Back
to Articles
Tehran:
Life in the midst Fire
By:Masoud behnoud
During daytime,
Baghdad television that covers southern and western Iran broadcasts
footage showing fortifications set up in the streets of the Iraqi
capital and people burning American flag to prove their loyalty
to the country's dictator, Saddam Hussein. However across the Iranian
territory to the East, just a few kilometers away from the watchful
eyes of revolutionary guards, one of the most sophisticated military
complexes is under construction by the United States, which settled
there after the fall of Taliban.
Throughout the
region, extending from the European frontiers in Istanbul to Hindu
Kush Mountains near China, from cold southern steppes of Russia
to hot African deserts, America has a presence that is defined by
oil and gas, except in Iran where throughout the past quarter of
the century the cry of death to America has been loud. However in
both Washington and Tehran, there is a belief that Iran's turn will
come after US is finished with Iraq.
In the foot
of snow-covered mountains in north of capital, Tehran, a retired
professor of history is showing others around him in a coffee shop
an article in the Time magazine about the CIA-incited coup against
the nationalist prime minister, Dr. Mosaddeq. The magazine says
that the coup in August 1953 was the first such action taken by
the American intelligence agency after the Second World War. A photograph
of the former Shah returning to Iran after the coup decorates the
article. Asghar Kashani, who is 74, believes that after half a century
nothing has changed. Americans used the threat of communism to justify
the coup. They are now using threat of terrorism to launch a military
attack on Iraq.
A few meters
away, a group of university students carrying bread and cheese and
a few textbooks in their knapsacks are talking about a demonstration
that is to be held to protest the imprisonment of one of their friends,
a student arrested by special forces during another demonstration
against the recent death sentence passed on an outspoken university
professor, Hashem Aqajari.
In the early
hours of the polluted winter morning, middle aged men, wearing sport
outfits returning from their mountain climbing, talk about economy
while having their breakfast with great crave. On the other side,
a group of women, covered from head to toe as a protection against
both the cold weather and the revolutionary guards who impose the
Islamic dress code, hijab, talk about a play in an arts festival
in which for the first time after the Islamic revolution, two actresses
appear without the official hijab.
These three
age groups have no interest in the daily news about the crisis in
Iraq. Most of them think about the reform movement in Iran which
started six years ago and has since been struggling hard against
the fundamentalist and extremist self-proclaimed defendants of Islamic
state.
This is a general
description of Iranian society that has tried to keep away from
crises in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq for the past fifteen
months. But the dilemma the government faces cannot be imagined
by the young generation interested in political progress. The current
crisis in a region where Muslim fundamentalism is ripe might not
give the religious government in Tehran the chance to stay neutral
in the midst of fire and continue its slow and exhausting democratic
process.
Almost two million
Afghans have taken refuge in Iran as the result of the long civil
war in their country. Even the end of Taliban era has not lessened
their numbers. At the same time Iranian government has been setting
up refugee camps near the Iraqi borders to the west for the one
million refugees expected in case America attack on Iraq. And this
is only one of the sparks of the Middle East fire that might find
its way into Iran.
Intensification
of Iraqi- American crisis has put foreign policy of Iran in the
same difficult position that it found itself during last year's
Us-led attack on Afghanistan. After the war against the traditionalist
Sunni Taliban and Al-Qaeda, Tehran tried to participate in the celebrations
without cheering its great enemy, the United States. Iran's foreign
minister, Kamal Kharrazi, was the first foreign official to congratulate
the new leader of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai. However Iran didn't
join the military alliance and continued with its slogan of death
to America.
Meanwhile, Iraq's
foreign minister, Naji Sabri, who was scheduled to visit Tehran
a few weeks ago, was forced to cancel his trip after some MPs, who
had lost at least a relative in the war with Iraq that raged for
eight years, threatened to impeach Mr. Karrazi if Saddam Hussein's
representative set foot on Iranian soil. The same MPs advised the
government to extend its relations with Europe to bypass the US.
The government's
attempt to improve relations with Europe, surrendering to the their
demands on human rights is one of the policies adopted to keep the
country away from the crises over its borders. Freeing the most
prominent dissident cleric, Ayatollah Husseinali Montazeri, from
house arrest after five years; the verdict of life sentences and
long imprisonments passed by the military court on those secret
agents who brutally killed four anti-government activists five years
ago; and relative pause in the activity of controversial courts
set up to prosecute outspoken journalists, political activists and
students defending political reform in the past few years, are all
in line with the course of action taken to please Europeans just
before the visit to Tehran by EU's high officials.
Iranian television's
evening news programs, that these days begin with a few announcement
in relation to the anniversary of the Islamic revolution and the
establishment of the Islamic Republic, show extensive footage of
demonstrations held in Europe in protest to American military plans
against Iraq. Anti-American slogans are being magnified, but Tehran
is the only capital where young people do not show any interest
in protesting against such a military attack.
Most of the
streets and alleys in Tehran still carry the names "martyrs",
those who were killed in the war that started by Saddam Hussein
in 1980. More recently death of a general was announced who had
been wounded in an Iraqi chemical attack, living the past twenty
years in pain and agony.
Despite all
this, the question that occupies the mind of Tehran's politicians
and decision- makers is whether after the expected fall of Saddam
Hussein, the fire sparked by Islamic fundamentalists on September
11 and have already destroyed Taliban extend to other oil-rich countries
with an anti-American position. This is a difficult question that
nobody in Tehran seems to have any answer for. Will the Iranian
Foreign Minister who is scheduled to visit London next week receive
an answer from British government?
|