On 17 March 1985 we were summoned to the council room for a
meeting with Sister Tahereh, masoul of the society. We were surprised. It
was Wednesday and council meetings were held on Fridays. I thought
the extraordinary session must be to discuss the public meeting we were to
hold on the next day to celebrate the Iranian New Year.
Our council room was a narrow, austere place. The only furniture
was a large rectangular table flanked on both sides by two long benches
which were so uncomfortable that before each meeting we would all scramble
for a seat by the wall so that we could ease the back-ache brought on by our
usual lengthy sessions.
Once all twelve or thirteen members of the council were present,
someone brought tea and biscuits. Lets eat something sweet, I have very
good news for you, said Sister Tahereh. Obviously something important had
happened. Perhaps there had been a victorious operation inside Iran; perhaps
Khomieni had died, perhaps . . . As our minds ran quickly through the
possibilities, Tahereh stood up to read the message she had brought with
her. Then her deputy got up as well, a clear signal for us to follow suite.
We all stood to attention like soldiers, listening intently. In the name of
God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. In the path of God and the people,
willingly and with satisfaction, we have accepted an ideological and
organisational imperative, which is the will of God and the Iranian peoples
new revolution. Observing all religious customs and requirements . . . we
have decided to marry each other. Signed: Maryam Rajavi and Masoud Rajavi.
In a very loud voice, Sister Tahereh said MOBARAK BASHAD
(congratulations) and started clapping. Unable to understand what was going
on, we joined in. There was a deathly silence. Whats happened? asked
Sister Tahereh. Why are you all as stiff as planks? Dont you have anything
to say? She turned with a questioning look to her deputy Fazeleh who had
obviously already heard the news, and then rapidly focused on the person
sitting next to her and demanded to know what he thought. As confused and
stunned as the rest of us, he smiled limply and said: Well I dont know
whats going on, but since Brother Masoud has made this decision, I am sure
it is very good news. Wont you offer your congratulations? she said.
Well of course, he replied and with the smile still fixed on his face he
said congratulations loudly. Have you any questions? she asked. Excuse
me, who is Sister Maryam Rajavi? came his rather foolish response. Tahereh
laughed even louder and said: Dont you know? Sister Maryam Rajavi is co-leader
of our organisation. He swallowed hard: But Sister Maryam Azodanlu
was
Tahereh finished his sentence for him: the wife of Brother Mehdi (Abrishamchii).
He said, Yes She laughed again: Why are you stammering? Why has your face
gone white? Has something snapped in your mind? Have your male prejudices
been offended? Dont worry. No religious principles have been violated, they
divorced a few weeks ago, before this news was announced. She was silent
for a few moments. Then she asked him if he still wanted to offer
congratulations. Well, I still dont understand, but yes, of course,
congratulations, many congratulations.
Before asking the next member what he thought, she read the
message again. Of course congratulations are in order, he said. Im sure
that whatever decision the organisation makes is for the good of the people
and the revolution. Then she put the same question to all the council
members, one by one. Some offered their congratulations without hesitation.
Others, less cautiously, protested that they had not understood the news
fully, but would still congratulate the newly-weds. The more conservative
elements like me said: I dont know, I will have to think about the news to
understand it fully.
Then Tahereh read us a message from the politburo and the
central committee. It was very long and because I was sitting on the bench
that had no support, I had to stand up every so often to rid myself of back
pain. It began with a sentence from the Quran, Those who relay messages of
God, and are afraid of God, and are not terrified of any body except God.
And this is enough to consider God as sole judge and the one who paves the
way. Then came the usual opening passage of Mojahedin communiqués, only
this time in addition to in the name of God and the heroic people of Iran,
in the name of martyred Mohammed Hanif-Najad [the founder of the
organisation] . . . the politburo had added, for the first time, in the
name of Maryam and Masoud Rajavi. The only living people who had ever in
the past been named in the title of
Mojahedin messages were Khomieni and Taleqani.
The message continued with a long list of Rajavis achievements:
how he had saved the organisation from a Marxist coup in 1975, how he had
fought against right and leftwing tendencies in the organisation, how he
fought Khomieni and revealed his true nature to people. We had believed that
all important organisational decisions has been made collectively, but we
were now told that it was Masoud who founded our militia, it was he who
stood up to the Tudeh partys sedition, carried out in the name of the fight
against liberals and reactionaries, and had chosen the correct tactics
against them, while other organisations fell into the Tudehs trap and lost
everything, It was he who had reorganised the Mojahedin over the past two
years and had stood against those who wanted to destroy them
. The message
declared that: while the organisation was scattered around the world and
under immense pressure, under the shadow of Masouds leadership we were
saved from splits
and became more united than ever. The signatories of
the letter claimed on behalf of the members that: we in the organisation
laugh at those who accuse us of hero worship, and look at them as a wise man
looks upon the foolish. A few sentences about Masouds personal sacrifices
followed. He was the first Mojahed to have volunteered for a suicide
mission, only to be rejected by the organisation; it was he who, in prison
under the Shah, had inspired his fellow prisoners to resist their gaolers,
and it was he who had inspired thousands of Mojaheds to go to prison and to
accept martyrdom in the fight against Khomieni.
Masoud was also portrayed as a champion of womens rights. It
was as a result of his leadership that the Mojahedin had appointed Maryam as
co-leader, the highest position a woman could gain within a revolutionary
organisation. The message went on to say that, Mehdi Abrishamchii and
Maryam were in love and had no problem in their marriage, but they
volunteered to divorce in order to pave the way for the union of Masoud and
Maryam. The marriage had been advised by the politburo and central committee
in order to deepen the great ideological revolution and to avoid the
difficult contradictions between the leader and co-leader, who, although
NA MAHRAM, [an Islamic term for those who must not touch or see each
other] had to work closely with each other. Their joint leadership without
marriage would have been mere bourgeois formalism. Had Masoud not been
divorced from his wife, the Mojahedin would have had no option but to accept
the disadvantages of the joint leadership of the unmarried Masoud and Maryam.
But since Fyrozeh Banisadr, Masouds previous wife, had divorced him there
was no reason for the organisation to deny itself the advantages, which
could be gained by this marriage. The idea was inspired by a sentence from
Quran about the marriage of the Prophet Mohammed to the recently divorced
wife of his adopted son. Furthermore, although Mehdi and Maryam had
made a supreme sacrifice by divorcing while they were still in love, Masoud
had, in accepting this marriage, made even greater sacrifices. His was
described as much more than a heroic action
Had Masoud not been able to
accept this marriage, he would have demonstrated that he did not have the
capacity to lead the organisation
We realised from the message
that this incident is going to happen just once and only on the top of the
organisation.
Hence there was no need
for us to worry that we are not married to those whom we were working
closely every day!
The last remark dispelled my disquiet as it assured
me that nothing is going to happen to my own marriage. Since my
return to the society I had trained myself not to think much about
organisational relations and news. They were of relevance to me only if they
affected my daily work. But when Sister Tahereh first announced the marriage
I was deeply concerned. By this time I knew perfectly well that sex, love
and marriage meant little to the organisation. I thought that it might have
decided to order couples to separate and re-marry whenever the organisation
believed that the change would serve its interests. If it had, what would
happen to my own marriage and my relationship with Anna?
I was almost sure
that Tahereh would turn to me first for a reaction to the Politburos
message and I had to find something to say. I was right. Well, I began,
Im now in a position to offer my congratulations. I now understand that
this is one of those rare and unusual actions taken by those who are
vanguards of the people to open a new way and direction for the evolution of
mankind. Then I offered few examples. I was ignorant of the example given
in the message about the Prophet, but it didnt matter. I repeated it and
added the examples of Imam Husseins departure from Mecca during the Hajj
(it was customary to stay there during the pilgrimage), and the story of
Ashab Kahaf, who went with a dog (which is NAJASS, dirty) to a cave and
slept there for hundreds of years as a result of which the dog was blessed.
These examples saved not only me, but others who had to speak after me.
Having found adequate logical and religious reasons for the
marriage I decided that I didnt need to think about it any more. But how
naive and childish I was. This news was just marked the beginning of a new
era in the organisation called the ideological revolution.
While Tahereh was reading the message, her deputy Fazeleh had
been crying hard. Her tears astonished us, but they did not seem to trouble
Tahereh. Once she had finished asking us about our understanding of the
message, she turned her attention to Fazeleh who started saying things that
were utterly strange to us. I wondered how on earth she could learn so much
from the message, and how stupid I could be. Still weeping, Fazeleh
explained how the divorce and marriage had changed her completely and
launched into a catalogue of unreserved self-criticism. Fazeleh, who could
never acknowledge even her most obvious mistakes, was suddenly telling us
about her most secret wrongdoings. She spoke of her selfishness and her
pride and how they had affected everyone in the organisation.
When her confession was over, Tahereh, showing no mercy or
affection, said to Fazeleh: but you know that you are still far from a
complete revolution and from changing into a new person. You know that you
still have long way to go and will have to work very hard . . . We
wondered what she meant. For the first time I felt pity for Fazeleh. I had
often disliked her for selfishness and pride, but I never wanted to see her
humiliating herself in front of us all. If I could, I would have hugged and
kissed her as my sister and praised her courage and modesty. I was still
thinking about her when Tahereh looked at us and said: You, all of you,
have to revolt as well, you all have to kill your old self and become a new
person. Either you revolt and change yourself completely or you leave the
organisation
From now on our only concern would be to forget everything
else and think and dream about the ideological revolution. Our immediate
task, she said was to go away and think and then write a report about our
past, or as it was code-named, our old self. That evening the same
scenario was repeated, this time at a meeting for all members where another
sister, a council member, criticised herself publicly.
