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Does the design have controls at an acceptable level for the threats to internal validity?

Appraising Nursing Studies

Introduction

  1. Does the introduction demonstrate the need for the study?
  2. Is the problem clearly and concisely identified?
  3. Is the problem presented with enough background material to acquaint the

reader with the importance of the problem?

  1. Is the purpose of the study clearly stated?
  2. Are the terms and variables relevant to the study clearly defined?
  3. Are the assumptions clearly and simply stated?
  4. If appropriate to the design, are hypotheses stated?
  5. Does the study use a theoretical framework to guide its design?

Review of the Literature

  1. Is the ROL relevant to the problem?
  2. Is the review adequate in terms of the range and scope of ideas, opinions, and points of view relevant to the problem?
  3. Is the review well organized and synthesized?
  4. Does the review provide for critical appraisal of the contribution of each of the major references?
  5. Does the review conclude with a summary of the literature with implications for the study?
  6. Is the ROL adequately and correctly documented?

Methods

  1. Is the research approach appropriated?
  2. Was the protection of human subjects considered?
  3. Are the details of data collection clearly and logically presented?
  4. Are the instrument(s) appropriate for the study both in terms of problem and approach?
  5. Are the instrument(s) described sufficiently in terms of content, structure, validity and reliability?
  6. Is population and the method for selecting the sample adequately described?
  7. Is the method for selection of sample appropriate?
  8. Is the sample size sufficient?
  9. Is attrition of sample reported and explained?
  10. Does the design have controls at an acceptable level for the threats to internal validity?
  11. What are the limits to generalizability in terms of external validity?

Results

  1. Is the presentation of data clear?
  2. Are the characteristics of the sample described?
  3. Was the best method(s) of analysis selected?
  4. Are the tables, charts, and graphs pertinent?

Discussion

  1. Are the results based on the data presented?
  2. Is the evidence sufficient to draw conclusions?
  3. Are the results interpreted in the context of the problem/purpose, hypothesis, and theoretical framework/literature reviewed?
  4. Are the conclusions and generalizations clearly stated?
  5. Are the limitations of the findings clearly delineated?
  6. Are the generalizations within the scope of findings?
  7. Does the study contribute to nursing knowledge?

 

 

 

Why has Iran, under the Islamic republic, followed such a different path?

