XV
Antithesis to Fundamentalism
The reason Khomeini so interferes in all the minute details of people's lives and leaves them no room to breathe is because the world of this demon and his heirs is comprised of vengeance, obsession, and hatred. . . . In contrast, we must go among our people with a spirit of compassion and openness. Let them be free. Let them step forward to vote and elect freely. Let a spirit of mutual understanding, forgiveness, love of construction, and national unity take the place of spite and vengeance. Let the scars left by Khomeini on the body of this nation be healed.
-Maryam Rajavi, September 6, 19911
With the words quoted above, Maryam Rajavi strikes at the heart of the profound differences and ideological antagonism that pitted the Mojahedin's Islam against Khomeini's. Beyond words and theoretical discussions, the very presence and position of Maryam Rajavi symbolizes the chasm separating the two ideologies. The Mojahedin and the mullahs' regime both call themselves Shi'ite Muslims. But within the Mojahedin movement, women attain the highest positions of leadership and command as well as equal rights with men. The mullahs deny women their most rudimentary rights and treat them as subhuman. As the secretary general of the Mojahedin Organization and deputy commander in chief of the National Liberation Army of Iran, Maryam Rajavi leads a movement half of whose military commanders and political officials are women, as are one-third of its rank and file.
In telling contrast, women are the objects of Rafsanjani's ridicule: "The differences in height, sturdiness, voice, growth, muscular structure, and physical strength, endurance of hardships and illness in women and men show that men are stronger and more capable in all of these matters. . . . Men heed reasoning and logic, whereas most women tend to be emotional. . . These differences affect the delegation of responsibilities, duties, and rights."2 In the early years of Khomeini's rule, a leading official was equally candid in remarks to the Assembly of Experts: "Who says just because a woman can change a baby's diaper, clean and nurse him, she is qualified to become president or prime minister? Let's say a woman became prime minister. Imagine the disgrace if one morning we went to the prime ministry only to find it closed because the prime minister had given birth the night before. "3
The contrasts between the Mojahedin and the mullahs are not limited to their outlooks on women. In all areas, from interpreting the Quran and the Sunnah (tradition), the Prophet, and the Imams, to social and economic policies, an all-out, unabated, and bloody confrontation is being waged between Khomeiniism and the Mojahedin. This war has raged relentlessly over the past fourteen years on ideological, political, social, and military fronts, resulting in the executions of at least 100,000 Mojahedin.
Khomeini well understood that the Mojahedin were the main enemy of his regime and ideology. When, on June 12, 1980, an attack by armed Pasdaran on a rally of 300,000 Mojahedin supporters in Tehran's Amjadieh soccer stadium aroused a wave of protests by the country's political forces and figures, Khomeini replied, "Our enemy is not in the United States, nor in the Soviet Union, nor in Kurdistan, but right here, right in front of our noses, in Tehran."4
More than a decade later, none of the scores of traditional nationalist, Marxist, or liberal parties and groups who surfaced in Iran's post-shah political landscape remain. One by one, they were eliminated, forced to acquiesce or to surrender outright by Khomeini, as he exploited the masses' religious beliefs. Although the Mojahedin have been the primary target of the mullahs' repression and terror during the past decade, they have established themselves as the only viable and powerful alternative to the mullahs.
The Khomeini-Mojahedin confrontation and the latter's views and outlooks are intrinsic to the discussion of fundamentalism. This confrontation pits Khomeini's fundamentalist fanaticism against democratic, modern Islam. The outcome will have profound implications beyond Iran's borders, because it will strike at the heart of the spread of fundamentalism in the Muslim world. The choice then is not just between freedom or repression within Iran: the triumph of the anti-fundamentalist Mojahedin would be a victory for peace, tranquility, and understanding in the Middle East and the Islamic world. Conversely, the continued reign in Iran of the velayat-e-faqih, the principle of absolute theocratic rule, will only result in greater instability, anarchy, and fanaticism in Muslim territories.
The Antithesis of Fundamentalist Islam
The People's Mojahedin Organization of lran was founded in 1965 by Muhammad Hanifnejad, a leader of the opposition movement in Iranian universities after the fall of Dr. Muhammad Mossadeq's government. The Mojahedin's objective was to overthrow the shah's dictatorship and establish democracy in Iran.
