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Iran
since it succumbed to theocratic rule in 1979, with
its accompanying emphasis on religious law, has proved
a Paradise for power obsessed clerics and a Purgatory
for secular dissidents. The recent death sentence
- announced in a Diplock style non-jury court - imposed
on the history lecturer Hashem Aghajari illustrates
the danger faced by those who question the status
quo. His crime in the eyes of his accusers, blasphemy.
His actions - merely to question in public the clerics'
unaccountable power to interpret both Islam and the
Koran.
The
case resonated in many ways that of the academic Dr.
Younis Shaikh, arrested in Pakistan in 2000. His ‘crime’
was to convey some historical details to his students
during the course of a lecture at Islamabad's Homoeopathic
College, such as Mohammed the Prophet not having become
a Muslim until he was 40 years of age; that the parents
of Mohammed were not Muslims, having died before the
Prophet had developed Islam; and that the Arabic
practice of shaving arms and pubic hair was unknown
until the advent of Islam. This so enraged the Movement
for the Finality of the Prophet that it sent a mob
to his college and the local police station threatening
to burn them both if Shaikh was not charged. He was
- the resulting sentence, death. Like their forerunners
in Christendom, before society somewhat civilised
Christianity, clerical fascists, whatever their time
or place, do not like their writ to be challenged.
Secularism is viewed as a disease rather than essential
to the intellectual and cultural health of society.
While
it may have angered many, few will claim real shock
at Aghajari's fate. In a sense he may be lucky as
his verdict was determined by ostensibly overt judicial
process and his appeal is likely to succeed, indicating
a shift in the balance of power within Iran. Others
were less fortunate as a result of having been confronted
with extra-judicial measures to silence opposition.
In 1998 Sa'id Emami, alias Eslami, was the mastermind
- according to Iranian authorities who 'officially'
identified him - behind the murders of four political
figures and dissident writers. Emami was no small
fish operating as a loose canon. He was educated in
America and returned to Iran in 1981 two years after
the 1979 Islamic revolution to take up a position
in the new regime's intelligence network. For almost
five years he functioned as a deputy intelligence
minister, responsible to Intelligence Minister Ali
Fallahiyan, who is wanted by the German government
in connection to the 1992 murders of Kurdish dissidents
in Berlin.
A
little window on his centrality to the Islamic establishment
is to be found in the following vignette. Before dying
in prison - by his own hand if the official version
is to be believed - Emami had devised a bill introduced
in the Parliament by 26 conservative MPs which aimed
at smothering even further what little independence
remained for the Iranian press. In a strictly confidential
report submitted to the Information Minister, Eslam
advised that the activities of the independent press
and dissident intellectuals be restricted as much
as possible: 'in order to contain that threat from
the dissidents, one has to stop them writing, to create
dissension among leading writers, pitting them against
each other and discredit them.’ Among suggestions
contained in the Eslam sponsored bill was one that
if adopted would lead to the banning from professional
activity anyone writing articles critical of the country's
leader. This was replete with all the power lust we,
in recent years, have come to associate with Robert
Mugabe - illustrating that secularists every bit as
much as theocrats are responsible for repression in
non-Western societies.
This
is important when historicising repression in Iran
particularly in light of the ‘war on terror’
and its supposed objective of creating more secular regimes
in those countries it targets. The spread of Western
values to such countries has hardly brought with it
a concomitant improvement in human rights. The reverse
has often proved to be the case. The violent suppression
of dissent in Iran pre-dated theocratic rule. Ted
Grant writing in February 1979 at the time of the
collapse of the country’s monarchical junta noted
that:
The
Shah maintained his regime by perfecting an instrument
of terror and repression in the form of Savak, the
Secret Police. It could best be compared to the
Gestapo in its devilish tortures, assassinations,
executions and in the horrors which it imposed on
the Iranian people.
But
Savak had been formed under CIA supervision in 1957
and its members were trained by Mossad. It ran the
censorship office to sit on top of journalists, novelists
and academics. Universities, trade unions and peasant
groups were also subject to its penetration and surveillance.
Books were banned and removed from public display.
When,
after the 1979 Revolution, Savak was disbanded and
its chief, General Nematollah Nassiri executed by
popular demand, there was a flourish of intellectual
and cultural activity. Suppressed publications began
to resurface in a climate of vibrancy. But is was
all short lived. The theocracy, every bit as intolerant
of public freedoms as its predecessor, established
Savama which was merely Savak in clerical drag.
In
the Left’s defence of the right of Islamic states
not to be subjected to Western interventionist ‘swap
the dictator’ forays, it should never lose sight
of the massive brutality practiced under these regimes.
And without supporting secular and democratic elements
within such societies - by no means all pro-Western
- the argument for interventionist wars prevails somewhat
by default.
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