xvii
Introduction:
The Hidden Continent of Iran
In the summer of 2009 the world was watching Iran. Not because of the
unresolved question of Iran’s nuclear programme, nor Iran’s troubled
relationship with the United States, nor (at least not primarily) because of
human rights abuses. The world and its media- wife were watching Iran
because, thirty years after the Islamic revolution of 1979 (and a hundred
years after the Constitutional revolution of 1906 – 11 ), Iranians were
again on the streets of Tehran in hundreds of thousands, demanding free,
democratic government and an end to tyranny. Iranians sometimes have
an exaggerated sense of their country’s importance in the world. But for
once it appeared justifi ed. Would the Islamic republic fall? Or might it
shift to a more open, freer version of itself that permitted elections to run
their course – in contrast to the manipulated process enforced by repression
many believed they had suffered after 12 June 2009 ? If there is a
spirit of movement and change in world events, which moves from place
to place over time according to crises in human affairs, then that spirit
was alive in Tehran in the summer of 2009 .
As it turned out, repression seemed to succeed that time. The spirit
moved on, after a pause, to other places in the region, to Tunisia, Egypt
and Libya, where it was more successful; and to Bahrain and Syria. In
Iran, repression has deepened. But the story is not yet over. Iran appeared
central then and continues to be of central importance.
This book is about the history of Iran since the beginning of the Islamic
revolution of 1978 – 9 . But, as with any historical subject, the roots of
events go back long before the events themselves. This is, if possible, all
the more so with Iran; a country with a long, complex history that is
for the most part unknown to ordinary citizens of Western countries –
something that often frustrates and irritates Iranians, who are proud of
their history and their contribution to world civilization. The apparent
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xviii
Introduction
strangeness of Iranian politics and Iranian behaviour in the last thirty
or forty years is only explicable through an understanding of the history
of the country. So, although this book is focused on the revolution of
1978 – 9 and the three decades since then, it is necessary to go back further
into the history of the twentieth century, and even beyond (for the history
of Shi‘ism for example) to explain recent events.
Iran is less a country than a continent, more a civilization than a nation.
In the past, countries like the USA , China, Russia and India have supported
enough diversity and cultural self- confi dence for at least some of
their citizens to be able to feel that they were worlds unto themselves –
self- suffi cient, sometimes arrogant and superior. That they could do
without the rest of humanity. As the process of globalization advances,
such notions become less tenable, even for those large, imperial- scale
countries. But they retain their attitudes to a certain extent. China and
India have in addition a sense of ancient depth, of history, that strengthens
their sense of self still further.
Iran has this too – albeit often infused with nostalgia, and a sense of
loss and decline – but the Iranians tend to measure themselves not against
China or India (still less against their Middle Eastern neighbours), but
against Europe and North America. Iranians, like the Chinese, have been
able to feel that theirs was the original, the oldest civilization. Many Iranians
have believed – and deep down, may still believe in some way – that
they have the best poetry, the best music, the best philosophy, the best
food – or at any rate the best rice – and of course the best religion. However
untenable, such notions could not even be thought of without there
being at least an element of justifi cation to them. It is great poetry, great
music, wonderful food and great rice.
Within Iran, there is, as ever, still a remarkable, continental diversity of ethnicity,
language, climate, geography, fl ora and fauna. And, thanks partly to the
lonely path trodden by Iran in its revolutionary, anti- Western politics, Iran
maintains that variety and is still less globalized than many other countries. The
bazaars, their merchants and their traditions were close to the revolution of
1979 , have been among the revolution’s prime benefi ciaries and are still close
to the centre of the country’s economic and political life. Iran’s bazaars still sell
more home- produced goods than are on the market elsewhere and sustain
more artisans producing traditional craft items (metalwork, ceramics, printed
textiles, rugs and other items), of higher quality than you fi nd elsewhere.
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xix
Introduction
If you go to hotels on the southern shore of the Persian Gulf, in Dubai or Qatar
for example, you may fi nd that the better- quality souvenirs on sale in the gift
shops (with the price marked up enormously), presented as local, were
actually made in Iran. The apparent economic self- suffi ciency of Iran’s
bazaars (perhaps something of an illusion) still reinforces the country’s
sense of cultural self- suffi ciency.
Since the second millennium BC and the very beginnings of mankind’s
recorded past, Iranian history can be seen as a microcosm of human history
as a whole: empires, revolutions, invasions, art, architecture, warriors,
conquerors, great thinkers, great writers and poets, holy men and lawgivers,
charismatic leaders and the blackest villains. A visiting Martian
wanting to see the full range of human activity, good and bad, to understand
mankind, could well look at Iran as a kind of introductory course. 1
Within this, the history of the last fi fty years in Iran is particularly dramatic,
eventful and characteristic.
A further reason to look at Iran is that since the time of the Iranian
revolution, European and Western attitudes to the rest of the world have
been forced to change. Previously we tended still to think in terms of linear
development in the Middle East and elsewhere towards a Western economic
and social model, a Western idea of modernity, away from the
traditional patterns of life of those countries, which were perceived as
backward and outdated. Now, we cannot afford to think in that simple
way any more. There is for example, a realization that countries like China
and India are following their own developmental path and that their economic
weight in the globalized world is going to demand respect, if not
predominate. The Western model is no longer the only option. This does
not mean we should be shy about values like liberalism and representative
government – it may mean we have to argue for them with greater urgency,
clarity and consistency. The Iranian revolution of 1979 and the Islamic
revival in the wider world that followed (triggered by the revolution if not
directly led or inspired by it) changed assumptions about the direction of
development. The history and culture of the Middle East, and of Iran
within that, has taken on a greater importance because we have to accept
that it is going to be a formative part of the future of that part of the
world, and all parts of the world are closer to us and more intimately
involved with us than formerly. After 1979 we can no longer work on the
assumption that the history and culture of the Middle East are irrelevant.
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xx
Introduction
There are other good reasons to study Iran, beyond the old reason, the
best reason, for studying other countries and cultures – to understand
humanity, and therefore ourselves, better. In a world of intellectual uncertainty,
doubt, complexity and ambiguity, where for many in the West the old
certainties and the old gods of the past have fallen from their plinths, Iranian
intellectual culture has a lot to say. Iranian thinkers have been at home with
complexity, paradox, ambiguity and irony for a long time – at least since the
era of the great Persian poets, between the eleventh and the fourteenth centuries,
who explored those categories as fully as anyone since.
Some Misconceptions
In the West, we think we know about Iran, but what we think we know
is often misleading or simply false. Many people, even otherwise welleducated
people, think of the Iranians as Arabs, but they are not. They
speak Persian, an ancient language of Indo- European origin, like Latin,
modern German and English. It has an elegantly simple grammatical
structure much more like that of German or English than that of Arabic.
Unlike in many other territories conquered by Islam in the seventh
century AD , Arabic did not simply replace the previous speech in Iran,
and in many ways Iranians have traditionally defi ned themselves against
the Arab identity of much of the rest of the Middle East region. We are
encouraged to think of the Iranians as fanatical Muslims, world- leaders
in Islamic fundamentalism. But the fact is that the experience of Islamic
government in Iran since 1979 has turned many Iranians against political
Islam, and the political attitudes of those Iranians have secularized.
The Iranian Islam of the Islamic republic, rather than being fundamentalist
(in the sense of a deliberate return to the style of Islam of earliest
times, as advocated for example by the Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia),
incorporates radical modern innovations that many Shi‘a Muslims, let
alone Sunnis, regard as dubious. If the term fundamentalist has any solid
meaning beyond its use as a boo- word then it is incorrect to label the
Iranian revolution and regime as fundamentalist. 2 And the Iranians are
Shi‘as, which means that any kind of leadership they could offer the rest
of the Islamic world would be questionable at best, given the Sunni / Shi‘a
schism, the strong antipathy many Sunnis feel toward Shi‘as and the fact
that the majority of the world’s Muslims are Sunni.
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xxi
Introduction
We think of images of demonstrations and chanting crowds and
assume (encouraged by our news media) that Iranian Shi‘ism is a dangerous,
uncontrollable, fanatical force. But in truth the religious hierarchy
that Iranian Shi‘ism has developed means that religious Iranians are more
controlled, more subject to religious discipline and the guidance of senior
clerics (most of whom are pragmatic and moderate, and many of whom
are out of sympathy with the Islamic regime) than Sunni Muslims, who
since the dissolution of the Caliphate in the 1920 s have lacked that kind
of structure. Some experts have pointed to that lack as a factor in the rise
of radical, theologically incoherent groups like Al- Qaeda. 3 Iran has been
historically central to humane and refl ective strands of Islamic thought,
including the hugely infl uential Sufi tradition, which inspired some of the
most profound and beautiful Persian poetry. An important strand of
Iranian Shi‘ism is a traditional, quietist principle that commends decent,
honest conduct and the patient endurance of adversity.
Iran is often depicted as an aggressive power, but it has not waged serious
aggressive war since the time of Nader Shah, in the mid- eighteenth
century, and its defence spending today is moderate to low for a state that
size, not faintly comparable with that of militaristic states like the Soviet
Union during the Cold War, for example. Since the eighteenth century
Iran has fought wars, but normally defensive ones – notably the long,
devastating Iran– Iraq War of the 1980 s. In that war the US and other
Western powers supported Saddam Hussein in Iraq against Iran, in the
belief that it was necessary to contain Iranian religious extremism. For
similar reasons, the US later funded the Taliban and Al- Qaeda in Afghanistan,
to prevent pro- Iranian groups taking control after the Russians left.
In both Iraq and Afghanistan the US eventually had to intervene against
the monsters that their policy of containment had helped to create. The
Iranians helped the coalition powers to set up new democratic structures
in both countries, though this has often gone unacknowledged. Instead,
Iran has perversely been blamed for the fact that the removal of these
enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan has enhanced Iran’s regional infl uence.
None of this should permit a whitewash of the current regime ruling
Iran. It is a repressive, autocratic regime run in the interests of a narrow
clique that systematically denies political freedoms and natural rights to the
Iranian people. The defects of the regime have only become more apparent
since the crisis that followed the presidential elections of June 2009 . The
regime continues to be responsible for systematic, serious abuses of human
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xxii
rights. But because of its (largely self- imposed) isolation and its opposition
to the West, and the infl ammatory rhetoric of fi gures like Ahmadinejad,
more opprobrium has been heaped on Iran more indiscriminately than is
justifi ed by the facts, and (even after the Arab spring- cleaning, unfortunately)
there are other regimes in the region that in many respects are as bad, or
worse. If we are to fi nd solutions to the problems of the Middle East it is
essential to see Iran and the region as they really are, in their true form.
It is normal in Western countries for people not to have very much reliable
information about Iran, and yet for certain aspects of Iran to be
familiar. There are things about Iran that are striking and memorable;
useful for news media programming because they make an immediate,
strong visual impression. This often means a mullah, with a beard, in a
turban and robes, talking into a microphone, and an agitated crowd
chanting something. Then perhaps a graph showing the latest movement
in the price of oil, which affects everybody. But how did a cleric get into
a position of such authority? Why has Iran, under the Islamic republic,
followed such a different path? This book tries, by describing the events
of recent Iranian history, to answer some of those questions.
In doing so, I have written a book that is necessarily history in summary
and overview rather than one that attempts to evaluate every item
within the huge quantity of available source material on every event or
episode. In addition, while explaining events as they unfolded, I have
tended to focus on moments and episodes that have been turning- points,
which have been important in determining the shape of what followed,
rather than try to chronicle every month and year as of equal weight. This
is why, for example, the book devotes attention to the origins of the revolution
of 1979, and a long chapter to the Iran– Iraq War, which left such a
deep mark on contemporary Iran. To illuminate the narrative it also
presents the words of ordinary Iranians and other observers, giving an
immediate sense of events, opinions and motivations.
Again and again, the usual kind of reporting and comment in the West
stresses how strange, how alien, how irrational and how disturbing Iran
and Iranian politics are. One of my tasks in this book is to show that
Iranian concerns, values, problems, actions and reactions are wholly
explicable and rational when seen in their own proper context, in the
round; quite open to sympathy, and even familiar.
Introduction
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1
Prologue: ‘Ten Days of Dawn’
( Daheh- ye Fajr )
On 1 February 1979 , just after 9 . 30 a.m., an Air France 747 airliner landed
at Mehrabad airport on the western outskirts of Tehran, and a member of
the crew, with others in attendance, helped an elderly, bearded man down
the steps to the ground. This was no ordinary fl ight. As the aircraft had
entered Iranian airspace, many on board had feared it might be shot down.
As it landed, several million Iranians were waiting on the streets to welcome
the bearded man in clerical robes, and every move he made was
shadowed by crowds of minders, reporters, photographers and hangerson
of all kinds. The special passenger for whom the aircraft had been
chartered was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, returning from exile, and the
photographs and fi lm of his descent from the aircraft became some of the
defi ning images of the Iranian revolution.
Khomeini had been away from the country since the autumn of 1964 ;
initially in Turkey and Iraq, later (briefl y) in Paris. The Shah, whose government
had exiled Khomeini, had left Iran from the same airport fourteen
days before, on 16 January, after a year- long crescendo of mass protest
against his rule. Newspapers that had carried the headline ‘Shah raft’
(‘The Shah Is Gone’) now printed ‘Emam amad’ (‘The Emam Has Come’).
Many people had waited up all night to witness Khomeini’s arrival.
The crowds cried ‘Allahu Akbar!’ and ‘Khomeini, O Emam!’ In the airport
building he made a short speech thanking the students, clergy and
bazaar merchants for their sacrifi ces in the demonstrations over the previous
year and exhorted them to remain united to defeat the remnants of
the Shah’s regime. At one point the hubbub was such that he had to be
carried outside. 1 There was some tension between the clerics welcoming
Khomeini and those who had accompanied him from Paris.
As Khomeini arrived, the Shah’s last prime minister, Shapur Bakhtiar,
was still attempting to hold his government together. He seems to have
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Revolutionary Iran
contacted Khomeini in Paris after the Shah’s departure and offered to
resign, but Khomeini ignored the message. 2 Bakhtiar was next to powerless
before the mass movement of Iranians that had united itself behind
Khomeini. The behaviour of the armed forces was crucial; two days earlier
troops had killed thirty demonstrators on the streets near the
university and injured hundreds more. Bakhtiar had been forced to give
the troops his backing, saying that they had acted in self- defence; but the
incident discredited him further, linking him in the minds of the pro-
Khomeini populace with the actions of the Shah’s regime against
demonstrators in previous months.
From the airport Khomeini was driven through the packed streets
towards the Behesht- e Zahra cemetery on the south side of the city.
Mohsen Rafi qdust drove the car – no simple task, because more than
once it was mobbed and almost overwhelmed by the crowd. Rafi qdust
later said that he nearly lost control several times. Several of Khomeini’s
followers rode on the outside of the vehicle (a white four- wheel- drive) to
fend off the people, and Rafi qdust drove bumper- to- bumper behind a
Mercedes bus some of the way so that the bus could force a way through
(and to prevent people jumping on the front of the car or going under the
wheels). 3 Khomeini’s son Ahmad accompanied him – as they went along,
Ahmad had to explain to his father where they were, because building
over the previous fi fteen years had transformed this part of the city. Eventually
the crowds in the streets became so thick that a helicopter had to
take him the last part of the way. 4
At Behesht- e Zahra Khomeini spoke again, denouncing Mohammad
Reza Shah and the remnants of his government under Bakhtiar:
[The Shah] destroyed our country and fi lled our cemeteries. He ruined our
country’s economy. Even the projects he carried out in the name of progress
pushed the country towards decadence. He suppressed our culture, annihilated
people and destroyed all our manpower resources. We are saying this
man, his government, his Majlis are all illegal. If they were to continue to
stay in power, we would treat them as criminals and would try them as
criminals. I shall appoint my own government. I shall slap this government
in the mouth. 5
He urged the armed forces to join the people, to realize their independence,
and to throw off the infl uence of foreign advisers. (The most
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3
Prologue: ‘Ten Days of Dawn’
senior US military adviser, General Huyser, left on 3 February; 6 there
was a mass departure of Americans and other foreigners in these weeks.)
He also said that from now on the people would take charge of their
own destiny.
Some time in early November 1978 an initially secret Council of the
Islamic Revolution had been formed at Khomeini’s behest to coordinate
action against the Shah’s government. 7 Now Khomeini and the
Council set up their base at the Refah school, near the parliament
building in the centre of the city. The school had been founded in
1968 to educate girls according to Islamic principles; several personalities
associated with the school were signifi cant in the revolutionary
movement. Khomeini gave a press conference there on 3 February,
again urging the military not to use their weapons against the people. 8
The Council had already made contact with some of the leaders of the
armed forces, and with the US ambassador, William H. Sullivan, but
their fi rst priority was to set up a provisional government to supplant
that of Shapur Bakhtiar.
On 5 February Khomeini announced the appointment of Mehdi
Bazargan as prime minister of the provisional government. Bazargan
agreed to this only after a day or more of refl ection, and after warning
Khomeini of his continuing commitment to democratic, moderate
principles.
There were some striking similarities in the political backgrounds of
Bakhtiar and Bazargan – also in the political predicaments in which they
found themselves. Both had a lifelong commitment to liberal, democratic,
nationalist principles – the principles of the revolution of 1905 – 11 and the
constitution of 1906 . Both had been educated in France at the end of the
1930 s, and while there both had volunteered to fi ght with the French against
the Nazis. Bakhtiar had served in the nationalist government of Mohammad
Mossadeq in the early 1950 s as deputy minister of labour; Bazargan
had been the fi rst head of the nationalized oil company (the National Iranian
Oil Company) at the same time. There were differences; Bakhtiar came
from a privileged position as a member of one of the leading families of the
Bakhtiari tribe, had studied politics in Paris and had a more secular outlook,
refl ecting also the infl uence of Mossadeq and his membership of Mossadeq’s
National Front. Bazargan came from a more traditional Islamic family
background, had trained as an engineer and was a member of the Freedom
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Revolutionary Iran
Movement – which had nonetheless normally been closely aligned to the
National Front. Both were wooed into accepting the post of prime minister;
neither was wholly in sympathy with those who had chosen them. It was a
tribute to the strength of the constitutionalist, democratic tradition in Iran
that both the Shah and Khomeini had felt the need for such men at this time
of crisis – but also a sign of its weakness, that such men were not able to take
power in their own right.
So, on his return, as he sought to consolidate his position, avoid
repression from the military and move toward the establishment of an
Islamic republic, Khomeini’s fi rst act was to form an alliance not with
the leftist Tudeh Party, nor the more radical paramilitary leftist groups,
but with the liberal constitutionalists. And this surely refl ected the as –
pirations and expectations of most of the Iranians who had been
demonstrating over the previous year. They had been protesting both
against the autocracy of the Shah and political repression and for a
return to representative government. There were economic grievances
also; there had been nationalist, radical leftist, anti- American and anti-
British elements in the mix. The whole had been given form by the appeal
to Islam as the underlying, authentic focus of the people’s identity, and
by Khomeini’s own simple, direct, charismatic leadership. None of this
was strange or entirely new, at least not to Iranians – in 1906 senior
clerical fi gures had led a revolution in Iran that had combined similar
ingredients. The history of that revolution was well known, and according
to that template many middle- class liberals and leftists, more or less
secular- minded, expected this time also to take over the popular movement,
and for Khomeini and the clergy to recede into the background.
But Khomeini knew the history too. It is unlikely that he had at the outset
any precise blueprint for the eventual outcome, but he was not going
to let religious authority be sidelined.
When Khomeini announced Bazargan as prime minister on 5 February
he presented himself before the press and other news media with his close
adviser and companion Hashemi Rafsanjani, as well as Bazargan. Rafsanjani
spoke fi rst, setting out a programme for the establishment of a new
revolutionary state. There would be a referendum to establish popular support
for an Islamic republic. Then a Constituent Assembly would be set up
to agree a new constitution. That being done, elections would be held and
a new Majles (parliament) would be elected.
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5
Prologue: ‘Ten Days of Dawn’
After Rafsanjani, Bazargan spoke self- deprecatingly of his suitability
for the responsibilities now thrust upon him, but Khomeini, speaking last,
had a message that was fi rm, sombre and austere:
through the guardianship that I have from the holy lawgiver [i.e. the Prophet
Mohammad] I hereby pronounce Bazargan as the Ruler, and since I have
appointed him, he must be obeyed. The nation must obey him. This is not
an ordinary government. It is a government based on the shari‘a. Opposing
this government means opposing the shari‘a of Islam and revolting against
the shari‘a, and revolt against the government of the shari‘a has its punishment
in our law . . . it is a heavy punishment in Islamic jurisprudence. Revolt
against God’s government is a revolt against God. Revolt against God is
blasphemy. 9
That press conference, within four days of Khomeini’s return to Iran,
combined in this way the two cardinal elements of the revolution and of
Iran’s constitution ever since – Islam and democracy. But the two elements
were in tension from the start. Khomeini’s speech showed that his
vision was of a government blessed and legitimated by God, fi rst and
above all. But the programme of the provisional government, endorsed by
him and presented as a decree from him, though read at the press conference
by Rafsanjani, showed an almost equally strong, indeed almost
pedantic, attachment to an idea of popular sovereignty – of government
according to the will of the people. The tension between these two principles
could be, and was, glossed over in revolutionary rhetoric; and much
of the time they might genuinely work in parallel. Khomeini no doubt
believed that they would harmonize, refl ecting his understanding of the
nature of God and of divine agency in the world. Rousseau once wrote
that the voice of the people was the voice of God; seldom can that idea
have been given more precise expression than by the crowds that welcomed
Khomeini in February 1979 and later voted in a referendum
overwhelmingly for an Islamic republic. Khomeini may also have expected
that his involvement in government could be relatively light. Once the
Islamic system was set up, politicians like Bazargan could run things from
day to day. But politics, and especially revolutions, tend be messier than
that.
Two obstacles remained between the revolutionary movement and
the achievement of complete dominance – Bakhtiar’s government and
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Revolutionary Iran
the armed forces. But neither was as impressive as it seemed. After a
year of confl ict with the demonstrators the armed forces were uncertain
and divided – both the rank and fi le and the leadership. Many offi cers
and some units, notably the Imperial Guard, which had been specially
favoured with pay, prestige and promotion by the previous regime, 10
were still devoted to the Shah. But recruitment to the armed forces was
based on conscription, and many ordinary servicemen were as enthusiastic
about the revolutionary movement and the return of Khomeini
as other, ordinary citizens. The Shah himself had put rival offi cers
and even mutual enemies into senior positions in the armed forces, in
order to reduce the chance of their combining against him and plotting
a coup. 11 But this meant that when the Shah had gone – ‘with no forwarding
address’ 12 – those senior offi cers found themselves at odds with
each other and unable to agree upon concerted action. Even when the
Shah had still been in place, there had been much disagreement about
how best to deal with the demonstrations, with the Shah himself exerting
a restraining infl uence, and some offi cers favouring much harsher
measures.
Disaffection among the military increased after the Shah’s departure,
and, although there has been disagreement over estimates of the level of
desertions, 13 it seems plain that these increased to perhaps 1 , 200 per day
by the second week of February. The revolutionaries encouraged the disaffection,
not just by propaganda and planting fl owers in the muzzles of
carbines during demonstrations, but also by setting up centres to provide
deserters with civilian clothes and expenses to cover their journey home
by bus. 14 Many offi cers had resigned after 16 January, and several senior
fi gures defected after Khomeini’s return. And many, retired or otherwise,
were offering their services to Bazargan or his colleagues (or to anyone
who would listen) after 5 February.
Signifi cantly for what was to follow, 800 air force technicians from
the aircraft servicing organization known as the Homafaran had
defected together to the revolutionary movement in the second half of
January. Attempts to discipline them were lost in the general chaos,
and they became an important militant element in the revolutionary
movement, comparable with the Kronstadt sailors in the February
and October revolutions of 1917 in Russia. Most of them were noncommissioned
offi cers, specialists with a grievance because, although
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Prologue: ‘Ten Days of Dawn’
technically qualifi ed, they felt their promotion within the service was
blocked by a structure that favoured socially and politically privileged
offi cers trained in cadet college – in its way a situation that echoed the
wider disposition of socially insecure petit- bourgeois classes toward the
revolutionary movement. 15 But a number of air force offi cers and cadets
joined them too.
After 5 February, with two rival governments in the country, the leaders
of the armed forces were in an awkward position. Many of the
senior offi cers knew that some of their number were negotiating with
Bazargan and/or clerics close to Khomeini, like Ayatollah Beheshti; as
were the Americans, through their embassy. General Huyser, who had
wanted to keep open the option of a military coup, had left the country.
It seems that, although the account of this episode in his own memoirs
is quite vague, 16 General Hosein Fardust, head of the supervisory Special
Intelligence Bureau under the Shah, may have been instrumental
between 5 and 9 February in steering other generals away from action
against Bazargan’s nascent government. Having been a childhood friend
of the Shah, Fardust seems to have sided with the Islamic regime in
1979 and controversially, afterwards helped the new SAVAMA , later
renamed the Ministry of Intelligence and Security ( VEVAK ), the ugly
phoenix that rose out of the remnants of the Shah’s infamous secret
police, SAVAK .
On 8 February a large number of air force cadets, Homafaran technicians
and others went to the Refah school in uniform and declared their
loyalty to Khomeini and the new provisional government. A photograph
of them doing so was published in the newspaper Kayhan the
following day. The following evening (Friday), possibly fi red up by the
screening on state television of footage of Khomeini’s return eight days
before, the radicalized air force personnel at Doshan Tappeh air base
formed up as a body to salute the Emam. Provoked by this, a detachment
of Imperial Guard troops ( 200 – strong or less) stationed at the base
attacked them, and serious fi ghting ensued, continuing on the morning
of 10 February. Both sides called for help, but whereas the air force
commander authorized distribution of weapons to his men, the Imperial
Guard commander went over to the revolutionaries on 10 February and
did his best to prevent reinforcements being sent to his former comrades.
Armed radicals of the Fedayan- e Khalq and Mojahedin- e Khalq
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Revolutionary Iran
organizations (the latter known as the MKO ) moved in to support the
cadets and Homafaran, and large crowds of revolutionary demonstrators
formed across the whole area, leading to what turned out to be the
decisive confrontation.
Two columns of tanks were sent to Doshan Tappeh by hardline military
commanders. The BBC reporter John Simpson, who had arrived on
the same fl ight with Khomeini on 1 February, saw twenty- six Chieftain
tanks pass by the InterContinental Hotel, breaking through an improvised
barricade there:
The lead tank, fi nding only an upturned Buick and some skips fi lled with
rubble in its path, scarcely checked its speed at all. It struck the Buick’s roof
with a grinding sound and fl ipped it aside as if it were made of tinfoil. The
Buick crumpled up and lay in the middle of the road, twitching now and
then as another Chieftain struck it in passing. 17
But the tanks eventually faltered amid the crowds and roadblocks. Some
were captured, others were set alight by Molotov cocktails, and some of their
crews defected with their vehicles to the revolutionaries. Other commanders
recalled troops to their bases, and the fi ghting spread. Armed revolutionaries
and crowds broke into police stations and other places where weapons could
be found. With the situation rapidly running away from him, Bakhtiar
ordered a dusk- to- dawn curfew for the night of 10 / 11 February and urged
the army and police commanders to enforce the curfew strictly, but Khomeini
told his followers to ignore the order, and cars with loudspeakers drove
through the streets announcing his instruction, calling forth further large
crowds. Bazargan was with Khomeini at the Refah school: 18
Most of our time we were in Refah school and that particular night, we
stayed in the same place. Since we could hear the sound of much shooting,
and there was news on the possibility of an attack on the school, we went
to a house nearby and spent the rest of the night there. When we got up the
next morning, we realized that the whole situation had been turned on its
head and the nation had achieved victory, praise be to God.
The following morning, 11 February, twenty- seven generals and
other senior military commanders met at 10 . 20 a.m. to discuss whether
they could continue to support Bakhtiar. Even those most loyal to
the Shah were by now despondent. Field Marshal Qarabaghi did his
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Prologue: ‘Ten Days of Dawn’
best to get an overview of the situation by collating the views of those
present and presenting himself further reports that he had received by
telephone:
We ordered them all together that morning to attend a meeting . . . Lieutenant
General Sanei had telephoned earlier from ground forces headquarters to say:
‘General . . . you can no longer count on the ground forces . . .’ I told him: ‘I
do not understand. If I am not going to count on the ground forces, what am
I going to count on?’ He replied: ‘This is it. There is nothing we can do.’ I said:
‘This is highly regrettable.’ . . . I proposed . . . to summon . . . a council of commanders
and fi nd out what is happening. During that meeting, each commander
described the situation of his own units. The ground force commander said
that there was nothing he could do. The air force commander said the same
thing . . . I presented the reports, which I had received, to the council. We had
a lengthy discussion. Some of the commanders were in favour of declaring
solidarity [with the revolution], whereas others were in favour of neutrality.
Qarabaghi reminded the commanders that the Shah had ordered them
to keep the army intact, in order to safeguard the country’s independence.
He urged them that they had to make a unanimous decision: ‘The discussion
continued and eventually the minority, who were in favour of
declaring solidarity, agreed that we should declare neutrality.’
It was agreed that Qarabaghi would inform Bakhtiar of the decision,
and that it would be announced on Tehran Radio. Bakhtiar had been
expecting to see Qarabaghi at his offi ce at 8 . 30 a.m.:
I was in my offi ce at eight- thirty the next morning, but he [Qarabaghi] did
not turn up. I waited until nine o’clock, but there was still no sign of him . . .
I became suspicious as to why he had not turned up. I telephoned his offi ce
several times, and each time I was told that he was in a very important meeting.
I went to the balcony, where I could hear the sound of sporadic
machine- gun fi re.
Finally, Qarabaghi telephoned.
I asked him: ‘General, what happened? Where were you?’ He replied: ‘Your
Excellency, Prime Minister, the army has just now declared its neutrality.’
As soon as I heard that, I went to a different world. I told him: ‘Neutrality
between who and who? Is it neutrality between law and anarchy? Is it
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Revolutionary Iran
neutrality between Iran and Iran’s enemies? . . . Thank you, General. Thank
you very much.’ I then put the phone down.
Tehran Radio broadcast the commanders’ announcement at 1 . 15 p.m.:
In view of the recent developments in the country, the Supreme Council of
the armed forces met at ten- twenty hours this morning, 22 Bahman 1357 .
It unanimously decided that, in order to prevent further chaos and bloodshed,
it declares its neutrality, and military units have been ordered to return to
barracks.
Bazargan and the other revolutionaries welcomed the announcement,
which was what they had been working towards in previous contacts
with army commanders. Bazargan believed the US embassy had been
exerting itself to the same end:
Yes, we were in favour of the army’s neutrality. This was achieved by the
arrangements and promises secured through General Moqaddam. The other
side of the coin was that the Americans wanted the army not to become
involved in the affairs. I am not fully aware of the details, but they wanted
the Iranian revolution to take place without bloodshed and without catastrophe.
Well, we also wanted the same thing.
Bakhtiar was left powerless to affect events:
I waited until one- thirty in the afternoon, before deciding that there was no alternative
left to me. I could see that when the people realized that the military men
had decided to withdraw, no other force could stop the others. I ordered a helicopter
to land in the grounds of the cadet training college. The helicopter arrived
at about two o’clock in the afternoon. I picked up a few of my personal belongings
and went downstairs . . . As I came through the doorway, there was one captain,
two NCO s and four soldiers . . . One of them said: ‘We are almost totally surrounded
now.’ . . . I got into the helicopter, and it took off. I said: ‘How amazing!
We want to give these people freedom and democracy, and they do not want it.’
What could we possibly do? I do not know, but, despite the sadness, I experienced
relief. Believe me, it seemed as if a huge burden, as heavy as Damavand Mountain,
had been lifted from my shoulders. I felt as if I were fl ying with my own wings.
It had been arranged previously that Bakhtiar, Bazargan, Qarabaghi
and others would meet that afternoon at Kazem Jafrudi’s house in
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Prologue: ‘Ten Days of Dawn’
North Tehran. Jafrudi had been a member of the Majles under the Shah
and was a friend of both Bakhtiar and Bazargan. But as the time of the
meeting drew closer Jafrudi advised Bakhtiar by telephone that he
should not come after all:
The prime minister had arranged to come straight from his offi ce with
Dr Abbasqoli Bakhtiar. After taking off in the helicopter from the cadet training
college, he had landed at Aqdassiyeh. From there, he went in a Peykan car
to a previously arranged hiding place. Before going, he telephoned me from
Aqdassiyeh, and I informed him that my house was crowded with people and
it was impossible for him to come there and also quite dangerous. As a result,
these gentlemen proceeded to their hiding place.
Jafrudi then telephoned General Qarabaghi and advised him not to
wear uniform to the meeting:
at about fi ve minutes past four, he [Jafrudi] telephoned me again to say that
the gentlemen had arrived and were waiting for me. He also asked me not
to go there in my uniform. I asked: ‘What has uniform got to do with the
meeting?’ He said that he would explain later, but insisted that for my own
safety I should go in civilian clothes. I was very distressed and hung up.
Lieutenant General Hatam, who was sitting next to me, asked me what had
happened, and when I told him I was supposed to attend the meeting in civilian
clothes, he said: ‘Well, General, does it matter so much?’ I said that I had
no civilian clothes with me. He said: ‘Then send someone to fetch your civilian
clothes.’ After one hour they arrived with my civilian clothes, and I went to a
room and changed. My civilian clothes saved my life. I left for Mr Jafrudi’s
house. He opened the gates himself and let me in. He led me to a room fi rst
and said: ‘General, I wanted to make a request before taking you into the
meeting room.’ . . . He told me that Prime Minister Bakhtiar had submitted
his resignation. I was astonished and added that I had not gone there to submit
mine. I asked whether the prime minister was there, and he told me that he was
not at the house but was somewhere in the vicinity and had not been brought
to the house for reasons of security. I said: ‘But you did not tell me that the
prime minister was not going to be here.’ His reply was: ‘The prime minister
is not far away and he is in touch with us. The other gentlemen are waiting
for us next door so that we can reach an agreement.’ I asked who the other
gentlemen were. At this point he asked me to follow him to another room.
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Revolutionary Iran
When I entered, I saw seven or eight people were sitting there, who were
introduced as Messrs. Dr Siassi, [Mehdi] Bazargan, Dr Sahabi, [Abbas] Amir-
Entezam, Engineer Khalili and someone else . . . After I sat down, one of them
began praising the army for its decision and said that the army and the nation
belonged to each other and they asked me to help them to establish security.
I said: ‘Security would be maintained if you were to issue a statement to this
effect. You [addressing Bazargan] have been appointed prime minister by
Khomeini, therefore either you or Khomeini should issue a statement ordering
the people not to attack army barracks and to respect its dignity and honour.
If you were to issue such a statement, security would automatically be established.’
He said: ‘Fine. I shall order such a statement to be issued
immediately.’
In fact, two statements were made on Tehran Radio, one from Khomeini
himself, read out by Ayatollah Musavi- Ardebili:
Now that the armed forces have stepped back, have declared their neutrality
in the face of political affairs and have expressed support for the nation, the
dear and courageous nation is expected to maintain law and order when the
troops return to barracks. You should stop saboteurs, who may try to create
catastrophe and instruct them of their religious and humanitarian obligations.
Do not allow anyone to attack foreign embassies. If, God forbid, the army
were to enter the arena again, you must defend yourselves with all your might.
I hereby inform senior army offi cers that if they were to stop the army’s
aggression, and instruct them to join the nation and its legal Islamic government,
we would regard the army as part of the nation and vice versa.
In addition, Tehran Radio contacted Jafrudi while Bazargan was still
in his house, spoke to Bazargan and got him to make a statement:
We were all sitting in my house, when a friend of mine, who was in charge
of the radio, telephoned and asked to interview Mr Bazargan. He asked
whether they should come to my house or Mr Bazargan should go to the
radio station. I passed the message to . . . Bazargan, who volunteered to go
to the radio station and there he broadcast the following speech: ‘I am
delighted to offer my congratulations to the combative Muslim nation of
Iran, who today has survived a torturous and anxious journey to achieve
victory for its revolution. I deem it necessary to express my gratitude to
army offi cers and soldiers. I would like to recommend that in accordance
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Prologue: ‘Ten Days of Dawn’
with Emam Khomeini’s assertion, the army is part of the nation and you
must treat army offi cers and soldiers as your brothers. Our dear compatriots
must demonstrate patience and must give this government a chance to
employ far- sightedness and justice to direct the country along the right path.
It is obvious that chaos, anarchy and confusion will not only prevent us
from achieving something positive, but it will, God forbid, make matters
much worse and more catastrophic than ever before.
By the end of 11 February revolutionary crowds had broken into Evin
prison, releasing all the prisoners, including the politicals; and had ransacked
the former headquarters of SAVAK . Elsewhere in the country, in
Shiraz, in Rasht, and in other places, the revolutionaries, often led by air
force personnel, took over police and SAVAK buildings and established
locally the same outcome as in the capital. 19 Bakhtiar went into hiding.
On the afternoon of 11 February, US Ambassador Sullivan was
attempting to organize the safe evacuation of some US military personnel
who were trapped in a building that was under attack, when he
received a series of telephone calls from the White House. In one of
these, David Newsom asked him on behalf of Zbigniew Brzezinski what
were the chances of a successful military coup: ‘The total absurdity of
such an inquiry in the circumstances then existing in Tehran provoked
me to a scurrilous suggestion for Brzezinski that seemed to shock mildmannered
Under- Secretary Newsom.’ Back in the US , General Huyser
was asked the same day, as part of the same deliberations, whether and
under what conditions he would return to Iran to ‘conduct a military
takeover’. His response was more polite, but no more encouraging than
Sullivan’s. 20
The fi ghting that fi nally toppled Bakhtiar’s government had been
spontaneous; instigated by the enthusiasm of the revolutionaries themselves,
by the Homafaran, and by the Fedayan and the MKO rather than
by Khomeini, who was more concerned to avoid the revolution descending
into complete anarchy. But the outcome left him dominant. Since
1979 the Islamic regime has regarded 11 February as the date of the fi nal
victory of the Islamic revolution – and has celebrated the ten days
between Khomeini’s return and 11 February as the Daheh- ye Fajr – ‘ ten
days of dawn’. Others since have cynically called the festival Daheh- ye
Zajr – ‘ ten days of torment’. 21
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Revolutionary Iran
Within a short time Khomeini approved summary trials for killings
and other acts of oppression by members of the regime over the previous
months and years, and appointed Sadegh Khalkhali, who was to become
infamous, to carry them out. One of the fi rst to be arrested was General
Rahimi, who had been responsible for enforcing martial law in Tehran.
Rahimi’s captors allowed Western journalists to put questions to him on
the evening of 11 February. He was unrepentant, confi rmed his continuing
loyalty to the Shah and said it had been necessary to send in forces to
restore order. He was asked:
‘Do you believe your life is in danger from the decision of the court which,
we understand, will try you?’
General Rahimi smiled slightly, looked up and lifted his hands a little, as
though all these questions were an irrelevance.
‘I came into this world once, and once I will leave it’ 22
Rahimi and three other generals (including the former head of SAVAK ,
General Nasiri, who had been badly injured after his capture) were shot
on 14 February on the roof of the Refah school. 23
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15
1
The Background: Ma Chegoneh
Ma Shodim? 1 (‘How Did We Become
What We Are?’)
Revolutions
The Iranian revolution of 1979 is sometimes spoken of as the third great
revolution of modern times, after the French and the Russian. 2 The interpretation
of all three of these revolutions will always be controversial, but
many people still broadly think of the fi rst two in terms set out by Karl
Marx in the nineteenth century. According to that analysis, the French
revolution was a bourgeois revolution, in which the perennially rising
middle class pushed aside the old forms of feudalism and asserted its
growing economic power in political terms, setting up the forms of representative
government and establishing the bourgeois class and capitalist
economics as dominant for the period that followed. The Russian revolution,
following on from the French, was the proletarian revolution
predicted by Marx, bringing in an era of socialist government in the interest
of the working class, at least according to the theory.
These crude characterizations conceal many contradictions. Even a
cursory reading of the events of the French revolution shows the way that
populists exploiting the militant infl uence of the urban poor of Paris (and
the threat of war from France’s enemies) diverted the revolution away
from the principles of bourgeois liberalism toward terror, political murder
and repression. One of its prime outcomes was a redistribution of
land to peasant farmers that in the long run had profoundly conservative
and anti- capitalistic consequences. The Bolshevik revolution of October
1917 took place in one of the European states in which the proletariat
was least developed and least numerous as a proportion of the population
as a whole, directly contradicting Marx’s own predictions. It had less
of the character of a mass movement, and more of the character of a coup
d’état . Nonetheless, the labels still stick.
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Revolutionary Iran
The Iranian revolution was an Islamic revolution – that much is clear. 3
But beyond that label, despite some family resemblances to those earlier
revolutions, it remains an enigma, and many non- specialists in the West
(and not just in the West), despite so much writing and comment on the
subject since, have no conceptual moorings for it – no clear sense of why
it happened or what it signifi ed. We are still living through the consequences
of the Iranian revolution of 1979 , and the longer- term outcomes
remain hard to assess.
The bare facts of the Iranian revolution of 1979 can be quite briefl y
told. It began in a period of economic uncertainty, after the oil- fuelled
boom of the early 1970 s had begun to falter, with rising infl ation and
unemployment. In 1977 the Shah’s government relaxed some of its
previous repressive measures, permitting the reappearance of some expressions
of dissent from the liberal left. But an attack in a government- backed
newspaper on the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini in January 1978 led to a
demonstration by religious students in the shrine city of Qom in which a
number of demonstrators were shot and killed by police. Fuelled by condemnations
from Khomeini outside Iran and from other clerics within, a
cycle of further demonstrations and shootings followed, after intervals of
forty days’ mourning each time. The demonstrations (mainly involving
young students and people from the bazaars) got larger and more violent,
and the number of dead increased. Over the summer and early autumn
workers frustrated at low pay joined demonstrations and went on strike –
the strikes in the oil industry being especially damaging. On 8 September
(afterwards known as Black Friday) martial law was declared, and a large
number of demonstrators were killed in Tehran. After this the Shah lost
whatever credibility he had left, and the general wish (aligning with Khomeini’s
longstanding demand) was for him to go. Strikes and demonstrations
continued and increased in intensity, especially in the religious season of
Ashura in December. Troops began to desert, and on 16 January 1979 the
Shah fl ew out of the country. Khomeini returned on 1 February, troops
loyal to the Shah’s government gave up the struggle ten days later (the
Daheh- ye Fajr ), and at the end of March a nationwide referendum gave
97 per cent support for an Islamic republic.
But these bare facts may leave the uninitiated little the wiser. Why did
the Shah lose control? Why did leadership of the revolution fall to the
Shi‘a clergy? What were the people’s grievances and how did they come
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17
The Background: Ma Chegoneh Ma Shodim?
to be expressed so forcefully? And why did the Shah’s regime fail to accommodate
them? Why were the revolutionaries so hostile to the West? Was it
primarily a religious, or a democratic, or a social revolution? Or a nationalist
revolution? To begin to answer these questions it is necessary to reach
further back into the history of Iran, of the Islamic religion, and of Shi‘ism.
Islam and the Shi‘a
When Mohammad fi rst began to preach the revelation of Islam in Mecca
in AD 613 , he soon encountered opposition from the leading families that
controlled the city. Prime among these were the Quraish, to a junior
branch of which Mohammad’s own family belonged. Those families drew
their prosperity partly from their trusteeship of the pagan shrines in
Mecca, which Mohammad was attacking, and they felt threatened also
by his emphasis on fair dealing in business and generosity to the poor.
Most of what Mohammad preached either stated or implied a criticism of
the status quo, of which the Quraish were the prime proprietors and benefi
ciaries. The Quraish retaliated against the growing number of
Mohammad’s followers with ridicule, and later with violence. So on the
one hand, in the form it has come down to us, we have a picture of
wealthy, corrupt, impious, unjust rulers; and on the other, virtuous, poor,
oppressed Muslims, bravely speaking out against them. This image of
arrogant power and virtuous resistance (initially not unlike the position
of Jesus and his disciples vis- à- vis the ruling Pharisees and Sadducees in
the New Testament) repeats itself again and again in the history of Islam,
and especially in the history of Shi‘a Islam, reinforced each time by new
exemplars, right down to modern times and the 1979 revolution.
Eventually Mohammad and his followers were forced to leave Mecca,
to set up a new Muslim community in Medina. War followed between
the Quraish of Mecca and the Muslims of Medina (the migration from
Mecca to Medina in AD 622 , the Hijra , became the date for the beginning
of the Muslim calendar, representing as it did the proper founding
of the Muslim umma , the community of Muslim believers). Most of the
rulings in the Koran, and in Islam more widely, regulating the conduct
of war (conditions for just war, restrictions on the waging of war, the
treatment of captives, etc.) derive from positions taken on this confl ict.
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Revolutionary Iran
Eventually (in AD 630 ) the Medinans triumphed, occupied Mecca, converted
the Meccans (including the Quraish) to the new religion, removed
pagan idols from the Ka‘ba in Mecca and made it the central shrine of
Islam that it has been ever since. Islam became the dominant religion of
the Arabian peninsula.
But in AD 632 the Prophet Mohammad died, and the new religion faced
a crisis over who should succeed him as the leader of the umma. The way
it was resolved was fateful for the future of Islam. One of Mohammad’s
closest companions, Abu Bakr, was selected as khalifa (caliph – successor).
But some Muslims felt that the wrong choice had been made, and that
another of the companions should have been chosen – Ali, the Prophet’s
cousin and son- in- law. They believed the Prophet himself had chosen Ali
to succeed.
Despite continuing argument and strife, the caliphs Omar and Othman
succeeded Abu Bakr, and eventually Ali himself became the fourth caliph.
But there was confl ict between those who supported Ali, and those who had
supported his predecessor (who had been murdered). There were tensions
also over the spoils yielded by the enormous conquests made by the Muslims
at this time, which had taken rich swathes of territory from the Roman
and Persian empires (the latter conquered after Persian defeats at the battles
of Qadesiyya and Nahavand in 637 and 641 respectively). The followers of
Ali tended to be those who wanted to uphold the austere principles of Islam
against what they saw as the corrupting infl uence of wealth and government
in the expanding Arab Empire. After Ali’s death in 661 , these tensions
continued, and the caliphs of the Umayyad line that followed him (relatives
of the murdered Othman) were regarded as increasingly worldly. Those
who had followed Ali held to the view that the real leaders of Islam should
be the children of Ali (who by virtue of his marriage to the Prophet’s daughter
Fatima were also the descendants of Mohammad himself).
So by now the Muslim followers of Ali saw themselves in much the
same position as that in which the original followers of Mohammad
had perceived themselves in opposition to the pagans of Mecca; virtuous
austerity resisting worldly authority, oppression, immorality and
corruption. It was in this spirit that Ali’s son, Hosein, led a small group
of followers in revolt in AD 680 . He tried to link up with sympathizers
in Kufa, south of present- day Baghdad, but was confronted by the
forces of the Caliph Yazid at Karbala. The Kufans failed to turn out in
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19
his support, and Hosein refused to make terms. The caliph’s troops
loosed arrows into Hosein’s camp, killing Hosein’s infant son among
others. Outnumbered, his followers tried to fi ght back but were overwhelmed
and massacred, and Hosein was cut down also.
For the Muslim sect that later called themselves the Shi‘a Ali (meaning
the partisans or followers of Ali) or simply the Shi‘a, the desperate battle
of Karbala was the defi ning moment. Ever since that time the Shi‘a have
mourned the event as the essence of injustice; as the victory of the oppressors
over the righteous, of the strong over the weak, of the corrupt over
the pious. The Caliph Yazid became the archetype for all worldly wickedness,
and Hosein the model for heroic self- sacrifi ce. Karbala became one
of the central shrine cities for Shi‘a Muslims, along with Najaf (the tomb
of Ali). Initially Shi‘ism was more a tendency than a sect, drawing to it
people who especially revered the memory of Ali and Hosein, and who
believed that the leadership of Islam should have descended in their line.
Their descendants were known as the Shi‘a Emams, who in each generation
were rivals or at least potential rivals to the caliphs. There was a
further schism after the death of the seventh Emam, Jafar al- Sadiq, in AD
765 , with the supporters of his elder son splitting away to form the Ismaili
sect (despite the fact that he predeceased his father), while the majority of
the Shi‘as followed his younger son, Musa al- Kazim. The succession followed
Musa’s descendants until the twelfth Emam, who was believed to
have disappeared at the time of the eleventh Emam’s death in AD 874 .
Iranian Shi‘as believe that the twelfth Emam (the Hidden Emam, to whom
rightful leadership on earth should fall in principle) never died, but will
reappear at the day of judgement. They are known as twelver Shi‘as
(because they recognize twelve Emams) to distinguish them from the
Ismailis and some other minority Shi‘a sects. 4 In time, Shi‘ism developed
a separate body of traditions and religious- legal rulings of its own, in
parallel to the main Muslim tradition of Sunnism.
Shi‘ism, the Ulema and the Revolution of 1979
Shi‘a Islam became the religion of Iran after it was imposed by Shah
Esmail I and his descendants, the Safavid dynasty, from 1501 . Prior to
that, Iran’s Muslims were predominantly Sunni, with scarcely more
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20
Revolutionary Iran
Sh’ia Muslims than other parts of the Islamic world. The centres of
Shi‘ism were the shrine cities of what is now Iraq – Najaf, Karbala,
Samarra. After that date, those shrines remained important centres of
Shi‘a religious learning and pilgrimage (as they have to this day), but
Iranian Shi‘ism took on a much greater signifi cance. The Safavids
enforced adherence to Shi‘ism as a matter of state policy. Learned men
of religion – ulema – drew close to the Safavid rulers, in a relationship
of mutual support, especially towards the close of the Safavid period of
rule in the years around 1700 . Religious endowments ( tax- free grants of
wealth and land to institutions like mosques, schools and shrines) proliferated
and channelled wealth to the ulema. Shi‘ism became deeply
entrenched in the cultural, intellectual and political life of Iran.
Did Iran turn Shi‘a simply because the Safavids imposed Shi‘ism? Or
was Iranian Shi‘ism also an expression of the Iranians’ distinctive, separate
consciousness of themselves within the Islamic world? The complex
nature of Iran’s national identity and Iranian nationalism is discussed in
a later chapter. But Iranian Shi‘ism had a series of essential, interrelated
effects on the development of modern Iran, and the revolution of 1979 .
Most fundamental was the development of the independent social and
political authority of the ulema .
In 1722 the Safavid regime, ruling from its splendid capital in Isfahan,
succumbed to a revolt by militant, plundering Afghans. Most of the next
seventy years were marred by foreign invasions, civil war, internal revolts,
military adventures, punitive taxation, expropriation, general chaos and
unpleasantness. The ulema fell from their previous position of privilege
and wealth, many of their endowments were confi scated or plundered,
and some criticized them for their perceived complicity in the failure of
Safavid rule. 5 Many of them emigrated, along with many other refugee
Iranians, to southern Iraq or to India or elsewhere (it is possible, for example,
that Khomeini’s ancestors emigrated to India at this time). This
emigration had a lasting impact in parts of India, in the shrine cities of Iraq
and in some of the territories along the southern shore of the Persian Gulf.
In these circumstances, new patterns of thought emerged among the
Shi‘a ulema , partly in response to this trauma (though the thinking
closely mirrored debates that had rolled back and forth in the early centuries
of Islam, and its beginnings had emerged already in the Safavid
period). One school – the Akhbari – argued for a theological position
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that each individual Muslim had in the Koran and in the hadith (the written
traditions of the sayings and actions of the Prophet and, in Shi‘ism,
the Emams) all he needed for his guidance, and that there was only a
limited place, if any, for the interpretation of religious law based on reason
( ijtihad ). The Akhbari position was close to the traditional line of
Sunni Islam on these points. The other school – the Usuli – argued, on the
contrary, that ijtihad was necessary to reinterpret religious law afresh in
each generation, in the light of new circumstances and new understanding,
and that only trained, learned ulema could be trusted to do this. By
the end of the eighteenth century, as a greater degree of order was restored
by the fi rst Qajar Shahs, the Usulis were winning the argument, and a new
arrangement emerged, according to which ordinary Muslims gave their
allegiance – and often, a portion of their material earnings – to a class of
specially qualifi ed ulema called mojtahed (those qualifi ed to perform ijtihad
). In each generation, among the whole body of mojtahed , one or two
clerics emerged to serve as a supreme guide to other ulema and to ordinary
Muslims in religious matters. Such a cleric was called a marja- e
taqlid (source of emulation) or marja .
In this way the Shi‘a clergy developed a religious hierarchy, analogous to
that of other religions – to that of the Catholic church, for example – but
quite unlike the looser arrangements of Sunni Islam. As time went on, and
more ambitious young men strove to qualify as mojtahed , new, more elevated
levels of dignity were added to distinguish between the
clerics – hojjatoleslam (‘proof of Islam’), and ayatollah (‘sign of God’). This
system helped the ulema to reassert their social authority and to restore their
wealth, as a class; this time quite independently of secular rulers, at a time
(the nineteenth century) when the monarchy continued to be relatively weak.
Religious law has a much wider signifi cance in Islam than in Christianity
and other religions. In principle, it is meant to govern every aspect
of a Muslim’s life. This gave clerics a role much more important than
that of mere prayer- leaders in the mosque. They were arbitrators in
family or business or other legal disputes and acted as judges in criminal
cases. They served as notaries for offi cial documents. Often they
were the only authority fi gures in smaller towns or villages and acted
effectively as governors, in association with elders or village headmen.
In the larger towns and cities the ulema tended to have specially close
connections with the merchants and craftsmen of the bazaars, who
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22
Revolutionary Iran
often demonstrated their piety by giving money for religious purposes –
for example to repair the roof of a mosque or to help set up a religious
school ( madreseh ). Bazaari and ulema families often intermarried.
Between them, the ulema and the bazaaris tended to be the dominant
urban classes, and their close relationship came to be of central im –
portance in politics from the end of the nineteenth century onwards.
Through the religious hierarchy, the contacts established during their
long training, and family connections, the ulema had access to a network
of clergy and ordinary Muslims across the whole country, and beyond.
The strong position of the ulema in Iranian society meant that when
secular authority failed or was challenged, almost always the ulema (or at
least some of them) emerged as leaders of political dissent. This happened
in 1890 – 92 (when the government attempted to grant a tobacco monopoly
to a British contractor, Major Talbot, but had to reverse the policy in
the face of a determined boycott organized by clerics and bazaaris ), in
1905 – 6 , in 1953 , in 1963 and, of course, in 1978 – 9 . They were able to
communicate and coordinate action with other ulema , and to disseminate
propaganda, often using the most up- to- date communications technology
(in 1892 , the telegraph system; in 1978 , cassette- tapes, telephone and
Xerox copiers). Their religious authority gave them a unique advantage
by comparison with other potential leaders of mass movements; it meant
independence and a degree of immunity from repression, as a class. Secular
rulers found it diffi cult, and often counterproductive, to act even
against individual mullahs. And in addition, the most senior marjas were
often out of reach of the Iranian government altogether, living in Najaf or
one of the other shrine cities of Ottoman Iraq (the three provinces of
Ottoman Iraq – Mosul, Baghdad and Basra – were ruled under a British
mandate from 1920 and became the independent Kingdom of Iraq in
1932 ).
Popular Shi‘ism
Another important element in Iranian Shi‘ism, often viewed with mixed
feelings by the orthodox ulema , were the public, popular manifestations
associated with the death of Hosein, and the other traditions of the
early history of the followers of Ali. Each year, Shi‘a Muslims take part
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23
in processions that are in effect commemorative funeral processions, to
mark the anniversary of the martyrdom of the Emam Hosein at Karbala.
6 The participants weep and beat their chests. They carry heavy
funerary symbols, including replicas of the Emam’s coffi n, and huge
multi- pronged objects that represent Hosein’s banner. Strongmen train
specially to compete for the honour of carrying these symbols. They also
may beat themselves with chains and in the past some cut themselves on
the head with swords to show their devotion and their fellowship with
the martyrs of Karbala. The grandest processions would take place in
the bazaars of great cities, but smaller versions would go ahead each
year even in otherwise quiet villages. These rituals of collective grief
may seem strange, even threatening, to outsiders (and images often
appear to this effect on Western TV screens), but there are close parallels,
both in the way the processions take place and in the spirit in which
they are enacted, with practices in traditional Good Friday processions
in many Catholic countries.
This parallel is echoed again in the ta‘ zieh – a form of traditional street
theatre in which the events of Karbala and other incidents in the lives of
the Emams are acted out, to the accompaniment of traditional verses –
very like the mystery plays of medieval Europe. The ta‘zieh may also be
performed at other times of the year, but the usual time is at Ashura, the
anniversary of Karbala, like the processions. In former times itinerant
preachers called rowzeh- khans would visit villages and urban households
to deliver the same verses telling the same stories from memory.
Many of the zur- khaneh (‘houses of strength’) in the towns also incorporated
a religious element, venerating the Shi‘a martyrs in their practices
(though the zur- khaneh tradition is of obscure origin, and some argue
that it includes signifi cant pre- Islamic features). The zur- khaneh is a distinctively
Iranian institution, in which men train for wrestling and for
public performances of bare- chested brawniness, including the impressive
juggling of large, heavy wooden clubs, performances of drumming and
poetry recitations. 7
These traditional, popular manifestations repeat and stress the wickedness
of Yazid and the other oppressors of the Shi‘a, and the virtue of
Hosein and the other Emams. They are alien and often abhorrent to
Sunni Muslims, elsewhere in the Islamic world, who regard them as idolatrous
and as innovations not justifi ed by religious texts. In 1979 they
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24
Revolutionary Iran
were familiar to all Iranians; even to socialists, secular nationalists, atheists
or modernizers, soldiers or rich playboys who had turned away from
Iran’s religious tradition. The Ashura processions in particular made a
template for the public expression of collective solidarity and moral feeling
that was signifi cant in the revolution – as well as reinforcing the
common understanding among all classes of Shi‘a beliefs about the
Emams. The processions reconfi rmed and reinforced ideas about the
arrogance and corruption of power and wealth, and the virtue of modesty
and poverty, that run deep in Shi‘ism and in Islam more generally.
Two Revolutions
The revolution of 1979 was the second revolution of the twentieth century
in Iran. The fi rst happened in the years 1905 – 11 , and is a convenient
starting- point for considering the origins of the second.
Like many previous monarchies in Iran, going back to the time of the
Achaemenids, the Qajar dynasty that ruled from 1796 until the 1920 s did
so with a relatively light touch. Turning their back on the example of
eighteenth- century military monarchs like Nader Shah and the founder of
the Qajar dynasty, Agha Mohammad Shah, the later Qajars employed only
a small standing army. They relied instead on regional governors, who were
often the leaders of local tribes, to maintain their authority in the furtherfl
ung parts of the country. Their rule had more the character of a system of
alliances than that of the centralized government of a modern state. 8
But this relatively weak state showed its disadvantages as the nineteenth
century progressed and foreign powers began to take an increasing
interest in Iran. Russia and Britain watched each other’s involvement in
Iran jealously – the Russians expanding their infl uence southwards; the
British seeking to protect their possessions in India. With little coercive
power within the borders of the country, and therefore little ability to
raise taxes, the Qajar monarchs became increasingly dependent on
loans from Russia and Britain, and they made economic concessions to
them in return (the tobacco monopoly was just one example). This was
unpopular with ordinary Persians, and especially with the bazaaris ,
who would be among the fi rst to feel the economic damage from the
foreigners’ activities (some of them would also have benefi ted, but they
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tended to keep quiet). The economy, still predominantly agricultural,
had also adjusted to outside pressures (cheap imports of food commodities
and textiles in particular), changing from a simple subsistence
structure with only small surpluses towards the production of cash
crops for export. But this meant domestic production of food staples
could no longer support an expanded population in times of famine or
economic disruption.
In the later nineteenth century Naser od- Din Shah, who had ruled since
1848 , had gone from an initially liberal position at his accession to a much
more conservative stance, distrustful of reform. The early part of his reign
had been marred by his removal and murder of the reforming prime minister
Amir Kabir, and by government persecution of the Babi religious
movement. The Babis were largely destroyed and driven into exile, where
the movement evolved into an independent religion, the Bahai faith. Since
that time, with just a few periods of respite, Bahais have been persecuted in
Iran, sometimes viciously. By the 1890 s Naser od- Din’s fi nances were in a
mess, the most effi cient armed force in the country was offi cered by Russians
(the Cossack brigade – only around 400 – 600 soldiers) and the national
bank, the Imperial Bank of Persia, was run under the ownership of the
British- based Baron Paul de Reuter (the founder of Reuters news agency).
When Naser od- Din Shah died in 1896 , he was replaced on the throne
by his more liberal- minded (but sickly) son, Mozaffar od- Din Shah, who
removed censorship and constraints on political associations. The result
was an upsurge in press and political activity, with new newspapers
appearing, and the formation of political societies ( anjoman ). Many of
these new newspapers and groups were critical of the government: the
latest grievance was that the Shah’s ministers had given control of customs
to a Belgian, Joseph Naus. They were also saying, drawing upon
Western models, that the country needed a proper constitution, that the
arbitrary rule of the Shah had to be limited, and the rule of law regularized.
Iranians (some of them at least) have been struggling for those things
ever since, down to the present day.
In 1905 these various developments came to a head under the direct
infl uence of a price crisis caused by a disruption of trade with Russia,
following the abortive revolution and general turmoil in Russia that
year. In the northern part of the country the price of sugar went up by a
third and the price of wheat by 90 per cent. The government responded
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Revolutionary Iran
by accusing bazaar merchants of profi teering, but the slump in imports
also brought a collapse in customs receipts and state revenues, which
meant there was not enough money for the Shah to make his usual payments
to some of the ulema , or to the small number of troops at his
disposal.
After some demonstrations and unrest in June, in December 1905 two
sugar merchants from the Tehran bazaar were given beatings on the feet
(the bastinado or falak ) at the orders of the governor of Tehran for charging
too much for sugar. One of them was a respected elder fi gure who had
paid to repair both the buildings of the bazaar itself, and three mosques.
The bazaar merchants closed their shops, and several thousand bazaaris ,
religious students, ulema and others went to the shrine of Shah Abd ol-
Azim to the south of the city, led by two senior clerics, Ayatollahs
Behbehani and Tabatabai. From the sanctuary of the shrine (taking sanctuary
in this way was called bast ) they demanded the removal of the
governor who had ordered the beatings, enforcement of shari‘a law, dismissal
of the Belgian, Naus, and the establishment of an adalatkhaneh
(House of Justice – a representative assembly). After a month of stalemate
the Shah gave in and accepted the protestors’ demands.
But (as with earlier promises) the Shah made no attempt to convene the
House of Justice, and in July 1906 there were further street protests by theological
students when the government tried to take action against some
radical preachers. One of the students, a seyyed (someone believed to be
descended from the Prophet Mohammad), was shot dead by the police,
which caused an uproar and more demonstrations, in which a further
twenty- two were killed. 9 In the streets the Shah’s government was denounced
as the rule of Yazid, recalling Hosein and Karbala. Behbehani, Tabatabai,
2 , 000 ulema and their students left Tehran for Qom (then as now the main
centre for theological study in the country), and a larger group of merchants,
mullahs and others (eventually several thousand) took bast in the extensive
grounds of the summer residence of the British legation at Qolhak, to the
north of Tehran. The ulema and the bazaaris were effectively on strike, bringing
the capital to a standstill. The Qolhak compound became an impromptu
academy of political discussion and speculation, with liberal and nationalist
intellectuals joining in and addressing the assembled crowds. Many of them
spoke of the need to limit the powers of the Shah by establishing a constitution
( mashruteh ), and the demand for a House of Justice became more
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specifi c, shifting to a call for a properly representative national assembly
(Majles). Coordinated by the ulema , like- minded groups from the provinces
sent telegrams in support to the Shah.
One might think that the protection given to the constitutionalist
opposition by the British legation in the summer of 1906 would have created
goodwill toward the British among progressive- minded Iranians at
least. But this did not happen, at least not in any lasting way. British hospitality
toward the revolutionary opposition had more to do with
weakening Russian infl uence at the Qajar court than any deep commitment
to the fostering of representative institutions in Persia. For nearly a
century Britain and Russia had been rivals in the country, but their rivalry
had been aimed more at spoiling the position of the other in the short
term than about winning Iranian affections or creating a partnership with
Iran in the longer term. Russian expansionist motives were fairly plain;
British motives (primarily, until the discovery of oil in Iran in 1908 , concerned
with the security of British India) had often been disguised under
a mask of friendship and an ostensible commitment to development and
liberal institutions. Britain had made alliances with Persia at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, at the time of the Napoleonic wars, only
to renege on them or slither out of their provisions when they became
inconvenient. This had contributed to the humiliating loss of Persian territory
in the Caucasus to Russia in 1813 and 1828 . In the middle of the
century Britain had intervened to prevent Persia from retaking Herat
(part of Afghanistan today but a Persian territory before 1747 ). Eventually
British policy turned against the constitutionalists and through the
rest of the twentieth century was primarily interested in Iranian oil. For
many Iranians Britain was the most dangerous of Iran’s enemies, and
(notwithstanding friendliness toward individuals) that reputation still lingers:
the British have been thought to be devious, untrustworthy and
always looking for new ways to damage Iran. 10
On 5 August, threatened by a potential mutiny among the Cossack
brigade, whom he had been unable to pay, Mozaffar od- Din Shah gave
in again and signed an order for the convening of a national assembly.
By this time the Shah was seriously ill. The Majles met for the fi rst time
in October 1906 , and rapidly set about drafting a constitution, which
was ratifi ed by the Shah on 30 December (one story says that members
of the ulema advised him, in the light of his many sins, to do one great
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Revolutionary Iran
good last thing before he died). 11 The revolutionaries had won their constitution.
Mozaffar od- Din Shah died only fi ve days later.
The Majles was elected on the basis of partial, not full, suffrage, on a
two- stage system, and represented primarily the middle and upper classes
(as was the case in most other countries with elected assemblies at the
time). In each region electors voted for delegates to regional assemblies,
and those delegates nominated 156 members for the Majles (except in
Tehran, where they were elected directly). Outside the Majles, both in the
capital and in the regional centres, the political changes and the elections
stimulated the creation of more new political societies, some of which
quickly grew powerful and infl uenced the deliberations of the Majles
itself. Some represented occupations, others regions like Azerbaijan, others
ethnic or religious groups. There were anjoman for women for the
fi rst time. There was another new wave of political activity and debate
across the country, manifested also in the expansion in the number of
newspapers; from just six before the revolution began to over 100 . 12 This
burgeoning of political consciousness was disturbing in itself to the more
traditional- minded; especially to the more conservative members of the
ulema .
The constitution stated explicitly that the Shah’s sovereignty derived
from the people, as a power given to him in trust; not as a right bestowed
directly by God. But the power of the ulema and of Shi‘ism as the dominant
faith of the country was also confi rmed in the constitution. 13 Shi‘ism
was declared to be the state religion, shari‘a law was recognized, clerical
courts were given a signifi cant role, and there was to be a fi ve- man committee
of senior ulema to scrutinize legislation passed by the Majles, to
confi rm its spiritual legitimacy; until the Hidden Emam – whose proper
responsibility this was – should reappear. But the civil rights of non- Shi‘a
minorities were also protected, refl ecting the involvement of many Jews,
Babis, Armenians and others in the constitutional project. Jews and Armenians
had their own, protected seats for their representatives in the Majles.
Many of these features reappeared in the post- 1979 constitution.
Mozaffar od- Din Shah’s successor, his son Mohammad Ali Shah, had
more autocratic instincts than his father. He resolved from the start,
although he took an oath of loyalty to the constitution, to overturn it
and restore the previous form of untrammelled monarchy, with Russian
help. Opposition to constitutionalism began also to harden from the
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29
religious side. Through 1907 and the fi rst half of 1908 the Majles passed
measures for the reform of taxation and fi nance, education and judicial
matters. The last were particularly disturbing to the ulema , because they
saw their traditional role encroached upon.
Sheikh Fazlollah Nuri was prominent among the ulema who changed
their minds at this time. He had supported the protests of 1905 – 6 (which in
most respects were quite conservative in motivation), but by 1907 he was
saying that the Majles and its plans were leading away from the initial aims
of the movement and that the constitutionalists were importing ‘the customs
and practices of the abode of disbelief’ (i.e. the West). Eventually he shifted
further, to express open support for the monarchy against the Majles, which
he denounced as illegitimate. He also railed against Jews, Bahais and Zoroastrians,
exaggerating their part in the constitutionalist movement. Other
mojtaheds , like Tabatabai, were more willing to accept Western ideas into the
framework of political structures that were necessary to govern human
affairs in the absence of the Hidden Emam. But it is fair to say that Nuri
understood better than many of the ulema the direction that constitutionalism
was leading, and (from his perspective) the dangers of it. The general
ferment of ideas had affected the ulema too, and the ulema had never been a
united bloc of opinion (no more than any group of intellectuals ever is). The
initial success of the revolution had opened up divisions within the revolutionary
movement, as has happened with similar movements in other times
and places (something similar happened in several countries in Europe in the
revolutionary year of 1848 – 9 ). The shift of part of the ulema into opposition
to the constitutional movement was ultimately fatal for the revolution.
In June 1908 the Shah decided that he had enough support to act
and sent the Cossack brigade to attack the Majles. The troops fi red shells
at the building until the delegates gave in, and the assembly was closed.
Many leading members were arrested and executed, while others escaped
overseas. The Shah’s coup was successful in Tehran, but not in all the
provinces. Many of the most dedicated and enthusiastic constitutionalists
came from Azerbaijan, which had long been one of the more
agriculturally productive, densely populated and prosperous parts of the
country, as well as socially and educationally more advanced. In the
years around 1900 some of the inhabitants had travelled over the border
into Russia for work, bringing back radical political ideas with them.
Now, in Tabriz, the regional capital, delegates from the constitutionalist
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30
Revolutionary Iran
regional assembly and their supporters (notably the charismatic exbrigand
Sattar Khan) successfully held the city against the royal governor
and his forces for a time. In doing so they had the help of a young teacher,
Howard Baskerville, an idealistic American from Nebraska, only recently
arrived in the city to work as a teacher. Baskerville fought alongside the
constitutionalists and was eventually killed leading an attack on the
besieging forces in April 1909 .
In 1907 , newly allied to each other and France, and concerned at Germany’s
burgeoning overseas presence, Britain and Russia had fi nally set
aside their mutual suspicions and reached a treaty over their interests in
Persia. The treaty showed no respect for the new conditions of popular
sovereignty in the country (and proved inter alia that the apparent British
protection of the revolutionaries in their legation in 1906 had little real
signifi cance). It divided Persia into three zones: a zone of Russian infl uence
in the north (including Tabriz, Tehran, Mashhad and Isfahan – most
of the major cities), a British zone in the south- east, adjacent to the border
with British India, and a neutral zone in the middle.
One consequence of the treaty was that the Russians, following the Shah’s
coup of June 1908 , intolerant as ever of any form of popular movement,
were emboldened to send in troops to restore Qajar rule in Tabriz. But the
nature of the electoral process for the Majles had helped to create a depth of
resilience in the revolutionary movement. The regional assemblies set up in
cities like Tabriz and Isfahan by the fi rst stage of the process served as refuges
and as centres of resistance for the constitutionalists, which meant that defeat
in Tehran was not the end of the story. Even when the Russians took Tabriz
some of the revolutionaries were able to escape to Gilan and continue their
resistance with other locals there. In July 1909 they made a move on Tehran,
coordinated with a move from the south, where revolutionaries in Isfahan
had allied themselves with the local Bakhtiari tribe. As the revolutionaries
moved back into the capital Mohammad Ali Shah fl ed to the Russian legation.
He was deposed, went into exile in Russia, and was replaced by his
young son, Ahmad (though Ahmad was not crowned until July 1914 ).
The constitutionalists were back in control, but the revolution had
turned more dangerous. The divisions between radicals and conservatives
had deepened, and the violence that had fi rst destroyed and then
reinstated the Majles also had its effect; many of the armed groups that
had retaken the capital stayed on. Several prominent Bakhtiaris took
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offi ce in the government. The ulema were divided, and many sided with
the royalists, effectively rejecting the whole project of constitutionalism.
But within a few days the leader of the conservative ulema , Nuri, was
arrested, tried and hanged for his alleged connections with the coup of June
1908 . Both wings of political opinion carried out a series of assassinations –
Behbehani was killed, and later Sattar Khan. The radicals (the Democratic
Party in the Majles) found themselves denounced by bazaar crowds as heretics
and traitors and some of them were forced into exile. There was
disorder in many provinces, it became impossible to collect taxes, tribal
leaders took over in some areas, and brigandage became commonplace. To
try to restore order, to counter the infl uence of the Russian- offi cered Cossack
brigade, and above all to establish a body that could enforce tax
collection, the Majles set up a gendarmerie trained by Swedish offi cers.
The constitutionalist government also appointed a young American,
Morgan Schuster, as fi nancial adviser. Schuster presented clear- sighted,
wide- ranging proposals that addressed law and order and the government’s
control of the provinces as well as more narrowly fi nancial matters;
and began to put them into effect. But the Russians disliked Schuster and
objected to his appointment of a British offi cer to head up the Swedish
gendarmerie, on the basis that the appointment should not have been
made within their sphere of infl uence without their consent. The British
acquiesced. Schuster assessed, probably correctly, that the deeper Russian
motive was to keep the Persian government’s affairs in a state of chaotic
bankruptcy, and thus in a position of relative weakness. If the Russians
could keep the Persian government as a supplicant for Russian loans then
they would be better able to manipulate it. Any determined effort to put
the government of Persia on a sound fi nancial footing, as Schuster’s reforms
threatened to do, was a threat to Russian interests. The Russians presented
an ultimatum: Schuster had to go. A body of women surged into the Majles
to demand that the ultimatum be rejected, and the Majles agreed, insisting
that the American should stay. But the Russians sent troops to Tehran and
as they drew near, the Bakhtiaris and conservatives in the cabinet carried
through what was effectively another coup, and dismissed both Schuster
and the Majles in December 1911 . 14 That date is the one normally taken
for the end, and the failure, of the Constitutional Revolution.
Like a love affair, a revolution can turn the familiar world upside
down. It is easy for the participants to be so overwhelmed with delight at
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32
Revolutionary Iran
their initial success that they make mistakes later because they fail to
grasp that the revolution will continue to revolve. While new possibilities
may excite some, others may be afraid. New, previously concealed forces
may be released. And however poignant the memory of the early days of
unity and excitement, later developments and mistakes, however much
regretted, make their loss irretrievable. In a revolution, new leaders
emerge from unexpected directions, surprising those who were too quick
to think themselves the masters, or proprietors. This happened in the
French and in the Russian revolutions; also in the Iranian revolution of
1906 – 11 . And also in 1979 .
Schuster later wrote a book about his time in Iran called The Strangling
of Persia , in which he expressed his admiration for the moral courage and
determination of the people he worked with in Iran. The book explained
much about the revolution, and about Iran at the time, but also about
Schuster’s attitudes to the country, and something of the reasons why he
and by extension the US were so highly regarded by Iranians. Earnest, idealistic
Americans like Schuster and Baskerville made a strong impression
on Iranians at this time, as did wider US principles of anti- colonialism and
self- determination, later promoted by Woodrow Wilson. The United States
in this phase and later looked like the partner Iran had long hoped to fi nd
in the West; anti- colonial, liberal, progressive; modern, but not imperialist;
a benevolent foreign power that would, for once, treat Iran with respect, as
an agent in her own right, not as an instrument. That sentiment toward the
US persisted, despite disappointments.
The efforts of well- meaning individuals like Schuster and Baskerville
could do little enough to swing the balance in favour of the constitutionalists
in 1906 – 11 . The revolution fell victim to violent factionalism
among the Iranians themselves, and also to the machinations of the
Russians and the British. But the Constitutional Revolution was an
important event, not just for Iran but for the region and arguably the
world as a whole; and it was far from a complete failure. Apart from an
abortive move in Ottoman Turkey in the 1870 s, it was the fi rst attempt
in the Middle East by a people of the region to set up a liberal, representative
government by its own efforts. The experience of representative
government had a powerful, unifying effect in confi rming and energizing
Iranian nationalism. The spirit and the goals of constitutionalism
stayed alive and vigorous, and were a major factor in Iranian political
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life for the rest of the century. Subsequent regimes repeatedly bypassed
or fl outed it, but the constitution of 1906 remained in force until the
revolution of 1979 . The Majles continued to be elected and to meet, and
in 1919 was instrumental in preventing a post- war attempt to establish
a British protectorate in Iran.
A young British offi cer in Persia at the time, Arnold Wilson, wrote
sceptically and rather patronizingly after a long conversation with two
optimistic Majles deputies on the road from Shiraz to Isfahan in 1907 :
The majlis will not work: it has no roots in the soil and no tradition: either
the Qajars or some other dynasty will eventually destroy it . . . but Persian
nationalism will get stronger for it has roots and a tradition as old as Persia
itself. 15
Morgan Schuster blamed the Russians and the British for the failure of
the revolution (and perhaps, by extension, the attitudes of some like Wilson).
He wrote of the Majles:
It was loyally supported by the great mass of the Persians, and that alone
was suffi cient justifi cation for its existence. 16
Ahmad Kasravi, who was a supporter of constitutionalism and also
lived through the period of the revolution, blamed the split between the
constitutionalists and the conservative clergy:
So the people were of two minds. Bit by bit, a division appeared between
the two ways of thinking, and when the mullahs did not see it in their interests
to cooperate with the constitution and had to part, a big faction went with
them. But the faction that stood fast did not fi nd the way forward to struggle
and remained confused. This faction of modernists could not show the people
the way forward, either. 17
All three views have some truth to them. Many of the alliances and interests
that played out in 1906 – 11 made their appearance again in 1979 . But
the events of the Constitutional Revolution were also present in the minds
of Iranians in the 1970 s as a warning. In particular, the more politically
minded among the clergy had learned the lesson that the ulema should not
allow political leadership to slide out of their hands as they had in 1906 .
Although the Qajar government, with Russian support, ostensibly
regained its position in December 1911 , it never really restored its
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Revolutionary Iran
authority in the country as a whole. In many parts of Iran local tribal
leaders were the only authority, and in the north, in Gilan, an insurrection
that came to be known as the Jangali movement (named after the
dense forests of the region, which favoured guerrilla fi ghting), descended
from the constitutionalist groupings of 1907 – 9 , continued to fi ght the
Russians and the monarchists for years under its charismatic leader,
Kuchek Khan (‘Little Khan’).
Oil and War
Another story that begins in the time of the Constitutional Revolution is
that of Iran and oil. One month before Mohammad Ali Shah ordered the
Cossacks to fi re on the Majles building in the summer of 1908 , a British
exploratory venture struck oil at Masjed- e Soleiman in Khuze stan in the
south- west (on 26 May). This was the fi rst major discovery of commercially
viable oil in the Middle East, and the Anglo- Persian Oil Company (later the
Anglo- Iranian Oil Company, eventually to become BP ) was set up to exploit
it. From this time onwards, the British government’s prime interest in Persia
was no longer directed at securing the borders of British India (as had been
the case for a hundred years), but ensuring the continued supply of cheap
Iranian oil. The importance of Iranian oil was led by the fact that the British
fl eet changed over from coal to oil to fuel its battleships at this time. Competition
to build battleships was a focal point of the escalating tension
between Britain and Germany – accelerating after the launch of HMS
Dreadnought in 1906 – that helped to bring about the First World War.
Iranian oil became a vital strategic asset for the security of the British Empire.
The contractual basis of the oil strike was a concession granted by the
Persian government to the British commercial adventurer William Knox
D’Arcy in 1901 . Like other concessions granted to foreigners in those years,
the terms were poor for the hosts: in the event of oil being discovered, they
would only get 16 per cent of the profi ts. Successive governments were not
able to break free from the D’Arcy concession until the 1950 s, and over that
period Iran got a bad return for such an important national asset.
The First World War deepened further the chaos that followed the end
of the Constitutional Revolution. Iran was never a major theatre of
war – was barely even a minor one – but at various times Ottoman,
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Imperial Russian, British, Kurdish, Jangali, Bolshevik and all sorts of
tribal forces were fi ghting in one part of the country or other. At one
point in 1915 the Ottomans, with help from allied German offi cers, were
in control of parts of the west and briefl y hosted a Committee of National
Resistance in Kermanshah, drawn from members of the Majles of 1914 . 18
In and around Shiraz a talented German, Wilhelm Wassmuss, organized
attacks against British interests in cooperation with local Qashqai tribesmen.
The British countered by building alliances with other tribes in the
south- west and by establishing a British- offi cered force recruited locally,
the South Persia Rifl es, to protect the oilfi elds. The Ottomans and Germans
had some successes early on, but were pushed onto the defensive
from 1917 onwards. Russian interest in Persia collapsed with the revolution
of 1917 (although the Bolsheviks were active in northern Persia in
1919 – 20 , working with the Jangalis) and with the collapse of the German
and Ottoman war effort in 1918 the British were left dominant in Iran.
The British were dominant in the sense that the other external contenders
had faded from the scene, but they were not in control. Iran came
low on a long list of priorities, and Britain could not spare enough troops
fully to impose order in the country. Britain was globally overstretched at
the end of the First World War and heavily in debt. The British foreign
secretary, Lord Curzon, had a particular interest in Iran: he had spent
some time travelling through the country in 1889 – 90 and had written a
weighty book afterwards – Persia and the Persian Question . But he seems
to have dismissed the signifi cance of the Constitutional Revolution, and
his approach to the country was more redolent of the 1890 s. His plan
was for Iran to become a kind of British protectorate (similar to the
arrangements being set up by the British in Egypt, Palestine and Iraq at
the same time), with Iranian institutions functioning under British control,
a British- offi cered army and Britain controlling the country’s foreign
policy. In return Iran would get help with economic development – railway
construction, road building and so on.
Ahmad Shah’s government, encouraged with bribes, accepted Curzon’s
plan (framed as the Anglo- Persian Agreement), but when its terms
became more widely known there was a strong nationalist reaction
against it across the country, and the Majles rejected it, which meant it
could not legally enter into force. There followed a year or more of grim
limbo. The country was in a desperate state. Law and order had broken
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Revolutionary Iran
down completely across wide areas; trade and economic activity generally
had been disrupted and had slumped; fi ghting continued sporadically in
parts; nomadic tribesmen raided towns and villages; and bandits made
the roads unsafe for travellers. The north- west in particular had suffered
widespread destruction in the fi ghting between the Russians and the
Ottomans. There had been extensive famine in 1917 – 18 , and more deaths
had been caused among the weakened population by the infl uenza pandemic
of 1918 . In London Curzon still hoped to force through
implementation of his plan, but in Iran British soldiers could see that the
situation was hopeless: they did not have enough troops to hold their
existing commitments safely, let alone pacify and police the whole country,
which was turning increasingly hostile.
General Ironside, the senior British offi cer in the country at the end of
1920 , without troubling to consult London over his intentions, found a
solution that would enable him to withdraw British troops safely. The
Cossacks, expanded to weak division strength during the war, still had
Russian offi cers (marooned in Iran after the revolution of 1917 ). Ironside
removed them and appointed Iranians from the ranks in their place. He
then selected one of them, Reza Khan, as the de facto commander and
gave him to understand that, if he were to march on Tehran and set up a
military government, British forces would not stand in his way.
In February 1921 , Reza Khan did just that, and set up a new government
in association with a mixed group of nationalists and former constitutionalists.
British troops withdrew, maintaining only a presence in the south- west
to protect the oil. Less than fi ve years later, having defeated the Jangalis and
some tribal resistance in the provinces, Reza Khan had himself crowned as
the fi rst Shah of a new dynasty, the Pahlavi dynasty. The name Pahlavi
derived from the name given to the pre- Islamic language of Iran (otherwise
known as Middle Persian), but the term drew colour also from the fact that
the heroes of the Shahnameh had been called Pahlavan ; the latter word was
also used for the contemporary strongmen of the zur- khaneh .
The Pahlavi Dynasty
From the beginning the Pahlavi monarchy was a strange creation. When
Reza Shah was crowned in 1926 he had been prime minister for three
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years under the authority of Ahmad, the last Qajar Shah, and he had
attempted unsuccessfully to make the country a republic in 1924 (just
after Mustapha Kemal had deposed the Ottoman Sultan and made himself
president of the new Republic of Turkey, in October 1923 ). Reza
Shah’s family origins were obscure – no hint of any royal or even aristocratic
forebears. The monarchy was a parvenu regime that resembled
other nationalist military dictatorships of the 1920 s and 30 s elsewhere,
with the difference that it came later to be seen in the eyes of many
Iranians (somewhat unfairly) as tainted from the outset by the hand of
the British in its establishment.
A revolution, a military coup and a military dictator who makes himself
a monarch: a familiar pattern. Like Napoleon, Reza Shah inherited
many of his initial supporters and much of his programme from the revolution
that preceded his time. Many constitutionalists supported him as a
strong leader who would restore order and bring in reforms that would
develop the country (so far they were right) – realizing too late just how
autocratic and illiberal his instincts were. But Reza Shah was not Napoleon.
He lacked Napoleon’s triumphal prestige and his freedom of action.
Similarly, he fell short of the model closer to him in time and place – Mustapha
Kemal (Atatürk) in Turkey.
At the start, Reza Shah had a lot of support, including from many of
the ulema . Notable constitutionalists like Abdolhosein Teymurtash and
Hasan Taqizadeh joined his government as ministers. Others who had
opposed Reza Shah, like Seyyed Hasan Modarres (probably the most
prominent surviving pro- constitutionalist among the clergy, who had been
instrumental in the rejection of the Anglo- Persian Agreement), tried to
negotiate a settlement that left room for liberal government – but failed.
Ordinary people wanted predictability, order and stability to return to
their lives, and the chance for economic recovery. Reza Shah delivered
that. His priority from the fi rst was to build a modern army, and in the
1920 s 40 per cent of state expenditure was devoted to it. Already in
1922 he had brought forward a plan for an army of 50 , 000 men. By the
later 1930 s the army was 100 , 000 strong, and because it was based on
conscription, there were a larger number of reservists who could be
called upon in time of war. The army was used to pacify the country, 19
and especially the more troublesome nomadic tribes – who still made
up perhaps a quarter of the population at this time. The tribes disliked
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Revolutionary Iran
conscription, and enforcement of conscription served as an additional
pacifying measure. The policy was implemented brutally, but the majority
of the population would have approved of strong measures – for most
Iranians of the towns and villages the previous independence of the tribes
carried no romantic connotations. It signifi ed disorder, danger, brigandage,
unpredictability and weak central control. The income that Reza
Shah’s new government derived from oil was spent almost entirely on
military equipment, including artillery, tanks and aircraft.
But the army could not exist in isolation, and its effi ciency demanded
wider changes in the country – many of which echoed earlier, failed reform
programmes. Financial administration and taxation were reformed. Ambitious
plans for road and rail construction were brought forward and
implemented. New industries were set up (notably in areas like textiles
and foodstuffs), aimed at stemming imports and keeping capital within
the country by supplying demand domestically. Some were fostered as
state monopolies. Perhaps most importantly for the future, education was
greatly expanded. By 1938 school attendance was over 450 , 000 by comparison
with 55 , 000 in 1922 (out of a total population of around
12 million). Secondary school attendance went up proportionally; the
Shah established the country’s fi rst full university in Tehran (including a
theology faculty, and with it the opportunity for religion to be taught in
Iran as a phenomenon, rather than simply as the Truth); and the government
gave scholarships to talented students to study in universities
abroad. 20 The education provided was somewhat narrow and technocratic,
aimed at producing effi cient offi cers and administrators rather
than encouraging independent thought, but it is seldom possible for the
state fully to manipulate the uses to which individuals may put the education
they have been given. Most of the new schools were in towns and
cities – the illiteracy of the majority of Iranians, who still lived in the villages
and in the countryside, was almost untouched.
Like those of Atatürk in Turkey, Reza Shah’s policies followed a
nationalist, secularizing pattern that sought to modernize the country on
a Western model. They reasserted the position of Iran against foreign
interference, but also sought to push the ulema aside. The educational
reforms aimed at giving a Western- style education rather than the traditional
Koran- based education of the madreseh. The Shah brought in a
wholesale reconstruction of the legal system, with courts supervised by
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secular judges and civil and penal legal codes designed along European
lines. For a time this went in parallel with the traditional shari‘a legal
framework; then in 1936 the religious courts were abolished. But a Westernizing
programme did not mean subservience to Western powers. Reza
Shah also, in 1927 – 8 , abolished the treaties (aptly named Capitulations)
by which foreigners had enjoyed exceptional legal status in the country.
He avoided using British or Russian technical advisers for his development
projects (from the countries with the worst record of interference in
Iran), preferring to use Germans, Frenchmen or Italians. He renationalized
the administration of customs in 1927 , and the central bank in
1930 as Bank Melli – the ‘National Bank’. In 1935 the Shah directed
foreign embassies to stop using the name Persia in diplomatic correspondence,
telling them instead to use the name Iran. This reform was in
one way simply an assertion of self- determination – the term Iran had
been the word used by Iranians for their country since the time of the
Sassanids, at least. But Reza Shah probably intended it also to distance
his regime from that of the Qajars, who had acquiesced, in this as in other
ways, in letting foreigners determine too much of what went on in the
country (the name Persia had been used since classical times in the West,
deriving ultimately from the fact that the Achaemenid dynasty of Cyrus
and Darius I, with which the Greeks had fought lengthy wars, had originated
in the province of Persis – Pars (modern Fars).
Reza Shah did not, like Atatürk in Turkey, attempt to replace Arabic
script with Roman. But he did copy Atatürk’s reform of Turkish by trying
to impose a reform of Persian to exclude words of Arabic or non- Iranian
origin. Most controversially, he ordered that Iranians wear Western dress,
banning traditional robes and headgear, and most radically of all, banning
the veil for women. Many women simply ceased to go out of doors,
and the new rules provoked strong opposition. A protest in Mashhad in
1935 culminated in the Shah’s troops opening fi re on demonstrators in
the precincts of the shrine of the Emam Reza, which caused greater
resentment.
There was a wider mood of secularizing nationalism among intellectuals
at this time. Tending to blame reactionary mullahs for the failure of
the constitutional revolution, such nationalists went further, to blame
the ulema and Islam as a whole for Iran’s backwardness. Nationalists
looked back to the pre- Islamic past, to what they thought of as a purer
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Revolutionary Iran
Iran, before the Arab conquest. The mood fi tted with some of the attitudes
of the Shah and his regime, but was not simply a function of regime
self- projection – as time wore on some of the writers became critical of
the Pahlavi regime too.
Three Writers
Ahmad Kasravi was a central fi gure among the nationalist thinkers
and writers of this time. He wrote extensively on Iranian history and politics;
including the most important history of the Constitutional
Revolution. Kasravi came from Azerbaijan, from a family of Turkic origin,
and spoke Azeri Turkish as his mother tongue – a good example of
the way that Iranian culture and even Iranian nationalism have transcended
narrow ethnic categories. He was born in Tabriz in 1890 , to a
clerical family, was given training in a seminary (though he also attended
the American Memorial School in which Baskerville had taught) and was
involved in the dramatic events of the Constitutional Revolution in
Azerbaijan. In his early days as a student Kasravi turned away from his
religious training (according to one story, this happened when he discovered
that Western scientists had predicted the reappearance of Halley’s
comet in 1910 ) and became a wickedly intelligent critic of the ulema – but
also a critic of many other aspects of contemporary Iranian society. One of
his pamphlets, entitled What Is the Religion of the Hajjis with Warehouses?
, poured scorn on bazaar traders who were keen to present
themselves as pious Muslims, but whose commercial and general behaviour
was amoral, grasping and hypocritical. Another, entitled Hasan Is
Burning His Book of Hafez , attacked the disposition, as he saw it, of
many Iranians to substitute quotation from the classic Persian poets for
genuine thought – illustrating (albeit negatively) the centrality of that
great poetic tradition in Iranian cultural life. 21 Like many of his generation
Kasravi was a committed believer in the principles of constitutionalism
and secular government. He was a nationalist, and attacked the linguistic
and other divisions that had created suspicion between Iranians and, in
his opinion, had made them weak. He worked for many years in the Ministry
of Education and as a journalist and writer. In 1946 he was
assassinated by a group called the Fedayan- e Eslam, followers of a man
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41
who had chosen to call himself Navvab Safavi (thereby associating himself
with the dynasty that had imposed Shi‘ism on Iran). 22 The Fedayan- e
Eslam dedicated themselves to eliminating those they identifi ed as the
enemies of Islam.
Kasravi was signifi cant for a number of different reasons. He stood for
a strand of thinking in Iran, typical of the Pahlavi period, which became
important again in the 1960 s and 70 s, and which rejected the backwardness
of Shi‘ism as it was practised, blaming it for many of the weaknesses
and failures of the country (though his anticlericalism was less extreme
than that of some others). His thinking was a key infl uence on a generation
of educated, middle-class Iranians who benefi ted from the
opportunities that arose under the Pahlavis; and on the generation of
intellectuals and writers that followed him.
Sadegh Hedayat was a more radical writer in a variety of ways: more
troubled, and more of a loner. Born into an a quasi- aristocratic family
of courtiers and scribes in Tehran in 1903 , he travelled to France on one
of Reza Shah’s fi rst scholarships and studied a series of different subjects
including architecture and dentistry there in the later 1920 s, but
never took a degree. As a young man he became an enthusiast for a
romantic, sometimes chauvinistic Iranian nationalism that laid much of
the blame for Iran’s problems on the Arab conquest of the seventh century.
His short stories and novellas like Talab- e Amorzesh ( Seeking
Absolution ), Sag- e Velgard ( Stray Dog ) and his best- known, Buf- e Kur
( The Blind Owl ) combined the everyday, the fantastic and the satirical,
rejecting religion, superstition and Arabic infl uence, but in an innovative,
modernist style combined with a relentlessly honest observation of
everyday life. He translated works by Kafka, Chekhov and Sartre into
Persian (he knew Sartre in Paris). His writing refl ected contemporary
European existentialism and the infl uence of those writers; but he was
also an enthusiast for the poetry of Omar Khayyam, and translated
texts from the pre- Islamic Sassanid period into modern Persian. In his
last years, after a period of renewed vitality after the fall of Reza Shah,
his writing grew more bitter and pessimistic again. His story Tup- e
Morvarid ( The Pearl Cannon – published in 1947 ) included diatribes
against the government of Reza Shah, as well as the writing of history,
colonialism, Islam and the clergy (the passages on religion include some
of the most forthright condemnations of Islam written in any language).
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Revolutionary Iran
He never joined the Tudeh Party, but like many others at the time was
sympathetic to it. 23 Hedayat committed suicide in Paris in 1951 by gassing
himself. He was buried in Père Lachaise cemetery.
Unlike Kasravi, Hedayat received little attention in his own lifetime and
was regarded by his family as a failure who could not hold down a job.
Financial and family problems contributed to his suicide. He only acquired
his reputation as the prime modernist prose writer of twentieth-century Iran
after his death, partly because other writers like Jalal Al- e Ahmad and
Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh drew public attention to his work.
Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh was a little older than Hedayat – he was
born in Esfahan in 1892 , the son of a well- known constitutionalist cleric,
Seyyed Jamal al- Din Esfahani, who was murdered in prison in 1908 at the
orders of Mohammad Ali Shah. Jamalzadeh himself was a committed
constitutionalist and joined a group of like- minded exiles led by Hasan
Taqizadeh in Berlin during the First World War. While there he contributed
to the political magazine Kaveh , which had been established by
Taqizadeh and others. It was a political journal, anti- British and anti-
Russian, but also included historical and literary material. At the end of
the war it became less partisan, but continued to favour the principles
behind constitutionalism. Jamalzadeh published several articles and other
pieces in Kaveh ; most notably ‘Farsi shekar ast’ in 1921 (literally, ‘Persian