I realised that something serious was afoot which would change
everything in the organisation and I was no longer at ease. But I couldnt
imagine what it might be. I couldnt relate the changes in Fazeleh to the
news of Masouds marriage, and the more I tried to solve the puzzle, the
less I was able to understand it. When Anna asked me to help her to
understand I had to admit that I was bewildered and told her that she would
have to rely on her instinct: apparently this revolution is about the
freedom of women, I said, perhaps as a woman you will be able to
understand it better than me.
Over the following weeks, it was rare to see anyone with a smile
on their face or to hear laughter. At our New Year celebrations the next day
our supporters had staged a comedy. Many of the audience were laughing. But
whenever I looked around, I could see those who were members of the
organisation deep in thought with a bitter smile on their lips, which did
not hide their sad faces.
We no longer worked very hard. Our supporters did much of the SW
work and almost all the cooking. Those of us who tried to work made so many
mistakes that the job usually had to be re-done. I found it very
difficult to be myself anymore; the hardest part of my job was being
responsible for ten to twenty supporters. I had to look after them, keep
them cheerful and answer their questions . . . How difficult was to behave
normally and be cheerful, encouraging and understanding whenever I had to
visit their base? I guess only God knows it.
One night after returning from the supporters base, I was told
that another council meeting had been called. I soon discovered that this
was not a council meeting but the first of a great many bizarre gatherings
that came to be known as revolutionary meetings. When I arrived, I saw
that Anna and few other sisters were present. The men sat along one side of
the room and the women along the other with Sister Tahereh in the middle.
Everyone was crying hard including the young man, a council member, who was
talking loudly about his sex life. Sex was a great taboo for us and in the
past we had never spoken of it except to our masoul, and especially not in
the presence of sisters in a public meeting. But no one was trying to stop
him. He was admitting that he was attracted to Sister Tahereh. I couldnt
believe my eyes or ears. I could never imagine, still less accept, that any
of us men had sexual feelings towards our sisters, not only because of the
strict morals observed in the organisation, but also, to be honest, because
of the way they dressed and their behaviour, which was much rougher than any
man. But he seemed to be serious and honest.
When he finished another member jumped from his seat, rushed
towards him and slapped him hard in the face. He showed no reaction although
his loud crying continued, as it had throughout his confession. A satisfied,
affirmative smile appeared on Taherehs face. She told him to sit and asked
him to write down what he had said later. Then she looked at me.
Why are you so surprised? Do you think youre better than him?
Youre worse, each one of you is worse than the other.
She asked me if I had any thing to say. I replied that I had
written whatever there was to say down for her. I said this honestly as I
had recently given her a report containing all my secrets, including my
thoughts when I saw the videotape of Yaghobie, my feelings when I was not
member of the council and
.
Rubbish! You have said nothing, what you have written is naïve
and childish. Many simple members and even supporters, who have no need for
this revolution, have criticised themselves more severely than you
you
have to work very hard
do you know that Anna has revolted and has gone
further in the revolution than you?
She knew where to point her arrow and she did it skilfully.
She knew how much I am in love of my wife and
how worried of loosing her. If Anna had revolted and I had not, then
she would remain in the organisation and I would have to leave. It would
mean loosing everything, including my private life and my dear wife. Looking
back I think that this was what she wanted to hear from me, but I could not
see it at the time. I just sat there trying hard to search my memory for
something untold about myself that would be accepted as a revolutionary
revelation.
As soon as Tahereh felt that I was desperate to revolt, she left me alone
and asked another man about his revolution. He started to talk about his
wife and tell us how he was humiliating her. When he let drop that she was
bony, Taherehs face clouded with anger. She stopped him.
What a pity your wife is not here, otherwise I would ask her to
give you a few slaps. She looked around. Are none of you zealous enough to
teach him a lesson and give him few slaps? But why should I bother asking?
Youre all alike. You all think of women as a sex toys. Then she ordered
one of the younger members, who were supervised by the man who was
confessing, to stand up and slap his face as hard as possible. He obeyed.
As people got up one after the other to make their confessions,
Tahereh watched my reactions and from time to time directed remarks at me.
Soon I was no longer myself. My temperature seemed to rise and I was unable
to think. I was desperately embarrassed. It was as if I was sitting there
naked with everybody watching me. Tahereh pounced: Whats happening Masoud?
Is your icy logic melting away? You always thought you were clever and
talented! Do you see your real self now? Do you see that when it comes to
ideology youre just dumb? She was right; at that moment I was like a two
year old. All my logic, all my powers of understanding, all my facility with
words were gone. I wished I had something to tell her, that I could confess
that I was attracted to a woman. Anything. That way I could save myself. But
the harder I searched my memory for some untold offence, the less I could
recall.
Tahereh asked me yet again whether I had anything to say.
Suddenly I began to cry loudly. My words were garbled, but I was begging her
not to throw me out of the society, I was telling her that I couldnt live
alone, and would rather kill myself. I was talking about my childhood and
how lonely I felt without my mother and how painful it was, and how
terrified I had always been of loneliness. I could feel and see everybody,
including Anna, watching me strangely and perhaps with pity. At the time, I
only could see myself in that pathetic situation, while every body else if
not worse than me were almost in the same awful situation.
She stopped me and asked me not to do anything but to think and
write.
You have to burn, die, and born again!
A few days later we received a videotape of the New Years
celebrations at the Rajavi residence. There were almost 200 people present.
The first to speak was? Rezai, the mother of five martyred children
When I was summoned to a gathering to receive important news, I
thought I would hear of another martyrdom, this time of my youngest son,
Mohammed. I was preparing myself to say God bless him
When I was told of
the marriage of Masoud and Maryam, my heart almost stopped, I moved
violently . . . I blamed myself for not having the same power of sacrifice
as they have. Five of my children have been martyred, I can see all of them
in the existence of Masoud, I want to congratulate you Masoud and Maryam and
Mehdi, for your ability to sacrifice . . .
When she had finished Masoud got up. He spoke first at length
about the history of the organisation, under the Shah, during the
revolution and under Khomieni. How correct the organizations prediction
about people and events has been in different juncture. He said: Divorce
and Marriage!? Is madness, amazing, radical, imprudent and unwise, this is
like many other actions of Mojahedin, like when we stood against Khomieni,
while everybody was advising us to compromise with him. Like when, against
advice of many, we met the foreign minister of Iraq in the same place as we
are now. Today you are astonished again, it is like pouring boiling water at
high pressure onto our head! Yes that is right, this was some sort of
experience for testing you all, as we want to have steel. we are looking for
new standard of power and capacity and work. Every body including our
far-reaching supporters has to be cleansed of all reactionary tendencies and
demagoguery. If you are in, you have to make it clear with firstly yourself
then with the organisation. . There are many who claim they have feeling for
people and freedom and independence of our country, but how can it be
measured? Yes it can be measured according to the level of sacrifices of
each person. Yes organisation has been shaken violently. We want to prepare
ourselves for next ten years. If we do, then we are prepared about what we
have in front of ourselves in next two years, namely overthrow of Khomieni
regime. Those Mojahedin members who pass through this furnace, are more
steadfastness, more steel like person, and have more future in the resisting
. . . . Then he showed two wedding rings, the rings that had belonged to
Maryam and Mehdi Abrishamchii, and said: These are the most complete and
highest symbol of sacrifice. Can any heart see these rings and not weep? . .
. Pity to you if you put any price for those rings. can you put any price
for feelings and love?.
He then began to discourse on the freedom of women. As long as
even one woman remains in (the) prison (of her sex), all men are in prison
too. The freedom of women is the freedom of the whole society. Whatever
has happened, he continued, is not Maryams problem or mine. It is
everyones problem. You all have to have answer for it. Then he read few
sentences from the Quran about the story of Mary and the marriage of the
Prophet to the divorced wife of his adopted son.
Soon it was Mehdi Abrishamchiis turn to speak. He began
by congratulating Masoud and Maryam, with all my cells, skins and blood
vessels
. Then he said: if it were not for Masoud, we would all have
strayed and deviated and have been lost for ever
I wish each one of us had
hundred lives to sacrifice in their path, not just one. Then he referred to
Masouds past sacrifices, adding that whenever I met Masoud, I would wonder
what kind of sacrifices are left for him? Not execution, nor torture are
entanglement or hard for him, as he has seen them all in the prison. On
June 20 he prepared us all for another ASHURA, (all of us being killed
like Imam Hussein and his followers). He lost his wife, and enemy captured
his child, he had to marry his last wife to keep Banisadr in the NCR, and
then to divorce her. When this [marriage to Maryam] was suggested to him, I
found my answer, he had to face the allegations and malicious accusations of
counter-revolutionaries. But that was not all. Then he faced the crowd and
said: OK be honest, say what passed in your heart? Did you understand what
has he done? Did you not curse him? Did you not swear at him? Did you not
want to kick him? Be honest, tell the truth. Be courageous, say what you
thought. Then you can know yourself. . . . I know you will start to cry, you
feel you are going to be forced upside down, this is an ideological move, we
all have to pass through this furnace and melt away all our filthy parts,
moving forward and leaving them behind. Then we can find ideological
brightness. Then all will become true members of the Mojahedin.
