The fact of
the matter is that I still don’t
know what the quarrel is about.
Hasn’t it become clear yet that
“the Cultural Revolution” was
one thing and “the Cultural
Revolution Institute” another
thing? Has it still not become
clear that Abdulkarim Soroush,
Habibi, Bahonar, etc. played a
part in the Cultural Revolution
Institute, not the Cultural
Revolution? Has it still not
been definitively established
that the Cultural Revolution was
for shutting universities and
the Cultural Revolution
Institute was for reopening them
in a more streamlined and
Islamic form?
So when a law professor at the
University of Tehran says,
“Soroush was the standard-bearer
of the closure of universities,”
is this not a blatant distortion
of history? And if we assume
that the honourable professor
said this because he was not
aware of all the facts or
because of a lapse in memory,
does correcting this error,
explaining what really happened
and divulging the distortion not
amount to virtue? Do the people
who keep harping on “criticizing
the past” mean that this
standard should be placed on my
shoulder and that I shouldn’t
say anything?
The tale of the purges
Here, too, spidery webs have
been woven in the hope of
ensnaring the flies of delusion.
Fine. If you don’t believe me,
listen to Mr Sadeq Ziba-Kalam:
“Let me say here for the record
that the Revolution Council had
not in any way issued an
instruction for professors to be
expelled. Even the Cultural
Revolution Institute hadn’t
issued such an order. It was the
people in charge of the
universities and university
faculties who made the decisions
and did as they pleased.”
(Interview with Sadeq Ziba-Kalam
published in the journal Lowh
[Scroll], No. 5, 1999)
Yes, that’s right. The Cultural
Revolution Institute had no
committee for carrying out
purges, nor had it written any
instructions for a purge, nor
had it issued any order to this
effect to universities (which
were never under its orders
anyway; they operated under the
orders of the executive branch,
i.e., the Higher Education
Ministry). Why is it that, now,
all the purges are being
attributed to the Cultural
Revolution Institute; the
Cultural Revolution Institute is
being equated with Abdulkarim
Soroush; and his responsibility
is being defined as purging
universities? The cause must be
sought in the ignorance of the
writers or the dishonesty of
politicians. Or in all of these
things.
Be that as it may and for the
record, only half of what Mr
Ziba-Kalam said is true. The
fact of the matter is that, as
Mr Mohammad Maleki, the former
chancellor of the University of
Tehran, explained, “The
Revolution Council issued a
directive to the university,
stating that the professors who
held key posts in the Shah’s
state are no longer allowed to
teach at universities. We drew
up a list and we sent about 100
names to the prime minister’s
office; individuals who, even if
they’d turned up, would have
been rejected by the students
and it would have led to
unrest.” (Lowh, No. 7, 1999)
The people who are looking for
the origin of the purge and its
perpetrators should heed these
explanations and see whose hands
are sullied with the purges. Let
them search and discover who
those 100 people were: Dr Nasr?
Dr Zarrinkub? Zaryab-Khoei?
Mehdi Mohaqqeq? Dr Katuzian?
Let the dear, innocent students
who want to criticize the past
and guilelessly ask, Where were
you “in those days when many of
the people whose crime was that
they understood things and whose
ambition was to fight back were
driven out of universities,”
look again and re-examine
history. Have they phrased the
question correctly? Have they
addressed the right question to
the right person? Was
understanding things the crime
of all the people who were
expelled? And were they all
expelled by the Cultural
Revolution Institute?
The cited comments and remarks
by the two above-mentioned men
(who later changed their
statements a bit) may please
those of the critics who are
fair-minded and allow them to
see that the tale is not quite
as they’d thought.
The purges did not start in
universities at any rate, nor
were they initiated or continued
in universities by the Cultural
Revolution Institute. In actual
fact, one of the first things
that happened on the morrow of
the victory of the revolution
was that there were purges. And,
as far as I can remember, most
of the political groups
supported them and it was only
the prime minister of the
provisional government who
objected now and then. And he
managed, within the limits of
his powers, to reduce the number
of purges, although, of course,
this earned him some curses from
those clerics and political
activists who didn’t like him
and who called him a colluder.
As to the expulsion of
academics, if the Revolution
Council asked the University of
Tehran’s chancellor to
participate in the purges and to
expel professors - and he
assented - it never put such a
request, even implicitly, to the
Cultural Revolution Institute
and there was no suggestion of
it in Imam Khomeini’s letter to
the institute either.
