Amir Taheri: differenze tra le versioni

*L'ho incontrato per la prima volta al Cairo, ai funerali di [[Gamal Abd el-Nasser|Nasser]], nel settembre 1970. Appena ha saputo che le camere della televisione erano state installate nella grande sala del palazzo di Al Qoubbah, si è messo a singhiozzare. Le sue grida («Oh, padre di Khaled, oh, eroe dell'arabismo!») ferivano le nostre orecchie, ma gli guadagnavano l'affetto degli egiziani. Khaled è il nome del figlio primogenito di Nasser. A spettacolo concluso, venne a stringerci la mano. Non aveva versato una sola lacrima e ostentava un sorriso enigmatico. Era stata tutta una sceneggiata. (da un'intervista nel 1986 su [[Mu'ammar Gheddafi]]<ref>Citato in [[Angelo Del Boca]], ''Gheddafi: Una sfida dal deserto'', Laterza, 2014. ISBN 88-581-1188-5</ref>)

 

:''The very idea of using the prophet Muhammad as a character in a novel is painful to many Muslims. The entire Islamic system consists of the so-called'' Hodud, ''or limits beyond which one should simply not venture. Islam does not recognize unlimited freedom of expression. Call them taboos, if you like, but Islam considers a wide variety of topics as permanently closed. Most Muslims are prepared to be broad-minded about most things but never anything that even remotely touches their faith.''<ref name="scapegoat">{{en}} Da ''"Khomeini's Scapegoat"'', ''Times'', Londra, 13 febbraio 1989.</ref>

 

:''To Muslims religion is not just a part of life. It is, in fact, life that is a part of religion. Muslims cannot understand a concept that has no rules, no limits. The Western belief in human rights, which seems to lack limits, is alien to Islamic traditions.''<ref name="scapegoat"/>

 

:''Few cultures hold the written and printed word in so much awe as Muslims, even though the vast majority are illiterate. When a Muslim wants to clinch an argument he says, "It is written."''<ref name="scapegoat"/>

 

:''The Arab League was a British colonial creation to perpetuate despotic regimes in the context of the Cold War. The world has changed since then, and new Iraq could become a symbol of that change. Apart from a few thousand bureaucrats, nobody wants the Arab League.''<ref>{{en}} Da ''[http://nypost.com/2011/04/19/a-league-of-despots/ A league of despots]'', ''NYPost.com'', 19 aprile 2011.</ref>

 

:''Assad appears to have decided to purge his government of anyone remotely suspected of sympathizing with the pro-democracy uprising — with his first priority being to reassert control of the armed forces. To hammer that home, he's appearing on state TV in military uniforms in his role as commander-in-chief — his chest often covered with Syria's highest military decorations for bravery, although he's never done military service.''<ref>{{en}} Da [http://nypost.com/2011/08/12/the-lonely-dictator/ ''The lonely dictator''], ''NYPost.com'', 12 agosto 2011.</ref>

 

:''Liberated, Iraq is the only Arab country, so far, to have changed governments three times through elections and also the only one where all political parties operate freely. Iraqis didn't achieve what they hoped; they achieved what they could. The invasion was not about the United States setting up bases or stealing Iraq's oil or using Iraq for an invasion of Iran, as [[Saddam Hussein|Saddam]]'s apologists claimed. Nor was it about imposing democracy by force. It was about two things: stopping a time bomb that was ticking in the heart of the region and removing the impediment to democratization that was Saddam's regime. More than a million Americans fought and worked in Iraq. They share part of the credit for the fact that Iraqis today are able to run their own lives without fear. They can be proud that, once again, American power was used to free a nation from tyranny.''<ref>{{en}} Da [http://nypost.com/2013/03/19/what-saddams-ouster-achieved/ ''What Saddam's ouster achieved''], ''NYPost.com'', 19 marzo 2013.</ref>

 

:''If we regard Iran as a nation, there is no reason it shouldn't have correct relations with the United States or any other country. Decades of opinion polls show that a majority of Iranians have a good opinion of America. But Iran today suffers from a split personality: It is both a nation and, as the Islamic Republic, also a messianic cause. And the Islamic Republic of Iran, far from being part of the solution, is at the root of the conflict tearing the Middle East apart.''<ref>{{en}} Da ''Have the Mullah's Abandoned their Dreams of Empire?'', ''Elaph.com'', 16 novembre 2014.</ref>

 

