Innovation and Flourishing

In an speech on the occasion of the Iranian New Year, Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei not only expressed his satisfaction with the last year’s government of Mahmud Ahmadinejad, giving him an A+, but he expressed great optimism about the coming years. He seemed confident that all the efforts of the last year should bear some fruit in the next. He scored the government’s performance well enough to predict that the coming year would undoubtedly be a year of “Innovation and Flourishing.”

As has been the pattern with the Islamic Republic, these kinds of speeches indicate not merely a wishful expectation but a suggestion for a future agenda. Whether this tradition is rooted in Islamic teachings or was introduced by the Iranian revolution I have no idea, but I do know that it appeared from the time of the hostage crisis, when Imam Khomeini would “hint” almost every day how the so called “students” would feel, think, and act, and they would do exactly the same by the evening.

And so, innovation started right after his speech. Ahmadinejad, who himself is always full of innovation, came up with something that surpassed whatever innovation an ordinary human being might have come with, i.e., “being appointed for the Divine Management of the world.” I’m sure there are some people more qualified to explain what he means; and while awaiting an explanation, I cannot hide my amazement at the visual as well as comical potential of this phrase.

While he was busy creating this amazing “Divine Management,” he forgot to mention to his vice president that he would change two of his cabinet ministers!

I do not think anyone would be surprised anymore to hear such statements from Ahmadinejad, or even raise a question as to why a president has so many consultants and advisors if he does not consult with them.

However, I was quite surprised when I read that our reformist friend Mohammad Ali Abtahi had “run over his head” at the Supreme Leader’s “signal.” Trying to explain the embarrassing situation that the fellow reformists face in regard to whether to participate in the second round of the elections, knowing that it is not even meant to be a fair election, he wrote in his blog that well, they decided to “participate passively.” (مشارکت غیر فعال)

But the one who did not hear the supreme leader’s speech, or if he heard it, played deaf, was Saffar Herandi, the Minister of Guidance. Without out any apology, and quite insensitive to the Supreme Leader’s signal, he continued the same outdated, boring, routine rhetoric. He said that all the artists who protested against the outdated, non-innovating system of censorship and who said that the situation is worse than before “must be out of their minds not to see all these achievements. We are not here to help creating cinema and film, but the right kind of film.” He then proceeded to call the artists some other not very nice names. These were exactly the sort of words that have been used over and over again for years. Even the insulting words were all copied from what Ahmadinejad has used many times before. Mrs. Elham (Fatemeh Rajabi) had also used them in the most variety of forms, in fact more elaborately and sometimes more graphically many, many times in her blog. Indeed, there was nothing innovative in Harandi’s speech, neither in form nor the meaning, as if he had not turned his radio or TV on in Norooz.

But seriously, a few words with the Supreme Leader. Why not? He called for innovation, didn’t he?

Dear Supreme Leader,

Once, the Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him, while contemplating, heard God’s Angel’s voice tell him, “Read!” and the Prophet answered: “I cannot.” The Angel then repeated, “Read!” Since it was God’s will, it happened that the Prophet, who was not literate, start reading.

With all due respect Mr. Khamenei, you are not God, and none of those whom you addressed in your speech are the Prophet Mohammad. Innovation is not achieved by orders, even yours. It is a kind of talent given to people by God. Some have it more and some have it less. One can learn to be more creative by various practices, but the kind of creativity that brings about innovation is not achieved even by regular exercises. Look at the former Soviet Union or China, your esteemed models. No art ever came from them since their revolutions except ballet and skating from Russia, and nothing at all from China. As a matter of fact, those arts they had before died away after their revolutions. Forced practices brought about good discipline, but did not produced good creative artists. Their painters are skillful at copying but not at creating. They have good players for various instruments, but not good musician or composers.

Being a tar player yourself, you should know the difference between what Master Ahmad Ebadi or Jalil Shahnaz do and those who have gone to some workshop and training school just to play. I’m sure there was a big difference between Ebadi, even the first time he placed that instrument on his lap, and those who were not and did not become Master Ebadi even after years of playing tar.

