How are we all doing?

Less than half the world's people today have a say in the decisions that concern everyone. Most of them live in democracies. However much modern democracies differ, they share one ideal: citizens living in freedom, solidarity and equality. Iran has been fighting for the same for more than a hundred and twenty years: from the «House of Justice» of the Constitutional Revolution in 1285 and the first Majles, to women's vote in 1342, the city and village councils since 1377, and the streets of 1388 and 1401. But what Iran has today is not a democracy: candidates are vetted by a council nobody voted for, in forty-six years no woman has reached the presidential ballot, and in the last Majles election fifty-nine of every hundred stayed home. This site is about a free Iran: an Iran where these three values can be lived, and where big questions like water, inflation and inequality are settled by vote and debate, not by decree. New tools and ideas are available from today. Let's begin; it is worth it.

1285 · The Constitution and the first Majles: The sanctuary-takers wanted a «House of Justice». The electoral law composed the Majles of six estates.

1342 · Women's vote: Women voted in a Majles election for the first time, and six women entered the Majles.

1358 · Referendum and constitution: A referendum with one option: «Islamic Republic, yes or no»; no other form was on the ballot. Voting age: 15.

1370 · Approbatory supervision: The Guardian Council read the vetting of candidates as its own right.

1376 · The second of Khordad: Turnout near 80 percent in the presidential election.

1377 · The first councils: City and village councils were elected for the first time.

1385 · Voting age 18: The Majles raised the voting age from 15 to 18; the Guardian Council approved it the same week.

1388 · Election and protest: The presidential election and the protests that followed in the streets.

1394 · The List of Hope: The campaign «to change the male face of the Majles»; seventeen women entered the tenth Majles.

1398 · Citizenship through the mother: The children of an Iranian mother and a foreign father got a path to citizenship.

1401 · Autumn 1401: Nationwide protests.

1402 · Turnout 41 percent: A Majles election with the lowest turnout since 1357. The seventh council elections still have no date.

The world in the 2020s: eight billion people in nearly two hundred countries. About half of these countries are democracies of one kind or another. Despite new technologies, economic growth and many promises, freedom, equality and solidarity are often not guaranteed for each person. And nature usually loses. What can be done? How do we face the great global challenges? Do we need more democracy, a different democracy, or perhaps even less? Many roads are possible, but not all are desirable and some are contested. And what does a scenario look like in which democratic values no longer have a place? On the basis of scientific considerations and the views of people from different parts of society, we have written four stories: three in a free Iran, and one in an Iran that has kept to today's road. Once upon a time, in a future not so far away…

On the first night of Ordibehesht the neighbourhood's sports hall is full, but not for a match. This year the neighbourhood council has put a tenth of the district's development budget to the neighbourhood's vote: the pavement of the main street, the playground behind the school, or new pipes for the dead-end alley. Sara is sixteen and holds a ballot for the first time; the council voting age has been sixteen for three years. Her mother, who said «what's it to us» for twenty years, has come tonight to get the playground through. The result comes at eleven on the hall's door and in the neighbourhood channel: the playground, by seven votes. The municipality has until autumn and the council reports every month. It is slow work; it took two years to get even this tenth. But Sara now knows her neighbours' names. When the vote is about something you can see with your own eyes, how many more come?

The postman brought the envelope: «You have been selected by lot for the Zayandeh-rud citizens' assembly.» Reza, a bus driver in Isfahan, first thought it was a scam. Now it is week six. A hundred and twenty people, from Varzaneh to Chadegan, farmer and steelworker and teacher and student, sit round a big table every Thursday. One chair is empty and marked «the river»; another is for «those not yet born». Whoever wants a bigger share must speak first from those two chairs. Experts come and go; the decision is the assembly's. At the end of autumn a table signed by all goes to the Majles and the energy ministry: how many litres for the rice fields, how many for the steel works, how many for the wetland. Reza is a bus driver again, but once a month he checks the table. Do you trust a decision made by people like you more, or the decision of a representative you voted for?

