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The Eurasian Politician - February 2004
By: Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi & Elio Bonazzi, February 2004
Published originally in "Iran va Jahan": http://www.iranvajahan.net
Mass media routinely refer to Western values such as tolerance and secularism, in contrast to bigotry and fundamentalism typical of non-Western cultures, generating the wrong impression that if the Western civilization wasn't always immune from religious zealotry, it certainly dealt with the issue once and for all in a distant past. Even the most fervent apologists of Western civilization feel uneasy when confronted with the numerous episodes of religious fundamentalism that occurred in Western history.
The Renaissance, for instance, is one of the crucial milestones of Western civilization; it exercised a profound influence on the Western cultural and intellectual life for centuries. While Renaissance's achievements are common knowledge, not everybody knows, or remembers, that for several years Florence, the cultural center of the Renaissance, experienced one of the harshest periods of religious fanaticism in Christian history. Girolamo Savonarola, an influential preacher, managed to create a theocracy that bears striking similarities with Khomeini's Iran. Illustrious Renaissance figures, like the painter Botticelli even bought into Savonarola's zeal, and burned many of his paintings because he began to believe that they were vain and pagan!
Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican monk, hailed from an old family of Ferrara. In early 1482 he was sent by his superior to preach in Florence. His profound concern with the widespread depravity of the era established him as a powerful sermonizer at the peak of the Renaissance. His sermons and his character made a deep impression. He forcefully opposed the "pagan" and often-immoral life, prevalent in many classes of society. All Florence thronged to hear him and he began to enjoy growing influence through his sermons in the cathedral. He had chosen the Medici family as his target and he persistently disputed the morality of these generous patrons of the arts, culture and the church. He bitterly attacked Lorenzo the Magnificent as the promoter of paganized art, of frivolous living, and as the tyrant of Florence.
Without regard for the consequences, he fervently lashed out at the immoral, vainglorious, pleasure-seeking life of the Florentines to bring a majority of the citizens to attrition and the exercise of Christian virtue. In prophetic terms he announced the approaching judgment of God and the avenger from whom he hoped the reform of Church life. The avenger he referred to was Charles VIII, King of France, who had entered Italy, and was advancing toward Florence. Savonarola's denunciation of the Medici produced its results. Lorenzo's son Pietro de Medici, who was hated both for his tyranny and his immoral life, was driven out of the city with his family. Savonarola (now heading the embassy of Florentines) visited The French king in Pisa heralding his entrance into Florence. The king's departure ushered in a new and peculiar constitution; a kind of theocratic democracy was established in Florence which was based on the political and social doctrines set forth by Savonarola. Christ was considered the King of Florence and protector of its liberties. A great council, as the representative of all the citizens, became the governing body of the republic and the law of Christ was to be the basis of political and social life. Savonarola did not interfere directly in politics and affairs of State, but his teachings and his ideas were authoritative. He unsuccessfully tried to bring together a convention of European leaders to remove the decadent Borgia from the papacy. During this period, he founded a brotherhood for young people to encourage a pious, Christian lifestyle. On Sundays some of the members of this fraternity went from house to house to "caution" luxuriously dressed women married or single to lay aside frivolous ornament. Thus an actual regulating morality police was established; these lawmen were encouraged to spy on, denounce and falsely accuse innocent civilians.
Savonarola who brought to Florence great enthusiasm for change, did not bring enough regeneration of hearts. People soon turned on the Savonarola. He however was not to be the last 'proselytizer' who would be rejected by the very populace to whom he had brought powerful spiritual renewal. He was initially ex-communicated and then hung and burning at the stake occurred in May 1498.
Like Savonarola, Khomeini created a theocracy based on strictly religious political and social doctrines. Like Savonarola, Khomeini did not "interfere" directly in politics and affairs of State, but his teachings and ideas were absolutely authoritative. And like Savonarola, who tried without success to lead an international convention against the Pope, Khomeini tried to bring together a convention of Islamic leaders to annihilate Israel and spread his vision of Islam, in direct confrontation with the Western world.
The Basijis, the "morale police" of the Islamic Republic, beat on women who did not observe the covenants of veil, dress and abolishment of make-up, exactly like Savonarola's young brotherhood did in Florence in 1496.
The list of similarities between Savonarola's and Khomeini's theocracies goes on, but we will stop here for the sake of brevity.
In a more recent past, Western culture was finally able to exorcise itself from religious fundamentalism, and now looks back at it's worst fundamentalist moments with shame and contrition. Secularism brought us the notion of separation between Church and State, a notion that seems to be universally accepted today, even by Christian religious leaders.
The fact that in the last few years European powers helped perpetuate the Islamic Republic of Iran, giving it an aura of international legitimacy in exchange for cheap oil, gas and copper, betrays once again the old time colonialist approach based on the classical imperial doctrine according to which "the natives" may be allowed to do as they wish with themselves as long as they do not threaten the interests of the colonial empire.
A religious fundamentalist twist wouldn't be tolerated in any of the European nations. The nation attempting the fundamentalist "experiment" would immediately become a pariah, and would be economically blackmailed by the other European nations. When Jörg Haider, the controversial Austrian politician advocating extreme-right policies bordering on fascism, managed to form a coalition government where his party would have had a few ministers, the fourteen member states of the EU immediately cut off all bilateral contracts with Austria, forcing Haider to resign from his post as the secretary of the party.
