Iran-American Relations Conference at Columbia University

On Friday March 28, a conference on Iran-US relations, past, present and future, was held at the Columbia University School of International Affairs. Participating were Ervand Abrahamian, Ali Ansari, Ibrahim Yazdi, John Limbert, Gary Sick, and Wayne White; it was chaired by Richard Bulliet.

I ran into Dr. Yazdi in the hallway during one of the coffee breaks. I could not believe how old he looked. He must be over seventy now, and that reminded me that I’m not that young myself either. I hung around to say hello and ask him about the Iranian elections. I remarked to him (in Persian), “It was a disgrace; why did it happened that way?”

“What way? What are you talking about?”

His red face betrayed him, and he uttered both sentences without even thinking. Surely he knew what I was talking about. Still, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and said, “I mean the elections. It was an embarrassment, wasn’t it?”

“Not really, they should be embarrassed.”

“You cannot dissociate yourself so easily…” I was still talking when three people arrived simultaneously as Ajal-e-Mo`allaqs. My husband wanted me to meet one of his old Iranian leftist friends he knew from before the revolution. Another fellow wanted to know if the weather outside was cold enough and if I knew where the bathroom was. A third came and dragged me aside to tell me, “Show me twenty Iranian intellectuals who could unite,” and proceeded to bombard me with comments about Iranian culture this and Iranian culture that.

“Please don’t put down our Iranian culture like that, there is nothing wrong with it. If twenty Iranian intellectuals cannot agree with each other (and I disagree with this premise) perhaps it is because they did not grow together intellectually. Each of them had grown intellectually independent from the others in separate domains and in separate fields in different part of the world since there are so few of them, and as a result, they do not speak the same language. Unfortunately, our modern educational systems, both before and after the revolution, neglected the cultivation of intellectualism; that is why you don’t see them around a unified pole.”

“True,” he said. “But Yazdi is an old man; he is over seventy years old. I wanted to talk to him about the elections also, but then I thought what I would say to an old man like him.”

Well sir, you do not need to tell him anything, and you did not. I was the one talking to him; I do not think old age a good excuse for mistakes or misleading the people, particularly if you are a political person with Dr. Yazdi’s record and his claims. I do not mind respecting my elders enough to treat them as responsible beings and expect them to respect us as well and not to manipulate us.”

We all walked back to the lecture hall where the speakers were delivering their concluding remarks about how they saw the future of Iran-US relations. I found interesting Ali Ansari’s comments that the international community has to live with Iran as it is, including with its nuclear energy, and should accept it with the hope that it will not willingly endanger their security and that of others.

Dr. Yazdi’s remarks were interesting in that he showed a total detachment from the present ruling clerics in Iran as if they did not have anything to do with him and never had. I should agree that Dr. Yazdi is now more pleasant than he was thirty years ago, without that artificial shabbiness, not playing the mullah with half an inch of stubble and a bottomed-up shirt; he was no longer dressed like the hajji aqa he pretended to be when he would sit crossed leg next to the Imam. He looked very Iranian. In his suit and tie, well-shaven, sporting a well-trimmed and very becoming goatee, he did not strike me as particularly Islamic. He even laughed, and when he spoke, he looked into the faces of men and women alike and was quite at ease with people. Anyway, it seems that his honeymoon with the Islamic Republic has long been over.

Wayne White said something interesting about regime change. Along with John Limbert and Ali Ansari, he said that Iran and the US should talk about all their problems and not one by one and that the negotiation teams should be compatible and consist of people of good will who would be willing to solve problems even if they included a desire for regime change.

Although Richard Bulliet had clearly urged the audience to not make speeches, but ask simple question, our friend, Dr. Houshang Amirahmadi raised his hand and scolded the panel of discussants for talking about or even using the phrase “regime change” since it is very dangerous. In the United States, he declared, we mean by regime change that a president goes and another one comes. In Iran, regime means Khamenehi… Fortunately, Bulliet stepped in and stopped him from rattling on.

