Letter from the Heart

This letter published in Letter's section of Iranian.com in response to a rabid Islamist's article with a law degree from an American University, an IRI' apologist, living in the US. The author of the letter is a veteran of 8 year Iran-Iraq war. This letter is long but provides a wealth of knowledge about Iran, Iranian society, and the so-called Iranian revolution. It is rare in its kind and I was personally moved by it for many reasons. Perhaps someday, I will share them with you. Dear Mr Ershaghi

First let me thank you for taking the time to put your thoughts in writing for the rest of us to read. However I find it so ironic that those who suppress the voice of masses and prevent free media and free debate whenever their power allows them, have no problem to express their own suppressive thoughts on such free and open to all firms.

Before any thing else I would like to confirm that you have touched on some very important issues about the state of our country and the mentality of people inside and out of Iran and although I might not agree with all of your assessments but the importance of the points you have raised could not be debated.

Let me start my assessment by giving my total agreement with one important point that you made in your assessment.

The opposition groups outside Iran are not united. They are mostly are a bunch of incompetent self-centred cronies who have mostly got their own interest in mind and are not at all in touch with the realities of life inside Iran, or what is happening to its people. This is their biggest weakness and as you have rightly put it yourself many of them have lend themselves to other third parties and foreign governments who do not have the interest of Iranian people in mind.
I guess every body has his price, as yours was a seat on the Tehran University's board of lecturers.

Another very important point that I find my self in agreement with you is the fact that the West and specially US have not yet understood the nature of mullahs and the extent on their duplicity. For the past 28m years the West kept undermining them and refused to admit to their strengths or look for their real weak points and as a result they kept undermining the West and its efforts to deal with them efficiently. But that is another story for another day and definitely out of the scope of this discussion.

However as for the rest of your article, I found it to be extremely naïve twisted and so out of touch with the realities on the ground that kept me wondering if your brain have been frozen since 1979 and you have just come out of the state of hibernation.

It is so ironic that every mass murderer, suppressor, dictator and fascist always hides behind the masses and claims to be supported by the poor people in their victim society. This was the same about Hitler Stalin Mao and the 13 th Imam. When on the other hand it has always been the case about the true popular leaders that they have always stood in front of their nation and led them.

Especially when you claim that all the poor people of country are behind these mass murderer and the apposition is only confined to the wealthy people of northern Tehran. I personally find it as adding insult to injury, as you seem to believe just because we do not have a lot of money we must also lack brain and capability to think or evaluate and analyse these events for ourselves, or we do capable of being moderate and wanting to live a free life.

Just to put your mind in ease first let me to clear a few things about myself. I have been in Tehran less than 10 times in the past ten years and I have never even seen Niavaran.
The last time my family and I went to Caspian coast (Shomaal) was around 25 years ago when it was still affordable for the average Iranian to do so. And I have even been born in the very religious city of Mashhad.

The next time you come to Mashhad just come to Tabarsi Street and ask for the Javadyye Alley way as that is were my family roots are and my relatives still live. We live a simple but honest life and we do not have a lot of money to splash around.

Another important point that I want you to remember is the fact that at the time when you were doing your university education in US of A and living a life of convenience it was me and people like me who went to war and fought Saddam's army. I personally served in 21st Brigade.
However I did it out of love for my motherland and not to spread Khomeini's version of Islam or going to Karbala. As it was the case for me and many of my comrades, we saw it as our duty to defend their motherland.

We fought for 4 years and brought Saddam's army into its knees. Until 1984 when Saddam agreed to a UN peace accord and even Saudi Arabia agreed to pay compensation to Iran for all the damages of the war. But because of the selfishness of one stubborn man who wanted to go spread his power in the region we were made to fight a pointless war for another 6 years, which killed a generation and devastated our country socially and economically.

Now to see someone like you trying to take advantage of our sacrifices and twisting the truth in order to further their own personal ambition really sickens me to the stomach.

For the facts that I explained above, it makes me very qualified to be one of the masses and in case you have been hiding your head in your back side for the past 20 years I should inform you that I am not the only one in my social class who thinks like this.

I was born in a traditional Muslim family and my parents tried their best to raise me as a "good Muslim" but after 25 years of observing the Muslim hypocrisy and the crimes, which happened in my country under the banner of Islam, I became sick and tired of it and so I converted to Zartosht. Ironically I see my self more lucky than my friends and other people of my generation who are still left in the limbo of carrying the title of Muslim but not truly believing in its doctoring or even resenting it.

In your article you made several claims about the fruits of revolution, where it stands and the faith of its enemies. As to an untrained eye or a person who has not actually lived it Iran and is not in touch with the reality of life here you might be able to get away with these claims But to a person like me it is noting but a house of cards and as soon as you pool one card out the whole thing will collapse.

But first things first.

Before any thing let me to remind you about a few fruits of 28 years suppression that you forgot to mention. Because I believe as a grass root member of this society who deals with its social problems day in day out, that makes me more than qualified to remind you of a few of those out comes:
1- More than 10 million unemployed.
2- Double digit inflation
3- Incapability to refine our own oil and having to buy petrol from abroad
4- Record level of drug addicts
5- Record number of young girls who resort to prostitution because of poverty
6- An economy in ruin
7- A grim international reputation, as every body regards us as terrorists
8- Record number of young people fleeing the country to become homeless refugees around the world
9- Child poverty at its highest level. Even worst that the time of Ghaajaar dynasty
10- Ten years of pointless war which left our economy industry and human resources it ruin

And this is only the tip of the iceberg as the list goes on and on and on.
However may be the most naïve statement that I encountered in your article was the following
"The fact that the majority of the country is young is more of an economic issue than anything else, but somehow this is always transformed into a political issue. "

In this argument you seem to try to distinguish between the political and economical affair of the country. Which leaves one wondering about the authenticity of your education or the extent that you are willing to twist the fact and close your eyes the facts of life just to serve your own personal interests and ambitions.

To any body who have ever opened a book on economy sociology and politic it should be obvious the political and economical events of a country are so inter related that they could only be regarded as one and the same.

In fact it is the first and foremost duty of the government, the politicians and leader of any country to make sure that the economy is in a viable and healthy status as everything else is driven from that.

