In the past few weeks, however, he hasn’t had much spare time because he’s been organizing a series of street protests against Iran’s hard-line clerical government. Ali meets daily with fellow student activists, some of whom have spent time in jail, to plan future rallies. “It’s time for complete democracy in Iran,” Ali says, throwing his hands up in frustration. “Religion needs to be removed from the government.”
Many Iranians feel the same way–and in recent months they’ve openly challenged the legitimacy of the conservative clerics who’ve run the country since Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was deposed in 1979. Thousands of university students have led a simmering revolt–but they are by no means the only dissidents in Iran these days. Impatient reformists, impoverished workers–and, most ominously for the regime, a handful of clerics who were close to Khomeini himself are all calling for a liberalized political system. They, along with the children of the ‘79 revolution, now pose a serious and growing threat to the insular Iranian government.
Iran’s ruling conservatives do not like being challenged, and frequently try to squelch opposition with heavy-handed tactics. Twelve student activists were arrested last week by the SAVAMA (commonly known as Etelaat), the widely feared Intelligence Ministry. And the Basij, a fierce government-aligned militia, regularly beats street protesters with fists and clubs. But the strong-arm tactics have only emboldened critics. The speaker of the judiciary, a prominent conservative cleric, resigned last week. He did so to protest a death sentence that’s been meted out to a university professor who, in a recent lecture, labeled the ruling clerics “medieval” and called for the equivalent of a Protestant reformation in the Muslim world. “The more you try to contain the situation, the more things are in danger of getting out of hand,” says Ali Ansari, an Iranian lecturer in Middle East history at the University of Durham in England. “There is a lot of anticipation in the country that a clash between the reform and conservative movements will happen within the next two to three months. We’re witnessing a cultural, social and intellectual revolution.”
One of the catalysts for the current unrest has been an important political shift within the student unions, or Anjoman Eslami, that played a key role in ousting the shah. Composed largely of ardent Muslims, the unions have led large protests at several Tehran universities, and in other cities like Isfahan, Shiraz, Urumiyeh and Tabriz, at which they’ve decried the regime’s Potemkin democracy. Breaking a taboo, some students have directly criticized Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Ordinary Iranians–young people eager for more cultural freedom and older couples worried about the country’s high jobless rate (at least 15 percent)–are also clamoring for change. Ten thousand of them rallied last weekend in the streets around Tehran University, braving attacks by riot police and the Basij to show their support for the students. “We’ll protect you!” they yelled to a crowd of students, who were forcibly restricted to university grounds, behind a high metal fence.
The clerics demanding change have not taken to the streets. But their expressions of unease and dissatisfaction are the ones to watch, as they signal division within the establishment. Ayatollah Seyed Hossein Mousavi-Tabrizi, 56, is one of a small group of clerics who have begun to voice their concerns. In his black turban and sweeping black robe, Mousavi-Tabrizi does not look like a dissident. He is the former chief prosecutor of the Revolutionary Court, responsible for handling cases involving state security, and a former member of the Council of Experts, a 70-member group that can appoint, and remove, the country’s Supreme Leader. He lives in Qom, the center of religious teaching in Iran, and wears an amber ring, favored by many devout Iranians, on his right pinkie. A huge portrait of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini–Mousavi-Tabrizi’s former mentor and the man who assumed power in 1979, when the shah was deposed–adorns a wall in his living room.
But Mousavi-Tabrizi has come to the conclusion that the ruling clique has strayed dangerously off course. “In more than a hundred references, the Qur’an states that the will of the people must be fulfilled,” Mousavi-Tabrizi says, adjusting his rimless glasses. “The idea that only a select number of clerics have the right to make decisions for the masses is un-Islamic and illegal. God hasn’t given anyone an exclusive right to rule. If religion interferes in every detail of government, it will fail.”
Other clerics share his views. Ayatollah Jalaluddin Taheri, the Friday prayer cleric for the city of Isfahan and a close associate of Khomeini’s, stepped down from his position last July after 30 years, calling Iran an “oppressed nation.” In a bitter letter of resignation, he accused regime hard-liners of being corrupt and self-serving. Even more prominent is Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who was groomed to be Khomeini’s successor. He’s been under house arrest since 1997 for questioning Khamenei’s religious credentials. He recently took his struggle to cyberspace, publishing a long online book that lambastes the current regime for acting repressively and without legal authority.