Perhaps most astounding of all
is former Higher Education
Minister Najafi’s remark when he
writes in his article entitled,
“Truths about the Cultural
Revolution”: “The purging of
professors… was carried out on
the basis of regulations
approved by the Cultural
Revolution Institute and by
teams that operated under the
institute.” This is truly one of
the strangest of claims and I
don’t know what evidence Mr
Najafi can provide for it. Let
me say quite plainly that the
Cultural Revolution Institute
had no such teams and no such
regulations. The committees that
carried out the purges never
reported to it, nor asked its
permission for anything. We
didn’t appoint the committees’
members, nor did we know who
they were. Yes, some people
tried to drag Mr Amlashi into
it, but he didn’t oblige; nor
did any other member of the
institute play any official role
in this respect. Mr Maleki has
so far confessed to the
expulsion of 100 professors,
without any sense of remorse.
You can deduce the rest of the
tale by extension.
Yes, I agree with Mr Najafi when
he says that many of “the
expelled”, whether before or
after the establishment of the
institute, “departed”; they were
not actually expelled. That is
to say, they recognized that the
post-revolution universities
were no place for them and they
either left the country or
became house-bound.
Now, see how someone, who agreed
to expel 100 professors, voiced
no objection and feels no
remorse, has taken on the role
of the angry interrogator and is
shouting at someone else:
“Confess to your crime,
recognize your failing and,
then, we may be kind to you and
not judge you harshly.” In all
fairness, is this the right way
to behave or to speak if you’re
seeking the truth, or is this
just a case of playing the
indignant interrogator? What
kind of mentality and background
lies behind this approach
whereby you assume that someone
is guilty instead of assuming
that they’re innocent, shift
your crime onto their shoulders,
demand that they confess and beg
forgiveness, and derive great
pleasure from sentencing them?
What qualities and
characteristics does such an
approach reveal? Whatever they
may be they are certainly not
kindness or sincerity or decency
or steadfastness or good manners
or a love of truth.
See, for example, how - when I
try to defend myself - Mr
Mohammad Ali Najafi
distastefully accuses me of
trying to invent an accomplice
for my “crime” and to put the
blame on someone else. What
crime, my good friend, and what
blame? Why are you trying to
lead people astray?
It is as if everyone has the
right to defend themselves
except the person who has chosen
to withdraw and who, as it
happens, is afflicted with the
plague of fame and must
therefore be targeted with the
arrows of pestilence. Why,
instead of accusing the people
who forged this cultural
“holocaust” and who are now
trying to invent a “Hitler” to
blame it on, do you spin yarns,
huff and puff, and make the
sparks fly from the blazing
furnace?
Untrue and uncharming
As Kant said, lying is like
violence; nay, it’s the worst
form of violence. This is what I
find so excruciating.
I admire Mr Ziba-Kalam’s
cleverness (although it doesn’t
take much cleverness). He’s
realized that there’s nothing
more undefended in Iran today
than the Cultural Revolution
Institute; the institute itself
no longer exists and neither its
founders nor its members pay any
attention to it. Everyone has
forsaken it; nay, they’ve turned
their backs on it. It’s like an
abandoned mosque, with no prayer
leader and no caretaker. And,
now, he’s taken it into his head
to become the imam of this
abandoned ruin. In this
capacity, he preaches
“wave-making” sermons, which are
neither true nor charming. (I’d
gladly hand over the whole
mosque, lock, stock and barrel,
to him, but, alas, history
doesn’t allow it.) At one point,
he says, “Imam Khomeini issued a
decree to four people: Soroush,
Shams, Rabbani and Jalal Farsi,”
which is untrue, of course.
What, then, were Dr Habibi,
Bahonar and Shariatmadari doing
at the institute and who issued
their decrees? And what does he
hope to gain from the fact that,
in his capacity as one of the
“wave-making founders of the
cultural revolution” - as he
styles himself - he fails to
mention these three other names?
Elsewhere, he says, “In 1981, if
you’d said there’s no such thing
as an Islamic sociology, Dr
Soroush himself would have
sliced you in half,” which is
both untrue and uncharming.
