The Ayatollah Begs to Differ

by Hooman Majd

  The UN Security Council resolution of December 2006 imposing sanctions on Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment was viewed in Iran as a foreign policy failure, not because President Ahmadinejad’s sometimes belligerent and always defiant insistence that Iran would not give up its rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty was largely disapproved of, but because the result of that resolution was that certain food staples, such as tomatoes, had, since the passage of the resolution, become unaffordable to the Iranian masses. The Holocaust conference in Tehran that preceded the UN vote was derided not because of its preposterous premise but for its being viewed as having unfavorably swayed the UN vote. The Iranian administration’s goading of President Bush and the U.S. government, whether on Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian question, or basic issues of Iranian and American power, was viewed not as illegitimate but as having resulted in unilateral U.S. economic sanctions (and undue U.S. pressure on European and Asian allies), which meant foreign letters of credit were essentially unavailable to Iranian businesses that would, if sanctions continued or even expanded, downsize and contribute to Iran’s already unenviable unemployment rate.

  Iranians inside Iran were neither shy nor fearful in expressing their dissatisfaction with their president, but if his honeymoon with both Iranian voters and the Iranian media had been even shorter lived than President Bush’s (his extended by the events of 9/11, as it was), it did not mean that he was politically doomed, nor did it even mean that he couldn’t regain his popularity. Foreign policy was indeed inextricably linked in the minds of Iranians to the economy, but it was by no means certain that Iranians, who seemed to generally prefer that their president project a more benign image abroad, were more willing now than before to forgo what they believed to be nuclear independence in order to buy, say, cheaper tomatoes. However, Iranian obsessiveness with a single issue such as the price of tomatoes—and tomatoes were the national obsession for almost two months—was evident in the airtime it received on national television, in a debate in parliament, and in Ahmadinejad’s remark on the matter, widely ridiculed, that people should shop in his neighborhood because the price of tomatoes at his corner bodega hadn’t increased as much as elsewhere. He was actually not too far off the mark with his quip, which was intended as much as a dig against the elite as a defense of his economy, but his populist tone still wasn’t quite putting tomatoes on the tables of the working classes, who naturally deemed it their right to enjoy a meal with that most common of fruits. On weekday afternoons at the Behjatabad bazaar, however, Tehran’s chicest (and most expensive) outdoor food emporium, which I visited a few times, tomatoes of every variety were piled high in front of the vegetable stalls, and hawkers beckoned the well-dressed shoppers to sample their wares. The exquisitely red tomatoes, out of reach for most South Tehran residents, were bought by the kilo by men and women with sculpted noses who pulled up in their $120,000 Mercedes and $60,000 BMWs (in a city filled with $8,000 Iranian-made cars), many of whom would go on to discuss the price they paid at dinner parties with the same seriousness they normally reserved for discussing the Dow Jones Industrials or foreign exchange rates.

  The Iranian wealthy, certainly the secular, Westernized ones, were taking delight in Ahmadinejad’s unpopularity, thankful that at last Iranians from all walks of life were turning against him, but their own lives were actually very little affected by Ahmadinejad’s policies. The concern that many had had when he was first elected president—that the social freedoms they had enjoyed under Khatami would be severely curtailed—had not yet materialized, and in Tehran in early 2007 the liberal interpretation of the hijab, along with dating, sex, liquor consumption, and every form of Western influence, continued unabated with the government still turning an, if not blind, then extremely myopic eye.

  In the late spring of 2007, however, with an embattled government facing the possibility of further UN sanctions that could harm the already-unsteady economy, the authorities, in what seemed a move to turn attention away from more serious issues, embarked on a far more severe crackdown on liberalization than had been the norm in the past, and Ahmadinejad, despite his earlier statements that the issue of hijab paled in significance to greater issues of haq, did not weigh in on the crackdown.10 A yearly rite when warm weather, and therefore more revealing outfits, first make their appearance, the public crackdown on “mal-veiling”—another of the wonderful words the Islamic Republic has given us—made only a small dent in Iranian lifestyles (but received much attention in the West). On the streets, women (and men with exaggerated hairstyles or skimpy T-shirts) were arrested with much greater frequency than in past years, but usually only if they challenged the authorities, who generally first warned them to, and then showed them how to, “correct” their behavior. But apart from the unusual wave of arrests for “un-Islamic behavior,” accusations were made both inside and outside Iran that there was a more nefarious aspect to the crackdown, namely, that it had been used as a cover to arrest, imprison, and intimidate opponents of the regime.

  Indeed, a simultaneous crackdown on crime and gangs resulted in an unusually high number of executions by the state—a state that is second only to China in the number of its citizens it puts to death—and exile groups made the claim that the government had used the opportunity in enforcing Sharia (Islamic law, which automatically imposes the death penalty on crimes such as murder and rape unless the victims’ families agree to receive blood money as reparations) to eliminate some of its opponents. It was an accusation that was difficult to prove, for the most prominent political prisoners, such as labor leaders, student activists, feminists, and, of course, the Iranian-Americans accused of espionage, were not among the hanged, but those the government called “terrorists” certainly were (echoing the Shah’s era, when virtually all political prisoners hanged had been first found guilty of “terrorism,” and a reminder that the “terrorist” moniker has worked in undermining civil rights in autocracies and democracies equally). They included the confessed assassins of a judge, and a number of men found guilty, having provided less convincing confessions, of acts of terrorism in the troubled regions of Sistan va Baluchestan (bordering Pakistan and where Sunni separatists frequently engage government forces) and Khuzestan (where Arab separatist groups have on occasion resorted to terror tactics and where Iran accuses the United States and the United Kingdom of fomenting unrest).

