Monday
Jul062009
UPDATED Iran: Solving the Mystery of The “Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom”
Monday, July 6, 2009 at 9:36
Iran and the Clerics: Who are the “Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom”?
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Less than 48 hours after the statement of the "Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom" condemning the Iranian Government as "illegitimate", less than 24 after The New York Times declared that this was a challenge from the most important clerical group in Iran, and less than 12 after we tried to sort out the mystery of both the clerical and political situation....
It looks like we are in the midst of a major media foul-up, one that can only be sorted out by some serious investigation and thinking.
Far from checking the Times story, broadcasters and newspapers have rushed like lemmings off a cliff behind the headline. CNN pronounces, "Iranian clerics disputes election results", The Guardian declares, "Senior Iranian clerics reject re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad", and The Times of London shouts, "Iran’s biggest group of clerics has declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election to be illegitimate and condemned the subsequent crackdown." (The New York Times, incidentally, runs away and doesn't say a single word about its misleading article that started all this unsupported "journalism".)
The conversion of a statement into a head-on clerics v. Supreme Leader/President crisis (which I suspect, as a reader noted on our last post, owes much to "wishful thinking") makes it even more important to sort out what is occuring in a complex situation.
It appears that the "Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom" is led by Ayatollah Hosein Musavi-Tabrizi. In March 2008, Musavi-Tabrizi was blocked by the Guardian Council from running for the Iranian Parliament because of his "lack of belief in the Constitution and in Islam", even though he had been allowed to take up a seat on the Assembly of Experts.
Fast forward to 25 June of this year. Musavi-Tabrizi, identified as "the General Secretary of the Scholars and Seminarians of the Qom Scholarly Center", told a pro-Ahmadinejad website, "[The] Guardian Council had violated its impartiality in the elections several months ago and that it cannot judge what is true or false in reviewing the electoral results." He then made a sharp, provocative comparison between the Iranian Government in 2009 and the Shah of Iran's regime in 1979:
The New York Times apparently did not check up on this background (which, I must confess, only took a few minutes once I had Musavi-Tabrizi's name). Instead it confused the "Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom" with another, longer-established faction, the "Society of Qom Seminary Teachers and Researchers" (in Farsi, "Jame’eh-e ye Modarresin-e Howzeh-ye Eliyeh-ye Qom").
As an Enduring America colleague puts it succinctly, the Society, "along with the Society of Combatant Clergy (JRM) and the allied Islamic Society (Mo’talefeh), was and probably still is the backbone of the conservative right". It was started in the 1960s by Ayatollah Azari-Qomi, who also launched the Resalat newspaper, a key outlet in the "conservative" movement. In the 1990s, however, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, took control, expelling Azari-Qomi.
So The New York Times, picking up on a statement from the "Association", confuses it with the "Society", which has had a long-time influence in Iranian politics. And that is how suddenly a relatively minor intervention (given the dizzying movement of statements and speeches amongst the clerics as they decide how to react to Ahmadinejad's supposed re-election and the subsequent protests) became "an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment".
Receive our latest updates by email or RSS- SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
Less than 48 hours after the statement of the "Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom" condemning the Iranian Government as "illegitimate", less than 24 after The New York Times declared that this was a challenge from the most important clerical group in Iran, and less than 12 after we tried to sort out the mystery of both the clerical and political situation....It looks like we are in the midst of a major media foul-up, one that can only be sorted out by some serious investigation and thinking.
Far from checking the Times story, broadcasters and newspapers have rushed like lemmings off a cliff behind the headline. CNN pronounces, "Iranian clerics disputes election results", The Guardian declares, "Senior Iranian clerics reject re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad", and The Times of London shouts, "Iran’s biggest group of clerics has declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election to be illegitimate and condemned the subsequent crackdown." (The New York Times, incidentally, runs away and doesn't say a single word about its misleading article that started all this unsupported "journalism".)
The conversion of a statement into a head-on clerics v. Supreme Leader/President crisis (which I suspect, as a reader noted on our last post, owes much to "wishful thinking") makes it even more important to sort out what is occuring in a complex situation.
It appears that the "Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom" is led by Ayatollah Hosein Musavi-Tabrizi. In March 2008, Musavi-Tabrizi was blocked by the Guardian Council from running for the Iranian Parliament because of his "lack of belief in the Constitution and in Islam", even though he had been allowed to take up a seat on the Assembly of Experts.
Fast forward to 25 June of this year. Musavi-Tabrizi, identified as "the General Secretary of the Scholars and Seminarians of the Qom Scholarly Center", told a pro-Ahmadinejad website, "[The] Guardian Council had violated its impartiality in the elections several months ago and that it cannot judge what is true or false in reviewing the electoral results." He then made a sharp, provocative comparison between the Iranian Government in 2009 and the Shah of Iran's regime in 1979:
The revolution emerged from precisely such talk [of demonstrators as rioters]. The Shah, too, would call them rioters. I know what happened during the events of February 19 [1978] in Tabriz. I initiated the events in January 9 [1978] in Qom. When the people came out in Tabriz, the Shah, [then-Prime Minister Jamshid] Amuzegar, and his Majlis [Parliament] said that they came from abroad, they are rioters.”
The General Secretary continued, “The Shah’s regime was taghuti [satanic, a favoured term of Ayatollah Khomeini to describe the Shah and his advisors] precisely because it said such things. Had it not said such things and gave the people what they merited, it would not have been taghuti. It makes no difference. Anyone who swallows up the people’s rights is taghut."
The New York Times apparently did not check up on this background (which, I must confess, only took a few minutes once I had Musavi-Tabrizi's name). Instead it confused the "Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom" with another, longer-established faction, the "Society of Qom Seminary Teachers and Researchers" (in Farsi, "Jame’eh-e ye Modarresin-e Howzeh-ye Eliyeh-ye Qom").
As an Enduring America colleague puts it succinctly, the Society, "along with the Society of Combatant Clergy (JRM) and the allied Islamic Society (Mo’talefeh), was and probably still is the backbone of the conservative right". It was started in the 1960s by Ayatollah Azari-Qomi, who also launched the Resalat newspaper, a key outlet in the "conservative" movement. In the 1990s, however, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, took control, expelling Azari-Qomi.
So The New York Times, picking up on a statement from the "Association", confuses it with the "Society", which has had a long-time influence in Iranian politics. And that is how suddenly a relatively minor intervention (given the dizzying movement of statements and speeches amongst the clerics as they decide how to react to Ahmadinejad's supposed re-election and the subsequent protests) became "an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment".
tagged Iran, Iran Elections 2009 in Middle East & Iran
Iran, Iran Elections 2009 in Middle East & Iran
Reader Comments (2)
"It was started in the 1960s " should read "It was started in the 1980s"--around 1985, as I recall.
Otherwise, nice piece of writing, and thanks for citing my translation.
the link below is for the website of the "Society..." which carries their message of congratulation to A'd, it is in farsi of course:
http://www.jameehmodarresin.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1432&Itemid=1