There have been more subtle signs of discontent within the religious community as well. On Nov. 29, conservative clerics traditionally rally in Tehran to protest the occupation of Jerusalem. But this year the Qods Day gathering, as it is called, was missing a few of the regulars. “Except for a group of hard-liners, there weren’t any representatives from the Qom clergy at this event,” says Ayatollah Yousef Saanei, 65, a senior Qom cleric who also had close ties with Khomeini. “This was a message.”
In the past century, the desert city of Qom has played a significant political, as well as religious, role in Iran. When the Qom clerics speak, the faithful masses often listen. When Khomeini spoke out against the shah, vehement antimonarchy protests ensued in Qom. And since Iran’s leaders derive their legitimacy from their religious authority, they are paying very close attention to the opinions and religious interpretations coming from the city’s clerical establishment.
The widening rift in the religious community seems to have Khamenei worried: at a Dec. 6 prayer meeting, he implored the country’s clerics “to refrain from criticizing one another.” The comment was front-page news in some Tehran newspapers. “The most dangerous debate in Iran is when a member of the clergy questions the government and says, ‘You’re not Islamic’,” says a Western diplomat. “The hard-liners know their legitimacy is crumbling. The faults in this system should not be underestimated.”
The latest signs of religious dissent come at a particularly fraught time. Student protests erupted in early November, after Hashem Aghajari, a professor at Tarbiyat Modares University and a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, openly scolded the government. Aghajari, who’s been called the Salman Rushdie of Iran, criticized the hard-liners for mingling the institutions of church and state, for corrupting Islam and Islamic values, and for exploiting their status to retain power. Invoking the words of the late Ali Shariati, a prominent intellectual whose ideas helped fuel the ‘79 revolution, Aghajari pointed out that the clerics were not divine. He added that Muslims need not follow their religious leaders “blindly”–and he urged Muslims to be tolerant of the human rights, and religious beliefs, of all people. “Islamic Protestantism is something we need,” he said. Aghajari’s arrest, and subsequent death sentence for apostasy (now under review), galvanized reformers.
The conservatives have been lashing back. “What do reformers want to change? The Constitution? Islam?” conservative M.P. Mohammed Mohammedi says indignantly. “This kind of talk is sacrilegious. Reformers are duping the public for their own benefit.” When a reformist M.P. dared conservatives to allow a national referendum last week, Mohammedi called the M.P. an “idiot” and stormed out of Parliament along with fellow conservatives. The embarrassing episode was broadcast live on state radio.
Last Monday several hundred members of the Basij stormed a protest at Amir Kabir University. The subsequent melee left several students bloody and unconscious. Offended by criticism of the government, the Basijis have disrupted almost every student protest, even though most were authorized by university and governmental authorities. It was an all-too-familiar scene. In 1999, students protesting the closure of the reformist newspaper Salam clashed with police; one student was killed and several were wounded after an unidentified group, thought to be linked to hard-liners, raided a dormitory at Tehran University.
One of the things working against the current regime is simple demographics. Iran is the youngest country in the world; 65 percent of the population is under the age of 30, and many of them are restless. Youth are exposed to many of the same cultural products as their Western counterparts. Britney Spears’s bare belly is beamed in through illegal satellite dishes scattered around the country. Internet cafes can be found in even the smallest Iranian cities. But, unlike their Western counterparts, Iranian kids can’t act on their impulses: playing loud music can sometimes lead to arrest; parties and dance clubs are forbidden, and women must comply with a strict dress code.
This generation helped elect a gentle, reform-minded president, Mohammad Khatami, in 1997. Last year he was re-elected with 77 percent of the vote. Khatami and reformists in the Majlis (Parliament) have tried to loosen the restrictive reins of the clerics, but they’ve been thwarted at every turn. The problem is, the president and Parliament have no real power; they’re subordinate to the Supreme Leader and the 12-member Guardian Council, which is appointed by Khamenei and functions like a heavy-handed upper house of Parliament. They have the power to vet parliamentary candidates and veto legislation, which they use liberally. Khamenei backs their decisions, and his own, through tight control of the armed forces and broadcast media.
