Reagan’s presidency. The first one was the idea of minimal governments, tax cuts and deregulation agenda. The second was America as the promoter of liberal democracy around the world. He likens these ideas as two important brands of “America Inc.” which have lost faith of the market after the financial meltdown. He believes that Reagan’s transformative movement, which was a pragmatic response to the excess of welfare states of 1980s, lost its way and ended up with today’s financial crisis when became an unquestionable ideology. Along with this crisis, he remarks, a certain vision of capitalism has collapsed. That outdated vision is Reaganism with its deregulation mantra. However, Fukuyama believes that America can still restore its brand as its rivals’ models – Chinese and Russian – do not appear to be competitive.

Along with China and Russia, Islamic Republic of Iran has been trying to challenge the west in all aspects since 1979. It introduces Islam as a complete system of morality, justice and governance, whose laws and principles should be the sole basis of governance and everything else in life. After the implosion of Soviet bloc – the event which is extremely propagandized to have been prophesied by Khomeini much earlier – Iran’s Islamic government propaganda machine foresees imminent downfall of liberal democracy and obsolescence of its western style of life. In Islamic Republic’s discourse, the world is destined to embrace the message of Iran’s Islamic Revolution as its only savior. A message which has culminated with a 30% rate inflation, oil-dependent economy and extreme social class divisions after 30 years of experiment.