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It is a pleasure and an
honour for me to have the opportunity to speak to this
distinguished gathering of people interested in the subject
of the Islamic Revolution and the Iranian situation.
I will first review the
practical outcome of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and why
it has become necessary to go for a reform movement. Then I
will try to discuss the problems we are facing in the reform
movement in Iran.
I am a person who has been
involved in the Iranian situation and the Islamic
Revolution. Therefore I am expected to defend the revolution
and speak about its achievements. But I think the people
who are here know well the achievements of the Islamic
Revolution. The achievements are not few: the revolution
changed the lives of millions of people in Iran, including
youth and women. Life in Iran is very different today from
the point of view justice, welfare, life expectancy and
education. Two-thirds of the university entrants nowadays
are ladies. That says a lot about what is happening in the
country in every respect but I don’t think it is the
objective of this meeting to talk about the achievements. I
will be taking a critical view of the events. I only mention
these few words so that I will not be misunderstood.
The revolution started with
the very important slogans and motives: independence,
freedom and Islamic Republic. Independence and freedom
immediately told everybody what is meant. But Islamic
revolution in Iran meant everything for everyone from
welfare to justice, to morality and the economic and
political change that the people wanted. Islamic Republic is
really a brand name which means keeping the religious and
moral values of society and getting everybody involved in
the administration and power sharing of the country.
Independence meant the
fight against imperialism, keeping freedom means the fight
against dictatorship and Islamic Republic more than
anything else to our people means fighting injustice and
corruption. These three things were crystallized and
magnified in the government of the Shah. We were fighting
three aspects of the government of the Shah: dependence on
foreign power, dictatorial treatment of the people,
intellectuals and the masses and corruption and injustice
that prevailed in that government. The Islamic Republic was
fighting all aspects of the regime that existed before the
revolution.
As a result of the
revolution we faced a new phenomenon called
counter-revolution. The counter-revolution basically
manifested itself in terms of terrorist organizations like
the MKO, which continued for at least 25 years to carry out
terrorist activities in Tehran and other cities and even in
the villages in the border areas. The counter revolution
also manifested itself in the foreign invasion of Saddam
Hussein taking over large tracts of Iranian land, helped by
the United States and other countries economically,
militarily and politically. And we have the United States or
Western conspiracies all the time over the last 25 years in
Iran for instigating a coup d’etat or even coming with
helicopters to Iran where they touched down in Qbas. I do
not want to go into all these details. But apart from the
foreign invasion, US conspiracy and terrorist organizations
we had political groups - sundry liberals and communists
who were continuously conspiring against the Islamic
Republic in the hope that the revolution would be contained
and would not spread to other Muslim countries: so
counter-revolution as a phenomenon is as significant as the
revolution itself. Fortunately it was defeated to some
extent.
What happened to the people
in the process? We had a prolonged war and economic
sanctions which had a great impact on the social and
political life of the people which still remain. What
happened to the economy? Of course there was great economic
hardship for the masses. We had to ration everything from
food to clothing. There was a lack of investment and even
negative growth during the eight-year war, the state had to
move in to control the industry, agriculture and many
different sectors of the economy. We had greater state
control as a result of the sanctions and the Iraqi invasion.
Due to these circumstances
there was no economic planning in the first years after the
revolution and during war time. The national currency
depreciated to the unbelievable extent of 99 percent.
Iranian currency today is valued at less than one percent of
what it was before the revolution.
In the meantime a new set
of economic organizations cropped up. They are called
bonyards (foundations). We thought of them as charitable
organizations in the first place – organizations that would
take over the wealth left by the Shah and his associates
and the management of the bonyards were expected to
administer those on behalf of the poor and the oppressed.
But in fact they turned out to be large economic
conglomerates who would perpetuate their own life. Like in
many other countries where the state has a very important
role to play in the economy the main purpose of such large
state organizations turned out to be to perpetuate and
enlarge their own set up. They forget all other objectives.
On the social and political
scene we noticed a gradual definition of state ideology.
When the masses joined the revolution and supported the
leadership of the revolution and the ideology they had
different concepts of what the Islamic Revolution and
Islamic ideology should be. The first prime minister of the
Islamic Republic, Dr Barzegan, had a different view of
Islamic ideology from those who are running the country
today. But gradually state ideology is defined and very
strictly imposed on all the brands of thinking in the
country.