Is Sugar’ – usually translated as ‘Persian Is Sweet’). This was a short story,
written in a realist style and using simple, colloquial Persian to satirize
both the language of the mullahs, often overburdened by vocabulary and
constructions taken from Arabic, and that of the Western- educated, full of
loan words from French and other European languages. Later the same
year it was republished with fi ve other stories in a collection with the title
Yeki bud, yeki nabud (literally, There Was One, There Wasn’t One : the
phrase used to introduce children’s stories in Persian – the equivalent of
‘Once upon a time’). It created a furore – attacked by some of the clergy,
but welcomed by many other writers and intellectuals as a breath of fresh
air. Many later writers of short stories in Iran followed Jamalzadeh’s lead
(including Hedayat). Jamalzadeh wanted Iranian literature to avoid overcomplicated
language that aped the usage of other countries. Politically, he
was against foreign interference in Iran and against the dead hand of intolerant,
traditionalist clergy within Iran. From 1931 until his retirement in
1956 he worked at the International Labour Organization in Geneva,
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but continued to write and publish in Iran, especially after 1941 , when
censorship was lifted. He held true to his constitutionalist principles, and
the principles of the European Enlightenment. Jamalzadeh visited Iran
but continued to live in Geneva, and died there in 1997 . 24
Writers like Kasravi, Hedayat and Jamalzadeh, building on the sacred
tradition of Persian poetical literature, created a new prose literature in
Persian and carved out an important new role for writers in the life of
Iran – not just in literature but also in politics; as standard- bearers for
political and cultural values – as cultural heroes. Plenty more followed in
their path in later decades.
Reza Shah’s policies brought the country many benefi ts, but by the later
1930 s the shine had come off his rule. Most of the constitutionalist politicians
he had appointed as ministers had been removed. Some went into
exile – others were murdered in prison. The constitutionalist cleric Modarres
was killed in prison too (in 1938 ). The Shah was suspicious, and his treatment
of political dissent, or failure, was harsh. His court minister, Teymurtash,
was imprisoned after he failed to get better terms for the exploitation of
Iran’s oil from the British, and he died in prison in 1933 . The cause of death
was given offi cially as heart failure; but he was generally believed to have
been murdered on the Shah’s orders (as with other political prisoners in those
years, the story was that he was one of the victims of Dr Ahmad Ahmadi,
whose favourite technique was allegedly to inject air into a vein, which
caused cardiac arrest when the air bubble found its way back to the heart).
The Shah later secured a marginal improvement in the revenue he got
for Iran’s oil; an increase in the share of the profi ts from 16 to 20 per
cent; but the failure to get a properly fair division of the benefi ts and the
continuing presence of the British AIOC in the country was a persistent
humiliation, especially as other countries, with whom oil companies
made deals later in the century as oil exploration uncovered new re –
serves, made deals yielding a better return to the host country. It is
instructive to compare Reza Shah’s Iran with Atatürk’s Turkey. Atatürk
was able to remove all the concessions his Ottoman predecessors had
made, and to eliminate every vestige of foreign interference in Turkey –
no external power controlled any asset to compare with Iranian oil.
And Atatürk never lapsed into dictatorial paranoia. He maintained his
commitment to representative government – albeit a trammelled version
of it – and ended his life in his own bed, in his own country, still revered
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Revolutionary Iran
by his fellow countrymen (and for long after his death). The Pahlavis
never properly learned the value of politics as a lightning- rod to make
safe the dangers of political dissent. Perhaps Reza Shah never shook off
the contempt for popular politics that he learned from the Tsarist Russian
offi cers of the Cossack brigade.
By the later 1930 s the Shah had alienated many Iranians, and a similar
dangerous combination of opposition forces to that which had caused the
revolution of 1906 – 11 had begun to form. Most hostile were the ulema ,
who saw traditional values abused and alien Western principles followed
in their stead. They had been pushed out of their roles in education and
law. Their close confederates in the bazaar were uneasy at the Shah’s
reforms of the economy and were aggrieved at the way state monopolies
took profi ts out of their hands. But most of the liberal intellectuals were
hostile too. Some of their number had been killed in prison, others had
gone into exile, and it was not safe for any that remained to express criticism
of the Shah. In 1937 he turned on a new generation of intellectuals:
some politically minded young students returned from study in Europe,
including both fascist sympathizers and Marxists, were arrested and
imprisoned. His rule had become repressive and brutal. Incidents like the
shooting in Mashhad roused the deep- seated Shi‘a distrust of secular
power, and the abuse of it.
Another aspect to the Shah’s nationalism was an element of pro-
German Aryanism. The emphasis on linguistic purity and on pre- Islamic
Iran led some further, to an idea of an Aryan/ Indo- European identity that
made some kind of racial commonality between, for example, Aryan Germans
and Aryan Iranians (there is, of course, a common linguistic
root 25 – but since the 1930 s it has become clearer that race, culture and
language can be very different things; and genetic research makes race as
a concept increasingly problematic). In the 1930 s some Germans advised
the Shah’s government on his linguistic policy, and there were German
technicians in the country helping with engineering and other projects.
But a large part of the Shah’s apparent pro- German inclination was based
on the simple fact that the Germans were not British. The Shah was keen
above all to maintain the limited degree of independence he had achieved.
With the outbreak of war in 1939 that independence became more
problematic. In 1941 the strategic situation in the Middle East was dangerously
fl uid, and the supply of oil from Iran was as vital as ever. Iran
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had again declared neutrality, but the British government demanded that
the Shah should expel German nationals from the country. The Shah
refused, the British and Russians invaded, and the Iranian army was
mobilized, but proved no match for the invaders; within a few weeks, in
September 1941 , Allied troops entered Tehran.
War and Occupation
Reza Shah abdicated in favour of his son, Mohammad Reza, and went
into exile. He died in South Africa in 1944 . Some have suggested that the
British moved into Iran not because Reza Shah was too pro- German, but
because they feared a pro- German coup against him (as had just happened
in Iraq). 26 But the outcome was the same – another occupation, and
rule by the Allies (with the US joining in later) until 1945 .
There was no popular outcry at Reza Shah’s removal. Many Iranians felt
relief, and the tribes in particular were able to return to their traditional ways
of life. An American, Arthur Millspaugh, returned to the country to administer
state fi nances (he had served a similar function in Reza Shah’s earlier
years, but had fallen out with the Shah over military spending). Another
American, H. Norman Schwarzkopf (father of the military commander who
led Operation Desert Storm in Iraq in 1991 ) also played a signifi cant part in
the years of occupation. Having been gassed during the First World War,
after which he joined the New Jersey State Police, he had made a name for
himself through his involvement in the Lindbergh kidnapping case and publicizing
colourful exploits against gangsters. 27 In Iran he headed a US military
mission and supervised an Imperial gendarmerie that restored order when
trouble broke out in different parts of the country. Americans were more
acceptable to Iranians in these roles than other foreigners.
The period of occupation was another episode of political and intellectual
ferment, similar to that of the early years of the century. Reza
Shah’s censorship regime was lifted, political prisoners were released, new
political parties and labour organizations formed, and there was another
outpouring of journalistic activity. It was also the time when radio and
radio broadcasts began to reach a large proportion of the population –
another novelty that helped Iranians to feel part of a nation, that national
politics belonged to and involved them.
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Revolutionary Iran
But, impelled by this new freedom (of a kind), the intellectual
mood was shifting. In the 1940 s many writers moved toward a
leftist position, aligning themselves with the Tudeh Party, which formed
in 1941 almost as soon as Reza Shah had gone; founded by some of the
leftist students he had imprisoned in 1937 . Notable among the founders
was Khalil Maleki, who also persuaded the young Jalal Al- e Ahmad
to join.
Tudeh (the name means ‘The Masses’) was set up initially as a social
democratic party, but quickly moved to a communist position, aligning
itself with Moscow for the most part. 28 Tudeh drew support from large
numbers of workers in the new state- sponsored industries. It was well
organized and consolidated that support in the later 1940 s by successfully
pushing through social legislation, including a minimum wage. But
the educated middle class had also grown, and with it support for the
liberal democratic tradition that still espoused the values of the Constitutional
Revolution.
Tudeh’s pro- Soviet alignment was exposed at the end of the war,
when the Soviet Union backed separatist republics in Iranian Azerbaijan
and Kurdestan (the latter probably represented the political aspirations
of the local population rather more than the former). The Soviet Union
also claimed an oil concession in the north- west, which made its
actions resemble Tsarist policy, and Tudeh had to support the concession.
The US and Britain demanded that the Soviets withdraw their
troops from Iran, as had been agreed previously, but the Russians
refused, and for a time there was a stalemate. Internationally, the confrontation
was the fi rst of its kind in what was to become the Cold War,
but it also roused further the spirit of Iranian nationalism that had
already been stimulated by the foreign occupation and the relaxation of
previous political restrictions. The Soviets eventually withdrew; the
army regained some of the credit with Persian- speaking nationalists
that it had lost in 1941 by moving in to crush the pro- Soviet republics,
and Tudeh lost much of its credibility. Hundreds of Azeris and
Kurds who tried to defend their separatist republics were killed, and
thousands fl ed over the border into the Soviet Union, including perhaps
10 , 000 Kurds. 29 With the last Allied troops withdrawn from Iran, political
attention turned to another unresolved nationalist grievance – the
oil question.
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Mossadeq, Oil Nationalization and
Ayatollah Kashani
By the 1950 s world oil production had spread and diversifi ed to many
new countries, and oil companies were exploiting reserves in Iraq, Saudi
Arabia, Venezuela and Mexico. In each of these places European and/or
American companies had made deals with the host governments to
exploit the oil, but all the more recent contracts of this kind had been on
much better terms for the hosts (after some of them had found effective
ways to exert pressure for change) than the terms of the Iranian contract
with the AIOC . A 50 / 50 split of profi ts between host country and oil
company had become the standard arrangement. But the AIOC (with the
backing of the British government, long a majority shareholder) were
obstinately reluctant to renegotiate. Britain was even more desperate economically
after the Second World War than after the fi rst, with a critical
balance of payments defi cit, and could not contemplate losing its supply
of cheap oil.
A signifi cant fi gure in opposition to the Allied occupation and against
British exploitation of Iranian oil was Ayatollah Abol- Qasem Kashani.
He was not one of the most senior ulema (Ayatollah Borujerdi was the
senior marja at the time and supported the monarchy), but his forthright
position on political matters gave him special prominence. Unlike some
other ulema , after the experience of the 1930 s he regarded the constitution
as a potential protection against the dictatorial power of a secularizing
monarch. 30 Kashani was imprisoned during the war by the Allies (his
father, also a cleric, had died fi ghting the British during the revolt of
1921 in Iraq). 31 He served in the Majles as speaker. He had a following in
the Majles and among the bazaaris , but also had connections with Navvab
Safavi and the Fedayan- e Eslam, the extremist Islamic group who had
assassinated Kasravi.
The years following the Second World War were important for the
development of Iranian politics. The monarchy was still relatively weak
under the young Shah, and once the occupying foreign powers had left
the country the interlude of political freedom was sustained. The central
fi gure to emerge out of this new ferment was Mohammad Mossadeq,
who formed a coalition of parties – the National Front – around the
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Revolutionary Iran
nationalist, liberal principles of the Constitutional Revolution. Mossadeq
was descended from the Qajar royal family. He had been educated in
Switzerland and had fi rst entered politics before the First World War. He
had opposed Reza Shah in the 1920 s and 30 s and had withdrawn from
politics, to emerge again after Reza Shah’s abdication. His populist
speechmaking (his voice had a distinctive sing- song quality) 32 and his use
of new media have since prompted a comparison between him and other
anti- colonialist politicians active in the 1950 s, like Nasser in Egypt and
Sukarno in Indonesia. He had an emotional and passionate nature that
lent itself to this role. He saw the monarchy as the main enemy of liberal
democracy in Iran – but he was no great friend of the ulema either. At one
point in the crisis that followed, according to one story, some of Mossadeq’s
supporters put a pair of spectacles on a dog and named it
‘Ayatollah’. They showed it in the Majles and then took it through the
streets. Years later Khomeini commented how at the time he had said
Mossadeq should be slapped – ‘and it was not long before he was slapped;
had he survived, he would have slapped Islam.’ 33
Mossadeq became prime minister in April 1951 , having led the Majles
in a vote to nationalize Iranian oil the previous month. His oil policy was
hugely popular – and Ayatollah Kashani’s commitment to that cause
meant that he supported Mossadeq too, bringing with him an important
slice of traditional, conservative, clerical and bazaari opinion. But he also
needed the support of the Tudeh Party. Tudeh had been banned offi cially
in 1949 , in the aftermath of a failed attempt on the Shah’s life, but
regrouped and continued on an underground basis; as time went on the
party came forward again, and the ban, though technically still in force,
was passed over more and more. 34 Mossadeq also intended to limit the
power of the Shah and establish the country on a permanent basis as a
modern, constitutional monarchy. He thought the US would help, as in
the time of Schuster, Baskerville and Millspaugh.
The British government set about mobilizing international support
against oil nationalization and against Mossadeq. AIOC technicians left
the country, and Britain imposed an oil blockade. The oil industry suddenly
became a burden on the economy and the state, as the government
had to pay maintenance costs and workers’ wages, with no revenue
coming in. Infl ation began to rise, and unemployment too. Having
grown strongly since 1945 , the economy slumped. 35 Tudeh remained
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49
steadfast in their support for Mossadeq, but support from others began
to waver. Mossadeq pressed on boldly, including with divisive measures
like land reform. But as the fi scal and economic strain intensifi ed, and
uncertainty about the direction of his programme spread, he leaned
more heavily on Tudeh, and doubts within and without the country
about communist infl uence also strengthened.
The standard view of the events that toppled Mossadeq says that he
was removed by a coup orchestrated by the CIA and the British Secret
Intelligence Service. But the reality was more complex. In particular, the
role of the clergy in the fall of Mossadeq has sometimes been neglected.
Many senior clergy had opposed Mossadeq and supported the monarchy
from the outset.
By the summer of 1953 the US and the British were ready to act in Iran
to remove Mossadeq. It might seem strange that the US fell in with the
British government in this resolve, but this was a strange time in US politics.
It was the era of Senator Joe McCarthy and the House Committee on
Un- American Activities, of the Dulles brothers heading the State Department
and the CIA . Mossadeq’s populism, his attacks on the Shah, whom
the US regarded as their prime ally in the country, the anti- Westernism
and anti- capitalism of some among Mossadeq’s supporters and above all
his ambiguous but apparently close relationship with Tudeh made him
suspect for the policy- makers of the Eisenhower administration. This was
perhaps combined with a certain lack of confi dence in Middle East affairs
that led the US to listen too readily to British arguments. The communist
threat was the prime danger, and other actors and forces were seen as
useful or otherwise only in relation to the struggle against communism. In
those terms, Mossadeq just wasn’t anti- communist enough.
In reality Mossadeq was more pro- US than many other politicians in the
region – Nasser in Egypt, for example (to whom the US effectively gave
their support, against the British interest, in the Suez crisis three years later).
Mossadeq’s doomed efforts to secure American help showed poignant faith
in fundamental American values. With US backing Mossadeq could have
governed effectively and popularly in Iran and kept Tudeh in their place. Or
(more likely) he might have failed later, under the weight of his own errors,
as democratic politicians generally do. But he did not get the chance.
In 1952 Mossadeq’s position was confi rmed by a new election, and
by a crisis in July (known afterwards as the Si- ye Tir ) between him
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Revolutionary Iran
and the Shah, over who had the right to appoint the minister for war.
Mossadeq briefl y resigned, but the Shah had to reappoint him when
public feeling expressed itself in widespread demonstrations and riots.
Mossadeq had faced down the Shah, and he was able to face down
opposition to his land reform plans from the conservative landowners,
but only by taking emergency powers that neutralized their grip
on the upper house of parliament, the senate. Gaining confi dence, he
appointed secular- minded and anticlerical ministers, and his government
brought forward policies for further nationalization, which
appeared to threaten bazaari interests. 36 Kashani and his followers,
having supported Mossadeq in July, began to express doubts about
the government’s actions against the constitution. They also protested
against plans to extend the vote to women, and to rescind a ban on
the sale of alcohol. When Mossadeq asked for an extension of his
emergency powers, clerical members of the Majles who supported
Kashani left the National Front coalition and set up their own Islamic
fraction.
So although a referendum in July 1953 again showed huge support
for Mossadeq, there were doubts about the fairness of the poll, and
important leaders of the traditional middle class – the clergy and the
bazaaris – had gone over to the conservative, monarchist side (as had
also happened in 1906 – 7 , of course). There were demonstrations against
Mossadeq, and CIA – sponsored newspaper articles agitated against him.
This was the background against which Kermit Roosevelt Jr – grandson
of Theodore ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt – coordinated a CIA operation in Tehran
with a group of Iranian army offi cers (the Americans called it Operation
Ajax; the British, who fi rst put forward the idea, gave it the more prosaic
codename ‘Boot’). The plan was for a coup that would appoint one
of the Iranian offi cers, General Fazlollah Zahedi, as prime minister in
place of Mossadeq. In July– August 1953 they put their plan into effect.
The Shah’s twin sister, the formidable Princess Ashraf, came back to
Tehran from the Riviera to persuade the Shah, who was fearful and hesitating,
to sign the documents necessary for Mossadeq to be removed. At
fi rst Mohammad Reza refused even to see her, but eventually they had a
stormy interview on 29 July. Schwarzkopf also returned, and did his
best (they met on 1 August), but the Shah did not actually sign until
12 August. 37
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51
The Shah
Mohammad Reza Shah was thirty- three years old in the summer of 1953 .
He had been educated in Switzerland, and his youth had been dominated
by his father; always a severe, daunting man, who as time had gone on
had become ever more domineering and distrustful of ordinary Iranians.
These experiences and traits all left their mark on his son, who grew up
to be diffi dent, rather remote, lacking in confi dence and without any kind
of easy or natural connection with the people he was to govern – but with
a fi rm sense of duty and a compulsion to continue his father’s work. His
fi rst decade as Shah had been traumatic. His father’s deposition and death
had been followed by the failure of his fi rst marriage to the strikingly
beautiful but spoiled Princess Fawzia, daughter of the King of Egypt, who
abandoned and divorced him in 1945 : after her racy, Westernized lifestyle
in Alexandria, she had found the court in Tehran backward, dour and
claustrophobic. His divorce of her according to Iranian law, after the
humiliating failure of attempts at reconciliation, followed only in 1948 .
In February 1949 , as the Shah entered Tehran University to award
diplomas, a man walked up to him and fi red fi ve shots at point- blank
range. Three went through Mohammad Reza’s hat, then one through his
cheek. In a bizarre moment of black comedy, the Shah tried to confuse the
assassin and dodge the bullets – ‘I suddenly started shadow- dancing or
feinting.’ The man fi red again, and another bullet hit Mohammad Reza in
the shoulder. The pistol jammed with the sixth round, 38 after which the
would- be assassin was gunned down by the Shah’s bodyguards, who had
by then remembered their job. ‘I had the queer and not unpleasant sensation
of knowing that I was still alive,’ the Shah said later. The man was
found to have been a member of Tudeh, and this was the incident that
caused the party to be banned. The attack shook the Shah (there was
another attempt in 1965 ) and led him to adopt tighter security – security
that went to even greater lengths in later years and contributed signifi –
cantly to his distancing from ordinary Iranians. In the early 1950 s the
young Shah was confi dent of neither his own abilities, nor his judgement,
nor his standing with his people.
Mohammad Reza remarried in 1951 , to another beautiful woman, the
half- German Soraya Esfandiari Bakhtiari; unlike his fi rst, this marriage
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Revolutionary Iran
was a happy one, but was again to end in divorce seven years later, after
it became apparent that Soraya could not give him children. After the
divorce, Soraya wrote a memoir that gave some insights into the character
of the young Shah. He liked fast cars and was a keen pilot, having
learned to fl y in the 1940 s. But he had a near- fatal crash in 1944 , 39 and
those who had to fl y with him were not always so cheerful about it:
On another occasion we were fl ying to Isfahan. I was seated in the cockpit,
next to the Shah . . . Suddenly I saw that the engine had cut out and that we
were losing altitude with terrifying speed . . . Then the Shah noticed that the
fuel tanks were as good as empty. At the last moment, when we had almost
crashed into the mountains, we began to pump petrol furiously from the
reserve tank and thus gained just enough altitude to clear their peaks.
After this incident I was somewhat dubious about the return fl ight that same
evening. This time I sat in the cabin, next to General Zahedi, and we reached
Tehran without trouble. As we were circling the airfi eld . . . Zahedi said:
‘There’s nothing more for your Majesty to worry about. We’re here.’
‘Keep your fi ngers crossed,’ I replied. ‘We haven’t put down yet.’
Mohammad Reza came lower, the wheels touched the runway, but we did
not come to a standstill. Just before we reached the end of the runway the
Shah gave his engine gas and the plane’s nose went up. It almost scraped the
roofs of a couple of houses.
‘God God!’ I shouted. ‘Didn’t the undercarriage come down properly?’
‘It’s nothing,’ said the Shah. ‘There was a man standing at the end of the
runway, and it made me nervous.’
After ten minutes he tried again, but . . . exactly the same thing happened.
It was simply his nerves. The Shah said:
‘I’ll manage it next time.’
The offi cer in the control tower, however, alerted the fi re- engines and the
ambulance. When the Shah’s third attempt to land was equally unsuccessful,
that offi cer suggested, in polite tones:
‘If your Majesty has enough fuel, it would be better to circle for a quarter
of an hour or so, until you are feeling more yourself.’
Thereupon Zahedi and the other passengers took out their copies of the
Koran and began to say their prayers. They murmured these softly, so as
not to make the Shah more nervous than he already was. But Allah must
have heard them all the same, for eventually we landed on the runway,
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53
though with such a lurching and bumping that my hat ended up three hundred
yards from where we did.
One result of this day was that I felt a growing dislike of fl ying . . . 40
Coups That Fail, and Coups That Succeed
On the night of 15 / 16 August 1953 Colonel Nasiri of the Imperial Guard
led an armoured column to Mossadeq’s residence in Tehran to deliver the
ferman (royal decree) removing him from offi ce. But the plotters had
taken too long to put their plan into effect, and news of it had leaked.
Nasiri was intercepted on Mossadeq’s doorstep by offi cers loyal to the
elected government, commanded by General Riahi, the chief of staff.
They arrested Nasiri and put him behind bars. In the morning Tehran
Radio announced that a coup attempt had been foiled. 41 Mossadeq himself
came on air and named the Shah and unspecifi ed foreigners as the
instigators. Within minutes of the broadcast, taking only Soraya, the pilot
and one other companion with him, the Shah fl ew out of the country in a
light aircraft, to Baghdad. From there he fl ew on to Rome. Because they
had left so rapidly, the couple had to go shopping, buying a new grey suit
for the Shah and a white polka- dot dress for Soraya. Because he was anxious
not to displease Mossadeq, the Iranian ambassador in Rome made
himself diplomatically absent – he went swimming in Ostia. He also
refused Queen Soraya the key to a car she had left in Rome two years
previously – but another embassy offi cial found it for her. The couple
were worried about money. Soraya later wrote that the Shah told her: ‘We
shall have to economise, Soraya, for I am sorry to say that I haven’t much
money. Enough perhaps to buy us a farm somewhere or other.’ 42
Back in Tehran, crowds went onto the streets to demonstrate for Mossadeq,
and Kermit Roosevelt sent a telegram to Washington to break the
bad news that his coup attempt had failed.
Quite what happened next is not easy to tease out, nor who was in control
or determined events. 43 No one in those days can have felt in control – all
of them were groping in the dark, trying to fi nd a way through to what they
wanted, rather desperately, without much confi dence.
The demonstrations against the coup attempt grew and turned more
militant. Crowds toppled statues of the Shah and his father, and it became
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Revolutionary Iran
clear that Tudeh were using the situation to press for abolition of the
monarchy. On Monday 17 August Mossadeq ordered that the Shah’s
name be removed from prayers in military barracks, 44 a highly symbolic
act in an Islamic country (the inclusion of a ruler’s name in Friday prayers
was traditionally as important as a mark of sovereignty as its appearance
on the coinage). But Mossadeq soon realized that there was a danger of
the situation escaping his grip, and this was reinforced by a meeting he
had with the US ambassador on 17 August, in which the ambassador
noted that the infl uence of the communists seemed to be growing and
urged that order be restored.
There was time over these days for others also to become concerned at
the situation and to reconsider their own position. Plenty of moderate
Mossadeq supporters would have been taken aback that the monarchy
as an institution was now under threat. If the monarchy were to go,
would there be enough security left in the system to prevent Tudeh taking
over? The clergy in particular were alarmed at that prospect – alarmed at
the possibility of an atheistic communist regime and (among other concerns)
the loss of their endowed property ( waqf ) that would presumably
follow.
Many if not most of the offi cers that Roosevelt had been dealing with
had been arrested at Mossadeq’s orders, Zahedi himself was in hiding,
and the CIA ’s ability to infl uence events must have been damaged, to say
the least. The Imperial Guard had been disarmed (in the pre- coup planning
the CIA assessment had been that most police and army units in the
capital were loyal to Mossadeq in any case). Once again, Tudeh networks
within the armed forces helped Mossadeq to do this effectively. There is
evidence that most of the US actors in Tehran had given up the game; in
Washington, Eisenhower’s advisers were telling him that the CIA had
failed, and it would now be necessary to ‘snuggle up’ to Mossadeq if the
US were to retrieve anything from the situation. 45
But the situation, and some loyalties, were shifting. On the afternoon
of Monday 17 August, deciding that enough was enough, Mossadeq
told Tudeh to back down and authorized the police and army to use
force to break up the Tudeh- led demonstrations if necessary. This they
did the next day – leaving the fi eld open for anti- Mossadeq and pro-
Shah demonstrations, which followed on 19 August. After their experience
on the Tuesday, Tudeh kept their people at home, and a confrontation
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developed outside Mossadeq’s residence, in which a number of brawny
members of bazaar zur- khaneh seem to have participated. This turned to
violence as some troops arrived, including six Sherman tanks. There was an
exchange of fi re between these tanks and the soldiers guarding the house.
The shooting continued for two hours, with many casualties, and three tanks
that had been in position to defend the house were destroyed. 46 Meanwhile,
pro- Shah demonstrators took over the radio station and began broadcasting
from there. Eventually, with General Riahi telling him the situation was
hopeless, Mossadeq gave up, an nounced at about 5 p.m. that the building
would no longer be defended and left by a ladder over a back wall. 47 He was
arrested the following day. Zahedi came out of hiding to take control as the
new prime minister, and the Shah fl ew back to Tehran on 22 August. At the
airport a military honour guard turned out to welcome him, but was kept at
a distance in case one of the soldiers made an assassination attempt. 48
So three days after Roosevelt had announced the failure of his coup
attempt to Washington, Mossadeq had fallen from offi ce. Statements
made at the time, both by the US ambassador in Tehran and by the
administration in the US when the news reached them, show that they
were dumbfounded by this reversal of fortune. 49
What had happened? Roosevelt and the CIA did their best to take the
credit later, claiming the coup as one of their greatest successes against the
Soviets in the Cold War. Among other things, they claimed that they
passed $ 10 , 000 to Ayatollah Kashani, to pay mobs to turn out on the
streets on 19 August. But Kashani and other senior clergy did not need
money to persuade them to act against Mossadeq, and their infl uence and
connections were quite enough to bring crowds on to the streets without
American cash. In fact, Kashani himself had created the conditions for the
coup by turning against Mossadeq earlier in the year.
The CIA operation had set a number of personalities and groups in
motion. Some, but not all of these had been neutralized on Monday
17 August, after the initial attempt failed. Some were presumably still
running. But more important was the jolt given to moderate opinion by
the disappearance of the Shah, the breakdown in law and order and
the triumphalism of Tudeh on 17 – 18 August. Against the background of
the withdrawal of clerical support for Mossadeq and suspicions about
his high- handed treatment of the constitution, these factors were enough
to convince enough Iranians in Tehran on Wednesday 19 th (Tudeh having
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Revolutionary Iran
removed themselves from the scene) that the Shah was a better guarantor
of their security and that Mossadeq had to go. The clergy (as at other
times in the twentieth century) were more effective at mobilizing action
on the streets than the CIA could ever have been. Their move to oppose
Mossadeq was the decisive factor in his downfall – but it may not be
entirely correct to regard it as a betrayal. Kashani’s decision was openly
made and was made in response to Mossadeq’s own actions – it was a
development that Mossadeq should have foreseen. He could have made
a greater effort to keep Kashani and his supporters on his side; or to
outmanoeuvre them.
It should go without saying that none of this should be taken as an
exculpation of US or British policy. Both governments deliberately connived
at the removal of a democratically elected prime minister, and the
long- term damage to the interests of Britain and the US in Iran was enormous.
The events of the summer of 1953 are still much debated. For some
Iranians, it reinforced their view of Iran as a victim, and the belief that
most events, whatever their outward appearance, were in fact manipulated
by foreigners. When the Shah returned it was not so much as the
victor as the inglorious benefi ciary of a victory that others had won for
him, in dubious circumstances. Many Iranians quickly perceived the hand
of the US in his reinstatement and in Mossadeq’s removal, and for them
the coup discredited both the Shah and the US as a friend to Iran. Whatever
the realities of 1953 , this perception was important in the attitudes
that led to the revolution of 1979 . The CIA themselves, their critics on the
left of US politics and many Iranians, whether nationalist, leftist or anti-
Western clerics, have all tended to stress the CIA role, for their own
reasons. Other factors in the drama, such as Mossadeq’s own mistakes
and the role of the clergy, have tended to be forgotten. 50
For Tudeh, 1953 was the zenith of their political fortunes, and a
major lost opportunity. They never reached the same position of power
and infl uence again. They had been well organized and well connected
(especially within the armed forces), providing Mossadeq himself with
timely and accurate information at a number of points. But their demonstrations
against the monarchy proved ill- judged, and they had
arguably been too timid in standing down their street activists after
18 August. 51 They had suffered from a number of contingent problems,
aside from the usual handicaps of their stultifying ideology 52 and
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factional strife. Stalin’s death in March had crippled Soviet policy- making
and turned Moscow in on its own concerns, leaving the Iranian party
without the guidance to which it had become accustomed. In addition,
many of the leading personalities of Tudeh had been in the Soviet Union at
the time for one reason or another. Once again, the left in Iran was the
bridesmaid, not the bride. But perhaps their greatest error was their failure
to grab the bouquet. How realistic was it to think that they could use Mossadeq
to smooth their path to power? Why did they never bring forward
a leader of their own to capture the public imagination in a comparable
way? Were they really too weak to make their own coup attempt on 18 or
19 August? Or just not prepared or fl exible or bold enough? The historian
and authority on the Tudeh Party Ervand Abrahamian has pointed to
Tudeh’s failure to mobilize support among the rural population (still the
majority of the population at that time) as the party’s crucial error:
As the Tudeh leaders admitted in analyzing the defeat of August 1953 , the
royalist offi cers could not have carried out their coup d’état if their peasant
rank and fi le had mutinied or the rural masses had risen up in revolt. 53
But was that really so? The French and Russian revolutions were largely
made in cities. The Bolsheviks in Russia had been predominantly an
urban party, like Tudeh, and the Russian peasantry’s support for them in
the period 1917 – 21 had been less than wholehearted. When the Iran ian
revolution came in 1978 – 9 , it was not led or dominated by a rural uprising
or revolt as such. Tudeh’s real failure was a failure of leadership – a
failure to plan realistically for the long term, and a failure to take their
fate and the fate of the country into their own hands, rather than trying
to work through proxies.
However, as the reaction against them after 16 August showed, it is
probably correct that Tudeh were opposed by forces too powerful, with
too much to lose, for them ever to have succeeded in 1953 . In the aftermath,
Tudeh suffered from political repression more severely than any
other group. Many of the leadership as well as the rank and fi le were
taken and imprisoned (some, notably the charismatic Khosrow Roozbeh,
were executed) and by the end of the decade Tudeh had almost ceased to
function as a movement. 54
In London, Churchill was jubilant at Mossadeq’s fall – it was a bright
point in his failing premiership (he had just suffered a stroke). Churchill
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Revolutionary Iran
had been involved in the story of Iranian oil since the beginning, when he
had directed British naval policy before the First World War. When Kermit
Roosevelt met him in London later in August 1953 Churchill said the
AIOC had ‘fouled things up’ but congratulated Roosevelt:
The Prime Minister seemed to be in bad shape physically. He had great diffi
culty in hearing; occasional diffi culty in articulating; and apparently
diffi culty in seeing to his left.
In spite of this he could not have been more kind personally nor more
enthusiastic about the operation. He was good enough to express envy of
Roosevelt’s role and a wish that he had been ‘some years’ younger and might
have served under his command. 55
British celebration over Mossadeq’s fall did not last long. Diplomatic relations
with Britain, broken off by Mossadeq at the end of 1952 , were restored
in 1954 , but from 1953 onwards the US became by far the most infl uential
foreign power in Iran. The US government mediated a new agreement with
the Shah whereby the profi ts from Iranian oil were shared 50 / 50 between the
Iranian government and an international consortium of oil companies.
Within this consortium US oil companies took a 40 per cent share; the AIOC
(soon to be renamed BP ) also got 40 per cent – 20 per cent of the total. If the
British had compromised with Mossadeq early enough they could have got
a much better deal than that. Following in his father’s traditions, the Shah
spent much of the increased revenue from oil on military equipment.
Autocracy
With US backing and with opposition to him crushed, the Shah was
fi rmly in control, and as time went on he gained confi dence. The period
of democratic politics that began under Allied occupation during the
Second World War ended with Mossadeq. Pro- Mossadeq newspapers
were closed, and over 2 , 000 people were arrested by the end of the year,
mainly Tudeh and National Front activists and sympathizers. Government
ministries and the army were purged, and the Majles elections
of 1954 were rigged, setting the pattern for subsequent elections up to
the revolution of 1979 . 56 Two bogus parties, the National Party and
the People’s Party (Melliyun and Mardom) were set up in the Majles,
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59
competing only in their enthusiasm for the Shah’s policies (they were
satirized as the ‘Yes’ party and the ‘Yes sir’ party). 57 Melliyun was
replaced by Iran Novin (‘New Iran’) in 1963 . From 1953 onwards the
post of prime minister was in the Shah’s pocket – Mossadeq’s successors
were appointed and removed as the Shah pleased. All this was done with
US government and CIA support.
Even if the vexed question of responsibility for the coup is set aside,
the CIA ’s role in suppressing democracy in Iran after the coup, working
with Zahedi, is undisputed. Most notable was its part in forming the
Shah’s secret police, which later became notorious as SAVAK ( Sazemane
Ettela‘at va Amniyat- e Keshvar – National Intelligence and Security
Organization) . The manipulation of constitutional and democratic institutions,
combined with SAVAK ’s sustained and effective attacks on
underground opposition, succeeded in crippling politics in Iran for the
next quarter of a century; permitting the continued autocratic rule of
the Shah, but also facilitating the eventual re- emergence of the only
opposition group with any kind of independence or immunity from persecution
– the clergy.
For the second time, this time under Kashani’s leadership, a section of
the clergy had attempted an alliance with the idea of constitutional, representative
government – with a form of liberal democracy. But eventually,
as some had done in 1908 , they had pulled back and sided with the monarchy
instead. For the next few years, under the leadership of Borujerdi,
Behbehani and Kashani, the clergy supported the monarchy. The Shah’s
government massaged their goodwill; most notoriously, in 1955 , by turning
a blind eye 58 to attacks on the Bahais, who were hated as apostates
and heretics by the ulema . Ultimately though, the Shah’s political instincts
were no more favourable to the clergy than his father’s had been. His
vision of a modern, Westernized, technocratic Iran had little place for the
ulema . This vision emerged gradually through the following years.
Gharbzadegi
As a writer and political thinker, Jalal Al- e Ahmad’s life was strongly
affected by Mossadeq’s fall. He and his thinking can be seen as a connecting
link between the era of Sadegh Hedayat and the era of Ali
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Revolutionary Iran
Shariati. Al- e Ahmad was born into a religious family in 1923 , but under
the intellectual infl uence of the time and of writers like Kasravi and others
turned away from religion toward Marxism. In the 1940 s he was close to
the leftist thinker and politician Khalil Maleki, but like Maleki he disliked
the subservience of Tudeh to Soviet interests. Having been a strong supporter
of Mossadeq, he renounced politics after his fall, but remained
strongly political in much of his work while withholding support from
any particular party or group. Like many of his generation, he favoured a
lean, colloquial way of writing over the more ornate style of earlier decades
and centuries. His most famous work was fi rst published in
1962 – Gharbzadegi , which can be translated as ‘Sick from the West’,
‘Sick of the West’, ‘Westoxication’ or ‘ West- strickenness’. Neither the idea
nor the term was wholly new, but Al- e Ahmad developed it further than
before. In the opening lines of the book he compared gharbzadegi to a
disease that destroyed an ear of grain from the inside, eating it away but
leaving the husk so that from the outside it appeared quite healthy. Gharbzadegi
was an infl uential concept and after the revolution became one of
the standard terms of revolutionary politics. Al- e Ahmad’s intention with
it was not to attack the West or Western ideas as such, at least not directly
(his grasp of the culture and politics of the West was in fact probably
rather inferior to Hedayat’s), but rather the uncritical way in which Western
ideas had been accepted and advocated and taught in schools (often
without being properly understood); producing people and a culture that
were neither genuinely Iranian nor properly Western. Following a story
by Molana Rumi, he compared it to a crow who saw one day the elegant
way that a partridge walked. The crow tried to imitate the partridge and
failed, but kept trying, with the result that he forgot how to walk like a
crow, but never succeeded in walking like a partridge. 59
More strongly than anything, Al- e Ahmad wanted Iranian culture and
Iranian life to be genuine , not bogus or emptily imitative or im ported. In
this, like Hedayat, he showed the preoccupations of the 1940 s and 50 s,
and the infl uence of existentialists like Sartre and Camus. But as time
went on, he gave up the anticlericalism of Kasravi and Hedayat and
turned back to Iranian Shi‘ism as the central, authentic identity of Iran,
while remaining critical of the old- fashioned, superstitious form of
Shi‘ism they had rejected. In later years, he drew attention to the way that
oil wealth was spent on imported absurdities that earlier generations
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of Iranians could never have imagined they could want, and to the false
historical heritage presented by Mohammad Reza Shah as the backdrop
to the Pahlavi monarchy. He supported Khomeini’s attacks on the Shah
in the early 1960 s. For many he was a charismatic hero; the archetype of
the politically committed intellectual. After his death in 1969 his widow,
Simin Daneshvar, went on to make a literary reputation in her own right,
and her descriptions of their troubled married life diminished his reputation
only slightly. 60
As elsewhere, in many parts of the world, the second half of the 1950 s
was a period of growth in Iran. Between 1954 and 1969 , albeit with some
blips, the economy grew (adjusted for infl ation) by an average of around
7 per cent per year, but fl uctuated between 3 and 14 per cent. 61 The Shah’s
government did not invest only in the armed forces – the new stream of
oil money went also into roads, railways, education and medical services.
Improvements in living conditions and medical care led to rapid population
growth – from 19 . 3 million in 1950 to 27 . 3 million in 1968 . 62 Tehran
and other cities began to grow as new industries drew in surplus population
from rural areas.
But at the beginning of the 1960 s a series of new developments came
together to create a new atmosphere of uncertainty and crisis, anticipating
in several ways the crisis of 1978 – 9 . After a sustained boom came a recession,
63 encouraged by government policies of retrenchment after a period of
overspending and over- borrowing. The cost of living had risen, and with it
the number of strikes. The Shah’s proposals for land reform, prompted by
the Kennedy administration in the US , encountered opposition, including
from Ayatollah Borujerdi (previously the Shah’s close ally). Land reform
was tricky for the clergy, who collectively owned a signifi cant proportion of
the country’s best agricultural land. The proposed reforms drove a wedge
between them and ordinary peasants, with whom it was understandably
popular. The clergy also disliked proposed changes to the law for the election
of local councils – including provisions for councillors to take an oath
on religious books other than the Koran, and allowing women to vote for
the fi rst time. 64 Taken together, these measures broke the rapprochement
between the monarchy and the clergy that had held since 1953 and reminded
the ulema of their worst moments in Reza Shah’s time. The new US administration
was also encouraging political liberalization – in response the
Shah lifted the ban on the National Front, which led to further strikes
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Revolutionary Iran
and demonstrations. Then two deaths among the top ulema left a sudden
vacuum of religious authority. Borujerdi died at the end of March 1961 ,
and Kashani just under a year later.
Among the ulema , Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini had a degree of prominence
as a thinker and pious scholar before this time, but he had avoided
speaking out on controversial subjects and was not well known among the
population generally. He was sixty years old in 1962 . The deaths of Borujerdi
and Kashani allowed him to emerge as a religious leader and also,
within a short time, as a major fi gure in national politics. It has been suggested
that other clerics made Khomeini a marja to protect his life when
he was arrested at a later stage, but it seems in fact that his elevation to this
status occurred in the normal way after Borujerdi’s death. Clerics talked
among themselves in Qom over a period of days or weeks and visited each
other’s houses. Khomeini’s followers acclaimed him, and his new status was
gradually accepted by his most senior peers. 65
The government’s initial proposals for land reform stalled, so in 1962 the
Shah brought forward a new Land Reform Act, which he then (in January
1963 ) presented for a national referendum as part of a six- point plan he
called the ‘White Revolution’. The other fi ve points were privatization of
state factories, nationalization of forests, female suffrage, profi t- sharing
for workers and a literacy corps of young educated people who were to go
into rural areas to teach reading and writing at primary level (many rural
areas were still without schools). The referendum, according to the results
announced by the government, gave the plan massive support; but the
National Front had boycotted it, on the grounds that the proposals should
have been drawn up by a constitutionally elected government. After a
series of critical telegrams to the government, and coordinating his actions
with other senior clerics, Khomeini had begun to speak out against the
Shah’s regime. 66 A loose association called the Coalition of Islamic Societies,
formed largely of bazaaris with clerical leadership, came together to
support Khomeini. In March troops and SAVAK agents attacked the
madreseh in Qom where he was preaching, killed some of the students and
arrested Khomeini himself. He was released a few days later but continued
his attacks on the government, denouncing corruption, the rigging of elections
and other constitutional abuses, neglect of the poor and the sale of
oil to Israel. He avoided the subject of land reform (and, for the most part,
female suffrage), instead targeting issues with mass appeal on which the
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63
government was vulnerable. According to one story that circulated at the
time (which shows the sort of things that were being said, even if the
exchange never actually happened), the Shah sent Khomeini a message
threatening to put on his father’s boots and come to Qom to sort Khomeini
out. In response Khomeini is supposed to have replied, ‘Your father’s
boots are too big for your feet.’ 67
In that year Ashura came at the beginning of June, and that was when
the tension reached its climax. Khomeini gave his strongest speech yet on
3 June, the day of Ashura itself. Khomeini addressed the Shah directly and
referred to the events of 1941 :
I don’t want you to become like your father. When America, the Soviet Union
and England attacked us people were happy that Pahlavi [i.e. Reza Shah]
went . . . Isn’t it time for you to think and refl ect a little, to ponder about
where this is leading you, to learn a lesson from the experience of your
father? 68
There were demonstrations in Tehran and several other major cities in
the days that followed, which drew added force from the intense atmosphere
of Moharram. The government, directed by Asadollah Alam (prime
minister from July 1962 to March 1964 ), acted decisively, imposed martial
law and put troops on the streets, and hundreds of demonstrators
were killed before the protests ended, after three days. The Shah later
thanked Alam for his fi rm handling of the crisis. 69 The deaths, especially
because they took place at Ashura, invited comparison with the martyrs
of Karbala on the one hand, and the tyrant Yazid on the other.
Khomeini was released in August but despite SAVAK announcements
that he had agreed to keep quiet, he continued to speak out, and was rearrested.
Finally, he was deported and exiled in 1964 after a harsh speech
attacking a new law that gave the equivalent of diplomatic immunity to
US military personnel in Iran:
They have reduced the Iranian people to a level lower than that of an
American dog. If someone runs over a dog belonging to an American, he
will be prosecuted. Even if the Shah himself were to run over a dog belonging
to an American, he would be prosecuted. But if an American cook runs
over the Shah, the head of state, no one will have the right to interfere with
him. 70
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64
Revolutionary Iran
Shortly after this new law was passed in the Majles a new US loan of
$ 200 million for military equipment was agreed – a conjunction all too
reminiscent of the capitulations conceded in the time of the Qajars and
abolished by Reza Shah.
Khomeini went into exile fi rst to Turkey, then to Iraq and fi nally (after
the Shah put pressure on the Iraqi government to remove him from the
Shi‘a shrine city of Najaf) to Paris in 1978 . In Iran, the Shah had a range
of his opponents arrested, including the leadership of the National Front.
Protest faded, aside from occasional manifestations at Tehran University
and from members of the ulema . But underlying resentment remained,
and despite his exile Khomeini continued to be regarded by religious Iranians
as the leading cleric of the time.
For the Shah, the lesson from 1963 seemed to be that autocracy worked:
he could govern with a fi rm hand and overcome short- term dissent with
repression (one might add that the Shah’s autocracy worked when there
was a fi rm, loyal minister to apply the policy for him – Asadollah Alam in
this case). In the longer term, his policies for development – his White
Revolution – would bring material benefi ts to ordinary people, overcome
any temporary unpopularity and secure his rule. The term White Revolution
was revealing in itself and showed the Shah’s preoccupations. It wasn’t
a Red, or communist, revolution, but a White, monarchist revolution
(refl ecting the terminology of the civil war that followed the Russian revolution
of 1917 , and of the French revolution before that): a progressive
social and economic transformation of the country, but launched by the
Shah rather than a political movement from the left. The juxtaposition
showed also the Cold War parameters of the Shah’s thinking. To him, the
prime danger was Red revolution. Marxism declared that material inequalities
between classes would eventually produce revolution, so the way
to avoid revolution was to undercut it, by stimulating economic development
and providing material improvements for society as a whole, reducing
class tensions (but also by resisting Soviet infl uence and infi ltration, and
crushing leftist political activity). After the defeat of clerical opposition
in 1963 the clergy appeared irrelevant to this programme of ideas. The
Shi‘a clergy belonged to the past: a new, economically developed Iran
would naturally turn in a secular direction, as had the Western societies
Iran was emulating (and neighbouring countries like Turkey and Egypt
also). This programme was congruent with the expectations of the US and
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65
other Western governments too: Iran and other Middle Eastern countries
had been somewhat backward, but they would embrace material development,
reject elements of their traditional culture that had been holding
them back (notably, Islam) and, if they could avoid the seductions of Soviet
communism, become normal countries just like those of Europe and North
America.
And for fi fteen years this model appeared to work. There was little sign
of overt political dissent, but there was a queasy, widespread awareness
of discontent that manifested itself in a variety of ways. One was the
growing popularity among young people and students of the writings of
Ali Shariati.
Shariati was born in 1933 , in the small village of Kahak, near Mashhad
in Khorasan. 71 His father had studied as a religious scholar but
became a teacher, and Ali grew up largely with his mother while his father
was away. Intelligent, but often absent- minded and lazy, with a tendency
to melancholy in private despite his good humour in company, he developed
a witty and independent way of thinking that often got him into
trouble with his teachers. His thinking was infl uenced by his father, who
was an advocate of progressive political Islam in his own right, by Sufi sm,
by Kasravi (absorbing his criticism of contemporary Shi‘a Islam without
accepting his rejection of it) but also by Western thinkers like Maeterlinck,
Schopenhauer and Kafka. He had a particular attachment to
various forms of mysticism – especially to the poetry of the great Molana
(Rumi) – but the events of 1953 also made a strong impression on him.
He had been and remained a fervent supporter of Mossadeq; but, in addition
to strengthening his criticism of the traditionalist clergy, Mossadeq’s
fall persuaded Shariati that democratic institutions were too weak for the
stresses involved in lifting a country like Iran out of tyranny. 72
As a student Shariati went to Mashhad University, and then to Paris,
where he attended lectures by Marxist professors (but also the Islamic
scholar Massignon), read Guevara and Sartre, communicated with the
theorist and revolutionary activist Frantz Fanon and took a doctorate
from the Sorbonne (in 1964 ). His political activities also attracted the
attention of SAVAK . Returning to Iran in 1965 , from 1967 he lectured to
students in the university of Mashhad, attracting large numbers, and
wrote a series of essays, books and speeches. His criticism of the traditional
forms of Shi‘a Islam in Iran, combined with his burgeoning
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66
Revolutionary Iran
popularity, soon led to increasing criticism from some members of the
clergy, especially after the publication of a book based on his lectures
( Eslamshenasi – The Study of Islam ) in 1969 . Some clergy tried to get
Khomeini to condemn Shariati’s views from his exile in Iraq, but Khomeini
declined to do so, saying that they were not un-Islamic. 73 Khomeini
gave no direct approval of Shariati’s opinions either, but recognized his
popularity and the harmony of their aims. In time Khomeini’s own antiimperialist
rhetoric came to refl ect the ideas popularized in Iran by
Shariati, and Al- e Ahmad.
In the same year that Eslamshenasi was published Shariati met Jalal Ale
Ahmad in Mashhad several times, and on one occasion (on which Al- e
Ahmad argued for the importance of cooperation between the clergy and
the non- clerical intellectuals) future supreme leader Ali Khamenei was also
present, as a young religious student. 74 When his teaching post was withdrawn
in 1971 , Shariati went to Tehran and lectured at the recently
established Hoseiniyeh Ershad instead (he had given occasional lectures
there since October 1968 ). 75 The Hoseiniyeh Ershad had been set up as a
charitable institution for the exchange of ideas and for the application of
Islamic principles to contemporary issues. Mehdi Bazargan and Morteza
Motahhari were among the fi gures, later to become prominent in politics,
who were instrumental in founding it.
Shariati’s general message at the Hoseiniyeh Ershad and in Mashhad was
that Shi‘ism had its own ideology of social justice and resistance to oppression.
This had been masked by a false Shi‘ism of superstition and deference
to monarchy, which he called Black Shi‘ism or Safavid Shi‘ism, but the essential
truths of the religion were timeless, centring on the revolt and martyrdom
of Hosein and his companions. Shariati was not a Marxist, but could be said
to have recast Shi‘a Islam in a revolutionary mould, comparable to the
Marxist model, urging not quietism and immersion in the details of religious
observance, but earnest involvement in the vital political and moral questions
of the day – ‘Every month of the year is Moharram, every day of the
year is Ashura and every piece of land is Karbala.’ 76 It was a powerful and
infl uential message, but (as with other revolutionary ideologues) his critique
of the present showed more intellectual depth than his prescriptions for the
future. He was incensed when some clergy so far missed the point of his
message that they criticized his lectures at the Ershad for the presence of girls
in mini- skirts. Even though he seldom attacked the Shah’s rule directly, the
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1. Iran
N
0 200 miles
0 300 km
Tehran
Khoy
Tabriz Ardebil
Ashkhabad
Baghdad
Kerman
Rezaieh Mianeh
Saghez
Rasht
Amol
Kermanshah
Hamadan Qom
Khorramabad
Dezful
Masjed-e Soleiman
Gurgan
Bujnurd
Quchan
Nishapur
Mashhad
Yazd
Tabas
Herat
(Desert One) Birjand
Zabol
Zahedan
Bam
Lingeh
Bandar Abbas
Jask
Chahbahar
Lar
Shiraz
Bushire
Bandar Khomeini
Ahwaz
Abadan
Khorramshahr
Basra
Isfahan
AFGHANISTAN
PAKISTAN
SAUDI ARABIA
IRAQ
TURKMENISTAN
AZERBAIJAN
KUWAIT
UZBEKISTAN
I R A N
ARMENIA
Pe r s i a n G u l f
C a s p i a n
S e a
Euphrates
Tigris
Z a g r o s M o u n t a i n s
A l b o r z Mt s .
T U R K EY
Dasht-e Kavir
NORTH
KHORASAN
SOUTH
KHORASAN
EAST
AZERBAIJAN
SISTAN
AND
BALUCHESTAN
KERMAN
FARS
ISFAHAN
QOM
MARKAZI
ILAM
KERMANSHAH/
BAKHTARAN
KURDESTAN
ZANJAN
QAZVIN
GILAN
YAZD
SEMNAN
GOLISTAN
MAZANDERAN
KUH
GILUYA
KHUZESTAN
LORESTAN
KHORASAN
RAZAVI
HORMUZGAN
BUSHEHR
BAKHTIARI
HAMADAN
TEHRAN
WEST AZERBAIJAN
ARDEBIL
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68
Revolutionary Iran
subversive message of his thinking was plain enough to the regime,
which closed the Hoseiniyeh Ershad in 1972 . Shariati was imprisoned in
1972 , released in 1975 and kept under house arrest thereafter. He continued
his writing and his support for his version of radical Islam. He
managed to escape to England in 1977 , but was stricken by his failure
to take all his family with him. He died in Southampton, apparently of
a heart attack, in June the same year 77 (many Iranians believe he was
murdered by SAVAK , but it is hard to see, from the circumstances, how
this could have been carried out). In an echo of the bast of 1905 and
1906 , there was a demonstration later in the year at the shrine of Shah
Abd ol- Azim to the south of Tehran to commemorate Shariati’s death 78 –
prefi guring the larger and more momentous demonstrations of the
following year. Iranians in exile marked his passing with other events
and demonstrations.
Khomeini would never endorse Shariati’s thinking directly, but was
careful not to condemn it either. Shariati’s radical Islamism, both fully
Iranian and fully modern, was a strong infl uence on the generation of
students that grew to adulthood in the 1970 s; 79 slogans drawn from his
writings were everywhere on the streets in 1979 , and his face still appears
on fresh graffi ti in Tehran thirty years later.
One young high- school student, Massoumeh Ebtekar, attended Shariati’s
lectures at the Hoseiniyeh Ershad:
It was impossible for me, as a young person, to understand everything he
said, but I could feel that a change in direction was coming. Islam, he taught,
could be a viable alternative to the ideologies of fatality and despair that
emanated from the West.
I was certainly not alone. Many young people found in Dr Shariati’s message
a new meaning and direction in life. I met him shortly before he left for
London, where he was to die under suspicious circumstances. We spoke
about my views, and he encouraged me to do further reading. That meeting
was one of the decisive moments in my life. 80
Massoumeh Ebtekar was later one of the students who occupied the
US embassy in November 1979 and, later still, became vice- president
under President Khatami.
Shariati’s story illustrates some important points about Iran in the
1960 s and 70 s – particularly about the limits of the Shah’s control, and
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2. Iran and its Neighbours
N
0 500 miles
0 600 km
Istanbul
Ankara
Izmir
Athens
Mersin
Aleppo Tabqa
Damascus
Erzerum
Tabriz
Mosul Tehran
Mashhad
Baghdad Isfahan
Shiraz
Bushehr
Sharja
Dubai
Abu Dhabi
Jubail
Kuwait
Abadan
Basra
Beirut
Haifa
Amman
Jerusalem
Suez Eilat
Aqaba
Alexandria
Cairo
Asiut
Aswan
Wadi Haifa
Atbara
Khartoum
Sennar
Rosaris
Sanaa
Aden
Mukalla
Salala
Socotra Island
Muscat
Karachi
Herat
Kabul
Islamabad
Lahore
Medina Riyadh
Jedda Mecca
Yanbu
GREECE
GEORGIA
ARMENIA
JORDAN
KUWAIT
BAHRAIN QATAR
DJIBOUTI
ISRAEL
LEBANON SYRIA
AZERBAIJAN
TAJIKISTAN
T U R K E Y
E G Y P T
S A U D I A R A B I A
O M A N
S O M A L I A
UA E
REPUBLIC
OF YEMEN
S U D A N
E T H I O P I A
ERITREA
LIBYA
I R A N
AFGHANISTAN
PAKISTAN
CHINA
I N D I A
TURKMENISTAN
I R AQ
UZBEKISTAN
Lake Van
Lake Nasser
Black Sea
Caspian
Sea
M e d i t e r ra n e a n S e a
A ra b i a n S e a
INDIAN OCEAN
Tigris
Euphrates
Nile
White Nile
Blue Nile
SENNAR DAM
ASWAN DAM
EUPHRATES DAM
R e d S e a
Gul f of Aden
Persian Gulf
Gulf of Oman
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70
Revolutionary Iran
changes in the intellectual climate. One lesson of 1953 was the failure of
secular leftism; many intellectuals (like Jalal Al- e Ahmad) and many
young people especially, turned toward political Islam instead in this
period. The broad umbrella of Islam gave at least a degree of immunity
from repression; not least because the Shi‘a centres of Najaf (where Khomeini
spent most of his exile) and Karbala in Iraq were beyond the Shah’s
control. Large numbers of Iranians were studying abroad during this
period (many of them, like Shariati, on state scholarships). The Shah
could control education within Iran to some extent, but he could have
little control over the political infl uences young Iranians absorbed while
studying in foreign countries.
This was a period of political radicalism in universities in Europe and the
US , where the Shah’s regime and its poor human rights record were special
targets for criticism. Young Iranians studying in the West were exhilarated
by the fashionable enthusiasm for Marxism and Maoism, for revolution
and against the Vietnam War. A further illustration of the interlinked nature
of international and national politics at this time is the shooting of Benno
Ohnesorg in Berlin in June 1967 . Ohnesorg, although unarmed, was shot
by a policeman and killed on the fringe of a demonstration against the
Shah’s presence in the city (the Shah was going with Queen Farah to see a
performance of Mozart’s Magic Flute at the Deutsche Oper). The temperature
of the confrontation between protestors and police had risen after
some provocative actions by the Shah’s own SAVAK security men. The
shooting was an important event in the radicalization of the left in Germany,
leading to the greater unrest of the following year and the formation
of the Baader- Meinhof terrorist group. Ironically, although some on the
German left justifi ed turning to political violence on the basis that the
shooting showed the latent fascism of the state, the killer turned out much
later to have been an agent of the East German Stasi (though his motives for
the killing seem to have had more to do with the fact that he was a thug). 81
Through the later 1960 s the Shah was able to keep a grip on politics
within Iran, gaining confi dence as time went on. But he still distrusted his
ministers and other subordinates, and avoided allowing any to get too
powerful by permitting and indeed encouraging a degree of rivalry. This
helped to produce a poisonous atmosphere at court and in the upper
reaches of government, 82 as is illustrated by the case of Ahmad Nafi si,
who was mayor of Tehran in the early 1960 s. Having been something
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71
of a favourite with the Shah, Nafi si was suddenly arrested and imprisoned
in December 1963 on vague charges of fi scal abuse, accompanied by even
vaguer allegations from SAVAK of consorting with the clerical opposition.
Months in prison dragged into years with little sign of proper legal
proceedings. Nafi si rebutted the accusations against him at every opportunity
(though he never was properly charged), and it emerged that the
real problem was probably the jealousy of the prime minister of the time,
Hasan Ali Mansur. 83 After Mansur was assassinated in January 1965 pressure
on the government to release Nafi si increased, but in a twist
reminiscent of Kafka he was told that for this to happen he would have
to write a letter to the Shah expressing contrition for his alleged crimes –
thereby exonerating the Shah for his unjust imprisonment. Nafi si wrote a
letter, but it obstinately denied any wrongdoing. He was eventually
released in August 1966 , after his friends had paid a huge sum in bail. 84
After Mansur died, he was replaced as prime minister by Amir Abbas
Hoveida, who continued in that offi ce for twelve years, until 1977 . Hoveida
was born in 1919 to an aristocratic family in Tehran. His mother was
descended from a sister of Naser od- Din Shah. His father, who had been a
Bahai but who moved away from that religion, was a diplomat, and so
Amir Abbas had a rather disjointed childhood as his father moved his family
from posting to posting (the Bahai connection was used against him by
some at the time of the revolution). His education was predominantly in
French; although he did also spend some time studying in England, like
many of his contemporaries he always preferred French culture and French
literature. Back in Iran after 1942 , he served briefl y in the army and then
took up a diplomatic career, like his father. He was a cultured, intellectual
man, and a friend of Sadegh Hedayat, with a louche, bohemian side. Some
hated him, thinking him devious and unprincipled – Al- e Ahmad believed
his interest in writers and thinkers was merely a screen for self- advancement.
It seems he became more cynical over his years as prime minister. Others
admired his integrity. 85
For thirteen years after 1963 Iran’s economic development, guided
by the Shah’s government, seemed only to accelerate. Under the new
arrangements with the international syndicate, oil revenue grew to
$ 555 million in 1963 – 4 and to $ 1 . 2 billion in 1970 – 71 . But after that,
boosted by the Shah’s successful takeover of control of oil production
and by the quadrupling of oil prices achieved by the OPEC oil cartel
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Revolutionary Iran
from 1973 (in which the Shah played a signifi cant role), revenue ballooned
even more extravagantly, to $ 5 billion in 1973 – 4 and $ 20 billion in 1975 –
6 . 86 Large sums were spent on Western military equipment, as before, but
most of the revenue was put back into economic development; both
through direct state investment into infrastructure, industry and education,
and through state loans to private entrepreneurs. Initially, the government
focused on infrastructure and agricultural development; later, on industry,
education and health services. The railway from the Caspian to the Persian
Gulf was fi nally completed, and other railways were built, including from
Tehran to Tabriz and Mashhad. Large dams were built for the generation
of electricity. Thirteen thousand miles of new roads were constructed. Education
and health services expanded too – the number of children in
primary schools went from 1 . 6 million in 1963 to over 4 million in 1977 ;
new universities and colleges were set up, and enrolment expanded from
24 , 885 to 154 , 215 . The number of students at foreign universities grew
from under 18 , 000 to over 80 , 000 . The number of hospital beds went from
24 , 126 to 48 , 000 . Improved living conditions, sanitation and health services
all contributed to a big drop in the infant mortality rate and a spurt in
population growth that continued until the 1990 s; in the mid- 1970 s half
the population were under sixteen, and two- thirds under thirty. 87
Some have contrasted the economic growth achieved in the two decades
before the revolution with the growth in the 1930 s, judging that, whereas
under Reza Shah growth was a by- product of the policies he followed in
constructing a modern state, under his son government pursued economic
development as a primary goal. 88 No doubt there were errors and ineffi –
ciencies in the way the investment was carried out, but the results were
impressive. Growth rates between 1963 and 1976 averaged around 8 per
cent; the non- oil sector grew even more than the overall economy, averaging
8 . 6 per cent. 89 Industrial production expanded hugely between 1965 and
1975 , and thousands of new factories were set up. Coal production jumped
from 285 , 000 tons to over 900 , 000 tons; iron ore from 2 , 000 tons to just
under 900 , 000 . Over the same period pro duction of motor vehicles of all
kinds went from 7 , 000 to 109 , 000 . Other manufactured items showed
similar dramatic increases. The middling class of managers and professionals
expanded with the industrial economy – an educated class of
entrepreneurs, factory managers, retail and wholesale managers, teachers,
doctors, engineers and so on.
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73
This was the period in which Iran made the transition from an agricultural
economy to an industry- and services- based structure. But, as in other
countries that had made this transition, the other half of the process was
the transformation going on in the countryside, in the agricultural sector.
The question of whether the Shah’s land reform was a success depends to
some extent on what one believes it was intended to achieve.
The declared aims of the programme were to break the death- grip of
absentee landlords, to make agriculture more effi cient and to achieve a
fairer distribution of land among those who actually worked it. 90 The
reform drew credibility for its modernizing, anti- feudal character, and perhaps
from the fact that Mossadeq had championed it. In acting against the
traditional landowning class (previously some of the staunchest supporters
of the monarchy), the Shah appeared to be sacrifi cing his own political
interests for the sake of the country. But the results were mixed. About two
million peasant householders became landowners in their own right for
the fi rst time, and some were able to prosper in their new circumstances.
For many more, the holdings they were given were too small to be economically
viable – 65 per cent of peasant landowners in 1972 owned less
than 5 hectares 91 (though some were able to pool their resources in staterun
farms, which in the Soviet Union would have been called collectives) –
and large numbers of agricultural labourers were left out of the
redistribution altogether, because they had not had cultivation rights as
sharecroppers before the reform. It has been estimated that 1 . 1 million
families fell into this category of landless rural labourers and nomads. 92
The landlords who were expropriated (in return for compensation) were
only allowed to keep one village each, but some were able to evade the
provisions, for example by giving their property to relatives or by creating
mechanized farms, which were exempt. Because the reform was accompanied
by a general push for the mechanization of agriculture (the government
subsidized land reclamation, irrigation projects and the cost of tractors,
fertilizers and pesticides) there was less work for the poorer peasants and
labourers anyway. Some agricultural production became more effi cient.
But the low prices for staple foods imposed by the government, and the
infl ow of cheap imports, eroded incentives for farmers and tended to depress
agricultural production overall. Disruption to traditional landholding
arrangements and to traditional methods of land management also
reduced production. 93 Combined with the long- term countrywide trend
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74
Revolutionary Iran
of rapid population growth, the net result was rural unemployment and an
accelerating movement of people from the villages to the cities, especially
Tehran, in search of work. It has been suggested that the rate of internal
migration reached 8 per cent per year in 1972 – 3 ; and that by 1978 the
urban population was 46 per cent of the total. 94 By 1976 Tehran had grown
to become a city of 4 . 5 million people. In general, the Shah’s policies benefi
ted the cities more than the countryside. For example, the efforts of the
literacy corps in the villages were largely unavailing. Despite some successes
by some of the sepahis (corps members), most of them failed to establish a
cooperative relationship with the villagers. There was a gap of understanding
between the peasants, who were suspicious and felt patronized by the
whole initiative, and the young urban middle- class sepahis , too conscious
of their own superiority and often resentful at being forced to do the work.
(There were corps also for health and for development of agricultural techniques.)
Serious spending on education was mainly directed at those living
in towns and cities, and there was little real impact on rural illiteracy:
The sepahi doesn’t come here any longer. We had two before. The fi rst boy
was good. He built the school. I sent my son there for three years. And I
went to the adult class, too. The other sepahi was a bad example [for the
children] and we were happy to see him go. Now we have a teacher from
town. He comes every day. He always curses at the children and calls them
stupid [ khar – donkey]. And we have to pay for this teacher. But I can’t. I
know my son must learn if he is not to be a poor peasant like me. But where
do I get the money? My family must have bread. So my son doesn’t go to
school any longer. 95
In many countries an industrial revolution has been accompanied by
an agricultural revolution. In England, particularly in the slump after
the Napoleonic wars, the enclosure acts drove peasants off the land and
into the cities, where they worked for long hours for low wages in
new industries because the alternative was even more miserable rural
unemployment. In the Soviet Union in the early 1930 s Stalin’s collectivization
policy achieved something similar, more quickly, by more brutal
methods and with much greater loss of life. The process in Iran in the
1960 s and 70 s was rather gentler than that, but nonetheless traumatic
for those involved. Whether the mass movement to the cities was a central
part of the plan remains obscure (though, as under Stalin, government
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75
control of agricultural prices systematically worked to give the urban
population cheap food while making survival even more diffi cult for
small farmers). 96 But the rapid expansion of new industry could not
have happened without it. The Shah once apparently said to US Ambassador
William Sullivan:
Mr Ambassador, don’t you understand? I don’t want those villages to survive.
I want them to disappear. We can buy the food cheaper than they can produce
it. I need the people from those villages in our industrial labour force. They
must come into the cities and work in industry. Then we can send all those
Afghans, Pakistanis and Koreans back home. 97
The Shah seems to have envisaged the creation of a new rural class of
prosperous peasants, who would be loyal to the Pahlavis, and the extension
of state control, his control, over the countryside. But as well as
alienating the landless, the interference of the state in the villages alienated
even the peasants who profi ted from land reform. 98 The Shah may
have thought he could cleverly split the peasants from their traditional
attachment to the clergy with his land reform measures, but that link
remained too strong.
In Tehran the newcomers from the countryside settled on the southern
edge of the city, in collections of makeshift dwellings with poor or nonexistent
services that were little better than shanty- towns. People from the
same village or area tended to seek each other out and settle down
together, and often they would know a mullah from the same locality
also, who enjoyed added authority in these new circumstances of dislocation
and uncertainty. 99
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76
2
The 1970 s and the Slide
to Revolution
( THE VOICE OF IOKANAAN ) He shall be seated on his throne. He shall
be clothed in scarlet and purple. In his hand he shall bear a golden
cup full of his blasphemies. And the angel of the Lord shall smite
him. He shall be eaten of worms.
Oscar Wilde, Salome 1
The 1970 s were an uncertain decade of seedy fl amboyance, bad taste, soft
furnishings in brown and orange and (in Europe at least) ideological radicalism
on the turn, when a realization began to dawn on some that the
zeal for the new of the 1960 s had sometimes destroyed things of value
and replaced them with meretricious mediocrity. In the Middle East old
assumptions about development and Westernization still dominated, but
were coming more and more into question.
Despite the successful, rapid development, or perhaps at least in part
because of it, the contradictions and the unease were in no place more
concentrated than in Iran – and few events of that decade were more
extravagant and contradictory than the celebrations held in 1971 at the
historic sites of Persepolis and Pasargadae for 2 , 500 years of monarchy
in Iran. In the 1950 s the Shah had proposed a similar celebration for
1959 ; he had set aside the idea for lack of support, but it had continued
to bubble away. 2 The occasion was anomalous in a variety of ways.
It had to be 2 , 500 years ‘of monarchy in Iran’ rather than ‘of Iranian
monarchy’ because there was an awkward period between the seventh
century AD and the sixteenth (at least) when most of the monarchs were
not Iranian. It seemed the 2 , 500 years could be celebrated as readily in
1971 as in 1959 . To take the 2 , 500 years literally (from 1971 ) would be
to go back to 529 BC ; one year before the usually accepted date for the
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77
The 1970s and the Slide to Revolution
death of Cyrus the Great, who established the Achaemenid Empire. Why
pick 529 BC ? Cyrus had been a king for perhaps thirty years already by
then, and there had been many Iranian kings (notably, the Medes) before
him. But the date was not meant to be taken too precisely, and the point
was that the Shah wanted to connect himself and his monarchy with
Cyrus, as the founder of the fi rst great Persian empire. 3 He wanted to
assert the strength and enduring character of Iranian kingship, at a time
when monarchy as an institution was menaced by republicanism and
communism internationally, and when some in Iran were asserting Islam
rather than monarchy as the true centre of Iranian identity. Perhaps, too,
he felt the provisional, parvenu nature of the Pahlavi claim to royal status.
To counter accusations of extravagance and waste, the occasion was
accompanied by the building of thousands of new schools, a new Pahlavi
Library to foster all aspects of Iranian studies and a variety of infrastructure
projects in the Shiraz region and around the country.
Over the two days of the celebration ( 15 – 16 October 1971 ), the event
went smoothly. Television images of an impressively grand Parade of History
at Persepolis with thousands of participants dressed up as the soldiers
of the ancient Medes and Persians were broadcast around the world by
satellite. Heads of state of many of the most important countries of the
world, along with senior representatives of many others, were lavishly
wined and dined. The catering was laid on by Maxim’s of Paris in three
huge air- conditioned tents and fi fty- nine smaller ones, and 25 , 000 bottles
of wine were imported for the event. Rumours of the overall cost ranged
from $ 100 million to $ 300 million. 4 The Shah made a speech at the tomb
of Cyrus at Pasargadae claiming a rebirth of ancient Iranian greatness:
‘Sleep easily, Cyrus, for we are awake.’ 5 As an event for the world to mark
both the ancient heritage of Iran and the country’s new- found wealth and
power, it was a success.
But the festivities left most ordinary Iranians nonplussed. The spectacle
of distinguished foreigners drinking wine and eating foreign food
meant little to them. Along with the international TV broadcasts, the
event indeed seemed primarily designed for foreigners. 6 For them, the
emphasis on Cyrus and the ancient past might have the appeal of a Hollywood
epic, but for most Iranians it ignored the Shi‘a Islamic heritage
that was central to their identity. 7 To many, the celebrations seemed bogus
and artifi cial, and served only to distance the monarchy further from the
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Revolutionary Iran
people. Like the prophet in the wilderness, Khomeini denounced what he
called the decadent debaucheries of the event from his exile in Najaf in
Iraq, thundering that Islam was fundamentally opposed to monarchy in
principle, that the crimes of Iranian kings had blackened the pages of history,
and that even the ones remembered as good had in fact been ‘vile and
cruel’. 8 Shariati criticized the event, in passing, as part of a series of fi ery
lectures at the Hoseiniyeh Ershad in the following weeks that contributed
to the closure of the institute shortly afterwards. By contrast with the
Shah’s eulogizing of 2 , 500 years of monarchy, he spoke of 5 , 000 years of
‘deprivation, injustice, class discrimination and repression’. 9
As the decade proceeded, the decade in which 2 , 500 years of Iranian
monarchy were to come to an end, the impression given by the celebrations
was confi rmed, of a Shah remote from his people and their thinking
in a range of important ways.
Montazh and Gharbzadegi
Tehran in the 1970 s was a strange place. The city was already largely a
city of concrete, with only a core of a few older palaces and government
buildings. But despite the American cars, the traffi c and the ugliness, the
older Iran was still there in the chadors on the streets, in the smell of mutton
kebab grilling on charcoal and fresh barbari bread being carried away
from local bakeries, in the mountain water running swiftly down the jubs
at the sides of the road in the dappled shade of the plane trees, and the
call to prayer fl oating over the city at dusk. The West, and the US especially,
were constant presences, from the Coca- Cola and Pepsi on sale
everywhere to the American advertising and American Forces Radio playing
Abba and Blue Oyster Cult – but constant also (beside a continuing
admiration for America and an associated desire for economic development)
was a tension and a distaste for that presence.
The juxtaposition of old and new, Iranian and foreign, rich and poor,
produced odd contrasts common to many developing countries, but
odder for the rapidity of the development, the tensions below the surface
and the large sums of money being spent in all directions. Wealthy
people, many wealthy to a degree most Europeans could only dream
of, lived hard by poor people poorer than could be seen anywhere in
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western Europe. At the end of December 1969 Asadollah Alam, the
Shah’s court minister, was held up by a traffi c accident as he drove in
the early morning (‘in my sleek Chrysler Imperial’) through Farahabad,
on the eastern side of the city:
I waited, and meanwhile I got a glimpse of the life that goes on in that squalid
district of Tehran. The street running off from the highway was fi lthy, not an
ounce of asphalt since there’s no risk of an inspection by HIM (His Imperial
Majesty – i.e. the Shah). It was still early, the traffi c police had not come on duty,
but a single policeman strutted around, dragging on his cigarette, puffed up like
the monarch of all he surveyed. A few men, women wearing the veil, on their
way home from the communal bath house . . . a gaggle of children, the girls all
veiled. The upper classes would never be up so early in the morning, nor would
the girls wear veils. They converged haggling on a merchant selling hot beetroot.
Pariah dogs and a few unwashed babies pawing over a heap of rubbish at the
street corner . . . shaven- headed servicemen wearing badly cut trousers, ill- fi tting
boots, strolling along clearly enjoying their Friday morning off. It was both droll
and desperately depressing; a scene from a top- heavy society. The Shah struggles
day and night, confi dent that within a decade we shall have surpassed much of
the developed world; change can never come quickly enough for him. Yet no
manner of wishful thinking can alter life in these streets. 10
There were a lot of Americans in Tehran in the 1970 s, employed as
advisers and technicians, and in many other roles. The number of US residents
(leaving aside visitors and tourists) in Iran increased from less than
8 , 000 in 1970 to nearly 50 , 000 in 1979 . There were foreigners from
many other countries too, of course, attracted likewise by the money to
be earned in activities related to Iran’s economic, military and infrastructure
development – but benefi ting from the special favour of the Shah’s
regime, the US was much the most important foreign infl uence. Most of
the foreigners lived in Tehran (though many were also to be found in
Isfahan, where large numbers of Americans worked in new defencerelated
industries around the city outskirts). The Americans tended to live
entirely separate lives, shopping in the US commissary (the biggest of its
kind in the world at the time) and often living on American- only compounds.
Many British and other expatriates lived in a similar way. The
American school admitted only children with US passports (unusually by
comparison with American schools in other countries), and occasional
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Revolutionary Iran
suggestions that the children be taught something about Iran generally
failed – a school board member said in 1970 that the policy had been
‘Keep Iran Out’. Other Americans, notably those working for the Peace
Corps, worked with ordinary Iranians and were much appreciated. But
the majority (some of them moving on from the debacle in Vietnam) were
in Iran for the money and the lavish lifestyle, which they could not have
afforded at home. The American observer James A. Bill commented:
As the gold rush began and the contracts increased, the American presence
expanded. The very best and the very worst of America were on display in
the cities of Iran. As time passed and the numbers grew, an increasingly high
proportion of fortune hunters, fi nancial scavengers, and the jobless and disillusioned
recently returned from Southeast Asia found their way to Iran.
Companies with billion- dollar contracts needed manpower and, under time
pressure, recruited blindly and carelessly. In Isfahan, hatred, racism and
ignorance combined as American employees responded negatively and
aggressively to Iranian society. 11
Within Iranian society there were other tensions. South Tehran was full
of young men, newly arrived from conservative- minded villages, either
with no jobs or with only poorly paid jobs. For many of them, that meant
little prospect of being able to afford to marry or support a family for some
years – perhaps indefi nitely. But if they paid a small fare for a shared taxi
to the richer central and northern parts of the city, for nothing they could
see pretty young women parading up and down the streets, dressed in
revealing Western fashions, unaccompanied or with girlfriends, fl aunting
their freedom, money, beauty and, from a certain point of view, immorality
and disregard for religion. To those used to life in more traditional parts of
the country (where many women spent most of their time in the family
home), there just seemed to be more women around in Tehran:
Parviz told him that he was lucky (or unfortunate, depending on how you
looked at it) to miss Tehran in the miniskirt craze of the sixties, for one hour
on a principal shopping street would have provided him with enough
thoughts to repent for a month.
On hoardings, garish posters of half- dressed women advertised the latest
fi lms: ‘The threatening forwardness of the posters was increased by the large
number of tough and sullen- looking young men hanging around.’ 12
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Status, and the lack of it, is not just about money – it is also about sex
and desire. For those that had moved there from the country, Tehran was
a place of aspiration, but in the late 1970 s it became a place of resentment,
frustrated desire and frustrated aspirations for many. 13
Aspiration is also about direction . The US presence in Iran in the
1970 s was small in relative, statistical terms. But in Tehran it dominated
advertising, TV and print media – even when the medium was Persianlanguage.
The Iranian upper classes were those most obviously
Westernized. So for the rest of society, the models presented to them to
aspire to were predominantly Western – and American. They were new
and exciting. American advertising and the image of American culture it
presented was not shy and retiring. It was self- confi dent and brash.
Even other foreigners in Iran found it so. The response of Iran and Iranians
was contradictory and troubled. Many Iranians admired the US
and many hoped for the sort of economic development the US stood for.
But Iran ians had (and have) a great pride in Iran, its history and culture
also. Seeing that history and culture shouldered aside in their own country
was not easy for them. 14
One Iranian woman, later a radical student, has written of that time:
Most of the Americans who lived in Iran behaved in a way that revealed
their sense of self- importance and superiority. They had come to expect extra
respect, even deference from all Iranians, from shoe- shine boy to shah . . .
in our country, American lifestyles had come to be imposed as an ideal, the
ultimate goal. Americanism was the model. American popular culture –
books, magazines, fi lm – had swept over our country like a fl ood. This
cultural aggression challenged the self- identity of people like us. This was
the idol which had taken shape within Iranian society. We found ourselves
wondering, ‘Is there any room for our own culture?’ 15
In his great book The Mantle of the Prophet Roy Mottahedeh
described this time in Tehran as the time of montazh (from the French
word montage – a setting- up or assembly of parts), when imported things
were being assembled and put together in the city, often rather less than
satisfactorily, and never quite completed – a time when everything in
Tehran seemed to be ‘intimately connected with the airport’, when ‘in joking,
Tehranis called all sorts of jerry- built Iranian versions of foreign ideas
true examples of Iranian montazh’. 16
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Revolutionary Iran
The most obvious examples of montazh were the Paykan cars assembled
in great numbers just outside Tehran from imported parts (to the design
of the British Hillman Hunter) – becoming by far the most common vehicle
on Iranian roads. But the same principle could be seen or imagined at
work elsewhere too – in the mutual incompatibility of ideas brought
home by enthusiastic graduates from American, French and German universities;
in corrupt property deals, in big buildings put up without
enough cement and left half- fi nished, in the chaotic traffi c, and in the new
statues of the Shah that appeared everywhere.
The idea of montazh also applied to the huge Shahyad monument,
inaugurated just after the celebrations for 2 , 500 years of monarchy in
1971 to commemorate the reign of the Shah himself; supposedly an amalgam
of architectural styles from all periods of Iranian history – and
erected just where all visiting foreigners would see it, on the way to
the centre of Tehran, just outside Mehrabad airport. Montazh recalls Al- e
Ahmad’s concept of gharbzadegi – an intoxication with the West that
prompted abandonment of all other principles in pursuit of an alien ideal
that could not be properly understood, applied, absorbed or assembled.
Another example was a little pamphlet published in Tehran in 1978
called Iran Scene , designed for foreign visitors. The second (April) issue
contained articles on Noruz, the province of Fars and the city of Yazd; and
a factual section (‘Iran at a Glance’) including the sentence ‘The new single
party system known as Rastakhiz (national resurgence) was begun in
1975 .’ The advertisements contained enough information to enable a foreigner
to live almost as he or she might have done in a large Western
city – shops, hotels, restaurants (including French, Italian, Greek, Chinese,
Indian, Japanese, US – style steak and fried chicken, Mexican, as well as
Persian and the Polynesian restaurant Tiare in the InterContinental Hotel);
nightclubs and cabarets (including ‘La Boheme – Old Shemiran Road,
International show. Expensive ’). There was also a ‘Meat Service’ offering
imported meat, including pork, and all kinds of shellfi sh; range shooting
and skating at the Ice Palace, bowling, and cinema – American, French,
German and English fi lms – (including ‘ Far from the Maddling [ sic ]Crowd
with Julie Christie’). And then, amid this international junk, a page entitled
‘Literary Scene’, and, like a splash of cold water, the poem ‘Window’
(‘Panjareh’) by Forugh Farrokhzad, from which the following is a short
extract (translated by Ardavan Davaran): 17
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I feel that the time has passed
I feel that the moment of my portion is of the pages of history
I feel that the table is a false distance between my hair and the
hands of this sad stranger.
Speak a word to me
The person that bestows upon you the kindness of a
living body
Would want from you what else but the perception of the
sense of existence?
Speak a word to me
I, in the shelter of my window,
Have communication with the sun.
The poetry of Forugh Farrokhzad refl ected the wider period in which she
lived (she died in a car accident in 1967 when she was only thirty- two
years old), but it was also vividly personal, alluding to erotic encounters
and traumatic affairs, and their bleak aftermath. The personal nature of
the verses and the reaction to it is itself a refl ection of the time – such
poetry was only barely possible. Its frankness created a furore of shock,
and prurient interest in her private life, that threatened to overwhelm Farrokhzad;
she said in a radio interview in 1964 : ‘I really think talking
about it is tiring and pointless.’ 18 She had married young, giving birth to
a son, but separated from her husband in 1955 , divorced and was denied
access to her son, after which she had a mental breakdown and later
attempted suicide. 19 In 1962 she made a hard- to- watch but moving fi lm
with the title The House Is Black ( Khaneh siah ast ) in an institution for
lepers. Her work, insistent above all on the diamond- hard validity of her
own voice, fused the edge of European modernism with a strongly Iranian
anger about politics, veering between despair and crazy hope. In
particular, the poem ‘Someone Who Is Like No Other’ (‘Kasi ke mesl- e
hich- kas nist’), mingling millenarian Shi‘a religious and Marxist imagery,
had an urgent visionary quality:
I’ve dreamed that someone is coming.
I’ve dreamed of a red star
. . .
Someone who is like no one. Not like father,
not like Ensi, not like
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Revolutionary Iran
Yahya, not like mother,
And is like the person who he ought to be.
. . .
And his name is just as mother says
at the beginning and the end of her prayer,
the judge of all judges,
the need of all needs,
Someone is coming.
Someone is coming.
Someone who’s in heart with us.
In his breathing is with us.
Someone whose coming can’t be stopped, and
handcuffed and thrown in jail. 20
Aryamehr – ‘Light of the Aryans’
Most of the symptoms of strangeness were the outcome of the huge sums
of money rolling into the country. Investment rose dizzyingly as Iran continued
to benefi t from a windfall bonanza of oil income – especially after the
oil price doubled in 1973 following the Yom Kippur War, and doubled again
at the end of the year, when the Shah led the other OPEC countries to
demand higher prices on the claim that oil had not kept pace with the price
of other internationally traded commodities. Between 1971 and 1973 the
Shah, with the help of his chief adviser and negotiator on oil matters Jamshid
Amuzegar, achieved secure control over domestic oil production, a strong
position in the OPEC cartel to protect Iranian interests and beyond that,
through his leading role in OPEC itself, much higher returns on oil sales for
Iran and the other OPEC producers (notably Saudi Arabia and Iraq, but also
Kuwait and Venezuela). 21 It was a major achievement, in which the Shah
took justifi able pride. Yet more money was pumped into the Iranian economy,
though a large amount went back to the West – especially to the US
and the UK – in return for quantities of new military equipment. The Shah
bought more Chieftain tanks from the UK than the British army itself owned,
and by the end of the decade his forces were equipped with some of the very
latest military technology, including British Rapier/Blindfi re anti- aircraft
missile systems and American F- 14 fi ghter aircraft (both of which caused
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the originators anxiety after 1979 , lest the technology fall into the hands of
the Russians). 22 The government was awash with money, and a proportion
of it fl owed, through corrupt commissions and bribes, into private hands;
often removed to bank accounts in other countries.
Personally, the Shah was more confi dent by the 1970 s than he had been
in the 1950 s. He was older and more experienced. His second divorce in
1958 had been traumatic, but he had remarried in 1959 , and his new wife,
Queen Farah, had given him a son the following year and more children
later. He gained confi dence from the success, as he perceived it, of the
October 1971 celebrations as a breakthrough for him on the international
stage; but more seriously from his success in negotiating secure control of
Iran’s oil production and, through that, infl uence over OPEC and oil
prices. His new confi dence emerged in a number of ways. He took a
greater interest in foreign policy in the 1970 s than he had earlier, and Iran
became a more assertive regional actor. The Shah faced down Iraq and
secured a favourable settlement of the dispute over the Shatt- al- Arab
waterway in the Algiers Accords of 1975 . Earlier, he moved into the vacuum
left by the departing British imperial presence and occupied the small
islands of Abu Musa and the Tunbs (creating a minor dispute with the
United Arab Emirates over possession of the islands that continues to this
day). Some called him the Policeman of the Persian Gulf. He was lauded
by Western leaders and by US presidents in particular as a bulwark against
Soviet encroachment in the region, and this role was again refl ected in the
level of arms sales. The rise in oil prices altered the power balance between
the Shah and the West; he had been the partial architect of the rise, and it
had damaged Western economies, but the West still needed him. To benefi t
from Iran’s wealth, Western politicians, including those from countries
like Britain that had hurt Iran and the Shah’s family in the past, fell over
themselves to secure contracts. 23 The Shah would not have been human if
he had not derived some satisfaction from this. 24
But the Shah was still scarred by experiences earlier in his reign. In
particular, he was wary of further assassination attempts and had himself
surrounded by heavy security arrangements. He went from place to place
by helicopter and usually viewed parades and other events (carefully
staged to give the best impression for the TV cameras) from inside a special
bullet- proof glass box. 25 These measures cut him off still more from
the people.
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Revolutionary Iran
The scars showed also in other ways. In 1976 a hugely popular television
comedy, Dear Uncle Napoleon ( Dai jan Napoleon , based on the
book of the same title by Iraj Pezeshkzad, 26 one of the funniest comic
novels in any language) satirized, among other things, the widespread
tendency at the time to blame a concealed British plot – kar kar-e Ingliseh ,
the work of the British – for almost everything, however trivial. From
some accounts the Shah himself seems to have been not so far removed
from the paranoia of the comedy’s main character. Talking to Asadollah
Alam in 1970 , recalling the attempt to kill him at Tehran university in
1949 , the Shah apparently mentioned that his assailant’s girlfriend had
been the daughter of the head gardener at the British embassy. Alam
respectfully doubted that the British would have ‘hatched such a stupid
plot’. After a pause, the Shah said (alluding to the further attempt on his
life in 1965 ): ‘You realize, of course, that British communists made
another attempt on my life four years ago?’ Alam again demurred. 27 It is
hard to accept that the Shah seriously believed that British intelligence
were behind both assassination attempts, and the communists in Iran,
and the clerical opposition. But this ingrained suspicion was the legacy of
persistent British meddling in the events of the fi rst half of the twentieth
century in Iran and in the early part of the Shah’s reign. It is borne out by
the rueful account of Sir Anthony Parsons, who was British ambassador
in Tehran from 1974 to 1979 (the Shah’s book that Parsons refers to was
published in exile, after his fall):
In his book, ‘Answer to History’, the Shah has implied that he did not believe
in the sincerity of my advice and that he could not clear his mind of his
obsessive suspicion that I was the front- line instrument of some devious
British plot to rob him of his throne. But I can only repeat that the advice I
gave him was genuinely personal and based on my best judgement of events
in a country in which I had served continuously for nearly fi ve years. Indeed,
I can still hear my own voice telling the Shah on numerous occasions that I
would not tell him what I thought unless he assured me that he would accept
what I had to say as the disinterested advice of a genuine well- wisher,
untainted by any ulterior motive. He invariably gave me such assurances,
although I now know, as I suspected at the time, that he was intellectually
and emotionally incapable – who can blame him in the light of his own
history? – of accepting my views at their face value. 28
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Despite his successes, the Shah had a persistent sense of insecurity, and
his thinking about the forces opposed to him was unrealistic. He was still
fundamentally a shy man – ‘a rather awkward, withdrawn person, at his
best with technocrats, Westerners or cronies, at his worst with people en
masse’. 29 A further consequence of the Shah’s insecurity was his encouragement
of factions and division in his government and court. As in the
army high command, 30 his aim was to prevent any one personality from
becoming powerful enough to become a danger to him. As under other
tyrants, spheres of responsibility overlapped in such a way as to create
disputes. Alam and Hoveida were particular enemies. 31
The atmosphere of rancour and intrigue at court was encouraged, and
complicated, by the Shah’s extramarital amusements. The Shah had
affairs and briefer liaisons with many women; both in Iran and on his
trips to other countries. Alam, who was similarly promiscuous, and with
whom the Shah compared exploits, 32 recorded that ‘even when he fi nds a
companion, however attractive she may be, he sooner or later tires of
her’. There were many rumours and much gossip, and anxiety lest the
rumours should reach the ears of Queen Farah. 33 Various courtiers acted
as procurers for the Shah, but the main man was Amir Hushang Davallu
(an offshoot of the old Qajar royal family):
a man of great shrewdness who by intelligence and sycophancy has risen
high in HIM ’s favour. At court we know him by the accurate enough nickname
‘Prince Pimp’. Every year he accompanies HIM to St Moritz, to carry
out his rather sordid functions and to indulge his [Davallu’s] taste for opium. 34
Remarkably enough, Davallu appears to have rendered similar services
for Nazi generals in Paris during the German occupation of France in the
1940 s. 35
Two further salient features of the court were sycophancy and corruption.
The Shah was not stupid, but he was susceptible to fl attery, and this
contributed to the dangerous unreality of the atmosphere around him. 36
Alam criticized this tendency, but was aware that he too was guilty of
contributing to it:
Submitted the Daily Telegraph ’s review of HIM ’s latest book. I told him
it struck me as being favourable. ‘What on earth’s “favourable” about it?’
he snapped back, as soon as he’d read it. I told him to look again at the
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Revolutionary Iran
fi nal paragraph. ‘What do you suppose this word “megalomania” means?’
he said. ‘Greatness,’ I replied. ‘Greatness be damned,’ he exclaimed. ‘Greatness
to the point of madness.’ I was thoroughly ashamed of myself. I should
have read it more carefully, but by then it was too late. 37
On another occasion, the urbane Alam was perhaps playing with a
rather gullible interlocutor when he said (replying to her question as to
whether the Shah had a fl aw):
‘I cannot say that he is faultless,’ Mr Alam at last replied. ‘Everyone, as
you say, has faults. But I may say something that – he might not like it,
and perhaps it’s bad for me to say it, or it might be interpreted as fl attery,
but what I can say (perhaps you will laugh at me too), his fault to my
mind is that he is really too great for his people – his ideas are too great
for we people to realize it [sic].’ 38
The effect of the sycophancy (even if tinged, in Alam’s case, with a
knowing irony) was strengthened by the fact that courtiers and ministers
kept information from the Shah, avoiding telling him anything he might
not want to hear; concentrating instead on good news and the recycling
of propaganda. 39
Corruption was endemic. Sometimes the Shah accepted it with weary
resignation; at other times (when he uncovered a new scandal) it made
him furious. 40 It has long been believed that corruption was widespread
among the Shah’s family. 41 But newly released documents from British
diplomatic records indicate that, although the Shah himself has usually
been given the benefi t of the doubt, he too had been taking sweeteners on
defence contracts. After the fall of the Shah, David Owen, foreign secretary
at the time, commissioned Nicholas Browne, then seconded to the
Cabinet Offi ce, to carry out a post mortem on the conduct of British
policy toward Iran. Sir Anthony Parsons (whose valedictory despatch had
prompted the exercise) was consulted carefully as the review went forward.
Browne wrote to Parsons on 9 October 1979 :
The Randel papers strongly suggest that, in accordance with this general
behaviour, the Shah personally had been taking money from the British,
indirectly through Sir S. Reporter 42 and the Pahlavi Foundation, in return for
defence contracts . . . I wonder whether we took this into suffi cient account
in our assessments of the Shah’s character, and political standing . . . If you
think I am prying too much please tell me to shut up . . . 43
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From the fi les so far released, it appears that Browne never had a
proper reply, and this angle was passed over when the post mortem was
completed. Within the papers so far released that bear upon these matters,
some sections have been withheld, several of which appear to relate
to the activities of defence attachés.
Pumped- up Autocracy
On several occasions during his time as court minister, according to his
own account, Alam urged the Shah to reintroduce a real degree of democracy
in the country, in order to close up the dangerous gap between the
people and the government. 44 Instead, in the mid- 1970 s the Shah turned
in the direction of reinforcing autocracy. In March 1975 the two parties
in the Majles (Mardom and Iran Novin) were abolished and replaced by
the Rastakhiz (Resurgence) party. The Shah dismissed criticism that only
a decade before he himself had stressed the importance of a two- party
system for preparing the way toward democracy; notably in his book
Mission for My Country , in which he had written:
If I were a dictator rather than a constitutional monarch, then I might be
tempted to sponsor a single dominant party such as Hitler organized or such
as you fi nd today in Communist countries. But as constitutional monarch I
can afford to encourage large- scale party activity free from the strait- jacket
of one- party rule or the one- party state. 45
Now, his statements and those of his ministers were rather less enthusiastic
about democracy, echoing the line taken by Hoveida in a speech to the Iran
Novin Party’s Central Committee in 1970 (confi rming the regime’s faith
that economic development had to precede political development):
As the Shah has said, social democracy cannot exist without economic
democracy. In my view most of those who talk about democracy are still
limited in their concept to the schools of thought advocated by Plato [ sic ],
Montesquieu and others. We do not believe democracy means anyone should
be free to act against national interests and moral values and traditions.
From our standpoint democracy means respecting human rights and individuals.
The interesting question is whether such democracy exists in those
countries which are preaching to us on democracy. 46
The 1970s and the Slide to Revolution
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Revolutionary Iran
By the mid- 1970 s many of the democratic countries of western Europe
and North America were suffering from recession and infl ation, unemployment,
political unrest, strikes and (in some cases) home- grown
anti- democratic terrorism. They (especially the UK ) looked weak. Those
countries struggled as Iran boomed and prospered, and the Shah was less
inclined than previously to defer to them as a model. Democracy also
appeared to be in trouble in some of the states that were Iran’s neighbours
or near neighbours – notably in Pakistan, and in India, where Indira
Ghandi declared a state of emergency in June 1975 .
Rastakhiz was intended as the apparatus of a one- party state (although
it did retain something of the previous fi ction of pluralism, in having two
wings that were supposed to represent different shades of opinion). Some
of its inspiration seems, following the logic of the Shah’s White Revolution,
to have derived from Leninist theory of a political avant- garde (some of
those involved in the early stages had formerly been members of Tudeh). 47
Within a few months Rastakhiz activists set up bodies for farmers, women
and industrial workers, and a youth movement; and the party had extended
its infl uence into all sectors of the state bureaucracy. The purpose was to
ensure that all elements of Iranian life fell into line with the political opinions,
aims and objectives of the party and the Shah – something like Hitler’s
Gleichschaltung (‘co-ordination’). 48 In introducing the party the Shah gave
Iranians a stark choice. He said that anyone who did not join Rastakhiz or
support its principles was to be regarded either as a member of Tudeh, in
which case he belonged in jail, or as a traitor, in which case he was no
longer an Iranian and should leave the country for good. 49
Before long the effects began to be felt. Under the strictures of Rastakhiz
vetting, the number of books published per year fell from 4 , 200
to 1 , 300 . Writers were imprisoned, some suffered torture, and one was
forced to make a televised confession (a tactic now associated more with
the Islamic republic) – to the effect that he had not given enough credit
in his writing to the successes of the White Revolution. SAVAK men
went into libraries and bookshops to remove copies of the Shah’s own
book Mission for My Country , because its statements about freedom
and democracy were now out of date. Twenty- two writers, poets, academics
and other well- known intellectuals were in prison by the end of
1975 . 50 The disillusionment of the intelligentsia was deepened and reconfi
rmed. Regime propaganda and adulation of the Shah reached new
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91
levels. He had taken the title Aryamehr (‘Light of the Aryans’) in 1965 –
now he was being called by the ominous title Farmandeh (‘Commander’).
The regime came in for more criticism from human rights organizations
(notably Amnesty International), 51 and in June 1977 the Red Cross
reported privately to the Shah that 900 out of 3 , 000 political prisoners in
Iranian jails bore signs of torture. 52
Particular targets for Rastakhiz were the bazaar and the ulema . Both
had traditionally been centres of potential opposition; both were now
subjected to infi ltration and coercion. Bazaar guilds were reformed and
placed under the direction of state governors. Rastakhiz activists set up
offi ces in the bazaars and forced donations from the merchants and artisans.
Employment legislation on minimum wages and health insurance
was enforced rigorously on traders who had become accustomed to
ignoring it. This pressure added to the economic pressure the bazaaris
were already feeling. They were seeing their products and businesses
edged aside by imports, new factories, suburban stores and supermarkets;