This was my third experience with an angels of deliverance. Two years ago, I was talking to Ali Larijani who had said that Ayatollah Abol-Qasem Kashani did a lot for the nationalization of oil along with Dr. Mosaddeq. I asked him where he got that bit of information and if I could quote him. He said his sources were some history books whose names he did not recall and he promised to send them to me. While I was giving him my address and exchanging emails with him, another one of those angels of deliverance arrived, a fellow from Canada, and took me away from him and said that Ali Larijani was right and Ayatollah Kashani did a lot. “Like what?” I asked. “Well, he was the only cleric who agreed with Dr. Mosaddeq on oil nationalization, none of the other clerics even did that much.”

“Credit to him for that, but that does not mean he had any role in the process, never mind that he betrayed Dr. Mosaddeq later on,” I said.

The fellow talked a little more about Larijani’s two other brothers in two different high posts of the Islamic Republic and how brilliant they are and so on and so forth and continued until Larijani who was heading to the airport, got into the limousine waiting for him and left. He asked my name and said good-bye.

(Larijani never sent me a book or anything and I don’t think he has ever read about this subject in any history book, but was just following the Islamic Republic’s party line.)

I guess that those two were self-appointed angels of deliverance. I bet they are around everyone who is not supposed to get involved in conversation casually with big-mouths like me. But why did Dr. Amirahmadi lecture six scholars, surely no less than himself, to keep quiet and not speak their mind. Suppose that Ali Ansari and Gary Sick want to even risk their lives to talk about regime change in Iran, so what? Why shouldn’t they? To whom was it dangerous? Oddly enough, Dr. Amirahmadi is the head of the Middle East Studies Research Foundation in Rutgers University. What sort of scholarly work is possible if one decides beforehand to censor his/her ideas? I wonder where this phobia is coming from. What is wrong with expecting Larijani to have credible sources for his claims and what damage is there in telling Dr. Yazdi that he is more exposed than he wishes he was?

Still, I’m puzzled by all these angels of deliverance that drop in on us just at a sensitive time to save “us” from danger. It seems they don’t know of that super archangel above them all who flies from this part of the world to the other in a second, with all his might, and carries the news in all its forms without their help. On You Tube, someone will make a joke of them in a few minutes and millions will laugh at them. Really, life is not like before and people like Dr. Yazdi cannot hide any more under the veil of intimidation, or even worse, denial. And with all due respect, we are not as shy as we use to be some thirty years ago. Also, some of us with a reasonably good memory remember that Dr. Yazdi was one of the cornerstones of the Islamic regime and the one who was present next to the Imam’s elbow (or, better, the Imam’s knees) from Day One. He was part of every piece of the Islamic Republic and no matter how many cravats he might tie around his neck, he has no right to call them “they.” The only pronoun for him is “we,” and he’d better accept it and find a graceful way out of it; retirement may not be a bad idea.

As for Dr. Amirahmadi, younger as he is, I’m afraid he had better think of a good location for retirement, too.

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Jumping over the Fire

`To the right, the family haft seen.

Every year, on the first day of Spring, Iranians throughout the world set up a table on which appear the seven esses, standing for the seven archangels (ameshspandan): sabzeh, or sprouts, samanu, a sort of wheat pudding which is very hard to make (and which is only present in spirit), seeb, or apple, senjed, the dried fruit of the lotus tree, seer or garlic, somaq, or sumac berries, and serqeh, or vinegar. A mirror, some coins (sekkeh), goldfish (also here in spirit), and a copy of the Iranian holy book, the Avesta, round out the display.

On the evening before the last Wednesday of the year, it is customary for Iranians to jump over the fire, saying "Zardiye man az to, sorkhiye to az man," meaning, "My yellowness to you, your redness to me."

Last night jumping over the humble fire I made in my backyard accompanied by my faithful affectionate friend Omar Khayyam, who had reposed under the step next to my good neighbor Anda, watching the fire with a frightened eyes, I noticed in spite of the horror I went through last year, I do not have that much anger or so many grievances to cast away.