Growth of parallel
institutions occurred in every aspect of life. After the
revolution we had two ministries looking after the
agriculture of the country. We had two organizations, both
public, looking after housing, industries, culture, welfare
even the armed forces. There were dual organizations in
every respect. One is the government Ministry of
Agriculture. The other is a group which is also looking
after agricultural affairs but they were involved in a lot
of cultural activities as well as looking after agriculture.
The first one was more scientifically orientated, the second
one is more culturally orientated. The same applied to
housing, industry and welfare. There were several welfare
organizations, one a government organization which operates
according to bureaucratic and scientific methodology and
there were other organizations who were more interested in
propaganda and preaching of the revolution than the actual
work that they carried out. These organizations were not
only interested in their specialized sphere of activity.
They were always mixing this with some cultural propagation
of Islamic values plus other economic activities which were
totally unrelated to their own specialized field.
Just to give you an example
we had an organization called the Indad (social security)
Committee. They were doing their job, visiting all the
cities and villages but at the same time they used their
help to propagate their values. They were also running
certain economic organizations: trading, agriculture and
they thought they should earn that money through their
activities in order to spend it on welfare. But at the same
time they received a huge budget from the government. So at
the same time they were mixing economic activity, welfare
activities with cultural activities. This applied to almost
all the high-level organizations that existed. These are
only a few examples.
One group considered itself
revolutionary and the other considered itself a state
organization. The revolutionary organizations considered
themselves superior to those who were not revolutionary.
They thought they had the right to do many things outside
the law because they are revolutionary. They wanted more
privileges, not only for the individuals who were working in
the organization but for the institution itself. If there
are certain goods like tobacco which no one is allowed to
import these people think that because they are
revolutionaries they should be given the license to import
these items which are not available to anybody else. This
has a corrupting on the economy and the social system.
Discrimination between the
two types of organizations, and two types of citizens, also
exists. The citizens are also divided into two groups : pro
and anti or pro and indifferent, let us say. The development
of these organizations alienated a large number of
intellectuals in society. You can imagine what will follow
as a result of intellectuals being alienated from the
mainstream of society and the revolution.
Human rights were neglected
by those who thought that for the cause of the revolution,
for the cause of the people they could do anything. They
could cross many borders that morally and politically it
would not be expedient to pass. They did things which were
wrong but they thought the objectives were right therefore
the means justified those objectives.
The system led to a new
concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a new
emerging class who were different from the class which was
overthrown by the revolution. These were people who worked
in the new organizations, the new trusts and they tried to
use all the opportunities that existed in society. The state
sector became much larger than it was before the revolution.
The growth of the state apparatus for control leads to
financial corruption.
What happened to morality?
There was a great stress on the fight against promiscuity.
Relations between men and women were very much controlled at
least in the appearance of society. But hypocrisy was
forgotten and we were facing widespread hypocrisy of the
people who pretended to be revolutionaries. It was enough
for them to wear a beard, if they were men or to wear a
chador if they were women. The men often wore army
overcoats just to appear as if they were revolutionaries.
But in fact there was nothing of the moral values of Islam
or the revolution in many of these hypocrites whose number
was every increasing. And I think that is the danger in any
ideology in society, whether Islamic, communist or
otherwise. When you have a state ideology many people
pretend to be followers of that ideology because it is easy
to just shout slogans.
Under the circumstances we
neglected the creeping financial corruption in almost every
institution: governmental or revolutionary. Under these
circumstances what will happen to finance and the market
economy? We were faced with the growth of bonyard financial
institutions outside the control of the central bank. That
means we see a bank which was set up during the war and now
it has more than a thousand branches. But it is not
controlled by the central bank and it does not follow any of
the rules and regulations of the central regulator. The
Bonyard Credit Institute is not the only credit institute.
There are now more than 100 such institutions in Iran who do
not have a license to operate in the money market, they are
not regulated by the central bank but they exist and they
are supported by those who are prepared to disregard any
regulation in the country including the central bank
regulations. Almost all of them are somehow connected with
the centers of political or military power.
There is a credit
institute with more than 1200 branches throughout the
country which has been set up and supported by the official
police of the country without any regard to the central bank
regulations. There are other financial institutions which
operate in complete darkness. There is an underground
economy in Iran and no one can tell what the Iranian GDP is.
A good percentage of Iranian economic activity is not
recorded anywhere in any accounting book. Sales, purchases
and profits are made but they are not recorded anywhere. So
it is not in the official statistics of the country.
There are no statistics
about 5,000 card hassan shops where you can get an interest
free loan for the poor. But in fact there is no such thing.