First, I’m not given to slicing
people in half and, secondly, I
don’t believe in an Islamic
sociology. My views on these
subjects are all extant, dating
back to the early 1980s. They
bear no resemblance whatsoever
to this imam’s sermons. And
Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi and
his cronies subsequently
described me as the infiltrator
in the Cultural Revolution
Institute because of these very
same views.
Even stranger than all this is
the fact that he says that
“Shams Al-e Ahmad was the great
pioneer of the Cultural
Revolution”!! I pray to God that
Shams Al-e Ahmad doesn’t hear
this phrase. Otherwise, at his
age, it could seriously endanger
his health. The phrase continues
as follows: “The articles by Dr
Soroush and I were all about…
how we ought to create a
different kind of university.”
God’s angels will know that, far
from having devoted whole
articles to the subject of
closing down universities and
redesigning them, I hadn’t even
devoted a subordinate clause to
it. Contrary to the imaginings
of these gentlemen, the closing
down of universities was neither
based on my ideas nor carried
out with my knowledge; I was
neither its standard-bearer nor
its assessor; I neither took
part in it nor approved of it.
Mr Ziba-Kalam’s words gradually
become more rarefied as he
raises himself ever higher: “It
is true that Soroush, Al-e
Ahmad, Shariatmadari and I did
not hold state posts….” It goes
without saying what this lining
up of names suggests and where
it leads the reader. (The
citations are from Mahmoud
Farjami’s conversation with
Sadeq Ziba-Kalam, published in
Lowh, No. 5, 1999 and posted on
Gooya news website on 20 January
2004.) It has since been
suggested to me that, in modern
Persian, people who say this
sort of thing are known as “con
artists” and that, in classical
Persian, they are known as
“liars”. It sounds a bit harsh,
but perhaps it’s not far off the
mark. There is merit, after all,
in distinguishing between sense
and nonsense.
I spoke of my admiration for Mr
Ziba-Kalam’s cleverness. His
fairness is also admirable. At
least he doesn’t accuse me of
having closed down universities
or of purging professors.
(Unlike some sensation-peddlers
and uninformed people.) This, in
itself, represents great
progress in the historiography
of the revolution. Any instance
in which history is not turned
on its head and the truth is
spoken and written is a precious
gain.
The thing that was tormenting me
was that I could see that some
people, deliberately and
maliciously, wanted to construct
the edifice of history on a
foundation of falsification and
distortion; to hide behind a
wall of lies; and to air their
rancour against religious
intellectuals in the hope of
winning fame or complying with
an order or gaining recompense.
As to the moral whys and
wherefores: Why did you accept
Khomeini’s decree? Where were
you in those dark days of purges
and injustice, and why did you
remain silent? And so on and so
forth.
I have clear answers to these
questions and I’ve uttered and
written them many times. My
answers have proved useful to
truth-seekers but they’ve fallen
on deaf ears among the
self-proclaimed interrogators
and prosecutors, the fairy-tale
weavers, the rancorous and those
who have orders from above.
I accepted Khomeini’s decree
because I was eager to serve and
because Khomeini was the
best-loved popular leader in
Iran’s history. He was the
leader of a revolution that had
freedom and independence as its
slogans, and he’d stolen the
hearts of all the strugglers and
freedom-lovers. Responding to
his call, which, at the time,
was the crystallization of years
of struggle for freedom by the
Iranian nation, was a source of
pride and I complied. I did my
utmost to reform universities,
to strengthen their academic
foundations, to reduce emotions
and increase reason, to prevent
the ruinous and inevitable
radicalism of the early days of
the revolution, to reopen
universities - nay, to reopen
better universities - as quickly
as possible, to pave the way for
young Iranians to acquire
learning, to listen to the views
of academics and treat them
kindly, to heed Khomeini’s call
to “treat the professors as you
would your friends” and to be
patient with the excitable and
impatient students, to resist
the inappropriate
heavy-handedness of some
clerics, not to succumb to calls
to Islamise the sciences, to
defend academic freedoms, etc.,
without expecting a penny in
recompense. And, today, I thank
my good fortune and providence
for having been able to serve as
I did.
I have also said elsewhere that
performing one’s duty in those
turbulent and impetuous days was
like wading through treacle:
slow, difficult, sticky and
sweet. And when I realized which
way things were going, I left
and I didn’t accept any other
official posts. And when I was
prevented from teaching, I
contented myself with research,
which was my secret pleasure. I
ignored the commotion and
sensationalism of ignorant
people, although, even so, they
never left me in peace.