Just read The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. What people want from their leaders is good managed economy, which creates jobs and wealth for those who are willing to work for it. They want such economy to first exist and be sustained and then its fruits ( i.e. tax revenue) to be used as basis for building other social institutions and infrastructures such as health education, welfare and a police which serves the people and provides them with security instead of suppressing and beating them up.

We do not want our leader to prepare us for the dooms day as we already have got Nostradamus for that. We do not want our leaders to preach religion as we already have the clerics and religious institutions for that. We do not want or leaders and security services to interfere in the utmost private aspects of our lives as we feel we are mature enough to decide for our selves. At the time when we have record poverty in the country we definitely do not want our leaders to waist our money on every shadowy terrorist group around the glob just to buy themselves some useless publicity.

As for your assessment of the faith of the enemies of revolution let me clear a few points for you.
First of all, MKO was the group who started the revolution and they were the ones who rallied around Khomeini and introduced him to Iranian people. I was there heard all their slogans and saw them in action during the revolution. Now can you claim the same thing?

They though that they can use Khomeini to get into power and then push him aside, but Khomeini was more dubious than they have taken him for and in the end he turned the table on them. Just like every other revolution this one's first victims became its own children. However I must admit that I believe that MKO got what they deserve and they deserve what they got, for betraying their people and country and I loos no sleep over their misery and misfortune.
As for Saddam Hussein he was noting but a poppet of the West who came to power by his coup against Ahmed Hassan Al-Baker in 1977 (with the support of The West).

His time came to an end when he started to bit the hand of his masters and his doom was when he started to deal Oil in Euro instead of American Dollar. An action, which would have inevitably resulted in the breaking of the Petro-dollar-Arms cycle (Now, I leave it to you do more investigation on that).

As for the Taliban, their end came when they started to pose a treat to The West by siding with Al -Quade and even more importantly when they were seen as an obstacle to the Caspian Sea oil pipeline to transfer Russian oil to the Persian Gulf.

Their end had noting do with the incompetent mullahs. It is simply ridicules and arrogant to try and claim credit for these events (as it is not even attempted by the people in the establishment).

Finally, on your remarks about the export of your disaster of revolution and its shadowy allies around the world. These are bunch of opportunist terrorists who are noting but "Magase Dore Shirini". They only coexist with the mullahs because Mullahs pay them well. As we all saw, after the Lebanon's war Hezbollah was paying $1000 per person to the people in South Lebanon.

This was the money given to them by the mullahs. The money, which should have been spent to develop our own country's infrastructure, health service and economy instead. The money, which could have tackled child poverty in Iran and help young families to get back on their feet. But instead it was paid to bribe Hezbollah in order to get their support. The support that could neither be useful nor even be relied on. Now it is needless to repeat the same story with Hamas.

These are the people who have no problem to betray their own, as they have done it several times before. If you doubt, me just have another look at the faith of Arafat and Rafigh Hariri. Now what chance do you think you have when some one else like Syria Saudi Arabia or even U.S come along and through them a bigger bone, are you really naïve enough to believe that they would still remain loyal to you or are you ready to admit that they would be the first ones to betray you.

Khomeini was a selfish greedy Indian bustard who had no regard or feeling for this country and its people. That was why he did not feel any thing when he was coming to devastate this land. In fact right to the end, after his policies killed more than one million of our people and destroyed our economy and country's infrastructure still he had no felling of remorse or otherwise and kept being the biter stubborn monster that he was, right to the end.
Areyo Barzan

P.S. Mr. Ershaghi write for "Iraniantruth".com

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A Discussion About stoning, Iranian revolution and cultural relativism

Below is a very important piece that addresses the "useful idiots'", the savvy (savage non-Iranian) Islamists' and in general racist cultural relativists' various amoral arguments:

Pleateau of Iran:

Some of you may have already heard that according to Islamic Republic judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi in Tehran, the stoning of the man, Jafar Kiani, was carried out in a village in Qazvin province (northwestern Iran). This punishment was allegedly for commiting adultery.

As a result of this recent news, someone (a non-Iranian) made the following comment elsewhere. Note: the comment was not directed at me, but I did respond to the commentator. I want to focus on the content and nature of both the comment (not the person) and my response to it since I believe they are sufficiently important to republish them here:

The Comment:

“Again: Would you be outraged if Saddam Hussein was stoned???

Capital punishment whether it’s stoning, hanging, electrocution, or lethal injection is not torture. It may cause pain but that’s not the primary reason capital punishment is enforced. The primary reason is to put to death the criminal. Nice try but the issue is not whether someone values life more than marriage. You can value both. The issues are what is valued in a soceity, what crimes constitutes a capital offense and why?

Laws reflect and punishments for breaking those laws tell you what is valued in a soceity. Why shouldn’t adultery be a capital offense? Is adultery even wrong to you? Try not to name call when you answer the questions. I’m just asking. I don’t think anybody, outside of being a Christian, can give me a sound reason why adultery should not be a capital offense.

My Response:

You have raised some very interesting, but complex points as far as Iran under the ruling Mullahs is concerned.

1. Whether capital punishment, in general, should exist is debatable and I don’t think it is the sole issue here. Personally, I don’t believe in a death verdict/sentence for adultery.

2. Regardless of capital punishment and death sentence (as ultimate verdicts), the process of arriving at such verdict and the method by which the death sentence is carried out are equally important.

Are you aware that stoning prior to mullah rule was not part of the law in Iran? Bear in mind that I’m referring to 3000 year plus history of Iran, not just the Shah’s era. Do you also realize that the act of stoning is often performed by a group of people including children? Stoning is in fact torture which leads to death. It is a slow and painful death/execution. Stones used to hit the person must be of certain shape and size. Using big stones that can lead to instant death are against the Islamic law (sharia) in Iran.

Moreover, the basis for stoning a person is a ritual which is practiced by muslim pilgrims visiting Mecca. It is called “stoning of the Devil/Satan”. During this ritual, pilgrims must personally look for and gather appropriate shape/size stones, bring them back to an appropriate location and begin to throw them at a pretend-to-be devil as an act of denouncing and renouncing the Devil (Satan). However, there are vast differences between stoning a pretend-to-be-devil vs. a real person.