:''When I asked Bhutto what he thought of Assad, he described the Syrian leader as "The Levanter." Knowing that, like himself, I was a keen reader of thrillers, the Pakistani Prime Minister knew that I would get the message. However, it was only months later when, having read Eric Ambler's 1972 novel The Levanter that I understood Bhutto's one-word pen portrayal of Hafez Al-Assad. In The Levanter the hero, or anti-hero if you prefer, is a British businessman who, having lived in Syria for years, has almost "gone native" and become a man of uncertain identity. He is a bit of this and a bit of that, and a bit of everything else, in a region that is a mosaic of minorities. He doesn't believe in anything and is loyal to no one. He could be your friend in the morning but betray you in the evening. He has only two goals in life: to survive and to make money [...] Today, Bashar Al-Assad is playing the role of the son of the Levanter, offering his services to any would-be buyer through interviews with whoever passes through the corner of Damascus where he is hiding. At first glance, the Levanter may appear attractive to those engaged in sordid games. In the end, however, the Levanter must betray his existing paymaster in order to begin serving a new one. Four years ago, Bashar switched to the Tehran-Moscow axis and is now trying to switch back to the Tel-Aviv-Washington one that he and his father served for decades. However, if the story has one lesson to teach, it is that the Levanter is always the source of the problem, rather than part of the solution. ISIS is there because almost half a century of repression by the Assads produced the conditions for its emergence. What is needed is a policy based on the truth of the situation in which both Assad and ISIS are parts of the same problem.''<ref>{{en}} Da [http://www.aawsat.net/2015/02/article55341622/opinion-like-father-like-son ''Opinion: Like Father, Like Son''], ''Ashraq Al-Awsat'', 20 febbraio 2015.</ref>

 

:''Khamenei is not the first ruler of Iran with whom poets have run into trouble. For some 12 centuries poetry has been the Iranian people's principal medium of expression. Iran may be the only country where not a single home is found without at least one book of poems. Initially, Persian poets had a hard time to define their place in society. The newly converted Islamic rulers suspected the poets of trying to revive the Zoroastrian faith to undermine the new religion. Clerics saw poets as people who wished to keep the Persian language alive and thus sabotage the ascent of Arabic as the new'' lingua franca. ''Without the early Persian poets, Iranians might have ended up like so many other nations in the Middle East who lost their native languages and became Arabic speakers. Early on, Persian poets developed a strategy to check the ardor of the rulers and the mullahs. They started every'' qasida ''with praise to God and Prophet followed by panegyric for the ruler of the day. Once those “obligations” were out of the way they would move on to the real themes of the poems they wished to compose. Everyone knew that there was some trick involved but everyone accepted the result because it was good. Despite that ''modus vivendi'' some poets did end up in prison or in exile while many others spent their lives in hardship if not poverty. However, poets were never put to the sword. The Khomeinist regime is the first in Iran's history to have executed so many poets. Implicitly or explicitly, some rulers made it clear what the poet couldn't write. But none ever dreamt of telling the poet what he should write. Khamenei is the first to try to dictate to poets, accusing them of “crime” and “betrayal” if they ignored his injunctions.''<ref name="dictatespoetry">{{en}} Da ''[http://www.aawsat.net/2015/07/article55344336/when-the-ayatollah-dictates-poetry When the Ayatollah Dictates Poetry]'', ''Ashraq Al-Awsat'', 11 luglio 2015.</ref>

 

:''Four decades after the mullahs created the Khomeinist republic their revolution has not produced a single poet worth the name. Khomeini and Khamenei, both amateur poets, have produced nothing but frankly embarrassing imitations of classical'' ghazal ''without its charm.''<ref name="dictatespoetry"/>

 

:''Poetry interprets the chaos of human life and tries to bestow meaning on it. Without imagination there could be no poetry; and imagination chained by ideology produces only propaganda.''<ref name="dictatespoetry"/>

 

:''Despite efforts to disguise his hatred of Israel in Islamic terms [...] Khamenei is more influenced by Western-style anti-Semitism than by classical Islam's checkered relations with Jews. His argument about territories becoming "irrevocably Islamic" does not wash, if only because of its inconsistency. He has nothing to say about vast chunks of former Islamic territory, including some that belonged to Iran for millennia, now under Russian rule. Nor is he ready to embark on Jihad to drive the Chinese out of Xinjiang, a Muslim ''khanate'' until the late 1940s. Israel, which in terms of territory accounts for one per cent of Saudi Arabia, is a very small fry. Khamenei's shedding of tears for "the sufferings of Palestinian Muslims" are also unconvincing. To start with, not all Palestinians are Muslims. And, if it were only Muslim sufferers who deserved sympathy, why doesn't the "Supreme Guide" beat his chest about the Burmese Rohingya and the Chechens massacred and enchained by Vladimir Putin, not to mention Muslims daily killed by fellow-Muslims across the globe?''<ref>{{en}} [http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6263/khamenei-israel-palestine ''The Ayatollah's Plan for Israel and Palestine''], ''Gatestone Institute.org'', 31 luglio 2015.</ref>

 

:''The core of the Syrian tragedy consists of the fact that Assad and ISIS represent the two faces of the same coin. Both want the Syrian people, or what is left of them inside the country, scripted out of the equation. Both have enough of a popular base to hang on for some more time even if they did not receive succor from the outside which they regularly do. At the same time neither is strong enough or is ever likely to have the popular base to impose its agenda on Syria.''<ref name=cynics/>

 