Everyone wept as he spoke, including many of those watching the
videotape. As usual Tahereh surveyed us carefully for our reactions. When
Abrishamchiis speech was over one of the sisters stood up and said: I
know what discipline is and I respect it. I know I am not supposed to speak
just now. But after hearing Masoud and Mehdi I felt a storm well up inside
me and I cant keep myself quiet. Then she began to read a poem: I am a
sparking light, a flash from the storm, I am a storm, a storm in all of you,
Maryam you have created a storm. Before [the wedding] that I was a small
bush, but I broke my surrounding, as I was not able to be placed there any
more. You are like sun, and I am like a spark radiant from you
As she read
her poem the crying got louder.
Ideological Revolution, a prevention for internal outcome of military and
political defeats.
While we were deep in the battle with ourselves, or as
Moslems call it JIHAD AKBAR (the great holy war), our external war was on
the rise as well. Apart from our fight with the regime, which by now was
mostly in Kurdistan, we were locked in a political battle with
anti-revolutionaries and leftist organisations outside the country. The
newspapers published by the Iranian community in exile, were all discussing
the marriage. Some made a joke of it, others condemned it as immoral,
dishonourable and shameful. Even leftist groups, who were supposed not
to care much about Islamic values, criticised the Mojahedin in exactly the
same terms. They also, because of the recent support of members of the
United States Congress for the organisation, accused us of collaborating
with imperialism the same imperialism, as they reminded us, that we had
been so much against in the past.
On another front, after a series of defeats in Kurdistan, the
Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, and the Mojahedin who had fought alongside
them had to withdraw from almost all the cities and most of the villages
under their control to the Iraqi side of the border. Of course Mojahed
spoke of the heroic actions of our combatants in different skirmishes
without much emphasis on the outcome. We were not told the worst. As a
result of its defeats the KDP opened peace talks with the regime and for the
first time in November 1984 we saw an item in Mojahed questioning the KDPs
action. In our view it was outrageous for a party to be a member of the
National Council of Resistance and at the same time to enter negotiations
with the regime. Only a few months had passed since the revelation of
Banisadrs letter to Khomieni that had ended in his expulsion from the
NCR. Hence we could sense that the end of the coalition with the KDP was
near as well. Their own claim was that, as a local organisation which has
control of part of Kurdistan, it was their duty to negotiate the safety of
ordinary people with the enemy as much as to fight with them. But the
Mojahedin insisted that: between us and the regime there could only be a
river of blood Eventually, in April 1985 the NCR issued a resolution
warning the KDP to break off its talks with the regime or be expelled from
the council. They chose to leave. Following them a few smaller organisations
and personalities resigned for different reasons, including the Mojahedins
ideological revolution and except for a few personalities and the National
Democratic Front which was represented by Dr. Matine Daftary (the grandson
of Dr. Mossadeq), and a few members of one of the off-shoots of Fedaian
which called themselves by the same name, in reality the NCR meant the
Mojahedin and their supporters. It was obvious to anyone but us, supporters
of Mojahedin that politically we had failed to create the broad coalition
Rajavi had promised: the sole reason for his presence abroad and his heroic
departure from Iran.
Well we didnt mind much about the splits nor about naming or
cursing different people and organizations under different titles and
slogans. Among ourselves we knew, and would repeat to each other, that
the NCR was Masouds means of working on the political scene in Europe and
America and nothing more, a product of his political art. Its main use was
to deceive and fool the Americans and Europeans so that they would not think
about us as the same Mojahedin who were responsible for assassinating
American citizens in Iran or coining violent slogans against imperialism. We
were part of a national alliance with a liberal and democratic appearance
and programme. As Masoud had said in different circumstances, it was the
Mojahedin and their supporters who had shouldered all the work and
hardship of the resistance. So getting rid of unwanted partners was a
cause for celebration, not grief as it set us free of different tendencies
and the need to share power with people who did nothing for the
revolution. As one of the masouls put it, it is good to get to know these
people while we are still fighting tyranny. If they were to wait for victory
to show their real face, God knows what kind of price we would have had to
pay for their split. So in a way we have to thank God that we did not
succeed in overthrowing the regime earlier.
Our sole concern: the Ideological revolution.
By then, the ideological revolution had accomplished its task.
Not only did we pass over our military or political failures, but we were
happy that we were unsuccessful since we were now able to see the real face
of our friends in the coalition.
Because in those days I was in charge of SW in London and every
member had to work on SW for at least two days a week, I was in contact with
many young men and women who were not under my direct command. Every night
whoever had spent a day on SW had to report to our base, hand over the
income they had raised, stay for dinner and attend our nightly meeting about
our work.
While everyone else slept, my deputy and I stayed up to plan for
the next day, deciding which areas to assign to people and, with the help of
another colleague, preparing the bags, which contained the material, they
needed for their work, and their lunch. I was under great pressure to raise
money, but few members could work properly. They were all so deeply involved
in the ideological revolution. I slept very little. At night I did the
planning and preparation, and in the mornings I did not go on SW myself, I
would monitor our teams work or look for new areas to cover. I also had to
see our supporters and talk with them. By now they all knew about the
ideological revolution and had many problems and questions to which I
could give no proper answer. I was breaking from within; but I had to keep
up appearances. Only when I was alone in the base answering the telephone
calls from our teams could I be myself. Then I could pity myself, and even
cry for myself. I was paralysed and desperate. I didnt know what to do
or say to save myself from my misery. For me love and marriage were so
natural and part of my life and myself which I never could see, this is the
area which I should think about it and write about it.
Once I was called to our main base where I was offered
sweets, a cup of tea and words of congratulation. What now? I wondered.
What kind of news do they have for us this time?! Soon I learnt that,
brother Mehdi Abrishamchii had married the sister of Mussa Khiabani although
only a few weeks had passed since his divorce. I had come to hate the word
congratulations and the false smiles that went with it. But I controlled
myself and did what was required. By now I knew what love and marriage meant
in the Mojahedin and could see how far my emotions and my thinking were from
the organisations requirements.
Perhaps deep down my strong feeling about this news was due to
this fact that I could see myself in his position. What if they were to ask
Anna to separate from me and marry somebody else and then ask me to marry
one of the sisters? After all, Anna had had her ideological revolution and
I was still struggling to follow her. I was not going to our rest base any
more and every night, even on Sundays, I slept in the work base. The truth
is that I was not able to face Anna. I didnt know who she was any more.
Perhaps the ideological revolution had changed her so much that we could not
live together. Perhaps she didnt love me any more? . . .
I was also ashamed that I had not had my own ideological
revolution. In those days, Mojahed was full of members
accounts of their revolutions, which I would read anxiously to find a
direction for my own. But far from helping some of these added to my
confusion. For example, Mansur Bazargan an old member of the Mojahedin,
wrote that the impact of the news on him was greater than the news of 1971
when all the founders of the organisation were executed, or the news of 1975
when a Marxist coup in the organisation had caused a major split. With this
news, he wrote, all my blasphemies and class tendencies were burned. . . .
. Masoud if for following and helping you they kill me and burn me, and then
they give me life again, and if they repeat this a hundred times, I will not
stop supporting and following and helping you. . . . . It was like the
words of one of the followers of Imam Hussein before Ashorra. But what did
it mean? How could I get help from such idealistic wordings? Other
statements were very simple and poetic, but still couldnt show me any kind
of mechanism for revolting. Sister Ronak Ali-Najad wrote: I have a head
ache, a very bad head ache, so painful that I feel I will only rid myself of
it by crying hard. I feel I want to cry, I feel this room, house, city,
everywhere is so small for me. I want to fly and find new love. I want to be
host to a new person, the one who has destroyed my quiet and easy life. My
eyes cannot see properly, I dont know what am I writing. I know only that
you, Maryam, are my ideological symbol. Tears are running from my eyes,
everything blurs in front of them. I am revolting from within. I feel if I
dont write for you I will explode. . . . Let me please! Let me burn myself
in your holy fire! Let me burn the monster of darkness in the fire of my own
body! the one, which has darkened our country and has swallowed us all in
pain and suffering
let me Maryam sacrifice myself for you and Masoud! You
are the symbol of a nation in chains. . . . accept my desire to burn for
you, for if you do not, I will burn every day for as long as I am alive.
Another sister wrote: Dear Maryam I swear to God that, with all my
existence I could feel that your path is the path of all messengers of God,
from Abraham to Moses, to Jesus the sprit of God. . . . you are the one who
are breaking unbroken knots and complexes. You are breaking the death locks
I am sure that it is not us but future generations who will understand you
and worship you for what you did . . . .
Not only was I far behind my fellow Mojaheds, I was even
incapable of seeing things which could be understood by foreigners. I
reached this conclusion when I read a letter to Maryam from a French woman:
For me the Mojahedin were always not only an Iranian organisation but an
international one, as the divine message which inspires this organisation is
for all human beings . . . fighting against Khomieni and for the destruction
of his regime is a means of uprooting reactionary cultures ways of thinking
everywhere. The same kind of thinking which in different degrees exists in
all human beings. This system doesnt recognise the freedom of choice for
women and thus denies them all human rights. This system of thought wants to
change women into sex objects and merchandise
This system stands against
the evolution of mankind, and by chaining women, wants to stop mankind
reaching freedom and a monotheistic society. . . . this is why the
Mojahedins Ideological revolution is not limited to the boundaries of Iran
and has universal dimensions
Dear sister Maryam for me you are an
infinity, you are the beginning and the end. You are the fruit of a holly
tree flower, a tree which has its roots very deep in the earth, as deep as
history of suppression of millions of unknown women in the entire history of
mankind
But as God has given the power of birth to any flower, you are the
fruit of that flower, and today this fruit, which has benefited from the sun
[of knowledge] will be born in the spring (like many flowers and fruits born
in the spring after darkness and cold of winter ).
