Explosion of Hatred in Shiraz

The blast at Masjed ol-Shohada in Shiraz, which was a center of anti-Wahhabi and anti-Baha'i sermons, has become a major topic in the newspapers and blogs these days (ranking next to Alami’s speech in the Majlis.) Twelve people were killed and two hundred were injured. The official news gradually announced the casualties, starting with two deaths and a few injured. Within two days, the government announced, prematurely, that the investigation determined that it was due to an “unspecified accident” due to the remnant of explosives left from an exhibit years ago!



Various newspapers and blogs expressed their concern over the issue, voicing their doubts that the government’s controversial reports were true, or just a means of closing the subject. Some tried to challenge the government’s dismissal of alternate explanations of the explosion. Most indicated that there were dissatisfied minorities or elements that might be suspect, while others tried to put the government in a corner by reminding it that their handling of the incident of the Sufis mosque in Khorramabad [.pdf] effectively encouraged “others” to commit similar acts of violence.

Jamileh Kadivar’s article in her blog Maktoub prominently took this line and was republished in various sites. She argued in favor of the explosion theory based on the existence of sufficiently motivated groups such as Wahhabis (I assume she meant al-Qaeda), the People’s Mojahedin, various individuals connected to certain illegal groups (monarchists?), and Baha’is. Were she not a faithful reformist, a devoutly religious person, a mother, a one-time Majlis deputy, a university professor, and a writer, I could have dismissed her writing as just another piece with which I disagreed. But any of the above would lead me to expect a kind of responsibility which was regrettably lacking in her article.

With good intentions and as a politically concerned citizen, she was one of the first to come forth and challenge the government’s hasty verdict. I admired her for that, though mentioning Baha’is as possible suspects was so cruelly irresponsible that it could not be dismissed lightly. It should be noted that Kadivar is from Shiraz, the cradle of Babism and then Baha’ism, where the Baha’i community had a great temple (destroyed after revolution), where Mohammad Ali Bab, rest in peace, was buried, where the Faith suffered its harshestblow after the Islamic Revolution, where innocent men and women were executed simply for their beliefs, a group of them even hung in public. As a deputy to the parliament, she ought to be aware of the situation of the Baha’i community, that they cannot have government jobs, cannot have any trade without having a Muslim as a front, and in many places they cannot even have a cemetery and must bury their dead in someone’s property or carry them to a distant city where they could have access to such property. As a religious person, she should be aware that the business of the truth of a faith is not her job to judge but only God’s. As a mother who is so proud of her seven years old child for having translated a book, her heart should ache for all those otherwise qualified young people who were not permitted to attend universities this year because of their faith. As a teacher and writer whose job it is to touch the people’s hearts and minds, to nurture and to cultivate them, she should know that diversity in society is the cornerstone of anything we might call a rich and healthy culture. But, as a reformist, she is a total failure if this single article were any indication of the kind of reform she wants to bring to our society. Did she ever noticed that since the dawn of the Faith there has never been even one incident of murder, robbery, child abuse, or even domestic violence with Baha’is involved? Did she ever have any experience otherwise?

The Baha’i faith has gone through a massive hardship, particularly after the revolution. In spite of all the abuses and persecution, executions and imprisonments, they never appealed to violence. The teaching of the Faith bars the Baha’i not only from violence but from politics to keep them away from any possible confrontation, and the Baha’is have full-heartedly followed the teachings of their Faith.

The verbal abuse in the meetings of the Rahpuyan-e Vesal Mosque was not an isolated or unprecedented event. The community is used to it by now. Indeed, being fully aware of how unprotected they are, along with their religious teaching, they even refrain from complaining about it. They are fully aware that even if they are murdered, their blood is void of any value according to the Islamic Republic’s laws. Were not tolerance imbedded in Iranian culture and the extreme sense of humanity and peacefulness which has always been a value of the majority of the population, life would have been practically impossible for this community. Indeed, in spite of all maltreatment by the authorities and the religious establishment, the Baha’i community thrives with dignity. Young Bah’is, strengthened in their belief, continue their healthy and peaceful way of life.

Ms. Kadivar is deluding herself if she thinks she can detach herself from segments of our society, from those who do injustice and those who suffer as well. What happens to any minority, lawful or otherwise, happens to all of us Iranians. We all have to live with that shame, and our children will inherit it as well. It is about time we face the fact that we are going to be the second or third in rank in genocide to German and Turkey. As the Holocaust left a black spot on German history and the Armenian genocide for ever will remain as a blemish on Turkey’s face, the Baha’i genocide will be our darkness.