As has been my little ritual, I pack all the dissatisfactions and unkindnesses that, like many, I have had to bear in life and bundle them together to give away safely in the warm glow of the fire on Chaharshnbeh Souri. I let my heart become warmer to all, even toward those who have not opened their heart to me in past. I let the good scent of the burning twigs wipe away the memory of occasional unkindnesses and unpleasantnesses. I even let the smoke rising from the fire cover up those unwanted bitter realities.

This year, although I did not have much in that bundle to give away, I had a heavy bag of good wishes, hopes and prayers for all: for the health of my sister Mariam, my very dear friend Lili, my neighbor’s daughter Ingrid, my in-laws Eugene and June Siegel and, it goes without saying, for my husband Evan.

I bore some dear friends were especially in mind. Cyrus, my dear friend who had been with me through thick and through thin these last thirty-two years, was especially in my mind. He had lost his father just two weeks ago, a very special man, an old National Front combatant, a conscientious journalist, a devote religious man and highly spiritual. My heart is with him and his family in such a hard time. He and his family were certainly in my prayers.

Last year we lost two distinguished Iranian women. Though I was not personally related to them, I still had a memorial salutation (and not a prayer—they were atheist) to them. They both were from the Iranian communist Tudeh party, Jaleh Isfehani, a poetess, and Maryam Firouz, a cousin of our popular prime minister, Dr. Mosaddegh.

Among our other losses were our two goldfishes that had been with us for five years. I got especially attached to them since one of them had some digestive problems and off and on I had to massage its belly; when one cares, love follows. They both had a very sweet disposition which added to their attraction. We lost them this past summer within one week from each other. I could not bring myself to replace them with another one, so this year our Haft seen is without goldfishes.

It also goes without saying that our best wishes go to the entire family and friends and their families, and mine was no exception. They are in my nightly prayers always and I did not neglect them that holy night, either.

Of my bigger extended family, my country, my prayers were for the Iranian reformists. I prayed, and wished for their rebirth, I prayed for the emergence of a Michelangelo, someone with a little creativity, boldness, love, and truthfulness, to carve beauty out of that rock of Iranian political potential.

For my adopted country, the United States, I don’t know which is better or worse, Obama or Hillary. A few steps to the presidency, they are both sinking and dragging each other down. Well, my prayers to both of them. I hope one leaves the other alive, otherwise we will have to live with John “Bomb Iran” McCain, who is not in my prayers, never!

Eliot Spitzer was in my mind since his crisis arose. I have quite a feel for him and his wife. I feel even the suffocating feeling of his desire to reach and grab the past and undo it. I hope with the wisdom he has demonstrated in his public life, and the love and care he must have had for his family, that he will be able to look into the situation, to evaluate his thoughts and feelings as to how he did it, if it was worth the suffering, and would he have done it if he would have given it a little thought. I wish him the blessing of the ever presence of Good Mind and Truthfulness, the sure protection against all malice.

Speaking of Eliot Spitzer, I could not stop thinking about these “love ladies”. I’m sure they all have their own stories and I’m sure in time, one way or the other, we understand them, as long as the person involved is not our husband. These love ladies, however, are all part of our society, those who sell love, those who beg love, those who solicit love, and those who offer it freely for a little of companionship, and those who may find a different name for it, all in all, they are doing something that they should not. I do not mean necessarily the business of the body and sex, I mean squeezing themselves into the corner of people’s lives where they do not belong, where they cannot find a proper and peaceful nesting for themselves, and sometimes ruin someone else’ nest as well as career, reputation, and life. I pray for them so they can find something worthwhile in their lives beyond their body to live on. I hope that our new governor will work towards legalizing prostitution, so at least as a profession, it would bring some security to these ladies, as well as open some doors to those who have nothing else to offer, thus reducing its ugliness and breaking its taboos, and hopefully it would not become such a weapon in the hands of a few to ruins people’s lives. It won’t make life prettier, but at least it will reduce much suffering.

Getting back to my little nest and family, I hope we find a job somewhere in Asia or North Africa or South America or even Quebec if McCain becomes president. It is very painful to be in constant fear of violation, stupid talk, meaningless political jargon, hypocrisy, and chants of “We’re Number One!” and even worse, the shame, the shame of being so shameless.