3. The judiciary, legal system and courts, in general, in Mullah ruled Iran are absolutely dysfunctional. Two different people can be sentenced to two different punishments for exactly the same crime depending on how much each one is favored by those in charge of passing the sentence. If stoning for adultery was to be applied across the board, then many of the ruling mullahs and their cohorts should have stoned to death long ago. Not to mention that many of the articles which currently exist in Islamic government constitution are not adhered to or are generally so vague and codified that one can interpret them any way one wants to and is expedient. They are highly subjective. Regardless, stoning, as a form of punishment for a capital offense, is actually mentioned in IR constitution including articles 83, 102 and 104.

4. “what is valued in a soceity, what crimes constitutes a capital offense and why?” Adultery is not valued in Iranian society, but nor is stoning. Stoning is valued and enforced by Mullahs in the society. There lies the difference. However, I don’t dispute that certain groups actually enjoy it such as: Bassij thugs and those who get their kicks out of torture and killing of others. I consider them sadists and mentally unstable i.e. psychotic.

5. How do we define adultery in Mullah ruled Iran? Have you heard of temporary marriage “seegheh”? Under sharia (Islamic law in Iran) with a few words, you can become temporarily married to someone for any period of time. Women often practice it due to economic/financial hardship. Even married women, whose husbands may be unable to provide for them and the family because of drug addiction (Iran has a very high percentage of drug addicts) can be temporarily married in order to feed their family and children. Of course, “seegheh” to me is not only a legalized form of prostitution, but it can also be construed as adultery. Men in current Iran can have 4 wives at the same time. Additionally, men can have up to 12 “seegheh” i.e. concubines. Traditionally, the practice of polygamy and “seegheh” - an arab/muslim practice - are frowned upon by the mainstream in Iran and never existed in Persian society or culture, certainly not prior to Islamic laws being enforced in the society and in people’s personal lives.

In conclusion, I think your reasoning, as far as mullah ruled Iran is concerned is rather simplistic. And, I hope you will find the above informative."

Also below I have selected a few sample of my previous posts regarding the amoral/racist/fascistic cultural relativist argument and their uninformed assertion about the Iranian revolution: This might seem repetitive to those who have been a long time reader of my blog. However, I think they're worth re-posting for my new readers who have shown interest in learning about Iran and the Iranian revolution and how it was hijacked by Khomein's thugs:

"Cultural relativists say Iranian society is Muslim, implying that people choose to live the way they are forced to. It's as if there are no differences in beliefs in Iran, no struggles, no communists, no socialists, and no freedom-lovers.

If so, why have 150,000 people been executed for opposing the Islamic Republic of Iran? If it’s the entire society's culture and religion, why does the Islamic regime need such extensive tools for repression? If it’s people’s beliefs, why does the regime control their private lives - from their sexual activities, to what video they watch, to what music they listen to?

If the entire society is Muslim, why did Zoleykhah Kadkhoda enter a voluntary sexual relationship for which she was buried in a ditch and stoned? If it is people's culture, why did the residents of Bukan revolt against the stoning and save her life? Why are thousands of women rounded up in the streets for “improper” veiling if its their culture and religion? How come, after two decades of terror and brutality, the universities are still not Islamic, according to an official of the regime? Though it's untrue, even if every person living in Iran had reactionary beliefs, it still wouldn’t be acceptable. If everyone believes in the superiority of their race, does that make it okay?

Cultural relativists say that we must respect people's culture and religion, however despicable. This is absurd and calls for the respect of savagery. Yes, human beings are worthy of respect but not all beliefs must be respected. If culture allows a woman to be mutilated and killed to save the family “honor,” it cannot be excused. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, religion rules and has become the mass murderer of people. If religion says that women who disobey should be beaten, that flogging is acceptable, and that women are deficient, it must be condemned and opposed"...more:

http://www.maryamnamazie.com/articles/cultural_relativism_fascism.html

Also Please read "Lost Wisdom" by Abbas Milani to realize that Iran was never run by Islamic laws (Sharia) despite its 1400 years of occupation by Islamist until the Islamic Republic took hold of Iran in the last 29 years.

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Wisdom-Rethinking-Modernity-Iran/dp/0934211906


For the actual 3500 year history and culture I highly recommend Tom Holland’s “Persian fire : the first world empire and the battle for the West”.

http://www.amazon.com/Persian-Fire-First-Empire-Battle/dp/0385513119/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-1368292-5112658?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173677731&sr=8-1

My plea to leftis liberals: For God's or humanity's sake stop politicizing human sufferings for your own political agenda and expediencey.

You can also read all my posts regarding Persian culture of 3000 plus years and not just the past 28 years:

http://fleetingperusal.blogspot.com/search/label/Persian%20Empire


Must read articles regarding the Iranian revolution:

http://www.democratiya.com/interview.asp?issueid=9

Janet Afary's piece on Iranain nation's struggle for democracy, dating back to 100 years ago:

"Janat Afary and Kevin Anderson give us glimpses into the 100-year old struggle of Iranians to gain democracy and liberty. A long and almost thoroughly researched article but well worth the read. Some highlights:


What went wrong? When reform-minded Iranians discuss this question, the conversation often turns to the 1906-11 Constitutional Revolution, widely seen as a missed opportunity for democratic modernization. This has been especially true in the past couple of years, as its centenary is celebrated by Iranians at home and abroad.


The Constitutional Revolution was the first democratic revolution to take place in the Middle East, and perhaps the most important. The revolution established a freely elected Parliament and a Constitution with civil liberties, severely limited the powers of the shah and promoted the establishment of women's schools and councils. It also set up a state-based judiciary that challenged the traditional authority of the Shiite clerics. As Yann Richard, France's leading Iran specialist, observes in his latest book L'Iran: Naissance d'une république islamique (Birth of an Islamic Republic), from the late eighteenth century through the mid-nineteenth century the Shiite clergy had provided a counterweight to the monarchy.

But with the emergence of two heterodox offshoots of Shiism in the mid-nineteenth century, Babism and Bahaism--both of which challenged social hierarchies, including gender inequality--the clerical establishment drew closer to the state in order to combat these dissident religious movements. When the Constitutional Revolution broke out, some influential clerics sided with the state; one of them, Sheikh Fazlullah Nuri, was executed by the revolutionaries. Yet the leading clerics were by no means united in opposition to the revolution: Quite a few embraced the changes, with some going so far as to endorse Nuri's execution.


