Recently I finished a book by Ali Gharib. The name of this book was “Istadeh bar armaan”
The writer in this book attempts to give an accurate account of events leading to the 1979 revolution and Khomeini becoming a leader. Then he goes on to quote from the memoirs of people like Banisadr, Bazargan, Yazdi, Soroosh and many others as to how Khomeini betrayed all of them along with Iranian nation and diverted their revolution into the path that it was never supposed to take and by doing that he destroyed a revolution, a country and the future of several generations.
During the time I was reading this book I tried to be as open minded as possible and tried to listen hard and even where ever possible to sympathize with these people their goals and their struggles.
But I am afraid in the end I could not ignore the facts and could not over look many loop holes in their approaches, arguments and logics. As hard as they tried to wash their hands of any responsibilities for the disaster of 1979, I still was not persuaded to by their excuses.
According to the writer of this book Khomeini was exiled to Paris by the Shah’s regime because they knew that with his stupid way of thinking it would only take one interview with the Western media to expose him of the phoney moron that he was and would show everybody how disconnected from reality he was and hence that would be his ending.
Well one thing that the writer of this book overlooked was the statements made by Dr Ibrahim Yazdi in his book “Akhareen Talaashaa dar Akhareen Roozha” stating that actually after Khomeini was thrown out of Iraq he was on his way to Kuwait and Mr Yazdi intercepted his journey on the border of Iraq and Kuwait and persuaded him to go to Paris. So! Which version is the truth and why to blame some one else for your own mistake even if that someone is the regime you are fighting against.
In another part of this book the writer talks about the first meeting in Paris between Khomeini and Banisadr. During this meeting Banisadr went over 19 key points about the purpose and characteristics of the revolution with Khomeini to make sure that he will give the right response to the questions asked by the media, so that he and his revolution is perceived as a modern progressive phenomena in the eyes of world media and eventually by Iranian people.
During the next consecutive meetings Banisadr drew an strategic blue print for Khomeini as for how to portrait himself, his goals and his revolution in (terms of economy, judiciary, the place of clergy, social affairs, political freedom, foreign policy and many more areas) in the eyes of the world.
According to the book Khomeini agreed to follow all Banisadr’s guidelines to the point that in the coming days and month he would not release any statement or even answer any question without getting Mr Banisadr’s approval first.
The writer then goes one to say that after the success of their revolution and upon arrival to Iran Khomeini’s behaviour and words changed and he became some one else, to the point that he was totally different to the man they knew in Paris and in that sense he portraits Khomeini as a deceitful liar and presents people like Banisadr, Yazdi Ghotb Zadeh and many others as victims of such deceits
Well at the first look for an untrained eye and for a person who is not familiar with the world politic and even human relationships at all this analysis might make perfect sense.
But under a closer scrutiny and a non bias analysis one can see the crack appearing in such analysis as once again the bad old Iranian habit of not accepting responsibility for ones own errors will begin to show its ugly head again.
Please let me elaborate. To start my analysis I will begin by asking a question from the author and more importantly from Mr Banisadr.
How much did Mr Banisadr know Khomeini when he decided to promote him as the leader of revolution?
If ordinary people like me who lived under the censorship of Shah Regime did not have access to Khomeini’s writing, I am sure that would not have been the case for the likes of Mr Banisadr Mr Yazdi and others in Paris. These were people who were living in the free world and even had access to the man (Khomeini) himself let alone his writing.
Why didn’t any of these people bother to read a couple of Khomeini’s books (Bahar al Anvar, Saheefe-ye Noor), where Khomeini have put in black and white what he meant by Velaayet-e Fagheeh or Islamic Republic. In case these people as stated in this book did not agree with the principal of such terms then why did they support and assist Khomeini and more importantly why did they accepted him as a leader and presented him to Iranian people and the world as The Leader of Revolution.
One think that we know very well and hopefully agree on is the fact that without the assistant and advice such people Khomeini could never have pulled the stunt of 1979. So the question remains as WHY?
Why did Mr Banisadr assist Khomeini and by putting nice acceptable words into his mouth pulled the wool over the heads of ordinary naive Iranians. Why he helped Khomeini by presenting him as what he was not when he knew or at least should have known very well that Khomeini did not believe in any of the statements that they directed him to make.
If Mr Banisadr and Khomeini were in agreement on core principals then he should not even have had to go through those points with Khomeini. After all he was the leader and Banisadr was the follower. How could you follow and even worse promote a leader when you know damn well that he does not believe in and do not even know about any of your principals?
If they where in agreement in some of the principals or even if the equation was the other way round where Mr Banisadr was the leader and Khomeini was the follower then I would have understood such alliance. But isn’t following a leader when you know that you do not agree with his principal points of view or even worse when you do not know where he stands for plain stupid and arrogant?
Or could it be the case that they knew the fact that given the way the mind of the ordinary Iranians worked at the time they would never fall for let alone follow their mumbo-jumbo of revolution. But on the other hand it was realized that given the religious state of most people’s mind at the time and the status of religion in Iranian society of 1979, it would have been very easy to revoke peoples emotions using religious beliefs in order to mobilise them into the street.
Furthermore as the author testifies in this book Mr Khomeini never said anything without approval of Banisadr. So how come he could make such stupid unrealistic promises such as free water and electricity free public transport or even distributing oil money by sending cash to people’s door step?
If Khomeini was making such promises on his own accord then I would have understood. After all he was an illiterate idiot who have never even had the privilege of running a small corner shop to know any thing about how it works in real world let alone knowing what is feasible and what is not, when it comes to running a country and an economy as big as Iran .
But why Mr Banisadr a person with a PHD qualification in Economy allowed Khomeini to make such stupid promises. Could it be because he found such stunts as useful manoeuvres that could mobilise hundreds of thousands greedy economically illiterate idiots into the Streets of Iranian cities and get him one step closer to his goal?
Hence I ask you and ask Mr Banisadr again who really committed the crime of deceit against our naive nation and even themselves. Was it Khomeini who knew from the start what we wanted and stated it over and over again in his speaches?
“An Islamic Republic, not a word more and not a word less”
Or was it people like Banisadr, Ghotb Zadeh, Bazargan, Yazdi and many other so called intellectuals who thought that they could use Khomeini to get into power and then would be able to eliminate and marginalise him.
But of course let us not forget the gullibility of a nation who chose to forget their heritage and history and even disconnect from reality by letting their greed to get the better of them hence believing such stupid promises and as a result destroying the future of themselves and many generations after them
