Zand-Bonazzi: The only way is for the Islamist fascist rule of the Iranian Mullahs to be completely unseated and replaced with a completely secular government in Iran, one which has separated the "church" from the state, as various righteous Ayatollahs, such as Montazeri, Taheri and Haéri advocate and bravely fight for.

Iranians have been contending with these brutal issues for 25 years and now this "virus" is spreading. We have fought on our own and we have had not only no help but we’ve been actively ignored when we complained; however now it is clear that Iran was just the launching pad for the spread of this murderous ideology and I hope that that is clear.

A good example is the on-going saga of the two French hostages; the French are refusing to lift the ban on the Hijab because in a sense, they wish to enforce or I should say, protect their national identity, as a secular country. The French government has been negotiating the release of these two French journalists who are in custody of the terrorists; after having paid out a huge sum of money to the terrorists, brought French Moslem Imams to the negotiation table, etc. nothing has worked and in the end the ultimate demand is very clear: lift the ban on the Hijab or else. Even the old and poor women who the Mullahs pay (they receive $10 as well as some food) to come and demonstrate for them were brought out in droves in Tehran demonstrating this in order to prove a point to the French...The buck stops in Tehran! The hostages are collateral against the French.

Further, the ruling Mullahs in Iran have even made their usual roguish insincere offer to French Moslem women who wish to wear the Hijab and get an education, to go to Iran and study there at the expense of the Mullahs! What the Mullahs don’t reveal however is that there isn’t enough money to go around for the best Iranian students to get into schools and universities, let alone some "guest." 

I was in Paris back in April and I was taken by a relative to meet a rather large group of Moslem French girls who openly admitted to me that most of them are not virgins (they were all in their late teens and most were from various Arab countries) and that they only date French boys behind their families´ backs. They explained that men from their own community are hot-headed and take out their frustrations on their (young and Westernized) women relatives mostly; these men have become very French in certain ways but at the same time in order to "distinguish" themselves in French society, they have wrapped themselves up in this Islamist cloak in order to intimidate their French "invaders." 

Islamism has become their weapon and frankly that is very sad. So North Africans (Tunisian and Algerians) have essentially abandoned their Carthaginian and Phoenician heritage in favor of some random zealot’s erroneous Islamist harangue. Iranians on the other hand have held on tight to their Persian identity, which is why Islamism is now completely and actively denied. Iranians embrace the spiritual aspects of Islam like Sufism, mysticism and ecstatic awareness. But I digress...

At this juncture, we Iranians are hoping that Westerners understand the very real threat that these people pose to their societies and join us in our struggle against the further spread of this madness (through well organized and continuous acts of civil disobedience and factual and unbiased education). This is not a situation that the left can or should co-opt in order to beat the right with either; it’s everybody’s problem.

Very early on in the revolution, Khomeini demonstrated his loathe for the left by killing off a huge number of leftists who had supported him. The very active heart of the Iranian left, the Fadayeen Khalgh do not support the Mullacracy; I seriously don’t understand why the Western leftists attempt to do so! The fact is that the so-called Reformist camp is made up of Islamo-leftists who nonetheless advocate imposing the Supreme Leader’s interpretation of the Shariá on society. This is still bad news for women. Proof: when it was announced that Shirin Ebadi had won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2003, she was in Paris, not wearing the mandatory headscarf at her press conference and for the first few days she made great statements such as: "instead of telling Muslim women to cover their heads, we should tell them to use their heads. We must not accept anything that is rejected by our reason." A couple of days later Khatami gave Ebadi a very stern public warning, saying, “Ebadi should not abuse her new status!"  After that Ebadi capitulated and began to tow "God’s" party line!

I would like to thank you for inviting me to participate in your Symposium. I hope my comments have been helpful in illuminating a small part of what Iranian women and female children have had to endure for a quarter of a century. It is important that the West really comprehends that no one is immune anymore and that Christian, Jew, Moslem or Buddhist...the function of religion really needs to be a person’s relationship with one’s own God and not a weapon that one can utilize to threaten humanity.

FP: So my question, what can we do to liberate Iranian women in Iran and all women who suffer under Islamism? You say to bring down the Iranian regime. Ok. So how do we work toward that goal? What is the best way to make a revolution possible?

Zand-Bonazzi: We must make EU understand that time for dialogue is over and that they must stop doing business with the Mullahs. The firm decision must be made, once and for all to bring the case of the Mullahs to the Security Council for sanctions (that Iranian people INSIDE Iran have been desperately seeking for the last 3 years). There is simply no other way. Bombing Iran or invasion is simply not an option...but when the entire world gets together and blocks these characters, the Iranian people inside Iran will feel empowered and well supported and will happily do the rest!