It is only in name. They charge interest of up to 36 or 40
percent. Nobody knows and controls them. You only find out
what they are charging when you go to them and many of them
do not have a sound financial basis and are easily bankrupt
and people who have left their deposits with them have lost
money. So there are a lot of social disturbances. In my
opinion this is a major social evil in the name of the
interest free loan.
We have a lot of non
government public institutions affiliated to bonyards, the
intelligence ministry. There are un official jetties where
the government has no control and the official duties are
not paid on imports. These organizations recruited people
only from the circles that were known to them. They did not
advertise or go to an employment agency. Merit was not a
criteria for employment – it all depended on connections. So
these situations which I have described let the
intellectuals and political leaders of the country feel that
there is a great vacuum . There is something lacking and
that is reform.
That is how the necessity
of reform was felt by many people who loved their country
and who loved the Islamic revolution. I explained the
objectives of the revolution: seeking the political
independence of the country, freedom for the people and the
Islamic values of justice and good governance.
What are the objectives of
the reformists? The objectives of the reformists are
attached to the revolutionary ideas but using new techniques
and the gradual evolvement and development. So revolution
sought a violent change. But reform is targeting the same
objectives, the same revolutionary goals but through
peaceful means and through gradual development. We have
learned after 20 years that no major improvement in the
socio-political situation of the country can occur suddenly
by just wishing. Nothing will materialize unless we go
through a lengthy, torturous but peaceful process.
Remember please that Iran
is a country with 3,000 years of history. Despite its
cultural glory and its achievements it has always been run
by dictators. We have never had a government which cared for
the political participation of the people. This may have
been the same with all the Asian and Middle Eastern
countries: Iraq had the same fate. So did Turkey,
Afghanistan etc. But we are now concerned with Iran and
changing this political tradition of autocracy is not an
easy job to achieve in two or three decades. We have only
realized this now. We thought that everything could change
suddenly after the revolution – now I think we are more
mature. We have to work for a very long time before we can
achieve the objectives of political participation of the
people and co-operating with the government.
Under the reform government
of President Khatemi we achieved the right to criticize the
government. The achievement of the reform was freedom of
thought. I am saying this was achieved 100 percent but today
there is much more freedom of thought in Iran and freedom of
expression than existed ten years ago. Freedom of the press.
Promoting of the non-governmental organizations. There is an
explosion of underground political forces, pressure groups.
Today the credit organizations are exposed. People can speak
about them and say they are evil organizations which have to
come under the control of the central bank. They have
created a lot of problems that made people understand what
they had been doing.
There is far less intrusion
of the government into the private lives of the citizen.
These are achievements of the reform. As for administrative
reform many of the parallel institutions have now been
merged together. We have one Ministry of Agriculture and one
Ministry of Industry but we still have two housing
organizing so we have not achieved administration reform in
every field but in many organizations in agriculture,
fisheries, social welfare and those looking after the poor
have now merged into one. But the job is still not finished.
That is why we need the reform movement.
Today there is an open
advertisement for recruiting government staff. The state
organizations are based on merit through public announcement
and entry examinations. In the context of Iran it is really
a great achievement that in any bank, factory, or ministry
you cannot employ your own relatives – you can only employ
through public announcement and on the basis of merit and
education. These are achievements of the reform government
of President Khatemi.
On the economic side the
new government has managed to achieve a single exchange rate
for Iran. Before that we had as many as five and that was
the cause of a lot of corruption and mismanagement. There is
a single tax rate. We used to have many tax rates and many
exemptions. Many of those exemptions have been removed from
the tax laws but still there are some which Khatemi has not
had sufficient political power to remove.
There is also economic
stability. The government does not spend all its oil income.
It keeps some in the kitty for the hard days and this has
stabilized the economy. There is a genuine movement towards
privatization but there is still a long way to go. There was
time after the Iraqi war when it was very difficult for us
to speak about privatization. As soon as we spoke about it
we were branded as pro-capitalist, anti-workers, anti-people
and all that. But today privatization is taken to be a way
to increase economic efficiency and the efficiency of
industry. Goods have to be bought and sold on a tender
basis. There has been a removal of tariff barriers on
imports. Before you had to have a license for everything you
wanted to import and they would not issue a license because
they thought this particular good was being produced inside
the country. In an effort to protect the local economy
imports were only allowed to a limited extent.
There were good intentions
behind this but there was corruption because if you allow a
certain amount of imports of sugar, cement, steel etc to
the people you know, the bonyards, the rich will get richer.
