WINDS of change are cautiously blowing over the land of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The first overt sign of a new liberal thinking was the contrasting public statements made by the Supreme Leader—viewed in the West as a hardliner and conservative revolutionary—and by President Mohammad Khatami, who is seen as a 'moderate and pragmatist'.
At the inaugural session of the Eighth Summit of the Organisation of Islamic Conference in Tehran on December 9, the Supreme Leader and the President seemed to offer strikingly different views on relations with the West and the way in which the Muslim world should deal with it.
Khamenei branded the United States and Israel as Islam's arch enemies. The West, he said, had little to offer Muslims except "a bankrupt lifestyle based on loose morals". It was, he felt, "directing people toward materiality, while money, gluttony and carnal desires are made the greatest aspirations."
In contrast, Khatami, whose landslide victory in May had caused a tremor of excitement through the country, called for dialogue with the US—with which Iran at present has no diplomatic ties. "Our era is one of preponderance of Western culture and civilisation, whose understanding is imperative," he said in a speech that followed Khamenei's by just minutes.
The two divergent speeches sparked a controversy in the country, divided the media and the citizens. And elicited a prompt acknowledgement from the United States where Khatami's statements are seen as a response to President Clinton's declaration last May—after Khatami's election—that the US was open to dialogue with Tehran. Last fortnight, state department deputy spokesman James Foley renewed the US offer of "dialogue" and specified that it should "take place with an authorised representative of the government and that it be acknowledged publicly". A readiness for an "authoritative dialogue" with Iran has been the stated US policy since 1994.
At a press conference in Washington on December 16, President Clinton said: "We have three issues that we think have to be discussed in the context of any comprehensive discussion. The first relates to Iranian support of terrorist activities, with which we strongly disagree.The second relates to Iranian opposition to the peace process in the Middle East with which we disagree. And the third relates to policies involving the development of weapons of mass destruction. Do I hope that there will be some conditions under which dialogue can resume? I certainly do."
Israel and the US claim Iran has been supplying weapons to the Hezbollah and others in Lebanon who are engaged in armed struggle against Israel. Iran says it has been giving humanitarian and spiritual assistance to those fighting for the liberation of their land. Iran also opposes the Oslo peace accord on the grounds that the US role was biased in favour of Israel. "Because of the US' partial role, the peace process has now turned into a war process," Iran News reported recently.
WITHIN Iran, the controversy has spotlighted the differences between the moderates and the hardliners. 'Freelance' police enjoying the support of the hardliners frequently clash with those who seek more social and political freedom in the country. However, Khatami himself denies any differences with the Ayatollah. "I don't detect any contrast in my views and that of the Supreme Leader," the president told a CNN correspondent at a December 23 press conference. Iranians agree.
Daryoush Sajjadi, a journalist at Iran News, is optimistic that the Islamic system would survive. It was the foreign media, according to Salaam, a Persian daily, that had always tried to "pit Iranian leaders against each other and simulate a hidden power struggle." It said the President and the Leader were "in one spirit, reflecting the various ideals of the revolution". Mojgan Jahali, head of Tehran University's English Department, joined the chorus: "The speeches of Mr Khatami and Ayatollah Khamenei are not contradictory, it is a matter of a different style with the same substance." Yet, according to an AP report, the controversy highlights the struggle within Iran, "where many of its citizens resent the two decades of suffocating control by Iran's conservative clergy". The report adds that the citizen's support ensured Khatami's victory, but hardliners and the government have sought to tie his hands.
"Mr Khatami won the presidential election, that's all," Iran Freedom Movement leader Ibrahim Yazdi told the press a week before his arrest on December 14. "The extreme right lost the election but they control all the powers—Parliament, radio and TV, security forces, the Supreme Leader's institution, the Friday prayers, preachers".
Khatami won the presidential polls largely with the popular support of the youth—about half of Iran's 60 million population is under 25—and women who want urgent changes in the society. The country has 10 to 15 per cent unemployment and inflation is a high 17.6 per cent. "But," says Sajjadi, "things are moving. The government has a comprehensive plan for restructuring laws related to the country's economy with a provision of foreign investment and we should be optimistic".
However, the youth—distanced from the despotic Shah regime and influenced by foreign radios, particularly the BBC's Persian services—don't seem willing to wait. Last month, in an incident unprecedented in straitlaced Iran, millions of young boys and girls poured into the streets to celebrate the national soccer team's qualification for the World Cup finals. Many even danced in public, a practice prohibited in the Islamic Republic. Hardline newspapers deplored the scene of mixed youth dancing in the street and were horrified when some women fans forced entry into a sports stadium in defiance of the strict law of sex segregation.
The system is increasingly under attack from a variety of quarters. A group of clergy, led by Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri in the holy city of Qom, called the authority of the Supreme Leader into question last month and demanded that Khatami be given a free hand. The group was joined by non-cleric philosopher Abdulkarim Soroush who demanded that "mosque and State be separated". Montazeri, once groomed to be the successor of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, fell out of favour in '87, two years before the Imam died. Iran's constitution gives the Supreme Leader—the 'Fagih' or religious legal scholar, as well as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces — ultimate authority. Former president Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani reaffirmed that there is a "red line and the Supreme Leader cannot be subject to criticism". Montazeri's response: "There is no red line in Islam for anyone but God". On December 16, Khamenei riposted: "Those who, in the name of intellectualism and modernism, raise doubts about Islamic points of view are making a serious mistake. They are doing exactly what the enemy wants." The same old 'Great Satan' rhetoric? No, insists Sajjadi, harking back to the OIC speech: "The Ayatollah is a religious leader and he was addressing the Islamic world. He is supposed to say what he said, addressing representatives of 55 Islamic countries." Alongside visible islands of dissent, does all this suggest a gradual Persian meltdown?
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