and by the introduction of state corporations to import and carry out the
wholesale distribution of basic foodstuffs. 53 Newspapers carried articles
about the outmoded character of bazaar trading, demolition plans and
new boulevards being driven through the bazaar quarters.
The Shah’s attack on the ulema (building on measures taken by his
father to control religious endowments and to infl uence the training of
mullahs) was an attempt to replace the existing Shi‘a hierarchy with a
new structure whose defi ning characteristic would be loyalty to the
Shah’s regime – a din- e dowlat (state religion). Rastakhiz intensifi ed the
measures taken to achieve this since 1963 , which included action to monitor
and regulate the operation of religious endowments, and a religious
corps (like the literacy corps) to disseminate the offi cial line on Islam in the
countryside. The ulema also regarded the Family Protection Law of 1967 as
an unacceptable attack on important traditions. The new law discarded
shari‘a practice to allow women to petition for divorce and to have custody
of children after divorce if the secular court so decided. It stipulated that a
man could only take a second wife if his fi rst wife gave written consent (a
largely theoretical provision; po l ygamous marriage had become, and remains,
uncommon in Iran). The government selected and supported pro- regime mullahs
to conduct Friday prayer in major mosques. 54 It made a further symbolic
change in 1976 to replace the traditional solar calendar that took the year of
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Revolutionary Iran
Mohammad’s fl ight from Mecca as year 1 with a new calendar taking year
1 as the date of the accession of Cyrus the Great. So instead of 1355 , the
year was now 2535 . The symbolism of dumping Islam as the point of reference
in favour of a monarchical date was signifi cant. 55 But also, in terms of
the Western date ( 1976 ), Iran had jumped from the medieval period to the
era of the far future. It was montazh again – time itself had been reassembled.
In some strange numerological sense, Iran was now ahead.
Khomeini blasted the foundation of Rastakhiz from his exile, claiming
that it both violated constitutional norms and was aimed at the destruction
of Islam. The regime responded swiftly. Within a short time many of
Khomeini’s most prominent supporters were arrested, including Ayatollahs
Montazeri, Beheshti and Rabbani Shirazi, and more junior clerics
who would later take greater roles, including Ali Khamenei.
The aggressive actions of Rastakhiz intensifi ed the political debate
within Iran, without creating a genuine link between state and society as
the Shah had intended. It appeared that quiet dissent was no longer an
option: the regime was intent on erasing all dissent. It was not just Tudeh
and extremists that were threatened – large sections of Iranian society
became anxious that their interests were in danger.
The 1970 s were also the period in which new forms of political extremism
appeared, and faded. The two most important groups were the
Sazeman- e Cherikha- ye Fedayan- e Khalq- e Iran (usually called the Marxist
Fedayan or just the Fedayan) and the Sazeman- e Mojahedin- e Khalq
(known as the MKO or the MEK – though since 1979 this organization
in exile has disguised itself with a plethora of front organizations, cover
names and acronyms – PMOI , NCRI , NLA , etc.). Both groups rejected
peaceful politics and the previous political parties on the basis that these
had failed to bring about change in Iran – for them the events of 1953 and
1963 amply demonstrated this. They believed the Shah’s regime could
only be removed by armed struggle, along the lines of what political guerrillas
had achieved in Cuba and Algeria. Some of the MKO trained with
the PLO in Lebanon. The Fedayan and the MKO were recruited predominantly
from educated backgrounds – most of their leaders had been
students, and their leftist and anti- US attitudes again refl ected the international
student activism of the late 1960 s and early 70 s.
The Fedayan, initially the larger group, were Marxist; the MKO ’s
ideology fused Marxism and Islam (they claimed Shariati as their
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93
ideologue but their ideas developed independently and Shariati
appears to have kept them at arm’s length). On 8 February 1971 guerrillas
later associated with the Fedayan attacked a gendarmerie post
at Siahkal in Gilan, in an attempt to rescue one of their companions
who had been arrested. SAVAK and the authorities responded quickly,
and harshly, and within three weeks all thirteen of the attackers were
found and executed. Under continuous pressure and having failed to
light up the people’s revolution as they had anticipated, the Fedayan
split in 1975 , with one faction favouring continued armed struggle,
while the other, at least as a temporary measure, sought instead to
work through infiltration of labour organizations and more conventional
(if still radical) political activity.
Where the Fedayan grew out of circles associated with Tudeh, the
original members of the MKO had connections rather with the Freedom
Movement and the Hoseiniyeh Ershad. The MKO attempted to disrupt
the Shah’s celebrations for 2 , 500 years of monarchy in October
1971 with a bomb attack and an attempt to hijack an airliner. Like the
Fedayan, many of the MKO ’s people were arrested in 1971 and although
they continued to recruit through the 1970 s and continued attacks,
including assassinations of six Americans in Iran between 1973 and
1976 , 56 recruitment was unable to keep pace with the arrests. By 1976 – 7
SAVAK had effectively repressed both organizations (more than 300
MKO and Fedayan, plus fi ghters and supporters from similar, smaller
groups, were killed in these years) but when the revolution began and
some political prisoners were released both guerrilla movements were
reinvigorated. 57
Achievements
The Shah’s regime had achieved a lot by the mid- 1970 s. Unlike many
other national leaders in many countries (including some democratic politicians)
the Shah deserved credit not just for governing to secure himself,
his dynasty or his interest group in power, but for a genuine effort to
move his country forward in its development, which achieved real gains.
Gross National Product per capita had jumped to $ 2 , 000 from
$ 200 (in 1963 ). Much of this was down to the oil boom – but the Shah
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Revolutionary Iran
was himself partly responsible for the big rise in oil income, and the income
was being reinvested. The country had reoriented away from agriculture
toward more developed economic activities that would yield greater benefi
ts to the people, in industry and services. The movement of population
to the cities, however traumatic and marked by deprivation it was in the
short term, could be regarded as a necessary step towards a more sophisticated,
developed, modern society. Investment had greatly improved
infrastructure and the standard of education and health services. 58 Women
and minorities had benefi ted from his reforms. Iran was respected internationally
and had taken on a more confi dent regional role, as evidenced by
her infl uence both within OPEC and within the regional security organization
CENTO . The Shah’s relationship with the US had also matured since
the 1950 s; he was less of a stooge and more of a partner.
But it was a mixed picture. There was also waste and corruption, and
huge inequality. 59 The surge of investment for growth created a problem
of what the planners called ‘absorptive capacity’ – the scale of investment
was such that the existing administrative, transport and other
infrastructure could not cope with the expansion. Vital industrial supplies
waited for weeks and months at Iran’s borders because customs
offi cials could not process the paperwork quickly enough, or because
the ports did not have the capacity to unload them from ships quickly
enough, or because there were not enough lorries to carry them away
once unloaded. When extra lorries were imported, there was a shortage
of drivers. This situation was of course a dream for corrupt offi cials,
who took bribes from those who could pay to jump the queue. 60 Because
the population was expanding rapidly (from about 15 million in 1939 –
40 to just under 19 million in 1956 , 25 . 3 million in 1966 and 33 . 7 million
in 1976 ), 61 improvements in health and education provision, for example,
did not have the impact that had been hoped. Infant mortality
dropped, but was still high; 68 per cent of adults were still illiterate and
fewer than 40 per cent of children completed primary school. Illiteracy
was particularly marked in the countryside, refl ecting again the Shah’s
inclination to sacrifi ce traditional, rural Iran for the development
of urban Iran. 62 Standards of housing in the poorer parts of the cities
were desperately inadequate. Not all the effects of the oil boom were
benefi cial. Some of the elements of what has been called the rentier economy
began to emerge: an overgrown, ineffi cient (and often corrupt)
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bureaucracy, real- estate speculation, damage to import- substitution
industries by rising costs of domestic production and erosion of non- oil
exports by a high currency exchange rate. 63
The most important failures were primarily political. The state was not
totalitarian, but it was not free either, and the dynamic was heading in the
wrong direction. As the Shah had grown more confi dent, his rule had
grown more autocratic, and his previously declared aspirations to democracy
had faded. By 1975 he had no programme for restoring representative
government, and his only solution for dissent was propaganda and repression.
If he had succeeded in making the monarchy truly popular, perhaps
he could have sustained that for a time, but instead the monarchy had
become ever more remote and disconnected from the attitudes and concerns
of the people. Rastakhiz had succeeded only in destabilizing
assumptions and stirring up resentment, rather than thickening the attachment
between the Shah and ordinary Iranians, as Alam had advocated it
should. Partly as a result of combating real and imaginary Marxists for so
long, the Shah made the mistake of himself taking an overly materialist,
Marxist analysis (as we have seen, his thinking showed a Marxismthrough-
the- Looking- Glass tendency in a number of areas). He believed
that material prosperity would yield political stability, and that his faith in
the ancient bond between people and monarch would be justifi ed by economic
success and renewed gratitude. But few economies deliver continuous
sustained growth indefi nitely, and politics is often an ungrateful business.
Iraq – and Khomeini
Another manifestation of the Shah’s stronger position and greater confi –
dence in the mid- 1970 s was the successful resolution of outstanding
disputes with Iraq. For the most part the position of the long border
between the two countries was uncontroversial and had been stable since
the Zohab treaty agreed between the Safavids and the Ottomans in
1639 (given more exact delineation by a multi- nation border commission
in 1914 ). But for many years there had been uncertainty and
disagreement over the precise position of the border at its southernmost
point, where the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates fl owed into the Persian
Gulf along the waterway known as the Shatt al- Arab (Arvand Rud
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Revolutionary Iran
in Persian). The uncertainty was important because of the proximity of
both countries’ oilfi elds, and because both used the waterway for the
passage of oil tankers carrying oil away for export. As vice- president
of Iraq, Saddam Hussein had claimed the whole waterway up to the Iranian
shore.
Tension rose in 1974 – 5 as the Kurdish leader Mostafa Barzani led a
successful insurgency against the Iraqi regime further north, supported by
the Shah with weapons and other supplies. 64 As this progressed, the Shah
went further, allowing artillery fi re across the border in support of the
Kurds and fi nally, sending two units of the Iranian army into Iraqi territory.
With the Kurds increasingly successful and the threat of war with
Iran looming, Saddam sought a settlement through Algerian mediation.
An agreement was signed in Algiers in March 1975 which, as set out in
more detailed treaties signed later, agreed to the Iranian position that the
Shatt al- Arab border should be in the deepest part of the river, where the
fl ow was most rapid (the Thalweg – this solution was potentially still
problematic because the pattern of fl ow of the river changed over time,
and the waterway had to be dredged regularly to remove silt). In return,
Iran agreed to end its support for the Iraqi Kurds. The result for the Kurds
was that their insurgency collapsed within days, Barzani had to take refuge
in Iran, and large numbers of Kurds surrendered to Iraqi troops. Iraq
resented the concessions over the Shatt al- Arab, and the dispute surfaced
again in 1980 as one of the causes of the Iran– Iraq War.
Another consequence of the Algiers agreement was that Shi‘a pilgrims
were again free to visit the shrines at Karbala, Najaf and elsewhere in
Iraq. This new freedom of movement made it easier for pilgrims to bring
propaganda material back with them when they returned to Iran, notably
Khomeini’s speeches recorded on cassette tapes. After a time the
Shah began to put pressure on the Iraqi government to expel Khomeini,
who had been living in Najaf (the city of seminaries that contains the
shrine of the Emam Ali) since he left Turkey in 1965 . While in Najaf
Khomeini had developed further his network of contacts within Iran,
and a theory of Islamic government, but he was opposed in Najaf by the
powerful Ayatollah Abol- Qasem Khoei, who took a more traditional,
more quietist position like that of Borujerdi in the 1950 s; resistant to
involvement in politics. His followers came to be known as the Najafi
school, opposed to the school of Khomeini, and since Khoei’s death in
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1992 these positions have been maintained and taken forward by Ayatollah
Ali Sistani. Khoei and Sistani were both Iranian- born. Although
both spent most of their lives in Iraq, and despite the Iranian revolution,
large numbers of ordinary Iranians have followed their example as their
marja- e taqlid (source of emulation).
Khomeini’s theory was not accepted by the Shi‘a ulema as a whole;
indeed initially, it was not accepted by very many at all. In 1906 – 11 the
ulema had controlled a hierarchy and a national network of supporters
that allowed them to be an actor in politics, while remaining reluctant to
take the responsibilities of government upon themselves. Then and later
(notably in 1951 – 3 ) their beliefs limited them to encouraging and supporting
secular political actors with whom they thought they were in
sympathy – with mixed results, as we have seen. But now Khomeini’s new
ideas (prompted and radicalized by his experience in 1963 – 4 ) meant that
the clergy, or at least a section of them, might try to take power in their
own right. 65 Khomeini stayed in Iraq until October 1978 , when the Iraqis
fi nally ejected him. Having failed to get into Kuwait, he went (briefl y, as
it turned out) to Paris.
The Economy Falters; Carter Arrives
By mid- 1976 the economy was overheating, there was too much money
chasing too few goods, imports could not keep pace, there were bottlenecks
and shortages, and infl ation rose sharply – especially on items like
foodstuffs and housing rent, and especially in Tehran, where rents rose by
300 per cent in fi ve years in some areas. Then growth began to subside, as
infl ation ramped up. 66 The Shah blamed profi teering for the price rises,
arrested some well- known entrepreneurs, and then turned on small traders,
sending gangs (backed by SAVAK ) into the bazaars to make arrests.
Shops were closed down, 250 , 000 fi nes were issued, and 8 , 000 shopkeepers
were given prison sentences – none of which altered the underlying
economic realities one jot. The arrests and fi nes joined the list of grievances
felt by bazaari artisans and merchants, fuelling their anxiety that
the regime intended to eradicate them altogether. 67
The government realized in the early part of 1977 that there was serious
trouble ahead. 68 Iran’s developing economy had run out of control,
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Revolutionary Iran
and the period of heroic spending was coming to an end because there
was going to be a slump in oil revenues (against the Shah’s wishes, Saudi
Arabia had negotiated a cut in production within OPEC ). In mid- 1977 the
worrying economic picture prompted the Shah to change his prime minister.
After twelve years in that job Hoveida moved over to become court
minister (taking over from Asadollah Alam, who had been forced to retire
by ill- health; leukaemia killed him the following year). Jamshid Amuzegar
took over as prime minister, and introduced a new, defl ationary
economic policy, designed to moderate government spending, bring infl ation
under control and restore some stability. But the result, as growth
declined further, was a jump in unemployment. Infl ation and the sudden
faltering of the economy particularly affected the poor, but to some extent
everyone; rents were high for the middle- class engineers, managers and
professionals in Tehran just as for the slum dwellers, and those with a
stake in new businesses and loans to service felt the impact of defl ation
acutely. The sense of economic crisis added to the political uncertainty
that had been created by Rastakhiz, and those who had forgiven the
regime’s other shortcomings for their competence in economic development
felt their faith slipping away.
In January 1977 Jimmy Carter took over from Gerald Ford as president
of the United States. The Shah had always been more at ease with
Republican presidents than with Democrats. From this point on, he came
to feel greater pressure on his regime’s human rights record. Carter and his
advisers were less tolerant of repressive allies than their predecessors had
been, and the Shah began to relax some of the instruments of repression. 69
In February some political prisoners were released. Later on court rules
were changed to allow prisoners proper legal representation, and access to
civilian rather than just military courts. The Shah met representatives from
Amnesty International and agreed to improve prison conditions. In May a
group of lawyers sent a letter to the Shah, protesting at government interference
in court cases. Politicians and activists who had kept out of trouble
for years began to wonder whether they might now cautiously re- emerge.
In June three National Front activists, Karim Sanjabi, Shapur Bakhtiar
and Dari ush Foruhar, sent a bold letter to the Shah criticizing autocratic
rule and demanding a restoration of constitutional government. Later that
month the Writers’ Association, suppressed since 1964 , resurrected itself
and pressed for the same goals, and for the removal of censorship (many
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of the leading members were Tudeh sympathizers or broadly leftist). When
the Shah replaced Hoveida with the more moderate Amuzegar in July, the
change was interpreted as part of a movement towards a more liberal
position. In the autumn more political associations reconstituted themselves;
notably the National Front, under the leadership of Sanjabi,
Bakhtiar and Foruhar; and the Freedom Movement, closely associated
with the National Front, under Mehdi Bazargan and Yadollah Sahabi. 70
At this stage, all these groups, representing mainly the educated middle
classes, were calling for a constitutional monarchy and the full restoration
of the constitution of 1906 .
The Freedom Movement ( Nehzat- e Azadi- ye Iran – sometimes translated
as the Liberation Movement) had been founded in 1961 by Mehdi
Bazargan and Ayatollah Mahmud Taleqani, among others. Both were
important fi gures in the history of political Islam in Iran. Ali Shariati was
also active in the Movement in its early years, but the line taken by Bazargan
and Taleqani was less radical than Shariati’s in the main – aimed at a
liberal, democratic politics that was compatible with Islam, while keeping
a distance from the anticlericalism of some in Mossadeq’s circle (Taleqani
had been one of the few clerics to continue supporting Mossadeq after his
split with Kashani in the run- up to the crisis of August 1953 ). The Freedom
Movement was signifi cant in the events of 1963 – 4 , supporting the demonstrations
against the Shah and suffering with other opposition groups in
the aftermath. Like Khomeini, Taleqani was arrested in 1963 – and again
in the early 1970 s amid the fuss that led to the closure of the Hoseiniyeh
Ershad (which he and Bazargan had helped to establish). The Freedom
Movement kept up a stream of propaganda against the Shah’s regime in its
publications outside Iran, coordinated by Ebrahim Yazdi, often stressing
its ideas’ line of descent from those of the Constitutional Revolution, and
the need for an alliance between the ulema and the secular intelligentsia if
free, democratic government were ever to be established in Iran.
In the later 1960 s and 70 s the Freedom Movement continued activity
at a low level within Iran, but also among students and others in the
US and in France (where its leaders were Ebrahim Yazdi and Sadegh
Qotbzadeh – Abol Hassan Bani- Sadr was associated with the Freedom
Movement but had connections with the National Front also, and generally
kept a somewhat semi- detached position). Bazargan, Taleqani, Sahabi
and their movement were infl uential in their advocacy of political Islam,
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Revolutionary Iran
but also because, from their activity in 1963 and their pro- Islamic position,
they were trusted by Khomeini and were able to keep contact with
him in exile. 71 In 1978 – 9 this put them in a crucial position as a hinge
between Khomeini and the rest of the non- clerical opposition to the Shah.
All these members of the Freedom Movement became important fi gures
in the fi rst two years of the revolution.
Khomeini and his supporters among the clergy were also alert to the
rise in tension and the relaxation of regime repression in 1976 – 7 , and set
up a group to coordinate their work against the regime. It was called the
Jame- ye Ruhaniyat- e Mobarez (the Combatant Clergy Association) and
was effectively a tighter reconfi guration of the Coalition of Islamic Societies
that had backed Khomeini in 1963 – 4 – where the Coalition had
included secular bazaari members, the new group positioned the clergy
fi rmly to the fore. Founder members were Morteza Motahhari (the fi rst
leader of the association), Mohammad Beheshti, Ali Khamenei, Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammad Javad Bahonar, Mohammad Reza
Mahdavi- Kani and Mohammad Mofatteh. The association and its leading
members were central to the development of the pro- Khomeini revolutionary
movement and its establishment of control over the countrywide
network of mosques, madresehs and religious societies in 1978 . Most of
them took important positions in the new Islamic republic in 1979 .
On 10 October 1977 the Goethe Institut in Tehran hosted an evening
of poetry readings organized by the newly revived Writers’ Association.
It was the fi rst of a series of ten such evenings, which from the beginning
had a political character, demonstrating again the close association
between politics and literature in Iranian cultural life. The German
director, coming under pressure from the authorities, became more and
more anxious that SAVAK would close the institute down, and watched
the proceedings from a distance with a bottle of whisky that gradually
emptied as each night went on. Many of the speeches made in between
the readings were strongly critical of the Shah’s regime, pushing against
the boundaries of what was becoming permissible again. Many, if not
most, of the speakers were Tudeh sympathizers; most of the audience
were young students. On the fi fth evening one speaker asked for a
minute of silence for those writers of the previous half century who had
suffered under censorship and repression and had died prematurely –
among them the poet Nima Yushij, Sadegh Hedayat, Samad Behrangi, 72
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101
Jalal Al- e Ahmad, and Ali Shariati, who had died only four months earlier.
73 By this time (despite the fact that there was virtually no reporting
of them in the state- controlled media) the evenings were attracting
crowds of several thousands, some of them from distant parts of the
country, to huddle in the garden of the institute. Audio and video tapes
were recorded, reproduced outside the country, reimported and distributed.
The poet and playwright Saïd Soltanpur, a prominent member of
the Association, agreed to moderate his readings in order to avoid trouble,
but when he came to the microphone found himself unable to hold
back, reading some of his most radical poems against the Shah, some of
them written when he had been in prison. The bolder and more antiregime
the poems became, the more popular they were with the audience.
By the end of the series the organizers had managed to avoid serious
trouble, but a further series of evenings held at the Aryamehr University
ran into greater diffi culties. 74 On 22 November a rally of National Front
supporters just outside Tehran, aimed at forming a new anti- regime coalition,
was violently broken up by SAVAK before it could really start. 75
Another event that raised the tension that autumn was the suspicious
death of Khomeini’s son, Mostafa. A respected cleric in his own right,
Mostafa had been living in exile in Najaf in Iraq like his father. One
evening in October he was visited there by two unidentifi ed Iranians
and the next morning he was found dead, apparently from a heart
attack. 76 The news reached Qom quickly, and memorial gatherings took
place there (organized by Morteza Motahhari and others), in Tehran,
and also in Yazd, Shiraz and Tabriz. At fi rst Khomeini himself responded
to the news calmly and non- committally, but at the memorial events
there were calls for Khomeini to return to Iran, anti- Shah slogans, and
accusations that SAVAK had murdered Mostafa. Over the next few
weeks, word spread in Qom that there would be further substantial
demonstrations at the beginning of December, on the traditional fortieth
day ( arba‘in , or in more common usage chelom ) after Mostafa’s
death. The forty- day period of mourning was to take on greater signifi –
cance the following year. Khomeini’s supporters used the network of
contacts and the hierarchy of relationships among the clergy and
religious students to organize speeches and demonstrations on the day.
In Qom large numbers attended the speeches, which had been coordinated
and made relatively moderate demands: for Khomeini’s return,
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Revolutionary Iran
the release of prisoners like Ayatollahs Taleqani and Montazeri (Khomeini’s
close ally), freedom of speech, and the restoration of the Islamic
calendar. But the mood was turning more radical. After the speeches
religious students went on to the streets, chanting ‘Marg bar Shah’
(‘Death to the Shah’) outside the Faiziyeh seminary, which had been
closed down by the authorities after disturbances in 1975 . Police broke
up the demonstrations, beat people up, and arrested some. There were
further disturbances in the bazaar district of Tehran around Ashura on
21 December, including marches with banners, and there were more
arrests. Mostafa’s death had brought Khomeini’s name back on to people’s
lips. SAVAK bosses noted the upsurge in religious dissent. 77
The Shah himself was in Washington in November, where he had talks
with President Carter at the White House on 15 and 16 November. 78 Much
of the visit was taken up with discussions on the supply of military equipment
and the regional politics of the Middle East. Some at least of Carter’s
offi cials found the Shah an impressive interlocutor – Hamilton Jordan, who
was Carter’s chief of staff, commented later rather fulsomely that the Shah
had been one of the most astute international statesmen that Carter met
around that time. But the Shah’s response to Carter’s tentative probing on
the human rights situation was defensive in a way that was becoming characteristic
– according to him the critics of his rule were all communists, and
his response was dictated by the law, leaving him little room for manoeuvre.
For his part, privately, he judged that Carter was naive about the communist
threat. The Shah continued to misunderstand the domestic opposition
and perversely to pretend that his regime’s response was out of his hands.
While in Washington, the Shah was given an offi cial welcome by the
president in front of the White House. But there were demonstrations
against the Shah by a large mixed group of Iranian and American
protestors, who appeared mainly to be young students. The US ambassador
to Iran, William Sullivan, who was in Washington to accompany
the Shah, noted with surprise that some of them carried placards with
Khomeini’s face on them. Queen Farah was surprised too – she could
not understand why students with a progressive political agenda would
take as their hero someone she regarded as a reactionary traditionalist.
79 At one point the police, in danger of losing control, used tear gas
on the demonstrators. Unfortunately the wind was in the wrong direction,
and the gas drifted toward the VIP group. The Shah had to bring
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103
out his handkerchief to wipe his eyes, in full view of the TV cameras. The
Shah’s loss of face made an impression in Iran, where some (unable to accept
that it was an accident) assumed the US government had deliberately humiliated
him to show that their support for him was waning.
Another incident on this trip showed the Shah’s shyness, and lack
of a common touch. Knowing the Shah’s liking for jazz, Carter had
arranged a private performance by Dizzy Gillespie and Sarah Vaughan.
Another even more legendary fi gure, Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines, was present in
the audience as a guest, and at the end Carter persuaded him to join
Gillespie for a fi nal impromptu session together. ‘As the applause was
swelling,’ Carter went on stage with the First Lady to congratulate
and thank the performers. Empress Farah tried to nudge the Shah to do
the same, but he sat stiffl y in his place until she was forced virtually
to shove him up on to the stage, where he shook hands ‘in evident
discomfort’. 80
Whatever the rumours and suspicions in Iran, Carter was keen to display
his backing for the Shah’s regime. He accepted an invitation for a
quick return visit only a few weeks later. He was in Tehran on New Year’s
Eve and made a speech that became notorious, declaring the Shah’s Iran
to be an ‘island of stability’ in the region, saying that ‘There is no other
head of state with whom I feel on friendlier terms and to whom I feel
more gratitude.’ 81 In his fi rst year, and having had a more domestic perspective
previously than some presidents, Carter was still fi nding his feet
in international politics. He had a clear sense of Iran’s importance to US
policy. But his praise was already more perhaps a sign of unease than an
indicator of his true feelings, and the enthusiasm of his speech was
misleading.
At around the same time the British ambassador, Anthony Parsons,
sent his usual annual review despatch back to London. He used it to draw
attention to the awakening of political dissent and the economic diffi culties
of the regime, though he assessed ‘no threat to basic stability’. The
response of his colleagues in London was mixed. The formal reply to his
despatch airily asked whether the character of Iranians had really changed
from their stereotype (‘the epitome of idleness, deceitfulness, corruption,
charm and conceit’), and suggested that other regional leaders (Sadat in
Egypt for example) ‘would be glad to exchange their problems for the
Shah’s’. 82
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Revolutionary Iran
Four Times Forty Days
On 7 January 1978 , presumably in response to the earlier protests over
the death of Mostafa Khomeini, a politically motivated article attacking
the clergy and Khomeini appeared in the paper Ettela‘at . The article had
been written by someone trusted by the regime (under the pseudonym
Ahmad Rashidi Motlaq) and according to one account had been passed
to the editor of Ettela‘at via the court minister, Hoveida, and the information
minister, Dariush Homayun. Alarmed by its content, the editor
queried the instruction to publish, but was given to understand that the
Shah himself had given his approval. 83 Published under the title ‘Black
and Red Imperialism’, the article alleged that Khomeini was plotting with
communists and British interests against the Shah’s government, and that
other senior clerics did not support his opposition to the monarchy. It
also said that he was a foreigner (from his grandfather’s birth in India)
and a poet (the last was true, and was intended to detract from his clerical
seriousness: most ulema , with some backing from the Koran, disapproved
of poetry), and even suggested that he was a homosexual.
Many of the religious class were outraged. Within a few hours of its
arrival in Qom, religious students were going from house to house en
masse, pressing religious leaders to sanction protests against the article,
which they regarded as a deliberate insult. In the streets they clashed
with the police, abused the ‘Yazid government’ and demanded an apology,
a constitution, and the return of Khomeini. But on the fi rst day
( 8 January) there were no serious casualties. The senior clerics recognized
the indignation of the students, but were worried that the authorities
would use demonstrations as an excuse to take further action against
religious institutions. Some prevaricated (Haeri, Shariatmadari); others
cautiously supported peaceful protest (Golpaygani). There was a student
strike on 8 and 9 January, and the bazaar closed in support. On
9 January the leaders of the demonstrations called for calm and silence
rather than the chanting of the previous day, but there were further
confrontations with the police, stone- throwing and broken windows.
The crowds were now thousands strong. The police fi red in the air
initially and the demonstrators scattered, but when they regrouped
some police fi red directly at them. Several were killed – early reports
suggested twenty or thirty, but the real number was perhaps as low as
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105
fi ve. 84 When news of the deaths spread, there were protest demonstrations
in cities across the country. The next day Khomeini praised the
courage of the students and called for more demonstrations. Shariatmadari
and others in Qom condemned the shootings (several at least of
those killed had been religious students from Iranian Azerbaijan; Shariatmadari’s
followers), supported the call for a return to constitutional
government, and urged people to observe the traditional commemoration
( chelom ) after forty days.
In the intervening period many of the clergy spoke out to urge restraint,
and the demonstrations in twelve cities on 18 February, after the forty
days, were mainly peaceful. Bazaars and universities closed. But in Tabriz
(where the demonstrations were large, refl ecting the origin of the victims
shot in Qom) the police locked the main mosque of the city, next to the
bazaar and attempted to bar entry. The demonstrators overwhelmed
them and turned to attacking and occupying buildings that were symbols
for disapproval – police stations, Rastakhiz Party buildings, banks, cinemas
and shops that sold alcohol. Again the police fi red on the crowd,
causing more deaths, and within a few hours army units, including
armoured vehicles, were brought in to restore state control. Again the
number of deaths was exaggerated in reports – research after the revolution
has suggested the real number killed was thirteen, 85 but there would
have been a larger number of wounded. The forty- day rhythm continued,
breathing in indignation, breathing out more demonstrations and intensifi
ed radicalism like a great revolutionary lung. With each cycle moderate
clerics like Ayatollahs Shariatmadari and Marashi- Najafi in Qom,
Khademi in Isfahan and Abdollah Shirazi in Mashhad came under greater
pressure from radicals and supporters of Khomeini, who exhorted them
to condemn the regime as well as the killings, and in some cases camped
in the clerics’ houses. As in previous crises in Iran, the informal network
of contacts and associations between mosques, seminaries, bazaar guilds,
marjas , mullahs and their followers came into play to organize and coordinate
the protests. The moderates began to take a harder line, and
support among religious students shifted to favour more radical clerics. 86
The demonstrations grew larger and more vocal.
On 29 March there were large commemorations for the dead of
Tabriz in fi fty- fi ve cities and towns, most of which were peaceful, but
violence broke out in several places, including Tehran, Isfahan and
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Revolutionary Iran
Yazd. The rioters targeted similar buildings to those that had been
assaulted in Tabriz, but some statues of the Shah and his father were also
attacked, as in 1953 . This time the violence was worst in Yazd, where
Ayatollah Mohammad Saduqi, a follower of Khomeini, became the centre
of protest. As protestors came out of his mosque, heading for the main
police station, they were fi red on, and many were killed – the offi cial fi gure
given was twenty- seven, but the opposition claimed more than 100 . 87
On 10 May, after another forty days, there were large demonstrations
again across the country, and the Shah cancelled an overseas trip to stay
close to developments in Tehran, where the bazaar district was sealed off
with troops and the authorities used tear gas to disrupt a gathering outside
the Friday Mosque (in fact the protests ran from 6 to 11 May). In
Qom the city was rocked by demonstrations and riots for ten hours, more
died in shootings, and at one point agents of the regime pursued activists
into Shariatmadari’s house and shot two dead. 88
But although mourning was called for again on 17 June, the cycle of
demonstrations was broken at this point, and there was a pause. One reason
for this was that Shariatmadari, supported by Golpaygani and
Marashi- Najafi in Qom, urged that mourners should stay at home on the
day in order to avoid further deaths. There was a perception that the
regime’s stance was hardening and that the response on 17 June might be
particularly harsh. But Khomeini called for the street demonstrations to
continue. Why did Khomeini’s followers, notably Beheshti and the others
coordinating the radical effort in Tehran, acquiesce to Shariatmadari’s policy
of restraint? They might have felt that they had temporarily reached the
limit of the support they could mobilize by this tactic, and that to continue
with it would only make themselves more vulnerable. Initially the forty- day
rhythm had worked in favour of the protests, by providing dates for demonstrators
to rally to. But now, with the cycle established, the dates might
begin to work for the regime, by en abling them to prepare for repression
(this was perhaps the lesson of what happened in Tehran on 10 May); and
the protestors might begin to lose out if their numbers, intimidated by the
violence of the authorities, started to fall off. Perhaps they just felt the need
for a breathing- space or wanted to avoid a division between the followers
of Khomeini and the more moderate clergy. 89 Perhaps it was a combination
of these factors. Whether the pause was tactical or not, approved by the
radicals or not, there was no particular sign of a disagreement among the
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107
clergy over the issue, and 17 June passed off peacefully. But feeling was still
running high.
Over the previous months the Shah’s government had followed a tough
policy of arresting and intimidating leading opposition fi gures. By midsummer
about seventy of Khomeini’s clerical supporters had been arrested,
including important members of the Combatant Clergy Association like Ali
Khamenei and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. 90 SAVAK also targeted members
of the secular opposition – the Writers’ Association, the Freedom Movement
and the National Front. Human rights activists and others received
threatening letters, some were beaten up and the offi ces of Karim Sanjabi,
Mehdi Bazargan and Dariush Foruhar among others were bombed. Meetings
were attacked by thugs in the pay of the regime and were broken up. 91
At the same time as it attacked opposition groups, over the summer the
government tried to placate popular feeling by making concessions. The
regime promised truly free elections for the following year (the Shah
made a speech to this effect on 5 August), 92 and to reopen the Faiziyeh
seminary in Qom – it ended the harassing measures against small bazaari
traders, apologized to Shariatmadari for the attack on his home and
replaced the chief of SAVAK , General Nasiri. The Shah also tried to
address accusations of corruption against his own court by directing that
members of his family should end their business activities. 93 Some secular
liberals were encouraged by the concessions, but Khomeini and his followers
were implacable.
The Shah was reluctant to permit all- out violent suppression of the
demonstrations, but despite his extensive security apparatus, he was
largely baffl ed by the protests against his rule. Members of that apparatus
seemed scarcely better aware. Part of the problem was that what
was happening did not fi t with their expectations of the threat – primarily,
as they had thought, from Marxism – or their rhetoric against it.
Others in the regime fell back on the suspicion that foreign powers were
involved – usually code for the British or the US . Prime Minister Amuzegar
seems to have genuinely believed, such was the level of malicious
backbiting at court, that the protests were engineered by Hoveida and
others to get rid of him personally. 94 Amuzegar was wrong – but right
too in a sense; on 27 August the Shah removed him and appointed
Jafar Sharif- Emami, who came from a clerical family and had connections
with the ulema . There was a further tentative relaxation of some
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108
Revolutionary Iran
regime controls: some press restrictions were lifted, the Shah’s Imperial
calendar was abolished and the old calendar was restored. In addition,
in another attempt to appease religious opinion, the government banned
casinos.
Mashhad, Ramadan, Isfahan, Abadan
Despite 17 June passing off quietly, other incidents in June and July
showed that tension was still high and opposition to the government still
strong. On 15 July some protestors were shot in Rafsanjan, but more serious
demonstrations in several cities followed the death in a car crash of
Sheikh Ahmad Kafi , a popular preacher, on 20 July. In Mashhad several
mourners were shot and killed. Ramadan began on 6 August. The month
of daytime fasting was always an unusual time, sometimes tense, of
heightened religious feeling. It was normal for there to be daily gatherings
at mosques at dusk, and in August 1978 these became regular occasions
for political debate and the intensifi cation of feeling against the government.
There were renewed demonstrations in several cities, more or less
spontaneous, but in Isfahan feeling was stronger because of the recent
arrest of Seyyed Jalaloddin Taheri, one of the most prominent and popular
clerics in the city. There were nightly demonstrations until 10 August,
when the authorities lashed back with force, and a number of participants
were killed. They then imposed martial law and a curfew, with
troops and tanks on the streets. There were demonstrations and killings
on 10 August in Shiraz also, and protest demonstrations against the killings
followed in other cities in subsequent days.
On 19 August a terrible incident raised indignation against the government
to a new pitch. A fi re broke out in the Rex Cinema in Abadan
and killed about 370 people – emergency doors were locked from the
outside. Government and opposition both accused each other, but
events, trials and investigations in later years indicate that a radical
Islamic group with connections to ulema fi gures was responsible. 95
Despite the fact that clerical disapproval of cinemas was well known,
and that cinemas had been attacked by demonstrators earlier in the year,
the mood was such that most believed SAVAK had started the fi re in
order to blame religious radicals. The fi re was important in turning
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109
many ordinary Iranians defi nitively against the Shah’s rule. Many had
reached that point at which they not only did not believe what their
government told them – such was their distrust that they assumed that
the opposite of what they were being told must be true. There were new
demonstrations in cities across the country, and many jumped in size
from around 10 , 000 to double that number or more. By the end of the
month ten more cities were under martial law. 96
Eid- e Fetr is the holiday at the end of Ramadan that ends the month of
fasting. In 1977 prayers had been held in the open air at Qeytarieh in
north Tehran on the day, and in 1978 the authorities gave permission for
the event to be repeated, on the understanding that it would be peaceful
and limited to the designated site (this may have been one aspect of the
gentler line taken by the new prime minister, Sharif- Emami). The prime
organizers were two bazaaris with National Front connections, but the
cleric chosen to lead the prayers was Ayatollah Mohammad Mofatteh,
who was aligned with Khomeini. There is some uncertainty about just
what was intended by whom, but some of those present had brought banners
and placards with pictures of Khomeini, and as the planned event
came to an end, large additional numbers appeared. Mofatteh announced
that the programme was over and (perhaps disingenuously) asked the
crowd to follow marshals to the exits, but instead an impromptu march
began, heading off almost the length of the city, downhill towards the
bazaar district. As it went the demonstration grew in size; later estimates
ranged between 200 , 000 and 500 , 000 . The hum of the crowd and their
chanting could be heard far over the city, even in normally quiet, affl uent
parts of north Tehran like Shemiran and the Elahieh ridge, where butterfl
ies fl oated among the tall trees and swimming pools. Participants,
impressed by the size of the demonstration, felt as though the whole
country was marching. Troops encountered along the route stood aside
and asked the marchers to avoid violence, because they did not want to
shoot. Members of the crowd threw fl owers at them and chanted ‘Soldier,
Brother, why do you kill your brothers?’ It was much the biggest demonstration
up to that time and marked a shift up to a genuinely popular
movement; no longer just one or two radicalized sections of society. And
it was peaceful. 97
The Shah had fl own over the demonstrations in a helicopter, and afterwards
listened to recordings of some of the chanting. He was shocked by
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Revolutionary Iran
what he heard – it seems it was in these days that the seriousness of what
was happening in the country fi nally broke through. But he still could not
grasp the nature of the force that was growing against him. Perhaps it
was not the communists who were behind it, but the US and the British?
A revolution was growing on the streets, but in the Shah’s thinking no
revolution dawned. 98 In his book Shah of Shahs Ryszard Kapuscinski
wrote:
The Shah was reproached for being irresolute. Politicians, they say, ought
to be resolute. But resolute about what? The Shah was resolute about retaining
his throne, and to this end he explored every possibility. He tried shooting
and he tried democratizing, he locked people up and he released them, he
fi red some and promoted others, he threatened and then he commended. All
in vain. 99
The Shah’s Illness
Some have suggested that a major reason for the Shah’s inability to deal
with the protests, and therefore a major reason for his eventual fall, was that
he was ill. 100 He had been diagnosed with a form of leukaemia in May 1974 ,
having himself noticed a swelling in his abdomen the previous autumn,
which turned out to be an enlarged spleen. There followed one of those odd
chains of events that sometimes take place in royal courts, which demonstrate
that, bizarrely, even an autocratic court circle may work against the
personal interests of the monarch it is supposed to serve. When the Shah was
diagnosed, the French doctors who made the diagnosis gave it not to him,
but to the Shah’s doctor, General Ayadi, who passed on the news to the Shah
himself, to Professor Safavian (chancellor of Tehran University and a trained
physician – he had ar ranged the contact with the French doctors) and to
Asadollah Alam, but to no one else beyond that restricted group. But even
to them, Ayadi seems not to have passed on the full seriousness of the diagnosis
– he did not want to upset the Shah. Concern that the news should not
get out was paramount; at several points the need for secrecy interfered with
and prevented treatment. Queen Farah was not told at all (she only found
out in the spring of 1977 ). There was no further investigation or treatment
for four months, until September 1974 , when the French doctors were
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111
asked to return (to their surprise – they had expected that American doctors
would be called in). As time went on, it became clear that the Shah’s condition
was worsening, but the same casual attitude to treatment continued.
The Shah was not told the disease was cancer, but was given vague terms
like ‘lymphoma’ (he probably worked it out for himself, nevertheless). Only
when Queen Farah was told did the treatment become more intensive, and
by then it was probably too late. It may be that from the beginning nothing
could have been done anyway, but the situation within the Shah’s court
certainly did not help. 101
The main effect the illness had on the Shah’s thinking seems to have
been to add a sense of urgency that the country should be brought on in
its development, and that things should be ready for a transition of power
so that, when he died, his son Reza could take power smoothly. The disease
may have affected the Shah’s judgement in the crucial months in the
middle of 1978 , but it is far from clear that it was a decisive factor. The
French doctors noted that the Shah was tense and tired during the visits
they made in 1978 , but they seem to have attributed this to the increasing
strain of political matters, rather than the effect of the illness. One would
have to ask, how might the Shah have behaved differently, in such a way
as to shape events differently, if he had not been ill? If he had been fully
fi t, is it more likely that he would have ordered a brutal crackdown at a
point when it might have worked – perhaps in the spring of 1978 ? There
seems no good reason to think so – his illness did not affect the reasons
that held him back. If he had not been ill, might he have been better able
to identify the real nature of the movement against him, and the way it
was developing, such that he would have been better able to act against
it? Perhaps that is more plausible, but again, we have seen there were
major obstacles to the Shah perceiving those realities, which were in any
case diffi cult for anyone to perceive (virtually no one else did). The operation
of the court and the intelligence services seems to have worked
against the Shah getting the analysis he would have needed; his erroneous
assumptions and prejudices about the nature of the opposition were
deep- seated and tenaciously held.
His illness was a factor in the Shah’s behaviour, undoubtedly. It
is possible, perhaps even likely, that it made a difference to the way
events fell out in some chance way. But it is far from obvious that it
acted in such a way that we can say that his illness was a signifi cant
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112
Revolutionary Iran
determining factor in bringing about his fall, or in making the Islamic
revolution successful.
Black Friday
Clerics participating in the march on 4 September told the crowd that
there would be another on 7 September, starting from the same place.
There was some unease among the organizers in the intervening hours,
because there were rumours of a military crackdown. On the day, the 7 September
march was even bigger, and violence was limited to vain attempts
early on by the security forces to disperse the demonstrators with tear
gas. But the mood was more subdued and militant, ending in the square
around the Shahyad monument with the chanting of a new slogan – calling
for an Islamic republic. 102
That evening, the Shah appointed General Gholam- Ali Oveissi as military
governor of Tehran. Oveissi had a reputation for ruthlessness from
his involvement in the suppression of demonstrations in 1963 . Early the
following morning (Friday 8 September), the government declared martial
law in Tehran and eleven other cities. The announcement may have
come too late for some of those who had planned to take part in further
demonstrations that day, but perhaps they would have demonstrated anyway.
By 8 a.m. a crowd thousands strong had formed in Jaleh Square,
where they were confronted by troops. Tear gas forced the demonstrators
to pull away, but they came back. The second time, the troops fi red in the
air as well as using the tear gas. Again the crowd retreated, then re-formed,
following the example of three who walked back to stand just a few
metres away from the soldiers. Then the soldiers fi red straight into the
crowd with their automatic weapons. Hundreds fell, some taking cover
behind the bodies of the dead, dying and wounded. The rest fl ed. There
were further clashes across the rest of the city over the rest of the day.
In the following days estimates of the dead ranged from hundreds to
thousands (in fact, the number that died was probably around eighty,
with a larger number wounded). Rumours spread that crowds had been
machine- gunned from helicopters, and that the regime had used Israeli
troops against the demonstrators. No one credited reports playing
down the numbers killed; everyone believed a wholesale massacre had
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occurred. In the space of four days Tehran had gone from peace and love
to blood and fury. The mood shifted again, from shock to anger and general
rejection of the Shah. 103 From this point onwards street confrontations
in Tehran became more bitter and violent. The events of the beginning of
September were a turning point. After 3 and 4 September (and even more
so by the end of October) participation in the opposition and in demonstrations
became normal; more the thing to do than to stay at home or
avoid trouble. People participating in acts against the government had the
feeling from this point on of safety in numbers. 104 In addition, after 8 September,
notwithstanding the fact that he had been pressing upon his security
chiefs the need for restraint, the Shah lost the remainder of what in medieval
Iran had been called farr – the aura of rightful kingship, associated
with just rule and military success. People rejected him. They did not want
to hear new suggestions or ideas from him, they just wanted him to go.
There is evidence that the shooting at Jaleh Square was a shock to the
Shah also. When he spoke to President Carter on the telephone on
10 September he sounded ‘stunned and spoke almost by rote, as if going
through the motions’. 105 It seems that this was the week in which the Shah
realized, too late, the full gravity of the opposition to him, and his
predicament.
Strikes
As summer turned to autumn, profi ting from Sharif- Emami’s liberalization
to combine and organize again, the number of workers going on
strike grew. Some accepted settlements that improved pay and working
conditions, but others increased the scope of their demands. Khomeini
called for a general strike, but a more powerful inducement was the defl ationary
policy of the regime, which had brought wages down, slashed
government spending and government- funded projects, and boosted unemployment.
At the same time, rents and food prices in particular were still
high after the preceding period of infl ation. The discontent over living
conditions, pay cuts and the threat of unemployment fused with the general
disillusionment and anger with the regime – after all, the Shah’s
government had laid great emphasis on, and made great claims for, their
economic planning and economic management. It seemed legitimate to
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Revolutionary Iran
blame him rather than industry managers or business owners. And when
the workers were on strike, it was natural enough that they would take
part in the demonstrations. Through the fi ve years before 1978 , one
authority recorded an average of around twenty- three strikes per year, but
in October 1978 alone there were thirty- six. By the beginning of November
most of the country was on strike, including railways, airports, banks,
some newspapers, and most crucially, the oil workers, some of whom
went on strike within days of the Jaleh Square massacre. The oil workers’
demands were both industrial and political, including an end to martial
law, the release of political prisoners and the dissolution of SAVAK . It has
been estimated that by the end of October oil production had fallen to
just 28 per cent of normal. The economy began to grind to a halt. 106
The strikes were important in bringing down the regime. The Shah
could conceivably have continued to face down the demonstrations, if the
rest of the structure of his regime had remained solid. The strikes undermined
that solidity, and the instruments of repression (army and police)
could not, ultimately, break mass strikes if they persisted. But one should
be wary of assuming that from the summer of 1978 onwards a growing
fl ood of industrial workers and other poor Iranians joined the movement
against the Shah and made his overthrow inevitable. The majority of
Iran’s population still lived in the countryside in 1978 , and there was little
sign of the rural poor taking more than a minor part in demonstrations
even by December. The revolution was predominantly urban. Even among
the poor of south Tehran, there is evidence that many were more preoccupied
with the day- to- day business of survival, and had little interest in
the demonstrations. 107 Iranians from humbler backgrounds were involved
in the protests, and more of them joined in from the summer of
1978 onwards, but the social home of the revolution lay with the bazaaris ,
the religious students, lower- middle- class clerical, business and publicsector
workers who found their aspirations frustrated by corruption,
cronyism and rising living costs, and the secular intellectuals and their
followers among the educated middle class. 108
For a period after Black Friday, concerned to avoid more massacres,
Khomeini and his followers encouraged strikes as a weapon against the
regime rather than calling for more demonstrations. Nonetheless, demonstrations
continued in regional towns like Qazvin, Amol and Sanandaj.
Some of these were in response to the activities of groups of thugs hired
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by SAVAK and local police chiefs. On 16 October, one such regimealigned
mob attacked a mosque in Kerman and then moved on to make
mayhem in the bazaar district, while police and the city authorities did
nothing. Similar actions were reported around the country. Pro- regime
mobs attacked students, teachers, bazaar shops and mosques in places
like Khoy, Kermanshah and Hamadan. 109 The intention of these actions
was presumably to intimidate regime opponents into silence. The result
was rather to discredit the regime still further, and to emphasize the lawlessness
in the country and the Shah’s loss of control. Rather than
intimidating the opposition, in many cases it stimulated communal selfprotection
(notably in Amol, where on 31 October the opposition took
matters into their own hands, arresting SAVAK agents and organizing
patrols on the streets to identify troublemakers) and a new wave
of anti- regime violence. In the latter part of October, after an abortive
and seemingly half- hearted attempt by the government to negotiate with
representatives of the bazaaris , SAVAK paid hoodlums to attack, loot and
burn shops in the bazaars of some towns. As a result, many merchants
cleared their shops of goods, making a strike or shut- down of the bazaar
superfl uous. In the last week of October, in Hamadan, police offi cers were
accused of raping three girls, one of whom, Mahin Ardekani, later committed
suicide. Within a few days the city descended into chaos, with
protests on the streets, fi res lit and barricades erected. Eventually troops
moved in and many were killed. 110
On 4 November, demonstrations resumed in Tehran, especially in the
central area around the university, where students were shot at. The next
day, they pulled down a statue of the Shah. Crowds sacked a number of
buildings in the same area, and broke into the British embassy compound.
111 Merope Coulson had recently married another member of
embassy staff; she was working on the fi rst fl oor:
The atmosphere throughout the day was very tense. Fires were raging across
the city and I could see spirals of smoke from my offi ce window. By midafternoon
I could hear shouting and chanting ‘death to the Shah’ in the
distance, getting louder and louder. From my window I could see a huge
demonstration marching up Ferdowsi [Avenue], armed with bricks and
stones. I watched as the demonstrators pulled the grille off the bank on the
opposite side of the street, smashing the windows and setting it on fi re.
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Revolutionary Iran
Turning their attention to the British embassy, the mob started hurling great
bricks over the wall, smashing all our windows in a mad frenzy. They then
broke down the iron gate to the compound and surrounded the building. I
can hear the shouting and the smashing of glass to this day. A young embassy
Third Secretary took charge and urged all embassy staff to go up to the third
fl oor of the building, to the ‘safe’ area, where a grille came down. Together in
the central corridor of the building, away from the windows, we thought we
would be protected from the mob by the iron grille. By this time the mob had
broken into the foyer of the building, setting it on fi re. They had also thrown
a fi rebomb from the street into my offi ce which I had only recently vacated.
Rubber tyres had been set alight in the emergency exit. With this area and the
main entrance hall on fi re we had no means of escape. I thought ‘this is a good
start to married life’. And where was my new husband? I couldn’t see him.
My colleagues and I, fi lled with fear, huddled together in the corridor,
listening to the angry mob shouting as they advanced up the wooden staircase.
By some miracle, the Third Secretary who had taken charge and spoke
fl uent Farsi, learned that the crowd did not in fact realize we were all working
in the building at the time of the attack, that they didn’t want to hurt
us. He negotiated with them to let us out of the burning building. By this
time the fi re had spread across the entire fi rst fl oor.
The staircase to the foyer was smouldering and some of the steps were
now missing, but the young revolutionaries held out their hands to help us
climb down. It took tremendous faith and courage to take their hands,
enemies one minute, saviours the next. There was glass everywhere, shouting
in my ears and the constant smell of burning. The Iranians were trying to
communicate with us amidst the confusion and the chaos but I couldn’t
understand what they were saying. Eventually we escaped and ran towards
the rear of the compound, where we congregated in a colleague’s house. And
then I saw my husband: he had been outside the building all along and now
he was busy fi ghting the fi re with other embassy members. Eventually the
army moved in and the crowd dispersed. 112
Many other buildings in Tehran burned on 5 November, including
banks, expensive hotels and airline offi ces. It was the worst damage to
property that the capital had yet seen, and of course it attracted more
attention in the international media than regional demonstrations had. It
seemed that this time the security forces had lost control. The Shah
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117
responded the next day by removing Sharif- Emami and appointing a military
government, with General Gholam-Reza Azhari as the new prime
minister. Six other generals became ministers; one of them, Oveissi,
became minister of labour and immediately imposed martial law in Khuzestan
in order to suppress the strikes in the oilfi elds.
The Shah Speaks
On the same day, the Shah made a broadcast on TV and radio. He
addressed the broadcast to the ‘Dear Iranian Nation’, approved what he
called their revolution, and the way that they had stood up to oppression
and corruption, but said that some had taken advantage of the situation to
engage in ‘riots, anarchy and revolts’. He said he was aware of the risk that
in preventing these, mistakes like the ‘mistakes of the past’ might be made.
But he promised that these mistakes would not be repeated, and that after
order had been restored a national government would establish basic
freedoms and free elections, and the Constitution of 1906 . He repeated
that he had heard ‘the message of your revolution, nation of Iran’. 113
Perhaps he had. Others at the time had been impressed by the determination,
the discipline and the restraint of the crowds. But for the Shah it
was too late now. The bizarre speech gave an impression of weakness;
that he was following, not leading. How could the Shah praise the people
for standing up to the oppression of his own government? Why should
they trust him to enforce now the constitution whose principles he had
fl outed and ignored for thirty years? For many Iranians, ironically, his
mention of ‘their revolution’ crystallized for the fi rst time the idea that
this was, or could be, a revolution. But the crucial change that the revolution
sought, that Khomeini had demanded with brutal clarity all along,
inexorably gathering support, was the removal of the Shah.
Was the Shah vacillating? 114 He did not really hesitate as such – he was
reacting quickly to events. He just did not know what to do – partly
because he did not understand what was happening, and many of his
assumptions about what lay behind what was happening were incorrect.
He continued to try a combination of harshness against demonstrators
and activists and conciliatory measures toward ordinary Iranians
(a policy which, if it had been more successful, might later have been
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Revolutionary Iran
praised as wise, fi rm statesmanship). He did not want to use full brutal
force, despite the urgings of some of his generals. 115 His father would
have, at an early stage. It was not the illness – the Shah was just not his
father. It was partly that he did not want to lose the backing of the Carter
administration; it was also his own personality and inclinations. But the
son’s methods did not work. By this point, people no longer wanted to
give him another chance.
In foreign capitals, too, there was uncertainty. Having regarded the
Shah’s regime as more or less stable until the summer, the Carter administration
were suddenly pitchforked into a predicament in which they had to
consider the possibility, becoming a probability as autumn moved into winter,
that the Shah would fall. If they continued to support him now, might
that prejudice their relationship with whatever regime might replace him?
Or was it time to encourage the Shah to repress the opposition with an allout
military crackdown? In Washington, Carter’s national security adviser,
Zbigniew Brzezinski, was arguing for the military option, while Cyrus
Vance in the State Department, backed by Ambassador Sullivan in Tehran,
was arguing against. 116 In a move that did little more than lose time, Carter
appointed George Ball as an outside adviser; he presented a report to
Carter in mid- December, but the report did not resolve the argument. 117
In London the prime minister and the foreign secretary both agreed
that events should take their course in Tehran without any overt British
interference. On one aspect they disagreed – David Owen was reluctant
to cancel the Queen’s visit to Iran – planned as part of a regional tour of
the Middle East for February 1979 – preferring to give the Shah more
time to suggest himself that it be postponed (in the end the Iran leg of the
trip was of course dropped, and David Owen recognized the new government
in Iran while accompanying the Queen on the tour; he did so on the
advice of the embassy in Tehran before the Foreign Offi ce in London,
because of the time difference, had woken up). 118
Ambassador Parsons in Tehran was more cautious, and more prepared
to keep giving the Shah a chance than some of his Foreign Offi ce colleagues,
but he had acquired a sincere respect for the revolutionary
movement. In fact, the situation in Iran by this stage was moving beyond
the ability of outside powers to infl uence events signifi cantly, no matter
how agonized their deliberations. Gary Sick, who was then on the NSC
staff in Washington, told a British diplomat on 26 December 1978 that
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‘the situation in Iran was beyond the US ’s ability to understand, still less
to control or infl uence’. 119
As the revolutionary wave swelled, the attitude of Westerners and Western
governments to Khomeini himself moved from baffl ement to incredulity.
How could this man, a cleric whose experience of life revolved around
theological colleges, who plainly had no idea how to run a modern country,
offer Islamic government as an alternative to the government of the Shah?
Roger Cooper (who was later imprisoned under the Islamic Republic as a
spy) interviewed Khomeini in Paris for the BBC and The Financial Times in
January 1979 , but also reported his fi ndings to an offi cial at the Foreign and
Commonwealth Offi ce. Frustrated by requirements to submit questions in
writing in advance, Cooper managed nonetheless to ask a few supplementary
questions in person. He asked Khomeini how it would be possible to
reconcile the Islamic prohibition on usury with the banking system in Iran.
‘Khomeini replied that it would be necessary to invent a different system.
Other answers showed a similar naivety and lack of realism’ . 120
Of course, as events were to prove, it was Cooper’s vision and the
vision of others like him that was limited – they were still unable to grasp
the full magnitude and the real shape of what was happening; nor the
charisma of Khomeini’s utter self- confi dence. But Khomeini saw the
essentials. Power was the essential thing – the rest was trivial and would
follow; banking system, whatever; willy- nilly.
Descent into Collapse
For a short time Oveissi’s hard line in Khuzestan had some success, and
the authorities were able to achieve a greater level of oil production
again. At different points this was achieved by forcing the strikers back
to work, or, less effi ciently, by bringing in personnel (including troops)
from outside. But in December the oil workers walked out again, and
many of them resigned. 121 The opposition agreed to allow some oil production
for domestic purposes, but supplies ran out in many places, and
many Iranians had a cold winter for want of heating oil. There was a
similar pattern in other industries and sectors, though few were regarded
as so vital or came under such direct and heavy regime pressure as the
oil industry. Workers struck for a few days or weeks, returned to work
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Revolutionary Iran
and then went on strike again. Often, even when they were at work, little
productive activity could go on because of the general dislocation and
the knock- on effect of strikes elsewhere.
Another development at the beginning of November was that Sanjabi
and Bazargan, representing the National Front and the Freedom movement
respectively, both met Khomeini in Paris. If they had given serious
consideration to the Shah’s reform proposals over the summer, Black Friday
and the events that followed had turned them, like most of their
supporters, defi nitively against the regime. After meeting Khomeini, both
made statements showing that they aligned themselves and their followers
unequivocally with Khomeini and against the Shah. Bazargan’s
statement said that the demonstrations had shown the support of the
people for Khomeini and that they wanted an Islamic government to
replace the monarchy. 122 When Sanjabi returned to Tehran he was
arrested – in protest the bazaar closed and there were renewed strikes.
Across the country there were sporadic protests through the rest of
November and December, and where these were met with armed force
from the authorities the protestors now on occasion responded with violence
themselves. After the imposition of military rule in Ahwaz, a
six- year- old girl was shot and killed by police at a demonstration. Two of
the police who had opened fi re were killed in response. Similarly, two
police were killed in Nishapur on 19 November, after two demonstrators
were killed. There were assassinations and bomb attacks on police,
SAVAK and army personnel over the same period, carried out by the
Fedayan, the Mojahedin- e Khalq and other militant groups. When crowds
were able to identify SAVAK agents, their response was often harsh. On
21 December, demonstrators in Tehran spotted one such on top of a
building – some of them swarmed in and up the stairs and threw the
SAVAK man down to his death. 123
The mourning month of Moharram began that year on 2 December,
and there were renewed protests on the streets of Tehran as young men
went on to the streets at night, defying the curfew and in some cases
wearing white shrouds to advertise their indifference to danger. Many
were killed. Others showed their support by going onto rooftops and
shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ (‘God is Great’). The opposition organized
huge demonstrations for Tasu‘a and Ashura, the commemoration of the
death of Emam Hosein, on 10 and 11 December. In an attempt to limit
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121
the violence, to reassure the people and draw larger crowds, the organizers
successfully negotiated permission for the demonstrations with the
military government by stipulating prearranged routes, peaceful, orderly
behaviour, no arson or other violence, and no chanting of ‘Death to the
Shah’. They also arranged for marshals to supervise the marchers along
the route. Similar arrangements were made in other cities. Karim Sanjabi
and Ayatollah Taleqani led the marches in Tehran, 124 symbolizing the
opposition’s alliance of secular and religious intellectuals, and perhaps
the heritage of the similar alliance that had led the Constitutional Revolution
in 1906 .
The result was demonstrations of unprecedented size. Estimates for the
size of these demonstrations in Tehran have ranged between 500 , 000 and
4 million, but it is diffi cult to know what the true fi gures were. Somewhere
between 500 , 000 and 1 million for 10 December and upward of
1 million for 11 December seems moderate (the fact that the marches on
10 December passed off peacefully seems to have encouraged even larger
numbers to participate on the 11 th). Huge marches, in proportion, took
place in most of the other major cities and towns of Iran on the same
days, such that it has been estimated that altogether between 6 and 9 million
Iranians took part. 125
On both days, the marches were almost wholly peaceful, although on
11 December the marshals failed to prevent anti- Shah slogans and the
waving of banners and placards that broke the agreed rules (Fedayan and
MKO followers were particularly keen to push beyond the limits). With
or without the slogans and banners, the message of the marches was clear
enough, transcending the religious signifi cance of Ashura. The people
wanted the Shah to go. Notwithstanding the greater level of violence on
both sides in December, the peaceful, dignifi ed conduct of the marches on
10 and 11 December (like those of 4 and 7 September at an earlier stage)
impressed many observers at the time. 126 Former diplomat Desmond Harney,
now in Tehran as a representative for Morgan Grenfell, recorded in
his diary for 10 December:
The day seems to have been a triumph of trust and discipline. As Goudarzi
[Harney’s gardener] said with shining eyes, ‘I told you so. If they do not
provoke us and shoot us, we are not men of killing and burning. Let us
express ourselves as we want, and there cannot be any trouble. 127
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Revolutionary Iran
As the regime lost control and lost credibility, the opposition gained
moral authority and self- confi dence.
In general, over the autumn and into December, the revolutionary
crowd had shown restraint, despite the shouting and slogans. When
violent, most of the violence of the crowds was directed at property, not
at people. There were individual acts of killing – usually provoked – but
no massacres. This was another refl ection of the fact that the people saw
themselves as united against the Shah and his government, not against a
class or any other group – except perhaps SAVAK .
At the end point of the march on 11 December, in the huge square
around the Shahyad monument, a manifesto was read out on behalf of all
the opposition parties and acclaimed by the crowd. It declared that Khomeini
was their leader and must be obeyed; that the monarchy must be
removed, an Islamic government established; that exiles must return; that
the army must combine with the people; that minorities must be protected,
agriculture revived and the poor given social justice. 128
The exceptions to the peaceful conduct of the demonstrations on 10 and
11 December were in Isfahan and Shiraz, where there were outbreaks of
violence. In Isfahan leftists attacked the offi ces of SAVAK , the crowd were
shot at from the building, and ten people were killed. The protestors then
turned to arson, burning cinemas, shops and banks until troops moved in. 129
Nonetheless, there were some dissenting voices among ordinary
Iranians:
on the day of Ashura, there was a march from Emam Hosein Square to
Azadi Square, led by Grand Ayatollah Taleqani. A lot of people participated
in this gathering. Although there was a probability of violence against this
crowd, people unwaveringly prepared to sacrifi ce themselves regardless,
even if some would lose their lives. Nobody was able to stop this crowd.
On our return, in Kush Street an old lady stood and told the demonstrators –
who were mainly young people, ‘Why did you make this demonstration?’
Many youngsters stood there, and the old lady encouraged them not to
participate and to stop being anti- monarchist, and these youngsters stated
their point of view. The old lady said, ‘Up to now, the Shah and his family
have taken enough wealth and they are full up and now they give the
money to the people, but these mullahs, their pockets are too big and deep:
by the time they were full up, nothing would be left for us, and we would
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123
be miserable.’ Why didn’t we listen to what the older generation, like this
old lady, was saying? 130
And:
At the time of the demonstrations I had a neighbour who was absolutely
unreligious. The husband was a known drunkard, and none of his daughters
conformed to Islamic attire. One of the girls was in the navy and another was
in the army – at that time it was unusual to see a female in the forces, and such
women had a bad reputation. But these girls broke all of these cultural customs.
One day, after I had been at the demonstrations, I came towards my house and
in the alleyway, as usual, I saw the women – opposite these girls’ house, standing
and chatting with each other. At that time, during the evening, women came
out and sat somewhere to chat together. I approached these ladies – my mother
was among them – and they noticed that I had just come back from the demonstrations.
My neighbour’s mother asked me, ‘Do you know what this
revolution is all about?’ and I said Islam and God, and she responded, ‘No, it
means in the winter you have to use a Korsi [an old- fashioned foot warmer
run on charcoal] and all of you will have to use it since you won’t have a heater.
Under the Korsi your feet will heat each other!’ What she meant was, this revolution
is a step back. But these sorts of comments did not change our minds.
We thought we would go to the demonstrations and would eventually go to
heaven and these people would go to hell, and at the time I felt sorry for them. 131
After Tasu‘a and Ashura, the Shah cast around for a way to stabilize
the situation and keep himself in power. It seems that he tried to negotiate
with Sanjabi, to get him to head up a government of national
reconciliation that would enable the Shah to stay as head of state. But
Sanjabi refused, allegedly because the Shah would not give up his position
as commander- in- chief of the armed forces, or because such a plan
was impossible without Khomeini’s acquiescence, which Khomeini
would not give unless the Shah abdicated. Discussions with another politician
who had been a minister under Mossadeq, Dr Gholam- Hosein
Sadighi, also broke down eventually. 132 The strikes continued and intensifi
ed; there were more demonstrations and protests across the country,
under the black fl ags that had led the revolt of Abu Muslim over 1 , 200
years before. People began to speculate about the loyalty of the
army. Khomeini’s portrait was everywhere on the streets; many had
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Revolutionary Iran
already taken down their pictures of the Shah. US citizens and other foreigners
were leaving the country – numbers dropped from 58 , 000
Americans in the country to 12 , 000 by early January. The movement was
accelerated by attacks against foreigners, notably the assassination of an
American oil executive in Ahwaz on 23 December. Some wealthy Iranians
were leaving too. Others took advantage of the early snow in the
mountains to try to forget their troubles by going skiing – Desmond
Harney recorded in his diary that thousands were skiing at the most
popular resort, Dizin, on 23 December. 133
Finally, on 31 December, it was announced that Shapur Bakhtiar would
form a government. At the same time it was given out that the Shah would
leave the country for rest and medical attention, but there were confl icting
rumours about this over the days that followed. On 6 January Bakhtiar
announced his cabinet, and the Shah made a statement saying he needed a
rest and that this might take place outside Iran. Bakhtiar made a fl urry of
liberalizing announcements as he took offi ce, promising free elections, to
close down SAVAK and to lift martial law, and setting up a Regency Council
to carry out the Shah’s constitutional functions while he was out of the
country. He also declared that Khomeini was free to return. 134 Khomeini
responded by announcing the establishment of the Council of the Islamic
Revolution ( CIR – the body, whose membership was initially kept secret,
had in fact been set up the previous November to coordinate strikes and
other actions against the Shah’s government). The CIR caused unhappiness
among the politicians of the Freedom Movement and the National Front,
whose representatives in it felt outnumbered and marginalized by the clergy.
On 4 January General Robert E. Huyser arrived in Tehran, sent by
President Carter to bolster as far as possible the support of the Iranian
military for the Bakhtiar government and, as a secondary purpose, to
keep open the possibility of a military coup if it proved necessary.
Huyser was a natural choice because he had been in Iran in the spring
and summer of 1978 , drawing up a command and control system for
the Iranian armed forces, liaising with the highest levels of the military
and with the Shah personally. But on his arrival he was given a message
from Washington by Ambassador Sullivan to the effect that his instructions
were suspended. He soon realized that Sullivan regarded Bakhtiar
as a dead duck, and the military as powerless to change the situation.
Sullivan believed the only realistic option was to begin working with the
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125
opposition straight away. On 6 January Huyser was told to proceed
with his contacts with the military as originally instructed, but the incident
had given him a jolt. He convinced himself at the time that the
Iranian military had the will and the cohesion to act decisively, and later,
in retrospect, that, if they had, the military could have saved the Bakhtiar
government. Given the fi ghting that took place later, before the fi nal collapse
of the Bakhtiar government on 11 February, the former conviction
is at least tenable. But it seems implausible that military action could
have saved Bakhtiar’s government. By the end of January Huyser’s presence
had become generally known, and his name was appearing on
placards at demonstrations. He left Iran on 3 February. 135
By the beginning of January law and order had broken down over much
of the country, and the authorities had wholly abandoned some towns, like
Mashhad. People set up arrangements for their own localities, independent
of government (in some areas with a separate or separatist tradition, notably
Kurdestan and Khuzestan, these local arrangements took on the
character of movements for autonomy). SAVAK offi ces were a special target
for attacks. 136 Even in Tehran, the police were absent from the streets
for the most part. Students were directing traffi c, and food was being distributed
from the mosques. There were occasional random clashes with the
police and army:
One of our neighbourhood boys, who lived on the other side of our road,
always bothered my sister. He had light- brown hair and was a known troublemaker
who was always bothering and teasing the girls. One day I was at
home, and there was a lot of noise coming from our local petrol station,
where a crowd of people were in a queue to fi ll up with fuel. At the same
time two military vehicles were passing down the same street. This boy went
on to the main road and blocked the two vehicles and started swearing at
the military personnel. The soldiers in the vehicle shot him, in front of everyone,
and continued down the street. But suddenly, there was a lot of noise
and screaming from the crowd. I always remembered this boy – he was very
brave and curious. Before the revolution this curiosity and bravery took the
form of pestering and fl irting with the women. But during the revolution he
was one of the strongest supporters and was in favour of demonstrations
for ‘female protection’. He was martyred after his doings – God bless his
soul, we saw a lot of such valiant people in the time of the revolution. 137
The 1970s and the Slide to Revolution
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Revolutionary Iran
Finally, the Shah ended the prevarication and took the decision to
leave, delaying further only (as he thought) to see Bakhtiar established in
offi ce. But when Parsons made a fi nal call on him on 8 January, the Shah
was still bewildered by what had happened:
Why, the Shah asked, had the people turned against him after all that he had
done for them? I said . . . the same forces which had humbled Nasruddin
Shah in 1892 . . . and had prevailed over Muzafferiddin Shah in 1906 over
the constitution, had combined to bring down Mohammad Reza Shah – the
mullahs, the bazaar and the intelligentsia. I had never admired the Iranian
people as much as I had done in the past few months. Their courage, discipline
and devotion to the cause of overthrowing the monarchy had been amazing
. . . The Shah agreed about the performance of his people but rejected
my analogies with his Qajar predecessors. ‘I have done more for Iran than
any Shah for 2,000 years; you cannot compare me with those people.’ 138
Most of the Shah’s household were still loyal, but from time to time
messages, from whom no one seemed to know, had been appearing on his
dining- table at lunchtime, bearing anti- Shah slogans. On 16 January he
was fl own from Niavaran palace to Mehrabad airport by helicopter. After
a short delay while waiting for Bakhtiar to appear (he came straight from
the ceremony in which the Majles confi rmed him in offi ce), he boarded an
airliner with Queen Farah and a group of attendants. As the aircraft left
Iranian airspace an hour or so later, heading for Egypt, the Shah asked for
lunch. But there was none – catering staff at the airport had prevented the
loading of any food, or crockery, cutlery or glassware. So the Shah and his
wife ate some of the food his guards had brought for themselves – a pot
of rice and beans – baqali polo – from paper plates, using some paper
napkins and their fi ngers. 139
Back in Tehran, as soon as the Shah’s departure became known, there
was a surge of rejoicing:
We live in the south of Tehran which is the poor part of the city, but my
family is not too poor. My father owns a grocer’s shop. I will never forget
the day the Shah left. It was January and everyone was out in the streets
shouting ‘Shah raft’ (the Shah has gone), and my father took me out to
march. He is not a religious man but he hated the Shah and was pleased
that the ‘Emam’ (Khomeini) was coming home to become our president
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127
[ sic ]. Almost every day we were in the street. Nobody worked or went to
school. Guns fi red in the air and it was like a holiday. Everyone was happy,
strangers kissed and held hands, shouting ‘Shah raft, Shah raft’. 140
Ambassador Parsons reported by fl ash telegram the jubilation brought
by the news that the Shah had left. (Flash telegrams were the highestpriority
category of communications, before Immediate and Routine. The
following is the full text.)
At 2 p.m. local time the radio announced that the Shah had left the country.
Within seconds there was a great burst of hooting of car horns and shouting
of crowds. Looking from the chancery window, I can see people dancing in
the streets, processions passing carrying Khomeini banners, all cars and buses
with their lights on and horns blaring. The military guard outside our compound
have removed their steel helmets and are waving pictures of Khomeini.
People are rushing up to the soldiers and embracing them. A scene of wild
jubilation which must be being enacted throughout Tehran. 141
Up and down the country people went on to the streets to celebrate,
and in many places they did so by pulling down statues of the Shah (where
this had not been done already). 142 On 15 January, the British embassy
had reported another large demonstration in Tehran, commenting that
the Bakhtiar government was not exercising effective control (they had
already commented on 10 January that prospects for a return to stability
under Bakhtiar were ‘bleak’), and that the army were widely thought to
have passed up the opportunity of intervening. The marchers seemed to
be deliberately wooing the military, ‘putting fl owers on their guns and
vehicles’. 143 Another big march (to mark the forty days since Ashura) followed
on 19 January.
It is not entirely clear why the Shah delayed his departure in the fi rst
half of January. It seems likely that he could not face the reality of it – the
likelihood that, if he left, it would be for good and his reign would be
over. He received contradictory advice. Perhaps he hoped something
would just turn up, to give him another chance. The reason he gave for
the delay was that he wanted to see Bakhtiar fi rmly established (in particular,
confi rmed by the Majles) before he left. 144 But in fact, the delay
achieved exactly the opposite: it fi xed Bakhtiar in the minds of Iranians
as the Shah’s last prime minister and thereby discredited him.
The 1970s and the Slide to Revolution
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3. Tehran
N 0 2 miles
0 3 km
Mehrabad Airport
Railway
Station
Bazaar
Azadi
Square
Tehran
University
Evin
Qolhak
Vanak
Amirabad
Laleh Park
Elahieh
Tajrish
Darband Golab
Darreh
Qeytarieh
Doshan
Tappeh
Farahabad
Jaleh
Square
(Meidan-e
Shohada)
Enqelab Street
J omhuri-ye Eslami
Taleqani Avenue
Ferdowsi Avenue
Shahr-e Rey
to Behesht-e Zahra,
Emam Khomeini Airport
and Kahrizak
Kargar Avenue
Vali Asr
Jamaran
Niavaran
highway-freeway
main street
railway
park
open area
residential area
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129
Bakhtiar’s liberalizing announcements at the beginning of January
had won over some to his support – notably Ayatollah Shariatmadari.
Political prisoners were released, and the red light district in Tehran was
closed down:
one day I went to Tehran University for a demonstration. It was the day that
Masud Rajavi (head of the MKO ) was freed from prison, and he wanted to
deliver a speech to the people. Many young people, like me, were infl uenced
by the political prisoners and their courage. But we felt very intimidated by
these people because of their knowledge of the Shah’s regime – which was
more than ours – and because of their record of resistance against the Shah.
Mr Rajavi started speaking to the crowd, but his voice sounded like a woman’s.
I had expected a political prisoner would sound very masculine, but in
this case I was surprised.
On the same day a minibus arrived among the crowd of students, and I
asked why this bus arrived here. I was told that a group of prostitutes, who
lived in the houses in the Jamshidiyeh Street, were brought here to repent
against their doings and to show their support and solidarity for the revolution
and the revolutionaries. Apparently many of these women got married
that day and changed their direction in life, but I don’t know what they did
after that. 145
Ignoring as irrelevant Bakhtiar’s efforts to present himself as the
prime minister of a viable, liberalizing government, Khomeini condemned
him from Paris, declaring that any government appointed by the
Shah was illegal. Bakhtiar’s former colleagues Sanjabi and Foruhar
expelled him from the National Front, saying that there could be no settlement
until the Shah abdicated. The demonstration on 19 January was
again huge – over 1 million strong – and again it ended at Shahyad
Square (which many were already calling Azadi Square – Freedom
Square) with a political statement, declaimed again by Taleqani and Sanjabi.
The statement announced that the Shah had been overthrown, that
an Islamic republic must be established, that Khomeini should introduce
an Islamic revolutionary council and a provisional government; and that
Bakhtiar’s government was illegal (because it had been appointed by an
illegal Shah and an illegal Majles). The army should not move against
the revolutionary movement; the strikes and demonstrations had to continue
until the fi nal aims of the revolution had been achieved. 146
The 1970s and the Slide to Revolution
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130
Revolutionary Iran
And continue they did, making the operation of Bakhtiar’s government
impossible. Some of his ministers and members of the Regency Council
began to abandon him. On 20 January Khomeini announced that he would
return to Iran within the next few days. Despite his earlier statement that
Khomeini was free to return, Bakhtiari closed down Mehrabad airport.
Between 26 and 28 January there were many deaths outside the airport as
demonstrators were gunned down by troops enforcing the closure. 147
These deaths fi nally sealed Bakhtiar’s fate. He appeared like just another of
the Shah’s prime ministers, presiding over the killing of demonstrators. The
movement that backed the demonstrations and strikes, that regarded Khomeini
as their leader, had no time for Bakhtiar. But he still had the support
of the military, as was confi rmed by General Qarabaghi to General Huyser
on 31 January. The airport reopened the same day; Bakhtiar stipulated
only that Khomeini should not be allowed to fl y by Iran Air (the airline
was all but shut down in any case, because of the strikes). 148
When Khomeini fi nally returned on 1 February 1979 (in an Air France
aircraft) he confi rmed Mehdi Bazargan as his prime minister and initiated
a tense period in which there were briefl y two governments in Iran. But
eventually, as described in the prologue, after the armed confrontation
between air force personnel and Imperial Guard troops loyal to the Shah
at Doshan Tappeh on 10 – 12 February, Bakhtiar and the military commanders
saw the impossibility of the situation and gave in, leaving the
fi eld clear for Khomeini and his supporters.
Why Do Revolutions Happen?
It is a commonplace observation that it is the failures of governments
that make revolutions, not the cunning or the commitment of revolutionaries.
149 The Shah’s government failed in a variety of ways – there
was the short- term economic diffi culty but, more importantly, a deepseated
failure to recognize or nurture the political aspirations of the
people. Beyond the failure of the government, a number of unusual
things have to happen in order for a popular revolution like that in Iran
to succeed. People have to see the government as the problem, 150 blame
the government and want to remove it (there are plenty of other things
they might blame for their problems – other individuals, groups or classes;
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131
The 1970s and the Slide to Revolution
fate or even themselves). The government has to fail to mollify them.
People have to be prepared to defy the government, perhaps to the point
of risking their lives. They have to avoid the divisions within the burgeoning
revolutionary movement widening to split their effort. And this has to
be sustained for long enough for the government to give in, or collapse. It
is quite a tall order. Like a series of mirrors facing each other, the revolution
depended for its success on a series of perceptions of perceptions. It
was necessary, through the confusion of the times, for people to perceive
that others, in suffi cient numbers, had already perceived that resistance to
the regime could succeed and would act upon it, and, in addition, perhaps,
that the morale of the armed forces had been sapped by the
perception that they might lose the confrontation, or by sympathy with
the revolutionaries. Through the summer and autumn, those perceptions
became established – but it could have gone the other way. Several commentators
have emphasized the collective psychology of the revolution,
the absence of any simple, single cause, and the importance of the dynamic
by which the confi dence of the opposition in its own viability grew from
spring to summer to autumn in 1978 , as the confi dence of the Shah and
the regime faded. More even than is the normal case with historical study,
the causes of the revolution are best explained not by heavy theory, but
by placing the course of events in a narrative, within which the responses
of individuals and groups to successive events and crises can be properly
understood. 151 A series of events changed the position that the people
were in, gradually removing deference to the government, increasing
indignation and determination that Shah must go. Paradoxically, the
growth of the revolutionary movement was helped in the early stages by
the regime’s own self- belief; by the government’s complacency. Initially,
revolution was indeed unthinkable. As more groups joined in, their different
grievances and aspirations fl owing into the broad oppositional
stream, the sense of shared participation and commitment increased.
But one should not go from the judgement that there was no single,
simple cause to the revolution, or from the judgement that a growing
sense of collective solidarity was important, to thinking it was all aimless
or contingent – some kind of mass psychosis. 152 Repeatedly, since
the late nineteenth century, when secular government had got into trouble,
ordinary, pious Iranians had turned to the other authoritative
institution in Iranian society for leadership – the Shi‘a clergy. Up to the
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Revolutionary Iran
1960 s and 70 s, the Shi‘a clergy, faced with the challenges of social
change, economic change and Western infl uence, had as a body been
divided and uncertain about how to respond; now siding with liberal
intellectuals, now with the monarchy. But by the 1970 s Khomeini had
learned from previous episodes and could provide new answers and
clear principles for the leadership of the clergy in its own right. 153 Allied
to that was the popular enthusiasm for Islam, in opposition to Westernization
and foreign interference in the country. That was one part of what
happened. The other was, since 1906 , the longstanding demand from a
broad swathe of the Iranian people for a free society and representative
government. The mechanism of the revolution was determined by the
gradual gathering of confi dence and solidarity among the Iranian people
through 1978 , but the form the revolution took was determined by the
leadership of Khomeini and the clergy, and the demand for free institutions.
In January and February 1979 , it seemed possible that the two
could be kept out of confl ict with each other. But within a few months it
became clear that such a confl ict could not be avoided. 154
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133
3
Like the Person He Ought to Be:
Islamic Republic, 1979 – 80
Khomeini
One of the scurrilous allegations contained in the Ettela‘at article of January
1978 that led to riots in Qom was that Khomeini was not Iran ian, but
an Indian (this allegation in turn lent force to another in the article, that
Khomeini had been a British agent – an assertion the Shah himself seems to
have believed). 1 The story about Khomeini’s Indian origins derived from the
fact that his grandfather had borne the name Seyyed Ahmad Musavi Hindi,
and had lived in Kintur near Lucknow. 2 Lucknow, under the Shi‘a rulers of
Awadh (themselves a dynasty of Iranian origin), was one of the most Persianized
cities in India and a centre for Iranian immigration, especially in the
eighteenth century, when a series of disasters had prompted many who
could to leave Iran. It seems that one of Khomeini’s ancestors had gone to
Lucknow at this time, or earlier (from Nishapur in Khorasan). But in the
1830 s Ahmad went on pilgrimage to the shrine of the Emam Ali in Najaf in
Ottoman Iraq, where he met another mullah who suggested he should move
to Iran and settle in Khomein (a small town between Isfahan and Tehran).
Khomeini came from a family that descended from the Prophet,
denoted by the title seyyed and the black turban they wore. They traced
their lineage back to Mohammad’s daughter Fatima, through the seventh
Shi‘a Emam, Musa al- Kazim. Heads of Khomeini’s family had
been mullahs for generations. When Khomeini’s grandfather Ahmad
came to Khomein he bought a large house there and was soon established
as an important fi gure among the local Shi‘a clergy. As time went
on he acquired more property in the area. Ahmad’s son Mostafa was
born in 1856 and followed the usual family path into the clergy. He
studied in Isfahan, Najaf and Samarra and married the daughter of
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134
Revolutionary Iran
another distinguished clerical family. His property, status and learning
placed him in the upper levels of the ulema , well above more junior
mullahs whose families could not afford the long training, who had to
struggle for the patronage of more senior fi gures and make a living from
fees as teachers, legal notaries or preachers. Mostafa’s third son, Ruhollah,
the future leader of the revolution, was born in September 1902 .
Status brought responsibilities, but danger also; Mostafa was murdered
the following year while travelling to get help for the people of Khomein
from the government against some local bandits. 3 In the years that followed,
conditions only got worse. Over the years of chaos following the
Constitutional Revolution and during the First World War the economy
broke down, the country became a playground for the soldiery of foreign
powers, famine and epidemics of disease broke out, and law and order collapsed
in many parts. In Ruhollah’s early years Khomein was raided a
number of times by Lori tribesmen. In 1918 his mother died in a cholera
epidemic just as he was about to go into the seminary nearby in Soltanabad.
His elder brother Pasandideh (later a distinguished cleric in his own
right) became head of the family; it seems likely that being an orphan intensifi
ed Ruhollah’s independence and ambition to succeed. Later he moved to
the famous Faiziyeh madreseh in Qom as a student of Sheikh Abdolkarim
Haeri, an apolitical but practical- minded scholar and marja (who was
responsible for restoring Qom to pre- eminence as the centre for religious
learning in Iran in the 1920 s, drawing back many Iranian students from the
shrine cities of Iraq). 4 In Qom Khomeini received the usual mullah’s training
in logic and religious law, 5 becoming a mojtahed in about 1936 , which
was young by comparison with others and a sign of his promise.
From the time that he became a mojtahed , Khomeini could teach and
write in earnest. Early on he had an interest in poetry and mysticism
( erfan ) that was quite unconventional, these being objects of disdain for
many conservative mullahs. Among other works, he studied Molla
Sadra’s Four Journeys and Davud al- Qeisari’s commentary on the Fusus
al- Hikam of Ibn Arabi (both classic texts for the tradition of mystical
philosophy within Islam); he wrote a commentary on the latter in 1937 . 6
In the 1930 s he studied philosophy and erfan with Mirza Mohammad
Ali Shahabadi, who as well as being an authority on mysticism was
more interested in contemporary politics than many of the ulema ,
believing it was important to explain religious ideas to ordinary people
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135
Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
in language they could understand. This combination of mysticism and
political engagement might seem strange from a Western perspective,
but not in the Shi‘a Islamic tradition:
The very heart of erfan is the destruction of the distinction between subject
and object – an experience of the world in which seer and seen are one. And
teachers of erfan seek to impart to their students a sense of the fearlessness
toward everything external, including all the seemingly coercive political
powers of the world, which true masters of erfan should have. 7
Shahabadi opposed the rule of Reza Shah and also infl uenced the development
of Khomeini’s political thinking. 8
Khomeini had a strong sense of his own personal dignity as a mojtahed
, and the dignity of the ulema as a whole. He always dressed neatly
and cleanly – not affecting an indifference to clothes or appearance as
some young mullahs did. He struck many new acquaintances as aloof and
reserved, and some as arrogant, but his small circle of students and friends
knew him to be generous and lively in private. For his public persona as
a teacher and mullah it was necessary for him to exemplify authority and
quiet dignity. Through the 1940 s and 50 s, continuing to teach in Qom, it
is perhaps correct to think of Khomeini taking a position between the activism
of Ayatollah Kashani on the one hand – active in parliament, anti- colonial
and anti- British – and that of Ayatollah Hosein Borujerdi on the other –
more conservative, more withdrawn, tending to quietism and intervening
only seldom in political matters (in the 1950 s Khomeini was close to
Borujerdi in Qom, did work for him and followed his example by staying
out of politics). 9 But Khomeini’s combination of intellectual strength, curiosity
and unconventionality made him different from either; potentially more
creative and innovative, though for the time being still politically quiescent,
deferring to his superiors in the hierarchy of the ulema in the period of rapprochement
between clergy and monarchy after the fall of Mossadeq.
Khomeini became an ayatollah after the death of Borujerdi in March 1961 ,
by which time he was already attracting large and increasing numbers of
students to his lectures on ethics and was regarded by some as their marja .
The events of 1963 – 4 made Khomeini the leading fi gure opposed to the
Shah, along with Mossadeq, who was still under house arrest and thus
effectively neutralized (Mossadeq died in 1967 ). Khomeini, though he disapproved
of constitutionalism in private, had been careful to speak
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Revolutionary Iran
positively about the constitution in public. 10 His attack on the new law
governing the status of the US military was calculated to win over nationalists,
some of whom might previously have been suspicious of a cleric.
Intellectuals like Al- e Ahmad gave him their enthusiastic support. He was
already applying the political method by which, through addressing popular
grievances and avoiding pronouncements on issues that might divide
his followers, he would later make himself the dominant national leader.
He had learned from the lessons of twentieth- century Iranian history –
from the period of constitutionalism, from the rule of Reza Shah, from the
premiership of Mossadeq and from his own experiences in 1963 – 4 , from
the example of religious leaders like Fazlollah Nuri, Modarres and
Kashani. The clergy might make alliances of convenience with the monarchy
or with secular intellectuals or others, but they could not trust any of
them. For Khomeini, the logic of the clergy’s position and experience
seemed to point just one way – to the rule of the clergy. And the mood of
the times seemed to be shifting their way; young intellectuals like Shariati
were turning away from Western models in favour of what they saw as the
authenticity of Islam and Iranian Shi‘ism.
From 1964 Khomeini was out of Iran, exiled after his involvement in the
demonstrations and disturbances of 1963 – 4 , and to all appearances out of
Iranian politics. In a sense, Iranian politics was itself exiled, taking place
among Iranian students and others living abroad. Khomeini went initially
to Turkey, then to Najaf in Iraq, where he spent most of the next fourteen
years. But although he was out of Iran, he continued to comment on matters
within Iran, and his words were taken into the country by his supporters;
including later on by means of cassette tapes that were copied and proliferated
once they had been smuggled in. He was like an Old Testament prophet
denouncing a sinful world from the wilderness; like John the Baptist
denouncing the corrupt court of Herod from his underground prison.
Khomeini used his period of exile to develop a theory of Islamic rule
that would supply the guiding principle that had been missing in 1906 –
that would enable the ulema to govern in their own right without deferring
to secular politicians. From 1970 he gave a series of lectures in Najaf
about religious law and government, which later became a book
( Hokumat- e Eslami – Islamic Government ) 11 and, in turn, the theoretical
foundation of the Islamic republic after the revolution of 1979 – the principle
of velayat- e faqih .
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
One could see velayat- e faqih as the apotheosis of the deep- seated mistrust
of secular authority that is grounded so deep in Shi‘a Islam, and as
the culmination of the Usuli position as it had evolved, creating its own
hierarchical structure, since the seventeenth century. The term velayat- e
faqih needs explaining. The word vali signifi es a regent or deputy, someone
standing in for the person with real authority. Velayat means guardianship
or deputyship, or rather, by extension, the authority of the guardian,
deputy or regent. The term faqih (plural fuqaha ) signifi es a jurist, an
expert in Islamic law – fi qh (in Iranian Shi‘a terms, a mojtahed ; a member
of the ulema ). The logic of the concept was that the shari‘a, derived from
the word of God and the example of the Prophet and the Emams, was
there to regulate human conduct and was the only legitimate law. In the
early centuries after the death of the Prophet, the Emams had been the
legitimate leaders to interpret and apply the shari‘a. But in the absence of
the Hidden Emam (since AD 874 ), the mojtaheds had, of necessity, taken
over that responsibility (on a provisional basis – hence velayat ). They
were the right people to interpret the shari‘a and to guide its application
in practical everyday matters, high or low. So to whom other than they
could sovereignty and the responsibility of government properly devolve?
The theory of velayat- e faqih meant that the secular authority of other
governments, of whatever form, was illegitimate. In the absence of the
Hidden Emam, the only rightful rulers were those selected by the ulema
(Khomeini’s thinking was not entirely new – the idea that the ulema
should rule had been current, though never dominant, during the reigns
of the last two Safavid Shahs in the period 1666 – 1722 ). 12
The book Hokumat- e Eslami 13 began with an analysis of how Islam
had been eclipsed in the modern world, saying baldly (and without
further explanation) that pressure on Islam had begun with the Jews,
joined later by ‘other groups . . . about three hundred years ago’. These
groups were motivated by materialism and saw Islam and the belief of
the people in Islam as the main obstacle to their ambitions. ‘They therefore
plotted and campaigned against Islam by various means’, using
‘agents’ in educational institutions, in religious institutions, and in government.
‘Orientalists’ in the service of ‘imperialistic states’ were
working at the same time to the same ends. 14 This analysis refl ected the
experience of the ulema in the 1930 s; confronted with the Westernizing
policies of Reza Shah and other contemporary Middle Eastern rulers
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Revolutionary Iran
and politicians in the foreground, and the infl uence of Western powers
in the background.
Khomeini (sounding rather like Shariati) declared: ‘Islam is the religion of
militant individuals who are committed to truth and justice. It is the religion
of those who desire freedom and independence.’ But the Westernizing
forces –‘servants of imperialism’ – created a false view of Islam in men’s
minds, according to which Islam had nothing to say about big questions of
political principle and government, only concerning itself with pettifogging
matters, such as ‘ritual purity after menstruation and parturition’. The educated
classes were particularly affected by these false, Western- inspired ideas.
But it was not just the servants of imperialism that were to blame, because it
was true that some ulema (‘ akhund ’; a pejorative term) had really preoccupied
themselves with these trivial matters, turning aside from the bigger
questions. ‘They too are at fault’ – for the neglect that took over in seminaries
and madresehs , unwittingly contributing to the success of the imperialists.
In a paragraph dealing with the Constitutional Revolution, Khomeini
wrote that, despite some Islamic window- dressing, ‘agents of Britain’ had
taken advantage of the constitutionalist movement to create the constitution
of 1906 – ‘the basis of the laws that were now thrust upon the people
was alien and borrowed’ – going on to say that the constitution was
opposed to Islam, primarily because (adducing various proofs from the
Koran and hadith) Islam was opposed to monarchy and the hereditary
principle. Showing himself to be a spiritual descendant of Fazlollah
Nuri, 15 Khomeini asserted the falsity of the constitution and the idea of
Islam promulgated by the imperialists (but also, departing from Nuri’s
example, monarchy). What was necessary was Islamic government
–‘Know that it is your duty to establish an Islamic government’ – based
on the principles of Islam, and the authority of the Prophet Mohammad,
passed down through the Shi‘a Emams. Khomeini said that this would be
just government, because the people would be governed not by people,
but by law – the law derived from the Koran and the hadith.
But there was a conceptual gap. In the section entitled ‘The Form of
Islamic Government’ 16 Khomeini did not really say what Islamic government
was going to be. He wrote that it would not correspond to any
existing form of government; it would be based on Islamic law: ‘Islamic
government may be defi ned as the rule of divine law over men’. In lieu
of a legislative assembly, a ‘simple planning body’ would draw up
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
programmes for different ministries ‘in the light of the ordinances of
Islam’. This would be facilitated by the fact that Islamic law, based on the
Koran and the hadith, was recognized and accepted by Muslims already.
With the monarchy gone, there would be no huge system of corruption
and embezzlement; nor the ‘superfl uous bureaucracies and the system of
fi le- keeping and paper- shuffl ing that is enforced in them, all of which are
totally alien to Islam’.
But instead of elaborating further, Khomeini restated the reason why
velayat- e faqih was the legitimate form of government. Legitimate government
was the rule of God, as expressed through divine law. In the time
of the Prophet, the Prophet himself governed. After him, the Emams were
the legitimate governors – not for their spiritual qualities, but because
they were pre- eminent in their knowledge of law and justice. What of the
time after the occultation of the twelfth Emam? Should there be anarchy
and chaos because the Emams were no longer active in the world? No –
despite their disappearance, knowledge of law and justice were still
present – in the ulema , the fuqaha , the scholars of fi qh , shari‘a law. The
fact that these men might be defi cient in spirituality by comparison with
the Emams did not matter in this context, because the important thing for
