The Saturday Profile

An Iranian Revolutionary, Dismayed but Unbowed

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: February 16, 2008

 

TEHRAN

Newsha Tavakolian/Polaris, for The New York Times

 

REVOLUTIONARIES know exactly what they want to tear down, but often lack the ability to predict what will come next. That was true of Ebrahim Yazdi and many of his allies in the Iranian revolution who now, three decades later, still savor the memory of the day the shah fled Iran, but struggle with the bitter reality that they have been spit out, marginalized and rejected by what it is they helped create.

Iran celebrated the 29th anniversary of its Islamic Revolution this month, but there are many fathers of that revolution, like Mr. Yazdi, who have not been part of any official celebration.

“Of course this is not a monarchy, it’s a republican state,” Mr. Yazdi said during an interview in his living room, where he reflected on the government he helped to establish. “However, the political system, basically, is a despotic one. Many basic rights and liberties are continuously being denied. Therefore, one inspiration behind the revolution, restoration of people’s sovereignty, democracy and so on, hasn’t been achieved — yet.”

Mr. Yazdi was an adviser to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the moving force behind the ouster of the shah, the larger-than-life cleric who forged a nation that sought to merge religious governance and republican ideals. Mr. Yazdi was the first deputy prime minister and the first foreign minister.

Today he is 76 years old, the leader of an illegal, if tolerated, party that has virtually no influence in Iranian affairs. He tried to run for president in 2005, but was disqualified and barred from the ballot.

Mr. Yazdi has white hair now, a white beard, and a face softened by time, barely resembling the tight, stern young man who strode beside Ayatollah Khomeini in the early days of the revolution. He has a nice house in a nice section of Tehran, with crystal chandeliers in the living room, a large collection of parakeets that sing all day, a study lined with books and old photographs — and time, a lot of time.

MR. YAZDI opposed the student takeover of the United States Embassy in 1979, but that is not to say he was pro-American. He was a critic of Washington’s policies toward Iran, and an enemy of Zionism. But he wanted a normal state, one recognized by the international community, not a pariah, isolated and radicalized. He says he knew that taking diplomats hostage would lead to the kind of Iranian state that exists today, one that continues to reward the most radical ideas.

Unexpectedly, Mr. Yazdi finds himself today aligned with some of those hostage takers, like Abbas Abdi, who, like Mr. Yazdi, now want to reform the system, and, like Mr. Yazdi, have been marginalized for their views.

“We thought we knew a lot of things back then,” Mr. Abdi said. “Everything was simplified. We thought, if only the shah goes, everything will be solved and finished. But the revolution was right, there was no alternative, no solution.”

Mr. Yazdi says he is a fundamentalist, but what he means is that he is a Muslim intellectual, traditional in his adherence to ritual and teachings. But he is a staunch democrat who defines democracy not by the mechanics of governance, not by elections and institutions, but by ideas.

“We recognize tolerance as a basic component of democracy,” he said. “God has not created all of us alike — we are different — human society is a pluralistic society. In the Koran, God is telling us that man is created to be free. So we are free to think, and think different. So the aim of democracy is to recognize the pluralistic nature of human society. The second item is tolerance, I have to tolerate my opponent. With tolerance comes compromise; without compromise democracy doesn’t exist.”

But, Mr. Yazdi says that those who took over, those whose voices are loudest among Muslims these days, not just in Iran but around the region (and, he said, in Washington, too), are those who condemn diversity, and demand allegiance to one view. In Iran, he says, those he sees as having hijacked his revolution are the traditionalists, the people like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who he says want to rule as religious leaders did centuries ago.

“The simplistic perception of the state was that there is a leader, chosen by God, a divine person, so they were expecting that the system would work as it was working centuries ago,” Mr. Yazdi said. “They have succeeded. They have a leader, and he can do everything. And yet the problems are still here.”

Mr. Yazdi turned to radical politics after the United States and Britain helped stage a coup in 1953, deposing the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh, a nationalist who opposed foreign control of Iranian affairs, and installed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

Mr. Yazdi joined an underground organization opposed to the shah but in 1960 traveled to the United States to study. He remained there — mostly in Houston — until 1979, when he returned with Ayatollah Khomeini. After earning a Ph.D. in pharmacology from Tehran University, Mr. Yazdi did postdoctoral work in molecular genetics at Baylor University in Houston before joining its medical school faculty.

IT is hard to reconcile the American-trained scientist, fluent in English, comfortable in Houston, with the images now available on YouTube, old washed-out pictures of a young revolutionary. In one, Mr. Yazdi, Ayatollah Khomeini and Yasir Arafat are shown taking over the Israeli Embassy in Tehran. Mr. Yazdi held Mr. Arafat’s hand as they faced a sea of cheering men and women.

“The story of the Iranian revolution is similar to the story of other revolutions,” he said. “It was a restoration of people’s rights and liberties — people rose against the tyrannical regime of the shah.”

“The day after the revolution, Khomeini was facing the question: What is an Islamic republic?” Mr. Yazdi recalled. “I was in favor of a constitution and elections. They were against it. Khomeini was oscillating, but gradually he turned to the conservative side.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Yazdi remains an optimist. He says he sees more traditional thinkers taking an increasingly pragmatic view. He says that Iranian society is maturing, moving through a difficult stage on its way to constitutional democracy. Economic hardships now, he says he believes, are the sign many traditionalists need to accept changes.

“Iran is learning democracy,” he said, “because democracy is a learning process. Nobody will learn in a classroom. Democracy is not a commodity to be imported. America doesn’t carry democracy in its soldiers’ rucksacks. Democracy should come from within, through our own challenges and experiences.”

“Trial and error,” he said, of the people running the state now. “They have to do it by themselves, just to learn what they are doing doesn’t work. There is no other way.”