Khatami has lately tried to boost his clout by proposing two bills in Parliament. One would limit the veto powers of the Guardian Council, and the other would give him the right to fire officials who violate the Constitution. The president has hinted that he will resign if the bills, which are now being watered down by conservative amendments, are not passed. But many student activists and reformers have already lost faith in Khatami, and have publicly called on him to step down. “After five years of presidency, Khatami’s most significant achievement has been the introduction of these two bills,” says Qasem Sholeh Sadi, 48, a former parliamentarian with a Ph.D. in political science from Sorbonne university. “He should be using more of his potential. He should be rallying his supporters into the streets.” Reformist clerics agree. “Khatami had 22 million votes–it’s unacceptable for him to be so timid,” says Mousavi-Tabrizi. “One way or another he has to stand up for the people.”
Mohammad Safiri, 42, executive editor of the reformist Hambastegi newspaper, offered his appraisal of Khatami. “Eighty reformist newspapers have been closed, many intellectuals have been imprisoned and people are more hopeless than ever. That’s why the students are asking for his resignation. The current situation is beyond frustration. We are sitting on a time bomb.”
Mohammed Reza Khatami, the president’s brother and head of the largest reform party, is one of the hard-liners’ most outspoken critics. He recently warned conservatives that they would face the same fate as the shah if they didn’t listen to student demands. Beyond that, he has called for a reappraisal of Iran’s foreign policy and relationship with the United States, which he recently described as “murky” and “influenced mainly by emotions.” He added that the ruling conservatives “need an enemy in order to preserve internal cohesiveness.”
What happens if that enemy, the United States, attacks neighboring Iraq? Some experts say it would create even more instability in Iran. “Any military action in Iraq will pose a direct and serious threat to the Iranian government,” says Sholeh Sadi. “It will have unpredictable effects on the political situation, and that’s why the conservatives are scared.”
The biggest danger to the government is that its most vociferous opponents were once friends. For example, until two or three years ago, the student unions were considered part of the establishment. Indeed, many of the students who join Anjoman Eslami come from traditional families. Organizational meetings last month were typically held over iftar, the meal eaten at sunset to break the Ramadan fast. “Khamenei even had meetings with us,” says a student leader named Hamid. “Now they see us as a group that needs to be eliminated.” Why? “Because we don’t accept velayat-i-faqih [the right of absolute rule by a supreme religious leader]. I personally don’t believe any form of religious government can be democratic.” That opinion got Hamid jailed recently, for two months, for threatening national security.
Dissidents now include some of the stars of the revolution. Mohammed Ibrahim Asgharzadeh, 47, masterminded the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979. Today he is president of the Tehran City Council–and leader of the reformist Hambastegi (Unity) party. Over the years, Asgharzadeh has distanced himself from conservative elements in the Iranian government. He tried to push change as a member of Parliament, and through Salam, the reformist newspaper. His controversial work got him jailed in 1992. “We are still pursuing the same ideals we did at the time of the revolution–protection of individual rights, a democratic vote and cultural freedom,” he says.
In 1979, the students and clerics shared a common goal–overthrowing the shah. Their collaboration succeeded because each group stoked a different constituency: the clergy rallied the masses while the students appealed to the intellectuals. Can that partnership be duplicated for change? To be sure, the reformist clerics and the students again share a common grievance–that Iran’s current system of parallel government is not working. But the two groups do not share the same blueprint for the future. While the students envision a complete separation of religion and government, reform-minded clerics have adopted a less radical platform; they’re only calling for religion to take a subsidiary role in government.
Experts say that, in the near future, this divergence won’t keep the two groups from working together. “The student movement and the hozeh [Qom theological schools] have always been at the forefront of political change in Iran,” says Hojatoleslam Mohammed Taqi Fazel Meibodi, 49, a prominent Qom cleric who attended seminary with President Khatami. “But the students won’t succeed alone, and neither will open-minded clerics. Each group needs the other.”
Neither side wants violence. Reformist clerics almost never advocate physical confrontation, and the students have made a deliberate effort to avoid provocation by isolating their rallies to university campuses. In fact, many of the protesting students agree that civil disobedience should be the next step in the reform process. Strikes and walkouts are planned to mobilize public support.
Will they work? Standing pensive-ly in his home, Mousavi-Tabrizi mulls the future of his country. “Sooner or later the just will prevail,” he says. “The group who has the welfare of the people in mind will succeed–whether it’s the clergy or the students, or both.” How long it might take them to reform a fiercely recalcitrant government, nobody knows. But the forces of change have been loosed by the post-Khomeini generation–and they won’t easily be contained.