Everyone must revolt ideologically. Whoever does not cannot
call himself a Mojahed This was the slogan of the day, written in large
print and were hung in many living rooms in our bases. Nobody could escape
from this revolution. As our base was the largest in London, each week for
one, two, or even three days, as we had to prepare it for revolutionary
meetings. When meeting were held everything was put on hold no work, no
SW, no cooking and even no sleep for day or two. The meetings were no longer
limited to members of the council. They were compulsory for all members of
the society and not even illness could save one from attending. Our meeting
room was large enough for thirty to forty people but sixty to seventy people
would gather there, sometimes for a few days. Sitting on the flour was
itself a kind of torture and on top of that there was only one toilet and
almost no resting time. But the physical miseries of those gatherings were
nothing compared to the mental pressures.
Ideological leadership
At times a guest member of the Mojahedin would attend our
meetings. For example once Mohsan Rezai was our guest. In the speech he
delivered he mostly emphasised the importance and special position of the
leadership that is Rajavi, in the organisation. He began by asking us, one
by one, starting from me: If all members of the organisation, including
Mussa Khiabani if he was alive, decide on something, and Rajavi decides
otherwise, who should we follow? The majority, or the ideological leadership
?By now I knew perfectly well that Masouds position in the organisation,
was like that of the Imam for the Moslems. The answer should be, we would
follow him! But it contradicted my own liberal view. So I answered, I
would follow him but I would ask him for an explanation! What if he
refuses to give an explanation? Well I would accept, his word, but a seed
of doubt would be sown in my heart, so if the scenario were repeated, the
seed might grow and end with me refusing his words, or being forced to leave
the organisation. When he put the same question to others, and found that
most of the answers were either like my own or a vehement, uncritical
acceptance of his wording, he started to lecture us. Among other things he
gave an example from the prophets Moses and Elias. Apparently when Moses
still was not a prophet he asked Elias to take him on a journey. Elias
accepted on one condition: that Moses had to follow him without question,
whatever he did. While on the journey Elias committed many illogical and
sinful acts, making hole in a merchants ship, which then sank killing many.
Destroying the house of an old woman. Each time Elias wanted to commit such
acts, Moses rejected them and asked him for a reason. In response, Elias
would remind him of his condition and refuse an explanation. At the end of
the trip Elias explained his actions one by one. For example, when the house
of the old woman was destroyed, her two young children died from cold. Had
they remained alive, they would have become repressive rulers, committing
many crimes and murdering many people. From this story Rezai concluded
that: An ideological leader has an ideological vision which is much
deeper and more ideologically than political and certainly more broad and
universal than understanding and vision of an ordinary follower. Usually
he sees things and thinks in a way, which could not be explained at the
time. He might seem illogical and irrational but only time can prove their
correctness. Hence the follower has to follow his leader not on the basis of
understanding, but on the base of total trust
He added: We have seen our
leader in very difficult situations, and we have learned later how correct
he has been in his decisions. Apart from his political vision, and his power
in logic, speech, persuasion, his history of resistance under torture and
immense pressure, his sacrifices in different areas. . . . Above all these
advantages and capacities, he is different from us all and much in advance
of any of us, because of his ideological vision and status. In conclusion
he said: Even without a close encounter with Masoud, and perhaps with
little knowledge of the history and ideology of the Mojahedin, you have all
reached a common conclusion of accepting him as a leader and following his
orders, even if they contradict everything else. But because you have
accepted him with your mind and your logic, and not with your heart,
although you accept his word, you do not deny your doubt. This might be
ideal where you following a political leader. But since we are talking about
an ideological leader, it is far from good or even just all-right. To
follow him ideologically, and not only politically, you have to see him and
accept him not only in your mind, but in your heart. And you cannot do it
unless you first open your heart to him. You should have no secret from him,
no boundary should separate you from him. He should be the one and only, the
closest person to you. To reach this close relationship, you have to work
hard, beginning with the expression of all your contradictions and secrets,
especially those concerning him.
My personal Ideological Revolution
I thought that by this time I knew where I stood and where I was
aiming for. I thought I knew the procedure and what I had to do. After much
effort, I would often find minor untold secrets or contradictions and, by
writing about them in my weekly ideological report or, as it was called,
revolutionary report, I would feel that is it! and with a sham smile try
to show that I have revolted. But a look from Sister Tahereh, her
sarcastic remarks, and eventually her straight reproach would show me how
wrong I was and how far I was from revolting.
In one meeting a brother confessed that once after SW work he
had encounter with a prostitute. Anna jumped from her place shouting one
insult after another at him, finally saying he should leave the room and
never again face any of sisters who were present. I was shocked to see Anna
like that: angry, offensive, impolite, cruel. It was the first time in
thirteen years I had witnessed her abusing anybody. The incredible change
convinced me that she had indeed had her ideological revolution. Like others
in the meeting whose ideological revolution had been accepted, she no longer
criticised herself and instead attacked others. When she spoke about herself
it was to help others to revolt, to explain how she had reached that stage,
and who inspired her. In the same meeting she told us of a long poetic
letter printed in Mojahed, which had been her inspiration. It was by Mehdi
Khodaie-Sefat. To reach Annas level, I read it several times, but the more
I read, the less I understood how she could grasp its complexities. Now more
than ever I lost hope. As one of the masouls told me, I was so dependent on
my logic and the understanding of my mind that I was unable to see and
understand from heart. Once during one of the revolutionary meetings, I
was so desperate, and so angry with myself, with my mind and my logic, that,
alone in the toilet, I started banging my head and cursing myself. I knew
that I would lose everything, perhaps even my own mind, if I didnt revolt.
I would have to leave the organisation, to separate from Anna who, perhaps
as a result of revolting was going to Paris, or to fight in Kurdistan. I was
going to lose my political goal and my private life. At one point I felt
that my only alternative was suicide. But I thought of Sarvy and Hanif, and
started crying for them, perhaps even more for myself, as I thought how
ashamed they would be to have a defeated and wrecked father.
Noticing my catastrophic situation, Sister Tahereh called me to
her office and asked me why I did not revolt like the others?! I replied:
Do you think, I dont want to revolt?! Then, crying loudly, I added: but
I dont know how, She merely laughed and told me that she pitied me. You
are an able person, are you not? You have studied for long time, have you
not? You have read many books . . . but you are incapable of doing a simple
thing which many, less able, less educated, much younger than you
accomplished in a single day
You must have an untold secret which has
turned you to stone, made you heartless. You have to talk about it and set
yourself free. When you feel there is no barrier between you and the
leadership, then you will be able to revolt and fly, then you will be able
to see him with your heart and feel him with your whole being. Then you can
be unified with him.
My darkest and most tormenting memory, secret or, as such things
were known as contradiction, was of sexual molestation in my childhood. I
had never talked to anyone about it, and never wanted to think about it. Now
freed of all secrets in my political life, I was forced to remember the
darkest and deepest secret of my life. How could I talk or even write about
it? I knew from Iranian, perhaps a universal tradition, that this is the
darkest and deepest demon of all, and perhaps the most dishonourable. What
would happen to my dignity, my honour, my position among my friends,
comrades and, worst of all, my wife and children? How could I talk about it?
For several days, perhaps weeks the question engulfed me. Everything else
was forgotten in a blink. I was ate, drank, worked and talked with it, even
when I was asleep and dreaming. I could imagine faces or even thought of
different people close to me when were hearing this revelation. I felt the
shame and loneliness I was about to experience.
But what choice did I have? Either way I was about to loose
everything, my family and friends, my reputation and status in the
organisation, even my goal, my desire to help my people. But at least I was
no longer confused, puzzled or stupefied. It was hard, very hard, but at
least it was the solution! With it I could change the situation, run from
death, saves myself from madness
.
For going from our base to central base of the society, I had to
pass from a park. In that very disturbing, frightening, and in a way sad
spring, I once lingered for an hour or two in the park, watching ordinary
people, children playing with their colourful balls, couples hand in hand
walking and talking with smiles, a girl jogging to achieve the figure she
wanted, a man riding his bicycle, an old man smoking his cigarette, and an
old woman who was feeding pigeons. How beautiful ordinary life was, and how
far I was from it! The spring flowers were as sweet as ever, birds were
flying and singing, butterflies were dancing on the flowers and bees were
sucking their nectar. This was me who was sank in marshland of my thought,
my problems, my misery. Suddenly I felt that nothing worse could happen. I
might be left alone like the old man, smoking my cigarette, or the old woman
feeding pigeons. At that moment I could not see anything positive about
myself, I could not see the good things I had, my youth, my health, my
knowledge, my capacity to build another future for myself . . . . those
jewels of life, and many more valuable things, more than ever, during
ideological revolution were deprived of having any pride or
self-confidence. We were changed into worthless commodity. Not worthless,
let me be correct, shameful commodity. Thinking or remembering oneself
capacities and abilities, self-happiness, self-assurance, self-confidence,
were shameful, deplorable and outrageous. During those decisive moments I
remembered an Old Persian expression: fear is brother of death. To save
yourself from destruction and death you have to overcome and kill your own
fear. So I had to fight against my own fear, fear of loneliness. In another
word or perhaps from negative side of it, when one is desperate enough and
has no alternative, he has to think of worse and prepare himself for the
worse. And this was precisely what I did. Now I was brave and courage full
enough to write about my fear and my dark secret. And I did. In a way many
things changed for me, not when I wrote about it, but even before that, when
I prepared myself to write about them. Suddenly, instead of feeling heavy as
a mountain, unable to move an inch for millions of years. I felt as light as
those butterflies in the park, as beautiful and colourful as them and as
free as them. I felt no boundary, no restriction, no fear of the future, no
complex of the past, no question, no problem, no dilemma. I felt free as I
felt I have no need, when I overcame my biggest and deepest need, there was
nothing left to make me poor and in need. So I was rich, I was as rich as
one can be. I had killed my strongest fear, so I was strong, as strong as
one might desire.
