Spiegel interview with IRANIAN REGIME CRITIC MOHSEN KADIVAR
Update from JW:
One simmering controversy over the Iran protests was over whether the protesters simply wanted to install Mir Hussein Mousavi as President and continue living in a Sharia state, or whether they wanted to overthrow the Islamic Republic altogether. It seems likely that some wanted one and some wanted the other.
In any case, the evidence that some brought forward to show that the protesters had no problem with Sharia was lacking, to say the least: Mousavi is indeed an establishment figure in the Islamic Republic with a sinister past, but that in itself didn’t establish that every demonstrator who took to the streets in Iran was doing so because he or she positively endorsed Mousavi, his program, and his resume. He became a focus of the protests, but as Pamela Geller notes here of the Iranian voters, their choices were limited: “it was not as if they could write in Ronald Reagan’s name.”
Nor did the fact that the protesters have been shouting “Allahu akbar” necessarily indicate a wholehearted endorsement of Iranian theocracy. The phrase has an extra weight in Iran due to its use as a rallying cry during the Khomeini revolution in 1979, and given Iran’s cultural context, it is not in every respect the same thing to shout this on the streets of Tehran as to shout it on the streets of New York.
Of course, these considerations don’t mean that the protesters, had they prevailed, would have installed a Western-leaning secular government akin to the Shah’s. But those who supported the Shah and secularism have not entirely disappeared from Iran, and cannot be discounted as an element in those protests.
Anyway, this interview with Ayatollah Mohsen Kadivar, an establishment hack like Mousavi, as well as a theocrat and Jew-hater. He praises Obama’s supine response to Iranian tyranny, as if the specter of American support for the protesters would have driven them to embrace Ahmadinejad in droves. But Kadivar does shed a bit more light on the nature of the protests. He insists that the protests have been “thoroughly Islamic,” but also admits that “some young people are oriented towards the West” — although he downplays that fact and maintains that most Iranians want Sharia. Still, the question Geller asked in her article still lingers: “Are people in Iran dying for more of the same thing they have been getting from the Islamic Republic for thirty years?” Since the protests have been essentially crushed at this point, we may never know the answer.
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In a SPIEGEL interview, Iranian theologian and philosopher Mohsen Kadivar discusses Tehran’s path towards a military dictatorship, how the country’s religious leaders abuse Islam and opportunities for reform.
SPIEGEL:Â Ayatollah Kadivar, we are meeting you here at Duke University in the US State of North Carolina, 7,500 miles away from your home. Are you not needed more urgently in Iran now?
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AP
The Fatima mosque: “Among the grand ayatollahs in Qum, the resentment towards Ahmadinejad’s arrogance is growing.”
Kadivar:Â Believe me, in these dramatic hours I would much rather be in my homeland. Within the next two weeks, the future of Iran will be decided. Almost all my friends, 95 percent of them, are now in prison; and I am barely able to contact my family, the phones are almost dead.Â
SPIEGEL:Â You are said to be the co-author of the most recent declarations of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.
Kadivar:Â That is not right. Although I enjoyed his statements, they are not mine. I published my declarations separately, although I support Mousavi strongly. We have found means to communicate with each other. Via the Internet and via third parties, I am in constant contact with my homeland. Every day I receive about 100 messages.
Continue reading 'This Iranian Form of Theocracy Has Failed'
Jennifer Garner and Martha Stewart on the set of “The Martha Stewart Show.”
       Moderate Macedonian Muslims
 Therefore, the anti-minaret initiative is evil and must be nipped in the butt.