Today all non-tariff barriers have been removed and people
can import whatever they want provided they pay the
necessary duties and taxes that have been levied on imports.
We still have the credit organizations but we also have
private banks which have been established and operate under
the control of the central bank.
There is also the
encouragement of outsourcing of services required by the
government. Government has become too big. One way to slow
it down is to go for outsourcing – buying the services that
are required from the private sector instead of employing
people for providing your services. There has been good
success in foreign investment but only in the oil industry.
In no other sector has foreign investment been achieved.
In terms of political
reform there is a greater recognition of citizens rights
regardless of their affiliations to the bonyards, Ministry
of Intelligence, this or that ayatollah. Now citizens are
considered to be equals even though we still have a number
of groups and individuals who do not accept the idea of
equality of all Iranians. They like to consider themselves
superior to the majority of the people . There is a
reformist slogan which says that Iran is for all the
Iranians. As soon as we speak about this those who are
against reform would say that means you want to give
opportunities to the Bahais, to homosexuals - official
articles along these lines are written in the papers. This
is how they fight reform, they are not being honest with us.
A major political reform is
the election of local councilors. We have 200,000 people
actually elected as members of the local and city councils
throughout the country. This has created a history for Iran.
We have never had this experience in 3,000 years of history
that village and city people elect their own mayors or their
own councilors to run the affairs of their city or their
village. Although the law was passed immediately after the
revolution the implementation of this law was delayed for
more than 20 years. It is only Khatemi who implemented this
very important political reform.
In the area of foreign
policy our relationship improved with Europe, China,
Venezuela and the Arab neighbours. Greater attention paid
to human rights, especially in present conditions. I can say
with more than 90 percent certainty that human rights
conditions have improved. We do not have any more torture in
Iranian prisons, with a few exceptions. At one stage it
prevailed throughout the country. The government has also
managed to stop vigilante attacks on students, intellectuals
and other political groups. Licences have been issued to
more than 1,000 NGO’s and political parties. These are great
achievements of the reformist government over the last eight
years.
What are the challenges to
reform? Are we happy about what has happened and what we
have achieved? There is a lot more to be done. At the same
time when we talk of freedom of expression and freedom of
thought, we have witnessed more than 100 magazines have been
banned. The judiciary has been used as a tool for limiting
the freedom of political activists. We have many examples.
You have heard of Mr Abajani who is a history professor at
Tehran University? He was a man who participated in the war
against the Iraqi invaders. He was one of the most
prominent intellectuals in the country but he spent two
years in jail because the court thought he was an infidel .
He was sentenced to death. It took a great deal of political
upheaval and opposition from within the country and from
outside to lift the sentence against him and he was finally
released.
I am very sorry to tell
this story but it has happened to many people. There was a
young student of 19 years old who just wrote a story. But
some of the anti-reform people thought this story was an
insult to religion or an insult to the imam and he was put
in jail. He was eventually released. The article he wrote
was in an internal student magazine, not a publication read
by a lot of people.
We have heard of other
people who have been imprisoned and sentenced for then
years but after three years in prison they were exonerated
as they had done nothing wrong. This is very recently. These
are the things that make us unhappy and we really have to
strengthen our resolution to strengthen the reform
movement.
Who is fighting the reform
movement? One major challenging institution of reform is the
Guardian Council. They habitually reject many candidates for
the presidency or for the parliament because they do not
like them. They have a very narrow interpretation of Islamic
principles. They have helped to increase the influence of
the Expediency Council. They have two or three law making
chambers: one is the parliament which has been directly
elected by people, we have the Guardian’s Council which is
appointed by the leadership but we also have the Expediency
Council which is not elected. Those who are against the
reform movement try to increase the power of the Guardians
Council and the Expediency Council as compared with the
parliament.
There is a greater
concentration of power in one individual who plans to remain
in power for the rest of his life. There is a gradual
reduction of the authority of two directly elected
institutions i.e. the presidency and the parliament. There
are women’s aspirations to equality e.g. in awarding
compensation to the victims or road accidents or crime. When
a person is a victim of a traffic accident or an industrial
accident he can normally get compensation from his insurance
company for what has happened to him. And the present
regulations award a woman half of what a man gets. If a
man’s finger has been cut in an accident or a man has died
in a traffic accident his family gets damages and that is
done in the name of religion.
There are strong
ideological arguments between the pro and anti-reform
movement about the legitimate source of political power.
