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Q&A WITH ZAIN VERJEE
Iranians Struggle for Democracy
Aired July 9, 2002 - 12:30:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): A battle between religious hardliners and forces fighting for change in Iran.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Many students are encouraged by the removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
VERJEE: The reformist president, unable to fulfill his promises.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reformists will have to battle at every opportunity, particularly against the judiciary, which remains a bastion for those in favor of the status quo.
VERJEE: The religious hardliners want to keep the status quo, but faced with a population explosion, how long can they resist calls for change?
On Q&A, the struggle for democracy in Iran: Iranian exiles speak out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(on camera): Welcome to Q&A.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(voice-over): Today is a special anniversary in Iran. The students wanted to mark it by holding a rally, but Iran's interior minister denied them permission.
Three years ago today, a Tehran University dormitory was raided by hardline security forces and vigilantes. Students were beaten. At least one student was killed.
Just hours earlier, students had rallied against the banning of a liberal newspaper.
This event triggered six days of nationwide protests in Iran. There are reports emerging right now of clashes between demonstrators and police forces in Tehran, and from Tehran is journalist Shirzad Bozorgmehr.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(on camera): He joins us now.
Shirzad, what can you tell us about these clashes?
SHIRZAD BOZORGMEHR, JOURNALIST: Zain, first of all, the number of the people, the crowd, was much smaller than three years ago. The film you just showed was three years ago. It might have created the wrong impression.
There were something, about 2,000 people gathered, not all of them students, despite the fact that the police and the militia and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) were present on the scene when the people arrived.
The people were not allowed to gather at one place. They were kept moving all the time by the police and the militia, and some minor clashes ensued. But there were no reports of any major clashes, any major arrests, or anything like that.
The Interior Ministry, as you mentioned, had banned this demonstration because of security reasons. They said -- they did not say why. They just said for security reasons. And the student organizations expected this, and said that they will not hold a protest.
Today's gathering by all accounts was not so much students gathering, but regular people, older people, about 40 to 50, constituted most of the demonstrators there. And demonstrations on the whole were relatively peaceful, compared to three years ago -- Zain.
VERJEE: There's a large student movement, though, in Iran, pushing for reform, pushing for democracy. Exactly how big is it and how effective are they?
BOZORGMEHR: They are not as effective as three years ago. The organization is practically leaderless. The major leaders, the main leaders, are either in prison or have been banned from taking part in any activities. And there are a lot of splinter groups that have weakened the central organization, which is the Organization for Unity Consolidation.
So the movement is still there. The reform movement is still there. But it has lost some of its momentum. This is amongst the students, and the young people as a whole. But the reform movement itself is going ahead, however slowly -- Zain.
VERJEE: Shirzad, thank you.
Joining us now from Los Angeles is Zia Atabay, the founder of NITV, National Iranian Television, broadcast into Iran from its studios in California.
Atabay says he wants to give Iranians a glimpse of the world that they've been cut off from. The station also has a following among the exile communities in the United States and in Europe.
Zia Atabay was also once a rock star in Iran. He fled when Ayatollah Khomeini declared all music sinful.
Joining us also from Washington is Azar Nafisi. She spent 18 years teaching fiction at the University of Iran. She is currently writing a book about her experiences, called "Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books." She left Tehran to come to the United States in 1997.
Zia Atabay, you first. We'll talk a little more about the students and the reform movement in general, but your TV station -- what kind of effect do you believe it's having in Iran?
ZIA ATABAY, NITV FOUNDER: I believe I cannot judge that, but as far as I know it was the first contact that Iranian people inside Iran could have with the outside world, through NITV.
And it's still - NITV is going to talk, and let them talk, and show the people challenging government for freedom and democracy. And I think NITV will stay until the freedom gets to Iran, and I don't think it will take more than one or two years.
VERJEE: One of the stories that you've covered a lot on your station is that of the dancer, Mohammad Khordadian. I mean, you have given it a lot of attention. What's the latest, and why is this story important to you?
