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.
