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A revolution short of a
leader
By Hooman
Peimani
This Monday, more than 250 Iranian
intellectuals called on Ali Khamenei to relinquish his
status as Iran's "supreme leader". Being published after
about five days of anti-regime student demonstrations in
Tehran and a few other cities, their letter is
significant for its timing and also its courageous
content. However, its importance lies in offering a
direction and a potential leadership for the rising
democratic movement, which, as a leaderless movement,
will have no chance for success.
The reformist
newspaper Yas-e-nou published the letter to which there
has not yet been any official reaction. Its signatories
comprised university professors, writers and clerics.
Among them were famous reformist personalities who are
disillusioned with President Mohammad Khatami's
reformist faction. They include Hashem Aghajari, a
university professor and a high-ranking member of the
Reformist Organization of the Mojahedin of the Islamic
Revolution who lost a leg, as well as a brother, during
the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88). For his last year's speech
in Iran's western city of Hamedan during which he
criticized the ruling theocracy, he was sentenced to
death. The harsh punishment provoked massive student
protests all over Iran, which forced the Iranian
judiciary to overrule that sentence in February. He has
since been imprisoned awaiting his retrial.
Also
among the signatories were two aides to Khatami, Saeed
Pourazizi and Saeed Hajjarian. Known as the architect of
Khatami's reform program and also his landslide election
in 1997, Hajjarian survived an assassination by
vigilantes, but which paralyzed him. Ebrahim Yazdi, the
leader of the Freedom Movement of Iran, was another
prominent signatory. His party formed the provisional
government of Iran right after the 1979 revolution in
which Yazdi served as the foreign minister. It has been
a tolerated opposition group since late 1979 when its
government resigned.
In their statement, the
signatories urged Khamenei to accept his accountability
to his people. Thus, they asked him to abandon the
principle of being God's representative on earth, which
make him accountable to God only for all affairs,
including running the country. The statement denounced
as "heresy" the possession of absolute power, which he
posses. "Considering individuals to be in the position
of a divinity and absolute power," held the statement,
"is open polytheism [in contradiction to] almighty God,
and blatant oppression of the dignity of [the] human
being."
Khamenei holds the highest position in
the ruling theocracy, which enable him to stop
deliberations on any bill, to overrule any law and to
sack elected figures, such as the president. He is also
commander in chief of the Iranian armed forces and the
police, while controlling Iran's radio and television
organization in charge of all provincial, national and
international radio and television programs. Yet he is
not accountable to any elected official or entity, such
as parliament. Nor can any person or organ question his
decisions and performance as he is considered to be
above the law. Keeping these characteristics in mind,
the mentioned letter challenged this impunity. "People
[and their elected lawmakers]", it emphasized, "have the
right to fully supervise their rulers, criticize them
and remove them from power if they are not satisfied."
The published statement challenged the very
foundation of Iran's political system since 1979. This
is a theocracy ruled by a jurisprudent who is above the
law as his legitimacy is derived not from its respective
people, but from god, the reason why Khamenei is not
accountable to people, unlike the elected president. A
clergy-dominated organ, the Expert Assembly, appointed
Khamenei as the jurisprudent when Ayatollah Khomenei
passed away in 1989.
The letter's signatories
backed the May 24 letter of 127 members of parliament
addressed to Khamenei. "We, university teachers,
students, writers and political activists," held the
signatories, "thank and support the letter by lawmakers
addressed to the supreme leader that respectfully
mentioned people's minimum demands and voiced national
concerns." In that letter, the reformist legislators
called on Khamenei to push for reform before "the whole
establishment and the country's independence and
territorial integrity are jeopardized", while demanding
him to help the frustrated president, Khatami.
A
large number of intellectuals signed the letter after
about six nights of scattered student demonstrations in
Tehran and in a few other cities. Being continued to
this day, the demonstrators have demanded a secular
democracy as they have chanted anti-Khamenei slogans for
the first time since his ascension to power. Yet the
student protests have been mainly confined to a faction
of Iranian students, although non-students have also
demonstrated as they did on Thursday in a Tehran's
neighborhood of Tehranpars.
Coming out of
small-scale demonstrations, a student demand for a
secular democracy in itself is not potent enough to
foster the desired change. For that to happen, such
expression of political dissent should expand to include
the majority of Iranians. While this may not happen in a
short period of time, there is no question that Iranian
society is ripe for a fundamental change, as even
acknowledged by Mohammad Reza Khatami, the president's
younger brother and the Iranian parliament's deputy
speaker. In his Thursday reaction to the ongoing
demonstrations, he rejected their attribution to the
American government and stressed social problems as
their roots. On the same day, his brother, President
Khatami, recognized the students' right to express their
opposition through demonstrations and condemned
vigilante attacks on them, although he also stressed the
police's authority to confront demonstrators if
necessary.
However, even a popular movement for
a fundamental change will fail unless it finds a trusted
leadership. This lack will result in the continuation of
the status quo in one form or another. The current
pro-democracy student movement does not seem to have a
strong leadership, a handicap which may finally prevent
its continuity and expansion. In such a situation and
given the practical absence of popular secular
democratic political groups, any leadership will likely
emerge from among the political activists who have a
degree of legitimacy and popularity among their people.
That criterion practically excludes all Iranian
opposition groups and individuals abroad, leaving the
political activists in Iran as the only conceivable
candidates.
Those who signed the Monday
statement include a range of intellectuals with
different backgrounds which dismiss their function as a
coherent political group, despite their having certain
common views and demands. However, among them there are
popular individuals, such as Aghajari, who have the
potential to emerge as leaders. They enjoy the people's
trust and, as long-term political activists, can rely on
a network of likeminded in Iran to lead a pro-democracy
movement. While it is too early to make an educated
prediction, the leaders of any viable pro-democracy
movement in Iran should likely emerge from among those
such as the signatories of the mentioned letter whose
courageous move reflected their apperception of a desire
for a fundamental change among Iranians, and not just
the Iranian students.
Dr Hooman
Peimani works as an independent consultant with
international organizations in Geneva and does research
in international relations.
(Copyright 2003
Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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