Discussion
Dr. Abdel Halim: One is very concerned about the debate in Iran. What I do not understand is the attitude of the religious leaders of the so-called minorities, the Arabs and the Kurds, and so on. These people are demanding sep3fation now. Under the Shah, they kept quiet. Now that the Islamic Revolution has taken place and we are all saying 'we are Moslems', they are going out against the Revolution. We hear, at least in the British press, that the religious leaders of these minorities are demanding emancipation. Could you comment on that?
Professor Algar: In the case of Kurdistan, the allegedly religious leader who is the most celebrated as demanding the segregation or autonomy of Kurdistan is a certain Izz ad-Din Husayni. He has been described as the Marx of Kurdistan since he is evidently on extremely good terms with the leftists in the area. More interestingly, after the Revolution documents were discovered which indicated that he was on extremely good terms with Savak before the Revolution. One of the common transformations following the Revolution is that former supporters of the monarchy have become Marxists. This is one of the forms of which the counter-revolution is now seeking to mask itself in Iran. The case of Husayni who is one of the so-called religious leaders of the Kurds in Iran is a case in point.
As to the other leaders of the Kurds in Iran, I do not think there are any persons even claiming religious prominence among them. The Kurds in Iran, as elsewhere, are fragmented. There is no single united Kurdish leadership with authority to speak for the Kurds of a single region, let alone for the Kurds or the Kurdish inhabited areas. As to Khuzistan, there is this Khaqani who is described as the religious leader of the Arab-speaking minority. I do not know anything about the history of this man, whether he was in any way active under the Shah's regime, nor do I know what effective control he exercises over those people in Khuzistan who are demanding autonomy.
The problem that has arisen in Kurdistan and Khuzistan and even in the Baluchi-inhabited areas of the south-east is that the people have legitimate grievances. They have grievances inherited from the time of the Shah. They have the same grievances as the Persian-speaking majority in Iran, that is, they were neglected and oppressed for a number of years. In addition, they have certain grievances particular to themselves. For years it was forbidden in Iran to use languages other than Persian for any purpose apart from oral communication, whether the language be Turkish, Azerbaijan, Kurdish, Arabic, Baluchi or whatever. In addition, certain minority-inhabited areas were worse off economically than others. A particularly glaring example was in Khuzistan, which was the source of the major wealth of the country through the oil industry. One finds that the oil workers in Abadan, most of whom are Arab, ethnically speaking, lived in the most miserable conditions. After the Revolution, these people naturally are impatient to see that their grievances are remedied.
This type of impatience one finds not only among the ethnic minorities but among many other sectors. One of the constant appeals of both Imam Khomeini and Bazargan is for revolutionary patience -patience under the existing circumstances, with people not pressing a class or sectional grievance at a time when there are important general questions to be dealt with.
Taking advantage of this situation in the minority-inhabited areas are enemies of the Revolution, both domestic and foreign. They will move in to build up matters to a point of no return. So far matters have been more or less contained in Khuzistan and Kurdistan. In the future I do not know how soluble these problems will prove to be. I do not think it is true to say that the religious leaders, whether in Kurdistan or Khuzistan, as a whole are behind the various agitations.
Amin-uddin Adnan: Can you tell us something of the organizational aspect of the movement with regard to its membership, selection of members, training and the strategy, especially with regard to the Islamic Revolutionary Council?
Professor Algar: You are touching here on different matters. You speak about the movement, on the one hand, and the Revolutionary Council on the other. As for what we call in broad terms the movement, people should not be under the illusion that this is a question of a formally organized movement with membership criteria, and so forth. Perhaps this is another lesson of the Revolution -that it was a broad-based Islamic movement and not some kind of affair in which people sit down, as an examining body, and decide who is worthy to be admitted. What is necessary is to recruit, in an informal fashion, the massive support of the overwhelming majority of the people.
This is what happened in Iran. It is not that a secret party or organization was set up which brought more and more people into the fold. There were some organizations, the guerilla organizations, which engaged in urban warfare against the shah's regime for a number of years. This is not what made the Revolution. The Revolution was genuinely a people's movement. One can say that the Islamic Revolution in Iran was an example of mass political participation and is unique in modern times. It makes the parliamentary elections of the western countries appear as a mere game by contrast. In the United States, not more than thirty per cent of the electorate turned out at the last election, and yet that is celebrated as the expression of the popular will. In Iran, in the face of massive pressure, the danger of death, dismemberment and torture, a whole nation took to the streets to enforce its demands.
This massive, almost elemental event, has more in common with some natural catastrophe than with a common political happening. This cannot be the result of any broad strategic plan.
As I attempted to indicate, the organizational structure of the Revolution is extremely simple. It was a question of the directives being given by Ayatullah Khomeini, being distributed throughout Iran and then evoking an immediate response of obedience from the mass of the people. This is what it comes down to. Then we have the logistics involved, the planning of mass demonstrations. There were mass demonstrations where people were organized and arrangements were made for feeding them, and so on.
The Shah, in one interesting comment after the demonstrations, said: "This superb organization with which these demonstrations have been planned shows that there is foreign and communist involvement." He had such a low opinion of his own people that he thought they could not organize a demonstration without foreign involvement. He was reflecting his own mentality. He could not take a single step without instructions from Washington, London or Moscow.
There is no organizational strategic mystery. The mosque was the fundamental unit of the organization. Perhaps this is a conclusion that I should have worked into my body of conclusions. One of the important elements in the success of the Revolution was the revival of the mosque, of the full dimensions and functions of the mosque, not simply as a retreat from society where people go to be away from the world and pray and make their ablutions and listen to the recitation of the Qur'an; on the contrary, it becomes a center of struggle, an organization of command. In short, it was all that it was in the time of the Prophet.
Dr. Abdel Halim: This is an important point, because the difference between the Shi'ia areas and what we have in the Sunni countries is marked. In the latter, the mosque is led by the man who is employed by the governm