ATABAY: It's not only this story. It is hundreds and hundreds of stories that is happening and Iranian government is against everything.
Iranian government, you know, Khordadian is an American, holding an American passport, and he doesn't work in Iran, and he is an artist. He has work -- he has working here. He has a class for teaching of dance, and it's not forbidden in this country.
But they take in the business people to that country, to see their parents or the parent's grave or something like that. Then they put them in jail. And this -- he cannot come out now for 10 years. He cannot go to any public wedding for two years.
And you know, this is not the first time. We -- most important now for us is Iranian young and student's movement that would -- the gentleman I was online with you, that he says that is not like before. The reason is that Iranian government now has special forces in the street, and this forces with a cars (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that they have four people in a -- two front is Iranian, two backseats you are not Iranian. And so...
VERJEE: OK. Azar Nafisi, let's bring you in here. I mean, you taught in Tehran for many years. What was it like for you teaching there? And what kind of response were you getting from your students?
AZAR NAFISI, IRANIAN SCHOLAR: Well, actually, I went back to Iran right after I finished my studies in the United States, and that was at the beginning of the revolution, and I was expelled from the University of Tehran for not accepting the mandatory veil.
The -- my experiences with my students from the very start was that they -- the revolution -- when we were students, we wanted political freedoms. We had other forms of freedoms. What we were fighting for were political freedoms. My students, their fight, what is going on right now in Iran, is an almost existential problem. It's an existential conflict with the regime, because they want cultural freedoms, individual freedoms.
My girl students were punished for giggling out loud in the halls of the university, for running up the stairs when they were late for their classes. So their demands for democracy and for individual rights are much more deep-rooted than what my demands were when I was a student.
VERJEE: You're still in touch with your students by e-mail, I believe. Do you get the sense that they're becoming a lot more radicalized now? A lot more radicalized, partly because President Mohammad Hatami hasn't been able to deliver on his promises?
NAFISI: Yes. They definitely are becoming more radicalized, and I think they also are becoming much more formulated in their demands, and they do -- I mean, the students, if you remember, in 1999, when they went in the streets, and ever since then, they are the ones who have been fighting the ideological nature of the regime, and they are the ones who have been asking for freedom of expression and freedom of all political prisoners.
So they are moving more and more towards wanting democracy, which separates religion from the state. And I think more important than being radicalized is that they are now more formulated in what they want, and they understand that they cannot rely on any individuals or powers within the regime, that they have to rely on their own powers.
I think they are discovering what their own power is, actually.
VERJEE: Zia, do you think that the conservative radicals are going to create a space for any kind of reform here? Or is it going to be a much more severe and tougher struggle?
ATABAY: You know what, Zain, what I'm afraid that will happen, and Iranian people, especially inside Iran, young people, up to now, they're trying to ignore this crashes that will happen, is that always they try -- they put the hope on Mr. Hatami as a president, and 20 million people, they vote him to be the president, because he promised them he will give them a little bit of freedom, and because he has disappointed.
The truth is that they don't have a trust anymore to this regime, and I don't see this regime as a kind of regime who will give the space or will do the adjustment. And that's a difficulty. Only things that are, when we are talking to the Iranian people and young students, they come on our show, or they send us the e-mail, they asking, we will know it, one day, we will be face to face to these people, because we don't have anything more to lose.
So our question is that the free world, what will be the reaction of the free world for us? And we don't have a question, do you?
VERJEE: Azar, you want to take that?
NAFISI: You mean about the free world?
VERJEE: Yes.
NAFISI: I think that, as one of my favorite writers, Nabakov, whom I taught in Iran, actually, for a few years, had said, this world has become a portable world.
If there is lack of democracy in the streets of Tehran, the terror in the streets of Kabul, you will have terror in the streets of New York and Washington. So this world is connected. It is not just to the advantage of the Iranian people to be supported by the Western world or by the democratic forces in the world, but it is also to the advantage of the democratic countries to support the democratic forces, to understand that what we're fighting for in Iran is the same thing that we have been fighting for over here. This is the most important thing.