As for the flourishing, do you read at all these days? Did you hear of that wonderful article Ahmad Shirzad wrote on his blog and published on Emrooz Online? It was about Imam Khomeini’s project of Jenat, to make a green road from Behesht-e-Zahra to Qom, the multi-million toman project which any student of agriculture could have predicted would fail. The project materialized without proper research and worse without considering the nature of the landscape and soil. Pine trees were planted, dried, planted, dried and replanted and finally the project stopped. The next time you go to Qom, please turn your head to the side and ask your driver about those piles of brown tree logs on the side of the road and ask him how much money was used to “create” that spectacular landscape and ask him why those trees they planted did not flourish. I insist that you should ask your driver and not anybody else. Drivers in Iran are very good and know everything. They are the best sources of news. As a matter of fact, if you need any other information, ask him. Anyhow, I’m sure you know what I’m getting at. Those who executed that project had not even read one of the books that we would study before the revolution called, the Golestan by our wise poet Saadi, to learn that

زمین شوره سنبل بر نیارد، در ان تخم و عمل ضایع مگردان))

“Tulips won’t grow in salt desert, do not waste seeds and labor on it.”

Flourishing, whether human or plant, needs a proper cultivation of the ground and air and proper nourishment. In the present condition, when cabinet ministers obtain their diplomas from shady universities, when their scholarship is published only in commercial encyclopedias whose pages could be bought, when university seats are awards, when students are barred from education as a punishment (yes, this one is really an innovation indeed!), when the main occupation of government is to filter blogs, internets networks, and informational sites, when shutting down newspapers is routine, when rationing seats in the universities on the basis of gender does not bother you, when government decides to publish a different sets of textbooks for boys and girls (who has ever heard of something like that?), you are creating a salt desert in which nothing can grow, nothing better than Ahmadinejad and his cabinet members, and which bears no better fruit than Mrs. Elham’s blog. If that is what you meant by innovation and flourishing, then at least be a little innovative yourself, since they are there already in full bloom and every day open a new bud, so what else do you need?

To read the rest, click here.

Thus Spake Imam Khomeini

February, the anniversary of Revolution is a good market for those who are still alive and shared the flight with Khomeini to Tehran, or were present in the Alavi School and participated in the firing squad show on its roof, to bring us anecdotes and present them like antiques to customers like me browsing and surfing online for something interesting.

This year, in addition to the general and generic words of the Imam’s wisdom on freedom, human rights, democracy, independence, plenty of special anecdotes or stories appeared in the memoirs of his friends, all related to the problems at hand: election and government turning to the military and security forces. Oddly enough, most of these anecdotes were narrated by the reformists, and not a single one by fundamentalists.

Among the anecdotes there was one from Ayatollah Nateq Nuri’s memoir:

“In the early days of the revolution, there was a rush of women to come to visit Imam. They all wore black chadors, head to toe covered; and many of them, in order not to get lost, tied their chadors together. They would go into a frenzy and emotional crying and sometimes fainted. We were very worried for safety and security; it would have been very easy for a bomb to be carried under them. But we knew that if we had told the Imam to bar women for that reason, he would not agree. We were also concerned about the lack of female paramedics to help in case of an emergency. Sometimes the Imam would go to the second floor to rest, and when these women arrived he had to come downstairs. So one day I told the Imam that these coming and going up and down tired him, but the Imam noticed my real concern and said, 'Do you think that the revolution happened because of my tapes or because of you? No it happened because of them.'”