  As horrific as the photographs and videos of public executions that circulated on the Web were, the majority of Iranians support the death penalty for serious crimes, although many, and particularly the reformists, believe that Sharia should be ignored (if not taken off the books) in the cases of lesser crimes (such as adultery, prostitution, and pederasty). The presidency does not control the judiciary, but under Khatami and his influence (including with the Supreme Leader) conservatives had less of a free rein to demand the imposition of the most controversial of Sharia rulings, whereas with the Ahmadinejad administration conservative judges have, to use an American expression, felt free in spending what they believe to be some of their “political capital.” Unusually, many executions in 2007 were carried out in public, on the streets and with the hangman’s noose dangling from a crane on the back of a truck and often with crowds cheering on, particularly in the cases of confessed murderers. Although Sharia deems that death must come to the condemned quickly and painlessly (and halal regulations even mandate the same for animals destined for the dinner table), Iran’s executioners do not seem to have approached hanging—which should result in the instantaneous breaking of the neck—as a mathematical challenge, for some unfortunate convicts have ended up being slowly strangled rather than hanged, either because of an inadequate drop or because the hangmen simply dispensed with the drop altogether, instead allowing the crane to lift the victims by the ropes around their necks.

  But despite the arrests and despite the executions (which for those not witnessing them meant very little, since Iranians generally have hardly any sympathy for convicted c
riminals), Tehran’s street scenes, apart from a slight tightening of the headscarf here and there, did not visibly change much in the second year of Ahmadinejad’s “return to the values of the revolution,” and the vigilance with which authorities initially pursued their public campaign against “mal-veiling” abated somewhat in the face of other pressing issues, such as an unpopular decision to ration gasoline in order to prepare for potential future UN-or unilateral U.S.-and European-imposed sanctions (Iran needs to import gasoline because of a lack of oil-refining capacity, which it in turn blames on years of U.S. sanctions).11

  Many Iranians, particularly the more secular-minded and those in the diaspora, may insist that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not represent the true Iran or Iranians, that he comes from a place few recognize. His political views may indeed be extreme, maybe more so than those of most of the people who voted for him, but the unrecognizable place he comes from is very much a part of Iran and its culture, and many Iranians can readily identify with him, even if they’re dissatisfied with his administration’s programs. It’s an Iran away from the North Tehran that Western journalists tend to focus upon, where nose jobs are few, where humility and ta’arouf share the spotlight with pride and straightforwardness, but, more important, where the all-encompassing Iranian preoccupation with haq is most conspicuous. Ahmadinejad, the commoner elevated to the ranks of the elite by his fellow common man, where he will firmly remain whether in or out of power as long as there is an Islamic Republic, may care or worry less about the trajectory of his political fortunes than other Iranian statesmen. He may also care less about his and everyone else’s worldly boss, the Supreme Leader, whoever he may be at any given time, and it perhaps matters less to him that he be right or wrong on any matter, or that history judge him kindly or harshly. He strongly believes that he stands for the haq of the people, and Ahmadinejad, like so many of his fellow citizens who can identify with him and are yearning for justice, deliverance, and their haq, will continue to proclaim himself their champion. Until, that is, the Mahdi takes over his job.

  “Yeki-bood; yeki-nabood.” A story that embodies both the Iranian obsession with haq and the imbued psychology of ta’arouf is one that may or may not be true, for there is no way of knowing, but the fact that it exists even as a story gives insight into the Iranian psyche. Ahmad Shah, the last Qajar king, of the dynasty that preceded the Pahlavis, in turn the last dynasty before the Islamic Revolution, ruled as a constitutional monarch and left the sorry state of the Iranian economy to hapless viziers to manage. (It is entirely possible that this tale was invented by family and supporters of the Qajars, who were ridiculed by the Pahlavi Shahs and the Islamic governments that followed alike.) The British, who had briefly occupied Iran during World War I and whose influence in Persia was balanced somewhat by Russia, were pressuring Iran to agree to a treaty that would in essence make Persia a British protectorate, on top of the continued concessions in oil and tobacco that they would exploit for decades longer. But the young Shah was resisting. In 1919, on a state visit to London, where he was feted by King George and Lord Curzon, who made separate flowery speeches outlining the future of Persia, he realized that however much he resisted (and his own speeches there reveal, at least in oratory, his cold attitude toward the British plan), the British would have their way, with or without him. One morning, as he was starting to shave, his manservant noticed he hadn’t put out his mirror.

  “Why, your majesty, are you going to shave without a mirror?” he asked.

  “Because,” Ahmad Shah replied, “I don’t want to look at my madarghahbeh [son-of-a-whore] face.”