At the time, political movements against the shah fell into three broad categories: nationalists, Marxists, and fundamentalists. Mossadeq's once powerful party, the National Front, represented the secular opposition. But after Mossadeq's fall from power, the Front was taken over by politicians totally out of step with the society's needs who advocated a passive "wait and see" attitude. They had no specific political agenda and no real platform. Their only political capital was Mossadeq's popular appeal. Banished to his native village of Ahmadabad by the shah, Mossadeq distanced himself from them, telling visitors that Iran had to rely on the "energetic, dynamic younger generation" to topple the shah and bring about democracy.
The second group of opposition forces were the Marxists, who included a spectrum of widely divergent and sometimes contradictory political viewpoints, from the pro-Moscow Tudeh Party to small factions inspired by communist Albania.5 The Marxists were united, however, by their inability to penetrate Iranian society and inspire mass support. This was primarily due to the populace's strong attachment to Islam, but the Marxists' own serious deficiencies--especially splits and ideological feuds-were also to blame. They remained basically confined to intellectual circles and the university campuses, a hotbed of the anti-shah movement.
The third group of anti-shah dissidents were the Muslim fundamentalists. Until the 1960s, the Feda'ian-e-Islam, a virulently dogmatic and fanatical group best remembered for its terrorist activities in the 1950s, dominated this wing. After Khomeini's expulsion to Iraq in 1963, he began to be regarded as the leader of the fundamentalist opposition to the shah, primarily because of his strong objections to land reform and women's suffrage.
The Mojahedin's Hanifnejad and his fellow activists, like the vast majority of Iranians, were Shi'ite Muslims. They might have been expected to join the secular National Front or the "Shi'ite" pro-Khomeini opposition; they did neither. Recognizing the rich history of Islam as a force for social change, Hanifnejad and his colleagues began six years of research into the various aspects of Islamic teachings in order to distinguish the genuine Islam of Muhammad from the views espoused by fanatics. This was in essence a declaration of war on fundamentalism, which had until then dominated all that was done in the name of Islam.
Thus, in the midst of the anti-shah political struggle began a more formidable, ideological battle against religious fundamentalism. From the outset, the Mojahedin emphasized the dangers of fundamentalism and endeavored to draw a distinction between Islam and reactionism. They produced a treatise on questions of existence, history, man, and economy; and they presented their own interpretation of Islam's holy book, the Quran, of the Nahj ol-Balagha, and of current political issues.6 Massoud Rajavi was instrumental in these efforts, which he continued from prison following his arrest in 1971, and later after the 1979 revolution.
In 1971, the shah's secret police (SAVAK) arrested Muhammad Hanifnejad and other Mojahedin leaders, including Rajavi. On May 25, 1972, after months of brutal torture, Hanifnejad was executed. Rajavi was also sentenced to die. International activities and pressure by political personalities and human rights advocates, particularly by Rajavi's elder brother, could only commute Massoud Rajavi's death sentence to life imprisonment. Rajavi subsequently undertook the Mojahedin's leadership.
The execution of the Mojahedin's founders, their heroism under torture, and their commitment to genuine Islam generated tremendous support for the organization. By the early 1970s, the organization had assumed the leadership of the anti-shah movement. This popularity compelled some pro-Khomeini clerics to declare their support for the Mojahedin. Many, like Rafsanjani, later occupied key positions within Khomeini's regime. Exiled to Iraq, Khomeini, however, never agreed to endorse the Mojahedin in spite of his followers' persistent appeals that to do so would increase his own popularity. Khomeini could see, even at that early stage, his own demise in the Mojahedin's version of Islam, and he considered them "anticlerical" Under intense pressure, he finally issued a decree allocating a portion of sahm-e-Imam (religious funds) to "the families of imprisoned young Muslims," a veiled reference to the Mojahedin.
In 1975, however, a group of communists staged a coup within the Mojahedin, murdered its leaders who were still outside SAVAK's prisons, and shattered the organization. The fundamentalist mullahs, hitherto overshadowed both socially and politically by the Mojahedin, saw an opportunity. Inside the prisons and in society at large, they engaged in hysterical anti-Mojahedin propaganda and finally collaborated with SAVAK.
