Overdosing on Islam

The NY Times ^ | May 12, 2004 | NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

[F14 Pilot]

QOM, Iran — In the offices of an ayatollah here, I was jokingly introduced as coming from the Great Satan.

"Humph," a young man responded immediately. "America is only Baby Satan. We have Big Satan right here at home."

Turbans to the left, turbans to the right — Qom is the religious center of Iran, but even here, there is anger and disquiet. One of the central questions for the Middle East is whether Iran's hard-line Islamic regime will survive. I'm betting it won't.

"Either officials change their methods and give freedom to the people, and stop interfering in elections, or the people will rise up with another revolution," Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri told me.

"There is no freedom," added Ayatollah Montazeri, who is among the senior figures in the Shiite world but is excluded from power in Iran because of his reformist ideas. "Repression is carried out in the name of Islam, and that turns people off. . . . All these court summonses, newspaper closings and prosecutions of dissidents are wrong. These are the same things that were done under the shah and are now being repeated. And now they are done in the name of Islam and therefore alienate people."

Whoa! Ayatollah Montazeri was a leader of the Islamic Revolution, and was initially designated by his close friend Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to be his successor as supreme leader of Iran. Everything he says carries immense credibility, for he is a more senior religious figure than any of Iran's present leaders. (I've posted comments by Ayatollah Montazeri, along with a video of the interview, at www.nytimes.com/kristofresponds, Posting 389.)

Another Shiite leader outside the club of power, Ayatollah Jalaledin Taheri, has denounced the regime as "society's dregs and fascists who consist of a concoction of ignorance and madness. . . . [and] those who are convinced that yogurt is black."

So the Islamic Republic is increasingly vulnerable to the most devastating accusation of all: that it is un-Islamic and is alienating its youth from Islam. The mullahs have even made beards unpopular.

"I'm sorry — I've been too busy to shave recently," said Ashkan Almasi, a musician, mortified at having a faint beard and not wanting me to get the wrong idea about his politics. "In contrast to what [leading Islamic philosophers] say, this regime is the very opposite of Islamic government," Mr. Almasi said. "It has made Islam unpopular."

On the 1,100-mile round trip between Tehran and Shiraz in the south, I did meet some staunch supporters of the regime. But my experience at a teahouse in a small town was more typical. With a small crowd around me, I asked people what they thought of the government.

"How can you have hope for life any more?" said Abdullah Erfani, a plumber, adding, "If there were a free vote, 99 percent would oppose this system, and only the 1 percent within the system would support it."

A 20-year-old, Hadi Zareai, working hard to look cool in his leather jacket, said: "There will be a Judgment Day, and all of us will meet up. Then I'm going to find those who launched the Islamic Revolution and go after them."

In much of the world, young Muslims are increasingly religious, but compulsive Islam has soured some Iranians on religion. Fewer people go to Friday prayers, and Western-style clothes are the hottest fashion.

One young woman I met, Elaheh Falakmasir, is religious and inclined to support the regime. But smoke was almost pouring from her ears because she and a couple of friends had been kicked out of an exhibition a few hours earlier for being floozies: one wore a red vest over her black overcoat, and Ms. Falakmasir herself wore a silver nose stud.

"I like it," she said hotly. "It's beautiful. God likes it. But they complained." And so the regime alienated three more constituents who want to be good Muslims — but also want to live in a modern world.

There's a useful lesson here for George Bush's America as well as for the ayatollahs' Iran: when a religion is imposed on people, when a government tries too ostentatiously to put itself "under God," the effect is often not to prop up religious faith but to undermine it. Nothing is more lethal to religious faith than having self-righteous, intolerant politicians (who wince at nose studs) drag God into politics.

[F14 Pilot]

Bush 2004 FOR A FREE MIDDLE EAST, FOR A SAFER AMERICA

[F14 Pilot]

Spread the word about our Pro-American friends in IRAN!

[Bahbah]

"It has made Islam unpopular."

There is a whole bundle of things that are making Islam unpopular.

[onyx]

So the Islamic Republic is increasingly vulnerable to the most devastating accusation of all: that it is un-Islamic and is alienating its youth from Islam. The mullahs have even made beards unpopular.

Well, that would be a start.

[F14 Pilot]

"How can you have hope for life any more?" said Abdullah Erfani, a plumber, adding, "If there were a free vote, 99 percent would oppose this system, and only the 1 percent within the system would support it."

That is great!

[F14 Pilot]

We had reports here and there that people of Iran, mostly youth generation, are converting to Christianity or Zoroastrianism.

[onyx]

Then they "can" make it happen.
I'm all for overthrowing the regime.

[ovrtaxt]

Ooh, that was weird. That last paragraph was pretty forced. I couldn't figure out where the author got that bizarre twist, then I scrolled up- NY Times.

Mystery solved.

[ovrtaxt]

check out www.bibleleague.org . They smuggle Bibles into Islamic and Commie countries. A very cool ministry that I support, and many times you can designate the country.

I just paid for 100 Bibles to Iraq last month.

[onyx]

LOL!
Mystery solved.
BINGO.

[F14 Pilot]

You might be true but no one has the right to force religious ideas into people's lives. And moreover Religion and State are divided apart from each other here and in any other free and democratic country, Right?

[yankeedame]

"How can you have hope for life any more?" said Abdullah Erfani, a plumber, adding, "If there were a free vote, 99 percent would oppose this system, and only the 1 percent within the system would support it."

Frankly, this can be said about a whole lot of liberal "peoples'" government.

[F14 Pilot]

Iran's baby boomers will defeat the ayatollahs

Nicholas D. Kristof, NYTimes
Tuesday, May 11, 2004

http://www.iht.com/articles/519204.html

[onyx]

I know you care deeply about Iran.
I want to see it free too.

[djf]

Growing up on the east coast in the '70s, there were a large number of moderate Iranians in college and industry.
Then the Shah fell, the Ayatollah took power, and things went to hell in a handbasket.

[whereasandsoforth]

I did the exact thing. It seems the NYT just can't help itself. Thet print something 1/4-way intelligent and then ruin it with the most ignorant and idiotic "moral lesson" at the end.

I wish the NYT would send their reports back to school to learn something about Christians. Their complete lack of knowledge on such an old and important subject is incredibly embarrassing for them and a real turn-off for the reader.

[yankeedame]

I wish the NYT would send their reports back to school to learn something about Christians....and American history....

What?? And have them lose thier "objectivity"?

[ovrtaxt]

Right. But the author's attempt to equate Bush with an Iranian ayatollah is ludicrous!

[jocon307]

Yes, Ayatollah George Bush, shoving Methodism down our throats.

What idiots these people are.

[Siamese Princess]

One of the reasons for the unpopularity of the Islamic Republic is that the economy has gone down the sewer since the Shah was toppled. Even during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, they had a huge under- and unemployment problem -- about 25% unemployment and an equal number underemployed. This is comparable to what the US suffered during the worse years in the Depression. I don't know what the statistic is now, but I doubt that it has improved.

Ironically enough, one of the reasons for the popularity of extreme Islam in Saudi Arabia (extreme by even Saudi standards) is the same phenomenon of widespread under- and unemployment.