government was not spirituality, but knowledge of law and justice. They
were the ones entitled to govern:
Now that this much has been demonstrated, it is necessary that the fuqaha
proceed, collectively or individually, to establish a government in order to
implement the laws of Islam and protect its territory. If this task falls within
the capabilities of a single person, he has personally incumbent upon him the
duty to fulfi l it; otherwise, it is a duty that devolves upon the fuqaha as a whole.
So, government by the faqih or the fuqaha , a simple planning body,
and ministries. But beyond this thin outline, nothing. Hokumat- e Eslami
gave no constitution, no structure explaining how different elements of
government would relate to each other and no mechanism for representation
of the wishes of the people. Khomeini wrote that the law of Islam
was comprehensive and covered every eventuality – therefore it was
unnecessary to go into further detail. But this conceptual gap left it
unclear what would happen if Khomeini or his followers eventually were
to put their ideas into practice, and left plenty of room for reinterpretation.
Why was there this gap? It may be that Khomeini intended
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Revolutionary Iran
deliberately to leave some fl exibility for interpretation, in case he needed
it later. But ultimately he was a religious thinker, not a constitutional
expert. It seems likely that, like the clerics in 1906 , he simply did not
know (at least not in 1970 ) what form the constitution might or should
take.
Khomeini’s ideas in Hokumat- e Eslami did not gather much support
among the ulema , and before 1978 – 9 were not widely circulated beyond
religious circles. No senior fi gure endorsed them (except Ayatollah Montazeri,
one of Khomeini’s own former students), and the most senior
ayatollah in Najaf at the time, Abol- Qasem Khoei, rejected Khomeini’s
arguments on the basis that he had exaggerated the signifi cance in fi qh of
the concept of velayat , which (according to Khoei) was properly confi ned
to the guardianship of widows and orphans. Khoei and his successors
(notably Ali Hosein Sistani) in Najaf have continued to reject Khomeini’s
principle of velayat- e faqih down to the time of writing.
From the time of the appearance of Hokumat- e Eslami onwards Khomeini
demanded the removal of the Shah and the establishment of Islamic
government: clear and consistent demands that the whole country could
understand (at least, they thought they could – what exactly Islamic government
might mean in practice remained less clear) and which, as
discontent grew through the 1970 s, increasingly made him the focal point
for opposition to the Shah.
In 1978 Khomeini was forced to leave Iraq by Saddam Hussein, following
the rapprochement between Iran and Iraq achieved through the
Algiers Accords. Having been refused entry to Kuwait, Khomeini went to
Paris in October, where he lived in the suburb of Neauphle- le-Château,
attended by his son Ahmad, his son- in- law Eshraqi and members of the
Freedom Movement including Abol Hassan Bani- Sadr, Sadegh Qotbzadeh
and Ebrahim Yazdi. These supporters served as a buffer between him
and the unfamiliar Western world. 17 Hundreds of jour nalists wanted to
speak to him, but the interviews showed a serious mismatch of expectations.
The idea of an interview in which inconsequential, polite chat set
the parties at ease before the serious, sometimes blunt questioning began
was quite alien to Khomeini, who was used to deferential petitions and
respectful requests for advice from students and others in the hushed precincts
of the seminary. He sometimes appeared to fi nd the journalists
irritating. The BBC journalist Stephen Jessell commented:
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
This tremendous presence from some remote century made no effort to
welcome us, or at least me, and hardly gave us a glance. He sat on a pile of
cushions in the corner of a small living room, eyes lowered, and harangued
my colleague’s tape recorder . . . It falls to a journalist, if he or she is lucky,
to see at close quarters some of the people who leave their stamp on history.
Of them all, I have never met anyone who made so great an impression as
this man to whom the nuances and compromises of the twentieth century
were, it seemed, of as little lasting signifi cance as the snow that fell that
winter. 18
This goes some way to explain the notorious incident in the airliner as
Khomeini fl ew back to Tehran, when he was asked by the ABC journalist
Peter Jennings (through an interpreter) what his feelings were on returning
to Iran. Khomeini replied, with a slight, even smug smile as if to dismiss
the question as absurd: ‘Hichi – Hich ehsasi nadaram’ (‘Nothing – I have
no feelings’) . 19 The interpreter preferred to translate this as ‘He doesn’t
make any comment,’ but since that time Khomeini’s opponents have presented
his words as expressing his indifference to Iran and the Iranian
people; or as pointing to his preference for Islam over any form of Iranian
nationalism. It seems more likely that Khomeini regarded the question as
trite and inappropriate – but at a deeper level, that he was beyond feelings
of the kind meant by Jennings. This prompts an enquiry as to what Khomeini’s
attitude to himself and his role really was.
In addition to his public theory of velayat- e faqih , Khomeini also had
a complementary private theory, of principles for the religious life, that
informed his view of his own signifi cance and his role. This drew upon
his studies of mysticism; on his study of Ibn Arabi and Molla Sadra in
particular, but also other authors. It is important to remember that his
interest in mysticism was in itself a major departure from the normal
orthodoxy of the ulema ; for many years Khomeini concealed his philosophical
and mystical inclinations. 20 Khomeini saw prayer as part of a
process of development, of self- improvement, as a kind of ladder toward
God. 21 This drew upon an idea found in the work of many Islamic mystics,
but especially that of Ibn Arabi – the concept of al- insan al- Kamil
– the Perfect Man. Ibn Arabi wrote that human experience was divided
between the macrocosm – the experience of the external world – and the
microcosm, the internal world. These two worlds refl ect each other, albeit
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Revolutionary Iran
imperfectly; but through religious contemplation and self- development,
Man can ‘polish his soul’ until the two worlds are congruent. He can
improve and perfect himself until he takes on the form of the divine –
becoming the Perfect Man. 22 Khomeini wrote as early as 1929 :
The Perfect Man . . . is the holder of the chain of existence, with which the
cycle is completed. It is the beginning and the end, it is the external and the
internal, the totality of the Divine Book. He is God’s great sign, created in
God’s image. Whoever knows the Perfect Man has known God. 23
This was, in effect, the project of Khomeini’s life. The Perfect Man is a
copy of God, achieved by religious discipline, prayer and mystical devotion,
and becomes a conduit for the will of God in the world. In Shi‘a
terms, this is what the Emams had been in their time. According to Khomeini’s
studies of Molla Sadra’s Four Journeys , the fourth and fi nal
journey brings the traveller to the point of velayat (a term Khomeini used
also in this context) or prophethood, at which he can guide the wider
community toward God. 24 Khomeini believed that he refl ected the spiritual
reality of the world and was a vehicle for the mind of God 25 – hence
the absence or irrelevance of personal feelings.
This account of Khomeini’s internal life might seem of marginal relevance
to the political events of 1979 ; but he himself would have seen it as central,
and he would have had a point. After all, on the day of his return to Tehran
from Paris and in the unique atmosphere of the early months of 1979 there
was a congruence between the will of Khomeini and the will of the Iranian
people – ana al- haqq wa al- khalq – ‘I am the truth and the people’. 26 He did
seem to be a conduit for both the mind of God and the will of the people.
Microcosm and macrocosm really did seem, albeit briefl y, to be as one.
Islamic Government – Theory and Practice
Many books, whether because they focus on the Shah or for other reasons,
break off with the events of February 1979 and the success of the
revolutionary movement. But an understanding of the struggle thereafter
over the formation of the institutions that followed the revolution is
at least as complex and problematic, and as intriguing, as what went
before. How would the tension between religious and liberal democratic
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143
Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
principles be resolved? What would fi ll the conceptual gap over the form
of government that Khomeini himself had left in his book Hokumat- e
Eslami ? What were Khomeini’s intentions in the fi rst few weeks after his
return to Iran? Did he expect from the beginning to establish a religious
dictatorship with himself at the head of it? There is good reason to think
not, and to believe instead that the eventual form of the Islamic republic
came about as a result of a process of adjustment, action, reaction, struggle
and consolidation over the fi rst year or more after the revolutionary
movement achieved supremacy on 11 February 1979 – and that Khomeini
initially expected a more distant role for himself, relying on secular
politicians that he felt he could trust to carry out the day- to- day business
of government. Khomeini later emphasized the collegiate nature of
decision- making at this stage, between himself and the other members of
his close circle. He, or rather they, managed the early phases of the revolution
with great skill. In the French and Russian revolutions, those who
took power after the initial success of the revolutionary movement were
displaced from power by other revolutionaries within a relatively short
period. But Khomeini, against the expectations of many liberals and leftists
in particular, took power and succeeded in holding it until his death.
Initially, he did so partly by letting others take responsibility for government,
and by allowing them to be displaced.
The theory of velayat- e faqih was, and is, open to different interpretations.
Proponents of reform within the Iranian system have in recent
years argued again for a more restricted role for the vali , which would
mean that he would only intervene when he saw the principles of Islam
threatened, or when he was asked for guidance by the elected representatives
of the people (Morteza Mottahari was arguing for something like
this early in 1979 ). The form that the velayat- e faqih took in practice after
1979 was not a foregone conclusion – a variety of other outcomes were
possible.
In a little more than a week after Khomeini’s return Bazargan was
appointed prime minister, and Bakhtiar’s government collapsed. 27 In the
jubilation that followed the Shah’s departure and the success of the revolutionary
movement, there was another outpouring of political and
journalistic activity, as in the period before the Constitutional Revolution,
and again in 1941 – 53 , and again briefl y in 1963 . New newspapers
and political societies appeared. For example, within a few weeks there
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Revolutionary Iran
was a split in the National Front, with a younger- spirited, more leftist
party appearing under Hedayatollah Matin Daftari, calling itself the
National Democratic Front ( NDF ). 28 Another newcomer was the Muslim
People’s Republican Party ( MPRP ), with its strongest support in Iranian
Azerbaijan. This party had a system of values and a social support base
similar to that of the Freedom Movement but took its membership from
(mainly middle- class) Iranians who regarded Aya tollah Shariatmadari as
their marja- e taqlid (the party received his blessing in return). 29 The situation
was fl uid, and within a short time the unity that had held the
different elements of the revolutionary movement together through the
struggle to remove the Shah began to break down.
Despite the popular adulation around him, Khomeini acted with caution
in this early phase. Initially, in keeping with the conservative instincts
of the religious class, he was anxious that radicals on the streets should
disarm and cease rioting and looting. The police, gendarmerie and army
should not be attacked: ‘They have returned to us, and are one [with]
us.’ 30 He did not make an immediate grab for power and full control but
set himself and his followers to the task of consolidation and a more
indirect extension of their power. Before his return, in their meetings in
Paris, he had given liberal nationalists like Sanjabi and Bani- Sadr 31 the
impression that he favoured democratic government with a supervisory
role for the clergy – similar to the constitution of 1906 but with the Shah
removed and the position of the clergy only moderately strengthened.
Bazargan, Qotbzadeh and the other politicians of the Freedom Movement
received the same impression, and thought that after the initial
drama of his return, Khomeini would fade into the background, leaving
politics to the secular politicians. Khomeini allowed them to continue
thinking that way, and the initial form of government he set up, with
Bazargan at the head of it, seemed to confi rm the same thing. The more
radical line he had taken in Hokumat- e Eslami was still not widely
known.
Khomeini could rely on the Council of the Islamic Revolution ( CIR ),
using it as a coordinating body for his most loyal supporters. 32 Through
it, and through personal contacts, he could communicate with the local
revolutionary committees ( komiteh ) and revolutionary courts that had
been set up throughout the country, and with the Friday prayer leaders
in the mosques, over whom he also gained control within a short time.
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
In addition, already in February 1979 he and his followers set up the
Islamic Republican Party ( IRP ) to represent the political interests of his
followers among the ulema . Ayatollah Beheshti was the leading fi gure in
the IRP from the start, along with others who would become central later,
including Hojjatoleslam Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammad Javad Bahonar
and Ali Khamenei, and Mir Hosein Musavi (an associate of Beheshti
and one of several non- clerics). The most senior members among the
founders had all, or nearly all, been members of the Jame- ye Ruhaniyat- e
Mobarez (Combatant Clergy Association) in 1977 and 1978 and were
members of the CIR also. Membership of the IRP grew rapidly, and it
brought out a new newspaper, Jomhuri- ye Eslami ( Islamic Republic ). 33
Up and down the country the fi rst months of 1979 were euphoric for
many and exciting for the politically minded, but chaotic and terrifying
for some. Daily necessities like staple foods and kerosene for cooking and
heating were still in short supply because of the strikes that had gone
before. Groups of young men, some of them armed, roamed the streets
looking for SAVAK functionaries or anyone associated with the old
regime. Some targeted foreigners; embassies were threatened, and on
14 February Fedayan radicals attacked and occupied the US embassy.
Ambassador Sullivan and the other diplomats in the building were held
for a while, but were released later after the Provisional Government
intervened. 34 Over the following months the situation settled down
in some ways, but remained disturbingly uncertain. Old patterns of
authority were disrupted, and people did not know where to look for
reassurance and security. When initiatives with public consequences were
undertaken, ordinary people did not necessarily know who was responsible
or why what was done had been done. There were too many
independent or semi- independent poles of authority. This was the fi rst
phase of the Islamic republic, and in some respects it was the defi ning
phase. To a reduced but still signifi cant degree, that uncertainty, the multipolar
political system and also the occasional application of extra- judicial
violence, still persist in Iran today.
Central authority had broken down, and local komiteh had taken
over in many places, like the Soviets in Russia in 1917 – 18 . It was estimated
that there were 1 , 500 komiteh in Tehran alone at this time. 35 For
the most part the komiteh were sympathetic to Khomeini, but it took
some effort for the CIR and IRP to purge them of leftist and liberal
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Revolutionary Iran
elements they found undesirable, and in areas with large ethnic or religious
minorities like Kurdestan and Khuzestan (and the areas in the
north- east where Turkmen tribes lived) the local feeling for autonomy
was strong and resistant to the reimposition of central control (members
of the Fedayan did their best to encourage and radicalize some of these
regional movements). Khomeini was elderly, and came from a conservative
social and intellectual background that distrusted anarchy and social
disorder. He had held back from ordering mass violence against the
Shah’s government at a number of points between November and February,
and even at the climactic moment on 11 – 12 February had sought to
restrain violent elements on the side of the revolutionaries. Among these,
the Fedayan and the MKO had been most signifi cant on that occasion;
they had been gathering strength rapidly from the point of near- extinction
at the hands of SAVAK before 1978 (Tudeh also regained some of its
former strength). Khomeini had spoken out against these violent, leftist
groups even while he was still in Paris. After his return he was acutely
aware that, when it came to armed force, his own supporters were weak;
and aside from the militant leftists, the army, though it had declared
itself neutral and was bruised after the events of January and February,
was also still a potential threat (as would be demonstrated later).
To address this vulnerability, Khomeini and his supporters set out to
strengthen their own faction and to neutralize the threats to it where
they could. Three groups aligned with Khomeini and prepared for violent
action crystallized out of the revolutionary mass of those who had
gathered for demonstrations, and the komiteh. Of these, the Mojahedine
Enqelab- e Eslami (Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution) were set up
on a basis rather like the Fedayan and the MKO . Similarly the Sepah
( Sepah- e Pasdaran- e Enqelab- e Eslami – literally, Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corps), 36 though these from the beginning had a more disciplined
character, as a militia intended as an ultra- loyal cadre to defend
against the lingering possibility of a military coup. In the long run,
the Sepah (set up initially by Khomeini’s order on 5 May) became the
most important of these new bodies. By September 1979 they were
around 11 , 000 strong and were under the command of Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Finally, the Hezbollah (Party of God) served as strongmen who
could be sent in with clubs and fi sts to disrupt meetings, beat up opponents
and intimidate any group Khomeini’s people found it necessary to
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
target. 37 All three were recruited largely from the poorest classes, on the
calculation that they would be the most loyal to Khomeini and his
programme and the least likely to be affected by leftist, liberal or Westernizing
infl uences.
In addition, Khomeini’s people sent Namayandeh- ye Emam (Emam’s
representatives) commissar- style into the regular army units to ensure
their loyalty and purge them of royalists and other troublemakers. Similar
agents were sent into most civilian offi ces and branches of government,
with similar purposes.
Broadening out further the sector owing allegiance to Khomeini, his
followers also took over the Pahlavi Foundation, with all its property and
other assets, including factories, farmland and overseas investments;
renaming it the Bonyad- e Mostazafan (Foundation for the Oppressed).
The Bonyad, along with other, similar institutions, was used both to make
payments to those the IRP deemed worthy recipients of charitable support
and as a pool of patronage to give jobs to the right sort of people,
strengthening Khomeini’s cause.
As Khomeini’s followers were boosted by the enthusiasm of young students
and others from poor backgrounds, who were sent into recalcitrant
sectors of the former regime to ensure proper revolutionary and Islamic attitudes
and behaviour, so at the same time the supporters of the parties based
in the middle class, the National Front and the Freedom Party (many of
whom, at work, found themselves intimidated by Khomeini’s earnest young
agents), found their support eroded by emigration as large numbers of middling
and prosperous Iranians left the country. In the heightened political
excitement of the time, this emigration also tended to taint the political activities
of those left behind. As the months passed, Bazargan, his provisional
government and the political parties from which he and they drew support
found themselves demoralized and rendered almost superfl uous by the creation
of new Khomeini- aligned bodies, and by the arrogation to themselves
by Khomeini’s party of control and infl uence in pre- existing institutions.
Middle- class emigration was stimulated and accelerated by the activities
of the revolutionary courts. Headed by judges sympathetic to
Khomeini, and supplied with victims by the komiteh and other groups,
the revolutionary courts replaced previous civil codes with shari‘a law
and operated under a particularly harsh revolutionary version of it,
condemning former functionaries of the Shah’s regime and others like
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Revolutionary Iran
prostitutes and allegedly corrupt businessmen for crimes justifi ed from
shari‘a text like being ‘at war with God’ and ‘spreading corruption on
earth’. Most prominent of the judges was Hojjatoleslam Sadegh Khalkhali,
who gave the impression of enjoying his work. Beginning with the four
executions on the roof of the Refah school on 14 February (Rahimi,
Nasiri and two others), a series of further judicial killings followed, and
continued despite protests from Bazargan and other moderates, and
international indignation. Several leading clerics, including Shariatmadari,
also protested (though the militant leftists of the MKO and Fedayan
urged the courts on to execute even more of the previous regime’s offi ceholders).
The trials were quick and rudimentary, often held in secret, with
little attempt at a defence, nor any detailed examination of evidence. The
accused (most of whom were former members of SAVAK , army offi cers
and police involved in the repression of the previous months) usually had
no defence lawyer. Condemned men were often shot dead shortly after
being sentenced. By 14 March the courts had executed seventy victims.
Following the complaints, Khomeini ordered a halt later in March, but
the trials resumed on 6 April after Ayatollah Montazeri and a committee
drew up guidance for their operation. There are indications that Khomeini
felt obliged to support further executions as retribution for the
deaths of demonstrators the previous year in order to secure his support
among young radicals – and to avoid them joining the growing ranks of
the even more radical Fedayan and MKO . 38 By October several hundred
had been executed. 39 Khalkhali defended the courts and their methods by
saying that they were ‘born out of the anger of the Iranian people’. 40
Former Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveida was executed at Qasr
prison at Khalkhali’s orders on 7 April, despite many efforts both from
outside Iran and from within to intercede on his behalf. Hoveida had
been arrested the previous November, in a vain effort by the Shah to
distance himself from the failures of the past. The arrest prevented Hoveida
from following the Shah out of the country, but after the Shah’s
departure and the collapse of Bakhtiar’s government he did not try to
save himself when his SAVAK guards made themselves scarce. When he
was rearrested by revolutionaries he did not resist. Like a spider with a
specially juicy fl y, Khalkhali took special care over Hoveida and ensured
no last- minute intervention could save him by effectively cutting off the
prison from communications from outside. He noted pruriently that
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
Hoveida slept naked and continued to do so despite the disapproval of
his guards (pious Iranian men would always wear at least shorts and a
T- shirt in bed). 41 When the Shah heard of Hoveida’s fate, in exile, he
showed grief. But he had done little enough to protect Hoveida, and it
was not the only example of his ingratitude to loyal subordinates. 42
Another victim of the new regime was General Hassan Pakravan, who
had been head of SAVAK in the early 1960 s, before Nasiri (he served also
as deputy prime minister and later as ambassador to Pakistan and France).
He had the reputation of having been more humane than Nasiri. When
Khomeini was arrested in 1963 , Pakravan had striven to save his life. He
had eaten regularly with him while he was in prison and was alarmed
when he heard that Khomeini had been condemned to death, believing
that it would cause further serious unrest among ordinary Muslims. But
Pakravan’s previous efforts on Khomeini’s behalf did not help him in
1979 . He was arrested on 16 February:
he took some friends to our house for lunch, and they had a wonderful
time . . . Then at 3 . 30 my husband told them, ‘I want to rest, please . . .’ So
they went.
At fi ve o’clock he got up to go to the kitchen to get a glass of water. There
was lots of noise outside – shouting and all that. He said to our servant,
‘What’s the matter?’ This young man came back pale and said, ‘Timsar,
they’ve come to take you away.’
[The servant told the story later] ‘He never took the trouble to put on shoes,
and walked out with his slippers . . . They were so respectful. They bowed to
him. They opened the door . . . I ran after the car, because it was the end of
winter, very cold, and he had gone without a coat or anything . . . they stopped
the car and took his coat to him. And I was crying.’ 43
His son was told he had not been arrested, but was rather a guest of the
Ayatollah (Khomeini). Pakravan was executed on 11 April. 44
Through the trials and generally, new terms and phrases became
commonplace, and with repetition established themselves as a new jargon
of revolution. Moharaba (‘waging war against God’) and mofsed
fel- arz (‘spreading corruption on earth’) have already been mentioned
as anti- revolutionary crimes. A common term for partisans of the previous
regime and other opponents of the regime was taghuti (literally,
‘ idol- worshippers’). The MKO ( monafeqin – hypocrites) were guilty
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Revolutionary Iran
of elteqat (eclecticism) for their promiscuous combination of Marxist
ideas with Islam. Another potential revolutionary crime was enheraf
(deviation). By contrast, maktabi were politically correct, committed
regime supporters. Imperialism was jahan- khor ( world- devouring) – the
United States was shaytan- e bozorg or estekbar- e jahani (the great Satan,
or world arrogance). Many of these terms, like the duality of mostakber
and mostazafi n (oppressor and oppressed), were coined fi rst by Khomeini
in his speeches. Although he drew upon Koranic usages, Khomeini’s
introduction of this new revolutionary language was one of the ways in
which he demonstrated the innovatory nature of his religious and political
thinking. 45
While Bazargan’s Provisional Government earnestly set about the practical
tasks of getting the country back to work and preparing the way for
a new constitution, the IRP and Khomeini’s followers in other bodies gradually
extended their institutional grip and their political infl uence,
inexorably undercutting Bazargan and his colleagues. In addition to the
running dispute over the activities of the revolutionary courts, there were
many other disagreements; for example over the lower- intensity intimidation,
arrests and confi scation of property carried out by the komiteh. In
each case, whenever Bazargan regarded the matter as serious enough, he
appealed to Khomeini for redress. But such appeals only strengthened
Khomeini and his supporters, even if he initially gave decisions that
appeared to be a compromise. Each appeal reinforced still further Khomeini’s
position as the ultimate arbiter in the state – cementing his personal
power and reconfi rming the classical, traditional position of the ulema as a
class. Indeed, in this respect the decade between Khomeini’s return and his
death in 1989 was really the ultimate apotheosis of the ulema – surpassing
the previous high- water mark of their power and infl uence, in the last years
of the Safavid dynasty, around 1700 . This effect was strengthened by the
fact that Bazargan’s government was also under constant criticism from
the leftist groups, who saw it as insuffi ciently radical, excessively middleclass,
capitalist and bourgeois in its economic policies and dangerously,
suspiciously moderate in its foreign policy (Bazargan and Sanjabi, his foreign
minister, favoured discussion and reconciliation with the West and the
US ). Khomeini appeared to hold a middle position between the different
factions. But Khomeini’s decisions always served the interest of the IRP
and his followers in the end. In each case he was, in effect, both a
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
party to the dispute and the judge of it. Bazargan could not win. Nor could
he make Khomeini commit himself on more practical, technical issues that
would have forced him to take greater responsibility for the day- to- day operation
of government. On such non- essential matters, Khomeini held aloof.
Women
In 1963 – 4 Khomeini had focused criticism on the Shah’s measures to emancipate
women, and particularly to give women the vote – partly to avoid
more politically divisive subjects like land reform. Now the Shah was gone,
the way was clear for restoration of more properly Islamic arrangements.
But the Islamic republic’s handling of these matters has been full of paradox.
The status of women had an emblematic signifi cance within the story
of the revolution as well as a real signifi cance for ordinary women in the
conduct of their lives. The intrusion of revolutionary ideology into the lives
of ordinary women caused much hardship.
Reza Shah’s ultimately unsuccessful attempt to ban the veil in the
1930 s, the inclusion of the right of women to vote in the White Revolution
programme of 1963 and the introduction of the Family Protection
Law in 1967 meant that the status of women was a signifi cant part of
the overall Pahlavi programme of development and Westernization. For
the Shahs’ traditional- minded religious opponents and for many of the
clergy, these measures were an insult to the honour of Muslims and were
bound up with other developments for which the government could not
be held directly responsible – like the presence of prostitutes in parts of
Tehran and the screening of mildly racy Western or Western- inspired
fi lms (advertised by racier billboards) in cinemas. Together, they touched
on something deep and visceral about maleness, control and self- respect
in Iranian society that is not easy to convey. Often, in the past, the
honour of women had been confl ated with national honour, such that
whatever detracted from the honour of women was felt to detract from
national self- respect also. 46 In traditional Iranian society, it was important
for the self- respect of an Iranian man that he should be married, and
that his wife should be demonstrably under control – spending most of
her time in the family home, consorting only with close family members,
and veiled and accompanied when out of the house. Any lapse exposed
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Revolutionary Iran
him to ridicule and loss of face. In fact, because it was expensive to
maintain this situation, it is likely that only a small minority of men were
ever able to subject their women to it – indeed part of the point of the
phenomenon was that it was a sign of the social status of some and an
aspiration (often a hopeless aspiration) for many more. That minority
were predominantly (though not exclusively) the urban middle class of
prosperous bazaaris and clerics. Outside the cities and larger villages, the
lives of ordinary peasants and nomads (always the majority of the population)
were very different, and most women had to work in the fi elds,
or at any rate in public, in ways that could never be combined with
seclusion or heavy veiling. 47
This is still the case to some extent, as an internet blogger commented
in March 2004 :
Why is it that women in villages are so much freer in comparison with our
urban women (at least when it comes to choosing what to wear)? It’s incredible
but they are not only freer in how they dress, but also in their activities
and movements. Why is it that they don’t ‘endanger Islam’ by not wearing
headscarves, as they freely mingle, laughing and chatting with the menfolk?
Is it due to their heavy participation in work? Or is it that work will be
stopped without women? God Forbid! 48
So when Khomeini and his supporters reimposed traditional values,
reapplied shari‘a law and annulled the Family Law of 1967 in the early
part of 1979 , the traditions they were reimposing were in fact rather less
traditional than they seemed. It was done, nevertheless. But not without
opposition – in particular, there were a series of large, peaceful demonstrations
by women for several days from 8 March onwards in Tehran to
protest at the reimposition of the veil and the removal of the Family Law.
Khomeini appeared to relent for a time in the face of the protests, but in
the end the changes went ahead, and women had to accept them. Perhaps
the most important change entailed in the removal of the law of 1967 was
that women lost custody rights in the event of divorce. But it also meant
that a woman’s word was worth less than that of a man in all law proceedings,
and renewed emphasis on the man as the head of the household
meant that a woman had to have the permission of husband or father in
order to travel (the cruel humiliation of this is shown poignantly in Jafar
Panahi’s fi lm The Circle ).
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
Perversely, although rights were withdrawn, responsibility was extended.
Because girls were thought to mature earlier than boys, the age of legal
responsibility for girls was reduced to nine years, while for boys it was
fi fteen. As a result girls have been prosecuted for serious crimes, including
murder, at very young ages. In theory polygamy and child marriage again
became possible, but the social stigma against such practices meant that
they rarely happened. Similarly with the reapplication of shari‘a punishments
like stoning and whipping – although they became possible again
and have been used, the general mood of society has been against them,
and many even of the religious leadership have come to regard them as an
embarrassment. Nonetheless, Iran today has the highest rate of executions
of any country except China, and the highest rate of executions for
minors anywhere in the world. 49
But even in this symbolically important area of women’s rights and status,
Khomeini was cautious. He did not repeal the right of women to vote,
as his pronouncements from 1963 might have led some to expect. The
early months of the Islamic republic were a bitter disappointment to many
of the women who had demonstrated for the removal of the Shah in 1978 , 50
but some of the losses were more superfi cial than real, and in the longer
term social changes and changes in education meant that the status of
women in the Islamic republic improved in a variety of important respects. 51
Islamic or Democratic?
At an early stage in the political discussions of the fi rst weeks after
11 February there was a dispute on a subject that Khomeini regarded as an
essential matter of principle – the name by which the new state established
by the revolution should be known. Khomeini insisted that it should be
called the Islamic Republic; notably in a speech he made on his return to
Qom on 1 March (he spent most of the next few months in Qom). The
Freedom Movement and the moderates generally preferred the title Democratic
Islamic Republic, and some leftist groups, including the Fedayan,
wanted People’s Democratic Republic. Khomeini stuck to his preference,
arguing that inclusion of the word Democratic would imply that Islam was
undemocratic, and that it was undignifi ed for the term Islam to be partnered
by any other qualifying word. As usual, he got his way.
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Revolutionary Iran
This debate formed part of the early clashes over the form of the
referendum on the new republic that was held at the end of March. Khomeini
and the Provisional Government formulated the referendum simply
as a ratifi cation of the decision Khomeini believed the people to have
taken in favour of an Islamic republic through their mass demonstrations
the previous December. It would ask people whether they wanted an
Islamic republic or a monarchy. Others disputed this – the NDF , Shariatmadari
and many others said that voters should be given more of a choice
about the nature of the future government. The NDF argued that the
referendum should be held after the new constitution had been drafted,
and the leftist MKO and Fedayan agreed. But the Provisional Government
persevered, and when it came to the vote (held on 30 and 31 March)
only the NDF , the Fedayan and the Kurdish groups boycotted it. Khomeini
urged as many as possible to vote, and after the count the
government announced that, of 15 . 7 million votes, 98 . 2 per cent had
gone in favour of the Islamic republic. There may have been some irregularities
in the referendum, but most balanced observers then and since
have accepted that whatever the conditions, a referendum at that time
with that question would always have given a massive majority for the
same result. 52
Kurds did not just boycott the referendum – by this time they were in
open revolt. The prime political grouping among them was the Kurdish
Democratic Party of Iran ( KDP – I), whose armed wing were known as the
Peshmerga, but a number of other, smaller groups like the Kumeleh were
also involved . Although the Shah had used the Kurds in Iraq against the Iraqi
regime when it suited him in the 1970 s, he also practised discriminatory policies
against the Iranian Kurds, who had made bids for autonomy earlier in
the century, after 1918 and after 1945 . By the time of the revolution there
were around 4 million Kurds in Iran. Most of them lived in the north- west,
but there was also a large group in the north- east, settled around Quchan in
Khorasan. Levels of economic development and literacy were some of the
lowest in the country. The KDP -I and others had been active in the movement
against the Shah in 1978 and were hoping to win at least a measure of
self- rule from the new revolutionary settlement. They called for internal
autonomy for Kurdestan, while remaining under the wing of the Islamic
republic for foreign relations and defence. Cultural, educational and political
matters were to be regulated by a freely elected Kurdish parliament. The
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
central government should allocate funds to help develop the region,
which was backward due largely to the deliberate, repressive policy of the
previous regime; and Kurdish representatives should have a say in the
policy- making of the Iranian state. They also had demands for expansion
of Kurdish territory. The Marxist Fedayan gave the Kurds political and
armed support. Ayatollah Taleqani visited Kurdestan and spoke in favour
of the Kurds’ concerns. But after an initial phase of prevarication and
some suggestions of compromise in negotiations the Provisional Government
responded with force, claiming that other armed secessionists would
be encouraged by any signs of weakness; and banned the KDP -I and
Kumeleh. The armed Kurds had some successes, and the revolt spread to
Sanandaj, Mahabad, Naghadeh and Marivan, but there were many casualties
as the army recovered its cohesion and the Sepah joined in the
fi ghting. In August the town of Paveh was bombed and shelled, with
much loss of life. Villages were destroyed. Both sides took hostages in the
fi ghting. Sadegh Khalkhali went to Kurdestan and executed hundreds of
captured Kurds. Despite growing military pressure from the Islamic
regime, the Kurds fought on for several years, pulling back to remote and
inaccessible valleys when necessary. 53
There were armed revolts also among the Turkmen in the north- east,
who had taken advantage of the Shah’s fall to occupy valuable agricultural
land that had previously belonged to members of the royal family
and the court. Here too the Fedayan supported the insurrection; here too
Taleqani tried to mediate; but as in Kurdestan the talks failed, and the
government applied force. Khalkhali and his executioners turned up and
carried out similar summary executions. There was unrest also among the
Arabs of Khuzestan (in the worst incident, a large number of demonstrators
were shot dead in Khorramshahr at the end of May), and in
Baluchestan. All these revolts and disturbances showed a degree of Iranian
chauvinism among the politicians of the Provisional Government
and the CIR . Their prime concern was to preserve the territorial integrity
of Iran and to concentrate on the political struggle in Tehran. Aside from
a few enlightened individuals, there was little serious interest in the
demands of the minorities. 54
Another unsettling event in the spring was the assassination of
Morteza Motahhari, co- founder of the Hoseiniyeh Ershad and the
Combatant Clergy Association before the revolution, and at the time of
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156
Revolutionary Iran
his death the chairman of the CIR . He was killed on 1 May by an obscure
Islamic militant group, the Forqan, whom he had offended (along with
the MKO ) by attacking those who, according to him, used Islam as a
screen while pursuing a Western- inspired agenda. Khomeini was deeply
grieved by the loss, personally and emotionally as well as politically.
Motahhari had been one of Khomeini’s students and his fi rmest ally, but
had his own intellectual hinterland as an independent thinker and had
not been a mindless fellow traveller nor a yes- man by any means. Shortly
before he died he wrote (somewhat in contradiction of Khomeini’s
Hokumat- e Eslami ):
Velayat- e faqih does not mean that the faqih himself heads the government.
The faqih ’s role in an Islamic country is one of being an ideologue, not a
ruler. The ideologue’s role is to supervise the implementation of the right
ideology. The people’s perception of the velayat- e faqih . . . was not, and is
not, that the fuqaha should rule and manage the administration of the state. 55
Motahhari’s death was a blow to Khomeini and a shock – demonstrating
the seriousness of the ideological struggle and the dangers of failure,
showing that nothing could be taken for granted and that the supremacy
of the clergy still had to be defended and fought for. It may have sharpened
Khomeini’s response to opposition in the following months. It is
important to remember this. The actions of Khomeini, the IRP and its
supporters, looking at it with comfortable hindsight, were sometimes
extreme and brutal. But at least some of their competitors for power
were prepared to be equally brutal and ruthless – perhaps worse (as
emerged later). The essence of Khomeini’s apparent ruthlessness was his
determination not to lose (as had many of his political- clerical forerunners,
like Nuri and Modarres). It is a perennial dilemma in politics,
especially revolutionary politics 56 – the danger that the methods necessary
to the game may discredit the principles the game was played for,
and that the politician who justifi es means by ends fi nds himself languishing
in a moral limbo. A few months later, at a time when confl ict
between his supporters and the leftists on university campuses was growing,
Khomeini told some of his people a story about the cleric and
politician Hasan Modarres, and how Modarres had instructed Khomeini
with the principle: ‘You hit fi rst and let others complain. Don’t be the
victim and don’t complain.’ 57
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
The murder of Motahhari contributed, along with other deaths and
departures later, to a narrowing of the movement of the revolutionary
clergy and a greater emphasis on the thought and personality of Khomeini
alone. With Taleqani, Motahhari had been the linking personality
to Bazargan, the Freedom Movement and the secular intellectuals. 58 Had
he lived, he might have exerted a moderating infl uence.
The Constitution
The drafting of the constitution had featured in the arguments around the
referendum, and the question of the constitution was central in the political
debates over the rest of the year. Initially, responsibility for drafting
the constitution fell to the Provisional Government, and Bazargan gave
the job to one of his ministers, Yadollah Sahabi (although it seems some
of the early work on a draft had been done by his son Ezzatollah Sahabi
and others while Khomeini was still in Paris). 59 Many of the moderates
were still attached to the old constitution of 1906 , and Sahabi used that
text as one of his models, but the old constitution had been designed
around a constitutional monarchy, and at the very least the new one had
to cater for a new, republican principle. Some elements were taken from
the French constitution – the Gaullist constitution of the Fifth Republic,
in use since 1958 , which meant a strong presidency. A range of politicians
and others were consulted informally over the draft, including Ayatollah
Shariatmadari (a consistent supporter of the constitution of 1906 ), before
it was approved by the Provisional Government and the CIR . The Islamic
element in this fi rst draft was not so marked – there was to be a council
for checking legislation to ensure its compatibility with Islam (the constitution
of 1906 had also included a body of this kind), but its powers were
limited, and the velayat- e faqih was present neither in terms nor in spirit.
Khomeini’s handling of the fi rst draft of the constitution was revealing.
He made two small amendments, both concerning the position of
women – the effect was to prevent women being judges or being
appointed to the presidency. 60 Otherwise, he was content to see the
constitution drafted by Sahabi enter into force with merely another referendum
to approve it (when it was published on 14 June, he declared
the draft ‘correct’). If this had happened, the Islamic republic would have
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Revolutionary Iran
been set up on a moderate, democratic, almost secular footing. Khomeini’s
handling of the matter confi rms his previous caution and suggests at
least that he was prepared to play a long game in order to secure dominance
for his own vision of the Islamic republic; alternatively that he
expected cooperation in government with the liberal moderates to be a
long- term arrangement. But Bazargan and Bani- Sadr objected to the idea
of the constitution entering into effect with such minimal scope for democratic
revision, and like them, a wide swathe of political opinion was
unwilling to see that happen without it being debated and amended by an
elected body – a constituent assembly of some kind. This proved to be a
major mistake by the moderates and leftists. Rafsanjani apparently
warned Bani- Sadr what would happen – that an elected assembly would
be dominated by unmanageable radical clerics. 61 If they had gone for the
original draft without further debate, the moderates would have secured
a constitution much more aligned to their thinking than the eventual one.
They became victims of their own principles.
Parties and journalists fell over themselves to bring forward theoretical
arguments and to propose amendments and wholesale alternative versions.
Some wanted a more Islamic constitution, others a more radically
leftist one. Eventually it was agreed that the constitution would be reviewed
by an Assembly of Experts ( Majles- e Khubregan), composed of seventythree
elected members. The elections were arranged for 3 August, 62 and
the Assembly fi rst convened on 18 August.
In the run- up to the elections there were intensive informal discussions
on the constitution in the media and generally, and a number of
more formal discussions in seminars that were arranged for the purpose.
But there was also a good deal of intimidation by the IRP and its subordinate
organizations, and many groups and parties hostile to them
protested at irregularities in the election. Only roughly half the numbers
that voted in the March referendum (over 20 million) voted in the
August elections for the Assembly of Experts. 63 The result was startling –
fi fty- fi ve of the elected members of the Assembly were clerics ( Bani- Sadr
was one of the minority of secular members). The elected Kurdish
delegate, Abdul Rahman Qasemlu (leader of the KDP -I) was not allowed
to take part. Khomeini announced in an inaugural message (Rafsanjani
read it out to the Assembly) 64 that the new constitution should
be 100 per cent Islamic, and (in accordance with the principles of
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
Hokumat- e Eslami ) that non- clerical delegates, lacking the qualifi cations
to do so, should not meddle in discussions of the Islamic articles of
the text.
Between the elections and the fi rst meeting of the Assembly, the Provisional
Government brought into effect a new press law, the result of
which was to close many newspapers and journals. The newspaper closures
began with ten papers accused of having been connected with the
Shah’s government (including the popular independent paper Ayand egan )
and continued with more than twenty leftist or liberal papers accused of
being un- Islamic or against the revolution. Several parties, including the
NDF and the National Front, boycotted the Assembly of Experts elections
in protest at the new law – the Kurds also boycotted them. The brief
spring of the free press since the fall of the Shah came to an end – or at
least entered a much frostier phase. Hezbollah broke into the offi ces of
Ayandegan and sacked them and also attacked the head offi ces of the
Fedayan, the MKO , Tudeh and the NDF . By the autumn a new, IRP –
aligned paper was operating out of the old offi ces of Ayandegan , and two
other long- established and popular publications, Ettela‘at and Kayhan ,
were taken over by the IRP – controlled Bonyad- e Mosta zafan. 65 These
events brought in a new political atmosphere in Tehran and set the scene
for the redrafting of the constitution. It had almost the character of a
coup. More confi dent now (though feeling the pressure from the leftists
and the Kurdish revolt), Khomeini and his followers were tightening their
grip:
Enqelab Street always was the busiest street, and all the political groups
brought their books and pamphlets there to sell to the people and discuss
them. Gradually the Hezbollah formed and they attacked the bookshops.
Those who were Hezbollah were mainly from a poor family background,
and because nobody could say anything against them, they fl ourished and
eventually ruled the revolution, mainly because everyone supported the poor
people. At the beginning of the revolution cleanliness, studying to have a
better life and money and so on, were considered as values, but being poor
was the greatest honour – people thought of them as the owners of the
revolution. 66
As the mood changed, the poet Ahmad Shamlu wrote the poem ‘In this
Dead End’, from which the following is an extract:
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Revolutionary Iran
They sniff your mouth
Lest you have said, ‘I love you.’
They sniff your heart.
These are strange times, my beloved . . .
And they whip love
At the roadblock.
We must hide love in the back room.
They keep the fi re burning
In this crooked dead end of the cold
With fuel of songs and poems.
Do not risk a thought.
These are strange times, my beloved . . . 67
Montazeri and Beheshti were elected as chairman and deputy chairman
of the Assembly of Experts respectively, and the Assembly set about
a thoroughgoing revision of the draft constitution. Beheshti ran the
debates and (despite protests) did so as a director of business pursuing a
previously determined plan rather than an impartial chairman facilitating
discussion. There could be no serious opposition. As the deliberations of
the Assembly went on, the concept of velayat- e faqih gained ground.
Beheshti did not force it initially, instead letting it emerge from the body
of the clerics in the Assembly. 68 Although the leftist parties, Shariatmadari
and many moderate and liberal politicians continued to voice their disapproval,
there was little sign of strong popular opposition to the concept
of velayat- e faqih . Given his previous caution, it seems likely that Khomeini
was surprised by the ease with which he was able to achieve his
principal aim. The moderate politicians, the heirs of Mossadeq and the
constitutionalists of 1906 , the people he had been accustomed to regarding
as the main political opponents to himself, his aims and the clerical
class as a whole, were conceding the central powers of the state to him
almost without a fi ght. And this was happening primarily because of the
continuing, enormous popular swell of support for him personally and
for the idea of Islamic government.
Mohammad Beheshti was fi fty- one years old in 1979 . He was born
in Isfahan and had studied at the University of Tehran as well as in
Qom. Like Montazeri and Motahhari, he had been one of Khomeini’s
students in Qom. He learned English, and later taught it; he was a fi rm
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
believer in the expansion of the seminary curriculum to include science
subjects and modern languages. From 1965 to 1970 he was head of the
Islamic Centre in Hamburg in Germany, organized around the Emam
Ali Mosque established there a decade earlier (Mohammad Khatami
followed him there later, in the 1970 s), and learned German too.
Beheshti was widely respected, a confi dent speaker and a practical
organizer. He was a natural as a political mullah – an easy choice as
leader of the IRP and for the most demanding tasks in the formation of
the Islamic republic. Along with Motahhari and Montazeri, he was one
of Khomeini’s principal and most trusted lieutenants in this early phase;
and of all of them he was the most competent in organizational and
practical matters.
The debates in the Assembly addressed some fundamental questions of
political philosophy, including the nature of sovereignty and the separation
of powers. Under Beheshti’s guidance the work proceeded in an orderly
manner, with each article of the constitution discussed and amended in
turn, and with a series of sub- committees discussing the articles separately
in advance of plenary sessions of the whole Assembly. But many sessions
grew heated (Khomeini’s injunction that non- jurists should not speak on
matters bearing upon Islam did not hold), and the debates were discussed
energetically in the broadcast and print media. The proceedings had initially
been planned to last one month, but when that time was up, the
Assembly were only halfway through. So they voted themselves more time.
One should not exaggerate the dominance of Khomeini and the IRP at
this stage. The Provisional Government’s draft was still the basis of the
constitution, and the principle of democratic sovereignty remained, albeit
in uneasy tension with the principle of divine sovereignty, velayat- e faqih .
At various points Khomeini’s supporters asserted strongly that there was
no confl ict between the democratic principle and the religious principle,
because the rule of Islam was itself, if properly applied, fully democratic.
At any rate, the principle of popular elections to the Majles and the presidency
survived.
Given the conceptual gap in Khomeini’s thinking identifi ed earlier,
as manifested in Hokumat- e Eslami , it is legitimate to question what
Beheshti and the other architects of the constitution were drawing on in
their discussions in the Assembly of Experts. It appears they may have
been drawing on a work by the Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Baqr
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Revolutionary Iran
al- Sadr, his Preliminary Legal Note on the Project of a Constitution for
the Islamic Republic in Iran . Mohammad Baqr al- Sadr came from a
prominent family of Iraqi clerics and seyyeds (Moqtada al- Sadr, who
came to prominence in Iraq after 2003 , was his son- in- law). Comparison
between Baqr al- Sadr’s Note and the constitution in its fi nal form shows
a number of strong similarities, and, in particular, the role for popular
suffrage is striking. By comparison with Khomeini, Baqr al- Sadr’s thinking
generally showed a greater awareness of Western ideas of political
thought, and a greater attachment to the principle of popular participation
in government. Hokumat- e Eslami contained little or no mention of
popular consultation in government, whereas in Baqr al- Sadr’s Note and
in the eventual constitution it is much more prominent. The articulation
of the role of the leader seems also to owe a lot to the Note . The strong
impression is that those framing the constitution reached for al-Sadr’s
Note to supply an Islamically acceptable remedy for the defi ciencies of
Hokumat- e Eslami . 69
The debates in the Assembly over the velayat- e faqih were the most
heated, and the crucial article declaring the authority of the faqih (article
5 ) was debated and voted on in early September. Only eight members
voted against; four abstained (including Bani- Sadr, who stayed away),
and the remainder voted in favour. The article declared that, in the absence
of the Hidden Emam, the velayat and the leadership of the people devolved
to ‘the just and pious faqih who is acquainted with the circumstances of
his age; courageous, resourceful, and possessed of administrative ability
. . .’. 70 In later articles ( 107 onwards, but mainly in article 110 ) he was
given sweeping powers that gave effect to the principle laid down in article
5 . He was to appoint the heads of each of the armed services, and the
joint chief of staff of the armed services, and the head of the Revolutionary
Guards. He had the responsibility for declaring war or peace and
ordering mobilization. He was also to appoint the head of the national
TV and radio organization. Before presidential elections, he had to
approve the candidates before they could run for offi ce and he could dismiss
a president declared incompetent by the Majles or Supreme Court.
As in the fi rst draft a twelve- man Guardian Council was provided for
to approve legislation agreed by the Majles before it could become law
(to ensure it complied with the principles of Islam and the constitution).
The faqih was to appoint six of them directly, and the remaining six
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
were to be selected by the Majles from a list of jurists compiled by the
Supreme Judiciary Council, most of whose members, including the head,
were also appointed by the faqih (the Guardian Council’s notorious
responsibility for vetting candidates before elections was not part of the
original constitution of 1979 , emerging only later). The question of the
succession was addressed in article 107 , which, after confi rming Khomeini
as faqih for life, stated that at his death a new Assembly of Experts
would deliberate whether any of the jurists available was outstanding
enough to be sole faqih . If not, they might select a three- or fi ve- man leadership
council of jurists instead.
Other articles in the constitution declared the primacy of Islam and the
sovereignty of God: article 2 / 1 declared ‘His exclusive sovereignty and the
right to legislate, and the necessity of submission to His commands.’
Freedoms of association and expression were protected (articles 26 and
24 ), but subject to Islam and the interests of the republic.
The constitution had a fairly standard governmental structure, with
executive, legislature and judiciary, and separation of the powers between
them, as clear as Montesquieu himself could have devised it. But above
and beyond this stood the faqih , with the power and the responsibility to
intervene directly in the name of Islam; indeed with powers greater than
those given to most monarchs in constitutional monarchies. Below the
faqih , the presidential and prime ministerial offi ces lingered as vestiges of
the superseded constitution originally drafted by the Provisional Government
(the prime minister was to be appointed by the president and
approved by the Majles).
Other signifi cant provisions included a mention in the preamble to the
constitution to the effect that the Sepah would be responsible inter alia
for ‘fulfi lling the ideological mission of jihad in God’s path; that is, extending
the sovereignty of God’s law throughout the world’, and again in
article 10 :
In accordance with the verse: ‘This your nation is a single nation, and I am
your Lord, so worship Me,’ all Muslims form a single nation, and the government
of the Islamic Republic of Iran has the duty of formulating its
general policies with a view to the merging and union of all Muslim peoples,
and it must constantly strive to bring about the political, economic and
cultural unity of the Islamic world.
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Revolutionary Iran
This was taken to signify a mission to spread the revolution to other
Islamic countries. 71
In article 1 the constitution declared the importance of the referendum
held at the end of March for establishing the Islamic republic, and article
6 established the principle of government according to public opinion as
expressed through elections for the Majles and the offi ce of president; but
neither of those articles mentioned sovereignty – sovereignty belonged to
God (article 2 / 1 , already quoted), in whose name and in the fulfi lment of
whose law the faqih was to operate. Although the constitution gave primacy
to the sovereignty of God, it effectively froze into itself an unresolved
rivalry between popular sovereignty and the sovereignty of Islam. At the
centre of this tension was the question of submission. Were the people the
masters, or were they subjects? The constitution, through the many elections
it provided for various bodies and offi ces, appeared to embrace a
democratic principle. But it also committed the Iranian people, in the
orthodox manner of the Islamic faith, to submission to Islam 72 and the
will of God; and to the guardianship of the faqih , according to that principle.
Underlying this was a deep- seated attitude among at least some of
the ulema – a traditional, conservative, paternalistic attitude – that the
people were children to be guided and disciplined, that they could not be
trusted with power (an attitude not unlike that of the Shah): ‘Several
members appeared uncertain whether the mass of the people, “illiterate,
poor and envious”, as one delegate put it, would be able to resist the
blandishments of rival religions and ideologies.’ 73
A few dissenting members of the Assembly, including three clerics,
warned of the dangers of giving the faqih such power in the state. Bani-
Sadr spoke up, warning: ‘We are drafting these articles in a manner that,
step by step, we introduce a kind of absolutism in the constitution . . .
Tomorrow, a military man might come and use these articles against
you.’ 74 Some pointed to the contradiction with the principle of popular
sovereignty, arguing that the powers of the faqih were just too broad:
critics would say that the clergy had made a power grab in their own
interest, and eventually the people would set aside these provisions of
the constitution. Others warned that, although the offi ce of the faqih
might function while Khomeini was the incumbent, it was unlikely that
such an exceptional candidate could possibly be found again when
Khomeini died. One member, Ezzatollah Sahabi, made a speech outside
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
the Assembly warning that these powers would bring upon the clergy
the kind of criticism normally levelled at politicians and would bring
about the beginning of the decline of Islam. 75
Years later, he would himself echo just those arguments, but in the
autumn of 1979 Ayatollah Hosein- Ali Montazeri took the other side in
the debate, saying that the government could not be considered Islamic if
the faqih did not have power to confi rm in offi ce and to supervise the
president and the other prime offi ce- holders of the state. Other clerics
could not see any danger from an over- mighty faqih – they believed rather
the contrary, that the offi ce of faqih would protect the country from
encroachment by an over- ambitious president or other politician. Like
the Prophet himself in his time, the faqih would bring mercy, kindness
and justice to the people, not tyranny or absolutism. 76 In a sense, Iran has
remained stuck ever since in the debate between Islam and democracy
that swung back and forth in the Assembly of Experts that autumn.
As the debates of September moved into October and the fi nal form of
the constitution took shape, some concerned politicians tried to act to
head off what was happening. One member of the Assembly, Mohammad-
Javad Hojjati- Kermani (one of the clerics, but a dissenter from the
majority line) suggested that a skeleton version of the constitution,
stripped of the more controversial articles, be passed to Khomeini himself
for revision. Then, with the guidance of expert advisers, Khomeini could
complete it before referring it back to the Assembly for fi nal approval.
But few other members of the Assembly supported his sug gestion, and it
faded. Then in mid- October Bazargan was associated with another
attempt, which seems to have taken the form of a memorandum to Khomeini
from most of the ministers of the Provisional Government, calling
for the Assembly to be dissolved, on the basis that in altering the original
draft constitution so radically it had exceeded both its remit and the time
allocated for its task. The instigator of the memorandum was Abbas
Amir- Entezam, who served as Bazargan’s aide, spokesman and deputy.
Khomeini rejected the initiative in apocalyptic terms, declaring that the
velayat-e faqih would not lead to dictatorship; nor was it the creation of
the Assembly of Experts: it had been ordained by God. Opposition to it
was equivalent to a declaration of war on Islam. 77
But opposition outside the Assembly was growing. Ayatollah Mahmud
Taleqani, who had played such a prominent part in the demonstrations
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Revolutionary Iran
against the Shah the previous year, and who had warned against a return
to despotism earlier in 1979 , expressed unhappiness about the way the
constitution was going before his death on 9 September 1979 , suggesting
that it looked worse than the constitution of 1906 – ‘may God forbid
autocracy under the name of religion’. 78 Some have been suspicious
about the circumstances of his death. His departure was another blow
for the advocates of moderation (to honour his memory the old Takht- e
Jamshid Avenue in Tehran was renamed Taleqani Avenue). But others too
disliked the constitution. The MKO , the Fedayan, the Kurds and other
regional groups were unhappy as the draft neared completion that the
constitution did not address their demands. In October, two years on
from the events that had helped to start up the revolutionary movement,
the Writers’ Association announced a new series of poetry evenings, to be
held from 24 October to 3 November, with the aim of defending free
speech and opposing censorship. But the organizers said it would only go
ahead if the safety of participants could be guaranteed. The poetry evenings
never happened. 79 Most seriously, Ayatollah Shariatmadari, with
his power base in Azerbaijan and the support of the MPRP , continued to
oppose the excesses of the IRP and Khomeini’s followers, and specifi cally
the principle of velayat- e faqih as it appeared in the constitution. In
December he warned: ‘We seem to be moving from one monarchy to
another.’ 80
So as the work of the Assembly neared completion (it brought its
deliberations to a close on 15 November), opposition to the constitution
it had created was building from a number of different angles. But
before that opposition could develop further or unite its strength, a
new crisis erupted, which would change the political scene in Iran permanently
and dramatically. On 1 November, Bazargan met Zbigniew
Brzezinski in Algiers, with Khomeini’s knowledge, in an attempt to
restore something like normal relations between Iran and the US (and
to secure resumption of the supply of military spare parts). He was
accompanied by Ebrahim Yazdi, as foreign minister. Over previous
days Khomeini had been building up anti- American rhetoric after the
Carter government allowed the Shah into the US for medical treatment
on 22 October (since his departure from Iran he had shuffl ed, his
health deteriorating all the time, from Egypt to Morocco, the Bahamas
and Mexico). Although initially the Shah’s arrival in the US won little
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
attention in Iran, Khomeini and his followers used it successfully to
create a furore, linking the news about the Shah with allegations that
friends of the Shah and the US were still active in the government and
among Khomeini’s opponents.
On the streets of Tehran at this time, the situation was chaotic and
uncertain. No one knew what to expect or who was in control. Two
accounts of this time illustrate this, from different perspectives – fi rstly
from Bill Belk in the US embassy:
the government had absolutely no control over what was happening . . .
Armed bands of revolutionary zealots were roaming the streets and taking
the law into their own hands. The police were powerless to stop them,
because the worst thing you could possibly be in Iran was a policeman . . .
Most of the people who had been policemen were in hiding. The streets were
literally turned over to these armed komitehs. Khomeini had appointed a
Provisional Government, but they didn’t have any real authority. The traditional
institutions through which a government administers and functions
were the very same institutions that were being attacked by the revolutionaries
and the vigilante groups . . . So dealing with the Provisional Government
was like trying to deal with a shadow –- you could see it, but talking to it
was pointless. In reality, there was no substance there. 81
Secondly from a student radical, Massoumeh Ebtekar:
We students couldn’t prove it at the time, of course, but we were sure that
foreign elements were actively involved in attempts to weaken and undermine
the young republic. Like weeds, thousands of tiny political groups had sprouted
during less than six months, each one attempting to convince the people to
adopt its views. Every day their newspapers circulated the wildest rumors. It
was as if they were determined to create an atmosphere of endless uncertainty.
Ethnic and tribal uprisings, which they rushed to support, broke out in all
regions of the country. And through it all the Provisional Government dithered
and wavered, with the result that security had almost collapsed. 82
To student radicals, the Shah’s presence in the US looked like part of
a plot. The timing was unfortunate for Bazargan’s mission, to say the
least. Many believed that the US , with the connivance of members of
the Provisional Government, was plotting a coup like that of 1953 , to
crush the revolution. A confederation of students loyal to Khomeini
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Revolutionary Iran
from the university- level institutions in Tehran, calling themselves ‘students
following the line of the Emam’ conferred rapidly, taking care to exclude
MKO activists or others they feared might try to sabotage their intentions. 83
On 4 November they broke into the US embassy, occupying the building
and detaining the diplomatic staff and marines they found there. Several
hundred unarmed students took part in the action. The marines brandished
their weapons, but did not shoot (though some tear gas grenades were let
off in the confrontation). As one of the students brushed past on the stairs,
he whispered to a jittery marine: ‘Don’t worry, you’re safe. We won’t hurt
anyone.’ 84 In fact several of the hostages were beaten and threatened over
the next few hours as the intruders interrogated them, trying to identify the
CIA offi cers among the staff and trying to get them to open safes. Six US
diplomats who were out of the embassy at the time were able to avoid
detention, taking refuge in the Canadian and Swiss embassies.
Bruce Laingen, who in the absence of an ambassador was chargé
d’affaires and head of mission, along with two others, was away on a call
at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when the embassy takeover began. He
went back to the Foreign Ministry to protest and demand redress and
ended up being held there instead of at the embassy. Once the students
were in control of the embassy compound, they issued a press communiqué
demanding that the ‘criminal, deposed Shah’ be returned to Iran.
Photos and TV images of the hostages, handcuffed and blindfolded, made
a deep impression in the US and the world generally.
The Hostage Crisis
Although some of the students believed on the day of the takeover that
their spiritual guide, Ayatollah Musavi-Khoeniha (a member of the IRP
central committee, another former student of Khomeini and a friend of
his son Ahmad), was attempting to inform Khomeini of the plan, there is
no direct evidence that Khomeini ordered the action or that any other
group or organization beyond that of the students themselves was
involved in the planning, such as it was. And it seems that the intention
of the students initially was just to stage a temporary protest of a few
hours or days. There are some indications 85 that Khomeini himself (still
in Qom), when fi rst told of the embassy occupation, saw the incident as
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
an unimportant act of unruliness and, as with the incident in February,
was inclined to see the students leave again quickly (this could have happened;
the following day there was a similar intrusion at the British
embassy which ended when Khomeini’s son Ahmad called it off). 86 But
the occupation was very much in line with the trend of Khomeini’s agitation
against the US over the preceding hours and days. Perhaps having
been reassured that the students involved were solidly loyal to him personally,
perhaps only when it became clear that the US and the West
would not threaten military action, 87 he decided that the occupation
should be supported, and should continue, at least in the short term. Early
on 5 November he made a statement saying that there had been plots
organized from the embassy, that it was a lair of espionage (also translated
as ‘den’ or ‘nest’ of spies) and hailing the students’ act as a second
revolution. 88 Later he told the students themselves ‘the Americans can’t do
a damn thing’, leading Iran into a twilight zone of diplomatic breakdown
and international isolation from which the country has never really
re-emerged.
Bazargan tried to defend his meeting with Brzezinski and demanded
the immediate release of the US diplomats, condemning the students’
action as an unacceptable violation of international law and the civilized
practices of diplomacy. But the atmosphere was febrile, and his reasonable
words disappeared in a welter of renewed demonstrations and shrill
anti- imperialist rhetoric, not just from the IRP but also from the MKO ,
the Fedayan and the other leftists, who strongly supported the occupation
of the embassy (playing into Khomeini’s hands and destroying any chance
of a united front against the constitution). On 5 November Beheshti,
Montazeri and a selection of other fi gures and bodies aligned with Khomeini
issued statements supporting the students. Outfl anked and fi nally
seeing the impossibility of his moderate position, Bazargan resigned on
6 November. In a speech addressed to visitors from Isfahan University
Khomeini commented: ‘Mr Bazargan is respected by everyone . . . He was
a little tired and preferred to stay on the sidelines for a while.’ 89
Within Iran, the taking of the hostages produced an atmosphere of
radicalism and crisis that renewed the revolutionary fervour of the previous
year. Khomeini succeeded in making his moderate opponents look
like allies of the US , and a threat to the revolution. This was helped
along by the release of documents captured in the US embassy that
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Revolutionary Iran
showed contacts between liberal fi gures and the US government (documents
that might have shown contact with IRP clerics did not surface).
The fi rst victim of the changed mood was Abbas Amir- Entezam, the
originator of the memorandum to Khomeini against the constitution. He
was arrested in mid- December, released, sent to Sweden as ambassador,
recalled and eventually, in 1981 , sentenced to life imprisonment (at the
time of writing he is still in prison, at the age of eighty).
In this atmosphere, the referendum on the constitution that was held
on 2 and 3 December could have only one result. It was boycotted by the
MPRP and the National Front, and participation was much lower than
in the referendum of March, but the fi gures announced gave only
30 , 866 votes against the constitution out of 15 million voters. 90
Shariatmadari continued to attack the constitution and the principle
of velayat- e faqih throughout the referendum campaign. There were
demonstrations by Khomeini supporters outside his house in Qom, and
demonstrations by his supporters against Khomeini in Tabriz, and later
in Qom also. For a time, Shariatmadari appeared to be growing into a
serious rival to Khomeini, at least in the important province of Azerbaijan
(Tabriz had long prided itself as the cornerstone of the Constitutional
Revolution, and as the most advanced city in Iran, where new developments
always appeared fi rst). The rivalry grew more heated. At one
point Khomeini apologized for the excesses of his supporters in Qom
and went to Shariatmadari in person to try to resolve the confl ict. But
the temperature in Tabriz rose still further, with demonstrations of
several hundred thousand, and fi nally some MPRP demonstrators took
over the TV and radio stations in Tabriz. Shariatmadari’s supporters
demanded the annulment of the constitution, the lifting of censorship
and the formation of a united front against the IRP . The CIR responded
by sending in the Sepah to take back the broadcasting stations, and
mediators to try to calm the situation. The IRP also staged pro- Khomeini
demonstrations in Tabriz. The huge pro- Shariatmadari demonstrations
continued, but Shariatmadari himself was unwilling to push further confrontation
into serious violence, and backed down. The student
hostage- takers and other pro- Khomeini groups were alleging that Shariatmadari
was in alliance with former SAVAK agents and the United
States – some MPRP supporters were arrested, tried by revolutionary
courts and executed for rioting. The IRP demanded that the MPRP
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
dissolve itself. Shariatmadari replied bitterly that there was no need,
since the government would gradually dissolve all political parties, labelling
them anti- Islamic, Zionist or American, so there was no need to
worry about it. Eventually, recognizing defeat, the MPRP complied,
before the new elections for the presidency, which took place on 25 January
1980 . 91
Shariatmadari’s bid to oppose the new constitution was the most
serious confrontation yet to threaten Khomeini’s supremacy. His timing
was bad, and his resolution in the struggle proved weak. He was a gentle
man, a spiritual leader and not really a politician – certainly not the sort
of ruthless politician Khomeini was proving himself to be. But his effort
emphasized that the instincts of the ulema as a class were still far from
uniformly in favour of the velayat- e faqih . There was still a deep well of
feeling for constitutional democracy among the Iranian people, and to
some extent even among the ulema ; albeit eclipsed for a time by revolutionary
fervour.
In the meantime the hostages were still being held in the embassy
building. As weeks lengthened into months the confi nement settled into a
routine. The hostages were blindfolded and handcuffed when they were
moved about or when they broke the rules. Senior Iranian fi gures visited
them, including Khalkhali (‘a short, fat little guy. He was trying to be
jovial’), 92 Montazeri and Khamenei. Those that had been identifi ed as
CIA offi cers, along with senior diplomats like John Limbert and Bruce
Laingen, were still subject to interrogation, held in isolation and sometimes
threatened, but for the most part the beatings stopped. One of the
CIA men, Bill Daugherty, realized that the interrogators were disappointed
with their investigations. They had discovered that there were
only four CIA men in the embassy and were incredulous that none of
them could speak Persian. Reports they had found indicated that the CIA
station was somewhat at sea in post- revolutionary Iran, fi nding it diffi cult
to make contact with useful informants and making ill- founded assessments
of the political situation. 93
An exception to the general routine of treatment was Michael
Metrinko, who had been a young political offi cer in the embassy. Unlike
most of the other members of the embassy, Metrinko had been tasked
with going out and meeting Iranians, but this was also his inclination.
Many of the other embassy staff, tending to be compound- bound like
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Revolutionary Iran
most expatriates in Iran at the time, had regarded him as something of an
eccentric. He met a wide variety of people, improved his Persian and developed
an appreciation of Iran and its culture. But this did not make him well
disposed toward the hostage-takers. Aside from the violation of standards
of international diplomacy, he regarded the students’ action as a violation
of Iranian cultural norms, morality and decency, and was able to tell the
students so in their own language. In blunt terms. For this he was treated
worse than any of the other hostages, all through the period of their detention.
He spent much of his time in solitary confi nement. He insulted
Khomeini, was beaten for it and on one occasion was kept handcuffed for
over three weeks. At Christmas 1979 , when other hostages were together,
eating a Christmas dinner provided by their captors, Metrinko was in solitary.
His guards brought him the same dinner. Metrinko took it and, in
their sight, fl ushed it down the toilet, further enraging them. 94 Because he
spoke Persian and because of his attitude, the students were convinced that
Metrinko belonged to the CIA . Massoumeh Ebtekar, one of the students
who later wrote an account of the hostage- taking, said of Metrinko that he
‘hated everyone and was hated in return. He preferred to stay alone and
bounce a ball against the wall of his room from morning until night.’ 95
The discussions between the hostages and the students were in a sense
the front line in the confrontation between the US and Iran. On this
front line, there was a near- total mutual failure of understanding. The
American hostages were naturally indignant and angry at their detention
and their treatment and could see no circumstances in which it
might be understandable (though there was a range of reactions to the
detention: some of the hostages were friendlier toward their captors and
one or two tried to ingratiate themselves). The Iranian students believed
what they had been told by Khomeini and the IRP leadership; that the
US embassy staff were mainly spies, plotting a coup, as in 1953 , to
reverse the success of the revolution. They knew the history of foreign
and US interference in Iran; the embassy offi cials were largely ignorant
of it. Some of the students had been prisoners themselves – prisoners of
SAVAK , who they believed (correctly) to have been trained and assisted
by the CIA . As time went on a few of the students doubted the wisdom
of the continuation of the hostage crisis, but most were fi rm supporters
to the end. A group of thirteen hostages, women and African Americans,
were released on 19 and 20 November 1979 as a goodwill gesture.
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
Another one was released in July 1980 because he was showing the
symptoms of serious illness (he was later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis).
The other fi fty- two hostages stayed in captivity.
Presidential Elections
The campaign for the Islamic republic’s fi rst presidential elections was an
untidy affair, and it took place for the most part against the background
of the continuing unrest in Azerbaijan. Khomeini realized the signifi cance
of the success he had achieved with the new constitution and again was
careful not to overreach. He ordered that clerics should not run for the
presidency, which was a disappointment for Beheshti, who otherwise
would have been a prime candidate. Bazargan might have run, but was
intimidated by the damaging fl ow of documents emerging from the occupied
US embassy. The MKO leader Masud Rajavi was vetoed by Khomeini
because his party had boycotted the referendum on the constitution, and
the IRP candidate Jalal od- Din Farsi had to drop out at a late stage
because it was realized that, with an Afghan father, his candidacy breached
the constitution’s requirement that the president must be an Iranian
national of Iranian origin. Out of the candidates that eventually went to
the vote, Abol Hassan Bani- Sadr won by a comfortable margin, helped
both by his known close relationship with Khomeini and his reputation
as a liberal, acceptable to the educated middle classes. He received
10 . 7 million of the 14 million votes cast. 96
Bani- Sadr was born in Hamadan in 1933 and came from a clerical
family like many other secular politicians, intellectuals and writers of
his generation. As a young man he had persuaded his father to let him
study at Tehran University rather than the Faiziyeh seminary in Qom,
and had studied law as well as theology. But he always kept a strongly
Islamic cast to his politics, even when he went to Paris to study in the
1960 s. He was inspired by Khomeini’s outspoken opposition to the
Shah in 1963 – 4 and by the radical politics in Europe of the later 1960 s,
and became a devoted opponent of the Shah. He also opposed the growing
American infl uence in Iran and the dominance of the US and Western
capitalism in the world and was an enthusiast for popular politics and
political freedom (some have suggested that his ideas came close to
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Revolutionary Iran
anarchism in their enthusiasm for individual liberty and their opposition
to most forms of authority). In the 1970 s he met Khomeini in Iraq,
and the two developed a close relationship, almost like father and son.
Bani- Sadr was associated early on with Mossadeq and the National
Front, and later with the Freedom Movement, but was independentminded
and not a little vain, regarding himself as a thinker and a force
in politics in his own right. He wrote extensively, notably a book on
Islamic economics, and developed his own theory of Islamic government
in which, somewhat different to that of Khomeini (but more like
that of Mohammad Baqr al- Sadr, the dominant marja in Najaf), there
was a much greater emphasis on popular sovereignty and the individual
Muslim’s right to interpret holy texts for himself, and to voice his own
opinion within the Islamic polity. 97 He was close again to Khomeini in
Paris in 1978 , accompanied him to Tehran in February 1979 and became
fi nance minister in Bazargan’s Provisional Government. After Bazargan’s
fall he was briefl y acting foreign minister under the authority of
the CIR before being elected president at the end of January. Bani- Sadr’s
Islamic liberal ideological background was similar to that of Bazargan.
But he was more individualistic, more self- assertive, more of a natural
political populist; and at least initially, he enjoyed a better relationship
with Khomeini.
Bani- Sadr came to the presidency with a confi dence in the mandate the
people had given him in the election, and a strong belief in himself. He
believed that the vote for him showed that popular feeling was swinging
against the IRP , which (given among other things the confused nature of
the election and the IRP ’s clumsy handling of it) was probably wrong. But
the beginning of his period of offi ce looked like another chance for the
moderates and liberals, for those who had hoped and believed that Khomeini
and the clerics would pull back from a forward role in politics and
leave the scene to secular politicians. It may be that Khomeini intended
this too, at least with half his mind, but when confl icts arose he felt compelled
to take greater control for himself and his supporters rather than
risk a reverse. At any rate, this was for him, Beheshti and their followers
a phase for consolidation after their success over the constitution.
Bani- Sadr frequently referred to himself as Iran’s fi rst freely elected president,
and this refl ected genuine enthusiasm about his election in
the country, from many sectors of opinion. He wanted as a priority to
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
rebuild the institutions of the state, disorientated by months of purges and
intimidation, and to bring the new institutions aligned with the IRP under
state control – including the student hostage- takers, who had become an
institution in their own right. He and his supporters were further encouraged
when Khomeini gave him the chairmanship of the CIR ( 7 February)
and delegated to him his powers as commander- in- chief of the armed
forces, including the Sepah ( 19 February). He was also given control of the
broadcasting services. Khomeini’s son Ahmad acted as a go- between, helping
Bani- Sadr to keep Khomeini’s trust, and Khomeini gave a New Year
message on 20 March that echoed many of Bani- Sadr’s ideas, including the
aim of bringing the revolutionary courts back within the structure of the
judicial system, the rebuilding of the armed forces, and a general call for a
return to normality and order in state and society. But Khomeini also made
Beheshti head of the judiciary, which meant that the most able IRP fi gure
was in position to resist any attempt to slacken the grip he, Khomeini and
his followers wanted shari‘a law to have over the country. 98 And of course,
the prime example of revolutionary disorder, the hostage crisis, continued.
Before he was elected president, Bani- Sadr had reacted to the occupation
of the US embassy with disapproval. As president, he had to moderate
his opposition to the students and their action, but he worked to resolve
the crisis and get the hostages returned to the US . On the US side, there
was frustration that the Carter administration could not fi nd an authoritative
interlocutor with whom to negotiate. Iranian demands that the
Shah be returned to Iran, that his wealth be returned too and that the US
should apologize for past crimes against the Iranian people were impossible
to contemplate. US offi cials might feel they were making progress,
only for their talks to be undercut by a new declaration from Khomeini.
Toward the end of February Bani- Sadr and his foreign minister, Qotbzadeh,
thought they had achieved the outlines of a deal through the
mediation of Olof Palme, nominated for the purpose by the UN . The deal
included a UN commission to visit Tehran to examine Iranian grievances
against the US . But just before the UN commission arrived, on 23 February
Khomeini made a statement announcing that a decision on the
hostages would have to be made by the new parliament, which would not
be elected until May, and the deal unravelled.
By March, Bani- Sadr was attempting to address the crisis indirectly
by trying to get the Shah extradited from Panama (the Shah had moved
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Revolutionary Iran
there from the US in December – he moved on to Egypt on 23 March
when he caught wind of the extradition attempt). In the Carter administration,
the view was that negotiation had failed and other methods
must now be attempted. On 25 March Carter sent Bani- Sadr a message
in which he said that unless the hostages were transferred to the control
of the Iranian government (as a necessary preliminary to their
release) by 31 March, the US government would take ‘additional nonbelligerent
measures’, 99 which were generally taken to mean additional
sanctions (the US had already, on 14 November, frozen 11 billion
dollars of Iranian assets in the US and had banned the import of
Iranian oil). 100
Operation Eagle Claw
On the evening of 24 April, eight US Navy Sea Stallion helicopters
took off from the USS Nimitz as it cruised in the Arabian Sea off the southern
coast of Iranian Baluchestan. They fl ew northwards and westwards
over the Iranian coast, at low level to avoid radar detection. Six C-
130 Hercules transports fl ew the same route, but originating further
south, from an air base on the island of Masirah, off the coast of Oman.
They were fl ying toward a point in the Iranian desert between Yazd and
the small town of Tabas, which was to be the base (‘Desert One’) in Iran
for an attempt by US special forces to rescue the hostages. The operation
was codenamed Eagle Claw. Preparations for it, on a contingency basis,
had begun the previous November.
Unfortunately for the mission, the helicopters fl ew into two dust
storms, which disorientated the pilots, seriously delayed their progress
and may have contributed to mechanical faults in the aircraft. One helicopter
(before encountering the dust) was forced to land with a suspected
crack to a rotor blade; its crew were picked up by one of the other helicopters.
Another turned back to the Nimitz when its instruments began
to malfunction in the dust storm (allegedly, according to one version, 101
caused by overheating after someone had dumped a fl ak jacket and a
duffel bag over a cooling vent). The remainder arrived safely at Desert
One a little later than the C- 130 s, only to discover that the hydraulic
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
system on another of the helicopters had developed an irreparable fault.
It had been decided in the planning of the operation that a minimum of
six helicopters were needed if the rescue was to have a chance of success.
Because there were now only fi ve left, the commander on the spot asked
permission to abort the operation, and this was granted from Washington,
after some hesitation (it has been suggested since that the commander
could have improvised and carried out a slimmed- down version of the
rescue plan).
But there was worse to come. As the aircraft manoeuvred in the dust
and darkness to organize refuelling for their return fl ight, one of the helicopters
crashed on to the top of one of the C- 130 transports, and both
aircraft began to burn. The thirty- nine soldiers inside the C- 130 rushed to
a rear door to escape, scrambling over the enormous fuel ‘bladder’ inside
the fuselage. They bunched up at the door as men ahead of them jumped
out, but kept their discipline and left smoothly and quickly, following the
drill for parachute jumps they had learned in training (one of them, who
had been asleep, thought in the confusion that it was a mid- air jump, and
hit the dirt in full spread- eagle free- fall position after a descent of about
six feet). In the heat of the fi res ammunition started to explode. Some of
the last men were badly burned as they made their way through the aircraft.
Most of them got out before the bladder blew up, throwing a fi nal
man out of the door with great force and tossing a great column of fl ame
up into the night sky. But fi ve air force crew members who did not make
it to the rear door died in the C- 130 , and three crew in the helicopter (the
pilot and co- pilot of the helicopter crew managed to escape). 102 The
remainder of the force, abandoning the other helicopters (which had been
damaged by fl ying fragments in the fi res and explosions), were able to fl y
safely back to Masirah. In obeying orders to leave as quickly as possible,
the helicopter crews abandoned classifi ed documents in the helicopters,
including detailed plans of the rescue mission itself.
The fi rst that the Iranian leadership knew of the failed mission came
when they were told that it had been announced on American TV . In his
role as the regime’s afi cionado of the macabre, Sadegh Khalkhali visited
the crash site in the desert and brought the bodies back to Tehran. He
gave a press conference in the occupied embassy and took a severed
hand and a wristwatch out of one of the body bags for the cameras
(there were nine bodies because an Iranian had also died at Desert
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Revolutionary Iran
One – the driver of a fuel tanker lorry that turned up unexpectedly at
the site. The US special forces had blown up the lorry to prevent it
escaping, and the driver had died in the explosion).
The failure of Operation Eagle Claw was a disaster in a series of ways.
In the immediate aftermath, most of the hostages were moved out of
Tehran to dispersed locations, making any repeat attempt at a rescue
effectively impossible. In Iranian politics, it appeared to confi rm the assertions
of the radicals – that the revolution was at risk from US interference
and that the Americans were incorrigibly disposed to interfere in Iran’s
internal affairs, using covert methods and military force if necessary. The
corollary was that it weakened yet further the position of the liberals and
moderates and intensifi ed fears about foreign agents at work within the
country. It was used to legitimate new rounds of purges and arrests; over
the following month there were a series of scares about invasion and
coups d’état from within the armed forces. 103
In the US , the debacle in the desert deepened the national humiliation
of the hostage crisis. It intensifi ed the bitter anger felt by Americans toward
the Islamic republic and, among the less refl ective, towards Iran and Iranians
in general. Carter himself believed that the failure of the hostage
rescue mission was a major contribution to his failure to secure re- election
for a presidential second term later in the year. 104 Memory of the hostage
crisis and the failed rescue has poisoned US – Iran relations ever since.
The rescue mission had been ambitious, to say the least of it. When the
decision to go ahead with it had been considered by President Carter and
the National Security Council on 22 March, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, General David Jones, had noted as he briefed Carter that
the plan was ‘exceptionally complex’ and said he felt better about the
viability of its individual parts than about the plan in its entirety. When
the decision to go ahead was made on 11 April its most trenchant critic,
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, was absent. It was decided because other
options appeared to have been exhausted. When Vance returned to Washington
a further meeting of the NSC was called to hear his objections, but
no one supported him. 105
The journey to Desert One should have been the easy part, in relative
terms. Getting from there to Tehran, getting to the embassy, killing
or disabling the student guards, fi nding, securing and removing
the hostages, then extracting them and all the military personnel
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
involved – all would have been tough tasks. Each stage, each task, had
to be completed successfully for the next to be possible. But for the
success of Israeli special forces in the rescue of hijacked passengers at
Entebbe four years earlier, Eagle Claw would probably not have been
attempted. Subsequent investigation by the Holloway Commission identifi
ed some of the fl aws in the planning and conduct of the operation.
These included an excessive emphasis on operational security which, for
example, had prevented pilots and crew from seeing the operations plan,
and especially the weather annex; it had also imposed strict radio silence,
which prevented aircraft crews from alerting each other to dangers and
problems as they arose. Given the remoteness of the regions over which
they were fl ying, complete radio silence was perhaps unnecessary. The
Commission also drew attention to the failure adequately to allow for or
to assess weather conditions, to command and control problems, and
the failure to remove classifi ed material before evacuation from Desert
One. After the failed mission, a Counter- Terrorism Joint Task Force was
set up – a tacit recognition that rivalry between the services had contributed
to the failure. Before Eagle Claw, each service had insisted that it
should participate, with the result that the mission had used Navy helicopters,
Marine helicopter pilots, Air Force C- 130 aircraft and pilots,
and troops from the Army’s newly established Delta Force. 106
Cultural Revolution and a Revolutionary Majles
The incursion of US special forces on Iranian territory added to the
growing atmosphere of tension in Tehran. Another contributory factor
to the tension, though relatively minor at fi rst, was a deterioration of
relations with Iraq, where Saddam Hussein had deposed Ahmad Hasan
al- Bakr and made himself president in July 1979 . Among other loose
talk from the revolutionaries about exporting revolution, some Iranians
had been saying that the new regime would no longer respect the
Algiers Accords of 1975 . Iran was believed to be backing various
Shi‘a opposition movements in the region, including in Iraq. In Iraq the
main vehicle for the Shi‘a opposition was the Da‘wa Party. Whether the
Iraqi government really felt threatened by such developments or used
them as an excuse, in early 1980 they arrested one of the two most
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Revolutionary Iran
prominent Shi‘a clerics in Iraq, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqr al- Sadr (he
had been arrested several times before). In response, in April there were a
series of bomb attacks against government targets in Iraq and assassination
attempts against two senior offi cials – including Tariq Aziz, who
was later to become Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister and right- hand
man. The Iraqi regime responded by murdering Mohammad Baqr al-
Sadr and his sister in prison. 107 Saddam Hussein also expelled a large
number of Iranians who had been living in Iraq (including some with
merely remote Iranian forebears or Iranian- sounding names).
Mohammad Baqr al- Sadr had been an important fi gure not just in
Iraq, but among Shi‘a Muslims generally. He had been in regular contact
with Khomeini and those around him, and Khomeini had been making
statements for the Shi‘a Muslims of Iraq in his support. We have already
considered his likely infl uence on the Iranian Constitution. Baqr al- Sadr’s
ideas were at variance with those of Khomeini in important ways. In particular,
he laid greater emphasis on popular sovereignty. Khomeini
announced Baqr al- Sadr’s death to Iranians in mid- April, prompting a
wave of outrage. There were, inevitably, comparisons drawn with the
martyrdom of Hosein at the hands of Yazid. Tension between Iran and
Iraq intensifi ed further.
Since February 1979 , as before that date, the universities had been a
focus for intense political and ideological debate. On his return, Khomeini
had praised the students for their activism against the Shah. In the
initial phase thereafter, the IRP was strong in the universities and came
out well in the lead in student elections. But by the early part of 1980 leftist
groups and parties, including the MKO , had supplanted the IRP in
such elections. The IRP appeared to be losing ground: the leadership
responded in April 1980 by closing the universities. Khomeini explained
later: ‘Universities were bastions of communists, and they were war
rooms for communists.’ Bani- Sadr, hoping to woo opinion in the IRP
and like them, seeing a chance to do down the leftists, supported the
closure. But predictably enough, his middle- class, liberal supporters
took a dim view of the closure of the universities, whatever the rationale
– the policy (along with other initiatives that came at the same time)
was given the unhappy epithet Cultural Revolution ( enqelab- e farhangi ).
Like other decisions Bani-Sadr made, it proved too clever by half, and
self- destructive. 108
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
To put in place the last blocks in the arch of government, elections for
the Majles were held in two stages in March and May 1980 . Candidates
who won an absolute majority succeeded in the fi rst round; the remainder
went to the second round, in which the candidate with the highest number
of votes was successful. But this procedure was criticized (by Bani- Sadr
among others) for favouring the IRP and tending to exclude candidates
from smaller parties, and there were other accusations of rigging, intimidation
and manipulation. Turnout was again relatively low, comparable
to that for the Assembly of Experts the previous year, at 10 . 8 million. The
result yielded a strongly pro- IRP Majles, with 130 IRP and IRP – affi liated
members out of 241 , 40 liberals and the remainder independents, many
of whom in practice followed the IRP lead. No MKO candidates were
elected. Elections were not held in many parts of Kurdestan because of
the continuing insurgency, and those Kurds who were elected did not take
up their seats. Some elected members were rejected by a credentials committee,
which was used by the IRP to exclude members they didn’t
approve of (one, Admiral Madani, who had previously run as a presidential
candidate against Bani- Sadr, had been accused of anti- revolutionary
activities in the press and left the country rather than face the committee).
Karim Sanjabi, the leader of the National Front, was rejected in this way.
Rafsanjani was elected speaker of the new Majles; a position he used
cleverly over the coming years to build a powerful position for himself
within the new system. 109
Ahead of the second round of elections, Bani- Sadr had struggled to be
allowed to elect his own choice of prime minister. He cast around desperately
for people who might be approved by Khomeini – at one stage he
even suggested Khomeini’s own son, Ahmad. But like the Americans, he
was told to wait until the new Majles convened. After it did, Bani- Sadr
chose a member of the IRP central committee; but having approved the
man as a possibility, the IRP then rejected him, and put forward
Mohammad- Ali Rajai instead.
Rajai was born in Qazvin in 1933 ; his father died when he was only
four years old. He had known Ayatollah Taleqani and was a close associate
of Mohammad Javad Bahonar and of Beheshti. He was a small
man, modest like many pious Iranians, with a quiet smile; a contrast to
the fl amboyant Bani- Sadr. He was a former schoolteacher, from a poor
family background; had been a member of the movement against the
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Revolutionary Iran
Shah and had been imprisoned before the revolution. He had little
reputation as an independent fi gure, but was trusted by the IRP
leadership for his loyalty. One could take him as typical of the new
class of politicians and administrators brought forward by the revolution;
people who, with few family connections and little wealth, would
never have had much chance to advance themselves under the Pahlavi
regime.
As Some Rise, Others Fall
For Rajai and many others like him, from humble backgrounds, who had
inserted themselves into the new institutions, the revolution had opened up
new opportunities. But for others, it had closed them down, and had turned
their previous achievements to nothing. Parviz Natel Khanlari was born in
1914 , the son of a government offi cial in Mazanderan. He studied Persian
literature at Tehran University, and taught in schools in Gilan after graduation,
before taking his doctorate (entitled ‘Critical Research into the
Development of the Use of Rhyme and Metre in the Persian Ghazal’) and
doing his military service. He then started teaching at Tehran University. In
the 1930 s he published poems and prose works, as well as academic studies
in the fi elds of literature and linguistics, and was associated with the innovatory
Rab‘eh circle of writers (named after the Arabic word for four)
founded by Sadegh Hedayat. Khanlari was the editor of the important literary
journal Sokhan from the 1940 s until 1979 . During the reign of
Mohammad Reza Shah he was governor of Azerbaijan for a time, as well
as keeping his professorship at the University of Tehran. He was later minister
for education and the head of a variety of educational and cultural
institutions – most notably the Iranian Cultural Foundation. His most lasting
achievement was perhaps his work on the collected poems ( Divan ) of
Hafez, which culminated in what is still the defi nitive scholarly edition of
Hafez.
After the revolution Sokhan ceased publication, the Iranian Cultural
Foundation was closed, its functions merged with other bodies, and
Khanlari was imprisoned for a time by revolutionary courts as a functionary
of the previous regime. His house was confi scated, and when he
was released he was poor and ill. He died in September 1990 . 110 For
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Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
every Rajai who rose, there was a Khanlari who fell; executed, exiled,
imprisoned or left in limbo to waste away.
After two months of impasse over Rajai’s appointment, Khomeini
intervened, and Bani- Sadr accepted Rajai as prime minister in August.
The two men then disagreed over the appointment of ministers to the
cabinet: most of Rajai’s suggestions were again associates of Beheshti and
Bahonar – most of them young, idealistic university graduates (Mir
Hosein Musavi was one of them). The arguments rolled on for months:
Bani- Sadr accepted fourteen of Rajai’s ministers in September, a few more
in December and another in March 1981 ; but some of the posts were not
fi lled at all before Bani- Sadr fell from offi ce. The dispute set a timewasting
precedent that has become a dismal tradition in Iranian politics.
By insisting on his authority in the matter, Bani- Sadr helped to discredit
his presidency. 111
Over the fi rst half of 1980 Bani- Sadr’s attempts to curb the revolutionary
courts and to bring them (and the komiteh ) within the state- controlled
justice system faltered and failed. Despite criticism of the abuses and
injustices of the courts by important fi gures like Ayatollah Ali Qoddusi,
and some apparently helpful support from Beheshti and Montazeri, they
were able to resist assimilation and avoid abolition. Khomeini himself
declared that the revolutionary courts should continue until the justice
system as a whole was made compatible with the shari‘a, and Beheshti set
about a reform of the legal codes to bring this about. In some regions,
revolutionary courts actually targeted offi cials of the state justice system.
There were many allegations of corruption, especially over the confi scation
of property. The Bonyad- e Mostazafan was a prime benefi ciary of
property confi scations. 112 In fact, in important respects, the duality in Iranian
law has never been removed. Individual clerical judges, or even
clerics outside the justice system altogether, may still make judgements
that disregard the provisions of the legal code, but which nonetheless
carry the force of law.
Another feature of the so- called Cultural Revolution was a ferocious
anti- narcotics campaign, which Bani- Sadr also supported. He appointed
Khalkhali to pursue it; given the reputation Khalkhali had already
acquired, this was a sign of earnest intent. Hundreds of executions followed,
and because of the devolved and disorganized arrangement of
the revolutionary courts, it proved diffi cult to stop or abate them once
Axworthy, M. (2013). Revolutionary iran : A history of the islamic republic. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
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184
Revolutionary Iran
the campaign had begun. The ease with which death sentences were
passed habituated the courts to a mode of conduct in which other crimes
or sins were punished similarly harshly, which again fed on the prevailing
fevered atmosphere of exaggerated rhetoric and heightened emotions.
Men and women were executed for sexual offences, political dissent and
perceived anti- revolutionary activities. At least 580 people were executed
between February 1980 and January 1981 – the most intense period
being between May and September. As unease grew among the leadership
over the scale of the killings, Khalkhali was forced to resign by
Beheshti and Bani- Sadr in December; but as with Al Capone, the offi cial
reason given was fi nancial irregularities rather than his homicidal
activities. 113
Plot, Purge and Conflict
The mood of crisis and paranoia came to a climax in high summer. A
revolutionary tribunal had been set up under Hojjatoleslam Mohammad
Reyshahri (who later became minister of intelligence) to try cases
of old- regime allegiance and anti- revolutionary activity in the military.
In June Reyshahri announced a coup attempt that had been organized
around the Piranshahr base in West Azerbaijan, predominantly a Kurdish
area. The plot, such as it was, seems to have been primarily related to
the continuing Kurdish revolt. But Reyshahri did his best to infl ate its
signifi cance. It was probably not directly related to a much more serious
attempt that came to light in July. This involved several hundred military
personnel, including air force, army and former Imperial Guard and
SAVAK offi cers; acting in concert with Shapur Bakhtiar, who by this
time was in Baghdad. Their plan included a devastating strike on Khomeini’s
residence at Jamaran in north Tehran by F- 4 Phantom aircraft
with anti- personnel bombs, to be carried out by aircraft from Nozheh
air force base near Hamadan (this base was chosen because aircraft at
other bases had been disarmed deliberately to prevent them taking part
in a coup attempt). The aim of the coup was to kill Khomeini and arrest
the other revolutionary leaders, put Bakhtiar back in power on a provisional
basis and conduct a new, free referendum to select the form of
government.
Axworthy, M. (2013). Revolutionary iran : A history of the islamic republic. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
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185
Like the Person He Ought to Be: Islamic Republic, 1979– 80
Recent investigation 114 has shown that the Nozheh coup plot was
serious, that it was backed by Iraq and Iraqi money, and that Iraqi plans
to invade Iran, which may have been ready as early as October 1979 ,
were probably delayed to give the coup a chance. But the plot was prevented
by a series of arrests outside the airbase just as it was about to
take effect on the night of 9 / 10 July. Altogether 300 or more military
personnel were arrested and put on trial, including two air force generals,
Brigadier General Ayat Mohagheghi 115 and Brigadier General Saied
Mehdiyoun. It is not clear by what means the revolutionary government
were warned of the coup, but so many people were involved that it is not
surprising that there were leaks. One version suggests that Israeli intelligence
found out details of the plan earlier in the day on 9 July, and the
Israeli government passed these on to the Iranian regime, making the
arrests possible at the last minute. This might seem implausible, although
it would fi t with other Israeli behaviour at this time – Israeli leaders saw
Iraq as a greater threat to their interests than Iran, and despite the revolutionary
government’s anti- Zionist rhetoric, were hoping to rebuild
good relations with the Iranians. But for the tip- off to have been made
in this way, the information would have had to have passed from an
informant to the Israeli government, to the Iranian regime and onward
to the Sepah in Hamadan, all within three hours, which seems too short
a time. 116
Rafsanjani, as speaker of the Majles, blamed the National Front for
involvement in the plot (building on the connection with Bakhtiar).
Hezbollahis duly sacked their offi ces and closed down their newspaper,
effectively putting an end to the Front, the creation of Mossadeq, as an
active political organization. Unlike some of the scares that had been
put about since April, the July plot was genuine, with broad ramifi cations
across the armed forces, but the response to it was nonetheless
extreme, and damaging: 144 participants were executed, and investigations
and purges in the armed forces went on for weeks. Just over a
week later, Bakhtiar narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in
Paris. 117 It has been estimated that the purges, in one form or another,
affected as many as 4 , 500 military personnel, mainly air force, mainly
offi cers. The effect within the armed forces was highly disruptive and
demoralizing, at what turned out to be a crucial juncture. Bani- Sadr
called for moderation and presented himself as a protector of the military;
Axworthy, M. (2013). Revolutionary iran : A history of the islamic republic. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
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186
Revolutionary Iran
but the IRP and the leftists pressed for more sweeping purges and began
to associate Bani- Sadr with the doubtful loyalty of the military to the
revolution.
Later the same month, on 27 July, the former Shah fi nally died, in
Egypt. Just under two months after that, on 22 September, Iraq in –
vaded Iran.
Axworthy, M. (2013). Revolutionary iran : A history of the islamic republic. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Created from apus on 2019-11-27 06:57:40.
Copyright © 2013. Oxford University Press, Incorporated. All rights reserved.