:''Khomeini was one of some 200 Ayatollahs and never considered by others as "supreme" in anything. His limited knowledge of theology and history and his inability to master Persian and Arabic at a high level meant he would never attain the summit within the Shi'ite clerical hierarchy. Khomeini was a politician and owed his place in the Iranian panorama to the success of his political movement against various rivals and adversaries.''<ref>{{en}} Da [http://english.aawsat.com/2017/03/article55369052/iran-khamenei-debate-starts ''Iran after Khamenei: the Debate Starts''], ''Ashraq Al-Awsat'', 10 marzo 2017.</ref>

 

 

===''The Unknown Life of the Shah''===

:''The Shah described the modernisation of Iran as the principal goal of his life, and yet he adamantly refused to see that there could be no veritable modernisation without democracy. He often referred to his Swiss education as part of his credentials as a profoundly committed democrat, but was, at the same time, convinced that Iran was not yet ripe for democracy, and that it was his duty as "the father of the nation" to save the Iranians from a slothful life of prayer, pilgrimage, small commerce, backward farming and cottage industry. He also wanted to turn Iran into a second Japan, make her one of the five or six major world powers by the end of the century. He regarded himself as the custodian of Iran's grandeur and freedom and in later years he extended his self-proclaimed mission of saving Iran to include the entire world.'' (p. 4)

 

:''More than a decade after the Shah's death it is no longer necessary to be for or against him on all matters. How could one be for or against everything that happened during a reign of nearly thirty-eight years? How could Iranians not be for him when he fought over Azerbaijan or when he gave the royal assent to the bill that nationalised Iran's oil? How could one be against the principle of land reform or the enhancement of women's status? And did he not deserve support when he fought for a more just system of production and pricing for oil, which he called 'a noble substance'? But how could anyone be for him when he closed all doors on discussion and debate and effectively drove many intelligent and patriotic Iranians into the arms of reactionary mullahs? And how could one approve of the unchecked intervention of the SAVAK secret police in virtually all aspects of life, especially in the 1970s? Last but not least, it would be difficult to understand, much less to justify, his almost pathological belief that only the major powers were capable of either protecting or destabilising his regime.'' (p. 5)

 

:''Since the Persian monarchy began some 2550 years ago, Iran has had more than 350 kings. No fewer than half of them were either assassinated or killed in battle. Many went into exile to escape death. Iran's long history is full of fallen crowns and shattered imperial dreams. Of Mohammad-Reza Shah's five immediate predecessors, one was assassinated and three were forced into exile. What makes Mohammad-Reza Shah's tragedy special is that he was, perhaps, the first Iranian king in more than a century to have a real possibility of ending his reign peacefully and dying in his own country. That this was not the case was, to a large extent, the result of Iran's chronic political underdevelopment. But the Shah's own failure to operate within the realities of Iranian society – unpleasant as they undoubtedly were – contributed to his downfall and its dramatic consequences for the nation as a whole. The fall of the Shah was, in a sense, the prelude to more than a decade of instability in the region, culminating in the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent massacre of Kurds and shi'ites in Mesopotamia. It may take Iran and her region many more years before the shockwaves unleashed by the fall of the Shah are fully absorbed.'' (p. 6)

 

:''Determined to revive Iran's "Aryan" past, the army created by Reza Khan in 1921 considered it a duty to purge the Persian language of as many borrowed Arabic words as possible. The result was a "pure" vocabulary that was, at times, totally incomprehensible to most average Iranians.'' (p. 27)

 

:''Reza Shah was not an atheist and could best be described as an agnostic. He was, for a while, fascinated by the teachings of Zoroaster, Iran's pre-Islamic prophet, but his fascination should be understood in the context of his old soldier's dream of restoring Iran to its ancient grandeur. Mohammad-Reza, on the other hand, was deeply religious, even to the point of rejecting all free will.'' (p. 31)

 

:''Reza Shah had been a powerful leader only partly because of his position, and Mohammad-Reza was fully conscious of the fact that he had few of his father's natural assets. The new Shah had received a democratic training which meant that he knew that there were different views on every issue and that reality could be contemplated from many different angles: this made him hesitant and indecisive where his father had been determined and resolute. Mohammad-Reza wanted to be loved for his person: Reza Shah never knew what love was, asking only to be obeyed. The new Shah was polite and shy and anxious not to offend: the old Shah deliberately terrorised members of his entourage in order to keep them constantly on their guard. Reza Shah had been a born leader; the new Shah had to learn to become one.'' (pp. 63-64)

 

:''The Shah himself was uncomfortable in the role of the martyr. His character favoured acts of heroism. He wanted to be a winner, as he had been at the school sports tournaments at Lucerne. His European education prevented him from understanding the psychology of his own people. He did not know that the Persians instinctively suspected and disliked the strong, the winner and the hero. They obeyed Reza Shah but never loved him: now they loved Mohammad-Reza Shah but did not wish to obey him. The Shah's almost pathological dislike for what he saw as "filthy politics" prevented him from understanding the necessity – not to say the legitimacy – of flattering at least a part of popular prejudices.'' (p. 70)

 

:''Mossadeq made the crowds laugh and cry. He confirmed their prejudices and superstitions and flattered their vanities – they were, in most cases, all they had left. They loved him, but did he love them? No one could know for sure.'' (p. 123)