Behind the walls of SAVAK's prisons, Massoud Rajavi began in 1975 to revive the Mojahedin Organization. Rajavi focused on distinguishing democratic Islam from all other ideologies. Four years before Khomeini seized power in Iran, Rajavi singled out fundamentalism as the principal threat waiting in the wings: "We believe this [backward religious] current is the antithesis of, and the principal threat to, all groups who struggle in the name of Islam," he said.7
In a compilation of his discussions, later published in 1979, he elaborated on this statement:
Ideologically speaking, our relations with the backward religious current are antagonistic in nature, i.e., the relation between two opposites. The proof of one depends on the other's denial. According to Imam Ali (the first Imam of the Shi'ah), fundamentalist Islam turns every truth into falsehood and every falsehood into truth. Therefore, there are not and cannot be any similarities between the two.8
After 1975, the religious fundamentalists led by Khomeini took advantage of the Mojahedin Organization's disintegration to seize the leadership in the anti-shah movement. A unique combination of international conditions helped them to assume power in Iran in 1979. But a major political, social, and military confrontation soon broke out, pitting the Mojahedin against Khomeini. In the course of this conflict, the Mojahedin had to make great sacrifices, but stood firm on the principles of democratic Islam. All of the Mojahedin's activities and political positions during the first two and a half years of Khomeini 's reign were focused on exposing the backward ruling regime and acquainting the people with democratic Islam. Rajavi commented on this process in an interview:
From the Mojahedin's point of view, the Khomeini regime-in its entirety and with all of its institutions-was illegitimate to begin with, because it had usurped the leadership of the revolution. The Khomeini regime is incapable of resolving any of our people's basic problems-whether political freedoms or economic, social, and cultural needs. This regime is historically illegitimate. Our formal cooperation or participation in its executive organs, was, therefore, inappropriate unless we could at one point or another break the regime's backward framework and impose our own conditions from a position of strength. . . . 9
The early post revolutionary ruling regime was made up of two factions, one a Khomeini- led fundamentalist grouping of mullahs such as Beheshti and Rafsanjani, and the other made up of religious liberals such as Bazargan and his Freedom Movement. In their approach to this incongruous coupling, the Mojahedin focused the brunt of their criticism on Khomeini and his supporters, insisting that the main threat was fundamentalism. The Mojahedin therefore also opposed the pro-Moscow, Communist Tudeh Party. The Tudeh Party argued that liberals were the "indigenous agents of imperialism" and the main enemy of the people of Iran. It was the liberals within the regime who should be denounced, not the clerics, the Tudeh Party said. As a result, they moved closer and closer to Khomeini and the fundamentalist mullahs, becoming de facto allies. The Mojahedin's opposition to Khomeini thus led the Tudeh Party to brand the Mojahedin lackeys of imperialism. Eventually, the Tudeh ended up collaborating with the Revolutionary Guards in the execution, torture, and imprisonment of Mojahedin supporters. In 1981, when Massoud Rajavi flew to France, the Tudeh Party demanded his extradition to the Khomeini regime. 10
One of the Mojahedin's most important actions against fundamentalism was their refusal to vote for the Khomeini regime's constitution establishing the velayat-e-faqih in 1979. In Rajavi's words:
We have already proven that we are not content with rhetoric, and stand by our commitments, however heavy the price or whatever the sacrifice. This is how we have time and again broken out of a deadlock and opened the way, as on the day when we said "no" to velayat-e-faqih knowing that we would consequently be denied the right to take part in the presidential elections and their benefits; and on the day when our chants of "death to Khomeini" echoed throughout the country, when nobody else dared to even offend "Mr. Khomeini."
A review of the confrontation between the Mojahedin and Khomeini is not complete without mention of Ayatollah Seyyed Mahmoud Taleqani, the prominent interpreter of the Quran. Ayatollah Taleqani played an important role in the 1979 anti-shah revolution, and his popularity rivaled Khomeini's. Although a bitter opponent of religious fundamentalism, he was appointed to the ruling Assembly of Experts. Because the mullahs did not want to alienate Taleqani or his supporters, they did not incorporate the velayat-e-faqih into the constitution until after Taleqani's death in September 1979.
To counter Khomeini's interpretation of Islam, Rajavi gave a series of lectures on Islamic philosophy and modern Islamic thought at one of Iran's largest universities, Sharif University of Technology, in 1979. Ten thousand people attended the weekly lectures. Hundreds of thousands of published transcripts as well as video recordings of the lectures were distributed in Tehran and other cities, providing a huge audience with its first real exposure to Islam as a modern, democratic religion, a very different version than what mullahs historically presented. Lecturing on comparative Islamic philosophy, the Mojahedin leader also presented a detailed critique of the fundamentalist approach to Islam, as well as atheistic, agnostic, and materialistic philosophies.