As Hamid Dabashi recounts in Iran: A People Interrupted, this "revolution in the very moral fabric of a nation" was, like most later progressive movements in Iran, marked by the participation of its ethnic and religious minorities--Azeris, Armenians, Bahais and Jews. The revolution also saw an unprecedented flowering of Iranian literature. Hoping to build what Dabashi calls "an anti-colonial modernity," the great writer Ali Akbar Dehkhoda launched a campaign in the press against oppressive social customs (especially regarding gender). Socialist ideas from the 1905 Russian Revolution entered the country through Baku and Tbilisi... Much more

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070716/afary

http://fleetingperusal.blogspot.com/2007/07/iranian-impasse.html

If you want to see what a stoning to death looks like, then click here. But be warned.

Also read, Potkin's reflections on Lenin and the recent stoning in Iran as a mother of three children awaits her scheduled stoning to be carried out by the savage Islamists.

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Everything You want to Know About Iran, Islam, and the Islamic Republic

Ladan Boroumand is one of the most orginial thinkers of our time. Professor Alan Johnson, the founder and editor of Democratiya, a co-author of The Euston Manifesto and Unite Against Terror, interviews this fascinating author and human rights activists. The article is a bit long but full of information and original thoughts you rarely hear from political pundits. The interview also takes you step by step through the debacle of Iranian revolution, which led to the totalitarian establishment of theocracy instead of its original intent, Democracy. Absoulte MUST READ!!Only a few of very important paragraphs:

[...] Human Rights and Democracy in Iran: An Interview with Ladan Boroumand


Détente or Regime-Change?

Alan Johnson: Your view of the reform movement contrasts with that of Ray Tekeyh's in Foreign Affairs in Summer 2007. In urging the West to abandon regime change and pursue détente with Iran he argued the Iranian democratic opposition should be cut adrift on two (mutually contradictory, it seems to me) grounds: it is 'non-existent' and it is an obstacle to détente. Democratisation, he argued, should be pursued indirectly through bolstering 'moderate' conservatives such as Larijani, and by the long-term benefits of 'integrating Iran into the world economy and global society'. How do you respond to that argument?

Ladan Boroumand: There are several points to make here. First 'regime change' is an unfortunate expression. It really doesn't mean anything. It does not tell you what will come after. I mean, there was a regime change in Iraq. When the West has diplomatic leverage it should use it only with reference to 'human rights' and 'democratic principles'. This would leave it less vulnerable to criticism.

Second, what people like Tekeyh are promoting is really just the old traditional realpolitik based on the absolute sovereignty of nation-states. His 'solution' has already been tried in the 1990s and it failed. At the time of Rafsanjani that was exactly the stance taken by all western countries, including the United States. But they could not persuade the Islamic Republic to stop supporting terrorism in the region, or behave like a normal nation state. The plain fact is that the Iranian government is not a normal nation-state. Khomeini's people erased the notion of 'nation' from the name of the country's political institutions – the National Assembly was re-baptised 'Islamic Assembly'. There is no 'nation' in the constitutional text of Iran. It is a universalist Islamist regime that has an international agenda.

Third, we must return to the question of 'the West'. The western polities are also a mutating phenomenon. They are in the midst of very profound changes – the sovereignty of the nation-state is giving way to new transnational political and economic forms. One of the reasons for inconsistency and contradiction – such a tragic paralysis with regard to pushing forward democratic agendas - is that foreign policy is pushed in contradictory directions due to this unfinished political mutation in the West itself.

We must also acknowledge the problems of 'interventions' from above. We have, thus far, a failed intervention in Iraq, and Afghanistan is not a real democracy. There are serious arguments about how to pursue pro-democracy policies and we human rights advocates and democrats should think of ways of organising at the level of international civil society to make us independent of the short-term political agendas of governments. We should organise a vast network of solidarity that could provide moral support, even material support to people struggling for democracy. It is vitally important for the Iranian reform movement to know that it has supporters in the West beyond President Bush (who is quite popular in Iran).

Fourth, the West has an ideological stake here. To treat the Iranian reform movement in the way Tekeyh suggests would only weaken the West's own ideological foundations and encourage Islamist terrorists. And, anyway, why should the Islamic regime be allowed to support the Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, or other groups in Iraq, while the democratic polities are not allowed to support their fellow democrats!


The Politics of Iranian 'Elections'

Alan Johnson: You have pointed out that Khatami's election victories were 'largely inconsequential' because 'while reform kept winning votes, the unelected organs of the state kept tightening the screws'. The election boycott movement emerged in the 1990s because high turnouts had only 'strengthened the regime's international position without bringing any increase in political freedom'. However, boycotts led to Ahmadinejad. (A turnout in 2003 of a mere 12% in Tehran - an Islamist rump - gave us Mayor Ahmadinejad, and, in 2005, President Ahmadinejad.) So how should progressives treat elections in Iran? Are elections still 'a subversive element within a closed ideological system'? Was the 2005 boycott a strategic error? What should democrats do in 2008?

Ladan Boroumand: The Islamic Republic confiscates elections, empties them of their real meaning and turns them into their opposite. Genuinely free elections are an institution that crystallises on the political level the autonomy of the individual. The Iranian regime uses elections to crystallise the negation of the autonomy of the individual. A Guardian decides who is apt to rule you and how they will rule you and which laws they will impose on you. And the regime then calls on you to go and choose who is to do all this to you, from a range of people they have pre-selected! When you play this game you become an accomplice of the denial of your own autonomy. It has been a major ideological success of the regime to trick citizens to go and vote.

Many who have suffered terribly at the hands of the regime do vote, of course. I have a friend who voted for Rafsanjani, knowing full well that Rafsanjani killed his uncle. Many people feel like prisoners, and look to voting to create a 'bigger window in the cell', so to speak. I do not judge them - it's a moral and individual choice. But Havel says you pay a price when you become an accomplice in your own persecution. We have to defend with all our strength the dignity of democratic institutions and recapture these institutions from the hands of the regime that has confiscated them.