In answer to a reader, she recommended that he or she should read that paragraph again and pay attention to the words “guessing” and “possible.” As a matter of fact, I read the entire article several times; indeed, both words are the source of the problem. As neither of us are criminal investigators, our guess is just based on our common sense, our reason as well as our biases. I have no idea what possessed her in her guesswork to include the Baha’is and exclude us, the reformists. Yes, we, the reformists, who have been badly beaten, abused, and humiliated by the ruling fundamentalists; we the reformists who are angry, bitter, and well-motivated for revenge, and not only few thousands of us, like Baha’is, but millions of us. What makes us immune from being suspect, from any possibilities, and not the Baha’is? Is it our peacefulness? Our not having a criminal record? Our being victimized? Don’t we share all these with Baha’is?

Also troubling was her further remark that, “I respect the rights of all citizens, regardless of their beliefs and ideas. Indeed, all my life and my writings testifies to this claim.” I’m afraid a little manipulation is involved here, and as teacher she should be aware of it as well. To believe that all the citizens’ rights are respected, regardless of their beliefs, does not automatically imply that the Baha’i’s citizenry rights are respected. I’m afraid that Ms. Kadivar’s record, as well as that of everyone else who had held any position in the Islamic Republic these last thirty years, does not indicate a regard for the Baha’is as equal to others. As a matter of fact, she is not permitted, indeed does not dare to, refer to Baha’is directly in her writings except in a derogatory fashion. No one can do otherwise!

Unfortunately, the situation is as such that no one can acknowledge the existence of this minority in our country. This of course does not mean that everyone agrees with this situation, rather it is the circumstances that require them to behave this way. Unfortunately, this is exactly the problem, the circumstances! What are those circumstances, and when should we overcome them? Is not the twenty first century about the right time to put an end to this close-mindedness and fanaticism? And who should take the first step? And where does the first step begin? It is fortunate that we Iranians have the most magnificent blueprint for our conduct. Good words comes first which leads to good deeds. We should talk. As a matter of fact, there is a general consensus in this regard as the Torah declares that creation begins with God’s word, the Gospels declare the same, and the Koran appears as a spoken revelation to the Prophet, and God’s command for him to recite.

Why after all should I pick on Ms. Kadivar? Should we expect more from her? Well, it is the last statement in Ms. Kadivar’s response to her reader that settles it somehow. “My robe is so clean, I would not be worried about it if people like you would not smear it.” That is why. It is that clean robe that one needs to endeavor to keep pure in words and in deed. As a matter of fact, those with the cleanest robes are the ones that should take the first step because no one would accuse them of anything. (Or I’m wrong on this too?) Is she willing to place “Baha’i” in a positive context such as, “Baha’is are the citizens of this country and all their rights should be preserved?” If not, she need not worry; she is in a good and copious company—Khatami, Abtahi, her brother Mohsen Kadivar, her beloved husband Ata'ollah Mohajerani, and all the rest of the religious reformists. I am sure that they are all wonderful people and between them and those in power I do not hesitate even a minute to go along with them. But this is not the point. The point is that sometime in the future when she is gone and I am gone and many Baha’is are gone, someone will go to our records and see that she and I and Khatami and Abtahi and Mohsen Kadivar and thousands more just kept quiet while crimes were committed right under our nose. Even if our offspring gave us the benefit of the doubt and read our records in the most generous way, we still would be convicted of the crime silence. Indeed our children would be dumb with shame even if they speak twenty languages fluently.

There is no hope if our reformist friends, if our intellectuals, if those who want to bring about a better future, those who once had a voice in politics and want to recover it, God’s willing, do not see us all as equals. And worse, it would be a horrifying world if we think that one day we would not be ashamed when we look back to find out that we had kept quiet when injustice, hate, and discrimination had crept into our lives and that we did not even notice.

I do not want to believe those who recited this poem of the immortal Saadi many times in private and public

بنی آدم اعضای یک پیکرند که در آفرینش ز یک گوهرند

Human beings are the members of one body since they are born of a single essence.

did not feel the pain already inflicted on Baha’is, and indeed themselves added to their suffering.

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The Islamic Republic 's Third Phase

Almost at the end of the third decade of the Iranian Revolution, it seems it is about the time to demystify what was for three decade intentionally confused and mystified. The whole world was shocked at the birth of this “monster” that no one knew anything about. American president Jimmy Carter said “he was surprised.” The deposed Shah of Iran seemed woken up by a nightmare. Empress Farah in her memoir claimed that “they had no clue about it.” The journalists went to Iran and returned with their mouths gaping in awe or dismay. The experts, with their display of shock, added to an already existing enigma and sense of mystery which the public sees around the Islamic Republic of Iran. And we Iranians did not do any better. All of us were waiting for a hint from those whom we thought were a little closer to religion, like Mehdi Bazargan. He did give us directions, though they were wrong. He was as shocked as everyone else. His Islam was very different from what was born and growing so fast, yet he still endorsed it.