What further information would you like to know? How does the process of searching for the evidence inform your practice?

Assignment guidelines – Introduction to Evidence based practice

A 3,000-word written assignment

Select a research question relating to your field of nursing from the list on Moodle. Conduct a literature search using the skills developed during the module. Explain and reflect on the literature searching process and include a table of the search terms used. Choose 5-6 articles related to the question from the search and describe them, comment on why you chose them, their findings and their relevance to your nursing practice.

100% Weighting

40% Pass Mark

Introduction (approx. 300-400 words)

Introduce the assignment and outline clearly what you aim to do.

Tell the reader what will be included in the assignment and in what order.

Introduce, define and discuss the importance of evidence based practice in relation to your field of nursing including the use and definition of evidence based practice models

Search (approx. 800 words)

Introduce your search terms.

Outline how you performed your literature search i.e what databases you used, inclusion and exclusion criteria, any other filters used and provide rationale for these decisions with references.

Outline how you identified your key articles. Include enough detail so that your search could be conducted by the person reading it.  Include a copy of your search in the appendices

Discussion (approx. 1000 -1200 words)

Give an overview of the key articles in detail, using the following questions;

What were the studies about?

How were they conducted?

What did they find?

Remember to use research terminology e.g. quantitative, qualitative and provide definitions to explain these terms.

Conclusions (approx. 200-300 words)

This should summarise how you conducted the literature search and the results that you found as well as the key points from your articles.

Revisit the original research question to ensure this has been answered.

Implications for practice (approx. 200-300 words)

Outline the implications for your practice as a nurse. What has the evidence added to your knowledge base? What further information would you like to know? How does the process of searching for the evidence inform your practice? Were there gaps in the evidence?

References

Reference the assignment throughout using the LSBU-HARVARD system, including a reference list.

Appendices

Add this table here, label it and refer to it in the text

Database Searched

 

Date Searched Search Strategy Used

(Keywords, phrases, subject terms)

Limits

(Date range, language)

No. Results Notes

Search strategy saved (name)?

Authors for future searches?

           
           
           
           

 

General tips:

 

  • Succinct writing: keeping within the word limit (3000 words +/- 10%)
  • Good, clear presentation with correct grammar and spelling
  • Use supporting references for the points that you make.
  • All work must use font size 12 with double spacing
  • Avoid using the first person

 

 

Coaching Behaviors Questionnaire:What is your country of origin?What is your job role?

Coaching Behaviors Questionnaire
PsycTESTS Citation:
de Haan, E., & Nilsson, V. O. (2017). Coaching Behaviors Questionnaire [Database record]. Retrieved from
PsycTESTS. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/t65300-000
Instrument Type:
Inventory/Questionnaire
Test Format:
The Coaching Behaviors Questionnaire has 72 total items, consisting of 18 forced-choice questions, each having 4
answering categories (the user needs to distribute exactly 10 points over the four categories in such a way that they
correspond as much as possible with how they coach—or, in the feedback questionnaire, how they perceive their
coach/consultant/manager is coaching them).
Source:
de Haan, Erik, & Nilsson, Viktor O. (2017). Evaluating coaching behavior in managers, consultants, and coaches: A
model, questionnaire, and initial findings. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, Vol 69(4), 315-333.
doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cpb0000099
Permissions:
Test content may be reproduced and used for non-commercial research and educational purposes without seeking
written permission. Distribution must be controlled, meaning only to the participants engaged in the research or
enrolled in the educational activity. Any other type of reproduction or distribution of test content is not authorized
without written permission from the author and publisher. Always include a credit line that contains the source citation
and copyright owner when writing about or using any test.
PsycTESTS™ is a database of the American Psychological Association
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/t65300-000
You are asked to complete this questionnaire on your coaching style in helping conversations. It lists a number
of different ways in which you might act, and asks you to indicate how you tend to act with people as a coach.
You can in principle complete this questionnaire both when you are a qualified (internal or external) executive
coach and when you are a leader or manager, thinking about how you coach others inside your department or
organization, and direct reports.
What is your job role?
❍ Manager (1)
❍ Coach (2)
❍ Consultant (3)
What is your gender?
❍ Male (1)
❍ Female (2)
What is your age?
❍ Under 20 (1)
❍ 21–25 (2)
❍ 26–30 (3)
❍ 31–35 (4)
❍ 36–40 (5)
❍ 41–50 (6)
❍ 51–55 (7)
❍ 56–60 (8)
❍ 61 (9)
What is your country of origin?
Instructions
Listed below are many different ways in which you may act with people as a coach. In the following sets of four
statements, please distribute 10 points over each set, according to how you tend to act with people as a coach.
Please always use all 10 points. You may use zeros, if you feel they are appropriate.
None of these behaviors are good or bad in themselves. So there are no “right” or “wrong” answers. Don’t spend
too long considering your replies: a quick spontaneous answer is likely to be the most valuable. You will get the
most benefit from this exercise if you are completely honest. The questionnaire should take approximately 15
minutes to complete.
Please answer with respect to “how you tend to act with people as a coach” rather than “how you prefer to act.”
Coaching Behaviors Questionnaire
CBQ
PsycTESTS™ is a database of the American Psychological Association
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/t65300-000
Coaching Behaviors Questionnaire
CBQ
Example
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
a _0_ sit still and listen
b _6_ formulate and summarize their goals
c _2_ ask them what they would advise themselves
d _2_ give my own view
_______________________
Total _10_
Questionnaire
Please distribute 10 points over each statement and please answer with respect to “how you tend to act with
people as a coach” rather than “how you prefer to act.”
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
1a. let them know how a task, meeting, or job can be done really well _____
1b. capture my understanding of what they say in a model _____
1c. give constructive feedback regarding their mistakes or issues _____
1d. ask them how they feel about a current difficulty _____
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
2a. share my understanding of opportunities to learn and improve _____
2b. tell them how to get started on a task _____
2c. encourage them to feel good about themselves _____
2d. let them get on with finding their own answers _____
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
3a. note areas where I see room for improvement _____
3b. encourage them to express their feelings and emotions _____
3c. ask for their interpretation of a particular situation _____
3d. show my willingness to help _____
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
4a. say, “What else would you like to cover?” _____
4b. say, “You come across to me differently, namely. . .” _____
4c. say, “I would suggest you do . . .” _____
4d. check the logic of a statement _____
PsycTESTS™ is a database of the American Psychological Association
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/t65300-000
Coaching Behaviors Questionnaire
CBQ
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
5a. say, “To my knowledge. . .” _____
5b. say, “How does it feel to talk about this?” _____
5c. say, “How can I help you with this?” _____
5d. make suggestions regarding “homework” for the next meeting _____
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
6a. offer positive and affirming feedback _____
6b. point out that they could look at the issue in a different way _____
6c. help them to express more personal insights or feelings _____
6d. advise them of what action to take _____
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
7a. reveal how I may be affected in our relationship _____
7b. ask them what next to explore _____
7c. challenge them on the consequences of their actions _____
7d. explain what is known about a task _____
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
8a. check whether I am being helpful _____
8b. ask for desired outcomes for the meeting _____
8c. raise what sense I am getting of how they are in the here and now _____
8d. tell them where to go to find information and help _____
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
9a. help them to reflect on their experiences _____
9b. express willingness to support them _____
9c. advocate a particular solution or approach _____
9d. make them aware of what they could consider changing _____
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
10a. give them honest feedback about the impact of their behavior _____
10b. show them how to correct their mistakes _____
10c. use a model to summarize their queries or issues _____
10d. be honest about my warmth and care _____
PsycTESTS™ is a database of the American Psychological Association
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/t65300-000
Coaching Behaviors Questionnaire
CBQ
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
11a. help them to recognize their own emotions and how these impact on their work _____
11b. challenge them when they are possibly being defensive _____
11c. indicate it might be a good idea to change _____
11d. listen deeply as they review their issues or experiences _____
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
12a. persuade them to take a particular approach _____
12b. ask them how they can apply what they have learnt _____
12c. sum up what choices they seem to have _____
12d. speak with them about their emotions, e.g. of being upset or angry _____
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
13a. show them how their views can possibly be contradicted _____
13b. offer an explanation of what has happened _____
13c. ask them how they feel about their success _____
13d. offer them support when they are in difficulties _____
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
14a. provide opportunities for them to open up more personal queries _____
14b. give them an example of how I would approach the issue _____
14c. appreciate the value of their ideas, beliefs, opinions _____
14d. ask open questions to promote new insights _____
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
15a. give information about my own experience _____
15b. welcome them as a person _____
15c. help them to state their present understanding of the issues _____
15d. challenge what they are saying _____
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
16a. recommend how to approach or do something _____
16b. give them information that they may use to achieve a task _____
16c. if they are negative or pessimistic, confront them with a positive angle _____
16d. ask them how they feel about a problematic issue _____
PsycTESTS™ is a database of the American Psychological Association
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/t65300-000
Coaching Behaviors Questionnaire
CBQ
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
17a. encourage them to find their own solutions and answers _____
17b. show genuine appreciation for a job well done _____
17c. point to information which may be relevant _____
17d. propose what I believe to be the best course of action _____
“When working with people as a coach, I tend to do the following . . .”
18a. make myself accessible to them when needed _____
18b. ask them to express feelings which may be blocking them _____
18c. inquire into what they want to achieve _____
18d. challenge them about what they may be avoiding _____

What specific techniques have you used to overcome barriers to communication?

The Research Paper will be a comprehensive research review of the significant principles of management communications used to successfully achieve organizational objectives. For this assignment of a minimum of eight pages, you need to integrate material from the readings, multimedia, and class discussion boards, and also reflect on professional experience where possible. It is mandatory to include research from the classroom text as well as from six scholarly sources to support your views. Consider the validity of your resources carefully before using them in academic papers. Use at least one professional example to address the topics below.

The following components must be included in order for the paper to be complete:

Explain effective communication norms in a business setting.
Describe the role of interpersonal communication both as a manager and as an employee. What specific techniques have you used to overcome barriers to communication? Be sure to specify your role in the communication.
Explore the role of international and intercultural interpersonal communications in today’s global businesses.
Describe both verbal and nonverbal management communication.
Explain approaches for effective written management communication.
Analyze various approaches for engaging an audience during a presentation and encouraging active listening.
Describe effective methods of conflict resolution.
Analyze techniques for leading teams and group meetings.

Describe at least three interpretations (each) of the concepts of leadership and management.

AVADO Learning Limited. Registered in England with number 06177616.
Registered office: Landmark House, Hammersmith Bridge Road, London, W6 9EJ. VAT Registration number: 918560018.
Authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority – Interim Permission Number 611566
5LMS ILD114001
CIPD Candidate Assessment Activity
Title of unit/s Developing Leadership & Management Skills
Unit No/s 5LMS
Level 5
Credit value 6
Assessment method(s) 1. Essay
Learning outcomes Assessment criteria
1 Understand the distinction between
leadership and management.
1.1 Describe a range of meanings attached to
the concepts of leadership and
management.
1.2 Justify distinctions drawn between
leadership and management.
2 Be able to explain different approaches to
developing leaders and managers and the
role of the learning and development
function.
2.1 Evaluate a range of approaches for
developing leaders and managers.
2.2 Discuss the role of the L&D function in
providing leadership and management
development.
3 Understand how to ensure the ownership
and success of leadership and
management development programmes.
3.1 Identify indicators of success for
leadership and management development
programmes.
3.2 Justify methods to ensure the success of
leadership and management development
programmes.
Assessment brief/activity Assessment
Criteria
1.1
1.2
2.1
2.2
3.1
3.2
Drawing on the literature and/or current organisational practice, write an essay where
you should:
• Describe at least three interpretations (each) of the concepts of leadership and
management.
• Explain and justify distinctions drawn between the concepts of leadership and
management.
• Evaluate at least four different approaches for developing leaders and managers
• Provide at least five examples of how the L&D function can support leadership and
management development
• Identifies at least four indicators of success for leadership and management
development programmes
• Provide a rationale for at least three methods to ensure the success of leadership
and
management development programmes
AVADO Learning Limited. Registered in England with number 06177616.
Registered office: Landmark House, Hammersmith Bridge Road, London, W6 9EJ. VAT Registration number: 918560018.
Authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority – Interim Permission Number 611566
Evidence to be produced/required
A written essay of 3,000 words +/- 10%
All reference sources should be acknowledged correctly, and a bibliography provided where appropriate (these should be excluded from the word count).

When you first met me, what was your impression? In terms of physical characteristics.

Contents
Authors’ Note
Introduction
THE FIRST NIGHT:
Deny Trauma
The Unknown Third Giant
Why People Can Change
Trauma Does Not Exist
People Fabricate Anger
How to Live Without Being Controlled by the Past
Socrates and Adler
Are You Okay Just As You Are?
Unhappiness Is Something You Choose for Yourself
People Always Choose Not to Change
Your Life Is Decided Here and Now
THE SECOND NIGHT:
All Problems Are Interpersonal Relationship Problems
Why You Dislike Yourself
All Problems Are Interpersonal Relationship Problems
Feelings of Inferiority Are Subjective Assumptions
An Inferiority Complex Is an Excuse
Braggarts Have Feelings of Inferiority
Life Is Not a Competition
You’re the Only One Worrying About Your Appearance
From Power Struggle to Revenge
Admitting Fault Is Not Defeat
Overcoming the Tasks That Face You in Life
Red String and Rigid Chains
Don’t Fall for the “Life-Lie”
From the Psychology of Possession to the Psychology of Practice
THE THIRD NIGHT:
Discard Other People’s Tasks
Deny the Desire for Recognition
Do Not Live to Satisfy the Expectations of Others
How to Separate Tasks
Discard Other People’s Tasks
How to Rid Yourself of Interpersonal Relationship Problems
Cut the Gordian Knot
Desire for Recognition Makes You Unfree
What Real Freedom Is
You Hold the Cards to Interpersonal Relationships
THE FOURTH NIGHT:
Where the Center of the World Is
Individual Psychology and Holism
The Goal of Interpersonal Relationships Is a Feeling of Community
Why Am I Only Interested In Myself?
You Are Not the Center of the World
Listen to the Voice of a Larger Community
Do Not Rebuke or Praise
The Encouragement Approach
How to Feel You Have Value
Exist in the Present
People Cannot Make Proper Use of Self
THE FIFTH NIGHT:
To Live in Earnest in the Here and Now
Excessive Self-Consciousness Stifles the Self
Not Self-Affirmation—Self-Acceptance
The Difference Between Trust and Confidence
The Essence of Work Is a Contribution to the Common Good
Young People Walk Ahead of Adults
Workaholism Is a Life-Lie
You Can Be Happy Now
Two Paths Traveled by Those Wanting to Be “Special Beings”
The Courage to Be Normal
Life Is a Series of Moments
Live Like You’re Dancing
Shine a Light on the Here and Now
The Greatest Life-Lie
Give Meaning to Seemingly Meaningless Life
Afterword
About the Authors
Authors’ Note
Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler are all giants in the world of psychology. This book is a
distillation of Adler’s philosophical and psychological ideas and teachings, taking the form of a narrative
dialogue between a philosopher and a young man.
Adlerian psychology enjoys a broad base of support in Europe and the United States, and presents
simple and straightforward answers to the philosophical question: How can one be happy? Adlerian
psychology might hold the key. Reading this book could change your life. Now, let us accompany the
young man and venture beyond the “door.”
On the outskirts of the thousand-year-old city lived a philosopher who taught that the world was simple
and that happiness was within the reach of every man, instantly. A young man who was dissatisfied with
life went to visit this philosopher to get to the heart of the matter. This youth found the world a chaotic
mass of contradictions and, in his anxious eyes, any notion of happiness was completely absurd.
Introduction
YOUTH: I want to ask you once again; you do believe that the world is, in all ways, a simple place?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, this world is astonishingly simple and life itself is, too.
YOUTH: So, is this your idealistic argument or is it a workable theory? What I mean is, are you saying that
any issues you or I face in life are simple too?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, of course.
YOUTH: Alright then, but let me explain why I have come to visit you today. Firstly, I want to debate this
with you until I am satisfied, and then, if possible, I want to get you to retract this theory.
PHILOSOPHER: Ha-ha.
YOUTH: Because I have heard all about your reputation. The word is that there is an eccentric philosopher
living here whose teachings and arguments are hard to ignore, namely, that people can change, that the
world is simple and that everyone can be happy. That is the sort of thing I have heard, but I find that view
totally unacceptable, so I wanted to confirm things for myself. If I find anything you say completely off,
I will point it out and then correct you . . . But will you find that annoying?
PHILOSOPHER: No, I would welcome the opportunity. I have been hoping to hear from a young person
just like you and to learn as much as possible from what you can tell me.
YOUTH: Thanks. I do not intend to dismiss you out of hand. I will take your views into consideration and
then look at the possibilities that present themselves. ‘The world is simple and life is simple, too’—if there
is anything in this thesis that might contain truth, it would be life from a child’s point of view. Children
do not have any obvious duties, like paying taxes or going to work. They are protected by their parents
and society, and can spend days free from care. They can imagine a future that goes on forever and do
whatever they want. They don’t have to see grim reality—they are blindfolded. So, to them the world
must have a simple form. However, as a child matures to adulthood the world reveals its true nature.
Very shortly, the child will know how things really are and what he is really allowed to do. His opinion
will alter and all he will see is impossibility. His romantic view will end and be replaced by cruel realism.
PHILOSOPHER: I see. That is an interesting view.
YOUTH: That’s not all. Once grown up, the child will get entangled in all kinds of complicated
relationships with people and have all kinds of responsibilities thrust upon him. That is how life will be,
both at work and at home, and in any role he assumes in public life. It goes without saying that he will
become aware of the various issues in society that he couldn’t understand as a child, including
discrimination, war, and inequality, and he will not be able to ignore them. Am I wrong?
PHILOSOPHER: It sounds fine to me. Please continue.
YOUTH: Well, if we were still living at a time when religion held sway, salvation might be an option
because the teachings of the divine were everything to us. All we had to do was obey them and
consequently have little to think about. But religion has lost its power and now there is no real belief in
God. With nothing to rely on, everyone is filled with anxiety and doubt. Everyone is living for
themselves. That is how society is today, so please tell me—given these realities and in the light of what I
have said—can you still say the world is simple?
PHILOSOPHER: There is no change in what I say. The world is simple and life is simple, too.
YOUTH: How? Anyone can see that it’s a chaotic mass of contradictions.
PHILOSOPHER: That is not because the world is complicated. It’s because you are making the world
complicated.
YOUTH: I am?
PHILOSOPHER: None of us live in an objective world, but instead in a subjective world that we ourselves
have given meaning to. The world you see is different from the one I see, and it’s impossible to share your
world with anyone else.
YOUTH: How can that be? You and I are living in the same country, in the same time, and we are seeing
the same things—aren’t we?
PHILOSOPHER: You look rather young to me, but have you ever drunk well water that has just been
drawn?
YOUTH: Well water? Um, it was a long time ago, but there was a well at my grandmother’s house in the
countryside. I remember enjoying the fresh, cold water drawn from that well on a hot summer’s day.
PHILOSOPHER: You may know this, but well water stays at pretty much the same temperature all year
round, at about sixty degrees. That is an objective number—it stays the same to everyone who measures
it. But when you drink the water in the summer it seems cool and when you drink the same water in the
winter it seems warm. Even though it’s the same water, at the same sixty degrees according to the
thermometer, the way it seems depends on whether it’s summer or winter.
YOUTH: So, it’s an illusion caused by the change in the environment.
PHILOSOPHER: No, it’s not an illusion. You see, to you, in that moment, the coolness or warmth of the
well water is an undeniable fact. That’s what it means to live in your subjective world. There is no escape
from your own subjectivity. At present, the world seems complicated and mysterious to you, but if you
change, the world will appear more simple. The issue is not about how the world is, but about how you
are.
YOUTH: How I am?
PHILOSOPHER: Right . . . It’s as if you see the world through dark glasses, so naturally everything seems
dark. But if that is the case, instead of lamenting about the world’s darkness, you could just remove the
glasses. Perhaps the world will appear terribly bright to you then and you will involuntarily shut your
eyes. Maybe you’ll want the glasses back on, but can you even take them off in the first place? Can you
look directly at the world? Do you have the courage?
YOUTH: Courage?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, it’s a matter of courage.
YOUTH: Well, alright. There are tons of objections I would like to raise, but I get the feeling it would be
better to go into them later. I would like to confirm that you are saying ‘people can change’, right?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course people can change. They can also find happiness.
YOUTH: Everyone, without exception?
PHILOSOPHER: No exceptions whatsoever.
YOUTH: Ha-ha! Now you’re talking big! This is getting interesting. I’m going to start arguing with you
immediately.
PHILOSOPHER: I am not going to run away or hide anything. Let’s take our time debating this. So, your
position is ‘people cannot change?’
YOUTH: That’s right, they can’t change. Actually, I am suffering myself because of not being able to
change.
PHILOSOPHER: And at the same time, you wish you could.
YOUTH: Of course. If I could change, if I could start life all over again, I would gladly fall to my knees
before you. But it could turn out that you’ll be down on your knees before me.
PHILOSOPHER: You remind me of myself during my own student days, when I was a hot-blooded young
man searching for the truth, traipsing about, calling on philosophers . . .
YOUTH: Yes. I am searching for the truth. The truth about life.
PHILOSOPHER: I have never felt the need to take in disciples and have never done so. However, since
becoming a student of Greek philosophy and then coming into contact with another philosophy, I have
been waiting for a long time for a visit from a young person like you.
YOUTH: Another philosophy? What would that be?
PHILOSOPHER: My study is just over there. Go into it. It’s going to be a long night. I will go and make
some hot coffee.

THE FIRST NIGHT:
Deny Trauma
The young man entered the study and sat slouched in a chair. Why was he so determined to reject the
philosopher’s theories? His reasons were abundantly clear. He lacked self-confidence and, ever since
childhood, this had been compounded by deep-seated feelings of inferiority with regard to his personal
and academic backgrounds, as well as his physical appearance. Perhaps, as a result, he tended to be
excessively self-conscious when people looked at him. Mostly, he seemed incapable of truly appreciating
other people’s happiness and was constantly pitying himself. To him, the philosopher’s claims were
nothing more than the stuff of fantasy.
The Unknown Third Giant
YOUTH: A moment ago, you used the words “another philosophy,” but I’ve heard that your specialty is in
Greek philosophy.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, Greek philosophy has been central to my life ever since I was a teenager. The great
intellectual figures: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. I am translating a work by Plato at the moment, and I
expect to spend the rest of my life studying classical Greek thought.
YOUTH: Well, then what is this “other philosophy”?
PHILOSOPHER: It is a completely new school of psychology that was established by the Austrian
psychiatrist Alfred Adler at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is generally referred to as Adlerian
psychology.
YOUTH: Huh. I never would have imagined that a specialist in Greek philosophy would be interested in
psychology.
PHILOSOPHER: I’m not very familiar with paths taken by other schools of psychology. However, I think it
is fair to say that Adlerian psychology is clearly in line with Greek philosophy, and that it is a proper field
of study.
YOUTH: I have a passing knowledge of the psychology of Freud and Jung. A fascinating field.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, Freud and Jung are both renowned. Adler was one of the original core members of
the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, which was led by Freud. His ideas were counter to Freud’s, and he
split from the group and proposed an “individual psychology” based on his own original theories.
YOUTH: Individual psychology? Another odd term. So Adler was a disciple of Freud’s?
PHILOSOPHER: No, he was not. That misconception is common; we must dispel it. For one thing, Adler
and Freud were relatively close in age, and the relationship they formed as researchers was founded upon
equal footing. In this respect, Adler was very different from Jung, who revered Freud as a father figure.
Though psychology primarily tends to be associated with Freud and Jung, Adler is recognized
throughout the rest of the world, along with Freud and Jung, as one of the three giants in this field.
YOUTH: I see. I should have studied it more.
PHILOSOPHER: I suppose it’s only natural you haven’t heard of Adler. As he himself said, “There might
come a time when one will not remember my name; one might even have forgotten that our school ever
existed.” Then he went on to say that it didn’t matter. The implication being that if his school were
forgotten, it would be because his ideas had outgrown the bounds of a single area of scholarship, and
become commonplace, and a feeling shared by everyone. For example, Dale Carnegie, who wrote the
international bestsellers How to Win Friends and Influence People and How to Stop Worrying and Start
Living, referred to Adler as “a great psychologist who devoted his life to researching humans and their
latent abilities.” The influence of Adler’s thinking is clearly present throughout his writings. And in
Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, much of the content closely resembles Adler’s
ideas. In other words, rather than being a strict area of scholarship, Adlerian psychology is accepted as a
realization, a culmination of truths and of human understanding. Yet Adler’s ideas are said to have been
a hundred years ahead of their time, and even today we have not managed to fully comprehend them.
That is how truly groundbreaking they were.
YOUTH: So your theories are developed not from Greek philosophy initially but from the viewpoint of
Adlerian psychology?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, that’s right.
YOUTH: Okay. There’s one more thing I’d like to ask about your basic stance. Are you a philosopher? Or
are you a psychologist?
PHILOSOPHER: I am a philosopher, a person who lives philosophy. And, for me, Adlerian psychology is a
form of thought that is in line with Greek philosophy, and that is philosophy.
YOUTH: All right, then. Let’s get started.
Why People Can Change
YOUTH: First, let’s plan the points of discussion. You say people can change. Then you take it a step
further, saying that everyone can find happiness.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, everyone, without exception.
YOUTH: Let’s save the discussion about happiness for later and address change first. Everyone wishes they
could change. I know I do, and I’m sure anyone you might stop and ask on the street would agree. But
why does everyone feel they want to change? There’s only one answer: because they cannot change. If it
were easy for people to change, they wouldn’t spend so much time wishing they could. No matter how
much they wish it, people cannot change. And that’s why there are always so many people getting taken
in by new religions and dubious self-help seminars and any preaching on how everyone can change. Am
I wrong?
PHILOSOPHER: Well, in response, I’d ask why you are so adamant that people can’t change.
YOUTH: Here’s why. I have a friend, a guy, who has shut himself in his room for several years. He wishes
he could go out and even thinks he’d like to have a job, if possible. So he wants to change the way he is. I
say this as his friend, but I assure you he is a very serious person who could be of great use to society.
Except that he’s afraid to leave his room. If he takes even a single step outside, he suffers palpitations, and
his arms and legs shake. It’s a kind of neurosis or panic, I suppose. He wants to change, but he can’t.
PHILOSOPHER: What do you think the reason is that he can’t go out?
YOUTH: I’m not really sure. It could be because of his relationship with his parents, or because he was
bullied at school or work. He might have experienced a kind of trauma from something like that. But
then, it could be the opposite—maybe he was too pampered as a child and can’t face reality. I just don’t
know, and I can’t pry into his past or his family situation.
PHILOSOPHER: So you are saying there were incidents in your friend’s past that became the cause of
trauma, or something similar, and as a result he can’t go out anymore?
YOUTH: Of course. Before an effect, there’s a cause. There is nothing mysterious about that.
PHILOSOPHER: Then perhaps the cause of his not being able to go out anymore lies in the home
environment during his childhood. He was abused by his parents and reached adulthood without ever
feeling love. That’s why he’s afraid of interacting with people and why he can’t go out. It’s feasible, isn’t
it?
YOUTH: Yes, it’s entirely feasible. I’d imagine that would be really challenging.
PHILOSOPHER: And then you say, “Before an effect, there’s a cause.” Or, in other words, who I am now
(the effect) is determined by occurrences in the past (the causes). Do I understand correctly?
YOUTH: You do.
PHILOSOPHER: So if the here and now of everyone in the world is due to their past incidents, according to
you, wouldn’t things turn out very strangely? Don’t you see? Everyone who has grown up abused by his
or her parents would have to suffer the same effects as your friend and become a recluse, or the whole
idea just doesn’t hold water. That is, if the past actually determines the present, and the causes control the
effects.
YOUTH: What, exactly, are you getting at?
PHILOSOPHER: If we focus only on past causes and try to explain things solely through cause and effect,
we end up with “determinism.” Because what this says is that our present and our future have already
been decided by past occurrences, and are unalterable. Am I wrong?
YOUTH: So you’re saying that the past doesn’t matter?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, that is the standpoint of Adlerian psychology.
YOUTH: I see. The points of conflict seem a bit clearer. But look, if we go by your version, wouldn’t that
ultimately mean that there’s no reason my friend can’t go out anymore? Because you’re saying that past
incidents don’t matter. I’m sorry, but that’s completely out of the question. There has to be some reason
behind his seclusion. There has to be, or there’d be no explanation!
PHILOSOPHER: Indeed, there would be no explanation. So in Adlerian psychology, we do not think about
past “causes” but rather about present “goals.”
YOUTH: Present goals?
PHILOSOPHER: Your friend is insecure, so he can’t go out. Think about it the other way around. He
doesn’t want to go out, so he’s creating a state of anxiety.
YOUTH: Huh?
PHILOSOPHER: Think about it this way. Your friend had the goal of not going out beforehand, and he’s
been manufacturing a state of anxiety and fear as a means to achieve that goal. In Adlerian psychology,
this is called “teleology.”
YOUTH: You’re joking! My friend has imagined his anxiety and fear? So would you go so far as saying that
my friend is just pretending to be sick?
PHILOSOPHER: He is not pretending to be sick. The anxiety and fear your friend is feeling are real. On
occasion, he might also suffer from migraines and violent stomach cramps. However, these too are
symptoms that he has created in order to achieve the goal of not going out.
YOUTH: That’s not true! No way! That’s too depressing!
PHILOSOPHER: No. This is the difference between etiology (the study of causation) and teleology (the
study of the purpose of a given phenomenon, rather than its cause). Everything you have been telling me
is based in etiology. As long as we stay in etiology, we will not take a single step forward.
Trauma Does Not Exist
YOUTH: If you are going to state things so forcibly, I’d like a thorough explanation. To begin with, what is
the difference you refer to between etiology and teleology?
PHILOSOPHER: Suppose you’ve got a cold with a high fever, and you go to see the doctor. Then, suppose
the doctor says the reason for your sickness is that yesterday, when you went out, you weren’t dressed
properly, and that’s why you caught a cold. Now, would you be satisfied with that?
YOUTH: Of course I wouldn’t. It wouldn’t matter to me what the reason was—the way I was dressed or
because it was raining or whatever. It’s the symptoms, the fact that I’m suffering with a high fever now
that would matter to me. If he’s a doctor, I’d need him to treat me by prescribing medicine, giving shots,
or taking whatever specialized measures are necessary.
PHILOSOPHER: Yet those who take an etiological stance, including most counselors and psychiatrists,
would argue that what you were suffering from stemmed from such-and-such cause in the past, and
would then end up just consoling you by saying, “So you see, it’s not your fault.” The argument
concerning so-called traumas is typical of etiology.
YOUTH: Wait a minute! Are you denying the existence of trauma altogether?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, I am. Adamantly.
YOUTH: What! Aren’t you, or I guess I should say Adler, an authority on psychology?
PHILOSOPHER: In Adlerian psychology, trauma is definitively denied. This was a very new and
revolutionary point. Certainly, the Freudian view of trauma is fascinating. Freud’s idea is that a person’s
psychic wounds (traumas) cause his or her present unhappiness. When you treat a person’s life as a vast
narrative, there is an easily understandable causality and sense of dramatic development that creates
strong impressions and is extremely attractive. But Adler, in denial of the trauma argument, states the
following: “No experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of
our experiences—the so-called trauma—but instead we make out of them whatever suits our purposes.
We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.”
YOUTH: So we make of them whatever suits our purposes?
PHILOSOPHER: Exactly. Focus on the point Adler is making here when he refers to the self being
determined not by our experiences themselves, but by the meaning we give them. He is not saying that the
experience of a horrible calamity or abuse during childhood or other such incidents have no influence on
forming a personality; their influences are strong. But the important thing is that nothing is actually
determined by those influences. We determine our own lives according to the meaning we give to those
past experiences. Your life is not something that someone gives you, but something you choose yourself,
and you are the one who decides how you live.
YOUTH: Okay, so you’re saying that my friend has shut himself in his room because he actually chooses to
live this way? This is serious. Believe me, it is not what he wants. If anything, it’s something he was forced
to choose because of circumstances. He had no choice other than to become who he is now.
PHILOSOPHER: No. Even supposing that your friend actually thinks, I can’t fit into society because I was
abused by my parents, it’s still because it is his goal to think that way.
YOUTH: What sort of goal is that?
PHILOSOPHER: The immediate thing would probably be the goal of “not going out.” He is creating
anxiety and fear as his reasons to stay inside.
YOUTH: But why doesn’t he want to go out? That’s where the problem resides.
PHILOSOPHER: Well, think of it from the parents’ view. How would you feel if your child were shut up in
a room?
YOUTH: I’d be worried, of course. I’d want to help him return to society, I’d want him to be well, and I’d
wonder if I’d raised him improperly. I’m sure I would be seriously concerned and try in every way
imaginable to help him back to a normal existence.
PHILOSOPHER: That is where the problem is.
YOUTH: Where?
PHILOSOPHER: If I stay in my room all the time, without ever going out, my parents will worry. I can get
all of my parents’ attention focused on me. They’ll be extremely careful around me and always handle
me with kid gloves. On the other hand, if I take even one step out of the house, I’ll just become part of a
faceless mass whom no one pays attention to. I’ll be surrounded by people I don’t know and just end up
average, or less than average. And no one will take special care of me any longer . . . Such stories about
reclusive people are not uncommon.
YOUTH: In that case, following your line of reasoning, my friend has accomplished his goal and is satisfied
with his current situation?
PHILOSOPHER: I doubt he’s satisfied, and I’m sure he’s not happy either. But there is no doubt that he is
also taking action in line with his goal. This is not something that is unique to your friend. Every one of
us is living in line with some goal. That is what teleology tells us.
YOUTH: No way. I reject that as completely unacceptable. Look, my friend is—
PHILOSOPHER: Listen, this discussion won’t go anywhere if we just keep talking about your friend. It will
turn into a trial in absentia, and that would be hopeless. Let’s use another example.
YOUTH: Well, how about this one? It’s my own story about something I experienced yesterday.
PHILOSOPHER: Oh? I’m all ears.
People Fabricate Anger
YOUTH: Yesterday afternoon, I was reading a book in a coffee shop when a waiter passed by and spilled
coffee on my jacket. I’d just bought it and it’s my nicest piece of clothing. I couldn’t help it, I just blew
my top. I yelled at him at the top of my lungs. I’m not normally the type of person who speaks loudly in
public places. But yesterday, the shop was ringing with the sound of my shouting because I flew into a
rage and forgot what I was doing. So how about that? Is there any room for a goal to be involved here?
No matter how you look at it, isn’t this behavior that originates from a cause?
PHILOSOPHER: So you were stimulated by the emotion of anger and ended up shouting. Though you are
normally mild-mannered, you couldn’t resist being angry. It was an unavoidable occurrence, and you
couldn’t do anything about it. Is that what you are saying?
YOUTH: Yes, because it happened so suddenly. The words just came out of my mouth before I had time to
think.
PHILOSOPHER: Then suppose you happened to have had a knife on you yesterday, and when you blew up
you got carried away and stabbed him. Would you still be able to justify that by saying, “It was an
unavoidable occurrence, and I couldn’t do anything about it”?
YOUTH: That . . . Come on, that’s an extreme argument!
PHILOSOPHER: It is not an extreme argument. If we proceed with your reasoning, any offense committed
in anger can be blamed on anger and will no longer be the responsibility of the person because,
essentially, you are saying that people cannot control their emotions.
YOUTH: Well, how do you explain my anger, then?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s easy. You did not fly into a rage and then start shouting. It is solely that you got
angry so that you could shout. In other words, in order to fulfill the goal of shouting, you created the
emotion of anger.
YOUTH: What do you mean?
PHILOSOPHER: The goal of shouting came before anything else. That is to say, by shouting, you wanted to
make the waiter submit to you and listen to what you had to say. As a means to do that, you fabricated
the emotion of anger.
YOUTH: I fabricated it? You’ve got to be joking!
PHILOSOPHER: Then why did you raise your voice?
YOUTH: As I said before, I blew my top. I was deeply frustrated.
PHILOSOPHER: No. You could have explained matters without raising your voice, and the waiter would
most likely have given you a sincere apology, wiped your jacket with a clean cloth, and taken other
appropriate measures. He might have even arranged for it to be dry-cleaned. And somewhere in your
mind, you were anticipating that he might do these things but, even so, you shouted. The procedure of
explaining things in normal words felt like too much trouble, and you tried to get out of that and make
this unresisting person submit to you. The tool you used to do this was the emotion of anger.
YOUTH: No way. You can’t fool me. I manufactured anger in order to make him submit to me? I swear
to you, there wasn’t even a second to think of such a thing. I didn’t think it over and then get angry.
Anger is a more impulsive emotion.
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right, anger is an instantaneous emotion. Now listen, I have a story. One day, a
mother and daughter were quarreling loudly. Then, suddenly, the telephone rang. “Hello?” The mother
picked up the receiver hurriedly, her voice still thick with anger. The caller was her daughter’s homeroom
teacher. As soon as the mother realized who was phoning, the tone of her voice changed and she became
very polite. Then, for the next five minutes or so, she carried on a conversation in her best telephone
voice. Once she hung up, in a moment, her expression changed again and she went straight back to
yelling at her daughter.
YOUTH: Well, that’s not a particularly unusual story.
PHILOSOPHER: Don’t you see? In a word, anger is a tool that can be taken out as needed. It can be put
away the moment the phone rings, and pulled out again after one hangs up. The mother isn’t yelling in
anger she cannot control. She is simply using the anger to overpower her daughter with a loud voice and
thereby assert her opinions.
YOUTH: So anger is a means to achieve a goal?
PHILOSOPHER: That is what teleology says.
YOUTH: Ah, I see now. Under that gentle-looking mask you wear, you’re terribly nihilistic! Whether
we’re talking about anger or my reclusive friend, all your insights are stuffed with feelings of distrust for
human beings!
How to Live Without Being Controlled by the Past
PHILOSOPHER: How am I being nihilistic?
YOUTH: Think about it. Simply put, you deny human emotion. You say that emotions are nothing more
than tools, that they’re just the means for achieving goals. But listen. If you deny emotion, you’re
upholding a view that tries to deny our humanity, too. Because it’s our emotions, and the fact that we are
swayed by all sorts of feelings, that make us human. If emotions are denied, humans will be nothing
more than poor excuses for machines. If that isn’t nihilism, then what is?
PHILOSOPHER: I am not denying that emotion exists. Everyone has emotions. That goes without saying.
But if you are going to tell me that people are beings who can’t resist emotion, I’d argue against that.
Adlerian psychology is a form of thought, a philosophy that is diametrically opposed to nihilism. We are
not controlled by emotion. In this sense, while it shows that people are not controlled by emotion,
additionally it shows that we are not controlled by the past.
YOUTH: So people are not controlled either by emotion or the past?
PHILOSOPHER: Okay, for example, suppose there is someone whose parents had divorced in his past. Isn’t
this something objective, the same as the well water that is always sixty degrees? But then, does that
divorce feel cold or does it feel warm? So this is a “now” thing, a subjective thing. Regardless of what may
have happened in the past, it is the meaning that is attributed to it that determines the way someone’s
present will be.
YOUTH: The question isn’t “What happened?” but “How was it resolved?”
PHILOSOPHER: Exactly. We can’t go back to the past in a time machine. We can’t turn back the hands of
time. If you end up staying in etiology, you will be bound by the past and never be able to find
happiness.
YOUTH: That’s right! We can’t change the past, and that’s precisely why life is so hard.
PHILOSOPHER: Life isn’t just hard. If the past determined everything and couldn’t be changed, we who
are living today would no longer be able to take effective steps forward in our lives. What would happen
as a result? We would end up with the kind of nihilism and pessimism that loses hope in the world and
gives up on life. The Freudian etiology that is typified by the trauma argument is determinism in a
different form, and it is the road to nihilism. Are you going to accept values like that?
YOUTH: I don’t want to accept them, but the past is so powerful.
PHILOSOPHER: Think of the possibilities. If one assumes that people are beings who can change, a set of
values based on etiology becomes untenable, and one is compelled to take the position of teleology as a
matter of course.
YOUTH: So you are saying that one should always take the “people can change” premise?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course. And please understand, it is Freudian etiology that denies our free will and
treats humans like machines.
The young man paused and glanced around the philosopher’s study. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves
filled the walls, and on a small wooden desk lay a fountain pen and what appeared to be a
partially written manuscript. “People are not driven by past causes but move toward goals that
they themselves set”—that was the philosopher’s claim. The teleology he espoused was an idea
that overturned at the root the causality of respectable psychology, and the young man found
that impossible to accept. So from which standpoint should he start to argue it? The youth took a
deep breath.
Socrates and Adler
YOUTH: All right. Let me tell you about another friend of mine, a man named Y. He’s the kind of person
who has always had a bright personality and talks easily to anyone. He’s like a sunflower—everyone loves
him, and people smile whenever he’s around. In contrast, I am someone who has never had an easy time
socially and who’s kind of warped in various ways. Now, you are claiming that people can change
through Adler’s teleology?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. You and I and everyone can change.
YOUTH: Then, do you think I could become someone like Y? From the bottom of my heart, I really wish
I could be like him.
PHILOSOPHER: At this point, I’d have to say that’s totally out of the question.
YOUTH: Aha! Now you’re showing your true colors! So are you going to retract your theory?
PHILOSOPHER: No, I am not. Unfortunately, you have almost no understanding of Adlerian psychology
yet. The first step to change is knowing.
YOUTH: So if I can understand just something about Adlerian psychology, can I become a person like Y?
PHILOSOPHER: Why are you rushing for answers? You should arrive at answers on your own, not rely
upon what you get from someone else. Answers from others are nothing more than stopgap measures;
they’re of no value. Take Socrates, who left not one book actually written by himself. He spent his days
having public debates with the citizens of Athens, especially the young, and it was his disciple, Plato, who
put his philosophy into writing for future generations. Adler, too, showed little interest in literary
activities, preferring to engage in personal dialogue at cafés in Vienna, and hold small discussion groups.
He was definitely not an armchair intellectual.
YOUTH: So Socrates and Adler both conveyed their ideas by dialogue?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. All your doubts will be dispelled through this dialogue. And you will begin
to change. Not by my words, but by your own doing. I do not want to take away that valuable process of
arriving at answers through dialogue.
YOUTH: So are we going to try and reenact the kind of dialogue that Socrates and Adler carried out? In
this little study?
PHILOSOPHER: Isn’t that good enough for you?
YOUTH: That’s what I’m hoping to find out! So let’s take it as far as we can, until either you retract your
theory or I bow before you.
Are You Okay Just As You Are?
PHILOSOPHER: Okay, let’s go back to your query. So you’d like to be a more upbeat person, like Y?
YOUTH: But you just rejected that and said it was out of the question. Well, I guess that’s just how it is. I
was just saying that to give you a hard time—I know myself well enough. I could never be someone like
that.
PHILOSOPHER: Why not?
YOUTH: It’s obvious. Because we have different personalities, or I guess you could say dispositions.
PHILOSOPHER: Hmm.
YOUTH: You, for instance, live surrounded by all these books. You read a new book and gain new
knowledge. Basically, you keep accumulating knowledge. The more you read, the more your knowledge
increases. You find new concepts of value, and it seems to you that they change you. Look, I hate to
break it to you, but no matter how much knowledge you gain, your disposition or personality isn’t going
to basically change. If your base gets skewed, all you’ve learned will be useless. Yes, all the knowledge
you’ve acquired will come crashing down around you, and then the next thing you know, you’ll be back
to where you started! And the same goes for Adler’s ideas. No matter how many facts I may try to
accumulate about him, they’re not going to have any effect on my personality. Knowledge just gets piled
up as knowledge, until sooner or later it’s discarded.
PHILOSOPHER: Then let me ask you this. Why do you think you want to be like Y? I guess you just want
to be a different person, whether it’s Y or someone else. But what is the goal of that?
YOUTH: You’re talking about goals again? As I said earlier, it’s just that I admire him and I think I’d be
happier if I were like him.
PHILOSOPHER: You think you’d be happier if you were like him. Which means that you are not happy
now, right?
YOUTH: What?
PHILOSOPHER: Right now, you are unable to feel really happy. This is because you have not learned to
love yourself. And to try to love yourself, you are wishing to be reborn as a different person. You’re
hoping to become like Y and throw away who you are now. Correct?
YOUTH: Yes, I guess that’s right! Let’s face it: I hate myself! I, the one who’s doing this playing around
with old-fashioned philosophical discourse, and who just can’t help doing this sort of thing—yes, I really
hate myself.
PHILOSOPHER: That’s all right. If you were to ask around for people who say they like themselves, you’d
be hard-pressed to find someone who’d puff up his or her chest with pride and say, “Yes, I like myself.”
YOUTH: How about you? Do you like yourself?
PHILOSOPHER: At the very least, I do not think I would like to be a different person and I accept who I
am.
YOUTH: You accept who you are?
PHILOSOPHER: Look, no matter how much you want to be Y, you cannot be reborn as him. You are not
Y. It’s okay for you to be you. However, I am not saying it’s fine to be “just as you are.” If you are unable
to really feel happy, then it’s clear that things aren’t right just as they are. You’ve got to put one foot in
front of the other, and not stop.
YOUTH: That’s a harsh way of putting it, but I get your point. It’s clear that I’m not right just the way I
am. I’ve got to move forward.
PHILOSOPHER: To quote Adler again: “The important thing is not what one is born with but what use
one makes of that equipment.” You want to be Y or someone else because you are utterly focused on
what you were born with. Instead, you’ve got to focus on what you can make of your equipment.
Unhappiness Is Something You Choose for Yourself
YOUTH: No way. That’s unreasonable.
PHILOSOPHER: Why is it unreasonable?
YOUTH: Why? Some people are born into affluent circumstances with parents who are nice, and others
are born poor with bad parents. Because that’s how the world is. And I don’t really want to get into this
sort of subject, but things aren’t equal in the world and differences between race, nationality, and
ethnicity remain as deep as ever. It’s only natural to focus on what you were born with. All your talk is
just academic theory—you’re ignoring the real world!
PHILOSOPHER: It is you who is ignoring reality. Does fixating on what you are born with change the
reality? We are not replaceable machines. It is not replacement we need but renewal.
YOUTH: To me, replacement and renewal are one and the same. You’re avoiding the main point. Look,
there is such a thing as unhappiness from birth. Please acknowledge that, first of all.
PHILOSOPHER: I will not acknowledge that.
YOUTH: Why?
PHILOSOPHER: For one thing, right now you are unable to feel real happiness. You find living hard, and
even wish you could be reborn as a different person. But you are unhappy now because you yourself
chose being unhappy. Not because you were born under an unlucky star.
YOUTH: I chose to be unhappy? How can I possibly accept that?
PHILOSOPHER: There’s nothing extraordinary about it. It’s been repeated ever since the classical Greek
era. Have you heard the saying “No one desires evil”? It’s a proposition generally known as a Socratic
paradox.
YOUTH: There’s no shortage of people who desire evil, is there? Of course, there are plenty of thieves and
murderers, and don’t forget all the politicians and officials with their shady deals. It’s probably harder to
find a truly good, upright person who does not desire evil.
PHILOSOPHER: Without question, there is no shortage of behavior that is evil. But no one, not even the
most hardened criminal, becomes involved in crime purely out of a desire to engage in evil acts. Every
criminal has an internal justification for getting involved in crime. A dispute over money leads someone
to engage in murder, for instance. To the perpetrator, it is something for which there is a justification and
which can be restated as an accomplishment of “good.” Of course, this is not good in a moral sense, but
good in the sense of being “of benefit to oneself.”
YOUTH: Of benefit to oneself?
PHILOSOPHER: The Greek word for “good” (agathon) does not have a moral meaning. It just means
“beneficial.” Conversely, the word for “evil” (kakon) means “not beneficial.” Our world is rife with
injustices and misdeeds of all kinds, yet there is not one person who desires evil in the purest sense of the
word, that is to say something “not beneficial.”
YOUTH: What does this have to do with me?
PHILOSOPHER: At some stage in your life, you chose “being unhappy.” It is not because you were born
into unhappy circumstances or ended up in an unhappy situation. It’s that you judged “being unhappy”
to be good for you.
YOUTH: Why? What for?
PHILOSOPHER: How do you justify this? Why did you choose to be unhappy? I have no way of knowing
the specific answer or details. Perhaps it will become clearer as we debate this.
YOUTH: You are really trying to make a fool of me. You think this passes for philosophy? I do not accept
this at all.
In spite of himself, the young man got up and glared at the philosopher. I chose an unhappy life?
Because it was good for me? What an absurd argument! Why is he going to such lengths to ridicule
me? What did I do wrong? I’ll dismantle his argument, no matter what it takes. I’ll make him
kneel before me. The young man’s face flushed with excitement.
People Always Choose Not to Change
PHILOSOPHER: Sit down. As things stand, it’s only natural that our views clash. I will now give a simple
explanation as to the manner in which humans are understood in Adlerian psychology.
YOUTH: Okay, but please be brief.
PHILOSOPHER: Earlier you said that any person’s disposition or personality cannot be changed. In
Adlerian psychology, we describe personality and disposition with the word “lifestyle.”
YOUTH: Lifestyle?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. Lifestyle is the tendencies of thought and action in life.
YOUTH: Tendencies of thought and action?
PHILOSOPHER: How one sees the world. And how one sees oneself. Think of lifestyle as a concept
bringing together these ways of finding meaning. In a narrow sense, lifestyle could be defined as
someone’s personality; taken more broadly, it is a word that encompasses the worldview of that person
and his or her outlook on life.
YOUTH: A person’s view of the world?
PHILOSOPHER: Say there’s someone who worries about himself and says, “I am a pessimist.” One could
rephrase that to instead say, “I have a pessimistic view of the world.” You could consider that the issue is
not personality but rather the view of the world. It seems that the word “personality” is nuanced and
suggests being unchangeable. But if we’re talking about a view of the world, well, then, that should be
possible to alter.
YOUTH: Hmm. This is kind of confusing. When you speak of a lifestyle, do you mean a way of living?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, you could put it that way. To be a little more accurate, it is the way one’s life should
be. You probably think of disposition or personality as something with which you are endowed, without
any connection to your will. In Adlerian psychology, however, lifestyle is thought of as something that
you choose for yourself.
YOUTH: That you choose for yourself?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, exactly. You choose your lifestyle.
YOUTH: So not only did I choose to be unhappy, but I even went so far as to choose this warped
personality, too?
PHILOSOPHER: Absolutely.
YOUTH: Ha! Now you’re really pushing it. When I became aware, I already had this personality. I
certainly don’t have any recollection of having chosen it. But it’s the same for you, isn’t it? Being able to
choose one’s own personality at will . . . Now that sounds like you’re talking about robots, not people.
PHILOSOPHER: Of course, you did not consciously choose “this kind of self.” Your first choice was
probably unconscious, combined with external factors you have referred to—that is, race, nationality,
culture, and home environment. These certainly had a significant influence on that choice. Nevertheless,
it is you who chose “this kind of self.”
YOUTH: I don’t get what you’re saying. How on earth could I have chosen it?
PHILOSOPHER: Adlerian psychology’s view is that it happens around the age of ten.
YOUTH: Well, for argument’s sake—and now I’m really going out on a limb—say that when I was ten, I
unconsciously made this choice of lifestyle or whatever. Would that even matter? You can call it
personality or disposition or lifestyle, but, regardless, I had already become “this kind of self.” The state of
things doesn’t change at all.
PHILOSOPHER: That is not true. If your lifestyle is not something that you were naturally born with, but
something you chose yourself, then it must be possible to choose it over again.
YOUTH: Now you’re saying I can choose it all over?
PHILOSOPHER: Maybe you haven’t been aware of your lifestyle until now, and maybe you haven’t been
aware of the concept of lifestyle either. Of course, no one can choose his or her own birth. Being born in
this country, in this era, and with these parents are things you did not choose. And all these things have a
great deal of influence. You’ll probably face disappointment and start looking at other people and
feeling, I wish I’d been born in their circumstances. But you can’t let it end there. The issue is not the past,
but here, in the present. And now you’ve learned about lifestyle. But what you do with it from here on is
your responsibility. Whether you go on choosing the lifestyle you’ve had up till now, or you choose a
new lifestyle altogether, it’s entirely up to you.
YOUTH: Then how do I choose again? You’re telling me, “You chose that lifestyle yourself, so go ahead
and select a new one instantly,” but there’s no way I can just change on the spot!
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, you can. People can change at any time, regardless of the environments they are in.
You are unable to change only because you are making the decision not to.
YOUTH: What do you mean, exactly?
PHILOSOPHER: People are constantly selecting their lifestyles. Right now, while we are having this tête-àtête,
we are selecting ours. You describe yourself as an unhappy person. You say that you want to change
right this minute. You even claim that you want to be reborn as a different person. After all that, then
why are you still unable to change? It is because you are making the persistent decision not to change
your lifestyle.
YOUTH: No, don’t you see that’s completely illogical? I do want to change; that is my sincere wish. So
how could I be making the decision not to?
PHILOSOPHER: Although there are some small inconveniences and limitations, you probably think that
the lifestyle you have now is the most practical one, and that it’s easier to leave things as they are. If you
stay just like this, experience enables you to respond properly to events as they occur, while guessing the
results of one’s actions. You could say it’s like driving your old, familiar car. It might rattle a bit, but one
can take that into account and maneuver easily. On the other hand, if one chooses a new lifestyle, no one
can predict what might happen to the new self, or have any idea how to deal with events as they arise. It
will be hard to see ahead to the future, and life will be filled with anxiety. A more painful and unhappy
life might lie ahead. Simply put, people have various complaints about things, but it’s easier and more
secure to be just the way one is.
YOUTH: One wants to change, but changing is scary?
PHILOSOPHER: When we try to change our lifestyles, we put our great courage to the test. There is the
anxiety generated by changing, and the disappointment attendant to not changing. I am sure you have
selected the latter.
YOUTH: Wait . . . Just now, you used the word “courage.”
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. Adlerian psychology is a psychology of courage. Your unhappiness cannot be blamed
on your past or your environment. And it isn’t that you lack competence. You just lack courage. One
might say you are lacking in the courage to be happy.
Your Life Is Decided Here and Now
YOUTH: The courage to be happy, huh?
PHILOSOPHER: Do you need further explanation?
YOUTH: No, hold on. This is getting confusing. First, you tell me that the world is a simple place. That it
seems complicated only because of me, and that my subjective view is making it that way. And also, that
life seems complicated just because I make it complicated, all of which is what makes it difficult for me to
live happily. Then you say that one should take the stance of teleology, as opposed to Freudian etiology—
that one must not search for causes in one’s past, and should deny trauma. You say that people act to
achieve some goal or other, instead of being creatures who are driven by causes in their past. Right?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes.
YOUTH: Furthermore, as the major premise of teleology, you say that people can change. That people are
always selecting their own lifestyles.
PHILOSOPHER: That is correct.
YOUTH: So I am unable to change because I myself keep repeatedly making the decision not to change. I
don’t have enough courage to choose a new lifestyle. In other words, I do not have enough courage to be
happy, and that’s why I’m unhappy. Have I got anything wrong?
PHILOSOPHER: No, you haven’t.
YOUTH: Okay, in that case, my question is, What are the real measures I should take? What do I need to
do to change my life? You haven’t explained all that yet.
PHILOSOPHER: You are right. What you should do now is make a decision to stop your current lifestyle.
For instance, earlier you said, “If only I could be someone like Y, I’d be happy.” As long as you live that
way, in the realm of the possibility of “If only such and such were the case,” you will never be able to
change. Because saying “If only I could be like Y” is an excuse to yourself for not changing.
YOUTH: An excuse not to change?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. I have a young friend who dreams of becoming a novelist, but he never seems to be
able to complete his work. According to him, his job keeps him too busy, and he can never find enough
time to write novels, and that’s why he can’t complete work and enter it for writing awards. But is that
the real reason? No! It’s actually that he wants to leave the possibility of “I can do it if I try” open, by not
committing to anything. He doesn’t want to expose his work to criticism, and he certainly doesn’t want
to face the reality that he might produce an inferior piece of writing and face rejection. He wants to live
inside that realm of possibilities, where he can say that he could do it if he only had the time, or that he
could write if he just had the proper environment, and that he really does have the talent for it. In
another five or ten years, he will probably start using other excuses like “I’m not young anymore” or
“I’ve got a family to think about now.”
YOUTH: I can relate all too well to how he must feel.
PHILOSOPHER: He should just enter his writing for an award, and if he gets rejected, so be it. If he did, he
might grow, or discover that he should pursue something different. Either way, he would be able to
move on. That is what changing your current lifestyle is about. He won’t get anywhere by not
submitting anything.
YOUTH: But maybe his dreams will be shattered.
PHILOSOPHER: Well, I wonder. Having simple tasks—things that should be done—while continually
coming up with various reasons why one can’t do them sounds like a hard way to live, doesn’t it? So in
the case of my friend who dreams of becoming a novelist, it is clearly the “I,” or the “self,” that is making
life complicated and too difficult to live happily.
YOUTH: But . . . That’s harsh. Your philosophy is too tough!
PHILOSOPHER: Indeed, it is strong medicine.
YOUTH: Strong medicine! Yes, I agree.
PHILOSOPHER: But if you change your lifestyle—the way of giving meaning to the world and yourself—
then both your way of interacting with the world and your behavior will have to change as well. Do not
forget this point: One will have to change. You, just as you are, have to choose your lifestyle. It might
seem hard, but it is really quite simple.
YOUTH: According to you, there’s no such thing as trauma, and environment doesn’t matter either. It’s
all just baggage, and my unhappiness is my own fault, right? I’m starting to feel I’m being criticized for
everything I’ve ever been and done!
PHILOSOPHER: No, you are not being criticized. Rather, as Adler’s teleology tells us, “No matter what has
occurred in your life up to this point, it should have no bearing at all on how you live from now on.”
That you, living in the here and now, are the one who determines your own life.
YOUTH: My life is determined at this exact point?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, because the past does not exist.
YOUTH: All right. Well, I don’t agree with your theories one hundred percent. There are many points I’m
not convinced about and that I would argue against. At the same time, your theories are worth further
consideration, and I’m definitely interested in learning more about Adlerian psychology. I think I’ve had
enough for tonight, but I hope you won’t mind if I come again next week. If I don’t take a break, I think
my head might burst.
PHILOSOPHER: I’m sure you need some time on your own to think things over. I am always here, so you
can visit whenever you like. I enjoyed it. Thank you. Let’s talk again.
YOUTH: Great! One last thing, if I may. Our discussion today was long and got pretty intense, and I guess
I spoke rather rudely. For that, I would like to apologize.
PHILOSOPHER: Don’t worry about it. You should read Plato’s dialogues. The conduct and language of the
disciples of Socrates are surprisingly loose. That’s the way a dialogue is supposed to be.

