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Al-Ahram Weekly 7 - 13 October 1999 Issue No. 450 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 7 - 13 October 1999 Issue No. 450
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Interview Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters A drama in many acts
By Azadeh MoaveniWas it clumsy satire or a conservative ploy to undermine the government? The source of the latest confrontation between Iranian hard-liners and reformist moderates is a short play that for some embodies the dangerous leniency of President Mohammed Khatami's cultural policies, and for others suggests his conservative opponents have decided the best way to undermine Khatami's agenda is to depict themselves as better custodians of one of its principles.
Published in a small student magazine at Amir Kabir University, the play depicts a fictional conversation between a student and the Imam-e-Zaman, the Twelfth Imam, sacred in Shi'a Islamic theology. Though it was originally published in August, a conservative newspaper waited until 23 September to proclaim that the play had insulted Islamic values. Ayatollah Hussein Mazaheri, a hard-line cleric, declared the playwright as an apostate similar to British writer of Indian origin, Salman Rushdie. Hard-line police general Gholamreza Naqdi also threatened to kill the student before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was able to intervene. Ostensibly, officials took most offense at the play's theme of faking religious piety for political gains and the play's author, Abbas Nemati, was arrested on 2 October, joining the magazine's co-editors in jail.
But with university classes scheduled to start at precisely the same time as the newspaper's denunciation of the play, the timing of the affair has caused some -- the president included -- to speculate about conservative machinations aimed at discrediting his policies.
Conservative critics of these cultural and artistic reforms, which encourage both freedom of expression and a plurality of views about Islam, say they permit the insulting of Islamic values instead of simply allowing social dialogue. The pro-reform press in particular, though marginally tolerated now, could eventually provide a forum for the questioning of the clerics' right to their authority. To head off this possibility, conservatives are painting this atmosphere of openness as a source of not only destabilising social tension, but of attacks on what every Iranian holds sacred.
Though it is questionable whether the conservatives actually had a hand in the play's publication -- according to one Iranian journalist, the students at Amir Kabir are too savvy to accept material from unknown sources in such a politically charged climate -- Khatami supporters suggest that hard-liners orchestrated their reaction to manufacture a national crisis they could then credit themselves with defusing. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said during Friday prayer on 1 October that vigilante violence against the students was out of the question and that vengeful "sentiments should be controlled." Directing Islamic vigilantes, who take their cue from him, to show restraint, Khamenei presented himself as healer of tensions that the president's policies had first created, then aggravated.
Khamenei's measured response is read by some as a hint he may be willing to cooperate with the president on his own terms, a prospect that one Iranian political analyst says bodes poorly for Khatami. It not only stigmatises his reforms as socially destabilising, but highlights the limits of his ability to protect those who respond to his calls for a more active dialogue in political life, mainly writers and journalists. As Sadegh Zibakalam, professor of political science at Tehran University, says, the major concern of Khatami and his supporters for the last two years has been full rule of law. In cautioning against violence against the magazine's editors and playwright and reserving punishment as the province of Islamic authorities, Khamenei is incongruously positioning himself as the best guarantor of Khatami's own values.
If the publication of the play was indeed a conservative plot, as Khatami's supporters believe, it failed to bait students into a reaction or scandalise the public's religious sensibilities. The response, though giving rise to unusually vehement hard-line newspaper attacks on the president, remained contained within the circle of authorities.
At a time when Khatami is increasingly unable to stay his policies, let alone back those who uphold them, liberal newspaper editor Mashallah Shamsolvaezin was called to court on 3 October, one day after he and a colleague sent a letter to the president seeking his protection against conservative attacks on the press and asking him to clarify their role in his reform movement.