I was not afraid of anything, I was strong, I was rich, I was
free, so I was happy, happier and more self-assured than ever. These
feelings were not hidden under my skin, nor were crawling about my mind and
heart. They were real, as real as I was. They were visible, noticeable and
crystal-clear to all who knew me. I had revolted, had my own ideological
revolution. Immediately afterwards I felt the gates of my heart has been
opened to every body and every thing. I felt I am more than ever capable of
loving, and giving. I could love God, all existence, all human beings, my
country, my people, my leaders, my masoul, my colleagues, those who worked
under me, my family, my wife, my children. I could feel my heart is as big
as be able to house all those loves at the same time and still there was
more room for loving many more unknown things. Now I could even not only
love but admire my own masoul, Sister Tahereh who was always teasing me,
abusing and insulting me, and even aimed to crush me. Sister Tahereh who
always tried to convince me I am nobody and nothing.
Now perhaps I was able to understand Masoud and Maryam, those
who could fight against their own fear, and overcome it. Fight against
historys old demagogues of ownership of women by men. Did they have the
right for whatever reason to marry each other? They say it was because of
the revolution and freedom of our country. They say if they were not
married, because of Islamic traditions and restrictions. They were not able
to work as close as they had to, and could not be as effective as they
wished to, or expected to, as the joint leadership of the Iranian
resistance. Their enemy were saying it was not the need of the revolution
but the sexual desire of Rajavi. They say he stole his friends wife. They
say he has broken all moral and honourable codes, traditions, customs. They
say their action not only is a shameful and disgraceful spot for Mojahedin
but for resistance forces against Khomieni, and further more for all
Iranian, and perhaps for all human kind. Those who could think deeper and
were more political and perhaps open minded. Said: it was need of Rajavi
himself as the leader of the Mojahedin to create a catastrophe to distract
all attentions, at least concerns of the organisations members, from his
failing policies in all directions. His defeat in different battle fronts,
in cities, and in Kurdistan. Lose of many supporters and members either
because of regimes executions, and imprisonment, or their lose of hope and
eventual passivity of them. His failure in creating a broad coalition. Those
who were more philosophical claimed that Mojahedin from a broad and popular
organisation have changed into a cult and compared this act with the acts of
many Gurus for testing their followers. Their trust, faith and obedience
toward themselves, one compared this with a story: The story of a
travelling Sufi guru, who, on being greeted by a large crowd, weeded out the
half-hearted from the true believers by urinating in front of them. The
faithful remained, but those weak in spirit left in disgust. What ever
reason, in our view a prehistoric taboo was broken, a woman had been able to
decide for herself, between her ideological believe and her commitment
toward her marriage and her child, she chose the former one. For a man as is
considered as complete human, this action could not bring any rumour or ill
faith remark. In whole history, in all different countries and cultures
including in Iran and in Islamic culture there has been perhaps millions of
examples of men leaving their wives and families for other women not because
of joy or sex but for political and perhaps ideological reasons. Those who
married their foes daughters to bring peace and stop bloodshed. Those who
changed their religion and had to divorce their wives and marry those from
the same faith. . . . . But for Maryam as a woman this was the worst crime
that she could commit. Though nobody was talking about Maryams role in this
affair. Mostly she was considered as some sort of commodity exchanged
between two men. She had to prepare herself for committing the worst crime,
which she could commit and prepare herself for any label, any curse and
abuse and maltreatment.
In their verbal or written reports of their ideological
revolution, some said that they were inspired by this courage of Maryam.
Hence they could face their own weakness and complex and overcome it. But in
my case it was completely opposite. First I faced my own fear and then start
seeing Maryams courage and struggle. In my long poetic letter to her I
wrote about my own revolution, and proclaimed that I have been able to see
her in my own revolution. Inspired by an Iranian poetic expression, story
of butterfly and candle, where candle burns itself to give light to
everybody and butterfly instead dances around candle till burning herself in
its flames. I expressed myself as a butterfly that wants to dance in the
fire of her sacrifice, to burn my own colourful wings, means losing all my
own characters, and being burned in the flame of that love, and melted in
the story of eternity told by her. Yes I asked her to let me to burn myself
alive in front of every body, as a genuine evidence for her true and real
revolution against all exploitation of mankind by men. Starting with worst
of all, the exploitation of women by men everywhere around the world.
Hold of the organisation united in expense of loses of
supporters
With the arrival of June, as usual we had to prepare ourselves
for June 20th demonstration. As in previous demonstrations I had
been successful in organising our supporters in Manchester and the Midlands,
I was sent north to recruit for the event. Unlike pervious times we had to
recruit people not only to join our demonstration in London but for going to
Paris for attending the meeting. I was told that all our close and trustful
supporters with valid passport should be nominated for going to Paris and
the rest of people had to be organised for coming to London. Apart from that
we had to talk to rich Iranian and persuade them to help us financially,
especially with the expenses of those who would travel to Paris, many of
whom were penniless. But I soon discovered that my task this time would be
not as easy as before. We had to talk for hours with the people we
approached. On previous occasions everybody had just one question: when are
we going back to Iran? Now everyone asked questions about the ideological
revolution moral, political, procedural, and even Islamic questions.
Thanks to my own revolution, I went on the offensive asking our critics to
explain exactly what wrong had been done. The most honest and frequent
answer, to which I have to admit I had no response, was that: it is going
to prolong the revolution as ordinary people cant understand it and will
consider it as immoral and corrupt. Any way however difficult, we could
manage to have our own demonstration in London and send enough people to
Paris. My team also managed to fulfil its finical commitment. We had with
difficulty attracted 600 people to our demonstration, but thanks to sister
Tahereh we claimed 1200 and were saved from those who wanted to say we had
lost support because of ideological revolution.
In the post-mortem council meeting held after the
demonstration, when we faced the real attendance figures, including
unemployed miners from the north east who joined the demonstration for a
free days sight seeing in London, to answer sister Taherehs criticism, we
had to number people who came from different region to see who was
responsible most for this embarrassing failure. Since the number of
people coming from outside London was known from the numbers in the buses,
surprisingly we reached to negative number from London. At this point the
person in charge of recruiting in London jumped from his chair with anger
and astonishment and said: so you mean that I not only didnt recruit any
body, including myself, to join the demonstration but I actually sent some
people from other cities away!! The truth was, however, that it had been
difficult to recruit people and the targets set for us had been impossibly
high. Furthermore, we all had to prove our revolution and a failure to meet
Sister Taherehs targets meant that our revolution was not genuine or good
enough. So somehow we had to lie, but in a way a white kind of lie without
feel of guilt. For example I myself was so desperate that in my report I
included those who promised us that they would come with their own cars,
though I was certain they would not show. Another masoul, instead of saying
how many people have come from his region talked about the capacity of buses
he had hired. But our lies were no worse than Sister Taherehs who counted
passers-by as demonstrators.
While I was in Manchester, I could see clearly negative reaction
to our ideological revolution. The number of those who were prepared to call
themselves supporters of Mojahedin had dropped dramatically. In the past,
people were shy and humble when they spoke to us, and felt indebted to us
because of our fight for their country. Now they were aggressive, even rude.
We had problem with our own members too. Among those under my
responsibility, there was a very young man called Ardevan. When I returned
from mobilisation I discovered that he had left the society. He was perhaps
my best member, and I liked him very much for his innocent, hardworking and
truthfulness. I was very upset, as we believed to live outside of the
organisation was equal to the destruction of our humanity. An end to our
existence as a free and honourable human beings. I tried very hard to find
Ardevan and persuade him to return. A few years later I did find him and he
re-joined us, but even then I could see this had little to do with the
Mojahedin and owed much more to personal friendship. As soon as I left him
with other masouls, he escaped again. In another case even a close
friendship with a member for whom I was responsible could not offset the
pressure of the ideological revolution. I gave Saleh permission to visit his
family in Manchester. A few days later I realised that he would not return.
For several weeks, I was unable to admit to sister Tahereh that I had
permitted him to go because I was sure of the organisation and perhaps
myself and my friendship with my boys. At that point still I could not see,
that the pressure on members was so great that no organisational or personal
tie could neutralise it or ease the pain created by the throwing them into
the fire as it was told by Rajavi himself.
Whatever our doubts about the size of the demonstration, we were happy
that its quality was high. We had five people dressed in white clothes as a
symbol of the 50,000 martyrs of the revolution, and fourteen people in
prison dress as a symbol of the 140,000 political prisoners held in Iran. We
had few people made up to look like Khomieni and his revolutionary guards,
and few people playing music, at the end of demonstration we had a play of
what is happening in Iran and what is going to happen eventually, namely
uprising of people and freeing prisoners and killing of Khomieni and guards.
Poor guards had so many beatings from not only prisoners but from martyrs
too which for several days were complaining from those beatings. We had few
speakers from labour and liberal parties. Among slogans of this
demonstration for the first time apart from our usual slogans including
Hail to Rajavi, we had very clamorous, controversial and new slogan of
Rajavi-Iran, Iran-Rajavi, which could imply Rajavi is equal to Iran and
vice versa. While we were repeating this slogan we had to cry very loud as
many were not repeating it and it was very embarrassing to see it ignored by
many including our close supporters.
