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Nooshabeh Amiri

Following Akbar Alami’s criticism of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, newspapers aligned with ‎the administration accused the Majlis deputy of “insulting holy beliefs.” Alami, ‎however, believes that religion is being used “as a tool to create oppression and eliminate ‎opposition.” Below is an excerpt of Alami’s interview with Rooz. ‎

Rooz (R): Warnings that Islam is in danger have become more frequent in recent years. ‎In your opinion, when do such warnings arise and why?‎

Akbar Alami (AA): Being reasonably and positively sensitive about religious beliefs is ‎not only not blameworthy or despicable, but actually points to the alertness of a society’s ‎members to their beliefs, granted that such sensitivity and reaction is based on reason and ‎logic, and not on blind fanaticism. In reality, those who constantly scream “oh Islam, oh ‎Islam” when it comes to their opponents but remain silent when the Administration ‎insults the prophet by implying that Ahmadinejad is a prophet, abuse religion only as a ‎tool to institute oppression and eliminate opposition. I believe that they not only don’t ‎care about religion, but are actually following the political interests of their superiors. ‎Such people, when they fall short of reason and logic, use fanaticism and bigotry to ‎attack critical reformists. ‎

‎(R): Some say that these accusations have become more prevalent in the past two, three ‎years. Do you agree? ‎

‎(AA): Unfortunately, yes. When the country’s environment becomes immersed in ‎populism, it is natural that the tools used to eliminate opposition are picked with an eye to ‎this populist environment. In other words, because our country is a religious country and ‎people’s beliefs in religion are very strong, the easiest way for people to keep their power ‎at any price is to use religion as a tool to eliminate opponents. ‎

‎(R): Mr. Alami! Different reformist groups name Hashemi Rafsanjani, Karoubi and ‎Khatami as three intellectual or practical leaders of the reform movement. These three ‎people, however, are different than one another. What, in your opinion, is the condition ‎of this three-headed body?‎

‎(AA): As long as reforms and reformists are not defined and their intellectual ‎foundations are not clarified, anyone can call themselves a reformists in this political ‎bazaar. It is not very surprising that Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani is looked upon as a ‎reformist leader, even though Mohammad Hashemi insists that his brother is not a ‎reformist. With respect to misers Karoubi and Khatami, despite my respect for both ‎persons, I shy away from calling them intellectual or practical leaders of the reform ‎movement…. During his presidency, especially given his vast popular support and the ‎support of the sixth Majlis, Khatami could have done many things but he did not. We ‎cannot repeat the mistakes that led to our defeat the first time around. We have to rely on ‎educated, courageous, able, intellectual, clean, informed, and energetic individuals – that ‎is the first requirement for victory. ‎