Kobrin: The first thing which must be done is to begin to make the link between violence behind closed doors of the home and violence in public spaces. A serious discussion concerning the centrality of the hatred of women in political violence must occur. It is not tangential -- it is key. Political leaders worldwide are capable to take this step and to connect the dots. Zero will change if this is not done. The Mullahs' terrorism needs to be exposed for what it really is -- that it is nothing more than learned behavior in the home by age three -- the need to hate and the need to have an enemy. The first person to be hated is the early mother of childhood. Hatred of the mother gets translated into the hatred of women and little girls but it goes unrecognized. So if you were to tell the late Ayatollah Khomeini that he hated his mother and therefore he abused his wife Batool, he probably would have sung his mother's praises in complete and total denial.

Yet, we are all in denial so long as we refuse to see that the problem is right under our nose -- the hatred of the mother and how that takes shape in fantasy and reality. We all harbor the potential to murder. In cultures where shame, honor and blood vengeance is the norm, women and little girls most especially will continue to be completely devalued and their lives expendable. In the end violence is violence --  it does not care if you call it political violence or domestic violence.

Second, education is key to debunking what these charlatans are all about and how they manipulate others by terrorizing them. The Mullahs use the executions as a tactical tool to achieve a political end just as Hizbollah initiated suicide terror attacks as a tactical tool to achieve its political end.

Finally, freedom is very scary because it means assuming responsibility and making change. What is familiar, even if it is terrifying and abusive, is felt to be better than nothing. Yet even the smallest gesture of support holds the potential for effecting change. In the end a regime which executes a young sixteen year old girl for "acts incompatible with chastity," has sown its own demise. The Mullahs do not know how revealing their murderous behavior really is.

FP: Thank you Ms. Kobrin, but can you please specify your answer to my question? What can we do in the West to free women who are enslaved by Islamic fundamentalism? Give a few concrete suggestions. I take it you are saying in general that we ourselves must work on our own misogyny and also proclaim moral support to those persecuted behind the Mullahs’ Curtain. Can you just briefly crystallize a few suggestions?

Kobrin: At a grass roots level it is imperative that we maintain contact with our local, state and federal government representatives and advocate for women's rights, most especially within Iran and the larger Arab Muslim world.

Misogyny is NEVER acceptable. Much can be done locally too as there are now large Muslim immigrant communities throughout the United States, Europe and even Latin America. Helping these communities and their women integrate into American society for example, gives them a new experience which they relate to those back home. Meeting with other women in an interfaith setting on an ongoing basis can also provide support to those Muslim women who are attempting to promote change within their communities. I do not pretend that there are a series of concrete things that can be done - often the most important is the one that is done the least -- namely to listen carefully to the other in order to offer perhaps, a new perspective, a new possibility.

FP: Dr. Hughes, last word goes to you. What can we do to liberate the persecuted under this Islamist Evil Empire?

Hughes: Women and girls cannot be liberated from the grip of the misogynous mullahs without overthrowing the entire theocracy and freeing all the people of Iran. The only acceptable form of government which will give women full citizenship and equal opportunity for full participation in all areas of society is a democracy with separation between mosque and state.
 
The Iranian theocracy cannot be reformed. Iran is a dictatorship based on the ruling principle of velayat-e fahiq which means rule by the supreme religious leader who has “guardianship” over the entire country. Ayatollah Khomeini was the first supreme leader, and after his death he was replaced by Ayatollah Khamenei, who still rules. The supreme religious leader holds decision making power over all major departments, most importantly the police, military, and intelligence services. He heads the Council of Guardians that decides who can run for office and can veto any laws passed by the parliament. The velayat-e-fahiq is not a system that can be reformed. That is why western leaders’ 25 year search for moderate mullahs and reformists has failed.
 
There is no doubt the people, particularly the women, of Iran are past ready to kick out the mullahs. For years there have been local and national demonstrations against the regime by workers, teachers, and students. (I recommend the following three news sites that report resistance activities: The Student Movement Coordinating Committee http://www.daneshjoo.org/, Iran Focus http://www.iranfocus.com/, and Iran va Jahan http://iranvajahan.net/english/). The regime brutally suppressed all opposition. One exile group estimates that the Iranian regime has murdered 120,000 people for political activities against the regime. It is hard for us on the outside of Iran to know much about organized resistance inside Iran because all efforts must be kept secret.
 
We know the opposition inside Iran, which includes women, is pro-democracy, pro-Western, and even pro-American. They want to rid themselves of all the trappings of theocracy and construct a secular government. Most of President Khatami’s supporters who believed he would support reform now realize that he will not or cannot bring about liberalization. They too have turned to supporting a democratic revolution.
 
