Monday
February 28, 2000
Milking the masses
As an ever cynical Iranian I always wonder how did Mohammad Khatami
ever receive the blessing from those who decide who can be a candidate
for elections. Same goes for all those 6000 or so candidates who ran for
the sixth Majlis. To me they all belong to the same family and the fact
they have been vetted by the Council of Guardians clearly indicates that
even the so-called reformists are nothing but a farce ["The
ballot box"].
I do not claim to understand the politics of it all and don't quite
understand what is happening in Iran. Perhaps the Iranians living in Iran
know where they are going. Before the revolution I did not know what was
going on. I guess I will never know. Perhaps for a simple minded person
such as myself the complexities of everyday life are too hard to comprehend
and digest.
It is interesting that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pardoned those who wrote
the play about Imam Mahdi ["Time
to reappear"]. It is interesting that Abdollah Nouri was given
leave from prison two days after the Mjalis elections and within three
months of being imprisoned. It is interesting that former Tehran mayor
Gholam-Hossein Karbaschi was released from prison as well. And it is interesting
that the blood of all those who were murdered by the clerical rulers (including
Khatami, Nouri and the so-called reformists) should be forgotten because
the current officials are seeking better relations with the rest of the
world.
Is it not a fact that these relations, including very friendly relations
with Israel, have been going on from the very first days of Khomeini coming
to power? Is it not true that a lot goes on behind closed-door meetings
of the Iranian rulers (if they can be called Iranian ... As rumor has it
you come across a lot of people in government who can not speak Persian
as they are from different Arab speaking countries and the clergy have
difficulty speaking Persian as their languge of eductation is Arabic and
not Persian).
Could someone enlighten me? I am really lost. Are Iranians asking for
freedom from having to wear the chador or wearing Nike T-Shirts? Or this
is only the front for getting freedom to express oneself. When Saeed Soltanpoor
was dragged away from his newly wed wife at his wedding night because who
wrote a play that showed where the country was going when lots of young
people were arrested and later executed because they did not agree with
Khomeini. Now how can his successors be pardoned and forgiven for all the
cruelties they committed over the past 21 years? Why are the Iranian people
happy with superficial "freedoms"? Who is Mohammad Reza Khatami
and who is Ali Reza Nouri [who were elected to the Majlis from Tehran]?
Are they of a different fabric than their brothers? Are they really Iranian?
I suppose some may say , Who cares what happened in the past? It seems
to me that Iranians as a nation always forget the fact that the past provides
guidance for the future. Obviously the clergy want to survive at any cost.
Their new ploy gels well with the wishes of the masses. They want freedom
they get freedom. They want friendly relations with the "Great Satan"
they get friendly relations with the "Great Satan". They have
been milking the nation for over 20 years and keep milking it. Rafsanjani's
family has become pretty fat and now it's Khatami's family's turn. Is this
what the masses of Iran want or it is what the elite of Iran, those who
have always been reaping the benefits by milking the masses, want?
J. Entesari
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