I prayed for Omar Khayyam, and jumped over the fire for him, since he

Iran Writes, Nancy, and Hakim

was afraid to do it himself. I wished him the best of health and prayed particularly that his hearth would become warmer towards our guests, mailmen, Nancy, and Hakim, my domestic helpers, for whose safety, among my friends, I prayed specially.

And finally I wished and called for the Farahvashis to see the glow of my fire, and find their way into our home, and not forget me here in Brooklyn, where there are but very few Iranians, and much less Parsis. I wish, if they do not want to trouble themselves to check in personally, not to forget to bless us for a life full of health, prosperity, good spirit, vitality, humility, and light, and protect us all from Evil.

With my warm wishes for a happy No Rooz to all.

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The Unbearable Lightness of Reform

When in 1997 President Khatami was elected president of Iran, reform was somehow implicit in his very short campaign promises. It was later on that his presidency and his followers were labeled “reformist.” This being an “Islamic” republic, based on Islamic laws, I concluded that any reform, even if it were directed towards the social or political system, would necessarily mean religious reform. Khatami, however, never used this expression. He emphasized on civil society and the rule of law, though he never said which law; and he referred many times to those invisible "unnamables" that are obstacle in achieving a true civil society.



Khatami’s opponents inside Iran criticized him and his government for corrupting the Islamic system of government, while his followers criticized him for not being assertive enough. They are still angry that while he was president, even with the majority of seats in the parliament during his first term, he remained ineffective.

Opposition groups and individuals outside the country are his biggest enemy. I have read many articles attacking him and the reformists in general, even now that none of the reformists have any responsibilities in the government. Even the journalists who work for the pro-reformist newspapers are not immune of their harsh criticisms.

And in between, there are two groups which are hard to pigeonhole. One consisted of ordinary, apolitical Iranians. I recall a relative, a housewife, a mother of two teenagers, who blamed Khatami for raising expectations in people which could not be realistically fulfilled. She said, “He talks about civil society and law and lawfulness and democracy. Our kids believe it and outside the home they become disappointed and frustrated not meeting any of these institutions.”

The other group is the most interesting. They grin and say, “Reform is dead.” They do not even bother to argue or explain what they mean by “reform” or “dead.” They just grin. Their grin is most bitter these days, with the election crises in Iran, when reform and the reformists are breathing their last while we watch them, obsessively worrying for their very survival.

The dictionary definition for reform says 1- to improve by correcting errors or removing defects; 2-to abolish abuse or malpractice; 3-to give up harmful or immoral practices. Knowing Khatami as too good a  thinker to not have foreseen the paradoxical nature of this term, I think the term was imposed on him by his wishful followers, and even by some clever faction of government expecting to have some pragmatic advantage, just as when “moderate” became the permanent descriptor for Rafsanjani.

The term, which united those dissatisfied by the Islamic Republic who viewed Khatami’s campaign as a window of hope, placed Khatami in the paradoxical position of aiming to correct “errors, defects, abuse, or malpractices” within the very system of which he himself had been one of the founders, and to which he has a firm commitment to its survival and its principles. The situation has even become embarrassing when he had to keep his alliance to the office of the Valiye Faghih, who is solely responsible for appointing those very individuals who created whatever Khatami objects to.

In a historical context, reform remains a neglected and unexamined phenomenon. As the ambiguity and lack of precision is an invitation to abuse, violation, and manipulation, the reform movement was destined to be harassed and brutally crushed, and it seemed totally wiped out. Khatami recently, after almost all the reformists were barred from being candidates for the upcoming parliamentary elections, admitted, “It was a very strange clean up!” Nevertheless, there was no attempt to establish a firm and legitimate foundation for the movement to prevent this disastrous blow beyond a weak reference to Imam Khomeini expressing the importance of the “people’s will,” which, it seems, not so many have ever believed him meaning anything but just a word.