In the third year of drought, authority over water was handed to a council of nine experts; no vote, no parliament, «until the crisis is over». Shares are set by an algorithm that reads satellite images and each region's use. It is fast: a decision that took two years in the Majles is issued in three days. The tankers arrive on time, network losses have halved, and nobody in Tehran has seen a water queue. In the upstream village the orchards' share has been cut to a third. The headman goes to the governor's office; they say «the algorithm». He writes to Tehran; the reply says «the model is optimal». Nobody is lying and nobody can say why. Protest has no path either, since the council is not elected and cannot be changed. Do you want the speed, if the price is that you cannot ask why?

Everything is in its place. The bus comes on time, the morning bread is fresh and the news looks the same every night. Decisions are taken above and carried out below; nobody wastes time on debate. Maryam, a teacher, no longer asks her class «what do you think?», because the right answer is known in advance. Her brother at the factory says it has got easier: no election, no list, no quarrel. Only sometimes at the table someone asks why the school's budget was halved, or why the water tanker did not come this week, and then there is silence. The queues are orderly. When everything is in its place, where is the room for a question?

At home, at work, on the building's board, at the football club or the nursery; everywhere, different opinions collide. Do we treat each other democratically? Do we make decisions together? And who sets the rules? There is still room to improve, no?

Everyone thinks differently. So reaching a shared solution is not easy. Why not give way sometimes, put yourself in others' place, and let the better argument convince you? Agreement is not always «compromise»; often it is well worth it.

Iran in the 1400s: the pandemic, sanctions, the water crisis, the blackouts of 1403, the protests of autumn 1401 and the wars of 1404 and 1405. Problems that smouldered for years burst out at once; among them the problems of politics and administration, accused of being slow, heavy and uncoordinated. But change is possible: new forms of cooperation, more flexible procedures and more democratic decision-making are being tried in places. This road looks slower at first, but in the long run it arrives sooner.

This experience's question: how could politics and administration in Iran act faster and more effectively against the water crisis? Five levers on the board, each with a place where it has been tried.

A basin citizens' assembly with a binding vote. Speeds up: Acceptance of hard decisions: when a hundred and twenty people from Varzaneh to Chadegan have signed, the municipality and the agriculture ministry have no excuse. Takes: Months of debate before any decision; elected representatives give up part of their authority. Where: France's Citizens' Convention for the Climate, 2019 to 2020: a hundred and fifty people by lot, a hundred and forty-nine proposals.

Authority over water to a basin council, not to a ministry in Tehran. Speeds up: The decision where the water is; no letter to Tehran and no waiting for a reply. Takes: Coordination between upstream and downstream, and fairness between provinces, which nobody but the centre guarantees. Where: Australia's Murray-Darling Basin Authority, 2008: one body for four states and a territory.

Open water data: dams, wells and shares, live and for everyone. Speeds up: Trust and compliance: a share everyone can see is broken less. Takes: The face of the managers who hid the shortage; constant argument over every number. Where: Spain's automatic hydrological information system: every basin's live data has been public since the 1990s.

A law with an expiry date: three years of trial, then review. Speeds up: The courage to try: when a law ends by itself, its opponents say yes more easily. Takes: Stability: the farmer and the factory plan for three years, not thirty. Where: The Texas Sunset Commission, 1977: every state agency must be re-approved every twelve years.

Emergency powers: a council of experts, no vote, «until the crisis is over». Speeds up: Everything: a share is issued in three days. Takes: The vote, the parliament, and anyone to answer the village headman; and the same council declares when the «crisis is over». Where: Cape Town, 2018: «Day Zero» was survived with a share of fifty litres a person and special powers for the municipality.

The courage to speak and to act. Civil society, both a brake on power and the foundation of strong democracies.

Fair working conditions, climate justice, press freedom: civic individuals and groups draw attention to urgent questions. The campaign to save Lake Urmia, the teachers' and pensioners' associations, charities like Mahak, lawyers and journalists. Their actions range from petitions and lawsuits to peaceful gatherings and strikes. All of it puts pressure on the state and big companies to respect rights, treat the environment more responsibly, or publish data. Freedom of speech and assembly must be protected so that this pressure does not subside.

Housing, transport, safe streets, and now tangled challenges like heating and health. A lot rests on the municipalities and city councils. City and village councils have been elected since 1377, and Tehran's neighbourhood councils are the institution closest to people's homes. Cities support each other in urban networks and are often more active than central governments in solving big problems, from pollution to water.

Officials should speak more clearly in conversations and explain more transparently how they reach political decisions.