I like this anecdote. If I were in the Imam’s position I would have said the same. As a matter of fact, most of the sayings attributed to him are simple, sensible, true, and almost the best, and many of them, as Iranians say, are “tooth-shattering.” Even the timing should not be objected to; today is as good as any other day. Even instrumental usage of these sayings, to corner the fundamentalist as a devoted followers of Imam, is justifiable up to a point, although it has been proven ineffective. But the important question remains as to how long we should use a failing method. I never expected of Ayatollah Nateq Nuri to ask Imam, “Well sir, if these people made the revolution and not me or your tapes, then why is it that there is no place for them in the government?” It never occurred to me that he would be able to ask these questions since this kind of dialog has never been the part of that generation’s discourse. However, thirty years later I do expect that young journalists and thinkers or even younger clerics, who constitute the bulk of the reformists, would take a critical approach, and substitute a dialectical or analytical discourse for the kind of discourse once fashionable in Najaf and Qom's seminaries.

Since the revolution, the Imam’s words have become a kind of syllogism by itself. Being dealt with as the absolute, they have been legitimized and accepted by all as ultimate truths that do not need any further proof or arguments. “The people’s vote is the ultimate criterion,” “Our politics is the same as our religiosity,” “Islam should come for the strength and survival of the Islamic Republic and not vice versa,” are all from this category. They all sound good, some of them are even self-evident, and some are universally accepted. It is quite irrelevant to discuss the content of the Imam’s words of wisdom which, like many of their kinds should be cherished by those who have a taste for them. Though, the troubling is the usage of his statements as documents and manifestos, as substitutes for law, as ultimate guidelines as how to run the country and how society ought to conduct itself. How long should a country rely for its basics and fundamentals on the saying of a man who considered himself very ordinary and who made a massive mistake in appointing incompetents to be in charge of the peoples’ life remains a question.

Not only are older clerics, who shared the Imam’s beliefs and ideas, but even young lay journalists and analysts still wrap their pleas for justice in the Imam’s words and appeal to his ideas to salvage the last vestiges of what is called the Islamic Republic before it completely turns into a military-security state or explodes into chaos.

All these cries for justice have fallen on deaf ears, with flat denials of the leadership’s spokesman, Hosein Shariatmadari of Keyhan who refuses every argument given by reformist by misquotes from the Imam or anyone else who might be of any help, and with a simple clear bold answer of Mesbah Yazdi who once said: “All this talk about the people’s vote and people’s rights are nothing but a marionettes show. We are doing our duty and nothing could or should keep us from our duty.” His callousness aside, there is a bitter truth in what he is saying. These men in the Guardian Council are given a nonnegotiable right to do what they are doing. Indeed, the reformists are fighting an unbalance and unequal war, armed only with the Imam’s words whispered in someone ears, against those who are given the master key to all the Imam’s army and treasure.

All this came to a head just days ago when Ayatollah Tavasoli, rest in peace, in a formal session of the Expediency Council, of which he was a member, during his emotional opening speech passed away due to heart attack. It was indeed a great lose to the reform movement to loose one of its main bodies in a high place. The speech that caused his emotional outburst was none other than the same old routine, nothing worth dying for. The story of the couple who claimed they had met the Twelfth Imam and were rejected by the Imam as “crooks” had been told last year by Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani. Also the account of the Imam’s will barring military interfering in politics and taking sides with either party was the topic of Akbar Ganji’s article in Rooz Online several weeks ago. To argue against the militarization of government, Ganji, in his recent article The Government of Ahmadinejad and Ruling of Sultan, has invoked Imam Khomeini’s will “… the military should keep away from all the political parties, even the most Islamic one, and stay away form all the other branches of government. It is the only way that military could be trusted to defend the country.” (Ganji forgets that the main reason for the formation of the Revolutionary Guards was to protect the government internally against the possible internal opposition.) His invocation of the Imam was indeed very surprising from the man who boasts that he is a champion of a critical approach and defines himself as “dissatisfied intellectual,” one who would remain critical even if we would have the most democratic system.

