The Ayatollah Begs to Differ
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5. Many Iranians of a certain age continue to believe that the British somehow control, or at least influence, everything to their favor in Iran. The fact that, despite U.K. involvement in the 1953 coup (or their effectively having instigated it) and a long history of interference in Iranian affairs (including notorious oil and tobacco concessions), the British continue to maintain a large embassy in Tehran (while the United States suffered the indignity of the hostage crisis) is often pointed to (by conspiracy theorists at every social gathering) as evidence that British influence has not diminished with the creation of the Islamic Republic. In the 1970s, Iranian obsession with British intrigue was satirized in one of Iran’s best-selling novels of all time, My Uncle Napoleon, by Iraj Pezeshkzad (a friend and contemporary of my father’s at the Foreign Ministry who moved to France after the revolution), which was also turned into a hit TV series of the same name. (See My Uncle Napoleon, translated by Dick Davis [New York: Modern Library, 2006].)
6. Kharrazi has admitted his role in the proposal (a role that has been made public in the U.S. media) but will no longer speak about it with reporters. While I was in Tehran in 2007, he told me that he was inundated by requests from U.S. media to go on record about the proposal but that he would not do so.
7. See the official Web site: www.wechange.info/english/.
8. See “A Quiet Battle for Rights in Iran,” Washington Post, Aug. 26, 2007.
THE AYATOLLAH BEGS TO DIFFER
1. Iran does not recognize dual citizenship (and did not under the Shahs’ regimes). Under Iranian law, an Iranian citizen can only become a national of another country if he or she first renounces Iranian nationality, which has to be done officially. If an Iranian renounces citizenship, however, he or she is no longer permitted to enter Iran, which means that for years most Iranians hid their U.S. or European citizenship from Iranian consulates. Under Khatami (although the law was never changed), Iranians could openly admit to their foreign citizenship, although they had to continue to travel to Iran only on an Iranian passport.
2. According to a statement from his office and reported by the newspaper Ham-Mihan, picked up by Agence France-Presse, June 21, 2007.
FEAR OF A BLACK TURBAN
1. A cleric becomes an Ayatollah by consensus of other Ayatollahs, and there are no official rules for acquiring the title. He is expected, of course, to have been a Hojjatoleslam, to have published works on Islamic theory and law, and to have followers, but in Iran is generally elevated to the position when he is referred to as “Ayatollah” by one or more other established Ayatollahs. Rafsanjani began to be referred to as “Ayatollah” in Iranian media in late 2006. See “So You Want to Become an Ayatollah,” Slate, April 6, 2004, www.slate.com/id/2098364/.
2. Press conference in Baghdad, Feb. 11, 2007, conducted by anonymous Pentagon officials. See news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6351257.stm.
3. The Trial of Khosro Golsorkhi was also broadcast on Iranian state television immediately after the revolution, but has since been banned in Iran. Poor-quality bootleg DVDs are, however, available.
A Note About the Author
HOOMAN MAJD was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1957, and lived abroad from infancy with his family, who were in the diplomatic service. He attended boarding school in England and college in the United States, and stayed in the United States after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Majd had a long career in the entertainment business before devoting himself to writing and journalism full-time. He worked at Island Records and Polygram Records for many years with a diverse group of artists, and was head of film and music at Palm Pictures, where he produced The Cup and James Toback’s Black and White. He has written for GQ, the New York Times, The New Yorker, the New York Observer, Interview, and Salon, and has been a regular contributor to the Huffington Post from its inception. A contributing editor at Interview magazine, he lives in New York City and travels regularly back to Iran.
FOOTNOTES
*1Pious Muslims always include the phrase “Peace Be Upon Him” or its abbreviation when writing the name of the prophet (though not necessarily when speaking his name).
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Copyright © 2008 by Hooman Majd
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States by Doubleday, an imprint of The Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.doubleday.com
DOUBLEDAY is a registered trademark and the DD colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
All photographs not otherwise credited are Copyright © 2008 by Hooman Majd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Majd, Hooman.
The ayatollah begs to differ / Hooman Majd.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Iran—Politics and government—1997– 2. Majd, Hooman—Travel—Iran. 3. Iran—Description and travel. 4. Iranian Americans—Biography. I. Title.
DS318.9.M35 2008
955.06'1—dc22
2008004648
eISBN: 978-0-385-52842-9
v3.0