Posted on 07/29/2005 11:58:50 AM PDT by F14 Pilot
In 1947, Ruhalhah Khomeini, then a mid-ranking mullah in Qom, issued a “fatwa” (opinion) that made it incumbent on “the faithful” to murder Ahmad Kasravi. It took a group of eight “faithful” to plan and carry out the murder several months later. A jubilant Khomeini told his entourage that he had “eliminated that paragon of impiety” for ever.
At the time of his murder Kasravi was one of Iran’s leading intellectuals. A veritable Renaissance man, he was a senior jurist at the high court, a distinguished historian, a magnetic orator, a master of the Persian prose, and a best-selling author.
But why did Khomeini desire Kasravi’s death? Was it Kasravi’s success in offering the Iranians an alternative reading of their history and culture? Or was it because Kasravi had subjected the doctrine of Shi’ism to close critical scrutiny? Or, may be, a dose of personal jealousy was involved? After all Khomeini had just published his childish pamphlet entitled “Kashf al-Asrar” (Key to Secrets), and attracted nothing but yawns, frowns and laughs from the few people who bothered to leaf through it. This contrasted with the fact that the publication of any of Kasravi’s book was a national event with reverberations throughout society.
But history is never written in advance. Just over three decades later Khomeini was the master of Iran, executing his real or imagined foes by the thousands. Kasravi’s book were dug out of libraries and private collections and burned and his tomb ransacked by Khomeinist thugs. But that, too, was not the end of the story.
Today, Kasravi is re-emerging as one of Iran’s best-loved and most read authors while Khomeini’s embarrassingly illiterate books, published in expensive editions by the government and often distributed free of charge, are never read because they are unreadable.
All this shows that, in the long-run, terrorism does not work.
Terrorism is, in fact, the tool of the intellectually lazy
politicians.
Khomeini knew that neither he nor any of his acolytes would be able to challenge Kasravi in the realm of law, history and literature. Khomeini could not write a book as good as any of Kasravi’s. Nor could he compete with Kasravi’s knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence and Iranian history. To be able to do that Khomeini would have needed years of serious study, then unavailable in Qom, and an intellectual discipline that he never acquired.
The terrorist method was to continue during Khomeini’s rule.
Khomeini could not challenge Grand Ayatollah Kazem Shariatmadari on theological grounds. So he ordered that Shariatmadari be put under house arrest and silenced. Later, it was the turn of Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri to receive a similar treatment. Several other prominent clerics died in mysterious circumstances, victims, perhaps, of the same terrorist genie at work.
The terrorist kills because he cannot compete with his adversaries. Instead of responding to Salman Rushdie’s ill-structured and unreadable novel with a novel that is well-plotted and properly written, the terrorist calls for his murder. The terrorist cannot challenge Theo van Gogh’s controversial documentary with a better one and thus decides to stab him to death.
The history of contemporary Islamist terrorism is full of instances of cold-blooded murder ordered by those who could not compete in literary, political, social or even theological fields against those better than them.
With the advent of globalisation, Islamist terrorism is now able to strike beyond the frontiers of the Muslim world. But the same lazy mentality is at work. The terrorist knows that he is incapable of building an alternative civilisation capable of competing with the one he despises. So he tries to destroy what becomes the cause of his humiliation.
Politics is a serious business which requires hard work. It needs to find ways of keeping society in harmony while meeting its basic needs and creating conditions for economic, social and cultural development. Writing a poem, erecting a building, composing a symphony, painting a miniature, compiling a theological study, and making a film are not easy. But making a car-bomb is. The Taliban Mullah Muhammad Omar’s total work of “scholarship” consists of 30 pages of his ranting against “ the infidel”. But the terrorist operations he has organised and taken part in since 1992, when the Pakistani military intelligence recruited him, run into hundreds.
The terrorist has no need of developing policies, building alliances, and mobilising popular sentiment for his programme. All that is hard work, just like winning free elections. The terrorist does not like hard work; he is in a hurry and wants a short-cut, even if that means turning himself into a human bomb.
The terrorist has no patience with the lesser mortals who argue, answer back, and refuse to commit to anything unless convinced by rational analysis. All that means politics; something the terrorist is afraid of. He has no time to brew a proper coffee; an instant coffee is all he seeks.