As why should Rafsanjani wait so long to reveal his document, his correspondence, and his anecdotes about the Imam now or gradually as they are needed? I’m not surprised at all. That is our pragmatic Rafsanjani! But one wonders how a person like Ganji should wait so long to address such an important issue as the role of the military, and in this context, and in this fashion. That military should not get involved in the affair of government is accepted by many constitutions including ours; it is argued for, it is challenged, and it is proven as fair and just. While we all may accept and respect this principal, we are only bounded by it since it is an article of our constitution. If the Imam is especially emphasized it, that is his privilege; otherwise, it does not and should not have any substantial effect in its significance or its being honored. Making the case for this on the basis of its having been mentioned in the Imam’s will, in fact not only does not add to its value and its importance, but only reduces it to the triviality of whatever goes in one’s will. Indeed, as is the case with the laws governing wills, they are always subject to more scrutiny and further objections of the beneficiaries. It is a disgrace for documents of such importance to be safeguarded in one’s will. Indeed, the Imam’s emissaries do not do him any favors, either, by turning him into such an irresponsible role model of statesmanship for those who want to follow his footsteps.

The novelty of Ayatollah Tavasoli’s speech was in Hasan Khomeini’s recurring dream of his grandfather’s appearance in them. However, the reformists, using their last arrow in their quiver, not only exposed their despair but somehow acknowledged their defeat as well. Judging from the front pages of the newspapers, even the reformists’ press, this news could not arouse any sensation among the people, or breathe any fresh breath into the lifeless body of the reformists. It was business as usual. Khamenehi went public in Azerbaijan, his native Azeri-speaking and zealous Muslim providence, to urge Azeris to vote. He harped on the necessity of participating in the elections. It is interesting that he abandoned the commonly-used term “religious duty” as well as the call for “splendid participation” which detracts from the solemnity of the act of participating in election, and does not have any alarming ring to it; instead, he used the uncommon term mojahedat, endeavor or fighting for Islamic principals. (The close relationship between the term mojahedat and jihad, holy war, was probably meant to send a double message to the people as well as to the reformists.) It seems that while our reformists have lost even their last arrow for nothing, the fundamentalists are ready to take over new equipments.

I can not believe that it happened so quickly and so easily, as if it had been rehearsed a hundred times. Reading the newspapers online these last several nights, the mute reaction of the public to all the recent events, the blunt answer of Keyhan (the spokesman of the Vali Faqih) to Ali-Akbar Mohtashami-pur’s speech in the memorial service held for late Ayatollah Tavasoli, and calling the content of his speech as lie and fabrication; more crying and complaining by the reformists; the already semi-retirement of Mehdi Karrubi and his wife (at least according to the state radio, TV and Press), and finally the last-minute agreement of the reformists to participate in the elections in spite of all the humiliation brought upon them, Sayyed Mohammad Khatami’s embarrassing speech which was uncharacteristic of his usual profound talks calling on the people to participate in the elections as “cheerful victims” to foil their plot (!), I feel that the parliamentary elections would not have a better fate than the last presidential elections. I feel that one more time we have to accept the humiliation of being defeated unfairly, once more we are defeated and crushed by a coup rather by a fair competition, once more those who appear to be with us are turned against us, once more our generals naively picked up fake and rusted weapons in a serious decisive battle. And once more our leader surrendered with a fake smile.

Hey Mssrs. Reformists, get real! It is our destiny you are compromising. It is time for alertness and awareness. It is not the time for exchanging niceties. It is not a good time to take a nap; didn't you learn that from the last presidential election? It is not the time for day dreaming either. I hope and I pray to God that the inventory of the Imam’s words and tales soon runs out, I hope he appears in everyone’s dream every night and instructs them and then finish with that as well. Then we would both feel free. He would feel free of us hanging to his shroud and will rest in peace, and we would be free, knowing that the legacy he left behind is not the windmills of Cervantes and we can’t fight with them like Don Quixote. Indeed what he left behind is monstrous and dangerous as hell. We need something more substantial to fall back upon, like a good constitution with plenty room for amendments.

To read the rest, click here.