Tehran summit participants should establish NAM secretariat

TEHRAN, Aug. 28 (MNA) -- For the first time since the inception of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961, the Islamic Republic of Iran has welcomed the opportunity to host the NAM summit in Tehran. Iran’s political and ideological independence from the old Eastern and Western blocs was admired across the world. Iran declared its emancipation from the domination of the global powers many years before the establishment of NAM. Since the beginning of the Constitutional Movement in 1905 and later during the oil nationalization campaign in 1951, the religious leadership, including Ayatollah Seyyed Hassan Modarres and Ayatollah Seyyed Abol-Ghasem Kashani, emphasized that Iran should not be aligned with the major powers of the East or the West. This was again echoed in Imam Khomeini’s struggle to topple the pro-Western regime during the years leading up to the victory of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, when the slogan “No to the East, no to the West” was popular. The NAM summit in Tehran provides a good opportunity to reintroduce the world to Iran’s historic experience and to make use of it to strengthen the foundations of the movement. The world is quite different than it was in the early years of NAM in the 1960s. Today, the notions of a Western bloc and an Eastern bloc do not exist anymore, and the only remaining reason that justifies the mission of the Non-Aligned Movement is to have an organization that can counter the hegemonistic policies of the major powers. The NAM summit in Tehran provides a historic opportunity for Iran, which is a country proud of its anti-hegemonistic stance, to help revive NAM’s original mission. This can be realized through the establishment of a permanent secretariat for the movement. The slogan of the 16th edition of the summit is “Lasting peace through joint global governance.” This slogan can serve as a good starting point for the resumption of NAM’s mission of demanding that the rights of the oppressed be respected and that the hegemony of the oppressors be brought to an end. NAM should also continue to emphasize the need to revise the structure of the United Nations. This can be realized through obtaining one permanent seat on the UN Security Council, especially one which can meet the interests of the Muslim world. Mohammad Sadeq al-Hosseini is a political analyst and expert on the Arab world based in Tehran. (By Mohammad Sadeq al-Hosseini)