Terrorists always remind me of a short story by Voltaire in which a bug is angered by the ticktack of a clock on the wall and decides to destroy “ the monster”. It has no time to find out how the clock is made, why it is there, and whether there might not be other ways of attenuating the sound of its ticktack. The bug is a terrorist; it wants instant result from a single effort. So it decides to rush headlong into the clock like one of our suicide-bombers these days.
The hands of the clock stop of a tiny fraction of a second but then continue their relentless counting of time, ticking and tacking as loud as ever. Our martyrdom-seeking bug, however, falls to the floor, crushed and lifeless. A few moments later the cleaning lady sweeps the corpse of the suicide-martyr bug into the dustbin.
Terrorism can never win. It may generate much heat but never produces any light.
Without going deep into history, a glance at the past few decades offers not a single instance of terrorism managing to alter the course of a society let alone transform it completely.
Terrorists in Algeria have caused the death of perhaps a quarter of a million people since 1992. But they are farther away from achieving power than ever. If anything their brand of Islamism has lost all chances of ever finding a place in Algeria. Terrorist wars in Turkey and Egypt in the 1980s and 1990s claimed more than 60,000 lives. But the terrorists won nothing, apart from the curse of the people and, perhaps, eternal damnation.
Less than four years after 9/11 New York is more buoyant than ever, its property prices skyrocketing while it hosts a record number of businesses and visitors. Earlier this month London, like Voltaire’s clock, was back to its normal life moments after the 7/7 suicide attacks. The same will happen in Sharm el Sheikh once the debris of the attacks is cleared away. The sun will continue to shine and the Red Sea will remain as tempting as ever.
A thousand years from now Kasravi will still be remembered as a great Iranian writer and thinker while Khomeini would have become a footnote in history like so many other sanguinary tyrants who came, killed, and went away. Have you ever heard of Ghazan Khan? No? Well, there you go.
Amir Taheri was born in Iran and educated in Tehran, London and Paris. Between 1980 and 1984 he was Middle East editor for the London Sunday Times. Taheri has been a contributor to the International Herald Tribune since 1980. He has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Taheri has published nine books some of which have been translated into 20 languages, and In 1988 Publishers'' Weekly in New York chose his study of Islamist terrorism, "Holy Terror", as one of The Best Books of The Year. He has been a columnist Asharq Alawsat since 1987
BTW, If one replaces "terrorist" with "Leftist", this article suffices quite well in explaining the international and American Leftist too.
Isn't odd that our president Jimmy Carter couldn't understand this? He more than anyone else, supported these people.
The Shah of Iran, unfortuately didn't understand that there are times when you need to covertly execute your enemies.
Great article, and I agree with his review of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. That is one hard to read book.
You might be interested in this great article:
http://www.iranian.ws/cgi-bin/iran_news/exec/view.cgi/2/3297/printer
Agreed on both counts.
marking
If I may ask a question?
How is it that with such brainpower, I have yet to find a single credible explanation of why terrorists are able to
a) be indoctrinated from infancy on hate
b)Be ignorant totally about science philosophy and useful skills
c)Attend madrassas where only destruction and the Q'uran are taught and finally
d)Remain totally invisible.
It is utterly impossible to find them, change things or punish them?
"All this shows that, in the long-run, terrorism does not work."
ONLY if you don't give in. Terrorist counts on the Spains of the world to cave in. France will too.
If they hit us we MUST hit back, 100 times harder and 100 times longer. Terrorism doesn't work because SO FAR the US hasn't let it.
My thoughts exactly.
"You might be interested in this great article:
http://www.iranian.ws/cgi-bin/iran_news/exec/view.cgi/2/3297/printer"
Thank you very much for this. Every Freeper should read this. I truly believe that Iran today would be a properous world power had the Shah remained in power with reforms. The best excerpt from this article are this:
"While in exile Carter turned his back on the Shah and did not want to have anything to do with the leader who when celebrating New Year's Eve 1978 at his home - Niavaran Palace in Tehran, he addressed the Shah by; "Our talks have been priceless, our friendship is irreplaceable, and my own gratitude is to the Shah, who in his wisdom and with his experience has been so helpful to me, a new leader."?
Steven Hayward in his book published in 2004 under the title, "The Real Jimmy Carter"? writes; "Carter betrayed a man whose fall to the Ayatollah Khomeini on Carter's watch spawned the resurgence of fundamentalist Islamist terrorism that is now the War on Terror.
