BAN ON ISLAMIST-NATIONALISTS CRUCIAL CHALLENGE FOR REFORMISTS
By Safa Haeri, IPS Editor
LONDON 21 Mar. (IPS) The decision taken last week by the Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i to wage an all out war against the Islamist-nationalists, better known as the "Nationalist-religious" is seen by many leading Iranian political analysts as a "dangerous gamble threatening the very survival of the regime he symbolises".
Acting on orders from the leader, the Islamic revolution Tribunal that deals with criminal activities against the regime officially pronounced both the Nationalist-religious current and the Iran Freedom Movement (IFM) as "illegal", banning them from "all activities, under any name".
The decision came after the authorities had raided ten days ago the house of Mr. Mohammad Basteh-Negar, an IFM activist, arresting 21 guests, including journalists, scholars, intellectuals and politicians affiliated to both Islamist-nationalists and the IFM.
Ever sine he was appointed as the leader, Mr. Khameneh'i
unabatedly, repeatedly and endlessly would warn both the Iranian people and the
leadership against the "enemy" working restlessly, day and night to
fight Islam and topple the Islamic Republic, the most valued gift God has
bestowed on the Muslims.
But now that he has made clear his intention to "eradicate" the Islamist-nationalists, he might as well be in the process of doing exactly what the "enemy" he has created in his sick imagination is after: Finishing with the odd system created by Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founding father of the Islamic Republic and his former right hand man, dissident Grand Ayatollah Hosseinali Montazeri who was placed on house arrest conditions by Mr. Khameneh'i, the analysts pointed out.
In fact, the current that the lamed and increasingly controversial Khameneh'i has declared a holly war on it, denounced as "monafeq", or "hypocrit" and accused of "apostasy", "moharebeh", meaning fighting God, and "plotting the overthrow" of the regime, not only possesses an important sympathy capital among Iranians, but also enjoys the largest audience, the greatest influence and the widest impact over the population, including the poor and middle classes, but particularly the students, intellectuals, seculars and nationalists, as well as the clerical and armed corps.
When, shortly after the Judiciary banned the first batch of reformist and independent publications last April, a group from the Second Khordad Coalition (SKC), the "rainbow" formation that supports President Mohammad Khatami and the reforms process, met the leader to protest the measures, they were astounded by the angry tone adopted by the leader who, not only expressed his full support for the closure, but urged them to "separate" themselves from the "treacherous third current" by drawing a clear line between the "khodi" (those who are with us) and the "qeyr khodi" (those who are not).
The message the SKC got from the audience was that the conservatives consider the Islamist-nationalists as the major instruments in the landslide victories of the reformists in both presidential and legislatives elections.
The reaction of Mr. Khameneh’i also showed that he has understood the dangers this "third current" presents both for his position as the leader and the ruling conservative "apartheid", as it was telling the public opinion that religion is about one’s private affair, thus generalising the separation of the faith from politics of the State and offering the intelligentsia a new, modernist "reading and interpretation" of Islam while challenging the system based on the concept of "velayat faqih", or the rule of the Tutor.
In a speech made to the now famous Berlin Conference, Hojjatoleslam Hasan Yusefi-Eshkevari, an outspoken Islamist-nationalist reformer had stated that wearing "hejab", or the dress Islam imposes on the women, was not "compulsory", as it constitutes a private matter.
Because of this, Mr. Yusefi-Eshkevari was arrested on his return to Tehran and accused for both questioning fundamental tenets of Islam and sentenced to death, according to his family and friends who do not know anything about his whereabouts.
Another "strong point" of the Nationalist-religious trend sending shivers to the conservatives is the fact that they had established a sound "working relationship" with both the nationalist-secularist forces inside and supporters of the reforms, promised by Mr. Khatami but not implemented because of the obstacles erected mostly by the ruling conservatives, outside Iran, thus becoming a bridge between the SKC with these forces Mr. Khameneh'i has categorized as "qeyr khodi".
"Both Mr. Khameneh'i and the conservatives knew from the outset that their biggest problem would be with the Islamist-nationalists, as they include secularists, religious and nationalists", observed Dr. Karim Lahiji, the president of the Paris-based League of Iranian Human Rights.
In a sermon pronounced on the last Friday of the Iranian year that finished Tuesday, Mr. Khameneh'i openly accused the Islamist-nationalists, describing them for the first time as "strangers" of "infiltrating and influencing" the "highest spheres" of decision-makers in order to carry out "plots" of the "enemy" by "dividing" the highest-ranking officials.
In its statement, the Islamic revolution Tribunal said more arrests to be made among the Islamist-nationalists and IFM activists who are accused of "plotting the overthrow" of the Islamic Republic.
At the same time, the leader-controlled Judicary shut four more publications close to the now banned movement.
The reformists, chief amongst them the Islamic Iran Participation Party (IIPP), the country’s biggest political formation that officially supports President Khatami and controls the largest fraction in the reformist-dominated Majles (parliament) has condemned the ban imposed on the Islamist-nationalist.
However, Mr. Khameneh'i’s "diktat" to supporters of the President to "dissociate" themselves from the Nationalist-religious trend has placed the reformists before a difficult choice, for, if they submit to the leader’s will, they would greatly loose the backing of the population and if they do not obey him, they as well would be branded as "qeyr khodi" and dealt as "tools of the enemy". ENDS KHAMENEHEH’I NATIONALIST-RELIGIOUS 21301