Prayer as Protest
by: Zach Dorfman on July 16th, 2009 | 7 Comments »
In the last few days there has been some low-level chatter about tomorrow’s prayer service at Tehran University, with the New York Times giving the story its semi-official imprimatur today. But its import has been greatly understated. Tomorrow, I would argue, is the single most important day in Iran since the Islamofascist (and I don’t use the term flippantly) ruling clique baldly stole the June 12th presidential election, robbing the regime of any shred of legitimacy it retained, and squashing the only semi-democratic aspect of the Islamic “Republic.” Tomorrow, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, eminence grise, founding father of the current Iranian regime, antagonist of the detestable Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will speak at Friday prayers. The prayers will be broadcast nationally; losing presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi will be attending, making his first public appearance in weeks. Mehdi Karroubi, another losing candidate, will be there. Former president Mohammed Khatami will be there. In other words, ever major opposition figure in Iran–Ayatollah Montazeri excepted–will be there.
What will Rafsanjani say? Will he call for a new election? Address the issue in a roundabout, subtle fashion? The mere presence of all these figures at Friday prayers is a form of protest, the choice of venue a direct challenge not only to the regime but what it seeks to represent. No, it says: you are no longer the legitimate representatives of the Iranian people; your version of Islam is a perversion; the velayat e faqih has been irrevocably corrupted.
Every revolution must end, and tomorrow one of its principal figures will quietly help suffocate a regime that has suffocated its people. How ironic that Trotsky’s dream of a “permanent revolution” has been taken up wholeheartedly by radical clerics from Qom; what awful, terrible hubris.
Thanks Zach!
I’ll be watching the mainstream and not-so-mainstream news to see and hear what happens. It is good to see you posting at Tikkun Daily.
To all: Zach worked at Tikkun for what, a couple of years?
Zach: welcome! It’s wonderful to have your voice here. Great photo, and interesting post. Ahmadinejad is detestable but Rafsanjani is merely grey (grise)? Imam Zaid Shakir was talking on our phone forum about the vast wealth Rafsanjani amassed from corruption, which is why he is not trusted. I am as thrilled as any Western liberal at the green crowds in Iran trying to make democracy work, but what if Ahmadinefjad did actually get more votes, as Imam Zaid thinks? I wish there was less paradox in politics, but then life would hardly be anything like it is.
Imam Zaid also has some strong things to say about that word “Islamofascism” — not, I think, because it may not be applicable at times, but because it has been so overused. So I’m intrigued to know if his article in Tikkun would make you less likely to use the term or not: see http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2009/05/20/muslims-against-fascism/
The phone forum post is at http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2009/06/25/imam-zaid-shakir-on-the-tikkun-phone-forum/
Rafsanjani has plenty of blood on his hands–there is speculation about his involvement in the Iranian bombing of the Jewish center in Buenos Aires in 1994–and he his most certainly corrupt. But he has moderated as time has progressed, no longer subscribing to the antagonistic foreign policy that has made Iran an international pariah.
As for the use of “Islamofascist”: I dislike the term and almost never use it, because it is thrown around in inappropriate ways, and used more rhetorically than precisely. And often from right-wingers who are crypto-fascists (ha, again) themselves (See Pipes, Daniel and D’souza, Dinesh.) But Iran may be the only state today that the term somewhat accurately applies to: a country where a radicalized military apparatus (the Revolutionary Guards) and clerics share power.
The election was stolen; even if Ahmadinejad won there was massive fraud, including the falsification of election results nationwide. You don’t get much worse than that. Furthermore, there is no paradox at work: the pre-election environment itself was fraudulent, as reformist papers were censored; many, many candidates were barred from even running; and state resources were poured into assuring an Ahmadinejad victory. Any victory by Ahmadinejad would have been “unfree” by Western democratic standards.
“Islamofascism” has no credible meaning. Fascism is a political movement. Islam is a religion. The use of this mixed terminology opens up the possibility of “Judeofascism”, which surely you would vigorously reject.
I certainly do not generally agree with Daniel Pipes but labelling him as anything other than a neoconservative is a problematic of discourse that rejects Alana Price’s heart-wrenching post of some days ago, which I urge you to read if you have not yet done so.
Islam is a religion. Islamism is a political ideology. When I referred to the Iranian regime as “Islamofascist,” I was attempting to convey the merging of an Islamist political ideology and a fascist state. Arendt’s formulation–that in fascism the State is the Party and the Party is the People–holds up well here if by “the Party” we mean the Revolutionary Guard.
To throw some more fuel on the fire: I would not reject the possibility of “Judeofascism.” Nor would I reject “Hindufascism,” “Christofacism,” etc. In contemporary Indian politics, for instance, the notion of Hindutva–a radical right-wing Hindu political ideology–has become increasingly salient in certain quarters. Again, it is essential here to separate religion and ideology.
I was being tongue-in-cheek, but perhaps a bit too polemical, when I referred to Pipes as a crypto-fascist. Calling him a neoconservative–a moniker that is perhaps more vilified in 2008 than “fascist”–will surely suffice.
I do take your point, Reb Zach, with respect to hyphenated fascisms. I want to share with you, though, a perspective I gave a friend of mine in an Orthodox synagogue here in Ottawa. We were sitting at Qidush (the congregational social after Saturday morning services) when he asked me what I thought of the Haredi (fervently Orthodox) concept of Daas Torah (a reliance on being led rather than leadership with respect to traditional Jewish perspectives). I responded thus –
Daas Torah is weak minds asking other weak minds for strong solutions.
The sage Rabban Gamliel (3rd century) tells us not to teach on the assumption you will eventually be understood (see Pirkei Avot 2:4). The earliest sage of Rabbinic Judaism, Hillel, said this: “Be as Aaron’s students: Love peace, pursue peace, love every person, and bring each one as close to Torah as possible” (PA 1:12).
A contemporary sage, Alana Price, wrote a piece the other day that placed a dart inside my heart and profoundly changed me. Alana pointed out the disconnect that occurred for her when she discovered her Chilean exchange mother was a supporter of Pinochet. Let me leave you with a final quite from Pirkei Avot –
Ben Ahz’I… taught this: … do not be generally opposed “on principle”; there is for you no one without a reason and neither thing nor word without a place in your life. (PA 4:3)
I’m not yet perfect at following Ben Ahz’I, but I’m getting there.
Robert O. Paxton (The Anatomy of Fascism, Vintage Books) wrote that fascism is “a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.” This definition could apply equally to Iran or Israel. However, I agree with another response here that the meaning of “Islamofascism” has no meaning, just as Judeofascism or Judeo-Christian fascism have none, simply by adding a [your despised group here] prefix to “fascism”.