THE SECOND NIGHT:
All Problems Are Interpersonal Relationship
Problems
The young man was as good as his word. Exactly one week later, he returned to the philosopher’s study.
Truth be told, he’d felt the urge to rush back there only two or three days after his first visit. He had
turned things over in his mind very carefully, and his doubts had turned to certainty. In short, teleology,
the attributing of the purpose of a given phenomenon, rather than its cause, was a sophistry, and the
existence of trauma was beyond question. People cannot simply forget the past, and neither can they
become free from it.
Today, the young man decided, he’d thoroughly dismantle this eccentric philosopher’s theories and
settle matters once and for all.
Why You Dislike Yourself
YOUTH: So after last time, I calmed myself down, focused, and thought things over. And yet, I’ve got to
say, I still can’t agree with your theories.
PHILOSOPHER: Oh? What do you find questionable about them?
YOUTH: Well, for instance, the other day I admitted that I dislike myself. No matter what I do, I can’t find
anything but shortcomings, and I can see no reason why I’d start liking myself. But of course I still want
to. You explain everything as having to do with goals, but what kind of goal could I have here? I mean,
what kind of advantage could there be in my not liking myself? I can’t imagine there’d be a single thing
to gain from it.
PHILOSOPHER: I see. You feel that you don’t have any strong points, that you’ve got nothing but
shortcomings. Whatever the facts might be, that’s how you feel. In other words, your self-esteem is
extremely low. So the questions here, then, are why do you feel so wretched? And, why do you view
yourself with such low esteem?
YOUTH: Because that’s a fact—I really don’t have any strong points.
PHILOSOPHER: You’re wrong. You notice only your shortcomings because you’ve resolved to not start
liking yourself. In order to not like yourself, you don’t see your strong points and focus only on your
shortcomings. First, understand this point.
YOUTH: I have resolved to not start liking myself?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. To you, not liking yourself is a virtue.
YOUTH: Why? What for?
PHILOSOPHER: Perhaps this is something you should think about yourself. What sort of shortcomings do
you think you have?
YOUTH: I’m sure you have already noticed. First of all, there’s my personality. I don’t have any selfconfidence,
and I’m always pessimistic about everything. And I guess I’m too self-conscious, because I
worry about what other people see, and then, I live with a constant distrust of other people. I can never
act naturally; there’s always something theatrical about what I say and do. And it’s not just my
personality—there’s nothing to like about my face or my body, either.
PHILOSOPHER: When you go about listing your shortcomings like that, what kind of mood does it put
you in?
YOUTH: Wow, that’s nasty! An unpleasant mood, naturally. I’m sure that no one would want to get
involved with a guy as warped as me. If there were anyone this wretched and bothersome in my vicinity,
I’d keep my distance, too.
PHILOSOPHER: I see. Well, that settles it, then.
YOUTH: What do you mean?
PHILOSOPHER: It might be hard to understand from your own example, so I’ll use another. I use this
study for simple counseling sessions. It must have been quite a few years ago, but there was a female
student who came by. She sat right where you are sitting now, in the same chair. Well, her concern was
her fear of blushing. She told me that she was always turning red whenever she was out in public, and
that she would do anything to rid herself of this. So I asked her, “Well, if you can cure it, what will you
want to do then?” And she said that there was a man she wanted. She secretly had feelings for him but
wasn’t ready to divulge them. Once her fear of blushing was cured, she’d confess her desire to be with
him.
YOUTH: Huh! All right, it sounds like the typical thing a female student would seek counseling for. In
order for her to confess her feelings for him, first she had to cure her blushing problem.
PHILOSOPHER: But is that really the whole case? I have a different opinion. Why did she get this fear of
blushing? And why hadn’t it gotten better? Because she needed that symptom of blushing.
YOUTH: What are you saying exactly? She was asking you to cure it, wasn’t she?
PHILOSOPHER: What do you think was the scariest thing to her, the thing she wanted to avoid most of all?
It was that the man would reject her, of course. The fact that her unrequited love would negate
everything for her, the very existence and possibility of “I.” This aspect is deeply present in adolescent
unrequited love. But as long as she has a fear of blushing, she can go on thinking, I can’t be with him
because I have this fear of blushing. It could end without her ever working up the courage to confess her
feelings to him, and she could convince herself that he would reject her anyway. And finally, she can live
in the possibility that If only my fear of blushing had gotten better, I could have . . .
YOUTH: Okay, so she fabricated that fear of blushing as an excuse for her own inability to confess her
feelings. Or maybe as a kind of insurance for when he rejected her.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, you could put it that way.
YOUTH: Okay, that is an interesting interpretation. But if that were really the case, wouldn’t it be
impossible to do anything to help her? Since she simultaneously needs that fear of blushing and is
suffering because of it, there’d be no end to her troubles.
PHILOSOPHER: Well, this is what I told her: “Fear of blushing is easy to cure.” She asked, “Really?” I went
on: “But I will not cure it.” She pressed me “Why?” I explained, “Look, it’s thanks to your fear of
blushing that you can accept your dissatisfaction with yourself and the world around you, and with a life
that isn’t going well. It’s thanks to your fear of blushing, and it’s caused by it.” She asked, “How could it
be . . . ?” I went on: “If I did cure it, and nothing in your situation changed at all, what would you do?
You’d probably come here again and say, ‘Give me back my fear of blushing.’ And that would be beyond
my abilities.”
YOUTH: Hmm.
PHILOSOPHER: Her story certainly isn’t unusual. Students preparing for their exams think, If I pass, life
will be rosy. Company workers think, If I get transferred, everything will go well. But even when those
wishes are fulfilled, in many cases nothing about their situations changes at all.
YOUTH: Indeed.
PHILOSOPHER: When a client shows up requesting a cure from fear of blushing, the counselor must not
cure the symptoms. Then recovery is likely to be even more difficult. That is the Adlerian psychology
way of thinking about this kind of thing.
YOUTH: So what specifically do you do, then? Do you ask what they’re worried about and then just leave
it be?
PHILOSOPHER: She didn’t have confidence in herself. She was very afraid that things being what they were,
he’d reject her even if she did confess to him. And if that happened, she’d lose even more confidence and
get hurt. That’s why she created the symptom of the fear of blushing. What I can do is to get the person
first to accept “myself now,” and then regardless of the outcome have the courage to step forward. In
Adlerian psychology, this kind of approach is called “encouragement.”
YOUTH: Encouragement?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. I’ll explain systematically what it consists of once our discussion has progressed a little
further. We’re not at that stage yet.
YOUTH: That works for me. In the meantime, I’ll keep the word “encouragement” in mind. So whatever
happened to her?
PHILOSOPHER: Apparently, she had the chance to join a group of friends and spend time with the man,
and in the end it was he who confessed his desire to be with her. Of course, she never dropped by this
study again after that. I don’t know what became of her fear of blushing. But she probably didn’t need it
any longer.
YOUTH: Yes, she clearly didn’t have any use for it anymore.
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. Now, keeping this student’s story in mind, let’s think about your problems.
You say that, at present, you notice only your shortcomings, and it’s unlikely that you’ll ever come to like
yourself. And then you said, “I’m sure that no one would want to get involved with a guy as warped as
me.” I’m sure you understand this already. Why do you dislike yourself? Why do you focus only on your
shortcomings, and why have you decided to not start liking yourself? It’s because you are overly afraid of
being disliked by other people and getting hurt in your interpersonal relationships.
YOUTH: What do you mean by that?
PHILOSOPHER: Just like the young woman with the fear of blushing, who was afraid of being rejected by
the man, you are afraid of being negated by other people. You’re afraid of being treated disparagingly,
being refused, and sustaining deep mental wounds. You think that instead of getting entangled in such
situations, it would be better if you just didn’t have relations with anyone in the first place. In other
words, your goal is to not get hurt in your relationships with other people.
YOUTH: Huh . . .
PHILOSOPHER: Now, how can that goal be realized? The answer is easy. Just find your shortcomings, start
disliking yourself, and become someone who doesn’t enter into interpersonal relationships. That way, if
you can shut yourself into your own shell, you won’t have to interact with anyone, and you’ll even have
a justification ready whenever other people snub you. That it’s because of your shortcomings that you
get snubbed, and if things weren’t this way, you too could be loved.
YOUTH: Ha-ha! Well, you’ve really put me in my place now.
PHILOSOPHER: Don’t be evasive. Being “the way I am” with all these shortcomings is, for you, a precious
virtue. In other words, something that’s to your benefit.
YOUTH: Ouch, that hurts. What a sadist; you’re diabolical! Okay, yes, it’s true: I am afraid. I don’t want to
get hurt in interpersonal relationships. I’m terrified of being snubbed for who I am. It’s hard to admit it,
but you are right.
PHILOSOPHER: Admitting is a good attitude. But don’t forget, it’s basically impossible to not get hurt in
your relations with other people. When you enter into interpersonal relationships, it is inevitable that to a
greater or lesser extent you will get hurt, and you will hurt someone, too. Adler says, “To get rid of one’s
problems, all one can do is live in the universe all alone.” But one can’t do such a thing.
All Problems Are Interpersonal Relationship Problems
YOUTH: Wait a minute! I’m supposed to just let that one slip by? “To get rid of one’s problems, all one
can do is live in the universe all alone”? What do you mean by that? If you lived all alone, wouldn’t you
be horribly lonely?
PHILOSOPHER: Oh, but being alone isn’t what makes you feel lonely. Loneliness is having other people
and society and community around you, and having a deep sense of being excluded from them. To feel
lonely, we need other people. That is to say, it is only in social contexts that a person becomes an
“individual.”
YOUTH: If you were really alone, that is, if you existed completely alone in the universe, you wouldn’t be
an individual and you wouldn’t feel lonely, either?
PHILOSOPHER: I suppose the very concept of loneliness wouldn’t even come up. You wouldn’t need
language, and there’d be no use for logic or common sense, either. But such a thing is impossible. Even if
you lived on an uninhabited island, you would think about someone far across the ocean. Even if you
spend your nights alone, you strain your ears to hear the sound of someone’s breath. As long as there is
someone out there somewhere, you will be haunted by loneliness.
YOUTH: But then you could just rephrase that as, “If one could live in the universe all alone, one’s
problems would go away,” couldn’t you?
PHILOSOPHER: In theory, yes. As Adler goes so far as to assert, “All problems are interpersonal
relationship problems.”
YOUTH: Can you say that again?
PHILOSOPHER: We can repeat it as many times as you like: All problems are interpersonal relationship
problems. This is a concept that runs to the very root of Adlerian psychology. If all interpersonal
relationships were gone from this world, which is to say if one were alone in the universe and all other
people were gone, all manner of problems would disappear.
YOUTH: That’s a lie! It’s nothing more than academic sophistry.
PHILOSOPHER: Of course, we cannot do without interpersonal relationships. A human being’s existence,
in its very essence, assumes the existence of other human beings. Living completely separate from others
is, in principle, impossible. As you are indicating, the premise “If one could live all alone in the universe”
is unsound.
YOUTH: That’s not the issue I am talking about. Sure, interpersonal relationships are probably a big
problem. That much I acknowledge. But to say that everything comes down to interpersonal relationship
problems, now that’s really an extreme position. What about the worry of being cut off from
interpersonal relationships, the kind of problems that an individual agonizes over as an individual,
problems directed to oneself? Do you deny all that?
PHILOSOPHER: There is no such thing as worry that is completely defined by the individual; so-called
internal worry does not exist. Whatever the worry that may arise, the shadows of other people are always
present.
YOUTH: But still, you’re a philosopher. Human beings have loftier, greater problems than things like
interpersonal relationships. What is happiness? What is freedom? And what is the meaning of life? Aren’t
these the themes that philosophers have been investigating ever since the ancient Greeks? And you’re
saying, So what? Interpersonal relationships are everything? It seems kind of pedestrian to me. It’s hard to
believe that a philosopher would say such things.
PHILOSOPHER: Well, then, it seems there’s a need to explain things a bit more concretely.
YOUTH: Yes, please do! If you’re going to tell me that you’re a philosopher, then you’ve got to really
explain things, or else this makes no sense.
PHILOSOPHER: You were so afraid of interpersonal relationships that you came to dislike yourself. You’ve
avoided interpersonal relationships by disliking yourself.
These assertions shook the youth to his very core. The words had an undeniable truth that seemed
to pierce his heart. Even so, he had to find a clear rebuttal to the statement that all the problems
that people experience are interpersonal relationship problems. Adler was trivializing people’s
issues. The problems I’m suffering from aren’t so mundane!
Feelings of Inferiority Are Subjective Assumptions
PHILOSOPHER: Let’s look at interpersonal relationships from a slightly different perspective. Are you
familiar with the term “feeling of inferiority”?
YOUTH: What a silly question. As you can surely tell from our discussion up to now, I’m just a huge blob
of feelings of inferiority.
PHILOSOPHER: What are those feelings, specifically?
YOUTH: Well, for instance, if I see something in a newspaper about a person around my age, someone
who’s really successful, I’m always overcome with these feelings of inferiority. If someone else who’s lived
the same amount of time I have is so successful, then what on earth am I doing with myself? Or when I
see a friend who seems happy, before I even feel like celebrating with him, I’m filled with envy and
frustration. Of course, this pimple-covered face doesn’t help matters, and I’ve got strong feelings of
inferiority when it comes to my education and occupation. And then there’s my income and social
standing. I guess I’m just completely riddled with feelings of inferiority.
PHILOSOPHER: I see. Incidentally, Adler is thought to be the first to use the term “feeling of inferiority” in
the kind of context in which it is spoken of today.
YOUTH: Huh, I didn’t know that.
PHILOSOPHER: In Adler’s native German, the word is Minderwertigkeitsgefühl, which means a feeling
(Gefühl) of having less (minder) worth (Wert). So “feeling of inferiority” has to do with one’s value
judgment of oneself.
YOUTH: Value judgment?
PHILOSOPHER: It’s the feeling that one has no worth, or that one is worth only so much.
YOUTH: Ah, that’s a feeling I know well. That’s me in a nutshell. Not a day goes by without me
tormenting myself that there’s no point in being alive.
PHILOSOPHER: Well, then, let’s have a look at my own feelings of inferiority. When you first met me,
what was your impression? In terms of physical characteristics.
YOUTH: Um, well . . .
PHILOSOPHER: There’s no need to hold back. Be direct.
YOUTH: All right, I guess you were smaller than I’d imagined.
PHILOSOPHER: Thank you. I am 61 inches tall. Adler was apparently around the same height. There was a
time—until I was right around your age, actually—when I was concerned about my height. I was sure
that things would be different if I were of average height, eight or even just four inches taller. As if a more
enjoyable life were waiting for me. I talked to a friend about it when I was having these feelings, and he
said it was “a bunch of nonsense” and simply dismissed it.
YOUTH: That’s horrible! Some friend.
PHILOSOPHER: And then he said, “What would you do if you got taller? You know, you’ve got a gift for
getting people to relax.” With a man who’s big and strong, it’s true, it does seem he can end up
intimidating people just because of his size. With someone small like me, on the other hand, people let go
of their wariness. So it made me realize that having a small build was a desirable thing both to me and to
those around me. In other words, there was a transformation of values. I’m not worried about my height
anymore.
YOUTH: Okay, but that’s—
PHILOSOPHER: Wait until I am finished. The important thing here is that my height of 61 inches wasn’t
inferior.
YOUTH: It wasn’t inferior?
PHILOSOPHER: It was not, in fact, lacking in or lesser than something. Sure, my 61 inches is less than the
average height, and an objectively measured number. At first glance, one might think it inferior. But the
issue is really what sort of meaning I attribute to that height, what sort of value I give it.
YOUTH: What does that mean?
PHILOSOPHER: My feelings about my height were all subjective feelings of inferiority, which arose entirely
through my comparing myself to others. That is to say, in my interpersonal relationships. Because if there
hadn’t been anyone with whom to compare myself, I wouldn’t have had any occasion to think I was
short. Right now, you too are suffering from various feelings of inferiority. But please understand that
what you are feeling is not an objective inferiority but a subjective feeling of inferiority. Even with an
issue like height, it’s all reduced to its subjectivity.
YOUTH: In other words, the feelings of inferiority we’re suffering from are subjective interpretations
rather than objective facts?
PHILOSOPHER: Exactly. Seeing it from my friend’s point of view that I get people to relax or that I don’t
intimidate them—such aspects can become strong points. Of course, this is a subjective interpretation.
You could even say it’s an arbitrary assumption. However, there is one good thing about subjectivity: It
allows you to make your own choice. Precisely because I am leaving it to subjectivity, the choice to view
my height as either an advantage or disadvantage is left open to me.
YOUTH: The argument that you can choose a new lifestyle?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. We cannot alter objective facts. But subjective interpretations can be altered
as much as one likes. And we are inhabitants of a subjective world. We talked about this at the very
beginning, right?
YOUTH: Yes; the well water that’s sixty degrees.
PHILOSOPHER: Now, remember the German word for a feeling of inferiority, Minderwertigkeitsgefühl.
As I mentioned a moment ago, “feeling of inferiority” is a term that has to do with one’s value judgment
of oneself. So what on earth could this value be? Okay, take diamonds, for instance, which are traded at a
high value. Or currency. We find particular values for these things and say that one carat is this much,
that prices are such and such. But if you change your point of view, a diamond is nothing but a little
stone.
YOUTH: Well, intellectually it is.
PHILOSOPHER: In other words, value is something that’s based on a social context. The value given to a
one-dollar bill is not an objectively attributed value, though that might be a commonsense approach. If
one considers its actual cost as printed material, the value is nowhere near a dollar. If I were the only
person in this world and no one else existed, I’d probably be putting those one-dollar bills in my fireplace
in wintertime. Maybe I’d be using them to blow my nose. Following exactly the same logic, there should
have been no reason at all for me to worry about my height.
YOUTH: If you were the only person in this world and no one else existed?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. The problem of value in the end brings us back to interpersonal relationships again.
YOUTH: So this connects to what you were saying about all problems being interpersonal relationship
problems?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, that’s correct.
An Inferiority Complex Is an Excuse
YOUTH: But can you say for sure that feelings of inferiority are really a problem of interpersonal
relationships? Even the kind of person who is regarded socially as a success, who doesn’t need to debase
himself in relationships with other people, still has some feelings of inferiority? Even the businessman
who amasses enormous wealth, the peerless beauty who is the envy of all, and the Olympic gold medalist
—every one of them would be plagued by feelings of inferiority. Well, that’s how it seems to me. How
should I think about this?
PHILOSOPHER: Adler recognizes that feelings of inferiority are something everyone has. There’s nothing
bad about feelings of inferiority themselves.
YOUTH: So why do people have them in the first place?
PHILOSOPHER: It’s probably necessary to understand this in a certain order. First of all, people enter this
world as helpless beings. And people have the universal desire to escape from that helpless state. Adler
called this the “pursuit of superiority.”
YOUTH: Pursuit of superiority?
PHILOSOPHER: This is something you could think of as simply “hoping to improve” or “pursuing an ideal
state.” For instance, a toddler learns to steady himself on both legs. He has the universal desire to learn
language and to improve. And all the advancements of science throughout human history are due to this
“pursuit of superiority,” too.
YOUTH: Okay. And then?
PHILOSOPHER: The counterpart of this is the feeling of inferiority. Everyone is in this “condition of
wanting to improve” that is the pursuit of superiority. One holds up various ideals or goals and heads
toward them. However, on not being able to reach one’s ideals, one harbors a sense of being lesser. For
instance, there are chefs who, the more inspired and accomplished they become, are forever beset with
the sort of feeling of inferiority that makes them say to themselves, I’m still not good enough, or I’ve got to
bring my cooking to the next level, and that sort of thing.
YOUTH: That’s true.
PHILOSOPHER: Adler is saying that the pursuit of superiority and the feeling of inferiority are not diseases
but stimulants to normal, healthy striving and growth. If it is not used in the wrong way, the feeling of
inferiority, too, can promote striving and growth.
YOUTH: The feeling of inferiority is a kind of launch pad?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. One tries to get rid of one’s feeling of inferiority and keep moving forward.
One’s never satisfied with one’s present situation—even if it’s just a single step, one wants to make
progress. One wants to be happier. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the state of this kind of feeling
of inferiority. There are, however, people who lose the courage to take a single step forward, who cannot
accept the fact that the situation can be changed by making realistic efforts. People who, before even
doing anything, simply give up and say things like “I’m not good enough anyway” or “Even if I tried, I
wouldn’t stand a chance.”
YOUTH: Well, that’s true. There’s no doubt about it—if the feeling of inferiority is strong, most people
will become negative and say, “I’m not good enough anyway.” Because that’s what a feeling of inferiority
is.
PHILOSOPHER: No, that’s not a feeling of inferiority—that’s an inferiority complex.
YOUTH: A complex? That’s what the feeling of inferiority is, isn’t it?
PHILOSOPHER: Be careful. The way the word “complex” is used today, it seems to have the same meaning
as “feeling of inferiority.” You hear people saying, “I’ve got a complex about my eyelids,” or “He’s got a
complex about his education,” that sort of thing. This is an utter misuse of the term. At base, “complex”
refers to an abnormal mental state made up of a complicated group of emotions and ideas, and has
nothing to do with the feeling of inferiority. For instance, there’s Freud’s Oedipus complex, which is
used in the context of discussing the abnormal attraction of the child to the opposite-sex parent.
YOUTH: Yes. The nuances of abnormality are especially strong when it comes to the mother complex and
the father complex.
PHILOSOPHER: For the same reason, then, it’s crucial to not mix up “feeling of inferiority” and
“inferiority complex,” and to think about them as clearly separate.
YOUTH: Concretely, how are they different?
PHILOSOPHER: There is nothing particularly wrong with the feeling of inferiority itself. You understand
this point now, right? As Adler says, the feeling of inferiority can be a trigger for striving and growth. For
instance, if one had a feeling of inferiority with regard to one’s education, and resolved to oneself, I’m
not well educated, so I’ll just have to try harder than anyone else, that would be a desirable direction. The
inferiority complex, on the other hand, refers to a condition of having begun to use one’s feeling of
inferiority as a kind of excuse. So one thinks to oneself, I’m not well educated, so I can’t succeed, or I’m not
good-looking, so I can’t get married. When someone is insisting on the logic of “A is the situation, so B
cannot be done” in such a way in everyday life, that is not something that fits in the feeling of inferiority
category. It is an inferiority complex.
YOUTH: No, it’s a legitimate causal relationship. If you’re not well educated, it takes away your chances of
getting work or making it in the world. You’re regarded as low on the social scale, and you can’t succeed.
That’s not an excuse at all. It’s just a cold hard fact, isn’t it?
PHILOSOPHER: No, you are wrong.
YOUTH: How? Where am I wrong?
PHILOSOPHER: What you are calling a causal relationship is something that Adler explains as “apparent
cause and effect.” That is to say, you convince yourself that there is some serious causal relationship
where there is none whatsoever. The other day, someone told me, “The reason I can’t get married easily is
that my parents got divorced when I was a child.” From the viewpoint of Freudian etiology (the
attributing of causes), the parents’ divorce was a great trauma, which connects in a clear causal
relationship with one’s views on marriage. Adler, however, with his stance of teleology (the attributing of
purpose), rejects such arguments as “apparent cause and effect.”
YOUTH: But even so, the reality is that having a good education makes it easier to be successful in society. I
had thought you were wise to the ways of the world.
PHILOSOPHER: The real issue is how one confronts that reality. If what you are thinking is, I’m not well
educated, so I can’t succeed, then instead of I can’t succeed, you should think, I don’t want to succeed.
YOUTH: I don’t want to succeed? What kind of reasoning is that?
PHILOSOPHER: It’s simply that it’s scary to take even one step forward; also, that you don’t want to make
realistic efforts. You don’t want to change so much that you’d be willing to sacrifice the pleasures you
enjoy now—for instance, the time you spend playing and engaged in hobbies. In other words, you’re not
equipped with the courage to change your lifestyle. It’s easier with things just as they are now, even if you
have some complaints or limitations.
Braggarts Have Feelings of Inferiority
YOUTH: Maybe so, but . . .
PHILOSOPHER: Further, you harbor an inferiority complex about education and think, I’m not well
educated, so I can’t succeed. Put the other way around, the reasoning can be, If only I were well educated, I
could be really successful.
YOUTH: Hmm, true.
PHILOSOPHER: This is the other aspect of the inferiority complex. Those who manifest their inferiority
complexes in words or attitudes, who say that “A is the situation, so B cannot be done,” are implying that
if only it were not for A, they’d be capable and have value.
YOUTH: If only it weren’t for this, I could do it, too.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. As Adler points out, no one is capable of putting up with having feelings of
inferiority for a long period of time. Feelings of inferiority are something that everyone has, but staying
in that condition is too heavy to endure forever.
YOUTH: Huh? This is getting pretty confusing.
PHILOSOPHER: Okay, let’s go over things one at a time. The condition of having a feeling of inferiority is a
condition of feeling some sort of lack in oneself in the present situation. So then, the question is—
YOUTH: How do you fill in the part that’s missing, right?
PHILOSOPHER: Exactly. How to compensate for the part that is lacking. The healthiest way is to try to
compensate through striving and growth. For instance, it could be by applying oneself to one’s studies,
engaging in constant training, or being diligent in one’s work. However, people who aren’t equipped
with that courage end up stepping into an inferiority complex. Again, it’s thinking, I’m not well
educated, so I can’t succeed. And it’s implying your capability by saying, “If only I were well educated, I
could be really successful.” That “the real me,” which just happens to be obscured right now by the
matter of education, is superior.
YOUTH: No, that doesn’t make sense—the second thing you’re saying is beyond a feeling of inferiority.
That’s really more bravado than anything else, isn’t it?
PHILOSOPHER: Indeed. The inferiority complex can also develop into another special mental state.
YOUTH: And what is that?
PHILOSOPHER: I doubt you have heard much about it. It’s the “superiority complex.”
YOUTH: Superiority complex?
PHILOSOPHER: One is suffering from strong feelings of inferiority, and, on top of that, one doesn’t have
the courage to compensate through healthy modes of striving and growth. That being said, one can’t
tolerate the inferiority complex of thinking, A is the situation, so B cannot be done. One can’t accept
“one’s incapable self.” At that point, the person thinks of trying to compensate in some other fashion and
looks for an easier way out.
YOUTH: What way is that?
PHILOSOPHER: It’s to act as if one is indeed superior and to indulge in a fabricated feeling of superiority.
YOUTH: A fabricated feeling of superiority?
PHILOSOPHER: A familiar example would be “giving authority.”
YOUTH: What does that mean?
PHILOSOPHER: One makes a show of being on good terms with a powerful person (broadly speaking—it
could be anyone from the leader of your school class to a famous celebrity). And by doing that, one lets it
be known that one is special. Behaviors like misrepresenting one’s work experience or excessive allegiance
to particular brands of clothing are forms of giving authority, and probably also have aspects of the
superiority complex. In each case, it isn’t that the “I” is actually superior or special. It is only that one is
making the “I” look superior by linking it to authority. In short, it’s a fabricated feeling of superiority.
YOUTH: And at the base of that, there is an intense feeling of inferiority?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course. I don’t know much about fashion, but I think it’s advisable to think of people
who wear rings with rubies and emeralds on all their fingers as having issues with feelings of inferiority,
rather than issues of aesthetic sensibility. In other words, they have signs of a superiority complex.
YOUTH: Right.
PHILOSOPHER: But those who make themselves look bigger on borrowed power are essentially living
according to other people’s value systems—they are living other people’s lives. This is a point that must be
emphasized.
YOUTH: So, a superiority complex. That’s a very interesting psychology. Can you give me a different
example?
PHILOSOPHER: There’s the kind of person who likes to boast about his achievements. Someone who clings
to his past glory and is always recounting memories of the time when his light shone brightest. Maybe
you know some people like this. All such people can be said to have superiority complexes.
YOUTH: The kind of man who boasts about his achievements? Yes, it is an arrogant attitude, but he can
boast because he actually is superior. You can’t call that a fabricated feeling of superiority.
PHILOSOPHER: Ah, but you are wrong. Those who go so far as to boast about things out loud actually
have no confidence in themselves. As Adler clearly indicates, “The one who boasts does so only out of a
feeling of inferiority.”
YOUTH: You’re saying that boasting is an inverted feeling of inferiority?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. If one really has confidence in oneself, one doesn’t feel the need to boast. It’s
because one’s feeling of inferiority is strong that one boasts. One feels the need to flaunt one’s superiority
all the more. There’s the fear that if one doesn’t do that, not a single person will accept one “the way I
am.” This is a full-blown superiority complex.
YOUTH: So though one would think from the sound of the words that inferiority complex and superiority
complex were polar opposites, in actuality they border on each other?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, they are clearly connected. Now, there is one last example I’d like to give, a complex
example that deals with boasting. It is a pattern leading to a particular feeling of superiority that manifests
due to the feeling of inferiority itself becoming intensified. Concretely speaking, it’s bragging about one’s
own misfortune.
YOUTH: Bragging about one’s own misfortune?
PHILOSOPHER: The person who assumes a boasting manner when talking about his upbringing and the
like, the various misfortunes that have rained down upon him. If someone should try to comfort this
person, or suggest some change be made, he’ll refuse the helping hand by saying, “You don’t understand
how I feel.”
YOUTH: Well, there are people like that, but . . .
PHILOSOPHER: Such people try to make themselves “special” by way of their experience of misfortune,
and with the single fact of their misfortune try to place themselves above others. Take the fact that I am
short, for instance. Let’s say that kind-hearted people come up to me and say, “It’s nothing to worry
about,” or “Such things have nothing to do with human values.” Now, if I were to reject them and say,
“You think you know what short people go through, huh?” no one would say a thing to me anymore.
I’m sure that everyone around me would start treating me just as if I were a boil about to burst and
would handle me very carefully—or, I should say, circumspectly.
YOUTH: Absolutely true.
PHILOSOPHER: By doing that, my position becomes superior to other people’s, and I can become special.
Quite a few people try to be “special” by adopting this kind of attitude when they are sick or injured, or
suffering the mental anguish of heartbreak.
YOUTH: So they reveal their feeling of inferiority and use it to their advantage?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. They use their misfortune to their advantage and try to control the other party with
it. By declaring how unfortunate they are and how much they have suffered, they are trying to worry the
people around them (their family and friends, for example), and to restrict their speech and behavior, and
control them. The people I was talking about at the very beginning, who shut themselves up in their
rooms, frequently indulge in feelings of superiority and use misfortune to their advantage. So much so
that Adler himself pointed out, “In our culture weakness can be quite strong and powerful.”
YOUTH: So weakness is powerful?
PHILOSOPHER: Adler says, “In fact, if we were to ask ourselves who is the strongest person in our culture,
the logical answer would be, the baby. The baby rules and cannot be dominated.” The baby rules over
the adults with his weakness. And it is because of this weakness that no one can control him.
YOUTH: I’ve never encountered that viewpoint.
PHILOSOPHER: Of course, the words of the person who has been hurt—“You don’t understand how I
feel”—are likely to contain a certain degree of truth. Completely understanding the feelings of the person
who is suffering is something that no one is capable of. But as long as one continues to use one’s
misfortune to one’s advantage in order to be “special,” one will always need that misfortune.
The youth and philosopher had now covered a series of discussion topics: the feeling of
inferiority, the inferiority complex, and the superiority complex. Psychology keywords though
they clearly were, the truths they contained differed greatly from the youth’s imagined meanings.
Still, something didn’t feel right to him, somehow. What is it about all this that I’m having a
hard time accepting? Well, it must be the introductory part, the premise, that is giving me doubts.
The youth calmly opened his mouth to speak.
Life Is Not a Competition
YOUTH: But I guess I still don’t really get it.
PHILOSOPHER: Okay, ask me anything you like.
YOUTH: Adler recognizes that the pursuit of superiority—one’s trying to be a more superior being—is a
universal desire, doesn’t he? On the other hand, he’s striking a note of warning with regard to excessive
feelings of inferiority and superiority. It’d be easy to understand if he could renounce the pursuit of
superiority—then I could accept it. What are we supposed to do?
PHILOSOPHER: Think about it this way. When we refer to the pursuit of superiority, there’s a tendency to
think of it as the desire to try to be superior to other people; to climb higher, even if it means kicking
others down—you know, the image of ascending a stairway and pushing people out of the way to get to
the top. Adler does not uphold such attitudes, of course. Rather, he’s saying that on the same level
playing field, there are people who are moving forward, and there are people who are moving forward
behind them. Keep that image in mind. Though the distance covered and the speed of walking differ,
everyone is walking equally in the same flat place. The pursuit of superiority is the mind-set of taking a
single step forward on one’s own feet, not the mind-set of competition of the sort that necessitates aiming
to be greater than other people.
YOUTH: So life is not a competition?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. It’s enough to just keep moving in a forward direction, without competing
with anyone. And, of course, there is no need to compare oneself with others.
YOUTH: No, that’s impossible. We’ll always compare ourselves to other people, no matter what. That’s
exactly where our feeling of inferiority comes from, isn’t it?
PHILOSOPHER: A healthy feeling of inferiority is not something that comes from comparing oneself to
others; it comes from one’s comparison with one’s ideal self.
YOUTH: But . . .
PHILOSOPHER: Look, all of us are different. Gender, age, knowledge, experience, appearance—no two of
us are exactly the same. Let’s acknowledge in a positive manner the fact that other people are different
from us. And that we are not the same, but we are equal.
YOUTH: We are not the same, but we are equal?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. Everyone is different. Don’t mix up that difference with good and bad, and
superior and inferior. Whatever differences we may have, we are all equal.
YOUTH: No distinction of rank for people. Idealistically speaking, I suppose so. But aren’t we trying to
have an honest discussion about reality now? Would you really say, for instance, that I, an adult, and a
child who is still struggling with his arithmetic are equal?
PHILOSOPHER: In terms of the amount of knowledge and experience, and then the amount of
responsibility that can be taken, there are bound to be differences. The child might not be able to tie his
shoes properly, or figure out complicated mathematical equations, or be able to take the same degree of
responsibility as an adult when problems arise. However, such things shouldn’t have anything to do with
human values. My answer is the same. Human beings are all equal, but not the same.
YOUTH: Then are you saying that a child should be treated like a full-grown adult?
PHILOSOPHER: No. Instead of treating the child like an adult, or like a child, one must treat him or her like
a human being. One interacts with the child with sincerity, as another human being just like oneself.
YOUTH: Let’s change the question. All people are equal. They’re on the same level playing field. But
actually, there’s a disparity here, isn’t there? Those who move forward are superior, and those who
pursue them from behind are inferior. So we end up at the problem of superior and inferior, don’t we?
PHILOSOPHER: No, we do not. It does not matter if one is trying to walk in front of others or walk behind
them. It is as if we are moving through a flat space that has no vertical axis. We do not walk in order to
compete with someone. It is in trying to progress past who one is now that there is value.
YOUTH: Have you become free from all forms of competition?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course. I do not think about gaining status or honor, and I live my life as an outsider
philosopher without any connection whatsoever to worldly competition.
YOUTH: Does that mean you dropped out of competition? That you somehow accepted defeat?
PHILOSOPHER: No. I withdrew from places that are preoccupied with winning and losing. When one is
trying to be oneself, competition will inevitably get in the way.
YOUTH: No way! That’s a tired-out old man’s argument. Young folks like me have to pull themselves up
by their own bootstraps amid the tension of competition. It’s because I don’t have a rival running
alongside me that I can’t outdo myself. What’s wrong with thinking of interpersonal relationships as
competitive?
PHILOSOPHER: If that rival was someone you could call a comrade, it’s possible that it would lead to selfimprovement.
But in many cases, a competitor will not be your comrade.
YOUTH: Meaning what, exactly?
You’re the Only One Worrying About Your Appearance
PHILOSOPHER: Let’s tie up the loose ends. At the outset, you expressed dissatisfaction with Adler’s
definition that all problems are interpersonal relationship problems, right? That was the basis for our
discussion on feelings of inferiority.
YOUTH: Yes, that’s correct. The subject of feelings of inferiority was too intense, and I was on the verge of
forgetting that point. Why did you bring up the subject in the first place?
PHILOSOPHER: It is connected with the subject of competition. Please remember that. If there is
competition at the core of a person’s interpersonal relationships, he will not be able to escape
interpersonal relationship problems or escape misfortune.
YOUTH: Why not?
PHILOSOPHER: Because at the end of a competition, there are winners and losers.
YOUTH: It’s perfectly fine to have winners and losers!
PHILOSOPHER: Give some thought to it, then, if it were you, specifically, who had a consciousness of
being in competition with the people around you. In your relations with them, you would have no
choice but to be conscious of victory or defeat. Mr. A got into this famous university, Mr. B found work
at that big company, and Mr. C has hooked up with such a nice-looking woman—and you’ll compare
yourself to them and think, This is all I’ve got.
YOUTH: Ha-ha. That’s pretty specific.
PHILOSOPHER: When one is conscious of competition and victory and defeat, it is inevitable that feelings
of inferiority will arise. Because one is constantly comparing oneself to others and thinking, I beat that
person or I lost to that person. The inferiority complex and the superiority complex are extensions of that.
Now, what kind of being do you think the other person is to you, at that point?
YOUTH: I don’t know—a rival, I guess?
PHILOSOPHER: No, not a mere rival. Before you know it, you start to see each and every person, everyone
in the whole world, as your enemy.
YOUTH: My enemy?
PHILOSOPHER: You start to think that people are always looking down on you and treating you with
scorn, that they’re all enemies who must never be underestimated, who lie in wait for any opening and
attack at the drop of a hat. In short, that the world is a terrifying place.
YOUTH: Enemies who must never be underestimated . . . That’s who I’m in competition with?
PHILOSOPHER: This is what is so terrifying about competition. Even if you’re not a loser, even if you’re
someone who keeps on winning, if you are someone who has placed himself in competition, you will
never have a moment’s peace. You don’t want to be a loser. And you always have to keep on winning if
you don’t want to be a loser. You can’t trust other people. The reason so many people don’t really feel
happy while they’re building up their success in the eyes of society is that they are living in competition.
Because to them, the world is a perilous place that is overflowing with enemies.
YOUTH: I suppose so, but . . .
PHILOSOPHER: But do other people actually look at you so much? Are they really watching you around
the clock and lying in wait for the perfect moment to attack? It seems rather unlikely. A young friend of
mine, when he was a teenager, used to spend a lot of time in front of the mirror arranging his hair. And
once, when he was doing that, his grandmother said, “You’re the only one who’s worried how you look.”
He says that it got a bit easier for him to deal with life after that.
YOUTH: Hey, that’s a dig at me, isn’t it? Sure, maybe I do see the people around me as enemies. I’m
constantly in fear of being attacked, of the arrows that could come flying at me at any moment. I always
think that I’m being watched by others, that I’m being subjected to harsh judgment, and that I’m going
to be attacked. And it’s probably true that this is a self-conscious reaction, just like the mirror-obsessed
teenager. The people of the world aren’t paying attention to me. Even if I were to go walking on my
hands down the street, they’d take no notice! But I don’t know. Are you saying, after all, that my feeling
of inferiority is something that I chose, that has some sort of goal? That just doesn’t make any sense to
me.
PHILOSOPHER: And why is that?
YOUTH: I have a brother who is three years older than I am. He fits the classic image of the big brother—
he always does what our parents say, he excels in his studies and in sports, and he’s the very picture of
diligence. And from the time I was little, I was always compared to him. He is older and more advanced,
so of course I could never beat him at anything. Our parents did not care at all about such circumstances,
and never gave me any sign of recognition. Whatever I did, I got treated like a child, and I was berated at
every opportunity and told to be quiet. I learned to keep my feelings to myself. I’ve lived my life totally
steeped in feelings of inferiority, and I had no choice but to be conscious of being in competition with
my brother!
PHILOSOPHER: I see.
YOUTH: Sometimes I think of it like this: I’m like a gourd that grew without getting enough sun. So it is
only natural that I’m all twisted up with feelings of inferiority. If there’s anyone who could grow straight
in such a situation, well, I’d love to meet him!
PHILOSOPHER: I understand. I really do understand how you feel. Now, let’s look at “competition” while
taking into consideration your relationship with your brother. If you didn’t think with a competition
orientation, with regard to your brother and your other interpersonal relationships, how would people
seem to you?
YOUTH: Well, my brother is my brother, and I guess other people are another story.
PHILOSOPHER: No, they should become more positive comrades.
YOUTH: Comrades?
PHILOSOPHER: Earlier, didn’t you say, “I can’t celebrate other people’s happiness with all my heart”? You
think of interpersonal relationships as competition; you perceive other people’s happiness as “my defeat,”
and that is why you can’t celebrate it. However, once one is released from the schema of competition, the
need to triumph over someone disappears. One is also released from the fear that says, Maybe I will lose.
And one becomes able to celebrate other people’s happiness with all one’s heart. One may become able to
contribute actively to other people’s happiness. The person who always has the will to help another in
times of need—that is someone who may properly be called your comrade.
YOUTH: Hmm.
PHILOSOPHER: Now we come to the important part. When you are able to truly feel that “people are my
comrades,” your way of looking at the world will change utterly. No longer will you think of the world
as a perilous place, or be plagued by needless doubts; the world will appear before you as a safe and
pleasant place. And your interpersonal relationship problems will decrease dramatically.
YOUTH: What a happy person you are! But you know, that’s all like a sunflower. It’s the reasoning of a
sunflower that is bathed in full sunshine every day and is nurtured with ample watering. A gourd grown
in the dim shade doesn’t do so well!
PHILOSOPHER: You are returning to etiology (the attributing of causes) again.
YOUTH: Oh, yes, I sure am!
Raised by strict parents, the youth had been oppressed and compared to his elder brother ever
since childhood. None of his opinions were ever heard, and he was subjected to the violent words
that he was a poor excuse for a little brother. Unable to make friends even at school, he spent all
his free time alone in the library, which became his sole place of refuge. This youth who had
passed his early years in such a way was truly an inhabitant of etiology. If he had not been raised
by those parents, if that elder brother had never existed, and if he had not attended that school, he
could have had a brighter life. The youth had been trying to participate in the discussion as
coolheadedly as possible, but now his many years of pent-up feelings came bursting out.
From Power Struggle to Revenge
YOUTH: Okay, all this talk about teleology and such is pure sophistry, and trauma definitely does exist.
And people cannot break free from the past. Surely you realize that? We cannot go back to the past in a
time machine. As long as the past exists as the past, we live within contexts from the past. If one were to
treat the past as something that does not exist, that would be the same as negating the entire life one has
led. Are you suggesting I choose such an irresponsible life?
PHILOSOPHER: It is true that one cannot use a time machine or turn back the hands of time. But what
kind of meaning does one attribute to past events? This is the task that is given to “you now.”
YOUTH: All right, so let’s talk about “now.” Last time, you said that people fabricate the emotion of anger,
right? And that that is the standpoint of teleology. I still cannot accept that statement. For example, how
would you explain instances of anger toward society, or anger toward government? Would you say that
these, too, are emotions fabricated in order to push one’s opinions?
PHILOSOPHER: Certainly, there are times when I feel indignation with regard to social problems. But I
would say that rather than a sudden burst of emotion, it is indignation based on logic. There is a
difference between personal anger (personal grudge) and indignation with regard to society’s
contradictions and injustices (righteous indignation). Personal anger soon cools. Righteous indignation,
on the other hand, lasts for a long time. Anger as an expression of a personal grudge is nothing but a tool
for making others submit to you.
YOUTH: You say that personal grudges and righteous indignation are different?
PHILOSOPHER: They are completely different. Because righteous indignation goes beyond one’s own
interests.
YOUTH: Then I’ll ask about personal grudges. Surely even you get angry sometimes—for instance, if
someone hurls abuse at you for no particular reason—don’t you?
PHILOSOPHER: No, I do not.
YOUTH: Come on, be honest.
PHILOSOPHER: If someone were to abuse me to my face, I would think about the person’s hidden goal.
Even if you are not directly abusive, when you feel genuinely angry due to another person’s words or
behavior, please consider that the person is challenging you to a power struggle.
YOUTH: A power struggle?
PHILOSOPHER: For instance, a child will tease an adult with various pranks and misbehaviors. In many
cases, this is done with the goal of getting attention and will cease just before the adult gets genuinely
angry. However, if the child does not stop before the adult gets genuinely angry, then his goal is actually
to get in a fight.
YOUTH: Why would he want to get in a fight?
PHILOSOPHER: He wants to win. He wants to prove his power by winning.
YOUTH: I don’t really get that. Could you give me some concrete examples?
PHILOSOPHER: Let’s say you and a friend have been discussing the current political situation. Before long,
it turns into a heated argument, and neither of you is willing to accept any differences of opinion until
finally it reaches the point where he starts engaging in personal attacks—that you’re stupid, and it’s
because of people like you that this country doesn’t change, that sort of thing.
YOUTH: But if someone said that to me, I wouldn’t be able to put up with it.
PHILOSOPHER: In this case, what is the other person’s goal? Is it only that he wants to discuss politics? No,
it isn’t. It’s that he finds you unbearable, and he wants to criticize and provoke you, and make you
submit through a power struggle. If you get angry at this point, the moment he has been anticipating will
arrive, and the relationship will suddenly turn into a power struggle. No matter what the provocation,
you must not get taken in.
YOUTH: No, there’s no need to run away from it. If someone wants to start a fight, it’s fine to accept it.
Because it’s the other guy who’s at fault, anyway. You can bash his nose in, the stupid fool. With words,
that is.
PHILOSOPHER: Now let’s say you take control of the quarrel. And then the other man, who was seeking to
defeat you, withdraws in a sportsmanlike manner. The thing is, the power struggle doesn’t end there.
Having lost the dispute, he rushes on to the next stage.
YOUTH: The next stage?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. It’s the revenge stage. Though he has withdrawn for the time being, he will be
scheming some revenge in another place and another form, and will reappear with an act of retaliation.
YOUTH: Like what, for instance?
PHILOSOPHER: The child oppressed by his parents will turn to delinquency. He’ll stop going to school.
He’ll cut his wrists or engage in other acts of self-harm. In Freudian etiology, this is regarded as simple
cause and effect: The parents raised the child in this way, and that is why the child grew up to be like this.
It’s just like pointing out that a plant wasn’t watered, so it withered. It’s an interpretation that is certainly
easy to understand. But Adlerian teleology does not turn a blind eye to the goal that the child is hiding.
That is to say, the goal of revenge on the parents. If he becomes a delinquent, stops going to school, cuts
his wrists, or things like that, the parents will be upset. They’ll panic and worry themselves sick over him.
It is in the knowledge that this will happen that the child engages in problem behavior. So that the current
goal (revenge on the parents) can be realized, not because he is motivated by past causes (home
environment).
YOUTH: He engages in problem behavior in order to upset his parents?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. There are probably a lot of people who feel mystified by seeing a child who
cuts his wrists, and they think, Why would he do such a thing? But try to think how the people around the
child—the parents, for instance—will feel as a result of the behavior of wrist cutting. If you do, the goal
behind the behavior should come into view of its own accord.
YOUTH: The goal being revenge?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. And once the interpersonal relationship reaches the revenge stage, it is almost
impossible for either party to find a solution. To prevent this from happening, when one is challenged to
a power struggle, one must never allow oneself to be taken in.
Admitting Fault Is Not Defeat
YOUTH: All right, then what should you do when you’re subjected to personal attacks right to your face?
Do you just grin and bear it?
PHILOSOPHER: No, the idea that you are “bearing it” is proof that you are still stuck in the power struggle.
When you are challenged to a fight, and you sense that it is a power struggle, step down from the conflict
as soon as possible. Do not answer his action with a reaction. That is the only thing we can do.
YOUTH: But is it really that easy to not respond to provocation? In the first place, how would you say I
should control my anger?
PHILOSOPHER: When you control your anger, you’re “bearing it,” right? Instead, let’s learn a way to settle
things without using the emotion of anger. Because after all, anger is a tool. A means for achieving a goal.
YOUTH: That’s a tough one.
PHILOSOPHER: The first thing that I want you to understand here is the fact that anger is a form of
communication, and that communication is nevertheless possible without using anger. We can convey
our thoughts and intentions and be accepted without any need for anger. If you learn to understand this
experientially, the anger emotion will stop appearing all on its own.
YOUTH: But what if they come at you with mistaken accusations, or make insulting comments? I
shouldn’t get angry even then?
PHILOSOPHER: You don’t seem to understand yet. It’s not that you mustn’t get angry, but that there is no
need to rely on the tool of anger. Irascible people do not have short tempers—it is only that they do not
know that there are effective communication tools other than anger. That is why people end up saying
things like “I just snapped” or, “He flew into a rage.” We end up relying on anger to communicate.
YOUTH: Effective communication tools other than anger . . .
PHILOSOPHER: We have language. We can communicate through language. Believe in the power of
language and the language of logic.
YOUTH: Certainly, if I did not believe in that, we wouldn’t be having this dialogue.
PHILOSOPHER: One more thing about power struggles. In every instance, no matter how much you
might think you are right, try not to criticize the other party on that basis. This is an interpersonal
relationship trap that many people fall into.
YOUTH: Why’s that?
PHILOSOPHER: The moment one is convinced that “I am right” in an interpersonal relationship, one has
already stepped into a power struggle.
YOUTH: Just because you think you’re right? No way, that’s just blowing things all out of proportion.
PHILOSOPHER: I am right. That is to say, the other party is wrong. At that point, the focus of the
discussion shifts from “the rightness of the assertions” to “the state of the interpersonal relationship.” In
other words, the conviction that “I am right” leads to the assumption that “this person is wrong,” and
finally it becomes a contest and you are thinking, I have to win. It’s a power struggle through and
through.
YOUTH: Hmm.
PHILOSOPHER: In the first place, the rightness of one’s assertions has nothing to do with winning or
losing. If you think you are right, regardless of what other people’s opinions might be, the matter should
be closed then and there. However, many people will rush into a power struggle and try to make others
submit to them. And that is why they think of “admitting a mistake” as “admitting defeat.”
YOUTH: Yes, there definitely is that aspect.
PHILOSOPHER: Because of one’s mind-set of not wanting to lose, one is unable to admit one’s mistake, the
result being that one ends up choosing the wrong path. Admitting mistakes, conveying words of
apology, and stepping down from power struggles—none of these things is defeat. The pursuit of
superiority is not something that is carried out through competition with other people.
YOUTH: So when you’re hung up on winning and losing, you lose the ability to make the right choices?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. It clouds your judgment, and all you can see is imminent victory or defeat. Then you
turn down the wrong path. It’s only when we take away the lenses of competition and winning and
losing that we can begin to correct and change ourselves.
Overcoming the Tasks That Face You in Life
YOUTH: Okay, but there’s still a problem. It’s the statement “All problems are interpersonal relationship
problems.” I can see that the feeling of inferiority is an interpersonal relationship worry, and that it has
certain effects on us. And I accept as logical the idea that life is not a competition. I cannot see other
people as comrades, and somewhere inside me I think of them as enemies. This is clearly the case. But the
thing I find puzzling is, why does Adler place so much importance on interpersonal relationships? Why
does he go so far as to say “all” of them?
PHILOSOPHER: The issue of interpersonal relationships is so important that no matter how broadly it is
addressed, it never seems to suffice. Last time I told you, “What you are lacking is the courage to be
happy.” You remember that, right?
YOUTH: I couldn’t forget it if I tried.
PHILOSOPHER: So why do you see other people as enemies, and why can’t you think of them as your
comrades? It is because you have lost your courage and you are running away from your “life tasks.”
YOUTH: My life tasks?
PHILOSOPHER: Right. This is a crucial point. In Adlerian psychology, clear objectives are laid out for
human behavior and psychology.
YOUTH: What sort of objectives?
PHILOSOPHER: First, there are two objectives for behavior: to be self-reliant and to live in harmony with
society. Then, the two objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviors are the consciousness
that I have the ability and the consciousness that people are my comrades.
YOUTH: Just a moment. I’m writing this down . . . There are the following two objectives for behavior: to
be self-reliant and to live in harmony with society. And there are the following two objectives for the
psychology that supports these behaviors: the consciousness that I have the ability and the consciousness
that people are my comrades . . . Okay, I can see that it is a crucial subject: to be self-reliant as an individual
while living in harmony with people and society. It seems to tie in with everything we’ve been discussing.
PHILOSOPHER: And these objectives can be achieved by facing what Adler calls “life tasks.”
YOUTH: What are life tasks?
PHILOSOPHER: Let’s think of the word “life” as tracing back to childhood. During childhood, we are
protected by our parents and can live without needing to work. But eventually, the time comes when
one has to be self-reliant. One cannot be dependent on one’s parents forever, and one has to be selfreliant
mentally, of course, and self-reliant in a social sense as well, and one has to engage in some form of
work—which is not limited to the narrow definition of working at a company. Furthermore, in the
process of growing up, one begins to have all kinds of friend relationships. Of course, one may form a
love relationship with someone that may even lead to marriage. If it does, one will start a marital
relationship, and if one has children, a parent-child relationship will begin. Adler made three categories of
the interpersonal relationships that arise out of these processes. He referred to them as “tasks of work,”
“tasks of friendship,” and “tasks of love,” and all together as “life tasks.”
YOUTH: Are these tasks the obligations one has as a member of society? In other words, things like labor
and payment of taxes?
PHILOSOPHER: No, please think of this solely in terms of interpersonal relationships. That is, the distance
and depth in one’s interpersonal relationships. Adler sometimes used the expression “three social ties” to
emphasize the point.
YOUTH: The distance and depth in one’s interpersonal relationships?
PHILOSOPHER: The interpersonal relationships that a single individual has no choice but to confront
when attempting to live as a social being—these are the life tasks. They are indeed tasks in the sense that
one has no choice but to confront them.
YOUTH: Would you be more specific?
PHILOSOPHER: First, let’s look at the tasks of work. Regardless of the kind of work, there is no work that
can be completed all by oneself. For instance, I am usually here in my study writing a manuscript.
Writing is completely autonomous work that I cannot have someone else do for me. But then there is the
presence of the editor and many others, without whose assistance the work would not be realized, from
the people who handle book design and printing to the distribution and bookstore staff. Work that can be
completed without the cooperation of other people is in principle unfeasible.
YOUTH: Broadly speaking, I suppose so.
PHILOSOPHER: However, considered from the viewpoint of distance and depth, interpersonal
relationships of work may be said to have the lowest hurdles. Interpersonal relationships of work have the
easy-to-understand common objective of obtaining good results, so people can cooperate even if they
don’t always get along, and to some extent they have no choice but to cooperate. And as long as a
relationship is formed solely on the basis of work, it will go back to being a relationship with an outsider
when working hours are over or one changes jobs.
YOUTH: Yes, so true.
PHILOSOPHER: And the ones who get tripped up in the interpersonal relationships at this stage are the
people referred to as “NEETs” (a young person not in education, employment, or training) or “shut-ins”
(a person confined indoors).
YOUTH: Huh? Wait a minute! Are you saying that they don’t try to work simply because they want to
avoid the interpersonal relationships that are associated with work, not that they don’t want to work or
that they’re refusing to do manual labor?
PHILOSOPHER: Putting aside the question of whether or not they are conscious of it themselves,
interpersonal relationships are at the core. For example, a man sends out résumés to find work and gets
interviews, only to be rejected by one company after another. It hurts his pride. He starts to wonder what
the purpose in working is if he has to go through such things. Or he makes a big mistake at work. The
company is going to lose a huge sum of money because of him. Feeling utterly hopeless, as if he’s plunged
into darkness, he can’t bear the thought of coming in to work the following day. None of these are
examples of the work itself becoming disagreeable. What is disagreeable is being criticized or rebuked by
others through the work, getting labeled as having no ability or being incompetent or unsuited to the
work, and hurting the dignity of one’s irreplaceable self. In other words, everything is an interpersonal
relationship issue.
Red String and Rigid Chains
YOUTH: Well, I’ll save my objections for later. Next, what about the task of friendship?
PHILOSOPHER: This is a friend relationship in a broader sense, away from work, as there is none of the
compulsion of the workplace. It is a relationship that is difficult to initiate or deepen.
YOUTH: Ah, you’ve got that right! If there’s a space, like one’s school or workplace, one can still build a
relationship. But then it would be a superficial relationship that is limited to that space. To even attempt
to initiate a personal friend relationship, or find a friend in a place outside the school or workplace,
would be extremely difficult.
PHILOSOPHER: Do you have anyone whom you would call a close friend?
YOUTH: I have a friend. But I’m not sure I’d call him a close friend . . .
PHILOSOPHER: It used to be the same for me. When I was in high school, I did not even try to make
friends and spent my days studying Greek and German, quietly absorbed in reading philosophy books.
My mother was worried about me and went to consult my homeroom teacher. And my teacher told her,
“There’s no need to worry. He’s a person who doesn’t need friends.” Those words were very
encouraging to my mother, and to me as well.
YOUTH: A person who doesn’t need friends? So in high school you didn’t have a single friend?
PHILOSOPHER: I did have one friend. He said, “There’s nothing really worth learning at a university,” and
in the end he actually did not enter university. He went into seclusion up in the mountains for several
years, and these days I hear he’s working in journalism in Southeast Asia. I haven’t seen him in decades,
but I have the feeling that if we got together again, we’d be able to hang out just as we did back then. A
lot of people think that the more friends you have the better, but I’m not so sure about that. There’s no
value at all in the number of friends or acquaintances you have. And this is a subject that connects with
the task of love, but what we should be thinking about is the distance and depth of the relationship.
YOUTH: Will it be possible for me to make close friends?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course it will. If you change, those around you will change too. They will have no
choice but to change. Adlerian psychology is a psychology for changing oneself, not a psychology for
changing others. Instead of waiting for others to change or waiting for the situation to change, you take
the first step forward yourself.
YOUTH: Hmm . . .
PHILOSOPHER: The fact is that you came like this to visit me in my room. And, in you, I have found a
young friend.
YOUTH: I am your friend?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, because you are. The dialogue going on here is not counseling, and we do not have a
work relationship. To me, you are an irreplaceable friend. Don’t you think so?
YOUTH: I’m your . . . irreplaceable friend? No, I won’t think anything about that right now. Let’s just
keep going. What about the last one, the task of love?
PHILOSOPHER: Think of it as divided into two stages: one, what are known as love relationships; and two,
relationships with family, in particular parent-child relationships. We have discussed work and friendship,
but of the three tasks, most likely it is the task of love that is the most difficult. When a friend relationship
has turned into love, speech and conduct that were permitted between friends may no longer be
permitted the moment they become lovers. Specifically, that would mean not permitting socializing with
friends of the opposite sex, and in some cases just speaking on the telephone to someone of the opposite
sex is enough to arouse jealousy. The distance is that close, and the relationship that deep.
YOUTH: Yes, I suppose it can’t be helped.
PHILOSOPHER: But Adler does not accept restricting one’s partner. If the person seems to be happy, one
can frankly celebrate that condition. That is love. Relationships in which people restrict each other
eventually fall apart.
YOUTH: Wait, that’s an argument that can only lead to affirming infidelity. Because if one’s partner were
happily having an affair, you’re saying that one should celebrate even that.
PHILOSOPHER: No, I am not affirming someone having an affair. Think about it this way: The kind of
relationship that feels somehow oppressive and strained when the two people are together cannot be
called love, even if there is passion. When one can think, Whenever I am with this person, I can behave
very freely, one can really feel love. One can be in a calm and quite natural state, without having feelings
of inferiority or being beset with the need to flaunt one’s superiority. That is what real love is like.
Restriction, on the other hand, is a manifestation of the mind-set of attempting to control one’s partner,
and also an idea founded on a sense of distrust. Being in the same space with someone who distrusts you
isn’t a natural situation that one can put up with, is it? As Adler says, “If two people want to live together
on good terms, they must treat each other as equal personalities.”
YOUTH: Okay.
PHILOSOPHER: However, in love relationships and marital relationships, there is the option of separating.
So even a husband and wife who have been together for many years can separate if continuing the
relationship becomes distressful. In a parent-child relationship, however, in principle this cannot be
done. If romantic love is a relationship connected by red string, then the relationship between parents
and children is bound in rigid chains. And a pair of small scissors is all you have. This is the difficulty of
the parent-child relationship.
YOUTH: So what can one do?
PHILOSOPHER: What I can say at this stage is: You must not run away. No matter how distressful the
relationship, you must not avoid or put off dealing with it. Even if in the end you’re going to cut it with
scissors, first you have to face it. The worst thing to do is to just stand still with the situation as it is. It is
fundamentally impossible for a person to live life completely alone, and it is only in social contexts that
the person becomes an “individual.” That is why in Adlerian psychology, self-reliance as an individual
and cooperation within society are put forth as overarching objectives. Then, how can one achieve these
objectives? On this point, Adler speaks of surmounting the three tasks of work, friendship, and love, the
tasks of the interpersonal relationships that a living person has no choice but to confront.
The youth was still struggling to grasp their true meaning.
Don’t Fall for the “Life-Lie”
YOUTH: Ah, it’s getting confusing again. You said that I see other people as enemies and can’t think of
them as comrades because I’m running away from my life tasks. What was that supposed to mean,
anyway?
PHILOSOPHER: Suppose, for instance, that there is a certain Mr. A whom you don’t like because he has
some flaws that are hard to forgive.
YOUTH: Ha-ha, if we’re looking for people I don’t like, there’s no shortage of candidates.
PHILOSOPHER: But it isn’t that you dislike Mr. A because you can’t forgive his flaws. You had the goal of
taking a dislike to Mr. A beforehand and then started looking for the flaws to satisfy that goal.
YOUTH: That’s ridiculous! Why would I do that?
PHILOSOPHER: So that you could avoid an interpersonal relationship with Mr. A.
YOUTH: No way, that’s completely out of the question. It’s obvious that the order of things is backward.
He did something I didn’t like, that’s why. If he hadn’t, I’d have no reason for taking a dislike to him.
PHILOSOPHER: No, you are wrong. It’s easy to see if you think back on the example of separating from a
person whom one has been in a love relationship with. In relationships between lovers or married
couples, there are times when, after a certain point, one becomes exasperated with everything one’s
partner says or does. For instance, she doesn’t care for the way he eats; his slovenly appearance at home
fills her with revulsion, and even his snoring sets her off. Even though until a few months ago, none of it
had ever bothered her before.
YOUTH: Yes, that sounds familiar.
PHILOSOPHER: The person feels this way because at some stage she has resolved to herself, I want to end
this relationship, and she has been looking around for the material with which to end it. The other
person hasn’t changed at all. It is her own goal that has changed. Look, people are extremely selfish
creatures who are capable of finding any number of flaws and shortcomings in others whenever the
mood strikes them. A man of perfect character could come along, and one would have no difficulty in
digging up some reason to dislike him. That’s exactly why the world can become a perilous place at any
time, and it’s always possible to see everyone as one’s enemies.
YOUTH: So I am making up flaws in other people just so that I can avoid my life tasks, and further more,
so I can avoid interpersonal relationships? And I am running away by thinking of other people as my
enemies?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. Adler called the state of coming up with all manner of pretexts in order to
avoid the life tasks the “life-lie.”
YOUTH: Okay . . .
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, it’s a severe term. One shifts one’s responsibility for the situation one is currently in to
someone else. One is running away from one’s life tasks by saying that everything is the fault of other
people, or the fault of one’s environment. It’s exactly the same as with the story I mentioned earlier about
the female student with the fear of blushing. One lies to oneself, and one lies to the people around one,
too. When you really think about it, it’s a pretty severe term.
YOUTH: But how can you conclude that I am lying? You don’t know anything about what kind of people
I have around me, or what kind of life I lead, do you?
PHILOSOPHER: True, I don’t know anything about your past. Not about your parents, or your elder
brother either. I know only one thing.
YOUTH: What’s that?
PHILOSOPHER: The fact that you—and no one else—are the one who decided your lifestyle.
YOUTH: Argh!
PHILOSOPHER: If your lifestyle were determined by other people or your environment, it would certainly
be possible to shift responsibility. But we choose our lifestyles ourselves. It’s clear where the responsibility
lies.
YOUTH: So you’re out to condemn me. But you’re calling people liars and cowards. And saying that
everyone is my responsibility.
PHILOSOPHER: You must not use the power of anger to look away. This is a very important point. Adler
never discusses the life tasks or life-lies in terms of good and evil. It is not morals or good and evil that we
should be discussing, but the issue of courage.
YOUTH: Courage again!
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. Even if you are avoiding your life tasks and clinging to your life-lies, it isn’t because
you are steeped in evil. It is not an issue to be condemned from a moralistic standpoint. It is only an issue
of courage.
From the Psychology of Possession to the Psychology of
Practice
YOUTH: So in the end what you’re talking about is courage? That reminds me, last time you said that
Adlerian psychology is a “psychology of courage.”
PHILOSOPHER: I will add to that by saying that Adlerian psychology is not a “psychology of possession”
but a “psychology of use.”
YOUTH: So it’s that statement: “It’s not what one is born with but what use one makes of that
equipment.”
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. Thank you for remembering it. Freudian etiology is a psychology of
possession, and eventually it arrives at determinism. Adlerian psychology, on the other hand, is a
psychology of use, and it is you who decides it.
YOUTH: Adlerian psychology is a psychology of courage, and at the same time it is a psychology of use . . .
PHILOSOPHER: We humans are not so fragile as to simply be at the mercy of etiological (cause-and-effect)
traumas. From the standpoint of teleology, we choose our lives and our lifestyles ourselves. We have the
power to do that.
YOUTH: But, honestly, I do not have the confidence to overcome my inferiority complex. And you might
say that that’s a life-lie, but I probably won’t ever be able to break free from the inferiority complex.
PHILOSOPHER: Why don’t you think so?
YOUTH: Maybe what you are saying is right. Actually, I’m sure it is, and courage really is what I am
lacking. I can accept the life-lie as well. I am scared of interacting with people. I don’t want to get hurt in
interpersonal relationships, and I want to put off my life tasks. That’s why I have all these excuses ready.
Yes, it’s exactly as you say. But isn’t what you are talking about a kind of spiritualism? All you’re really
saying is, “You’ve lost your courage, you’ve got to pluck up your courage.” It’s no different from the silly
instructor who thinks he’s giving you advice when he comes up and slaps you on the shoulder and says,
“Cheer up.” Even though the reason I’m not doing well is because I can’t just cheer up!
PHILOSOPHER: So what you are saying is that you would like me to suggest some specific steps?
YOUTH: Yes, please. I am a human being. I am not a machine. I’ve been told that I’m all out of courage,
but I can’t just get a refill of courage as if I were filling up my tank with fuel.
PHILOSOPHER: All right. But we’ve gone quite late again tonight, so let’s continue this next time.
YOUTH: You aren’t running away from it, right?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course not. Next time, we will probably discuss freedom.
YOUTH: Not courage?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, it will be a discussion of freedom, which is essential when talking about courage.
Please give some thought to the matter of what freedom is.
YOUTH: What freedom is . . . Fine. I am looking forward to next time.

