Tehran Blues by Basmenji Kaveh

Author:Basmenji, Kaveh.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780863565151
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc.

EIGHT

Looking to China

If there is anyone who believes that there will be another wave [of unrest] in Iran, I totally disagree. In Iran, an event will not take place easily. Because the clergy and the religious forces are the most rooted classes of this society … There are a hundred thousand mosques and Hosseiyyehs, surrounded by a lot of good people, and the clergy has the leadership. Now that we are in power, the mosques must be accountable to the opposition. If someday a government takes over that is against these [religious classes], putting them in opposition, they will give such a government hell.

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 2004

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

Franz Kafka

Although Rafsanjani himself liked to be called ‘the commander of construction’ and ‘Amir Kabir of modern times’, many people half-jokingly called him ‘Akbar Shah’; and a journalist called him ‘Ayatollah Deng Xiao Ping’. And not totally without reason. During his tenure, flamboyance and extravaganza were reintroduced. After years of watching the imam sitting on a dilapidated chair, people now saw Rafsanjani in a huge golden-framed leather upholstered armchair, talking of a ‘display of luxury’.

The first two years after Ayatollah Khomeini’s death, in mid-1989, roughly coinciding with the presidency of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani were marked by the gradual liberalisation of social and economic controls. Hopes grew of a more tolerant society, reflecting Iran’s multi-ethnic populace and traditions of diversity.

Ayatollah Khomeini’s demise in 1989 more than anything else marked an end to the epoch of charismatic revolutionary leadership in Iran. In the absence of his authority, a new labour division, so to speak, was imperative if the system was to survive and consolidate itself. The unlikely successor to the imam was President Ali Khamenei, elected by the Assembly of Experts. While observers generally expected the Assembly to come up with a Leadership Council, the consensus among the ruling clergy was that the system based on Velayat-e Faqih indeed needed a single Vali-e Faqih. The lack of charisma, however, was later to be compensated for by extra powers given to the faqih when the constitution underwent changes a short while later.

Ali Khamenei was born in Mashhad in 1939. He began religious studies before completing the elementary education. He attended the classes of masters of ‘Sat’h’ (seminary lectures based on reading textbooks) and ‘Kharej’ (seminary lectures not based on reading textbooks) in Mashhad, such as Hajj Sheikh Hashem Qazvini, and Ayatollah Milani, and then went to Najaf in 1957.

After a short stay he left Najaf for Mashhad, and later he settled in Qom in 1958. Khamenei attended the classes of Ayatollahs Boroujerdi and Khomeini. Later he was involved in the Islamic activities of 1963 that led to his arrest in the city of Birjand in southern Khorasan province. After a short period he was released and continued his life by teaching in religious schools of Mashhad and teaching Islamic texts in different Mosques.

In December 1974 Khamenei was arrested at his home by SAVAK and dispatched to the joint committee prison of the police department in Tehran.

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