In this demonstration close to the many photographs of
Masoud Rajavi, including one very large in front of the demonstration we
were moving large photographs of Maryam whose family name was now changed
from Azodanlu to Rajavi. Of course not because of marriage, as she was not
still married to Rajavi, or even so she didnt name herself Abrishamchii
when she was married to Mehdi Abrishamchii, but as later was explained by
her, because of resistance and symbolisation of residence in this name. She
said: many martyred Mojahedin Kissed the noose and in the name of Rajavi
accepted their execution. And many more prisoners were inspired by his name
to resist many kinds of torture and did not surrender or repent. Rajavi,
she added, is family name of all Mojahedin resisting Khomienis tyranny.
With the return of those attending the celebration in Paris we
were able to hear moving and fantastic news about that event. It didnt take
long when we received videotape and a colourful issue of Mojahed full of
beautiful pictures of Masoud and Maryam, among bunches of colourful flowers
at their marriage ceremony. From then on this day not only was celebrated as
the anniversary of the largest ever demonstration of Mojahedin in the
streets of Tehran, but also for this marriage which took place exactly four
years later.
That issue of Mojahed was treated like a rare commodity. All our
members wanted a copy and were prepared to pay any price for it. We rationed
it among different bases, but soon realised, presumably because there was no
demand among other Iranians, that we could have two each. Soon everyone had
photographs on their desk, and the pocket books and brief cases of our
members were all decorated according to the taste and artistic talent of
their owners with the wedding pictures. Our decorated pictures of Maryam and
Masoud became a talking point for us and objects of competition as we vied
with each other to show our love for the leadership and the depth of our own
revolution.
Apart from pictures, this issue of Mojahed was full of important
and moving speeches and hundreds of messages of support for the Iranian
resistance from political organisations, including the British Labour and
the Liberal parties and many individual members of parliament including
Conservatives. There were also letters of support from major French
political parties and many more governing parties from different European
countries and from fifteen members of the American congress.
For the ceremony, from pictures and its videotape one could
guess between one to two thousands members and close supporters were there
to witness this historical and moving event. In front raw were collection
of people from different walks of life, to show off the support among
different ranks of society, including sport-men, army personal, families of
martyred Mojahedin, old and famous members of Mojahedin. Stage itself was
full of different expensive, colourful flowers, which later on did create
many criticism and comparison of this ceremony with the events that used to
take place during Shahs era. Sitting beside them near a table were Masoud
and Maryam, Masoud in dark suit as usual without tie, and Maryam in simple,
white dress.
A marriage ceremony
The ceremony began with Maryam. She starts by talking about
Ashraf, the first martyred wife of Masoud, as symbol of revolutionary and
Mojahed women, and her ideological mother. Then she starts answering
different allegations against Masoud. She said: He is accused of being
selfish, power-thirsty, . While I have to say that a selfish person cannot
remain even among lowest rank of Mojahedin, and certainly not in the circle
of leadership. In a collective work, there is no room for self-interest . .
. . But if you (those who are accusing him.) know any other person more
capable than him, we have no objection in accepting him as our leader. But
first we ask him bunch of questions. Where have you come from?. What is
your struggle and revolutionary background against two recent dictatorship
in our country?. What have you done for people and revolution?. What
kind of problems of the revolution had been solved by you?. What is your
own organisation?. What is your strategic plan (for the resistance or
revolution)?. What is your alternative? (For the regime).
Then after talking about freedom of women, she start talking
about the marriage, its reason, and then she start answering related
questions, she said: Some ask if there is a need of marriage in circle of
leadership, what about when one of you die? I say this marriage did happen
just once. If Masoud dies, he is alive in me. . . . Some ask about family
values and welfare of my daughter? I have to say when there are fifty
thousand executions, and 140,000 political prisoners, when there are many
unsupported families and children, how Mehdi (Abrishamchii ) or I could
think of ourselves or our child? If we did, were not you questioning us for
that?. Then she said it was her right to divorce her husband, and it was
she who proposed to Masoud. Again she pointed the accusers and asked: why
didnt you talk as much as you did in this case, against crimes of
Khomienis regime?. You consider woman under ownership of men, as some kind
of merchandise which can be handed over between two men, the one who has no
right and no will of her own. . .
After Maryams speech, for the first time in Iranian and Islamic
history, Maryam as a woman read the Quran marriage sermon. Which brought
tear of happiness in all our eyes. While Masoud with his joking gestures and
comments, forced us to mix the tear with smile. Then there was column of
people toward their position for congratulating them. First, Mehdi
Abrishamchii, who forced us all to cry gravely. Then Mother and Father of
Rezaies family. Others, like ninety four years old father of one of the
martyred Mojahedin who start reading his poem for them and said: by the
grace of those two, Iran has become honoured, honouring is not only for
Iran, but for all Mojahedin who have become like sun, as all have been
honoured in the heart of people. . . . . Then there were sports champions
who present them with their medal and trophies.
Then after singing of Mojahedins children, who were hugged by
Masoud and Maryam, it was Masouds turn to give speech. As usual, a very
long and moving one. He start by reading a sentence from Quran and then,
with referring to children who sang for them, gave a story, story of
Phoenix, story of different birds including pigeons whom in their land
were not save from Hyenas with turbans, (referring to mullahs in Iran).
There were foxes (those who deceived people in aid of mullahs), and cats
(who were thief and were showing homage toward any body who was ready to
feed them, without any honour or loyalty.) Foxes and cats were aiding
Hyenas. Also there were rabbits that were ready to curl under-ground for not
seeing the crimes of Hyenas. Eventually birds from fire which was made to
cook them for Hyenas, decided to fly and find their own leader. They were
thirty and after long fly they became SEYEH MORGH (phoenix-the leader of
birds), and that phoenix today has been materialised in Maryam. (i.e.
phoenix in Farsi is SEYEH MORGH means thirty birds. so this is an
expression that they were thirty (and with collective effort and mind) they
became phoenix. (Their own leader)). Masoud finished his story with the
name of Maryam and immediately all people in videotape and in our meeting
room where we were seeing it stood up crying and clapping. Chanting:
Iran-Rajavi, Rajavi-Iran Then again he start numbering the accusations of
his foes and answering them, which were quite logical, and understanding and
brought more hate among us for his foes. Then he carried on to the pick and
climax of his speech, he said: This is new birth, an explosion, I am asking
you to come with me to infinity! First you have to judge me! You have to
accuse me! Accuse me as a dishonourable, disgraceful, capricious, person,
who has stolen his best-friends wife. You have to take me to your own
court, you have to judge me, if the accusers win, good for people who will
get rid of a leader like me. But if they lose, you have to come to aid me
with all your might; you have to put your hand in mine to destroy Khomieni
and to bring peace and freedom to our country. But that is not all, after
that you have to think, what did you think yourself? If what ever you
thought was correct so reject us as your leader. If not, you have to answer
where from did your thought came from? If it was not inspired from our
decision, it had to be from your own character and personality! (i.e. thief
thinks every body are thief too.) Hence in this case we are going to act
like mirror, a mirror that you will be able to see your own true face, in
it. Then with high emotions and very loudly he repeat a sentence from one
of the Persian poems: burn, burn, die, die, dont be afraid of burning and
die in the fire of this love. Then he said everybody has to die and born
again (this time not from your own mother but from Maryam.) . . . If any
body has not born again cannot call himself Mojahed, self-burning and
self-sacrifice, compare to what Mehdi and Maryam have done, is nothing.
Again he start reading following sentences of the same poem: die, die, when
you come alive from this smoke, you are all BADR MONIER. (Higher than
moon) Then came climax of climax of his speech, while he rose from his
seat, and was crying loud, said: What is the message? Yes, I have come to
sacrifice myself and my organisation and my generation, for the freedom of
people. For thousand times they drilled my heart, for thousand times they
put the hanging rope on my neck, thousand times they lashed my body, Yes I
am peoples Mojahedin, I am hundreds of thousands, I am representative of
generation of infinities. I have come to sacrifice myself for the freedom of
my chained people. Hi people of Iran, HAL MEN NASAR-A YANSORNIE (i.e.
famous sentences from Imam Hussein, is there any body to help me?). Well
who could not cry, who could not shut, who could not chant: BA MASOUD, BA
MARYAM MIJANGIAM TA AKHAR. (following Masoud, following Maryam, we are
going to fight till eventual victory).
Following that video, we had to revolt again. This time as it
was told by Masoud, we had to take him to negative infinity and accuse him
of any thing which we could think of, and then judge him, if we reached to
the verdict that he is not guilty, then we had to make him as mirror and
this time judging ourselves. Meant accusing ourselves for the same crimes,
which we accused him of. Following that we had to find our class tendencies.
And our true nature, hidden under nice and gentle behaviour of ours. Well
how difficult it was, we, most of us wrote pages of reports, naming,
describing and reasoning our own class tendencies, giving examples from our
past. From our tendencies we had to find whom were we closer too, Shah or
Khomieni?! Soon it became an expression among us, after asking each other if
we have revolted, to ask: how many Shah or Khomieni or both have we
swallowed? Then in ideological-revolutionary meetings one by one of us
had to go by the big board in front of everybody and divide it by two, in
one-side write: OLD and the other side, NEW. Then underneath of each
word write our way of thinking and behaviour and tendencies, in old time,
and what are they now after our revolution. Among one of people who were
under my responsibility there was one named Sharif, who was very fat and
simple and kind person. When they asked him to talk about his old, or as it
was custom naming oneself with prefix of old, he said: KOHNEH SHARIF.