The meaning of Ahmadinejad

Alan Johnson: You have described the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as 'a man who stands squarely at the nexus of radical-Islamist ideology and terrorism'. What is the political meaning of his rise to power, so soon after the high hopes of the reform movement? And how should we interpret the regime's recent actions – the pursuit of the bomb, the Holocaust denial conferences, the 'wipe Israel off the map' rhetoric, the kidnapping of the 15 British sailors? Are these actions the expressions of a newly confident Islamic Republic or desperate efforts to escape deep problems?

Ladan Boroumand: The election of Ahmadinejad is directly linked to the reformist episode. Khatami's new reformist language stimulated the opposition while his drive to modernise Iran's image on the international scene forced the regime to water down its radical ideological rhetoric and rein in, rhetorically at least, its violent agents. But this created new dangers for the regime. The regime risked alienating its own agents causing them to waiver in their loyalty or even fear their own arrest. The regime was running the risk of losing them, psychologically. Now, if elections and modernisation are bringing many electors to the polls, and the world is being given the impression of a 'popular' Iranian regime, well OK, that is a risk worth running to gain international recognition. But once the reform movement grew, and once the boycott began to bite, the regime said, 'Well, we must nurture our own base'.

Under Ahmadinejad, once again the police and security forces can shoot people with impunity and women can be harassed in the streets. His rhetoric about Israel is another expression of this strengthening of the regime's orthodoxy. (Actually, it is a less euphemistic expression of what the Islamic Republic has always advocated.) His policies are aimed at remobilising the hard core supporters of the regime who had been disheartened by 8 years of Khatami's ambiguous rhetoric. America's difficulties in Iraq have certainly boosted the regime self confidence, but this is deceptive. Since the election of Ahmadinejad Iran has faced three major popular uprisings in Kurdistan, Azerbaijan and Khuzistan. And it has been challenged by student activists, the women rights movement, teachers', and sporadic strikes and demonstrations by workers.


Part 3: Reforming Islam

Alan Johnson: Let's talk about the reform of Islam. The Iranian human rights lawyer, Shirin Ebadi argues that 'an interpretation of Islam that is in harmony with equality and democracy is an authentic expression of faith'. Drafting a women's rights law she relied on the central texts of Islam taught in the seminaries of the holy city of Qom, and proved that 'a basic right for a women could be guaranteed within an Islamic framework of government provided those in government were inclined to interpret the faith in the spirit of equality'. Like Saad Eddin Ibrahim, interviewed in Democratiya 8, she defends the idea of reinterpretation, or 'ijtihad', to create a space for 'adapting Islamic values and traditions to our lives in the modern world'. However, she also warns that ijtihad is 'a tricky foundation on which to base inalienable, universal rights' – 'patriarchal men and powerful authoritarian regimes who repress in the name of Islam can exploit ijtihad to reinterpret Islam in the regressive unforgiving manner that suits their sensibilities and political agendas'. Is Islam compatible with democracy, equality and women's rights? How can the gates of ijtihad be opened?

Ladan Boroumand: There are several questions here. First, is religious truth compatible with democracy? You can say 'yes' and 'no'. 'No', because democracy is based on the assumption that truth is unattainable. Individuals are fallible - what they think is the truth might not be the truth. Democracies organise so each person can individually speak truth but not impose it on the society. But religions insist they know the truth and represent it. So there is always tension between religious faith and democratic beliefs. On the other hand, 'yes', because according to all Abrahamic religions God is transcendent and there is nothing sacred about the world, which is only the creation of God. Nature is just nature, and man is sovereign on earth. Now, once man is defined as a free-willed entity that will be accountable to God after death, we have the conceptual ingredients for democratic systems. I know from my own studies of the theological origins of human rights that monotheism has been a key element in the nurturing and development of democratic philosophy. A nature that is profane, and a man defined by reason, fallibility, and freewill - historically these elements have come from Abrahamic religions.

The difference between Islam and Christianity is the difference in the role of the Prophet. Muhammad ruled the political community whereas Christ thought his dominion was not in this world. And that is what allowed Christianity to evolve. In the space evacuated by Christ, men could make human-made laws and deal with their temporal lives. We have a problem in Islam with Sharia law. A profound reform is necessary, but it is also possible. In some areas, Islam is more progressive than Christianity, particularly in the area of gender, because ontologically, in Islam, men and women were created equal, from the same earth, whereas in Christianity woman was created from the spare rib of the man. In dignity and creation man and women are absolutely equal in Islam. You can argue from the ontology of Islam to a reform of Sharia law.

But a reformation of Islam will require profound intellectual debate among theologians. And here is a problem. Christianity has a much stronger intellectual backbone than Islam – there have been thinkers of the stature of St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, the debates of the nominalists in the 13th and 14th centuries, the example of William of Ockham, and the controversies about the status of human beings on earth fought between the Papacy and the Empire. All of this intellectual tumult created elements for a philosophical debate that ended in the social contract. We just don't have this kind of background in the Islamic tradition. That's why it would be very fruitful for Muslim theologians and thinkers to know these debates. One of the projects we should support is the translation of the political and theological debates that took place at the end of the Middle Ages, which were really the key to the birth of democratic ideologies.

Perhaps the Shia are more open to ijtihad at the moment. They have the example of the imams who renounced political power. The tradition of the twelfth imam is that he did not go after the power. The only person who waged war and has become a revolutionary hero for Muslims today is the third imam, Hussein. But if you read the traditional stories about Hussein and the war he waged in Karbala you can draw a totally opposite conclusion. The original texts tell that on the eve of the final battle Hussein conversed with God and was given two options; to win the war and rule the community of the faithful, or to be killed and join Him, God. Between the two options – temporal power and joining his friend, God – Hussein chose to be killed. And this could be the symbolic myth we need - the religious leader, the heir to the prophet, renounces political power for the love of God.

Alan Johnson: It seems likely that Tony Blair will set up a Foundation after he leaves office and one of its aims will be to stimulate inter-faith dialogue.

