December 22nd, 2009 by Jason

As reported yesterday, tens of thousands of mourners flocked to Qum to attend the funeral procession of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri. As The New York Times reports, the funeral “turned into a huge and furious anti-government rally.” The Lede blog has posted a timeline of yesterday’s events. Additional videos and photos are available here, here and here.

Grand Ayatollah Montazeri was simultaneously one of the highest-ranking clerics in Iran as well as a fierce critic of the Islamic regime. As such, Michael Rubin observes “the real Achilles Heel to the Iranian regime is Shi’ism. Simply put, it is hard for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to claim ultimate political and religious authority when he is outranked by many clerics who oppose him and his philosophy of government.”

This tension was clear during the reading of a statement from Khamenei during the funeral yesterday. Juan Cole posts a translation, explaining the statement “accused [Montazeri] of having been tested by God and of failing the test, but in which Khamenei went on to pray for divine forgiveness for his departed foe.” The thousands of mourners drowned out the statement with loud booing and opposition slogans.

Evaluating yesterday’s events, Michael Ledeen comments that the regime seems “not to realize that they died before Montazeri, and that nobody cares to mourn for them. And so they stagger about […] finding a way to be mean enough to enrage the people, but not tough enough to assert [their] power.” For example, both Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi attended yesterday’s funeral. Mousavi’s convoy was attacked by a group of Basij, smashing a rear window and injuring a bodyguard. The Basiji group’s leader was also hurt in the confrontation after Mousavi’s bodyguard’s responded.

Abbas Milani reflects, “Montazeri lived a remarkable life, a man willing to forgo the temptations of power if the price is overlooking or keeping silent about breaches of basic human values.” Milani also lauds Montazeri for his remorse “for saddling the nation with the despotism of Velayet-e Fagih, or the guardianship of the clergy […] he desperately tried to offer a more democratic reading of a concept that has been the chief obstacle to democracy in Iran for the last 30 years.”

Therefore, niacINsight calls the death of Montazeri “a major loss for those seeking human rights and greater civil liberties in Iran.” At the same time, niacINsight observes yesterday’s events “clearly breathed new life into Iran’s opposition movement” and reflect on the significance of the protesters flocking to Qum, the religious epicenter of Iran and the last revolution.

As one mourner told The Christian Science Monitor, Montazeri’s “demise, although very hard for us, is also a blessing - it brought people out again. Hardship and sadness usually unite people. That is what happened for this revolution in the early days; people used the sadness of Moharram to unite themselves against the Shah.” For that reason, Gary Sick predicts “it is possible that Ayatollah Montazeri will prove to be a more influential figure in death than he was in life.” As Laura Rozen puts it succinctly, “this isn’t going away, is it.”

Meanwhile, Jamsheed Choksy argues that while many people have highlighted Montazeri’s push for democratic rights, we shouldn’t forget that “Montazeri’s tolerance of differences, especially religious ones, was far from acceptance.”

In an interview with ABC News, President Ahmadinejad insisted there is greater freedom of expression in Iran than in America. He also called the document purportedly showing an Iranian nuclear trigger a forgery. Furthermore, he has unequivocally rejected the end of the year deadline set by the Obama administration, claiming Iran is now “10 times stronger” than  a year ago. Nonetheless, Kaveh Afrasiabi contends “the clock may be ticking for fresh sanctions against Iran, but a deadlock can be avoided if both sides demonstrate pragmatic flexibility and a willingness to reach a middle-of-the-road solution.”

Finally, The Times has an interesting article about how a poor community in Mississippi is turning to Iran for help in solving its health crisis. Responding to the fact that Americans were learning from Iranians as opposed to telling them what to do, an Iranian villager exclaimed, “we always knew rain fell down but never knew it could fall up.” Speaking about the project, a State Department official said “it’s a great way to keep the door open between the two countries.”

Posted in Diplomacy, Freedom, Human Rights, Iran, Journalism, Protests, US foreign policy, sanctions |