Meant nappy of Sharif and not old Sharif as old and nappy are
pronounced with slight difference and write the same way in Farsi. So a very
serious meeting while all were deep in their own thinking and were crying,
exploded with laugh as every body immediately imagined the size and shape of
his nappy.
Now after we had our own revolution, we were asked to show the
videotape of the wedding to everybody. So as usual I was sent to Manchester
to recruit people to travel to London to watch it. It was unbelievable and
funny for many whom we were asking them to leave their work and come to
London just for seeing videotape. We had to invent many excuses for asking
this ridiculous demand. The truth was that the organisation wanted to show
how everybody is welcoming the ideological revolution, and our masoul was so
afraid of low turn out, in this meeting. Hence she wanted to bring anybody
interested, from whole country to fill the meeting place. To aid! Us we
were received the videotape of Abrishamchii about the ideological
revolution. While us and many close supporters were very interested to see
that tape, perhaps to answer some of our own questions, other peoples
reaction was completely opposite. He praised Rajavi like saints during whole
of his speech, which we didnt mind and didnt take notice of it. But apart
from us, it created strong negative reactions among those who saw it. So not
only that video didnt solve any problem, but even did create many more
problems. Forcing people to come in their own city to see that video tape,
by itself was a big task, and after that many with more questions and
spending six to seven hours to see that very long video tape, were not ready
even to talk to us, forget about coming to London. The day, when we wanted
to move to London, we found our buses almost empty, even close supporters
were hesitant to come, as many already had spent a lot of time for seeing
many different video tapes and many had seen the ceremony itself in Paris.
Hence we had to go to their houses one by one to ask them to fulfil their
promises and come with us. When we went to one of them who was living in
universitys residential hall, we found him sleep in his room, we were
pressing his doors bell and banging on his window, where from we could see
him sleeping and not responding to all our knockings. While he was
pretending he is asleep, we were worried if anything has happened to him.
Eventually we called the guard of the building to come and open the door for
helping him. The guard didnt believe us and came to knock the door himself.
When he saw no response, he became more worried than us and called for
Ambulance and brought the spare key to open the door. At this time our
supporter couldnt pretend any more and while he was pretending that he has
jumped from some sort of comma, thanked us very much saving him from
probable death. Any way he said as you can see I am not well at all so
excuse me for not coming to London.
In London as our masoul was advised from Paris, a very expensive
salon for showing the videotape was rented and was decorated with many
expensive flowers, perhaps to make life even more difficult for us in
answering even more questions.
Another divorce. Another marriage
In few weeks time it was announced that Brother Mehdi
Abrishamchii, one of the heroes of this revolution, would visit London to
tie our individual revolutions. An expression used by the Mojahedin during
ideological revolution, this meant helping people to conclude their
revolution and return to normality and stability in higher dimension.
To meet Abrishamchii in person was an unbelievable honour. The
thought of him talking to each one of us about our revolution and certifying
it drove us mad with excitement. The meeting was to take place in our base,
of which I was the masoul. So, as host, I was especially anxious, when he
entered the meeting room accompanied by two bodyguards, we clapped for
almost half an hour, till our hands turned red. He turned his back to us and
faced the pictures of Masoud and Maryam to show that our applause is not for
him but for the leadership, then started clapping too. He opened the meeting
by asking for someone to a volunteer to tell the story of his or her
revolution first. Immediately all hands went up. A long, emotional, and
perhaps unbelievable story thus began which continued for almost three days
without any sleep start by one of our sisters who start talking about
her own revolution.
It was summer, but for us, used to the hot Iranian summers of
Iran, it was like spring. The meeting room doors were wide open to the
garden, and one could see flowers, birds and the children, including Sarvy
and Hanif, were left alone to play any game they liked, however dangerous.
In the room we were far away from the truth and the reality of the material
world, or as we used to claim and call it: alienated and exploited
imaginary life. With each story of misery, complexes, misfortune and
dependency, we cried, feeling it was our own sometimes so loudly that the
walls of the room would shake, as if crying with us. Sometimes, when we
heard the story of a friends revolution we would clap with all our might
for long time. A few minutes later we were laughing loudly and singing one
of the Mojahedins anthems, or a love song. Later I learned that our
neighbours thought we must be holding a curious religious ceremony for the
death of a close relative and tried to show understanding. They even looked
after our children.
Although each time after the end of a speech, my hand, like many
others, shot up as high as possible for the next turn, deep inside me I
would rather die than talk. By now I had written everything, and had many
times prepared myself to talk; but it was still difficult to imagine
confessing my dark secret in front of everybody including Anna and people
under my own responsibility. Eventually brother Mehdi asked me to talk, but
first he said: I have a question, you asked in your report to be permitted
to burn yourself, may I ask, why? I replied: Well thanks to the
revolution, I have seen my filthy past, and I hate it with all my being.
So I want to burn myself so I can be born again as fresh and as clean as a
baby from Maryam. He asked me a few more questions, which I answered. I was
crying hard and wanted to talk. But he stood up and said: I praise the
Banisadrs courage. Not that Banisadr, (referring to my cousin, the
ex-president), who I hate, but this Banisadr who has been born from Maryam.
Then he started to applaud me and the others followed suite, as it was a
custom to clap for those whose revolution was accepted. This time, I was
really been ready to talk, but he didnt let me and said he has read my
report, and there is no need to repeat what I had said.
Soon it was Annas turn. Again he silenced her, instead asking
her if she was ready to divorce me. She started to cry loudly. I, sitting
few rows back was crying slowly too. After a long pause she said yes and
he asked me to stand up and answer the same question. I said yes too. He
asked us both to take our rings and give them to him. We did. He showed
those rings and said: yes those rings like many others are symbol of the
Mojahedins sacrifice for the freedom and independence of our country. May
God accept them. He repeated the procedure with a few other couples. And
then he asked us all to stand up and, to more weeping and enthusiastic
applause, he married us to our spouse in the name of Maryam and Masoud.
There were still a few left who had not had their revolution,
among them Behnam, a high-ranking member of the societys council who was
videoing. Suddenly we saw him banging very his head hard on his camera.
Blood was spurting everywhere. Behnam was under immense pressure to have his
revolution, and didnt know what to do. Perhaps, like me when I was in the
same situation he preferred to beat himself from anger and desperation.
People jumped towards him to stop and help him. He didnt say anything in
that meeting. But I think that sometimes later he did have his revolution.
Another was Sharif who was asked to stand up. Then Abrishamchii
asked him why has he not have revolted. He could not answer. Then he was
asked what is bothering him most? Again he had no answer. He was asked to
reconsider, to look at himself and see if any thing was wrong. Again no
answer. Some of us were angry at his ignorance, others were sad and crying
for him and still others were laughing slowly. Eventually Abrishamchii, who
was tired. Said: Youre a chubby guy arent you? He looked at himself and
said: Oh you mean this. Oh yes, thats right. Then Abrishamchii said: Yes
youre chubby, but youre a Mojahed, we have flabby Mojahed, bold Mojahed,
(pointing at himself.), blind and deaf Mojahed
but these are not the
adjectives which describe us, they are the values of those outside the
resistance. Here you are measured by your sacrifices and your honesty as a
Mojahed.
The meeting was ended by singing led by one of his bodyguards.
Then, as usual now, it was time to chant Iran-Rajavi, Rajavi-Iran for
almost half an hour.
After the meeting I was called to Abrishamchiis room and he
asked me, if I thought Anna was ready to go to Kurdistan to fight. I presume
before wanting to know about her, he wanted to know if I am ready to lose
her. I replied, I dont know, before this revolution, my answer would have
been no. But after the revolution I hardly know her to judge her. Then he
asked me about Banisadr and asked me to write something about him. Few days
later I did, but as my criticism was too mild, and was more logical than
emotional, he didnt like it very much. Although he accepted it, as one
might guess, it never was published in Mojahed.
Change of my name from Masoud to Masoud
Once the revolution was over we were told to go to our rest base more
often and spend more time, at least few hours a week, with our family. Even
Anna was asked by our new masoul, Sister Saeideh to go with children to
Frankfurt to visit her mother who had recently arrived there from Tehran.
After few days after Annas departure from London, Saeideh told me to join
her. But when I reached Frankfurt, Anna said that we both had orders to
return to London immediately where important news awaited us.
In London we discovered that most members of the society were
to leave us for either France or Kurdistan. The reason, we were told, was
that: as a result of revolution our capacity to work and accept of
responsibility has magnified by hundred times, so each one of us is capable
of doing the work of several people. Those who remained, including me, now
had to work much harder. I was told that from then on I would be the deputy
of the society in England. I was cried badly as I didnt want to stay in an
empty London and would rather be with my old friends in Kurdistan. But I
had no choice.
A few weeks later we received an order to mobilise and move most
of our supporters and members to Bournemouth as Maryam was going to attend
the annual conference of the Labour party there. At the conference we had to
face different kinds of foe, this time supporters of Tudeh and various
Fedaian who had gathered to disclose and reveal the true face of Mojahedin.
