Kind to the cruel: how Khomeini’s life was spared
[NOTE: I’m aware that the following information comes from Wikipedia, a somewhat suspect source at times. I can’t independently correborate or refute the information, and I’m wondering whether anyone else can find another more reliable source that can shed light on its truth or falsehood.]
Recently I happened to come across this little tidbit from history. Read it and weep:
In 1963, [Khomeini] publicly denounced the government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. He was thereby imprisoned for 8 months, and upon his release in 1964, he made a similar denunciation of the United States. It is well known that General Hassan Pakravan saved Ayatollah Khomeini’s life in 1963. Khomeini was condemned to death but General Hassan Pakravan felt that his execution would anger the common people of Iran. He knew that the most influential portion of the population was not its elite. He presented his argument to the shah. Once he had convinced the shah to allow him to find a way out, he called on Ayatollah Mohammad-Kazem Shariatmadari, one of the senior religious leaders of Iran, and asked for his help. [Ayatollah Shariatmadari] suggested that Khomeini be made an ayatollah. So, they made a religious decree which was taken by General Pakravan and Seyyed Jalal Tehrani to the Shah. After the Iranian Revolution, Pakravan was among the first of the Shah’s officials to be executed.
Another illustration of the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished, as well as a demonstration of the wisdom of the ancient saying:
Those who are kind to the cruel will end up being cruel to the kind.
I think that sins of ommission is a Protestant concept. Luther, at least, went on about this at some length. Inaction can be as damning as action.
Political science has the concept of externalities, other results of an action, often unintended.
Pakravan may have been right to urge the Shah as he did. We can’t really know because what we *believe* about creating a martyr is only speculation. The result of any action not taken can only be speculation… we can’t try all the different choices in parallel and see which one turns out the best.
There is a strong belief, today, that creating a martyr should be avoided at all costs. There is a strong belief today that any killing, even of combatants, will result in generations of retaliation.
But do people *really* act like that? Do they *never* blame their own leaders? Americans sure seem to be willing to blame their own leaders. They even seem to prefer it! But no one else in the world? Along with the “mother of martyrs” there are no women in south Lebanon who blame their stupid husbands for the hardship they face? There’s no one in Iran who blames their president for their situation instead of the Jews? No remnant of the Taliban that wishes that Osama Bin Laden had never been born?
WE do not think in these revenge terms. We are more than willing, HAPPY even, to place the blame at home. So is it just these Others, benighted savages, who live for nothing but revenge?
Is it really better to chose inaction and the result of inaction for fear of something that may not even be true?
Inaction has consequences. It comes at a price that will be paid by *someone*. Probably that someone isn’t going to be us, but if it’s someone else does that make it okay?
The Qarani Affair and Iranian Politics
by: Mark J. Gasiorowski
International Journal of Middle East Studies
Vol. 25, No. 4 (Nov., 1993), pp. 625-644
I suspect their might be more evidence in the above citation – it’s a .pdf and I don’t have time to read through it.
Off topic: In my brief search – I ran across this interesting article
The Sunday Telegraph
June 19, 2006
By: Philip Sherwell
The grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, the inspiration of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, has broken a three-year silence to back the United States military to overthrow the country’s clerical regime. Hossein Khomeini’s call is all the more startling as he made it from Qom, the spiritual home of Iran’s Shia strand of Islam, during an interview to mark the 17th anniversary of the ayatollah’s death. “My grandfather’s revolution has devoured its children and has strayed from its course,” he told Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language television station.…
Colonizing(formal and informal) is never accepted by the people and historically the people always win in the end. Arabs are people. Palestinians (Jews, Christian and Muslim and others) are people. Palestine is their homeland. Israel is a piece of paper. It won’t last, the Palestinians will hold out, they have nothing to fear. The Israelis have everything to fear. There lies the truth, as where there is fear, there is no faith. In their heart of hearts, they know they must fear. Israel is nothing but a piece of paper, it will fly in the wind when the time is right. The invaders of Palestine will have to fear now the return of the Lebanese. So much to fear. Always the fear.
“WE do not think in these revenge terms. We are more than willing, HAPPY even, to place the blame at home. So is it just these Others, benighted savages, who live for nothing but revenge?”
If you believe that the intellectual and political elite are against the wars i.e the liberal media is sabatouging the war effort.
Which is a pretty hard sell for the reality-based crowd.
But it clearly has some takers whatever the facts….
So what’s the answer, Bonnie? Roll over and die? Where are you from? Where do you live? Why haven’t you gone home? Hebrews have every bit, if not more, historical connection to that land.
And Yhamir is on, yet again, about how the “reality based crowd” recognizes that all the intellectual elites are on the side of Israel? How is negotiation or peace possible when so many people are convinced that beliefs dictate reality? I suppose you think that CNN is a conservative lap-dog too.
Bonnie Palestine is their homeland Who is the “their” in your statement? It wasn’t so long ago that Palestinian referred by and large to ‘Jewish people’. Nevertheless — your comment got me thinking about something [the article below] I had skimmed once, omited, and now returned to, thanks…
When the Jews were the “Palestinians”
I often wonder whether the Israelis would have been better off naming their country “Palestine” instead of Israel. This might have weakened the efforts of anti-Zionists to delegitimize Israel’s very existence and put a dent into the belated emergence of an Arab-oriented Palestinian nationalism. Until the UN partition of Britain’s mandated territory into separate Jewish and Arab nations, the name Palestine was probably associated as much, if not more, with Jews, who had no independent country of their own … In eastern Europe, anti-Semites would traditionally taunt Jews: “Go back to Palestine where you belong!”
More at this link: Octogenarian
After thoughts: After WWII, The natural logic was correct; re-locate Semitic people to their historical Semitic lands. Palestine, a region not a state, was the perfect solution. Infuse sophisticated Semitic people to this wasteland and they will very soon build a society that their living generation can be proud of. The only thing the Allies neglected was their knowledge of Islam “Destroy the non-believer”. Muslim’s evaluate themselves by criteria all the time, some sects of Shia don’t recognize some sects of Sunnis as true Muslims, and visa versa [and other minority Muslim sects…] The unfortunate paradox with Islam is that it is a religion of fear not peace – thank you for illustrating that fact.
“Muslim’s evaluate themselves by criteria all the time, some sects of Shia don’t recognize some sects of Sunnis as true Muslims, and visa versa [and other minority Muslim sects…] The unfortunate paradox with Islam is that it is a religion of fear not peace – thank you for illustrating that fact.”
By that logic than so is Judaism.
Thank you for illustrating that, er, ‘fact’…..
I remember reading someting about the Shah giving mercy, but can’t remember who he gave it to. But it does definitely remind me of how Hitler was spared, a merciful proclamation.
There’s always advantages to execution that people are unwilling to see until it is too late.
“He Who is Compassionate to the Cruel Will Ultimately Become Cruel to the Compassionate”: Contemporary Lessons from an Ancient Midrash by Eliav Shochetman
. . . the Palestinians will hold out, they have nothing to fear. The Israelis have everything to fear. Bonnie
Since the Palestinians are willing to blow up their own children in order to kill Jewish children, and the Israelis fear the death of their children (and appear to fear the death of Palestinian children, moreso than the Palestinians), then perhaps you are right.
I thought this one is about the guy who saved Khomeini’s life & was killed by him in “thanks” ? Why so many references to Palestine & Israel? Did I miss something?
Is it true that Khomeini really killed someone who saved him? Well, seeing at his haggard face & fanatical believe it might be so….
BTW I heard rumours that his mausoleum costs $2.5B, is that true? I wonder if the Shi’ites has their own litany of saints & if Khomeini is already there?