Alarmed by the popularity of Rajavi's lectures, Khomeini presided over a number of televised classes in which he interpreted verses of the Quran. His monotonous and overly reactionary lectures soon became a subject of national ridicule. Khomeini abruptly ended the sessions.
Having failed to win the argument, Khomeini's regime turned to force as the only way to stop the open debate. In April 198O, armed gangs acting on government orders rampaged through the nation's campuses, killing and wounding students and destroying buildings, libraries, and dormitories under the pretext of the "Islamic Cultural Revolution." All universities were closed down, and a group called the "Supreme Islamic Cultural Revolutionary Council" was set up to purge universities and institutes of higher education of all students harboring any sympathy for the Mojahedin.
Attacks by Khomeini's operatives on any opposition political activity also made it difficult for the Mojahedin to continue their political campaign. From 1979 to 1981, at least 100 Mojahedin members and supporters were stabbed, clubbed, or shot to death by Khomeini's agents. Two thousand Mojahedin prisoners were tortured. Throughout this period, the Mojahedin continued to pursue their political activities peacefully, a far more complex and difficult task than the one facing them during the shah's reign. In Rajavi's words:
Consistent with the mood of the majority of Iranians, we believed that the Khomeini regime and its institutions enjoyed temporary political and social legitimacy. Until June 1981, therefore, we neither picked up arms nor violated the mullahs' own constitution. In other words, whereas the regime was, in an absolute sense, devoid of ideological legitimacy, in relative terms and owing to the desires of the majority of Iranians, its legal institutions still remained to be tested.11
In the months preceding June 1981, the mullahs mobilized gangs of club-wielders who routinely attacked the Mojahedin's rallies, centers, and offices throughout the country in a bid to provoke the organization into armed action. The Mojahedin, however, refused to respond in kind to avoid any premature confrontation with the regime. Under Rajavi's instructions, they were determined to use every opportunity to carry on their lawful political activities.
The Mojahedin organized a peaceful demonstration of half a million Tehran residents on June 20, 1981. Mojahedin leaders reasoned that if Khomeini's government retained even a slight commitment to the rule of law, the clerics would leave some breathing space, albeit small, for political parties to engage in nonviolent political activity. Khomeini, however, had already concluded that absolute repression was his regime's only chance for survival. The brutal clampdown of the peaceful march eliminated the last vestiges of peaceful political activities. Khomeini had declared war on the Mojahedin. Arbitrary arrests and summary executions immediately followed.
A Glance at the Mojahedin's Basic Viewpoints
In comparing Khomeini's fundamentalism to the Mojahedin's modernism' such fundamental issues as the country's future political system, democracy, and human rights are especially important. Commenting on the intrinsic differences between the Mojahedin and Khomeini, Massoud Rajavi has said:
When Khomeini became the leader and the Imam, as a first step words were sacrificed and left empty of substance and meaning. Such noble words as "Islam," "freedom,'" "republic," etc., were systematically debased and cheapened. They called the most savage tortures "religious punishment." They mutilated prisoners' bodies, gouged out their eyes, and stoned people to death under the banner of religion.12
The totalitarian principle of velayat-e-faqih is the basis upon which Khomeiniism stands. In contrast, for the Mojahedin democracy is indispensable to Islam. Their vision of Islam tolerates its opponents and treats them fairly. Islam blossoms only in a spirit of freedom and truthfulness, and therefore cannot trample upon the legitimate rights of the people. Power and governance do not constitute the ends of Islam, the Mojahedin believe. It is committed to certain inviolable moral principles which cannot be ignored under any circumstances.
In accordance with this spirit, all member personalities and organizations of the National Council of Resistance, including the Mojahedin and other opponents of the mullahs' regime, regardless of their numerical strength, political status, and so forth, have an equal vote. In the decision, making process, therefore, the Mojahedin, though a nationwide political party with a considerable following, has only one vote, like every other organization and personality in the council. The NCR President, Massoud Rajavi, has repeatedly emphasized that such a council constitutes a historic democratic experience for Iran, a nation that has suffered under the dictatorships of the shah and Khomeini for seventy years.13
In accordance with the council's program, after the overthrow of the mullahs' regime, a provisional government headed by Massoud Rajavi will be in power for a maximum of six months, its main task being to hold free elections for a National Legislative and Constituent Assembly. Afterwards, the provisional government will submit its resignation to the parliament. The people's elected representatives will then determine the country's mode of government and the new republic's constitution.