Ladan Boroumand: There is a problem right now with traditional theological studies. They are really boring – how to wash your hands, and so on. They spend a lot of their time on nonsense. So intelligent elements of society are drawn to modern studies – engineering, law, and so on. Those who go to religious studies are not necessarily the brightest minds. It is very important to create a space where bright minds will be drawn to the intellectual challenge of theological reform and have the opportunity to study Judaism and Christianity and the debates of these traditions. But we need to be careful. Those interested in the real debate are often in hiding, or are not well known or are scared. The space for inter-faith dialogue must not be confiscated by the well-funded Wahhabists, and other brands of totalitarian Islam, who will seek to stop an authentic dialogue.


'Leninism in Islamist Dress'

Alan Johnson: You have described the Sayyid Qutb's ideology as 'Leninism in Islamist dress' and noted the western 'revolutionary' language in Sayyid Abu'l A Mawdudi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami-e-Pakistan. Modern Islamism, you insist, marks the continuing influence of a modern Jacobin-totalitarian European ideology of the 'virtuous revolutionary minority'. You identify a lineage running 'from the guillotine, and the Cheka to the suicide bomber'. Can you please explain your thinking about the relation of the European Jacobin tradition to European totalitarianism and contemporary Islamism?

Ladan Boroumand: They are so many points of continuity. For instance, to read the Iranian newspapers in 1979 and 1980 was to read a 'Leninist' discourse, but instead of 'the communist ideal' we had 'the Islamist ideal'. In both cases you could detect a power that saw itself as God on earth, organised as an all-powerful state, denying the right to individual belief, and reserving the right to define truth about and for the individual. The Iranian regime would look into the eyes of a believer and say 'you are not a true believer, you are not a true Muslim, and you are at war with God'. This was straight out of the Moscow Trials. It was not enough for the person to 'I am a Muslim, I do believe in God, but I don't believe in you'. That distinction was not allowed to exist, just as it was not possible, as Trotsky put it, to be right against the Party. Another point of continuity was the revolutionary tribunals of the Iranian regime, which were exactly like the Soviet trials and before them, the French Revolutionary tribunals. And of course the status of the leader in the Islamic Republic is very similar to the status of the Leader in fascist or communist systems.

And we have not paid enough attention to the role of 'sacrifice' in Islamism or its roots in the death-cults of the European totalitarian tradition. One of the major achievements of Abrahamic religion was to put an end to human sacrifice for Gods. The symbolic event, of course, is when the Angel stops Abraham from sacrificing his son for God. Suicide bombing is reinstituting human sacrifice. This would be outrageous to the Prophet - we have no precedent for that kind of behaviour. It is heresy. In all of this Islamism is more like the modern totalitarian death-cults than a religious faith.

Alan Johnson: Since 9/11 the consequences of Islamism for the West have been plain. But you have written with passion of the tragic consequences of Islamism for Islamic societies, arguing that '[We have] lost the keys to our own culture' as a 'degenerate Leninism … pass[es] itself off as the true expression of a great monotheistic religion'.

Ladan Boroumand: Totalitarianism in the west did not arise from the confiscation of a religion. It did so in our culture for a number of reasons. First, Islam lacks a formal organised church as an authoritative institution. Second, we lacked the rich philosophical and intellectual inheritance enjoyed by the West. Third, we experienced a rapid modernisation and a turbulent shift from tribal monarchies to nation-states. Fourth, we inherited political institutions from the West and did not go through the intellectual, political and socio-cultural struggle of inventing them. Fifth, latterly we have been awash with forms of 'revolutionary' ideology, as the West was. So we were poorly equipped to defend ourselves against the ideological attack of the Islamists. Moreover, the traditional religious seminaries had been more or less deserted by intelligent people and became stultifying places. They could not resist Khomeini's assault. They were outraged by Khomeini but they could not respond intellectually.

Alan Johnson: Is it your view that to defend and advance democracy we must - in part - defend Islam against Islamism? That we need to frame Islamism as having imported the worst of the West – the totalitarian idea – against which a reformed Islam and an internationalist democratic impulse must join forces to defeat? I'd like to talk about this as you strike me as one of the very few people who seek to think strategically about the battle of ideas we need to wage and win.

Ladan Boroumand: As a liberal and secularist I am not the best person to defend Islam against impostors. As a student of political ideas however, I believe deconstructing Islamism in the name of Islam would be a good strategy. There are now a new generation of theologians who are more learned, and deplore the manipulation of the faith by Islamists. Many have non-theological backgrounds in engineering and other modern disciplines. There are religious thinkers in Iran who have put forward alternatives. One is Mohammad Modjtahed Shabestari who is thinking religion in terms of human rights and believes there is no contradiction. This movement is just emerging and should be nurtured. These thinkers are persecuted and the West should seek a protective role. For instance, a religious scholar Iran who was a feminist spent years working on the texts, finding a basis for equality between men and women. In a blink of an eye they stormed into his house, arrested and defrocked him, and confiscated all his notes. We have not heard from him since 2000.

Alan Johnson: How can we protect these reformist theologians?

Ladan Boroumand: In Europe protection came as a by-product of the tension between the Papacy and the Empire. The Imperial Court would protect those theologians who argued against the Pope's right to control temporal life and political power. If the worldly Princes had not protected these theologians they would have been burned at the stake. So what the West could do today is to create safe spaces for these debates to take place, free from the assaults of the revolutionary Islamists. We should have seminaries in the West to stimulate a real dialogue. I do not mean a culturally relativistic polite exchange of pleasantries, but challenging debate of the kind we witnessed in the 19th century between Ernest Renan and Jamal-el-din afghani. Renan wrote a piece sharply criticising Islam and instead of taking umbrage, burning embassies or beheading hostages, Afghani took his pen and responded to him. We should be uncompromising about freedom of expression if we want a real debate to take place.


Part 4: The Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation

Alan Johnson: You co-founded and help to run The Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation for the promotion of human rights and democracy in Iran http://www.abfiran.org/ How did you come to set it up and what are its goals?

Ladan Boroumand: The Foundation was created in March 2001 by my sister, Roya Boroumand and myself. We talked earlier about our father's assassination as an encounter with evil and how, slowly, we learned to live again. But the feeling of guilt never left us. The four children are all still dealing with this and we all believe that it is our duty to make sure that justice is done. When we saw the changes in Iran in the 1990s, and the rise of a new generation that wants democracy, we decided the time was right to set up the Foundation. We had long had this in mind.

