Hey DJ Rafsanjani, Play Us Some Ayatollah Khomeini

At the heart of Iran's Islamic Revolution was a stencil duplicator and a tape recorder. These were the Ayatollah Khomeini's Facebook and Twitter. He used them to get his sermons into Iran when he was in exile in Iraq and France.

Khomeini's mimeographed and tape-recorded messages made their way to Iran through his devoted followers who willingly broke the law to assist in his attempts to communicate with the Iranian people. These tapes and pamphlets were secretly distributed throughout the bazaars, mosques, shrines and neighborhoods of Iran.

During the year leading up to the Islamic Revolution, the Shah's regime was arresting and intimidating anyone who was copying or distributing Khomeini's communications.

Apparently, the current Iranian leaders have taken a lesson from the Shah on this point in particular. Today, they are employing the exact same tactics, but this time, they are doing so in the name of Khomeini's Islamic Republic and they are targeting phones and computers, not mimeographs and audio-cassettes.

On Wednesday I spoke with a gentleman who helps run Mir-Hossein Mousavi's Facebook site. As I listened to him tell me how important it was that Hashemi Rafsanjani feel popular and media pressure to come out in support of the opposition during his sermon this Friday, I thought about Ayatollah Khomeini. Compared to what he went through, the current Iranian opposition movement has it easy.

There I was sitting in my living room, talking with a friend in Los Angeles who then calls her friend in Europe, and voilà, I am now speaking with the man who just posted Mousavi's last Facebook message. The three of us on the phone had created exactly what Ayatollah Khomeini had thirty years before. We all had the same goal (change, if not revolution), and we too were using communication as our main means of reaching that goal.

Ahmadinejad and the current Ayatollah Khamenei may have guns and teargas, but we have words, and I've always believed in the power of words. A bullet can kill a person, but it can't kill an idea, especially if someone has bothered to write it down. In fact, if anything, bullets only strengthen ideas. They have a strange way of transforming beliefs into actions. Once that happens, the gunmen don't have a chance, and before long, they too may find themselves staring down the barrel of a gun.

Ayatollah Khomeini's vision for the Islamic Republic of Iran did not include what we are seeing today. In an interview with Reuters in October 1978, Khomeini stated that "the foundation of our Islamic government is based on freedom of dialogue, and we will fight against any kind of censorship."

The best sermon we could hear at this Friday's prayer service is not one from the mouth of Rafsanjani. The sermon we need to hear today has already been recorded.

So, my advice to Ayatollah Rafsanjani this Friday is to pull out the old cassette player and play a song from the great Ayatollah Khomeini. There could be no finer time, rhythm or melody.

Follow Melody Moezzi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MelodyMoezzi

Comments

[Pishi]

I agree that "Ayatollah Khomeini's vision for the Islamic Republic of Iran did not include what we are seeing today," so there's something to be gained by pointing out the hypocrisy of the manner in which the "children of the revolution" have chosen to "govern" Iran. But at the same time, I unequivocally disagree with what Khomeini's vision was: a government founded on clerics as the legal and political enforcers of Islam. This is pretty much Khomeini's invention (or some would argue, re-invention) regarding the place Shi'a Islam should hold in government. There's a line of Shia'ism preceding Khomeini (and ultimately rejected by Khomeini) that proposes Islam should remain passive politically and provide guidance for a just society. (It's also clear that Khomeini failed to live up to the ideals of freedom of dialogue and freedom from censorship he may have espoused early in the revolution. With respect to tactics for suppressing dissidents, those in power now are simply moving from where Khomeini left off. It's a slippery slope, one that Khomeini was not uncomfortable scaling.) Pre-Khomeini, I don't think Iran's interests were served by being a puppet to the west, so I can't condemn the 1979 revolution for overthrowing the Pahlavi dictatorship (and for the same reason wouldn't welcome U.S. intervention into the current situation). But as far as I'm concerned, Khomeini's vision helped plant the seeds of the horrible corruption ordinary people in Iran have suffered over the past 30 years.