The program of the National Council of Resistance and the provisional government emphasizes "recognizing the people's right to make decisions and determine their own destiny" and regards the attainment of national sovereignty, rather than clerical sovereignty, as "the most valuable achievement of the just Resistance of the people of Iran." The program underscores complete freedom of belief and expression and a ban on censorship and inquisition; complete freedom of the press, parties, assemblies, political associations, and various unions, societies, and councils; and the right to dissent at all civil and military levels and positions.14
Democracy and the "popular vote as the source of legitimacy to govern" are among the most fundamental differences between the Mojahedin's and Khomeini's ideologies. Khomeini frequently remarked that the vali-e-faqih, the absolute ruler, had a divine right to rule, whereas the Mojahedin have insisted that only the popular vote is the determining factor. In Rajavi's words:
The Mojahedin profoundly believe that to avoid the deviations that beset contemporary revolutions throughout the world, they must remain wholeheartedly committed to the will of the public and democracy. If they are to act as a leading organization, before all else the populace must give them a mandate in a free and fair election. It is not enough to have gone through the trials of repression, imprisonment, torture, and executions under the shah and the mullahs. The Mojahedin must also pass the test of general elections. If the Mojahedin were to choose to compensate for the lack of popular mandate by relying on their past sacrifices or organizational prowess, or arms, their resilient, lively, and democratic organization would soon become a hollow, rotten bureaucracy. . . . If the people don't vote for us (after we have overthrown the mullahs' regime), we shall remain in the opposition, holding firmly to our principles. 15
Rajavi's emphasis on the need for a popular mandate to govern and his rejection of the fundamentalists' claim of "divine legitimacy" is not unique in Islamic history. There are important precedents set by Muslim clerics and laymen who argued passionately against the notion that elections have no place in an "Islamic" rule. Years before Khomeini came to power, respected clergymen like Ayatollah Mirza Hussein Na'ini and Ayatollah Taleqani warned against the danger of religious tyranny. Ayatollah Na'ini stressed this in his writings at the time of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution at the turn of the century.
Among the forces safeguarding despotism are the religious tyrants. They adopt certain words and components of religion to appear appealing to the naive. They deceive the ordinary people, unfamiliar with the principles and basics of the religion and the essence of the Prophets' mission. They make these people obey their rule. They claim to safeguard the religion and to be looking after the interests of the religion, but in fact they spread the shadow of Satan over the public and keep them under this ominous shadow of ignorance and wretchedness.
Because they manipulate the pure emotions of the people and take cover behind the strong fortifications of religion, they are much more dangerous and harder to repel. Although religious tyranny differs from political tyranny in appearance, in essence they act similarly and lead in the same direction. Both utilize the financial and spiritual resources of the people to preserve power. As stipulated in the Quran, obedience to them constitutes dualism.16
The Iranian clerics used the slogan "the only party is the Party of God [Hizbullah]" to crack down on their political opponents and suppress freedoms. During the early years of Khomeini's rule, organized gangs chanted that slogan as they raided meetings and ransacked the headquarters of political organizations, bookstores, publishing houses, newspapers, and so forth.
The Quran, on the other hand, says to Muslims: "Allah forbiddeth you not those who warred not against you on account of religion and drove you not out from your homes, that ye should show them kindness and deal justly with them. Lo! Allah loves the just dealers."17 Although many companions of Imam Ali urged him to act decisively against the Kharijites in the seventh century, or at least restrict their freedom and political activities, Ali replied, "So long as they do not harm us, we will not take any action against them. If they debate with us, we will do likewise. We will continue to pay them their share of the treasury. We will allow them to go to the mosques to pray. Only if they resort to violence and killing will we reluctantly fight them."
