A silver line on the horizon of the Islamic world

By Sanal Edamaruku

The New Year starts with an exciting breaking news: the first ever known rationalist organization of Iran has been established!

Saluting the courage of those who risk their lives by defending rationalism in the Islamic state of Iran, we wish them best of luck and all success in turning the tide in their country. The significance of the event, however, goes far beyond Iran. I am optimistic that this example may encourage hibernating and scattered rationalists all over the Islamic world to get alive and unite and do whatever can be done under the given circumstances. And there is still more offered than encouragement: the Iranian rationalists are breaking the barriers of common imagination and opening a radical new perspective for our times. Proving a much celebrated concept wrong, they show that the way out of religious tyranny does not necessarily lead through the long process of "liberalization" and "humanization" of religion!

There is no need whatsoever for an "Islamic Protestantism". Not only because there is nothing like an Islamic Catholicism. But because the Islamic world is not bound to repeat once again the long and painful journey of the Christian world from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment. History does not repeat itself. Studying the lessons of the past centuries, we can today take a short cut and walk straightly into the future. And the future - if humanity is not to fall victim to a terrible accident - is reigned by rationalism. There is no need for any religious relics, howsoever liberal and humane it may be colored.

Today it is a widespread and fashionable idea, especially appreciated in the western world, that Islam has to be tamed, refined and transformed into a "progressive" religion. But religion is never really progressive. Many see an Iran with a comparatively liberal and humane state religion - something like an Islamic Norway - as the ideal model. "Islamic Protestantism" promises to be, like the Christian brand of Protestantism, open and flexible enough to fit the needs of a modern civil society, engaged in trade and business. Here lies the secret of its charm for the western world. Never again would the flourishing trade between Iran the European countries be disturbed because of human rights issues. Never again would an Ayatollah's Fatwa, spelling death over a well-known writer, demand western protest and thereby endanger the supply of Iranian feta-cheese, as it had been feared in the case of Salman Rushdie.

Despite the Enlightenment, the western world has never managed to really come out of Christianity. It got stuck in its broken prison like a weak chicken in its egg-shell. And religion was elastic enough to adjust with the changing needs of the times and survive. It seems therefore for many neither imaginable nor desirable that an Islamic society could one day freely walk out of its bondages into a future without religion. But it can happen. And we shall do our best that it does. Here lies the great significance of the birth of the group "RA".

The GROUP RA

The GROUP RA is a product of the Tehran university struggle, which started in November 2002 in protest against the death sentence for Professor Hashem Aghajari, who challenged the right of the clergy to rule Iran. It has been formed by some of the student leaders and some professors, closely involved with the movement, and represents a core group of radical thinkers, who have decided to fight the Iranian theocracy from a rationalistic and atheistic platform. According to a message to RATIONALIST INTERNATIONAL, the GROUP RA has been established as a catalytic force for all those who dare to outrightly reject religion rather than try to soften it.

The leaders of the GROUP RA have been spearheading the fight in support of Professor Aghajari from the beginning and are now among those who are continuing it with determination. Though they do not share Professor Aghajari's conviction that Iran needs an "Islamic Protestantism", they believe in full cooperation of all progressive and uncorrupt forces within the heterogeneous pro-reform movement.

The present situation in Iran does not allow rationalists to openly enter the public stage. The GROUP RA is working "under cover" as a well integrated part of the university struggle to give a new orientation to the Iranian freedom movement. A first report about reactions and responses suggests that there are many in the reformist camp who welcome the emerging rationalist alternative whole heartedly and with great hope.

Over the good news from Iran, we should not forget about the dark side of the present situation. Professor Aghajari is still on the death row. His health situation is alarming. Only public pressure from inside and outside Iran can rescue him.

Prof. Aghajari is still on the death row

It looked like a pre-arranged affair. Suddenly, the largest student revolt against the ruling clergy of Iran since three years was brought to a dead halt. For ten days in November, demonstrations of up to five thousand students at Tehran's Amir Kabir and Science & Technology Universities seemed ready for revolution. With slogans like "Peace loving people, we are ready, we are ready!'', "Supreme Leader, get lost, get lost!" they pressed for a catalogue of democratic demands. Top priority among them: Freedom for Prof. Hashem Aghajari, who had been sentenced to death in an obscure and secret blasphemy trial. The support front for Prof. Aghajari, a well-known figure in the pro-reform movement and close ally of President Khatami, broadened. Many university teachers, parliamentarians and prominent citizens joined the side of the students. The situation escalated. "Supreme Leader" (SL) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatened with intervention by the elite Revolutionary Guardian Corps (which he uses to call "the popular forces"), if problems could not be solved otherwise. Then came the turn. The SL "gave in" and ordered a judicial review of the death sentence. Some of the student leaders flashed hastily the victory sign and over night all demonstrations were called off. A small group of indefatigable clashed with paramilitary forces. Then the protest movement seemed to have vanished.