Alan Johnson: Please tell me about the Foundation's memory project for victims of the Islamic Republic – Omid.

Ladan Boroumand: In 1982 we published a report 'Iran: In Defence of Human Rights'. At that time we were outraged that each political party was defending the rights of its own 'martyrs' while supporting the execution of those outside their ranks. We realised the problem was not just persecution by the Islamists but the failure of much wider layers of Iranian society to understand that no one's rights could be protected unless everyone's rights were protected.

Omid is a bi-lingual virtual memorial, library and resource-centre. We seek to list every person killed by the Islamic Republic of Iran and create a file and a virtual memorial to them, telling the story of how and why he or she was killed. The only common denominator is that each victim is a human being who was killed while the due process of law was violated and his or her rights as a defendant were denied. It is our way of paying homage to the victims and to posthumously restore their rights.

Omid (HOPE in English) is our way to remedy the irremediable. Evil consists in the eclipse of humanity and in Omid we can acknowledge each victim's humanity and create a space for empathy. We provide their loved ones with a forum to talk about them and even to mount the defence that they were not allowed to mount when they were alive. We are also sending a message to the killers: here are the people you wanted to erase from the surface of the earth and they live on in a virtual world and they are demanding justice.

We want justice for our father but we wont get it if we don't fight for the right to justice for all fathers, all brothers, all mothers, all sisters, and all children. There is no right for us if there is no right for them. Our individual interest will be protected only when theirs is too. We want to tell our fellow citizens that we understand this, and invite them to understand it. And we want to send a message to the world about the Islamic Republic of Iran: this regime pretends to be an 'Islamic' regime but has killed thousands and thousands of Muslims; it pretends to be popular but rests on violence.

Grief is profoundly unsettling. You can collapse, but you can also be overwhelmed by the need to understand and act. Your mind can become very open to learning. We want people to visit Omid and to learn - about human rights and how to argue for them. So we have also created a virtual library, and are translating the most important human rights instruments and classical texts on democracy. It is a work on progress. We have also dedicated a collection of the library to the memoirs of former prisoners, to tell their story. We also offer scholars and activists a resource bank of information about the Iranian pro-democracy movement.

We have had over 400 people completing online forms, telling the story of their loved ones, many from the Islamic Republic of Iran. We interact with them without knowing them. They send pictures of their loved ones and we complete the case of each person slowly by interacting with the victims. Omid is the initiative of the Boroumand Foundation but we want it to be the project of the Iranian nation one day.

Alan Johnson: What are you working on now?

Ladan Boroumand: At the Foundation we are working on the translation of democratic classics. Right now we are translating John Locke's Second Treatise, Vaclav Havel's The Power of the Powerless, and some of The Federalist papers. I am also working on an article for The Journal of Democracy assessing the prospects for the civil society movement in Iran. Later I would like to write a book based on our work at Omid, about the pattern of violence exerted by totalitarian regimes.

Visit Omid (HOPE IN ENGLISH) Memorial in defense of human rights here.

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Warning to my Trukish Readers

It appears that I have many readers from Turkey who are reading my post on Iran before and after 1979 bloody revolution, which plunged Iran and the Iranians into a Medieval age of shocking violence and brutality against women and men. Here are some old newspaper clippings where Ayatollah Khomeini lied and deceived the nation into accepting the Islamic form of government.

Note that Khomeini only said that the Hejab in Iran will not be mandatory after millions of secular women took to the streets in 1980 and demonstrated against the new Islamic decree of Khomeini.

Khomeini in an attempt to calm the unrest, lied to women and announced a few days later that "Hejab will not be compulsory or Mandatory".

Then in another newspaper clipping, Khomeini declares that he is not interested in "governing" and becoming a "political Leader".

In the third newspaper clipping, Khomeini says, "In Islam there is no dictatorship". Keep in mind that Khomeini and his Islamic party had not yet usurped the power. For all intents and purposes, Khomeini was lying to Iranians to exploit religious feeling and build more consensus among different groups in order to fool them into accepting Islamic form of government, which had nothing to do with what Iranians perceived to be as Islam for they have lived in a secular society.

The consequences of these bold lies were that even the secular/liberal political parties decided to make an alliance with Khomeini in the spirit of cooperation to move the country forward. But as we all know, the rest is history. The next two years immediately after ousting the Shah, the secular Iranians increasingly found themselves in a terrible pit the mullahs were digging for all the democratic movement of the masses. All those who wanted to keep, and extend, the democratic gains did not foresee the gathering dark clouds of intolerant Islam and the thugs of the Islamic Republic Party. By the middle of 1981 the left/liberal/progressives had all but been eliminated from the political scene. Tens of thousands of secular/left/liberal/progressive were executed and hundreds of thousands spent years behind bars.

Please learn the lessons of the Iranian revolution and don't fall for the lies of the Islamist parties. These lessons have implications in today's unfolding events in Turkey. Do not let the Islamists drown your country into the vile swamp of intolerance, macabre, hate and self-destruction.

Don't give up the fight against the Islamists.

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Iran: The Clash of Ambitions

Read the FP Magazine interview with the author of the book, "Iran, The Clash of Ambitions", here. He exposes Khomeinis as a fraud and a fabrication of the French Left . The title "imam" was given to him by two French Journalists,where as in shiism this title belongs only to the twelve direct descendants of the Prophet. Here are some excerpts:

FP : Let's go back to Khomeini for a moment. Tell us a bit about who he was as a person and the evil he perpetrated.

Nahavandi: Unfortunately. many of the different works published about Khomeini's life are wrong and inaccurate. His Indian origins were ignored when he was in Paris. There is nothing wrong with being of a different origin than Persian but even now it is forbidden to talk about it in Iran.

The title 'Imam' was given to him by two French journalists, where as in shiism this title belongs only to the twelve direct descendants of the Prophet.

He was not a cultured man. Most probably you have read in some papers that he gave the order to the Iranian Air Force to destroy American satellites, and to the Ministry of Agriculture, to flood the American market with Iranian wheat so as to make the economy of the ‘Great Satan’ become totally dependent.