VERJEE: And another issue that's often brought up by various observers and analysts is that they also say that's true, but also, the key to peaceful change and peaceful reform in Iran is actually a break within the conservative -- between the -- within the conservative elite itself.
NAFISI: That is true, and also I think the conservative ruling elite, especially over the past five years, has realized that for them, reform might mean revolution.
I mean, how are they going to reform? One of my students wrote from Iran, and she said that yes, now, we are much freer. We used to wear our veils covering all our face. Now we're letting a few strands of hair out.
So, you see, the more demands that are fulfilled, the more people would want. And that is very threatening to Mr. Hatami, who is not really legitimate except through force.
ATABAY: Zain, may I say something?
That is true, that the Iranian people now, it's important for them to have -- to show their face a little bit more. But really, it's more than that.
The problem in Iran is that nobody in the government, in the parliament, can do anything, because top of that, all the law that even they laid down, it is -- against us, it comes from Mr. Hatami and Mr. Rafsan Jani (ph) and hardliners.
So there will not be any law in Iran, because, you know, they don't want to accept even the law that they wrote and they gave to the people.
I don't see any hope that, from this people, I mean, from the mullahs, somebody will bring the Iranian people any hope. But young and normal people, and as you know 40 percent of the generation is young, and at 30, they will -- they don't -- they will not back off. Maybe today, because they saw the helicopter or something, they don't come to the street, but they will not back off.
VERJEE: OK. We're going to continue our conversation in just a moment. We're also going to ask, does Washington need to take another look at Iran.
Remember, we want to hear from you, so please send us an e-mail. Q&A@CNN.COM.
Please stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VERJEE: Welcome back.
On Q&A, the struggle for reform in Iran.
Still with us is Iranian scholar Azar Nafisi; the founder of National Iranian Television, Zia Atabay; and joining us Michael Ledeen with the American Enterprise Institute.
Michael, do you feel that the United States and other Western countries need to rethink Iran, need to understand things that at this point they may not about Iran?
MICHAEL LEDEEN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Well, I think above all they have to stop appeasing the Iranian tyrants.
I'm just appalled to see the European Union lift sanctions on Iran, trade sanctions. I'm appalled to see the so-called Human Rights Commission of the United Nations, for the first time in years, let Iran off the hook for their endless human rights violations. I mean, they are the number one offenders against freedom of the press in the world right now, and yet this United Nations commission doesn't do a thing.
And I'm very disappointed that all the Western governments, including my own, at their failure to constantly, day in and day out, both condemn the nature of this regime, which is really abominable...
VERJEE: OK.
LEDEEN: ... and to support the young people of Iran, who quite clearly wish to be free. And that's what we stand for.
VERJEE: Well, that was going to be my next point. I just wanted to say, though, we don't have anyone on the show from the Iranian government to refute some of the points you're making.
But that leads me to my next question is, at what point would the United States feel it necessary and imperative to support the student movement and other voices for real democratic change in Iran?
LEDEEN: Well, the president already has, to be fair to him. In the axis of evil speech, he described Iran as a peculiar country that has an elected government with no power and a self-appointed government that holds all power and denies the legitimate demands of the Iranian people to be free.
And those are his words, and those are very strong words. So he has done that.
NAFISI: And, also, you know, you should not put all your eggs within the basket of a government that is so shaky and vulnerable. I mean, you should put your hopes in a civil society that has been so vibrant for the past 10 or 15 years.
VERJEE: Zia, is there a place for democracy and religion in Iran?
ATABAY: My belief is that -- I don't know that Michael agrees with me or not -- my belief is that Iran -- democracy is not only for Iran. A change will effect all the regimes in the Middle East. Iran can do a lot of the things that will help free world.
But I think this kind of regime will not let any Iranian or student have freedom. There has to be completely separation within the state and religion party. That's for sure. It has to be...
LEDEEN: Now, Zain, you have to keep in mind that now leading Ayatollahs and mullahs are actively calling for separation of church and mosque, because they themselves, religious leaders, are convinced that when this regime comes down, which most Iranians expect to happen quite soon, by the way, that they will take the Shiite religion down with it. I mean, that's an active concern among religious leaders in Iran right now.