  Ahmad Shah was ultimately, with the help of the British, pushed aside by a military coup in 1921, self-exiled from his country in 1923, and formally deposed in 1925 (eventually dying in France in 1930). He knew, in London, that he was about to give in to the powerful British Empire because of his and his country’s weakness, and be forced to surrender Iran’s haq and honor, and little else could describe his feelings of complete humiliation. He was not, of course, a son of a whore, but if the story is true, his ta’arouf was exceptionally fitting.

  VICTORY OF BLOOD OVER THE SWORD

  “There was a girl, a young girl, who had already had her leg amputated because of cancer, and she lay dying in the hospital. Her doctor and nurses, who could do no more for her, asked her if she wanted or needed to talk to anyone about any worries or problems she might have. ‘I don’t even tell God my problems or worries,’ she replied, ‘but I do tell my problems about God.’ When she died, her distraught father told the doctor, who was trying to comfort him, that it was all right. ‘I was unworthy of her,’ he said, ‘so God took her back to him.’ The doctor, a secularist and not religious in any way but impressed by the power of faith, is the one who has told the story many times.” Mrs. Khatami finished speaking and looked at me with a smile, her gentle eyes wide and unblinking. She held her floral chador, one she only wears indoors, tightly under her chin with her fist. “You can’t explain it, can you?” she said. “But there is something about faith and religion.”

  The story may be corny, I thought, even if it’s true, but there was nothing corny about Mrs. Sadoughi, as Maryam Khatami, sister of the former president Khatami, is better known. (Women in Iran keep their maiden names when they marry, including on all legal documents, and use their husband’s name only if prefaced with “Mrs.”) “I do tell my problems about God.” We were sitting in the living room of the Sadoughi house in the old part of central Yazd, the desert city smack in the middle of Iran where Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Ali Sadoughi, Maryam’s husband, is the Imam Jomeh, or “Friday prayers leader,” and therefore the representative of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution in the province. It was the start of a busy week for Sadoughi, for this was the ninth day of Moharram, the first month of the Arabic calendar, Tasua, as it is known throughout the Shia world—one of the two holiest days in a holy month of mourning for the martyrdom of the Shia Imam Hossein.

  Sadoughi’s son, Mohammad, was busy preparing a ghalyoun, or “water pipe,” for us to smoke Persian tobacco after lunch, and Maryam Khatami and I were having a conversation about the role of religion in Iranian society while her husband, sitting on a couch next to me, listened carefully, nodding his head in agreement from time to time between sips of hot tea. The old Persian doors (or French doors, in the West) of the living room opened onto a completely walled garden with a large, rectangular pond in the center, surrounded by fruit trees and mature palms, and I stared admiringly at the badgir, or “wind catcher,” the ancient Iranian air-conditioning system—a rectangular tower with slats at the top that “catch” a breeze and accelerate it (thus cooling the air) downward—that served to cool a large shaded patio at the end of the garden used in the summer. The mud-brick house was well over a century old and was as traditional a dwelling as one can find in Iran, albeit unlike many other old houses in that it was restored to perfection and spoke to the Sadoughis’ love of all things Persian, including the tobacco we were about to smoke (which is no longer popular, having lost ground to the Arab fruit-flavored tobaccos also found in the West and, of course, cigarettes).

  Earlier that morning, I had dutifully arrived at the Hazireh Mosque in front of the Sadoughi house, a house that sits at the beginning of a maze of impossibly narrow alleys that emanate from the main Yazd thoroughfare and is distinguishable from others only by the sole Revolutionary Guard, Kalashnikov casually thrown over his shoulder, standing outside his dilapidated booth. Yazd is a traditional city, a religious city, but is also known for its particularly theatrical public ceremonies commemorating the death of Imam Hossein some fourteen hundred years ago, when the city was the site, as it still is today, of important Zoroastrian temples. Mourning death is a Yazdi specialty, even an art, and death and martyrdom are pillars of Shia Islam. Religion is, at least to me, most interesting in its extreme human expression, particularly extreme public expression, and few places compare to Yazd province in that expression, espe
cially in its beauty and emotional resonance rather than what we might think of as fundamentalist character.

  The mosque was already almost filled to capacity with men dressed in black; women in black chadors and young girls in black headscarves were relegated to a balcony that ran along one wall and overlooked the expansive Persian-carpeted room, a room so brightly lit by massive fluorescent fixtures that the rows of tiled columns sparkled as if they were mirrors. I was led to a bench just inside the open doors of the entrance on one side of the building where I sat down with a number of mullahs as well as Sadoughi himself, protected by Revolutionary Guards, to watch the proceedings. A path of sorts had been cleared in front of us and extended in a U shape all around the mosque to the entrance on the other side, and an officious, overweight policeman in an ill-fitting uniform stood watch, eagerly anticipating the processions soon to arrive by waving this and that person to one side or another as they entered the mosque. While we were waiting for the ceremonies to begin, we were offered small glasses of tea by an attendant who fetched them from a makeshift kitchen behind us that had been set up to provide tea to any of the hundreds of people who had come in remembrance of Imam Hossein’s martyrdom.