Throughout the last thousand years in Iran everybody said
that the only source of political power is God. But during
the time of the monarchy the king considered himself to be a
shadow of God. The reform movement would say there is no
shadow of God on earth. God has given his authority to the
people. This is an expressed statement in the Qu’ran: the
people are the successors of God on earth. The freedom that
God has given us would make the masses the legitimate
political authority representing God on earth. But there
are those who think that although God is the ultimate
authority for any power it is the ayatollahas who can
interpret the will of God. This is a big ideological problem
and until it is settled the fight in between the right and
the left in Iran will not be settled.
Now we have a presidential
election. What challenges will the president be facing in
practical terms? I am not trying to talk about what a
president or a political leader in Iran should do. I am not
talking about ideology. I am talking about practical
problems on earth.
The biggest problem that
the Iranian people are facing now is unemployment. That is
what every Iranian will want to know. Can the president
create employment for the people or not. The second
important factor is the external pressure from America,
Israel, England and many other sources who will interfere in
almost every aspect of Iranian politics, whether it is
scientific or social development, political reform. There is
nothing we can do in these areas without some form of
interference from outside. And the greatest achievement of
the Iranian revolution, in my opinion, is that it has not
given in to foreign pressure. What we are doing, good or
bad, we are doing it ourselves. We are responsible for our
own actions. That’s why we can hope that political reform
will succeed. But pressure from outside is really creating a
lot of problems and is endangering the revolution and the
reform movement at the same time.
Reform is an urgent need.
There are two main candidates from the eight who are running
for presidency: Rafsanjani and Moin. Which one could yield
real authority. Both of them have an independent mind but
one is more committed to reform than the other. Neither will
win the first round of elections and that makes the second
round more exciting, more sensitive and it will be one of
the few elections in the whole world that everyone is
watching and waiting for the results.
The reform in Iran is
cultural and political – it is bound to be a lengthy,
torturous and difficult course for any politician due to the
fact that tyrannical rule has left its cultural legacy.
Concentration of all powers in the constitution in the hand
of one man : that man commands the armed forces. He also
controls the tv and the media. He controls the judiciary,
the economic power of bonyard, he appoints and controls the
Expediency Council and he appoints the Guardians Council. In
any society when you have one man having all these powers,
over the tv, the armed forces, a great sector of the economy
facing a reformist government which has only the economy in
its hands you can see the competition is not balanced.
We need a reform in the way
we run our country and the way in which political power is
distributed among the authorities. How do we change this
division of authority and political power. You may expect,
according to the constitution you need a referendum to
change the constitution. But a referendum as per the present
constitution requires the consent of almost everybody in the
hierarchy. We can’t just ask for a referendum unless the
parliament approves it. But parliament itself is not enough.
The Guardians Council and the leadership, almost everyone in
the whole system must agree to the referendum. So it is
very difficult to change the constitution. We have to work
within the constitution and try to maximize whatever benefit
can be achieved for human rights, freedom, and justice
within the present framework if you want to avoid violence
and have a peaceful and cultural change.
Should a reformist
president act within the law or could he extend his
authority a little bit in the face of violent opposition
against the reform? I think that is the difference between
Rafsanjani and Khatemi. Rafsanjani has the authority that is
he feels something has to be done but there are legal or
political limits he will do it with disregard for the law.
But Khatemi was bent on carrying out his legal policies very
strictly within the legal framework. He would not do
anything, however good that may be, outside the law. That’s
why he as been so slow in achieving and has failed in some
fields.
This argument will continue
between Rafsanjani and Moin. Moin is supposed to be a more
strict follower of Khatemi. Rafsanjani as an independent
person may carry out a different course.
*Ahmad Hatami Yazd
was Born in Mashad, Iran in 1948, studied in Iran and
obtained his professional qualifications as a chartered
accountant in UK. Back in Iran, he was arrested in 1974 and
sentenced to five years in jail for his political
activities. He was released four years later. Since then he
has taken up several senior posts in companies and
institutions, such as Managing Director of Urban & Rural
Cooperative chain store, Vice president and Commercial
Director, Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, Chairman
and Managing Director: Bank Tejarat, Managing Director,
Almakaseb general trading company, Dubai, UAE, affiliated to
bank Melli Iran, General Manager, NIOC crude Oil Marketing
Department, Vice president, economic affairs, IDRO,
Industrial Development and Renovation Organization, Chairman
and Managing Director of Bank Saderat Iran and National
Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC) Persian LNG Project
Director.
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