Today, nearly two months later, there is no doubt left that the SL's announcement was nothing but a tactical maneuver to buy time and dissolve the crisis. Nothing has changed. Professor Aghajari is still on the death row.

Sayyed Hashem Aghajari, 45-year-old history professor at the Tarbiat Modares University, was arrested on 8 August 2002 and tried behind closed doors, after delivering a speech in the western city of Hamedan in June, in which he challenged the right of the clergy to rule Iran. He compared the powerful Shiite rulers of the Islamic Republic with medieval popes and called for Islamic Protestantism. Just as "the Protestant movement wanted to rescue Christianity from the clergy and the church hierarchy", he proposed, Muslims had to do something similar today. "Muslims are not monkeys", he said, and the clergy should not expect that they blindly follow their teachings. The clergy was never meant to have a monopoly on religious thinking. In the beginning of Islam, the faithful used to converse with the Prophet and to interpret what was conveyed to them at historical junctures. Even now Muslims had the right to do the same. Each generation should be able to find its own new interpretation of the Quran, he said.

Prof. Aghajari's challenge against the ruling clergy in today's Iran so explosive. It is corresponding with the political efforts of the elected pro-reform leaders to break the hardliners' iron grip on the country, to push them out of their key positions in judiciary and army and to curb their powers in non-electable government bodies. The mightiest of these bodies is the Guardian Council, the top watch dog panel, which can overrule parliament decisions, veto laws passed by the parliament and disqualify any candidate from elections. Though the reformists are dominating the parliament and steadily increasing their influence, their way to more democracy, individual freedom and gender equality is a walk on the tight rope, as long as the Guardian Council remains in full power.

Another aspect is the international support for reforms and moderate criticism within the boundaries of Islam. Prof. Aghajari wants to rescue his religion by reforming it into "a religion that respects the rights of all - a progressive religion, rather than a traditional religion that tramples the people". The idea of Islamic Protestantism is welcomed in the West. A group of Iranian "protestants" is therefore much to the chagrin of the Islamic rulers cultivating great and quite realistic hopes in western support.

The Iranian reform - and democracy movement - is divided on many lines. There are those who rushed to stop the demonstrations and those who tried to defend their position against force. There is the radical camp and the more careful camp around President Khatami, the reformers and the revolutionaries, the pro-west groups and the independents, the "protestants" and the small group of "abolitionists", who are preparing themselves for the time to publicly come out as rationalists. They hope, this could be soon. Their core group is the newly founded GROUP RA.

The different branches of the Iranian freedom movement have been united in support of Prof. Aghajari. The huge demonstrations in his defense widened into the largest revolt against the ruling clergy since July 1999, when brutal raids in the student dormitories of Tehran University sparked a nation-wide uprising. In a manifesto, they demanded freedom for Prof. Aghajari and all political prisoners. The Supreme Leader, the radicals insisted, should step down and the head of the judiciary should be fired for issuing the death sentence against Aghajari. They pressed President Khatami, the often reluctant pro-reform leader, to take a clear position against the death sentence and even asked him to resign, if he was not ready or able to defend his supporters. Khatami, in a public statement, criticized the judgment as inappropriate and said that it should have never been issued. Meantime twenty university colleagues of Aghajari resigned. Hundred university lecturers signed an open letter of protest. More than two thirds of parliament members signed an official petition against the death sentence. Prominent public figures joined the protest front, among them the grandson of the late Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic.

Further challenging the clergy by increasing the moral pressure on them, Prof. Aghajari refused to appeal against his death sentence. His conviction was a farce, he said. His lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, has appealed on his own. But so far not even a date has been fixed for the hearing of the appeal court.

Only increasing public pressure from inside and outside the country can rescue Professor Aghajari's life. But even if the religious leadership of the country will finally feel forced to waive the death sentence, there is more Professor Aghajari has to face. The court sentence against him, as often in Iran, is a multiple one. It prescribes 74 lashes and eight years imprisonment before the execution. Prof. Aghajari is an invalid war veteran, who lost his right leg in the Iran-Iraq war 1980 - 1988 and he is in urgent need of medical treatment. His family informed that his leg, amputated below the knee, got bruised and infected. He cannot stand up and is unable to use the hygiene facilities of the prison. Even without the death sentence, there is danger for his life!