VERJEE: So, if I'm hearing you right, Azar, what's being discussed is really that there is a place for real democracy to take hold, and within it a respected place for religion, but separate.
NAFISI: Definitely. I think the only way that religion can survive - - and as Michael said, a lot of high clerics and religious scholars within Iran believe this, is to have democracy. Democracy would guarantee freedom of religion.
And what this regime is doing, it is using religion as an instrument in order to keep power, very much like Communism or Marxism. So religion is one other victim of a totalitarian system, and not just seculars, but also the religious...
VERJEE: And so, perhaps is the economy. I mean, there are many economic problems in Iran, and one of the problems perhaps, for the ruling clerics, are that how are they going to provide new jobs and entice foreign investment without reforming the system that allows them to rule entirely - - Michael.
LEDEEN: Yes. Well, the only way to create wealth is freedom. I mean, by now, everybody knows that. And so they're going to have to give freedom to their people, but their afraid to do it, because the people hate them. You know, on recent flights in the last few weeks, leaving Tehran for the Western world, there have been large numbers of families of leading officials of the regime. I mean, they are very frightened. They are extremely insecure.
VERJEE: So, how is this going to play out, if, on the one hand, they want change, but they have all these issues of insecurity. Zia, what is going to be the defining moment (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
ATABAY: You know, let me tell you, 100 percent I am agreed with Michael, what he says, that our government and the European government and the Western government, they are really -- they have to take responsibility here.
Because, you know, always they're playing the game. You know, one side, they know the Iranian people, they don't want this regime, and the future will be very dangerous. The other side, they see the guns is shipping out from Iranian government to the other parts of the Middle East, and will create more problem and conflict in the regime.
But, you will see it, everyday there's somebody consulting between the Iranian government and America, and we see it in all of the Iranian advertising now...
VERJEE: OK. But, Azar, I'm just wondering, I mean, the ruling clerics must have some support for the way that they're operating as well, right?
NAFISI: Well, see...
ATABAY: They have to have the gun.
NAFISI: They, of course, as Zia mentioned, they do have the gun, and they do have those people who are dependent on them for their survival.
All these vigilantes who are right now, today, as we speak, guarding the streets of Tehran, or the ones who, three years ago, have been throwing the students down the windows of their dormitories. These people all feed from the regime, and they're also people who financially benefit, especially from the group that is supporting Mr. Hatami.
So all these people do have a stake. Yes, that is true. But they don't have the real power.
LEDEEN: But, Zain...
VERJEE: Michael.
LEDEEN: But, Zain, they don't have popular support...
NAFISI: No, they don't.
LEDEEN: ... by any stretch of the imagination. If there were free elections in Iran today, not one person with a turban would be elected to anything.
VERJEE: All right. In just the few seconds that we have left, Zia, I'm wondering, from the contact that you have, perhaps, with people in Iran, what do Iranians think of the United States?
ATABAY: OK. I'll tell you something that even we didn't, broadcaster like CNN or other, didn't pay attention to it, because Iran -- the young people, what they're doing, really, it's very, very clear.
You can't believe it's the Fourth of July. Iranian people, in the street, they have a firecracker, for what? But, they believe America, wrong or right, they believe the American and the Western, they will come to help.
The problem is that. If we go to the street or do something and they start to killing us, we recently find out they're hiring even other people to kill the people, because you know they're supplying other group of themselves...
VERJEE: OK.
ATABAY: ... they are going -- to hold down to the killing of people. They say what the West will do for us.
VERJEE: We're going to have to leave our conversation there, Zia Atabay. Also with us Azar Nafisi and Michael Ledeen -- appreciate your views and sharing them with us here on Q&A. Thank you.
NAFISI: Thank you.
ATABAY: Thank you.
VERJEE: You're welcome.
That's Q&A for now. Make sure you join Jim Clancy at 19:30 GMT for another edition of Q&A. The news is next, here on CNN.
END
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