We were afraid that they might throw things, eggs or even a bomb at Maryams
car when she is going to conference building. As it turns out, our presence
there was so overcoming that it seemed conference is an Iranian one and has
nothing to do with British politic. Apart from them and supporters of other
left Iranian groups, the supporters of Right groups including supporters of
Bakhtiar, all united against us joined them. To watch them, to argue with
them, and to answer back their accusations in front of Labour party members,
instead of discouraging us was giving us more reason that we are right and
all of them are badly wrong. Even we were feeling pity for them for
following corrupt leaders of their organisations and wasting their time and
energy fighting against us while we were putting all our energy struggling
against Khomienis regime. We could see with our own eyes that our leaders
are right and those people are more worried of Mojahedin reaching to power
than crimes committed by Khomieni, every day in Iran.
One day during that gathering we were asked to go to Maryams
hotel. It was our first time seeing her, our saint, our prophet, our
heavenly angel. Sarvy was with us, and I was happy that she would see Maryam
and be kissed and fondled by her. In the same meeting as it was custom of
those days, as newborn babies to change our names and have name of one of
our hero or leaders as our name. When she starts talking with me and
mentioned my letter to herself. While I was crying from happiness asked her
to change my name. She said: well of course, what do you want to have as
your new name? I said, I want to change it from Masoud, to Masoud. At the
time I had no idea of the kind of crime and mistake I am committing by
wanting to be like Masoud. How could one dare to reach him and become like
glorious Masoud. But with her heavenly smile she accepted my request and
everybody clapped for me. Over the next few years I many times begged my
masouls to change my name again, but was refused each time. So I was left
with this poisonous shame, which was a sign of my ignorance, my self
confidence, and my arrogance.
After that meeting a few of us were asked to attend another
meeting with one of the high officials of the Mojahedin, Mohadessin. Sister
Tahereh was also present. For the first time Mohadessin talked about
organisation of Mojahedin and different ranks in the organisation. I found
out that by now my rank was SF-1, foreign sympathisers-1 (i.e. the highest
rank among supporters), but less than usual sympathiser as we were attracted
to the organisation, not in Iran, where we could be tested in facing the
regime and revolutionary guards, but in foreign countries. He told us: but
thanks to the revolution, you passed an even more difficult test than facing
execution and physical tortures. Then he explained to us the system of
ranks in the organisation. I learned that it began with member with the
code O, then there was OSH, a council member of the Nahad, (i.e. unit
structure of the organisation), then MN, deputy of the Nahad, then MS,
masoul or responsible of the Nahad, and M, the deputy of a member of
executive council, and HE member of the executive council, which was the
highest rank. We learned that to this point the difference between different
members was matter of quantity, while the difference between the leadership
and the rest of us was quality. Also the difference between O, a member of
the organisation and the lower ranks, K candidate of membership or S,
sympathiser (i.e. one rank less than K, a person who has accepted to live in
Mojahedin base and work full time for the organization and obey any order.
The crucial difference between S and O is that S still has not
accepted or understood the ideology of Mojahedin), and H a supporter (i.e.
one rank less than S, the one who still is not ready to live with
Mojahedin or work full time for the organization, or obey any order.) was
again qualitative. In the same meeting he told us about our own new ranks.
All gathered there were from then on members of the organisation, and I was
one of the highest among them, a MN. After his speech I asked for
permission to talk, and refused to accept membership of the Mojahedin. I was
very honest as I could see my Liberal and bourgeois tendencies very clearly
and could not accept myself as a member of my glorious organisation. I
described myself as dirty and unworthy. But he looked at me seriously
and said: you have had your ideological revolution, and it has been
accepted, and you have no right to call a revolutionary Mojahed, dirty.
Anyway from that time I became a member of the mother organisation and
remained so. I was told that Anna was very close to membership but not quite
there. She was recognised as K, candidate of membership and she had became
secretary of Saeideh, the masoul in London.
Few months later in a ceremony on 8 February, in a large
gathering of Mojahedin members and sympathisers, Masoud talked about new
shape of the organisation and its different ranks. He talked about a sharp
increase in the number of members and the growth of the old members as a
result of the ideological revolution. In that public speech which was very
difficult for even us to understand, Masoud announced that as a result of
the success and progress of the organisation following the ideological
revolution, all units of Mojahedin were changing into battalion units. He
said by now for every three-battalion unit we had 97 social units, but we
were going to mix those units and divide them into 33 commanding units for
different part of the country. Our firepower would thus increase immensely
and we would witness a quicker overthrow of the regime. With this conclusion
the ideological revolution within the organisation ended with glory and
success. We were happy to see that the result of our suffering is the
earlier overthrow of Khomieni regime and happiness and freedom of our own
people.
Changing into a preacher of the ideological revolution
Now had had our own revolution, we had to spread it everywhere, among
supporters. As deputy of the organisation in UK, and one who knew most of
the supporters and had close friendship with many of them, I began to travel
around the country to talk with them. I was very successful, especially in
Newcastle and Manchester where I knew many of the supporters closely and had
strong emotional ties with them. Because I liked these people I wanted to
share with them the joy I had found through the revolution. By now I knew
very well that like many other joys it may begin with pain. But I knew the
pain was short lived while the joy was permanent. Many opened their hearts
to me and told me secrets that had bothered them for years. We were told
that, for the supporters, the revolution would be much simpler than ours.
They simply had to see the organisation in new light and feel that their own
existence as a dignified human being and freedom loving Iranian depended on
their full commitment to it. They had merely to jump one step forward, and
many did. Over the next few months we had series of revolutionary meetings
for them supervised by a high-ranking member.
In those meetings my responsibility was to record and witness
their revolution and ask questions or give comments. But most of the time I
cried and suffered with them, as I could feel their individual pain. One man
had to leave his much-loved black girl friend to become a full time
supporter. He put his head on my shoulder and cried for a few minutes,
telling me how much he loved her, but with her attitude toward the
organisation he could not marry her and work with the Mojahedin at the same
time. Another had to leave his brother who was working in the Iranian
embassy, and show his readiness to kill him if it became necessary. A third
was addicted to alcohol and had to swear never to drink again. Yet another
had been in prison opium addiction. By joining the Mojahedin as full
committed supporters or members all were leaving something behind, something
dear to them, for their belief in the revolution, and belief that the
organisation and its leader would bring freedom and independence to our
country and its people. A young man, who was struggling between his love for
his wife and the organisation, described his dilemma in a symbolic form. He
looked at a picture of Masoud and said: whenever I look at that picture it
is from under of my eyes, as I can never look at it with my eyes fully open.
I see him talking with me. Talking about suffering of our people, hungry
women and children in the streets of Teheran and far cities and villages;
lines of soldiers killed in the war; those hanged in the streets; those
tortured in Khomienis jails. What right do I have to think about my own
happiness in this situation? What right do I have to think about my own
personal love and destiny? What kind of glorious future can I have with this
bad conscience, if I dont forget myself and join you? It is not matter of
choosing between you and my own wife. It is a matter of choosing between
living in hell, every day of my life as long as I am alive, or suffering a
bit because of my personal loss but feeling consciously free and sleeping
calm for the rest of my life.
Among those who had their revolution there were three English
women and one English boy. When they were speaking, I had to translate their
words. But how could I? I was simply happy and proud to see them revolting
at the same time as us and able to see the universal and widespread results
of our revolution. One woman was told us of her suffering during her
childhood, because of insults of her mother and the humiliation she suffered
in school. Another explained how empty ones life is in this society. She
was explaining that the only goal one can have is to become rich and have
several instead of one holiday a year. Even worshipping God is meaningless.
Those worshipped God in the past did so in order to be saved from an
insecure future. Now, with social security, they see no need for it any
more. Those who were afraid of God because of their sin are not any more
afraid, as they have seen those Gods worshippers in power with their
unbelievable sins. They see clearly if God want to put all those people in
hell, then there is no more room for them and their pity sins. She said:
We see and hear and read, immense suffering of other human beings in
different countries, not saying that we in first world have been their
main source of their suffering in first place. We satisfy ourselves by
giving small donation to different charities. But soon we learn that those
charities are saving ships not for those who are suffering, but for the
rich to escape taxes. At this point we feel we are paralysed and we prefer
to return to our own life and forget about them. We switch off the radio and
television, whenever it has that sort of news on, as they dont exist
is
there anyone to help those suffering people? Is there any body to help women
around the world who are considered as second-class citizens? Is there any
body, really fighting different discrimination? Is there anybody giving us
an objective worth living for, explaining why we were born, why we suffer
from different pains, get old and die? . . . I have found an answer to all
my questions. My answer is short and clear. It has materialised in two names
Masoud and Maryam.
In political scene there was also a sense of activity. Masoud
and Maryam met with different personalities here and there including King
Hussein of Jordan. This meeting created a lot of noise, especially among our
leftist foes who reminded us that a few years back the Mojahedin were
condemning King Hussein as a butcher of Palestinians and close friend of
Shah. But their jibes passed us by. For the first time General Assembly of
the United Nations condemned the violation of human rights in Iran and of
course we saw it as a fruit of our own effort, and our own revolution. The
Mojahedin published a new list of 12,000 Martyrs. Apart from showing the
atrocities of the regime, it was a kind of show off of their ability to have
detailed information from Iran, how widespread the organization is, which
organization has sacrificed more and their organized work. There were
photographs of a new march in Kurdistan, this time with heavy weapon and
mechanised units as well as people marching on foot. We could see them how
by standing on the hills they can write names of Masoud and Maryam and can
make Iranian map and in the middle of it name of Rajavi. Of course after any
of those news there were pages and pages of their coverage in different
papers and media of the world. There was news of increase in propaganda
activities of Mojahedin inside Iran and how people are welcoming the
ideological revolution of Mojahedin, including the news of 120 million Toman
help of an Iranian merchant.