Several books on Shiism were all new even to us Iranian. The clerics in Qom were given the status of Oxford and Cambridge dons by one western scholar, and Qom was described as another Heidelberg or Sorbonne. Iran and Iranians and clerics and Shiite Islam all fused into each others, wrapped up in a halo of mystery, and each expert and each journalist only added another layer. The whole country and its people became so unfamiliar even to us that I did not even dare to go back home, like many of us, for over twenty years.

The most distressing of all were non-Muslim scholars who were so zealous and defensive of the Islamic Republic and completely denied the sufferings of secular Iranians. Most of them became apologists for the Islamic Republic, as if criticizing it meant denouncing their own existence. Mandatory Islamic hejab for women was a horrifying imposition but was taken so lightly, the family laws changing to laws of Shari’a was another which was not given any attention, the problem of the religious minority, particularly the Bahai’s, was dismissed totally. I do not recall any of the Iranian (non-opposition) or Western scholars gave any weight to these matters except en passant. They defended the Islamic Republic so firmly and strongly that one wondered why they didn’t join the club and convert. Anne Marie Schimmel was at least honest enough to say “I prefer my glass of wine.”

On the other hand, there were those who made Iranians out to be some strange, somehow dangerous, species. I will never forget, night after night, listening to the news and commentators talking about “Allah,” as if Shiites worshiped some genie. I never figured out why it became a problem to understand that just as God is an English world for the deity, whom the French call Dieu and the Greeks, Theo and the Russians, Bog, some Iranian use the Arabic term Allah, though they themselves have one hundred and one names for Him in their own language—Khoda, Izad, and Yazdan being the most common. A simple matter as such was turned into a puzzle and amusing games for the nighttime shows on TV; and alas none of those experts in Shiism came to help.

Then came the “confusion” period, when every single sentence uttered by any of those clerics came as a mystified code which needed to be decoded, even simple words, such as moderate, money, punishments, apology, and independence. After every speech by Imam Khomeini or the Friday Imams of the time, everybody would fall over the Shiite dictionary to unravel its meaning. Then would come the analysis of the experts from various levels of the State Department or those think tanks in Washington D.C. or all the Middle Eastern Studies departments of the universities in the United States. It is interesting that after some thirty years, people are still referring to that the famous saying of Khomeini, who wished to “cut the hands of foreigner,” although this was simply a literary mistranslation of an expression used in Iran equivalent to “talking one’s hands off something.”

The whole artificial attempt to “understand them” was not only unhelpful, but only added to the confusion.  They mislead the public to a misconception that the Iranians got what they ask for and what they deserve: They want to be ruled by mullahs, they want to go backward, they like having their hands cut off, they want to be told how to perform every step of their most trivial affairs of life. Once, watching a documentary on PBS about the Iran-Iraq war, the reporter interviewed an Iranian war veteran on wheelchair. We could hear the veteran’s line being fed to him by his minder, i.e. that everything was staged. We wrote to PBS and reminded them of their obligation of professional honesty, and pointed out to them the futility of such phony documentaries. Some PBS flack wrote back that if a “nation” wants to portray itself as such, we have to cooperate and air it as they wanted! A strange sense of professionalism indeed!

In the last few years there were few books by journalists, The Last Great Revolution (at least its last half), Persian Mirrors, Neither East Nor West, and The Rose Garden of Martyrs, or travelogues, which tried to depart from the apologetic tradition of the academics and Middle East experts of the first two decades. However, each one of them very cautiously took off only one layer of the mystery. One explained that not all Iranian went to the front to get killed to be martyrs; war was run by a well-calculated manipulative machinery. Another explained that teenagers in Iran are the same as teenagers the world over, even a bit more cheerful and playful. Another revealed that in spite of all the efforts by the clerics to undermine the status of women, their presence and their influence in the overall society is still undeniable. But none took the trouble to explain the system of the government so the people won’t rush to the bunkers out of fear that Iran’s president who has no power as such would eliminate them from the earth. It seemed there was a limit to excavating this great tomb, one inch at a time would have to do.

And now finally it seems it is the time for demystification. I’m not sure that we have arrived at this stage since it is a convenient time, or it is just the American way of learning something. Perhaps the revolution has reached its zenith and now is going to merge and blend with Iranian culture to disappear, and this allows the observers have a better perspective. Books are being published which are more exposing, articles are written which are more revealing, clerics inside the country are saying things which makes one wonder why they hadn’t said them twenty-five years ago. People talk about the government’s corruption, clerics are criticizing clerics, and in spite of all the arrests on charges of endangering national security and social order, people are still outspoken. And we hear more and more the forgotten word “secular” in a variety of contexts. For the first time, thanks to internet, news travels over the boarders more freely. It might be for this very reason that journalists and commentators follow suit and are becoming more open to talking about Iran, however cautiously. In any case, I welcome this third stage; though, had we done this from the start, we would have been saved much trouble.
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