The Mojahedin have been profoundly influenced by such teachings of the Prophet and Imam Ali. In 1980, the Mojahedin formally asked the Khomeini regime's judiciary to refrain from executing the leaders of a coup that shattered the Mojahedin Organization. In 1983 , the Mojahedin denounced the torture, harassment, and detention without trials of the Tudeh Party leaders, although the latter caused the imprisonment and subsequent execution of hundreds of Mojahedin supporters and sympathizers by turning them over to the security forces.
The program of the National Council of Resistance and the provisional government guarantees the individual's right to dissent and freedom from persecution in the future Iran. It specifies that there are no limits to any individual's or group's political activities short of armed rebellion against the government. The program also states: "Our rich heritage of Islam, contrary to Khomeini's [fundamentalism], does not draw its rightfulness and legitimacy (including political legitimacy) from coercion and compulsion. We firmly believe that Islam can only flourish in the absence of any discrimination, privilege, or social or political coercion."18
Islam's early history abounds in examples of fair, humane, and equitable treatment of adherents to other faiths. When Imam Ali appointed Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr as the governor of Egypt, he impressed upon him the need to treat non-Muslims with fairness, to restore the rights of the oppressed, and to deal harshly with the oppressors. Upon hearing that a Jewish girl's jewelry had been forcibly taken away by people acting in the name of Islam, Ali said that he would understand if a Muslim felt so much pain and sorrow over such an injustice that he died of grief.19 Inspired by such examples, the Mojahedin have shown their firm belief in legal equality, unity, and fraternity for all, religious or nonreligious, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or a follower of any other religion or school of thought. The Declaration of the National Council of Resistance on the Relations of the Provisional Government with Religion and Denomination, declares:
1 All forms of discrimination against the followers of various religions and denominations in the enjoyment of their individual and social rights are prohibited. No citizens shall enjoy any privileges or be subject to any deprivations in respect of nomination for election, suffrage, employment, education, becoming a judge, or any other individual or social rights, for reason of belief or non belief in a particular religion or denomination.
2 Any form of compulsory religious or ideological teaching and any compulsion to practice or not practice religious rituals and customs is forbidden. The right of all religions and denominations to teach. proselytize, and freely perform their rituals and traditions, and the respect and security of all places belonging to them, are guaranteed.
3 Jurisdiction of judicial authorities is not based upon their religious or ideological status, and laws not formulated within the legislative institution of the land will have no authority or validity. Together with the abrogation of the rules of qessas (retaliation), hudud (religious punishments), ta'zirat (corporal punishment), and diyat (penalties) imposed by Khomeini's inhuman regime, and with the dissolution of the so-called revolutionary courts and prosecutors' offices, and the Shari' ah courts, all included in the Provisional Government's immediate tasks, judicial processes will take place within the unified judicial order of the Republic, on the basis of universally recognized legal principles and in accordance with the law.
4 Religious, denominational, and ideological inquisition by the government or any of its agencies in any form is prohibited.
" The history of human rights in Iran is being written in blood, the blood of those striving for freedom," commented the late Kazem Rajavi in an interview a few years before he was gunned down by assassins sent by the mullahs. His remark aptly describes the Mojahedin's commitment to human rights. Islam as understood by the Mojahedin teaches the responsibility and free will of man, and places great emphasis on the independent character of every human being. Each individual is a world unto himself and represents the verity of all mankind. In the words of the Quran: ". . . if anyone slew a person-unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land- it would be as if he slew the whole people. And if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people."2O
The program of the National Council of Resistance of lran recognizes the "individual and social rights of all citizens as stressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." It guarantees general freedoms, including freedom of association, thought and speech, the media, parties, unions, councils, faiths and religions, and professions. The NCR program also calls for "the abolishment of military and extraordinary tribunals, the investigation of political offenses in civil courts with juries present," and guarantees the "right of the accused to defense and to the choice of the defense counsel, and the right to appeal" It emphasizes "the banning of torture under any pretext,"' and stresses "the judicial and professional security for all citizens and abolishment of Komitehs and the Guards Corps."
Grace and Compassion Versus Violence and Vengeance
" Humans, whether they want it or not, are brethren. . . Reconciliation between two persons is better than all prayers and fasts. . . Religion is good behavior." These are the words of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam. The Quran says:". . . but do thou good, as God has been good to thee."21 "Speak with humility to the people. . ."22"God commands justice, the doing of good and liberality to kith."23
Imam Ali's life embodied his commitment to the teachings of grace, compassion, and love in place of vengeance and violence. When the Battle of Jamal ended, Ali pardoned all those who had waged war on him. "He who forgives one who has oppressed and is merciful to one who has denied him kindness" was Ali's model of an honorable human being.