Outside Iran, there are a number of exile groups that campaign for the overthrow of the Iranian regime. All of these groups claim they have wide support inside Iran. How much communication and cooperation there is between exile groups and opposition inside Iran is hard to know.
 
A number of individuals and groups advocate non-violent resistance. One non-violent strategy is a call for an internationally supervised referendum in which Iranian citizens could vote for the type of government they want. (See Committee in Support of Referendum http://www.referendum-iran.org/) The former Shah of Iran’s son, Reza Pahlavi (http://www.rezapahlavi.org), also supports non-violent resistance. The biggest drawback to his campaign, in my mind, is that he wants a constitutional monarchy where he will be installed as the King (Shah) of Iran. The days of setting up or reviving monarchies are gone. This past summer I spoke at a rally in Toronto to commemorate the student uprising in Iran several years ago. The older generation is loyal to the Shah and now his son Reza Pahlavi, but I found the younger generation supported a western-style democracy. Shahs belong to their parents’ generation and memories.
 
Non-violent resistance can succeed only if there is a limit to the violence and murder that the Iranian regime will use to suppress citizens. For the past 25 years, the regime has freely arrested and executed activists. They are tyrants who will not give up power willingly.
 
There was one armed opposition group, the People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI, also known as Mujahedin-e-Khalq or MEK) which has existed since the days of the Shah. The PMOI opposed Islamic fundamentalism immediately after the revolution when Khomeini seized power and engaged in low level combat with the Iranian regime until recently. In the late 1990s, during the Clinton administration when there were efforts to normalize relations with Iran, this group was placed on the U.S. State Department’s terrorist list, although their last known act of aggression against the U.S. was 25 years ago during their opposition to the Shah. In Spring 2003, the U.S. bombed their camps along the Iranian border in Iraq and disarmed them. This summer, after a review process, the U.S. announced that none of the personnel could be linked to acts of terrorism and the people in the camp were given protected status. PMOI now says it is a political organization. In recent weeks, as Iran’s nuclear program looks increasingly threatening, there have been calls for the U.S. to rearm the PMOI and let them serve in the way the Northern Alliance did in Afghanistan.
 
There is one aspect of this group that is of special interest to our discussion of misogynous mullahs: Advancement of women’s rights is one of their primary objectives. In fact, most of the leaders of the organization, including military commanders, are women. They believe the best way to defeat Islamic fundamentalism is to prove in practice that fundamentalists’ claims about the physical, emotional, and intellectual inferiority of women are lies.
 
If one can measure the strength of fundamentalists by the depth to which they suppress women, then maybe one can also measure the strength of a resistance movement by how much the fundamentalists’ hate it. A quick Google search reveals that there are few groups in the world that are as demonized as this one. I have met women from the PMOI and their politics and characters do not match how they are portrayed in these articles. (This opposition group is also the one that is revealing the Iranian regime’s nuclear secrets.)
 
Our symposium has focused on why 16-year old Atefeh was hanged, why an “unchaste” teenage girl was so threatening to a judge and the mullahs’ system. I often wonder if the mullahs don’t have a similar need to vilify an opposition movement that claims that women themselves will strike the blow that overthrows the fundamentalists.
 
I agree with Ms. Zand-Bonazzi, the western world needs to get beyond its denial about the Iranian regime. The European Union and Russia must stop doing business with them. Without trade and scientific resources the Iranian regime would become vulnerable to internal pressure quite quickly. We need to support the opposition groups, inside and outside Iran, morally and financially. The U.S. needs to remove the PMOI from the terrorist list. There are many individuals and groups that are eager to push the mullahs out of power, and all of them are committed democracy. These are educated, talented and experienced individuals, many of whom are women, who understand and support the rule of law, and place freedom and rights for women at the top of their agenda for a future Iran.
 
I don’t know the exact path that should be taken to oust the mullahs, but a crisis over nuclear weapons is clearly developing. I think that engagement with and support for opposition groups is the best way forward.
 
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this important forum.
 
I’d like to direct your attention to the following web sites for more information on Islamic fundamentalism in Iran:
 
Women’s Forum Against Fundamentalism in Iran http://www.wfafi.org/.

 
See “Publications” section for texts on religious fascism and misogyny in Iran http://www.iranncrfac.org/.

FP: Donna Hughes, Nancy Kobrin, and Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, thank you for joining Frontpage Symposium. We cherish your work and commitment to this subject and heart-shattering reality. Once again, we dedicate the time and energy we have spent here today to Atefeh and her family. Let us hope that perhaps through the darkness that was perpetrated against her, there may have been a flicker of light ignited that will one day free all the persecuted peoples who suffer under the despotism and terror of Islamism.

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