As to the second question
The innocent students who’ve
criticized my past have said
plaintively: They kept you on
since they trusted you and they
purged those professors “whose
crime was that they understood
things”.
Really? If that’s their
impression, let them put their
question to all the 11,300
academic staff who were kept on.
(At the start of the Cultural
Revolution, Iranian universities
had a total of 12,000 academic
staff and, according to the
Higher Education Ministry’s
figures, 700 of them left or
were expelled, which leaves
11,300. Some of the ones who
were expelled later returned to
work after successful appeals to
the Court of Administrative
Justice.) So, they, too, were
trusted and it would appear that
being trusted is an unpardonable
sin!
I suppose they’ll say, Those
other ones didn’t have official
posts but you did. So, being
trusted and being willing to
serve, combined, are a sin. Very
well, then, let them address
their plaint to everyone who
held official posts.
Their other question (Where were
you in those dark days of purges
and injustice?) is much the
same. My answer is that I was
doing the things that I
mentioned earlier. Why should I
have done more? To have done
more would have been a virtue,
but not to have done so is no
vice. And where were you when
you leafed through newspapers
and read about the executions
that were carried out by
Khalkhali (and many other
similar incidents such as all
the other executions, the
attacks by the Ansar-e Hezbollah
on universities, the beating up
of professors, etc.), and what
did you do about them? What did
other academics do? What did
Majlis deputies do? What did
clerics do? What did Iranians as
a whole do? Were all the living
not shamed by all the dead after
the executions of that
horrifying summer of 1988?
So, go and set up criminal files
for everyone! The tale of the
purges was reaching people’s
ears here and there; the ears of
all academics, Majlis deputies,
clerics, doctors and so on. It
also reached the ears of the
ministers of higher education,
the ears of university
chancellors, the ears of the
heads of university faculties.
In fact, they used to hear about
them and learn about them sooner
than we (the members of the
institute) did. Ask the head of
the faculty of literature (Reza
Davari) why he remained silent
when Zarrinkub and Zaryab were
purged.
They say: We don’t expect
anything from them, but we
expect things from someone who
speaks about pluralism and human
rights.
I don’t understand this
argument. Could someone please
explain it to me? Does this mean
that anyone who didn’t and
doesn’t believe in human rights
is safe from you? They won’t be
put on trial by you and they
won’t be sentenced. But, woe
betide anyone who talks about
human rights, because you’ll
teach them a lesson they won’t
ever forget.
I suppose the solution is for
them to stop speaking about
pluralism and human rights. They
should just enjoy themselves and
be as carefree as can be, and
prepare for the next round of
purges with the utmost peace and
calm!
Well done! Your logic is
exemplary: Be charitable to
enemies and have no mercy on
friends. Of course, in Iran,
this is not a surprising
approach; it has a long-standing
record. The members of the Tudeh
(communist) Party used to save
the bulk of their attacks for
Mosaddeq and were much less
zealous in attacking the Shah
and his court.
A tax seems to have been imposed
on pluralism and human rights.
They don’t challenge the wicked
and the unjust. But they wrack
their brains and piece together
any conceivable shred of
evidence in order to condemn
those who try to serve the
people. These are all signs of
insincerity and impiety.
Otherwise, if you’re trying to
discover and expose the truth,
what’s the meaning of saying:
“We expect something from you,
but we don’t expect anything
from them.” Open up everyone’s
files!
Is the method that these people
have adopted for eliminating
this or that person not the same
that others used to use for
eliminating professors in the
early days of the revolution?
Did they not consider anyone who
was at the slightest tangent to
their own line of thinking to be
deserving of casting out and
reproach?
Alas, the opposition inside Iran
and the opposition abroad come
together at this one point:
their love of exposing others,
their vengefulness and their
determination to play
interrogator and prosecutor in
order to eliminate, cast out and
reproach.
Several years ago, when I was on
a visit to Helsinki at the
invitation of Finland’s PEN, I
realized on arrival that some
prattling propagandists had
stirred up such anxiety in the
minds of the people who’d
invited me that they were loathe
to receive me. Fortunately, the
Finnish Foreign Ministry
sagaciously understood what had
happened and made amends to me
for that act of disrespect. When
I came back from Finland, I
wrote an open letter addressed
to the compatriots who’d been
behind that incident. I said,
Look how aggressively you’re
behaving even before you’ve won
power and achieved anything;
what kind of raging bulls are
you going to turn into if you
ever seize power? This time,
it’s the ones at home who are
having a go at me. I don’t know
what they hope to gain from all
this. All the fuss seems to be
aimed at asserting something
that even if - assuming the
impossible - it is proved true
will not change anything.