In this sense as well, the Mojahedin are inspired by the teachings of Islam. In the words of Maryam Rajavi, "The Mojahedin represent an Islam in which love, compassion, and liberty are the genuine values. Khomeini, on the other hand, always promoted vengeance and brutality. Did anyone ever see Khomeini utter a word of kindness?"24
Nowhere is the fundamentalists' backward frame of mind more apparent than in their treatment of women. For Khomeiniists, women have no place in society; a woman's place is in the home, where she must be an obedient wife, caring mother, and no more. Under the pretext of its self-styled crime of "improper veiling," the Khomeini regime viciously humiliates Iranian women, flogging and torturing the violators. Morteza Moqtada'i, Head of the Supreme Court, announced, "Women appearing in public without traditionally defined veiling will be sentenced to up to seventy-four lashes."25
The clerical regime does not recognize women as fully human. A woman described her plight thus: "Is it a sin to be a woman? The Tehran branch of the Islamic Free University announced some time ago that it was hiring professors. Since I had a master's degree in Persian literature, I approached the university. Although I was perfectly qualified, they openly told me that because I am a woman, they could not hire me."26
The mullahs also try to segregate men and women in any possible place, on the streets, in classes, on buses, and at the beach. The director of public transportation in Tehran announced, "As of December 10, 1988, the plan for sexual segregation of bus passengers will be carried out on all the double-decked buses. The sisters [women] will accordingly board buses from the rear door and put their tickets in a box next to it. The upper deck and part of the lower deck are assigned to brother [men] passengers, whose tickets will be collected by the conductor."27
These and thousands of other rules and regulations show the medieval dogmas of the fundamentalist rulers of Iran in action.
The Mojahedin, on the other hand, fully recognize the rights and freedoms of women. Women comprise more than half of the Mojahedin Executive Committee presided over by Secretary General Maryam Rajavi. In October 1991, the Mojahedin's parliamentary body-the 837-member Central Council-unanimously elected a woman, Fahimeh Arvani, as the organization's deputy secretary general. She also presides over the Mojahedin's Central Council.28
In April 1987, the National Council of Resistance adopted a Declaration on the Freedoms and Rights of Iranian Women. The document underscores the need to abolish all forms of coercion, suppression, and discrimination endured by women in Iran. The declaration maintains that such practices are unjust and violate human dignity. To realize the full rights of women, the NCR contends, such a plan is essential. It will serve as a guideline for the provisional government's policies in this respect. It emphasizes women's right to hold any government position, including the presidency and a judgeship-a right denied by the mullahs' constitution. Women's right to freely choose their clothing, to file for divorce, to choose their spouse, to receive equal pay for equal work, and to enroll in any educational establishment has also been guaranteed. The declaration calls for "the full equality of women and men in the social, political, cultural, and economic spheres." Women have made up a majority of the NCR's membership since its expansion to 150 members in December 1992.
* * *
Human evolution has been described as an unrelenting passage from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. In this context, the Mojahedin-mullah confrontation in Iran is the struggle between a reactionary perversion of Islam and true Islam, which advocates freedom and awareness; an ideological duel between the forces of ignorance and the proponents of liberty. If Iran is to emerge from the clutches of Khomeini's terrorist-religious tyranny, the Mojahedin are the only solution. Democratic, liberating Islam will doubtless triumph. Massoud Rajavi's words offer a glimpse of what Iran will become when the mullahs are overthrown:
We shall live in peace and coexistence with our neighbors. Democratic Iran will not recognize any place for vengeance, blind hatred, or Khomeini's tribunals or brand of anarchy. We are responsible enough not to be involved in internal and international adventurism. We do not want an antidemocratic theocracy like Khomeini's. Instead of "exporting the revolution," we shall invite our country's experts to return to Iran. In democratic Iran no one will be persecuted for his ideology or religion. Tomorrow's Iran will be free of repression and religious hypocrisy. Women, workers, peasants, religious and ethnic minorities will not be oppressed. Kurds, Turks, Jews, Muslims, Armenians, Christians, Zoroastrians, and non-Muslims will enjoy equal rights. Iran will become a symbol of peace, stability, and friendship in the Middle East.29 *