Khomeini was presented to world opinion as a “brilliant philosopher and theologian” who was some kind of “example for all” that even supposedly his worst enemies could never contest. The various mandates he made especially dealt with “the way to urinate and to defecate,” “purity and impurity,” and “women and their periods.” In the others, one could here and there find a few thoughts of a philosophical, religious or political order, such as:

“It is proven that the Western physicians are totally ignorant,” “Women from the Prophet of Islam’s lineage have their menopause at the age of sixty. The others at over the age of fifty.”

As for political issues:

“Islam alone is to govern.”

“Those who want to set up democracy want to drag our country into corruption and perdition. They are worse than the Jews. They must be hanged. They are not men. They have the blood of animals. Be they damned’.

“All the laws in the world, except those of the Islamic republic, come from a handful of idiotic syphilitics. They are null and void. Islam does not recognize any other law but its own in the world.”

Finally, here are a few examples from the culture of the “great theologian and philosopher’:

“Socrates, a great theologian. He learnt philosophy from Pythagoras and devoted himself totally to theology and ethic. He discarded worldly pleasures, took refuge in a cave in the mountains where he fully dedicated himself to the only God. He tried to convince people of other gods than the real one. After what he had said, the people demanded from the Sultan that he should be put to death. The latter was forced into it and poisoned him.”

“Aristotle was the son of Nikomachos from Stagira, one of the greatest philosophers in the world. Avicenna said that nobody was ever able to contradict his theories. Yet, the French Descartes thought he had discovered flaws in them later on; specialists, however, can easily realize how childish and groundless Descartes’s claims in philosophical and theological matters were. Woe betide us Muslims for being intimidated by the West, for taking our own level of knowledge lightly when the Westerners will not be able to reach it before a thousand years.”

Other words, on the contrary, did not make people smile:

“We must give rise to repeated crises, and give a new and better value to the idea of death and martyrdom... If Iran disappears in the future, it is not important; what is important is to drown the whole world in a situation of crisis.”

“All the existing forms of corruption are the products of the nation and of nationalism.”

“Those who think they are Iranian and who believe they must work for Iran are wrong.”

“Blood must be spilled, for the more Iran bleeds, the more the revolution will triumph.”

“Blood must flow.”

“The mother who reported her son so that he would be tried and hanged is an example for the people. It is a model of Islam. If your children, brothers and sisters do not follow the given advice, report them so that they can be chastised.”

“Our dear pupils must keep a close watch on their teachers. The teachers must keep a close watch on themselves. The pupils, my dear children must keep a close watch on one another and report any deviation.”

“Israel must burn to ashes.”

Hundreds of other sentences could be quoted. The regime that originated in the revolution applied Ayatollah Khomeini’s ‘real discourse’ with a frightening zeal. The people with a good conscience who had shown enthusiasm for the man looked away, kept quiet and let things happen, as had been the case long ago with so many other bloodthirsty dictators.

In his interviews, Khomeini was presented as a democrat and liberal man, but the public ignored that the interviews were written by experts who just said what had to be said.

In France, all was prepared for his arrival, including transmitters in his residence. His anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist writings are even stronger than Hitler's.

When he finally arrived in Tehran from Paris with two hundred journalists in an Air France aeroplane which had been named Liberté (‘Liberty’) on the occasion. He granted an interview to the representatives of the Iranian national Radio and Television while he was on the aeroplane. The journalist asked him, among other things:

“What are Your Holiness’s feelings on finding His way back home after so many years?”

“Hitshi” (“Zilch”) “His Holiness” answered.

Everything had just been said, in substance and form. The future was to prove it.

There is much more to be said about Khomeini, and you will find lots more on him, with documents and references, in my last book "Iran, the Clash of Ambitions".

The aim of the mystification of Khomeini was to bring down the previous regime. But time has come for the truth to be revealed to history.

FP : Why do you think the Left, which is supposedly dedicated to democratic ideals, venerated this despot and leader of a death cult? It appears the Left has followed in that tradition by siding with radical Islam in our terror war. How would you explain this morbid pathology of the Left?

Nahavandi: The leftists, especially in France, had always shown sympathy to the revolutionary regimes. Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault were leaders of Khomeini's support committees.

Michel Foucault went to Iran twice – in September and in November 1978 – and wrote a series of eulogistic articles on Ruhollah Khomeini in the quality Western press, notably in Le Monde. He met him at least once in Neauphle-le-Château, and analysed his philosophical stands. Simone de Beauvoir also went to Iran to support the Islamic revolution. Jean-Paul Sartre contented himself with Parisian stands.

The socialist Party led by François Mitterrand proclaimed its “resolute support” to the movement. The French Socialist Party organized a public demonstration in its support and its executive office saluted the victory of the Islamic revolution on February 14, 1979: “a popular movement of an exceptional dimension in contemporary history.” Many European leftist movements sent their delegations to the international conference held in Tehran in favour of the hostage-taking operation of November 4th 1979.

Khomeini was not “a sort of social-democratic saint, a religious figure who was to be fundamentally admired,” as the American ambassador to the UNO had said [Ambassador Andrew Young]. Professor Richard Falk, who was very a popular academic from the highest spheres of Carter's power circles said: “Imam Khomeini is a miracle in the whole history of human kind, there has never been a leader who could compare, and I do not think there will be another one,” before adding that “he had made the most beautiful moment in the history of Islam come true, the model of a peaceful revolution without a bloodshed, the example of a humanist government.” These individuals’ words represented blindness, insincerity or simply hatred for their own country.

There was not the slightest regret shown on the other side of the Atlantic either. When things went wrong and when the truth broke out, none of these good souls, with the exception of one or two, expressed any regret. They looked away. They forgot everything, but they did not learn anything.

It seems that the Left, "democratic" epigone of the bloody French Revolution (600,000 dead peoples with children, women and old peoples atrociously massacred) has shed into the world and among the Nations a real mob fuelled by a sort of hysterical rage against the any idea, concept, expression related to harmony, beauty, balance, liberty, order. There is an inner principle of death that moves their "souls". One could even think that the leftists feel vaguely or precisely something already corrupted in their roots, deep into their souls. They just don't want to fall "alone", but to bring down with them the whole world into their dedicated chaos. That would then be a "transcendental" pathology. To destroy or to subvert is for the Left a challenge similar to a chess party...

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