In the heat of the discussion I
said that during “those dark
days of purges… I was doing the
things that I mentioned earlier.
Why should I have done more?” My
response was adequate and
complete. But, now, I’d like to
complete it even further and
say, No, that’s not all that I
did. Although the problems did
not have anything to do with us
legally and technically, I tried
to do whatever I could to help
those who were being targeted.
By way of one example, let me
say that Khomeini asked the
Cultural Revolution Institute to
expel all the students who
belonged to the Tudeh Party,
regardless of what year they’d
reached in their studies. Much
as we tried to dissuade
Khomeini, he remained adamant.
Since we didn’t think his
decision was a good idea, we
turned to Mr Khamenei for help
and, then, to Mr
Hashemi-Rafsanjani. It was Mr
Rafsanjani who managed to
dissuade Khomeini, allowing the
Tudeh members to finish their
studies. I will not say any more
on this subject, because I don’t
accept the charges that are
being levelled against me in the
first place. When someone does
this to help Tudeh members, how
much more is he likely to do to
help non-Tudeh members? At any
rate, maybe it was because of
this resistance to the expulsion
of Tudeh Party members that made
the expulsions, when they did
take place, proceed through a
route other than the Cultural
Revolution Institute.
Of course, I have no doubt that,
in those chaotic and lawless
days, there were many instances
of improper and unkind conduct.
I don’t deny this. I also know
that I’m human and that I may
err in anything that I do. But
accusing a man, who wished to
serve and who was not to blame,
of every crime in the book is a
sign of insincerity and personal
enmity. I also believe that it
testifies to a pathetic
conspiracy, whereby everyone is
to be absolved except a single
“persona non grata”, who is to
be the focus of all the attacks.
Now that this article is nearing
its end, I’d like to use the
remaining words to offer some
instruction in my capacity as a
teacher, although I see no sign,
in this whole commotion, of any
wish to understand history, to
discover the truth and to assess
things fairly and
comprehensively. Be that as it
may and regardless of the
quarrel and the defence (which
is the right of anyone who is
accused of anything), I’d like
to make the following fine
point: You have to begin by
setting out the problem
correctly.
A critical reassessment of the
Islamic Revolution, which is
nearly 30 years old, is a
necessary oxygen for Iran’s
future survival. But it has to
be carried out in the manner of
a doctor and a friend, not in
the manner of a foe. Without
opening the file of all the
relevant events, such as the
war, the Cultural Revolution,
Ayatollah Montazeri’s departure
from the position of Khomeini’s
chosen successor, the repression
of the Mojahedin-e Khalq, the
dismissal of Bani-Sadr, etc.,
the Iranian nation’s history
will not have bright prospects.
The legal and moral condemnation
of individuals must be the last
step in this endeavour. You
mustn’t put the cart before the
horse. Appeasing your own minds
and quelling rancour shouldn’t
be the aim. Judging yesterday on
the basis of today’s values and
expecting people to have acted
yesterday as they’d be expected
to act today is unmethodical and
unreasonable. Hence, collective
events must be examined in a
collective way; as if there were
no actors, as if it emerged and
developed spontaneously (the
systemic and procedural
approach).
Secondly, autonomous individuals
should be praised and reproached
in the light of the data that
they had at their disposal.
Thirdly, failing to do a good
deed mustn’t be equated with
committing a sin. Whatever
anyone does, it is conceivable
that they could have done
something better. But this
shouldn’t serve as a pretext for
condemning people.
Fourthly, an individual’s
conduct over a lifetime has to
be kept in view; rather than
just looking for pretexts by
which they can be condemned.
Quite the reverse. Precedence
should be given to clemency and
kindness, especially when it
comes to someone who has quite
clearly not sullied his thoughts
and deeds for the sake of
material gain or office.
Fifthly, be as charitable to
others as you are to yourselves.
And - in the words of Imam Ali -
weigh others on the same scale
as you weigh yourselves.
**
Translated from the Persian by
Nilou Mobasser
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