26th June 2009
The Ayatollah Khomeini’s Influence
Gelyn fy ngelyn yw fy nghyfaill, meddai’r hen ddihareb. Ond sioc a siom oedd clywed Arlywydd Venezuela, ac arweinydd pwysicaf a mwyaf carismataidd y Chwith yn ystod y chwarter canrif ddiwethaf, Hugo Chavez yn amddiffyn ei “gyfaill” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yr wythnos hon yn wyneb protestiadau torfol yn Iran a beirniadu byd-eang.
Mae’r berthynas rhyfedd yma rhwng y Marcsydd Lladin-Americanaidd a’r ceidwadwr Islamaidd wedi bloeduo ers rhai blynyddoedd. Siwr iawn mae yna dipyn o safleoli strategol tu ol i hyn: mae Iran yn gynghreiriad pwysig o fewn OPEC sydd wedi helpu Venezuela i yrru’r pris olew yn uwch – allweddol i raglenni cymdeithasol Chavez – y missiones – a’i bolisi o olew rhad i wledydd sosialaidd cyfagos fel Ciwba.
Ac eto pan welwch chi lluniau o fechgyn pymtheg mlwydd oed yn cael eu crogi am eu bod yn hoyw – mae’n anodd i faddau’r peth oherwydd realpolitik. Mae ceisio portreadu Ahmadinejad yn rhyw fath o arwr y tlodion gwledig hefyd yn gor-symleiddio’r sefyllfa. Mae pobl mewn ardaloedd gwledig yn fwyfwy dibynnol ar nawdd o’r canol – ond mae hynny gan fwyaf oherwydd polisiau economaidd trychinebus y llywodraeth.
Byddai fe yn gamgymeriad, wrth gwrs, i bortreadu Mor Hissein Mousavi fel radical yn nhermau gorllewinol. Fel cyn-brif weinidog mae yn ffyddlon i’r Weriniaeth Islamaidd ac mi oedd ei gyfnod e mewn grym ymhlith y mwayf waedlyd, gyda 30,000 o garcharorion gwleidyddol yn cael eu lladd – er bod ei gefnogwyr yn mentro mai’r Ayatollah Khomeini oedd tu ol i hyn.
Mae yn wir bod Mousavi yn gyn-sosialydd, ar adain chwith y Chwyldro Islamaidd. Mae ei wraig, Zahra Rahnavard, yn llawer mwy radical hyd yn oed na fe, yn gyn-ganghellor prifysgol, yr unig fenyw i ddal swydd tebyg ers y saithdegau ac o fewn y cyd-destun Iranaidd yn ymgyrchydd dros hawliau menywod. Yr hyn sydd yn ddiddorol amdani hi a’i gwr yw eu bod nhw yn ddilynwyr Ali Sharia’ati – un o feddylwyr pwysicaf Islam yn yr ugeinfed ganrif, sydd yn anadnabyddus yn y Gorllewin er iddo farw – o bob man – yn Southampton yn 1977. Fe geisiodd Sharia’ati cyfuno Islam a sosialaeth mewn rhyw fath o adlais Moslemaidd o ddiwyniddiaeth rhyddhad. O fewn ei ddiwylliant brodorol fe gyferbynodd e “Shia coch” a phwyslais ar gyfiawnder cymdeithasol a “Shia du” a’i bwyslais ar rym clerigol. Yn anffodus, o fewn y Weriniaeth Islamaidd ‘shia du’ yr Ayatollah Khomeini a ennillodd.
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My enemy’s enemy is my friend, goes the old saying. But it was a shock and disappointment to hear the President of Venezuela, and the Left’s most important and charismatic leader in the last quarter-century, Hugo Chavez, defending his ‘friend’ Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week in the face of mass protests in Iran and international criticism.
The strange relationship here between the Marxist Latin-American and the Islamic conservative has bloomed for several years. Certainly there’s a little of strategic positioning behind it: Iran is an important ally within OPEC which has helped Venezuela drive higher the price of oil – key to Chavez social programme – the missiones – and his policy of cheap oil to nearby socialist countries such as Cuba.
And yet when you see photographs of fifteen year old boys being hung for being gay, it’s difficult to justify this through realpolitik. Trying to portray Ahmadinejad as some sort of hero of the rural poor is also to over-simplify the situation. People in rural areas are more and more dependent upon support from the centre – but this is mostly because of the government’s disastrous economic policies.
It would be a mistake, of course, to portray Mor Hissein Mousavi as a radical in Western terms. As former prime minister he is faithful to the Islamic Republic and his term in power was amongst the most bloody, with 30,000 political prisoners being killed, although his supporters venture that the Ayahtolah Khomeini was behind this.
It’s true that Mousavi is a former socialist, on the left wing of the Islamic Revolution. His wife, Zahra Rahnavard, much more radical even than he is, is a former university chancellor – the only woman to hold this post since the seventies and, in the Iranian context, a campaigner for women’s rights. What is interesting about her and her husband is that they are followers of Ali Sharia’ati – one of Islam’s most important thinkers of the twentieth centuries, who was unknown in the West despite his death – in all places – in Southampton in 1977. Sharia’ati tried to merge Islam and socialism in some form of Moslem echo of theological freedom. In his native culture he opposed ‘Red Shia’ with the emphasis on social justice with ‘Black Shia’ with its emphasis on clerical power. Unfortunately, inside the Islamic Republic, it was the Ayatollah Khomeini’s ‘Shia Du’ which won.
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