As you may remember from my most recent blog, In class we've been doing an activity in which we are assigned a character who has their own views and opinions. We read a document on the ideas of Reza Shah and formed opinions about it based on our character's economic status, governmental views, and religious influence. I was a 40 year old woman who was very poor. I was also recently introduced to the works of Ayatollah Khomeini.
But it was only one half of the class who was assigned a character. The other half was assigned a governmental position -- either Socialist, Democratic, or Religious. Their job was to give an initial speech stating their opinions as the leaders of the parties, then to walk around the class trying to influence individuals to vote for their party. Being a different character was very fun. It allowed me to interpret my own views and to make logical decisions based on them. For me, democracy was out of question right from the start because of my economic situation. Switching to a democracy wouldn't give me the money that I needed. And even if it DID, that wasn't their first priority as a government. It was then up between socialist and religious. I weighed the options and listened to both parties' representatives speeches. They both had very good reasons for me to vote for them. Religious promised a good, fruitful life and an even better afterlife. But I was a bit skeptical. I wasn't fully religious, just interested. The socialist group promised me equal wealth and the same life as everybody else. It wasn't as good a life as the religious party promised, but at least it was tangible. After weighing them for quite a while, I decided to go with the socialist group.
I thought that this was a really fun activity that incorporated our own interpretations of history and its effect on every day people. We're too young to vote right now, but this exercise made me realize how fuzzy the line is between different parties and how there are good and bad parts to every argument.
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