Reform’s history is as old as Creation. The first reformists were Adam and Eve, who did not obey God and did what they were told not to do. They did what they thought was better, both in the Biblical version, where they ate from the Tree of Knowledge (and I still do not know why God forbade it; what was wrong with knowledge?) or the Koranic version of eating wheat and making a mess in Heaven. Well, they wanted to do it their own way and paid a price for it; God deported them from Heaven. In fact, the punishment was not harsh at all; God created another heaven for them, the earthly kingdom, with milder and gentler rules supervised by his emissaries, the prophets.

As a matter of fact, even the prophets were reformists in their own way. The first one was Abraham, who, answering God’s call testing his piety, took his son, Isaac, to be sacrificed. Being a God-fearing man, Abraham “stepped over his heart” and took his son to the appointed place with a dagger to kill him. He did not listen to his wife’s cry, nor took notice of his innocent son’s horror. He just listened to God. He fastened his son to the stone, took his dagger and raised it high, though that dagger never came down. An angel told Abraham not to sacrifice the child and he “raised his eyes” and saw a lamb, sacrificing it instead. Not only Isaac was saved, but God appeared as merciful, giving up his demand for Abraham to prove his loyalty and grants life to Isaac. However, the most important was that it was the Abraham who did not kill his son. According to the Reform movement in Judaism, this story is a God’s blessing for Reform. The Rabbis found enough in the Torah to appeal to and to argue that Reform is the original point of the religion and their arguments founded on such a firm ground, their holy book, that the movement won the majority of believers. It is worth noting that, Reform Judaism was never persecuted by Jewish orthodoxy.

In one of my trips to Iran, in the autumn of 2003, I heard so many people influenced by Abdol-Karim Soroush and even Ali Shariati talking about a reform, a sort of Islamic Protestantism. I heard this from various people in various stations, accountants of small offices, owners of some small industry, merchants in the bazaar, and workers in a tourist spot in Yazd. I heard it from housewives, government employees and students, all in a very casual tone: “Something like what Calvin did, or what Soroush says.” The expression on their faces and their language was so casual and so ordinary that I did not dare get involved into arguments with them. It was not only their simplicity and the legitimacy of their demands which stopped me from quarreling, nothing ever does, but the fact that I did not want to destroy their peace and naivety. I could not imagine where they had learned about Protestantism that they made it sound so simple. It is true that the Reformation was initiated by a “call” by Calvin and Luther, who argued against the authority and hierarchy of the Catholic Church, but it was never settled by that call alone. Unfortunately, Protestants did not have it as easy as Reformed Jews, who took their mandate from the Torah. It took centuries of pain, bloodshed, martyrdom, migrations, executions, torture, and hardship to establish itself as a legitimate branch of Christianity.

Aside from religious reform, there are social, political and economical reforms in history as well. Our epic, the Shahnameh, has enough reform-seeking stories in it; heroes, Siavash, Sohrab and, to a great extend, Esfandyar bear reformist ideas, as well as the theme of some stories such as that of Kaikavus and the Seven Divs of Mazandaran.

Pre-Islamic Iran bears witness to several reform-seeking kings. Among the Achamenids, kings Cyrus the Great and Xerxes are the most associated with reform. But most reformism appeared in Sassanid Iran, of which we have better recorded history. In this period, there were reforms done by rulers, Anushirvan for example, which were carried out successfully, although like most of reforms of this nature were more geared to strengthen and centralize their political powers; and those which were demanded by opposition forces who were resisting the establishment, at least partially, such as those of Mazdak and Mani. The first one failed and was suppressed brutally; the second fared rather better; due to its advance and progressive nature. Traces of its tenets are observed not only in Iranian culture, but in Christianity as well.

As a matter of fact, reform never has come in an easy way. One has to pay for it. I wish life would have been as easy like what Shariati and Soroush thought it was, that one can say, “I think, therefore let it be so,” but alas it is not. In every stage of human life, when a reform is called for, there is a hazardous road ahead. Every year for three days, the Shia observes the martyrdom of Imam Hussein. Indeed, it was a bloody event in Islamic history. The gist of the matter is that Imam Hussein wanted to resist the corruption of Islam. He thought that his way, either the just way, or better way, or God’s intended way, was not his opponent’s way. However, willful that he was, he lost the battle and made the ultimate sacrifice for what he wanted to do. He stood for his belief, he bore witness to history, and Shia Muslims of the world still observe his testimony, his martyrdom.