Two months after the Shah's death in Egypt, Iran's brave armed forces who were trained as first class troops with the best armaments but without their top generals who had all been executed in the previous twenty months, were the key factors in stopping Saddam Hussein invading our country in an eight year war with Iraq."
Jimmy Carter, if you recall, would not EVEN ALLOW THE SHAH TO SOME TO AMERICA FOR TREATMENT OF HIS LIVER CANCER. I will never forget that. The poor man, our true ally for years, had to go to Egypt to die.
Then a few months after Khomeini took power, he repaid CArter's support by holding our embassy hostage for 400 days.
I think you begin to see what happens in the world when we elect liberal presidents in the United States along with a liberal congress.
God help us and the world if we allow that to happen again.
nick
Carter also sent Ramsey Clark to meet Komeini in 1979!
Yes Ramsey Clark that bastion of AMerican diplomacy who if I'm not mistaken is on Saddam Hussein's legal team.
Do you know the story about Rwanda and how the Clinton admin. and that world renown purveyor of American strength, Madeline Albright refused to support UN peace keepers to stop the genocide.
Liberal US presidents lead us into wars.
Is there any doubt...in anyone's mind what a Hillary Clinton presidency will be like? All you have to do is stand her up next to a Margaret Thatcher to show everyone what a hideous joke she would be a president.
nick
Ramsey Clark is wherever the bad guys are!
He is in Saddam's defense team
Iran still loves the Shah!
yesterday was the 25th anniversary of his majesty's death in Cairo in 1980.
God Bless Him!
"Iran still loves the Shah!
yesterday was the 25th anniversary of his majesty's death in Cairo in 1980.
God Bless Him!"
I recall being a young resident at Cook County Hospital in the late 70s. One of my best attendings was an Iranian doctor. He was the gentlest, sweetest man.
It was during this time that there was considerable unrest and protest against the Shah mainly coming from young intellectuals.
Life was good in Iran but it was becoming too Western too fast for some and it was ripe for the Islamists to subvert this movement and instill the need to go back to an Islamic nation.
Like any developing democracy, sometimes the freedoms are overwelming and become the undoing of a potential democracy.
I think this doctor like many other professionals had come here to become citizens but they were also deeply proud of their Iranian culture.
The fall of the Shah as I recall was greeted with cheers and support from people like him at the time. There was much anticipation of going back to those simpler times when women were put in their place, a religion was number one.
I shudder to think what he and his family, back in Iran, have had to endure all these years.
I have not seen this doctor since then but your post gladdens me to think that there are many many young people there in IRan who think good of those glorious days when they read about them and of people like the Shah and others who represented the best of the Iranian culture that has roots that go back thousands of years.
Is there any doubt in our minds how a free Iran will be treated by this president? Contrast this with Jimmy Carter and company. The Iranian people are our friends. I would fully expect them to be a close ally once again, after they throw off the yoke of the current tyranny.
BTW I enjoyed your site. You should be proud of your heritage. I pray for your safety. I don't think there is any doubt that you have the support of many Americans if and when your people rise up against your current "rulers."
Your country is collapsing from within. Your economy once among the strongest in the world is one of the weakest. Your young people, especially the young women, are not allowed to pursue happiness as we do in this country.
There are many Iranians in America and throughout the free world. They must be agonizing by what has happened in your country.
It's only a matter of time until your country will be free again.
nick
Objective JournalismTM is an establishment defined by:The left actually does have its own version of Rush Limbaugh. But whereas the real Rush Limbaugh defines his perspective openly, is optomistic about the American people and people generally, has a sense of humor and is willing to discuss competing viewpoints seriously, the left's version of Rush Limbaugh is just the opposite. The left's version of Rush Limbaugh is negative, superficial, arrogant, and cowardly.
- the superficality inherent in its "the show must go on" deadlines.
- the "boy who cried wolf" negativity inherent in its need to grab for peoples' attention.
- the "you never pick an argument with someone who buys ink by the carload" arrogance of those who claim the virtue of objectivity.
- the "you never pick an argument with someone else who buys ink by the carload" cowardice.
The left's version of Rush Limbaugh is cynical, bullying Objective JournalismTM.
Outstanding post. Many thanks!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.