[Melody Moezzi - Huffpost Blogger]

I believe in neither theocracy nor misogyny. I believe in secular democracy.

In this piece, I was pointing out a SUPREME irony: namely, that even Ayatollah Khomeini, who is still and will always be the father of the Islamic Republic, would never have approved of what this "Islamic" Republic is doing today. Khomeini's old speeches could easily be used to express the exact sentiments of today's opposition movement.

I'm just trying to call these mullahs out on their seemingly endless buckets of hypocrisy and to remind them that if they had any respect for Ayatullah Khomeini or for his initial vision for an Islamic Republic of Iran, then they wouldn't be able to continue brutalizing the Iranian people as they have.

PEACE!

[Ali A. Rizvi - Huffpost Blogger]

It probably is time for a whole new sermon. Here's one of Khomeini's greatest hits:

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Iran/KhomeiniSpeech.htm

[Melody Moezzi - Huffpost Blogger]

I'm talking the 1978 speeches mostly--the ones from exile, the revolutionary ones that were banned in Iran. I don't think Khomeini was a saint, but he did have some "great hits," especially before he actually came to power, that is, before he was corrupted by power. My favorite one goes something like: "Hey America, Hey Great Britain, get out and stop stealing our oil and killing our people!"

Khomeni is one of our most complicated modern historical figures. I refuse to believe that what he did in the spring of 1979 was 100% bad--what came after it surely went sour, but he DID do something huge in gaining Iranian Independence and for that I will always respect the man.

But just because I respect him, that doesn't mean I agree with all that he did and said... I want a free secular democracy in Iran more than anything, but I am not so myopic that I believe that once we do get secular democracy, Khomeini will have played no part in it. You need to be independent before you can be free, and Ayatullah Khomeini gave Iranians independence if nothing else.

[edsheik]

finally someone in the iranian american community with some common sense. please dont take it as a put down on iranian americans, but it seems that the obsession with being anti muslim, pro western, and seeming to support the IRI ect, too often gets in the way of some real debates among persians here in the states. I mean even This Ali risvi guy and his faithfreedom wesbite along with many other iranians living here go out of their way to out islamophobe the nocons and conservatives just so they can fit in with "westerners" and look "modern", when all they realy are is hatefull and racist bigots who sit around and hate arabs all day first and foremost, and spread false information and propogandah about islam and muslims.

[edsheik]

i dont trust anything comming from that site and its propogandist and hatfull owner, nor do i trust anyone who gives credibility to such a site. i question the inteligence and credibility of anyone who goes to that site and takes seriouse the racist and bigotted literature posted on it.

[golafarin]

The biggest issue about this entire movement has been that there have been so many wires crossed. Why make things so complicated? This revolution, thirty years ago, at its core, had a very pure message. The people out protesting in the streets were fighting for their freedom, for equal rights, for a democracy. Unfortunately, the movement of that generation was turned against them. We have had to live with that sad reality for thirty years.

Do we believe in a theocracy that devalues women? No! Anyone who would take ten minutes out of their day to find out what is really going on in Iran would certainly know that one of the main reasons women were such a strong force in the recent elections, and why many of them voted for Mousavi was because of the policies and laws he had promised to pass in favor of Iranian womens' rights.

As for the best sermon we could hear this Friday having already been recorded, if anyone would take the time to listen to those Khomeini tapes that were being smuggled into Iran thirty years ago, they would understand what that statement means. On those tapes, Khomeini promised the people of Iran peace, prosperity and freedom. That is what the people of Iran were out in the streets protesting for thirty years ago. And now, thirty years later, we are still awaiting the fruition of promises made three decades ago. What we want now is what we wanted then: freedom.

[mommadona]

So, you still believe in a theocracy that devalues women?

[Faramarz Irani]

"The best sermon we could hear at this Friday's prayer service is not one from the mouth of Rafsanjani. The sermon we need to hear today has already been recorded."

What line!!

I think the reality is that everything said by Khomeini during the 1979 arrival speech is a total contradiction to this regime. there is a BAN on those tapes.