Since several year before revolution when some intellectuals tried to use religion instrumentally for their own ends, Imam Hussein’s martyrdom was  referred to, conveniently, as a revolution rather than a reform, just to fit into a model for the Iranian opposition and meanwhile capture that minority of religious people who up to that time did not have a real place in the opposition to Shah. Today, this revolutionary reading of Ashura still remains as such to the Islamisists of Iran, while to a layman it could be viewed as a reform. Imam Hussein did not change or overthrow the whole system of Islam, he simply wanted to change the existing injustices of the ruling caliphs.

Indeed, Iranian history, as we studied it at school, never referred to any movement as reform or revolution. Instead, the word qiam was used to indicate that people took the lead to change. Only the Constitutional Movement was referred otherwise. Amir Kabir, Nizam ol-Molk, Sani od-Doleh, Mossadegh, Mohammad Ali Bab, and Kasravi were just a few of those who were simply blamed or praised for what they did, but never referred to as reformers. They all were killed or banished, indiscriminately, but the kind of reform they wanted to bring in the Iranian somehow survived. Each one came out boldly and courageously with a definite idea and a clear target to strike, as well as a willingness to pay the price. Today, when we look back, we should thank them all for the price they paid.

Khatami’s reform movement, however, is a totally different matter. While Iranian reformists have a mandate for reform and it is given to them by God, the holy book, history, tradition, people’s votes, and, more importantly, by that vaunted rationality, upon which Shiism claims to be based, their torch bearer refrains from committing his reform to any of the essentials of the reform. The very crucial position of reformists requires some clarity and purposefulness which is missing here. Judging from its ten year history, it seems that reform in its true sense had never been intended; rather, it was just an instrumental use of the institution by the Islamic Republic to unite the people with the government to buy time to regroup its forces. Khatami as a reformer (not a president—he remains the best we ever had) appeared as a trinity of Abraham, Isaac, and Lamb all in one. In a few swift, whirling moves, he changed from the reformer Abraham to a sacrificial Isaac and then to a sacrificial Lamb and then in a magical move everything changed. Poor Iranians who followed him turned out to be those who were really sacrificed. Khatami survived, though sadly defeated, embarrassed, disgraced, and bewildered as how to all this. “A strange swap” was the way I heard him put it most recently.

I read the news everyday to see how he will emerge from this new situation. He is buying time; he is waiting for the Guardian Council decision to save a few reformist candidates and then what? More lamentations? And that is all, the end of a legacy, reform movement!

The bitter grin of the oppositions who say that “reform is dead” is coming true after all, though for a different reason. Reform died. It died in its cradle due to its lack of identity, been born out of nothing, out of no background, with no precise message and aim. The movement died since it has no umbilical cord.

After ten years we still do not know what is it that Khatami wanted to correct or abolish. We do not know his opponents and their issues. We do not know with what means he wants to reform them. We do not know where he receives his mandate—the people, God, the constitution or what? In none of his talks does he ever refer to the Constitution, which must be above anything else, he never holds any one responsible, he never referred to any institution as corrupt or harmful. He never referred to any other reform movement to set a precedent to his reform movement. His reform movement is devoid of any history, any identity, any meaning. His reform in nothing but a name, something that cannot withstand even a blow.

His reform will die, but fortunately he himself will survive. He will see old age, he will hopefully live to see his great grandchildren. One day in the future, one on his grandchildren might come to him and ask “Grandpa, why did not you divide your love and goodness to all equally, a little for God, some for us, and some for all those people who loved you and trusted you and stood behind you and were looking up to you to do something for them, you the emissary of God who were to provide a peaceful government on earth, modeled after Heaven, the same as God did for Adam and Eve. Why did not you do that?” I hope he would have a better answer than just another sweet smile.
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