It is likely that the same treatment would be reserved for European nations attempting to implement religious fundamentalist policies. But Iranians are not Europeans; they are the natives of a distant world, subjugated to the economic interests of a still colonialist Europe. So, instead of applying economic, diplomatic and political pressure to Iran in order to force secularism, EU nations preferred to maintain the status quo, exploiting the situation to their economic advantage.
The political justification used by the Europeans to condone their dealings with the mullahs relied on the illusion that the Islamic clerics would have been able to reform the theocratic regime, granting more freedom and the ability to participate in public life to all Iranians, and not only to Islamic hardliners. That illusion has been shattered by the extremely low turnout to the national elections which occurred in Iran on Friday, February 20th, 2004. Plans for a massive nationwide boycott of elections went into effect back in August of 2003; posters, slogans and activity around the "stonewall" of the vote were produced and actively distributed among Iranians the world over on a daily basis until the very last minute. The Iranian people were not only not going to vote for the reformists, they were simply not going to vote…sit-in or not. The successful outcome of this maneuver by the Iranian people to expose the smoke and mirror game devised by the Mullahs to trick the west, was the intention behind this embargo; this was meant to underline the decline of the Islamic Republic, reformist or hardliner.
An affective model to explain social and economic dynamics in a period of decline was elaborated by Albert Hirshman in the 1970s. In his book titled "Exit Voice and Loyalty" he makes a basic distinction between alternative ways of reacting to deterioration in business firms and, in general, to dissatisfaction with organizations or governments: one – Exit: is for the member to quit the organization or for the customer to switch to the competing product, two – Voice: is for members or customers to agitate and exert influence for change "from within," and third – Loyalty: is seen in the function of retarding exit and of permitting voice to play its proper role.
The interplay of the three concepts turns out to illuminate a wide range of economic, social, and political phenomena. Applying Hirshman's categories to Iran, it is easy to see how loyalty raised the bar to exit and permitted voice (the failed reformist experiment started with the election of Khatami in '97). There is no doubt that the record low turnout to the national elections of February the 20th is a clear message of exit given by the Iranians to the hated mullahs and the European powers to stop using the reformist farce to justify their lucrative oil, gas and copper contracts.
In retrospect, it appears now evident that the so-called reformist experiment was nothing but a smoke screen carefully orchestrated by the mullahs to regain credibility after squads of professional killers sent by the former Iranian President Rafsanjani, had provoked serious diplomatic incidents in various European countries, gunning down Iranian dissidents in public venues (one of many examples is that of the Mykonos Restaurant massacre in Berlin, 1992), jeopardizing the lives of European citizens. The "good cop / bad cop" game was made possible by the appearance of Khatami on the Iranian political scene and played by the Iranian theocracy merely for Western conspicuous consumption.
The political landscape of the Islamic Republic is characterized not by political parties or movements that fight over ideas and alternative policies but by "insiders" and "outsiders". The rewarding mechanism is the opposite of meritocracy and is based on common background, family connections, social class, and even geographical location. Insiders are a restricted oligarchy, which consists of a few, socially homogeneous groups. The typical insider has a modest education, grew up in certain neighborhoods of Tehran, has probably good connections with the all powerful "bazaaris" - the shop owners of the Tehran's bazaar - if in fact not one of them. Colluding with the mullahs, they initially provided the financial backing needed for Khomeini's revolution. They were rewarded by the regime they helped install, by being allowed to amass incredible fortunes in cold, hard cash; they represent today the backbone of support for the theocratic regime.
Outsiders don't stand a chance to ever become part of the restricted oligarchy that shares the real power. The barrier to the entry to the insider group is simply insurmountable. Both reformists and hardliners are slightly different political manifestations of the same social congregation, the insiders that contributed to the creation of the Islamic Republic in 1978/79 and help the clerical regime navigate through perilous waters today.
The power struggle in Iran was never between reformists and hardliners. The electoral victory of Khatami in 1997 represented a moment of collective delusion, when the outsiders believed they could count and influence the political process of their country. In reality, the real power struggle was fought behind the scenes and affected only a small fraction of the Iranian public. It was all about the redistribution of wealth among the insiders; for instance to determine who would have occupied the most prestigious governmental posts, which is [by the way] the best source of income, thanks to the endemic rampant corruption that affects all aspects of Iranian society.
Another way to explain the low electoral turnout of February the 20th is to consider the dangerous fracture present today in the Iranian society, between the overwhelming majority of outsiders, who have no chance to count, and insiders, who are now fighting for their survival. Outsiders couldn't care less for the 2500 so-called reformist candidates who were prevented from running for office. Had people cared they would have only shown their support by demonstrating in front of the Majles (the Parliament). Their apathy and disinterest was loud and clear.
The real outcome of the elections, with or without reformist candidates competing, would have not changed the real balance of power. The people of Iran clearly indicated that the real issue at stake, from now on, is not the impossible reform of the regime, but it's demise. In 2004 Tehran, like in 1498 Florence, the time of preachers is coming to an end. We can only hope for a bloodless transition of power, where the criminally responsible are brought to justice and given a fair trial.
European powers are now left without any justification for continuing their support for the Islamic regime. It is likely that the mullahs will attempt to shift the focus of their bargaining with EU nations. Forget about real democracy and secularism, an open dialog with theocratic Iran could still be perceived among Europeans as beneficial for themselves, eager to bring long-term stability to Afghanistan, create a new regime in Iraq, and keeping the oil-rich Persian Gulf as tension-free as possible. But it will become increasingly difficult for European governments to sell any policy of support for an ugly regime to their own citizens, who have come to loathe the Islamic.
Page revised 11.3.2004