THE THIRD NIGHT:
Discard Other People’s Tasks
Two anguished weeks later, the youth paid another visit to the philosopher’s study. What is freedom?
Why can’t people be free? Why can’t I be free? What is the true nature of whatever it is that is constraining
me? The assignment he had been given was weighing heavily on him, but it seemed impossible to find a
convincing answer. The more he thought about it, the more the youth began to notice his own lack of
freedom.
Deny the Desire for Recognition
YOUTH: So you said that today we would discuss freedom.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. Did you have any time to think about what freedom is?
YOUTH: Yes, actually. I thought about it at great length.
PHILOSOPHER: And did you arrive at any conclusions?
YOUTH: Well, I couldn’t find any answers. But I did find this—it’s not my own idea, but something I
came across at the library, a line from a novel by Dostoevsky: “Money is coined freedom.” What do you
think? Isn’t “coined freedom” a rather refreshing term? But seriously, I was fascinated to find this one
line that drove right to the heart of this thing called money.
PHILOSOPHER: I see. Certainly, if one were to speak in a very general sense of the true nature of that which
is brought about by money, one might say that is freedom. It is an astute observation, to be sure. But you
wouldn’t go so far as to say that “freedom therefore is money,” would you?
YOUTH: It’s exactly as you say. There probably is freedom that can be gained by way of money. And I’m
sure that freedom is greater than we imagine. Because, in reality, all the necessities of life are dealt with
through financial transactions. Does it follow, then, that if one possesses great wealth, one can be free? I
don’t believe that is the case; I would certainly like to believe that it is not the case, and that human values
and human happiness cannot be bought with money.
PHILOSOPHER: Well, say for the moment that you have obtained financial freedom. And then, though
you have gained great wealth, you have not found happiness. At that time, what problems and privations
would remain for you?
YOUTH: It would be the interpersonal relationships you have been mentioning. I have thought deeply
about this matter. For instance, you might be blessed by great wealth but not have anyone who loves you;
you have no comrades whom you could call friends, and you are not liked by anyone. This is a great
misfortune. Another thing I can’t get out of my head is the word “bonds.” Every one of us is tangled up
and writhing in these strings that we call bonds. Having to be attached to a person you don’t even care
for, for example, or to always watch out for your awful boss’s mood swings. Imagine, if you could be
released from such petty interpersonal relationships, how easy things would be! But no one can really do
such a thing. Wherever we go, we are surrounded by other people, and we are social individuals, who
exist in our relations to other people. No matter what we do, we cannot escape the strong rope of our
interpersonal relationships. I see now that Adler’s statement “All problems are interpersonal relationship
problems” is a great insight.
PHILOSOPHER: It is a crucial point. Let’s dig a little deeper. What is it about our interpersonal
relationships that is robbing us of our freedom?
YOUTH: Last time, you spoke about whether one thinks of other people as enemies or as comrades. You
said that if one becomes able to see others as one’s comrades, one’s way of looking at the world should
change as well. That certainly makes sense. I felt quite convinced the other day when I left here. But then
what happened? I gave the matter some careful thought, and I noticed that there are aspects of
interpersonal relationships that can’t be completely explained.
PHILOSOPHER: Like what?
YOUTH: The most obvious one is the existence of parents. I could never think of parents as enemies.
During my childhood, especially, they were my greatest guardians who raised and protected me. In that
regard, I am sincerely grateful. Still, my parents were strict people. I told you about this last time, that
they always compared me to my older brother and refused to recognize me. And they have constantly
made comments about my life, saying I should study more, not make friends with people like this or that,
get into this university at the very least, get this kind of job, and so on. Their demands put a lot of
pressure on me and were certainly bonds.
PHILOSOPHER: Then, what did you end up doing?
YOUTH: It seems to me that until I started university, I was never able to ignore my parents’ intentions. I
was anxious, which was unpleasant, but the fact of the matter is that my wishes always seemed to end up
overlapping with my parents’. My place of work I chose myself, however.
PHILOSOPHER: Now that you mention it, I haven’t heard about that yet. What kind of work do you do?
YOUTH: I’m now working as a librarian at a university library. My parents wanted me to take on my
father’s printing plant, like my brother did. Because of this, ever since I started my current job, our
relationship has been somewhat strained. If they weren’t my parents, and instead were enemy-like
presences in my life, I probably wouldn’t have minded at all. Because no matter how much they might
have tried to interfere, I could always just ignore them. But as I’ve said, parents to me are not enemies.
Whether or not they are comrades is another matter, but, at the very least, they are not what I would call
enemies. It’s a relationship that is much too close to be able to just ignore their intentions.
PHILOSOPHER: When you decided which university you would go to in line with your parents’ wishes,
what sort of emotion did you feel with regard to your parents?
YOUTH: It’s complicated. I did have feelings of resentment, but on the other hand there was this sense of
relief, too. You know, that I could get them to recognize me if I went to that school.
PHILOSOPHER: You could get them to recognize you?
YOUTH: Come on, let’s stop the roundabout leading questions. I’m sure you know what I’m referring to.
It’s the so-called desire for recognition. It’s interpersonal relationship problems in a nutshell. We human
beings live in constant need of recognition from others. It is precisely because the other person is not an
abhorrent enemy that one wants recognition from him, isn’t it? So yes, that’s right; I wanted to be
recognized by my parents.
PHILOSOPHER: I see. Let’s talk about one of the major premises of Adlerian psychology regarding this
matter. Adlerian psychology denies the need to seek recognition from others.
YOUTH: It denies the desire for recognition?
PHILOSOPHER: There is no need to be recognized by others. Actually, one must not seek recognition. This
point cannot be overstated.
YOUTH: No way! Isn’t desire for recognition a truly universal desire that motivates all human beings?
Do Not Live to Satisfy the Expectations of Others
PHILOSOPHER: Being recognized by others is certainly something to be happy about. But it would be
wrong to say that being recognized is absolutely necessary. For what does one seek recognition in the first
place? Or, to put it more succinctly, why does one want to be praised by others?
YOUTH: It’s simple. It’s through being recognized by others that each of us can truly feel we have value. It
is through recognition from others that one becomes able to wipe away one’s feelings of inferiority. One
learns to have confidence in oneself. Yes, it’s an issue of value. I think you mentioned it last time: that the
feeling of inferiority is an issue of value judgment. It’s because I could never get recognition from my
parents that I have lived a life tainted by feelings of inferiority.
PHILOSOPHER: Now let’s consider a familiar setting. For example, let’s say you’ve been picking up litter
around your workplace. The thing is, no one seems to notice at all. Or if they do, no one has given you
any appreciation for what you’ve done, or even said a single word of thanks. Well, will you keep on
picking up litter from now on?
YOUTH: That’s a difficult situation. I suppose that if no one appreciates what I’m doing, I might stop.
PHILOSOPHER: Why?
YOUTH: Picking up litter is for everyone. If I’m rolling up my sleeves and getting it done, but I don’t get a
word of thanks? I guess I’d probably lose my motivation.
PHILOSOPHER: This is the danger of the desire for recognition. Why is it that people seek recognition from
others? In many cases, it is due to the influence of reward-and-punishment education.
YOUTH: Reward-and-punishment education?
PHILOSOPHER: If one takes appropriate action, one receives praise. If one takes inappropriate action, one
receives punishment. Adler was very critical of education by reward and punishment. It leads to
mistaken lifestyles in which people think, If no one is going to praise me, I won’t take appropriate action
and If no one is going to punish me, I’ll engage in inappropriate actions, too. You already have the goal of
wanting to be praised when you start picking up litter. And if you aren’t praised by anyone, you’ll either
be indignant or decide that you’ll never do such a thing again. Clearly, there’s something wrong with this
situation.
YOUTH: No! I wish you wouldn’t trivialize things. I’m not arguing about education. Wanting to be
recognized by people you like, to be accepted by people close to you, is a normal desire.
PHILOSOPHER: You are badly mistaken. Look, we are not living to satisfy other people’s expectations.
YOUTH: What do you mean?
PHILOSOPHER: You are not living to satisfy other people’s expectations, and neither am I. It is not
necessary to satisfy other people’s expectations.
YOUTH: That is such a self-serving argument! Are you saying one should think only about oneself and live
self-righteously?
PHILOSOPHER: In the teachings of Judaism, one finds a view that goes something like this: If you are not
living your life for yourself, then who is going to live it for you? You are living only your own life. When
it comes to who you are living it for, of course it’s you. And then, if you are not living your life for
yourself, who could there be to live it instead of you? Ultimately, we live thinking about “I.” There is no
reason that we must not think that way.
YOUTH: So you are afflicted by the poison of nihilism, after all. You say that, ultimately, we live thinking
about “I”? And that that’s okay? What a wretched way of thinking!
PHILOSOPHER: It is not nihilism at all. Rather, it’s the opposite. When one seeks recognition from others,
and concerns oneself only with how one is judged by others, in the end, one is living other people’s lives.
YOUTH: What does that mean?
PHILOSOPHER: Wishing so hard to be recognized will lead to a life of following expectations held by other
people who want you to be “this kind of person.” In other words, you throw away who you really are
and live other people’s lives. And please remember this: If you are not living to satisfy other people’s
expectations, it follows that other people are not living to satisfy your expectations. Someone might not
act the way you want him to, but it doesn’t do to get angry. That’s only natural.
YOUTH: No, it is not! That is an argument that overturns our society from its very foundation. Look, we
have the desire for recognition. But in order to receive recognition from others, first we have to recognize
others ourselves. It is because one recognizes other people and other systems of values that one is
recognized by others. It is through this relationship of mutual recognition that our very society is built.
Your argument is an abhorrent, dangerous way of thinking, which will drive human beings into
isolation and lead to conflict. It’s a diabolical solicitation to needlessly stir up distrust and doubt.
PHILOSOPHER: Ha-ha, you certainly have an interesting vocabulary. There’s no need to raise your voice—
let’s think about this together. One has to get recognition, or one will suffer. If one doesn’t get
recognition from others and from one’s parents, one won’t have confidence. Can such a life be healthy?
So one could think, God is watching, so accumulate good deeds. But that and the nihilist view that “there is
no God, so all evil deeds are permitted” are two sides of the same coin. Even supposing that God did not
exist, and that we could not gain recognition from God, we would still have to live this life. Indeed, it is
in order to overcome the nihilism of a godless world that it is necessary to deny recognition from other
people.
YOUTH: I don’t care for all this talk about God. Think more straightforwardly and more plainly about the
mentality of real, everyday people. What about the desire to be recognized socially, for example? Why
does a person want to climb the corporate ladder? Why does a person seek status and fame? It’s the wish
to be recognized as somebody important by society as a whole—it’s the desire for recognition.
PHILOSOPHER: Then, if you get that recognition, would you say that you’ve really found happiness? Do
people who have established their social status truly feel happy?
YOUTH: No, but that’s . . .
PHILOSOPHER: When trying to be recognized by others, almost all people treat satisfying other people’s
expectations as the means to that end. And that is in accordance with the stream of thought of rewardand-
punishment education that says one will be praised if one takes appropriate action. If, for example,
the main point of your job turns out to be satisfying other people’s expectations, then that job is going to
be very hard on you. Because you’ll always be worried about other people looking at you and fear their
judgment, and you are repressing your “I-ness.” It might come as a surprise to you, but almost none of
my clients who come for counseling are selfish people. Rather, they are suffering trying to meet the
expectations of other people, the expectations of their parents and teachers. So, in a good way, they can’t
behave in a self-centered fashion.
YOUTH: So I should be selfish?
PHILOSOPHER: Do not behave without regard for others. To understand this, it is necessary to understand
the idea in Adlerian psychology known as “separation of tasks.”
YOUTH: Separation of tasks? That’s a new term. Let’s hear about it.
The youth’s irritation had reached its peak. Deny the desire for recognition? Don’t satisfy other
people’s expectations? Live in a more self-centered way? What on earth was this philosopher saying?
Isn’t the desire for recognition itself people’s greatest motivator for associating with each other
and going about the formation of society? The youth wondered, What if this “separation of
tasks” idea doesn’t win me over? I won’t be able to accept this man, or Adler for that matter, for the
rest of my life.
How to Separate Tasks
PHILOSOPHER: Say there’s a child who has a hard time studying. He doesn’t pay attention in class, doesn’t
do his homework, and even leaves his books at school. Now, what would you do if you were his father?
YOUTH: Well, of course, I would try everything I could think of to get him to apply himself. I’d hire
tutors and make him go to a study center, even if I had to pull him by the ear to get him there. I’d say
that’s a parent’s duty. And that’s actually how I was raised myself. I wasn’t allowed to eat dinner until the
day’s homework was done.
PHILOSOPHER: Then let me ask another question. Did you learn to enjoy studying as a result of being
made to do it in such a heavy-handed manner?
YOUTH: Unfortunately, I did not. I just took care of my studies for school and for exams in a routine way.
PHILOSOPHER: I see. All right, I will talk about this from the basic stance of Adlerian psychology. When
one is confronted with the task of studying, for instance, in Adlerian psychology we consider it from the
perspective of “Whose task is this?”
YOUTH: Whose task?
PHILOSOPHER: Whether the child studies or not. Whether he goes out and plays with his friends or not.
Essentially this is the child’s task, not the parent’s task.
YOUTH: Do you mean that it is something the child is supposed to do?
PHILOSOPHER: Simply put, yes. There would be no point if the parents studied instead of the child, would
there?
YOUTH: Well, no, there wouldn’t.
PHILOSOPHER: Studying is the child’s task. A parent’s handling of that by commanding the child to study
is, in effect, an act of intruding on another person’s task. One is unlikely to avert a collision in this way.
We need to think with the perspective of “Whose task is this?” and continually separate one’s own tasks
from other people’s tasks.
YOUTH: How does one go about separating them?
PHILOSOPHER: One does not intrude on other people’s tasks. That’s all.
YOUTH: That’s all?
PHILOSOPHER: In general, all interpersonal relationship troubles are caused by intruding on other
people’s tasks, or having one’s own tasks intruded on. Carrying out the separation of tasks is enough to
change one’s interpersonal relationships dramatically.
YOUTH: Hmm. I don’t really get it. In the first place, how can you tell whose task it is? From my point of
view, realistically speaking, getting one’s child to study is the duty of the parents. Because almost no child
studies just out of enjoyment, and after all is said and done, the parent is the child’s guardian.
PHILOSOPHER: There is a simple way to tell whose task it is. Think, Who ultimately is going to receive the
result brought about by the choice that is made? When the child has made the choice of not studying,
ultimately, the result of that decision—not being able to keep up in class or to get into the preferred
school, for instance—does not have to be received by the parents. Clearly, it is the child who has to
receive it. In other words, studying is the child’s task.
YOUTH: No, no. You’re completely wrong! The parent, who is more experienced in life and also acts as a
guardian, has the responsibility to urge the child to study so such situations do not arise. This is
something done for the good of the child and is not an act of intruding. While studying may be the
child’s task, getting the child to study is the parent’s task.
PHILOSOPHER: It’s true that one often hears parents today using the phrase “It’s for your own good.” But
they are clearly doing so in order to fulfill their own goals, which could be their appearance in the eyes of
society, their need to put on airs, or their desire for control, for example. In other words, it is not “for
your own good” but for the parents’. And it is because the child senses this deception that he rebels.
YOUTH: So even if the child hasn’t been studying at all, you’re saying that, since it’s his task, I should just
let him be?
PHILOSOPHER: One has to pay attention. Adlerian psychology does not recommend the noninterference
approach. Noninterference is the attitude of not knowing, and not even being interested in knowing
what the child is doing. Instead, it is by knowing what the child is doing that one protects him. If it’s
studying that is the issue, one tells the child that that is his task, and one lets him know that one is ready to
assist him whenever he has the urge to study. But one must not intrude on the child’s task. When no
requests are being made, it does not do to meddle in things.
YOUTH: Does this go beyond parent-child relationships?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, of course. In Adlerian psychology counseling, for instance, we do not think of the
client’s changing or not changing as the task of the counselor.
YOUTH: What are you saying here?
PHILOSOPHER: As a result of having received counseling, what kind of resolution does the client make?
To change his lifestyle, or not. This is the client’s task, and the counselor cannot intervene.
YOUTH: No way, I can’t accept such an irresponsible attitude!
PHILOSOPHER: Naturally, one gives all the assistance one possibly can. But beyond that, one doesn’t
intrude. Remember the old saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”
Please think of counseling and all other assistance provided to other people in Adlerian psychology as
having that kind of stance. Forcing change while ignoring the person’s intentions will only lead to an
intense reaction.
YOUTH: The counselor does not change the client’s life?
PHILOSOPHER: You are the only one who can change yourself.
Discard Other People’s Tasks
YOUTH: Then, what about with shut-ins, for example? I mean, with someone like my friend. Even then,
would you say it’s the separation of tasks, don’t intervene, and it has no connection to the parents?
PHILOSOPHER: Can he break out of the shut-in situation or not? Or, in what way can he break out of it?
In principle, this is a task that the person has to resolve himself. It is not for the parents to intervene.
Nevertheless, as they are not complete strangers, some form of assistance is probably needed. At this
point, the most important thing is whether the child feels he can consult frankly with his parents when he
is experiencing a dilemma, and whether they have been building enough of a trust relationship on a
regular basis.
YOUTH: Then, suppose your own child had shut himself in, what would you do? Please answer this not as
a philosopher but as a parent.
PHILOSOPHER: First, I myself would think, This is the child’s task. I would try not to intervene in his shutin
situation, and I would refrain from focusing too much attention on it. Then I would send a message
to him to the effect that I am ready to assist him whenever he is in need. In that way, the child, having
sensed a change in his parent, will have no choice but to make it his own task to think about what he
should do. He’ll probably come and ask for assistance, and he’ll probably try to work some things out on
his own.
YOUTH: Could you really manage to be so cut and dried if it were your own child who’d become a shutin?
PHILOSOPHER: A parent suffering over the relationship with his or her child will tend to think, My child is
my life. In other words, the parent is taking on the child’s task as his or her own and is no longer able to
think about anything but the child. When at last the parent notices it, the “I” is already gone from his or
her life. However, no matter how much of the burden of the child’s task one carries, the child is still an
independent individual. Children do not become what their parents want them to become. In their
choices of university, place of employment, and partner in marriage, and even in the everyday subtleties
of speech and conduct, they do not act according to their parents’ wishes. Naturally, the parents will
worry about them, and probably want to intervene at times. But, as I said earlier, other people are not
living to satisfy your expectations. Though the child is one’s own, he or she is not living to satisfy one’s
expectations as a parent.
YOUTH: So you have to draw the line even with family?
PHILOSOPHER: Actually, with families there is less distance, so it’s all the more necessary to consciously
separate the tasks.
YOUTH: That doesn’t make sense. On the one hand, you’re talking about love, and on the other, you’re
denying it. If you draw the line between yourself and other people that way, you won’t be able to believe
in anyone anymore!
PHILOSOPHER: Look, the act of believing is also the separation of tasks. You believe in your partner; that is
your task. But how that person acts with regard to your expectations and trust is other people’s tasks.
When you push your wishes without having drawn that line, before you know it you’re engaging in
stalker-like intervention. Suppose your partner did not act as you had wished. Would you still be able to
believe in that person? Would you still be able to love that person? The task of love that Adler speaks of is
composed of such questions.
YOUTH: That’s difficult! That’s very difficult.
PHILOSOPHER: Of course it is. But think about it this way: Intervening in other people’s tasks and taking
on other people’s tasks turns one’s life into something heavy and full of hardship. If you are leading a life
of worry and suffering—which stems from interpersonal relationships—learn the boundary of “From
here on, that is not my task.” And discard other people’s tasks. That is the first step toward lightening the
load and making life simpler.
How to Rid Yourself of Interpersonal Relationship
Problems
YOUTH: I don’t know, it just doesn’t sit right with me.
PHILOSOPHER: Then let’s envision a scene in which your parents are vehemently opposing your choice of
place of employment. They were in fact against it, weren’t they?
YOUTH: Yes, they were. I wouldn’t go so far as saying they were vehemently opposed, but they did make
various snide remarks.
PHILOSOPHER: Well, let’s exaggerate it and say they were vehemently opposed. Your father was ranting
and raving with emotion, and your mother was protesting your decision with tears in her eyes. They
absolutely do not approve of you becoming a librarian, and if you will not take on the family business
like your brother has, they may very well disown you. But how to come to terms with the emotion of
“not approving” is your parents’ task, not yours. It is not a problem for you to worry about.
YOUTH: Now wait a minute. Are you saying that it doesn’t matter how sad I make my parents feel?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. It doesn’t matter.
YOUTH: You’ve got to be joking! Could there be such a thing as a philosophy that recommends unfilial
behavior?
PHILOSOPHER: All you can do with regard to your own life is choose the best path that you believe in. On
the other hand, what kind of judgment do other people pass on that choice? That is the task of other
people, and is not a matter you can do anything about.
YOUTH: What another person thinks of you—if he or she likes you or dislikes you—that is that person’s
task, not mine. Is that what you are saying?
PHILOSOPHER: That is what separating is. You are worried about other people looking at you. You are
worried about being judged by other people. That is why you are constantly craving recognition from
others. Now, why are you worried about other people looking at you, anyway? Adlerian psychology has
an easy answer. You haven’t done the separation of tasks yet. You assume that even things that should be
other people’s tasks are your own. Remember the words of the grandmother: “You’re the only one who’s
worried how you look.” Her remark drives right to the heart of the separation of tasks. What other people
think when they see your face—that is the task of other people and is not something you have any control
over.
YOUTH: As theory, I get it. To my reasoning brain, it does make sense. But my emotions can’t keep up
with such a high-handed argument.
PHILOSOPHER: Then let’s try another tack. Say there’s a man who’s distressed about the interpersonal
relationships at the company where he works. He has a completely irrational boss who yells at him at
every opportunity. No matter how hard he tries, his boss doesn’t acknowledge his efforts and never even
really listens to what he says.
YOUTH: That sounds exactly like my boss.
PHILOSOPHER: But is being acknowledged by your boss “work” that you should think of as top priority? It
isn’t your job to be liked by people at the place you work. Your boss doesn’t like you. And his reasons for
not liking you are clearly unreasonable. But in that case, there’s no need for you to get cozy with him.
YOUTH: That sounds right, but the person is my boss, right? I won’t get any work done if I’m shunned by
my direct superior.
PHILOSOPHER: That is Adler’s life-lie again. I can’t do my work because I’ve been shunned by my boss.
It’s the boss’s fault that my work isn’t going well. The person who says such things is bringing up the
existence of the boss as an excuse for the work that doesn’t go well. Much like the female student with the
fear of blushing, it’s actually that you need the existence of an awful boss. Because then you can say, “If
only I didn’t have this boss, I could get more work done.”
YOUTH: No, you don’t know my relationship with my boss! I wish you would stop making arbitrary
guesses.
PHILOSOPHER: This is a discussion that is concerned with the fundamentals of Adlerian psychology. If
you are angry, nothing will sink in. You think, I’ve got that boss, so I can’t work. This is complete etiology.
But it’s really, I don’t want to work, so I’ll create an awful boss, or I don’t want to acknowledge my
incapable self, so I’ll create an awful boss. That would be the teleological way of looking at it.
YOUTH: That’s probably how it’d be framed in your stock teleology approach. But in my case, it’s
different.
PHILOSOPHER: Then suppose you had done the separation of tasks. How would things be? In other
words, no matter how much your boss tries to vent his unreasonable anger at you, that is not your task.
The unreasonable emotions are tasks for your boss to deal with himself. There is no need to cozy up to
him, or to yield to him to the point of bowing down. You should think, What I should do is face my own
tasks in my own life without lying.
YOUTH: But that’s . . .
PHILOSOPHER: We are all suffering in interpersonal relationships. It might be the relationship with one’s
parents or one’s elder brother, and it might be the interpersonal relationships at one’s workplace. Now,
last time, you were saying that you wanted some specific steps. This is what I propose. First, one should
ask, “Whose task is this?” Then do the separation of tasks. Calmly delineate up to what point one’s own
tasks go, and from what point they become another person’s tasks. And do not intervene in other
people’s tasks, or allow even a single person to intervene in one’s own tasks. This is a specific and
revolutionary viewpoint that is unique to Adlerian psychology and contains the potential to utterly
change one’s interpersonal relationship problems.
YOUTH: Aha. I am starting to see what you meant when you said that the topic of today’s discussion was
freedom.
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. We are trying to talk about freedom now.
Cut the Gordian Knot
YOUTH: I am sure that if one could understand the separation of tasks and put it into practice, one’s
interpersonal relationships would all at once become free. But I still can’t accept it.
PHILOSOPHER: Go on. I’m listening.
YOUTH: I think that, in theory, the separation of tasks is entirely right. What other people think of me, or
what sort of judgment they pass on me, is the task of other people, and is not something I can do
anything about. And I should just do what I have to do in my life without lying. I’d have no problem if
you said this is a life truth—that’s how right I think it is. But consider this: From an ethical or moral point
of view, could it be said to be the right thing to do? That is to say, a way of living that draws boundaries
between oneself and others. Because wouldn’t you be brushing other people away and saying, “That’s
intervention!” whenever they were worried about you and asked how you’re doing? It seems to me that
this is something that treads on the goodwill of others.
PHILOSOPHER: Have you heard of Alexander the Great?
YOUTH: Alexander the Great? Yes, I learned about him in world history.
PHILOSOPHER: He was a Macedonian king who lived in the fourth century before Christ. When he was
advancing on the Persian kingdom of Lydia, he learned of a chariot enshrined in the acropolis. The
chariot had been secured tightly to a pillar in the temple by Gordias, the former king, and there was a
local legend that said, “He who unravels this knot shall be master of Asia.” It was a tightly wound knot
that many men of skill had been certain they could unbind, but no one had succeeded. Now, what do
you think Alexander the Great did when he stood before this knot?
YOUTH: Well, didn’t he unravel the legendary knot with ease, and go on to become the ruler of Asia?
PHILOSOPHER: No, that’s not how it happened. As soon as Alexander the Great saw how tight the knot
was, he pulled out his sword and sliced it in half with one stroke.
YOUTH: Wow!
PHILOSOPHER: Then, it is said that he declared, “Destiny is not something brought about by legend, but
by clearing away with one’s own sword.” He had no use for the power of legend and would forge his
destiny with his sword. As you know, he then proceeded to become the great conqueror of all the
territories of what is now the Middle East and western Asia. This is the famous anecdote known as the
Gordian knot. And so, such intricate knots—the bonds in our interpersonal relationships—are not to be
unraveled by conventional methods but must be severed by some completely new approach. Whenever I
explain the separation of tasks, I always remember the Gordian knot.
YOUTH: Well, I don’t mean to contradict you, but not everyone can become Alexander the Great. Isn’t it
precisely because there was no one else who could have cut the knot that the anecdote portraying it as a
heroic deed is still conveyed to this day? It’s exactly the same with the separation of tasks. Even though
one knows one can just cut through something with one’s sword, one might find it rather difficult.
Because when one presses forward with the separation of tasks, in the end one will have to cut ties with
people. One will drive people into isolation. The separation of tasks you speak of completely ignores
human emotion! How could one possibly build good interpersonal relationships with that?
PHILOSOPHER: One can build them. The separation of tasks is not the objective for interpersonal
relationships. Rather, it is the gateway.
YOUTH: The gateway?
PHILOSOPHER: For instance, when reading a book, if one brings one’s face too close to it, one cannot see
anything. In the same way, forming good interpersonal relationships requires a certain degree of
distance. When the distance gets too small and people become stuck together, it becomes impossible to
even speak to each other. But the distance must not be too great, either. Parents who scold their children
too much become mentally very distant. When this happens, the child can no longer even consult the
parents, and the parents can no longer give the proper assistance. One should be ready to lend a hand
when needed but not encroach on the person’s territory. It is important to maintain this kind of
moderate distance.
YOUTH: Is distance necessary even in the kind of relationship that parents and children have?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course. Earlier you said that the separation of tasks is something that treads on the other
person’s goodwill. That is a notion that is tied to reward. It’s the idea that when another person does
something for you, you have to do something in return—even if that person does not want anything.
Rather than responding to the goodwill, it is just being tied to reward. No matter what sort of appeal the
other person might make, you are the only one who decides what you should do.
YOUTH: Reward is at the root of what I am calling “ties”?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. When reward is at the base of an interpersonal relationship, there’s a feeling that wells
up in one that says, “I gave this much, so you should give me that much back.” This is a notion that is
quite different from separation of tasks, of course. We must not seek reward, and we must not be tied to
it.
YOUTH: Hmm.
PHILOSOPHER: However, there are certainly situations in which it would be easier to intervene in the tasks
of another person without doing any separation of tasks—for instance, in a child-raising situation, when
a child is having a hard time tying his shoes. For the busy mother, it is certainly faster to tie them than to
wait for him to do it himself. But that is an intervention, and it is taking the child’s task away from him.
And as a result of repeating that intervention, the child will cease to learn anything, and will lose the
courage to face his life tasks. As Adler says, “Children who have not been taught to confront challenges
will try to avoid all challenges.”
YOUTH: But that is such a dry way of thinking.
PHILOSOPHER: When Alexander the Great cut the Gordian knot, there were probably those who felt the
same way: that the unraveling of the knot by hand had meaning, and that it was a mistake to cut it with a
sword; that Alexander had misunderstood the meaning of the oracle’s words. In Adlerian psychology,
there are aspects that are antithetical to normal social thinking. It denies etiology, denies trauma, and
adopts teleology. It treats people’s problems as interpersonal relationship problems. And the not-seeking
of recognition and the separation of tasks, too, are probably antithetical to normal social thinking.
YOUTH: It’s impossible! I can’t do it!
PHILOSOPHER: Why?
The youth was devastated by the separation of tasks that the philosopher had begun describing.
When one thought of all one’s problems as being in one’s interpersonal relationships, the
separation of tasks was effective. Just by having this viewpoint, the world would become quite
simple. But there was no flesh and blood in it. It gave off no sense of one’s warmth as a person.
Could anyone accept such a philosophy? The youth rose from his chair and pleaded loudly.
Desire for Recognition Makes You Unfree
YOUTH: Look, I have been dissatisfied for ages. The adults of the world tell the young people, “Do
something you like to do.” And they say it with smiles on their faces as if they might actually be
understanding people, as if they were on the side of the young. But it’s all lip service, which comes out
only because those young people are complete strangers to them, and the relationship is one that is
completely without any kind of responsibility. Then parents and teachers tell us, “Get into that school,”
or “Look for a stable occupation,” and this concrete and uninteresting instruction is not merely an
intervention. It’s actually that they are trying to fulfill their responsibilities. It’s precisely because we are
closely connected to them and they are seriously concerned about our future that they can’t say
irresponsible things like, “Do something you like.” I’m sure you’d put on that understanding face too,
and say to me, “Please do something you like.” But I won’t believe such a comment from another person!
It’s an extremely irresponsible comment, as if one were just brushing a caterpillar off one’s shoulder. And
if the world crushed that caterpillar, you would say, “It’s not my task,” and walk away nonchalantly.
What separation of tasks, you monster!
PHILOSOPHER: Oh, goodness, you’re getting all bent out of shape. So what you are saying, in other words,
is that you want someone to intervene to some extent? That you want another person to decide your
path?
YOUTH: Sure, maybe I do! It’s like this: It’s not so difficult to judge what others expect of one, or what
kind of role is being demanded of one. Living as one likes, on the other hand, is extremely difficult. What
does one want? What does one want to become, and what kind of life does one want to lead? One
doesn’t always get such a concrete idea of things. It would be a grave mistake to think that everyone has
clear-cut dreams and objectives. Don’t you know that?
PHILOSOPHER: Maybe it is easier to live in such a way as to satisfy other people’s expectations. Because one
is entrusting one’s own life to them. For example, one runs along the tracks that one’s parents have laid
out. Even if there are a lot of things one might object to, one will not lose one’s way as long as one stays
on those rails. But if one is deciding one’s path oneself, it’s only natural that one will get lost at times.
One comes up against the wall of “how one should live.”
YOUTH: That is why I am looking for recognition from others. You were talking about God earlier, and if
we were still living in an era when God was something people believed in, I suppose that “God is
watching” might serve as a criterion for self-discipline. If one were recognized by God, maybe one didn’t
need recognition from others. But that era ended a long time ago. And, in that case, one has no choice
but to discipline oneself on the basis that other people are watching. To aspire to be recognized by others
and live an honest life. Other people’s eyes are my guide.
PHILOSOPHER: Does one choose recognition from others, or does one choose a path of freedom without
recognition? It’s an important question—let’s think about it together. To live one’s life trying to gauge
other people’s feelings and being worried about how they look at you. To live in such a way that others’
wishes are granted. There may indeed be signposts to guide you this way, but it is a very unfree way to
live. Now, why are you choosing such an unfree way to live? You are using the term “desire for
recognition,” but what you are really saying is that you don’t want to be disliked by anyone.
YOUTH: Who does? There’s no one anywhere who’d go so far as to actually want to be disliked.
PHILOSOPHER: Exactly. It is true that there is no person who wishes to be disliked. But look at it this way:
What should one do to not be disliked by anyone? There is only one answer: It is to constantly gauge
other people’s feelings while swearing loyalty to all of them. If there are ten people, one must swear
loyalty to all ten. When one does that, for the time being one will have succeeded in not being disliked by
anyone. But at this point, there is a great contradiction looming. One swears loyalty to all ten people out
of the single-minded desire to not be disliked. This is like a politician who has fallen into populism and
begun to make impossible promises and accept responsibilities that are beyond him. Naturally, his lies
will come to light before long. He will lose people’s trust and turn his own life into one of greater
suffering. And, of course, the stress of continual lying has all kinds of consequences. Please grasp this
point. If one is living in a such a way as to satisfy other people’s expectations, and one is entrusting one’s
own life to others, that is a way of living in which one is lying to oneself and continuing that lying to
include the people around one.
YOUTH: So one should be egocentric and live however one pleases?
PHILOSOPHER: Separating one’s tasks is not an egocentric thing. Intervening in other people’s tasks is
essentially an egocentric way of thinking, however. Parents force their children to study; they meddle in
their life and marriage choices. That is nothing other than an egocentric way of thinking.
YOUTH: So the child can just ignore his parents’ intentions and live however he pleases?
PHILOSOPHER: There is no reason of any sort that one should not live one’s life as one pleases.
YOUTH: Ha-ha! Not only are you a nihilist, you’re an anarchist and a hedonist to boot. I’m past being
astonished, and now I’m going to start laughing any moment.
PHILOSOPHER: An adult, who has chosen an unfree way to live, on seeing a young person living freely
here and now in this moment, criticizes the youth as being hedonistic. Of course, this is a life-lie that
comes out so that the adult can accept his own unfree life. An adult who has chosen real freedom himself
will not make such comments and will instead cheer on the will to be free.
YOUTH: All right, so what you are maintaining is that freedom is the issue? Let’s get to the main point.
You’ve been using the word “freedom” a lot, but what does freedom mean to you, anyway? How can we
be free?
What Real Freedom Is
PHILOSOPHER: Earlier, you acknowledged that you do not want to be disliked by anyone, and said,
“There’s no one anywhere who’d go so far as to actually want to be disliked.”
YOUTH: Right.
PHILOSOPHER: Well, I’m the same way. I have no desire to be disliked by other people. I would say that
“No one would go so far as to actually want to be disliked” is a sharp insight.
YOUTH: It’s a universal desire!
PHILOSOPHER: Even so, regardless of our efforts, there are people who dislike me and people who dislike
you. This, too, is a fact. When you are disliked, or feel that you are being disliked, by someone, what state
of mind does it put you in?
YOUTH: Very distressed, to put it simply. I wonder why I’ve come to be disliked, and what I did or said
that might have been offensive. I think I should have interacted with the person in a different way, and I
just brood and brood over it and am ridden with guilt.
PHILOSOPHER: Not wanting to be disliked by other people. To human beings, this is an entirely natural
desire, and an impulse. Kant, the giant of modern philosophy, called this desire “inclination.”
YOUTH: Inclination?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, it is one’s instinctive desires, one’s impulsive desires. Now, if one were to say that
living like a stone tumbling downhill and allowing such inclinations or desires or impulses to take one
wherever they will is “freedom,” one would be incorrect. To live in such a way is only to be a slave to
one’s desires and impulses. Real freedom is an attitude akin to pushing up one’s tumbling self from
below.
YOUTH: Pushing oneself up from below?
PHILOSOPHER: A stone is powerless. Once it has begun to roll downhill, it will continue to roll until
released from the natural laws of gravity and inertia. But we are not stones. We are beings who are
capable of resisting inclination. We can stop our tumbling selves and climb uphill. The desire for
recognition is probably a natural desire. So are you going to keep rolling downhill in order to receive
recognition from others? Are you going to wear yourself down like a rolling stone, until everything is
smoothed away? When all that is left is a little round ball, would that be “the real I”? It cannot be.
YOUTH: Are you saying that resisting one’s instincts and impulses is freedom?
PHILOSOPHER: As I have stated repeatedly, in Adlerian psychology, we think that all problems are
interpersonal relationship problems. In other words, we seek release from interpersonal relationships. We
seek to be free from interpersonal relationships. However, it is absolutely impossible to live all alone in
the universe. In light of what we have discussed until now, the conclusion we reach regarding “What is
freedom?” should be clear.
YOUTH: What is it?
PHILOSOPHER: In short, that “freedom is being disliked by other people.”
YOUTH: Huh? What was that?
PHILOSOPHER: It’s that you are disliked by someone. It is proof that you are exercising your freedom and
living in freedom, and a sign that you are living in accordance with your own principles.
YOUTH: But, but . . .
PHILOSOPHER: It is certainly distressful to be disliked. If possible, one would like to live without being
disliked by anyone. One wants to satisfy one’s desire for recognition. But conducting oneself in such a
way as to not be disliked by anyone is an extremely unfree way of living, and is also impossible. There is a
cost incurred when one wants to exercise one’s freedom. And the cost of freedom in interpersonal
relationships is that one is disliked by other people.
YOUTH: No! That’s totally wrong. There is no way that could be called freedom. That’s a diabolical way
of thinking to coax one into evildoing.
PHILOSOPHER: You’ve probably been thinking of freedom as “release from organizations.” That breaking
away from your home or school, your company or your nation is freedom. However, if you were to
break away from your organization, for instance, you would not be able to gain real freedom. Unless one
is unconcerned by other people’s judgments, has no fear of being disliked by other people, and pays the
cost that one might never be recognized, one will never be able to follow through in one’s own way of
living. That is to say, one will not be able to be free.
YOUTH: Be disliked by other people—is that what you are saying?
PHILOSOPHER: What I am saying is, don’t be afraid of being disliked.
YOUTH: But that’s—
PHILOSOPHER: I am not telling you to go so far as to live in such a way that you will be disliked, and I am
not saying engage in wrongdoing. Please do not misunderstand that.
YOUTH: No. Then let’s change the question. Can people actually endure the weight of freedom? Are
people that strong? To not care even if one is disliked by one’s own parents—can one become so selfrighteously
defiant?
PHILOSOPHER: One neither prepares to be self-righteous nor becomes defiant. One just separates tasks.
There may be a person who does not think well of you, but that is not your task. And again, thinking
things like He should like me or I’ve done all this, so it’s strange that he doesn’t like me, is the rewardoriented
way of thinking of having intervened in another person’s tasks. One moves forward without
fearing the possibility of being disliked. One does not live as if one were rolling downhill, but instead
climbs the slope that lies ahead. That is freedom for a human being. Suppose that I had two choices in
front of me—a life in which all people like me, and a life in which there are people who dislike me—and I
was told to choose one. I would choose the latter without a second thought. Before being concerned with
what others think of me, I want to follow through with my own being. That is to say, I want to live in
freedom.
YOUTH: Are you free, now?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. I am free.
YOUTH: You do not want to be disliked, but you don’t mind if you are?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, that’s right. Not wanting to be disliked is probably my task, but whether or not soand-
so dislikes me is the other person’s task. Even if there is a person who doesn’t think well of me, I
cannot intervene in that. To borrow from the proverb I mentioned earlier, naturally one would make
the effort to lead someone to water, but whether he drinks or not is that person’s task.
YOUTH: That’s some conclusion.
PHILOSOPHER: The courage to be happy also includes the courage to be disliked. When you have gained
that courage, your interpersonal relationships will all at once change into things of lightness.
You Hold the Cards to Interpersonal Relationships
YOUTH: Well, I never would have imagined I’d visit a philosopher’s place to hear about being disliked.
PHILOSOPHER: I am well aware that this is not an easy thing to swallow. It will probably take some time to
chew over and digest. If we go any further with this today, I think you won’t be able to keep it in your
head. So I would like to talk to you about one more thing, a personal matter that relates to the separation
of tasks, and then finish up for today.
YOUTH: All right.
PHILOSOPHER: This one, too, is about relationships with parents. My relationship with my father had
always been a rocky one, even when I was a child. My mother died when I was in my twenties, without
us ever engaging in anything like real conversation together, and after that my relationship with my
father became increasingly strained. That is, until I encountered Adlerian psychology and grasped
Adler’s ideas.
YOUTH: Why did you have a bad relationship with your father?
PHILOSOPHER: What I have in my memory is an image from a time when he hit me. I have no recollection
of what I might have done to bring it on. I only remember hiding under a desk in an attempt to escape
him, when he dragged me out and hit me hard. And not just once, but many times.
YOUTH: That fear became a trauma . . .
PHILOSOPHER: I think that until I encountered Adlerian psychology, I understood it in that kind of way.
Because my father was a moody, taciturn person. But to think to myself, He hit me that time, and that is
why our relationship went bad, is a Freudian etiological way of thinking. The Adlerian teleology position
completely reverses the cause-and-effect interpretation. That is to say, I brought out the memory of being
hit because I don’t want my relationship with my father to get better.
YOUTH: So first you had the goal of not wanting your relationship with your father to get better and not
wanting to repair things between you.
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. For me, it was more convenient to not repair my relationship with my father.
I could use having a father like that as an excuse for why my own life wasn’t going well. That for me was
a virtue. And there was also the aspect of taking revenge on a feudal father.
YOUTH: That is exactly what I wanted to ask about! Even if the cause and effect were reversed, that is to
say, in your case, you were able to analyze yourself and say, “It isn’t because he hit me that I have a bad
relationship with my father, but that I brought out the memory of being hit because I don’t want my
relationship with my father to get better,” even then, how does it actually change things? It doesn’t
change the fact that you were hit in childhood, right?
PHILOSOPHER: One can think from the viewpoint that it is an interpersonal relationship card. As long as I
use etiology to think, It is because he hit me that I have a bad relationship with my father, it would be a
matter that was impossible for me to do anything about. But if I can think, I brought out the memory of
being hit because I don’t want my relationship with my father to get better, then I will be holding the card
to repair relations. Because if I can just change the goal, that fixes everything.
YOUTH: Does that really fix things?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course.
YOUTH: I wonder if you really feel so from the bottom of your heart. I can understand it in theory, but
the feeling just doesn’t sit right with me.
PHILOSOPHER: Then it’s the separation of tasks. It’s true that my father and I had a complicated
relationship. He was a stubborn person, and I could never imagine his feelings being able to change
easily. Moreover, there was a strong possibility that he had even forgotten ever raising his hands against
me. However, at the time of making my resolution to repair relations, it did not matter to me what sort
of lifestyle my father had, or what he thought of me, or the kind of attitude he might adopt in response to
my approach—such things didn’t matter at all. Even if there were no intention to repair relations on his
side, I would not mind in the least. The issue was whether or not I would resolve to do it, and I was
always holding the interpersonal relationship cards.
YOUTH: You were always holding the interpersonal relationship cards?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. Many people think that the interpersonal relationship cards are held by the other
person. That is why they wonder, How does that person feel about me? and end up living in such a way as
to satisfy the wishes of other people. But if they can grasp the separation of tasks, they will notice that they
are holding all the cards. This is a new way of thinking.
YOUTH: So due to your changing, did your father change too?
PHILOSOPHER: I did not change in order to change my father. That is an erroneous notion of trying to
manipulate another person. Even if I change, it is only “I” who changes. I do not know what will happen
to the other person as a result, and that is not an aspect I can take part in. This too is the separation of
tasks. Of course, there are times when, in tandem with my change—not due to my change—the other
person changes too. In many cases, that person will have no choice but to change. But that is not the goal,
and it is certainly possible that the other person will not change. In any case, changing one’s own speech
and conduct as a way of manipulating other people is clearly a mistaken way of thinking.
YOUTH: One must not manipulate other people, and manipulating cannot be done.
PHILOSOPHER: When we speak of interpersonal relationships, it always seems to be two-person
relationships and one’s relationship to a large group that come to mind, but first it is oneself. When one is
tied to the desire for recognition, the interpersonal relationship cards will always stay in the hands of
other people. Does one entrust the cards of life to another person, or hold onto them oneself? Please take
your time and sort through these ideas again in your own home, about the separation of tasks and about
freedom. I will be waiting for you here, next time.
YOUTH: All right. I will give it some thought on my own.
PHILOSOPHER: Well, then . . .
YOUTH: Please, there is just one more thing I want to ask you.
PHILOSOPHER: What is it?
YOUTH: In the end, were you able to repair your relationship with your father?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, of course. I think so. My father fell ill, and in the last few years of his life, it was
necessary for me and my family to take care of him. Then one day, when I was taking care of him as
usual, my father said, “Thank you.” I had not known my father possessed such a word in his vocabulary,
and I was astonished and felt grateful for all the days that had passed. Through the long years of my
caregiving life, I had tried to do whatever I could, that is to say, I had done my best to lead my father to
water. And in the end, he drank. I think he did.
YOUTH: Well, thank you very much. I will come again at the same time.
PHILOSOPHER: I had a good time. Thank you, too.

THE FOURTH NIGHT:
Where the Center of the World Is
That was close—I almost fell for it! The following week, the young man called on the philosopher
again, and, with an indignant expression, knocked on the door.
The idea of separating tasks is certainly a useful one. You had me completely convinced last time. But it
seems like such a lonely way to live. Separating the tasks and lightening the load of one’s interpersonal
relations is just the same as cutting one’s connection to other people. And, to top it off, you’re telling me to be
disliked by other people? If that’s what you call freedom, then I’ll choose not to be free!
Individual Psychology and Holism
PHILOSOPHER: Well, you’re looking rather gloomy today.
YOUTH: You see, since we last met, I’ve been thinking calmly and carefully about the separation of tasks,
and about freedom. I waited until my emotions had settled and then applied my reasoning mind. But the
separation of tasks just doesn’t seem realistic.
PHILOSOPHER: Hmm, okay. Please go on.
YOUTH: Separating tasks is basically an idea that boils down to defining a boundary and saying, “I am I,
and you are you.” Sure, there are probably fewer interpersonal relationship problems that way. But
would you really say that such a way of life is right? To me, it just seems like an extremely self-centered,
misguided individualism. On my first visit here, you told me that Adlerian psychology is formally
referred to as “individual psychology.” That term had been bothering me for quite a while, but I finally
figured out why: What you’re calling Adlerian psychology, or individual psychology, is essentially the
study of an individualism that leads people into isolation.
PHILOSOPHER: It is true that the term “individual psychology,” which Adler coined, has certain aspects
that may invite misunderstanding. I will explain what I mean now. First of all, etymologically speaking,
the word “individual” has the meaning “indivisible.”
YOUTH: Indivisible?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. In other words, it is the smallest possible unit and therefore cannot be broken down
any further. Now, what is it exactly that cannot be divided? Adler was opposed to any kind of dualistic
value system that treated the mind as separate from the body—reason as separate from emotion, or the
conscious mind as separate from the unconscious mind.
YOUTH: What’s the point of that?
PHILOSOPHER: For example, do you remember the story about the female student who came to me for
counseling on account of her fear of blushing? Why did she develop that fear of blushing? In Adlerian
psychology, physical symptoms are not regarded separately from the mind (psyche). The mind and body
are viewed as one, as a whole that cannot be divided into parts. Tension in the mind can make one’s arms
and legs shake, or cause one’s cheeks to turn red, and fear can make one’s face turn white. And so on.
YOUTH: Well, sure, there are parts of the mind and body that are connected.
PHILOSOPHER: The same holds true for reason and emotion, and the conscious mind and the
unconscious mind as well. A normally coolheaded person doesn’t expect to have a fit of violent emotion
and start shouting at someone. We are not struck by emotions that somehow exist independently from
us. Each of us is a unified whole.
YOUTH: No, that is not true. It is precisely because we have the ability to view mind and body, reason and
emotion, and the conscious and the unconscious mind as clearly separate from each other that we can
gain a correct understanding of people. Isn’t that a given?
PHILOSOPHER: Certainly it is true that the mind and the body are separate things, that reason and emotion
are different, and that both the conscious mind and the unconscious mind exist. That said, however,
when one flies into a rage and shouts at another person, it is “I as a whole” who is choosing to shout. One
would never think of emotions that somehow exist independently—unrelated to one’s intentions, as it
were—as having produced that shouting voice. When one separates the “I” from “emotion” and thinks,
It was the emotion that made me do it, or The emotion got the best of me, and I couldn’t help it, such
thinking quickly becomes a life-lie.
YOUTH: You’re referring to the time I yelled at that waiter, aren’t you?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. This view of the human being as “I as a whole,” as an indivisible being that cannot be
broken down into parts, is referred to as “holism.”
YOUTH: Well, that’s fine. But I wasn’t asking you for an academic theory to provide a definition of
“individual.” Look, if you take Adlerian psychology to its logical conclusion, it’s basically saying, “I am I,
and you are you,” and leading people toward isolation. It’s saying, “I won’t interfere with you, so don’t
interfere with me either, and we’ll both go on living however we please.” Please tell me straightforwardly
what your awareness is of that point.
PHILOSOPHER: All right. All problems are interpersonal relationship problems. You have an
understanding of this basic tenet of Adlerian psychology, correct?
YOUTH: Yes, I do. The idea of noninterference in interpersonal relations, that is to say, the separation of
tasks, probably came about as a way to resolve those problems.
PHILOSOPHER: This is something I believe I went over last time—that forming good interpersonal
relationships requires a certain degree of distance. At the same time, people who get too close end up not
even being able to speak to each other, so it is not good to get too far apart, either. Please do not think of
the separation of tasks as something that is meant to keep other people away; instead, see it as a way of
thinking with which to unravel the threads of the complex entanglement of one’s interpersonal relations.
YOUTH: To unravel the threads?
PHILOSOPHER: Exactly. Right now, your threads and other people’s threads are all tangled up in a
confused mess, and you are looking at the world while in that condition. Red, blue, brown, and green—
all the colors mixing together—you think of it as “connection.” But it is not.
YOUTH: So, then, what do you think connection is?
PHILOSOPHER: Last time, I spoke of the separation of tasks as a prescription for resolving interpersonal
relationship problems. But interpersonal relationships are not something that end just because one has
separated the tasks. The separating of tasks is actually the point of departure for interpersonal relations.
Today, let’s take the discussion deeper and address how interpersonal relations as a whole are viewed in
Adlerian psychology, and consider the kind of relationships we should form with others.
The Goal of Interpersonal Relationships Is a Feeling of
Community
YOUTH: Okay, I have a question. Please give me a simple answer that gets straight to the heart of the
matter. You said that the separating of tasks is the point of departure for interpersonal relations. Well,
what is the goal of interpersonal relations?
PHILOSOPHER: To get straight to the heart of the matter, it is “community feeling.”
YOUTH: . . . Community feeling?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. This is a key concept in Adlerian psychology, and views on its application have been
the subject of much debate. In fact, Adler’s proposal of the concept of community feeling drove many
people to part ways with him.
YOUTH: Well, it sounds fascinating to me. What is this concept?
PHILOSOPHER: It was the time before last, I believe, that I brought up the matter of how one sees others,
that is, as enemies or as comrades. Now, take that a step deeper. If other people are our comrades, and we
live surrounded by them, we should be able to find in that life our own place of “refuge.” Moreover, in
doing so, we should begin to have the desire to share with our comrades, to contribute to the
community. This sense of others as comrades, this awareness of “having one’s own refuge,” is called
“community feeling.”
YOUTH: But what part of this is open to debate? It seems like a completely irrefutable point.
PHILOSOPHER: The issue is community. What does it consist of? When you hear the word “community,”
what images come to mind?
YOUTH: There are such frameworks as one’s household, school, workplace, or local society.
PHILOSOPHER: When Adler refers to community, he goes beyond the household, school, workplace, and
local society, and treats it as all-inclusive, covering not only nations and all of humanity but also the
entire axis of time from the past to the future—and he includes plants and animals and even inanimate
objects.
YOUTH: Huh?
PHILOSOPHER: In other words, he is espousing that community is not merely one of the preexisting
frameworks that the word might bring to mind but is also inclusive of literally everything—the entire
universe, from the past to the future.
YOUTH: No way. Now you’ve lost me. The universe? Past and future? What on earth are you talking
about?
PHILOSOPHER: The majority of those who hear this have similar doubts. This is not something one can
comprehend immediately. Adler himself acknowledged that the community he was espousing was “an
unattainable ideal.”
YOUTH: Ha-ha. Well, that’s perplexing, isn’t it? How about the other way around, then? Do you really
comprehend and accept this community feeling, or whatever it is, that includes the entire universe?
PHILOSOPHER: I try to. Because I feel that one cannot truly comprehend Adlerian psychology without
comprehending this point.
YOUTH: Okay then!
PHILOSOPHER: As I have been saying all along, Adlerian psychology has the view that all problems are
interpersonal relationship problems. Interpersonal relations are the source of unhappiness. And the
opposite can be said, too—interpersonal relations are the source of happiness.
YOUTH: Indeed.
PHILOSOPHER: Furthermore, community feeling is the most important index for considering a state of
interpersonal relations that is happy.
YOUTH: All right. I’d like to hear all about it.
PHILOSOPHER: Community feeling is also referred to as “social interest,” that is to say, “interest in
society.” So now I have a question for you: Do you know what society’s smallest unit is, from the point
of view of sociology?
YOUTH: Society’s smallest unit, huh? I’d say the family.
PHILOSOPHER: No, it is “you and I.” When there are two people, society emerges in their presence, and
community emerges there too. To gain an understanding of the community feeling that Adler speaks of,
it is advisable to use “you and I” as the starting point.
YOUTH: And what do you do with that as the starting point?
PHILOSOPHER: You make the switch from attachment to self (self-interest) to concern for others (social
interest).
YOUTH: Attachment to self? Concern for others? What’s all that about?
Why Am I Only Interested in Myself?
PHILOSOPHER: Well, let’s consider this concretely. For purposes of clarity, in place of “attachment to self”
I will use the word “self-centered.” In your view, someone who is self-centered is what sort of person?
YOUTH: Hmm, I guess the first thing that comes to mind is the kind of person who’s like a tyrant.
Someone who’s domineering, has no qualms about being a nuisance to others, and thinks only about
things that are to his own advantage. He thinks that the world revolves around him, and he behaves like a
dictator who rules by absolute authority and force. He’s the kind of person who creates an enormous
amount of trouble for everyone around him. Someone who’s just like Shakespeare’s King Lear, a typical
tyrant.
PHILOSOPHER: I see.
YOUTH: On the other hand, he wouldn’t necessarily be a tyrant—one might speak of the sort of person
who disturbs the harmony of a group as self-centered, too. He’s someone who can’t operate in a group
and prefers to act alone. He never stops to reflect on his actions, even when he’s late for appointments or
fails to keep his promises. In a word, he is an egotist.
PHILOSOPHER: To be sure, that is the kind of image that generally comes to mind when thinking of selfcentered
people. But there is another type that must be taken into account. People who are incapable of
carrying out the separation of tasks and who are obsessed with the desire for recognition are also
extremely self-centered.
YOUTH: Why is that?
PHILOSOPHER: Consider the reality of the desire for recognition. How much do others pay attention to
you, and what is their judgment of you? That is to say, how much do they satisfy your desire? People
who are obsessed with such a desire for recognition will seem to be looking at other people, while they are
actually looking only at themselves. They lack concern for others and are concerned solely with the “I.”
Simply put, they are self-centered.
YOUTH: So would you say that people like me, who fear being judged by others, are self-centered, too?
Even though I try so hard to be mindful of others and adjust myself to them?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. In the sense that you are concerned solely with the “I,” you are self-centered. You
want to be thought well of by others, and that is why you worry about the way they look at you. That is
not concern for others. It is nothing but attachment to self.
YOUTH: But . . .
PHILOSOPHER: This is something I spoke of last time. The fact that there are people who do not think well
of you is proof that you are living in freedom. You might have a sense of something about this that seems
self-centered. But I think you have understood this from today’s discussion: A way of living in which one
is constantly troubled by how one is seen by others is a self-centered lifestyle in which one’s sole concern
is with the “I.”
YOUTH: Well, now, that is an astounding statement!
PHILOSOPHER: Not just you, but all people who are attached to the “I” are self-centered. And that is
precisely why it is necessary to make the switch from “attachment to self” to “concern for others.”
YOUTH: Okay, so yes, it is true that I am always looking only at myself, that, I acknowledge. I’m
constantly worried about how other people see me, but not about how I see them. If you are saying I am
self-centered, there is nothing that I can say to refute that. But think about it like this: If my life were a
feature-length movie, the protagonist would certainly be this “I,” wouldn’t it? Is pointing the camera at
the protagonist really such a reprehensible thing?
You Are Not the Center of the World
PHILOSOPHER: Let’s go over things in order. First of all, each of us is a member of a community, and that
is where we belong. Feeling that one has one’s own place of refuge within the community, feeling that
“it’s okay to be here,” and having a sense of belonging—these are basic human desires. Whether it is one’s
studies, work, or friendships, or one’s love or marriage, all these things are connected to one’s search for
places and relationships in which one can feel “it’s okay to be here.” Wouldn’t you agree?
YOUTH: Ah, yes, I do! That’s it exactly!
PHILOSOPHER: And the protagonist in one’s life is the “I.” There is nothing wrong with the train of
thought up to this point. But the “I” does not rule the center of the world. While the “I” is life’s
protagonist, it is never more than a member of the community and a part of the whole.
YOUTH: A part of the whole?
PHILOSOPHER: People who have concern only for themselves think that they are at the center of the
world. To such people, others are merely “people who will do something for me.” They half genuinely
believe that everyone else exists to serve them and should give precedence to their feelings.
YOUTH: Just like a prince or a princess.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, exactly. They make a leap from being “life’s protagonist” to becoming “the world’s
protagonist.” For this reason, whenever they come into contact with another person, all they can think is,
What will this person give me? However—and this is something that does not hold true for princes and
princesses—this expectation is not going to be satisfied on every occasion. Because other people are not
living to satisfy your expectations.
YOUTH: Indeed.
PHILOSOPHER: Then, when those expectations are not satisfied, they become deeply disillusioned and feel
as if they have been horribly insulted. And they become resentful, and think, That person didn’t do
anything for me. That person let me down. That person isn’t my comrade anymore. He’s my enemy. People
who hold the belief that they are the center of the world always end up losing their comrades before long.
YOUTH: That’s strange. Didn’t you say that we are living in a subjective world? As long as the world is a
subjective space, I am the only one who can be at its center. I won’t let anyone else be there.
PHILOSOPHER: I think that when you speak of “the world,” what you have in mind is something like a
map of the world.
YOUTH: A map of the world? What are you talking about?
PHILOSOPHER: For example, on the map of the world used in France, the Americas are located on the left
side, and Asia is on the right. Europe and France are depicted at the center of the map, of course. The
map of the world used in China, on the other hand, shows the Americas on the right side and Europe on
the left. French people who see the Chinese map of the world will most likely experience a difficult-todescribe
sense of incongruity, as if they have been driven unjustly to the fringes, or cut out of the world
arbitrarily.
YOUTH: Yes, I see your point.
PHILOSOPHER: But what happens when a globe is used to represent the world? Because with a globe, you
can look at the world with France at the center, or China, or Brazil, for that matter. Every place is central,
and no place is, at the same time. The globe may be dotted with an infinite number of centers, in
accordance with the viewer’s location and angle of view. That is the nature of a globe.
YOUTH: Hmm, that is true.
PHILOSOPHER: Think of what I said earlier—that you are not the center of the world—as being the same
thing. You are a part of a community, not its center.
YOUTH: I am not the center of the world. Our world is a globe, not a map that has been cut out on a
plane. Well, I can understand that in theory, anyway. But why do I have to be aware of the fact that I’m
not the center of the world?
PHILOSOPHER: Now we will go back to where we started. All of us are searching for the sense of
belonging, that “it’s okay to be here.” In Adlerian psychology, however, a sense of belonging is
something that one can attain only by making an active commitment to the community of one’s own
accord, and not simply by being here.
YOUTH: By making an active commitment? What does one do, exactly?
PHILOSOPHER: One faces one’s life tasks. In other words, one takes steps forward on one’s own, without
avoiding the tasks of the interpersonal relations of work, friendship, and love. If you are “the center of the
world,” you will have no thoughts whatsoever regarding commitment to the community; because
everyone else is “someone who will do something for me,” and there is no need for you to do things
yourself. But you are not the center of the world, and neither am I. One has to stand on one’s own two
feet, and take one’s own steps forward with the tasks of interpersonal relations. One needs to think not,
What will this person give me? but rather, What can I give to this person? That is commitment to the
community.
YOUTH: It is because one gives something that one can find one’s refuge?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. A sense of belonging is something that one acquires through one’s own
efforts—it is not something one is endowed with at birth. Community feeling is the much-debated key
concept of Adlerian psychology.
It was certainly a concept that the young man found difficult to accept at first. And naturally, it
upset him to be told he was self-centered. But what he found hardest to accept was the incredible
extent of that community, which included the universe and inanimate objects. What were Adler
and this philosopher talking about, anyway? With a bewildered expression, the young man
slowly opened his mouth to speak.
Listen to the Voice of a Larger Community
YOUTH: I must admit, you’re starting to lose me. Let me try to straighten things out a bit. First, at the
gateway of interpersonal relations, we’ve got the separation of tasks, and as the goal, there’s community
feeling. And you’re saying that community feeling is having “a sense of others as comrades” and “an
awareness of having one’s own refuge” within the community. Up to this point, it is something I can
understand and accept. But the details still seem a bit far-fetched. For one thing, what do you mean by
expanding this thing you call “community” to include the entire universe, and then even the past and the
future, and everything from living things to inanimate objects?
PHILOSOPHER: It certainly does make things more difficult to understand if one takes Adler’s concept of
community literally and tries to actually imagine it including the universe and inanimate objects. For the
time being, suffice it to say that the scope of community is infinite.
YOUTH: Infinite?
PHILOSOPHER: Take, for example, a man who, on reaching retirement age and stopping work, quickly
loses his vitality and becomes depressed. Abruptly cut off from the company that was his community and
bereft of title or profession, he becomes an “ordinary nobody.” As he is unable to accept the fact that he is
now “normal,” he becomes old practically overnight. But all that really happened to the man is that he
was cut off from the small community that is his company. Each person belongs to a separate
community. And when it comes down to it, all of us belong to the community of the earth, and the
community of the universe.
YOUTH: That’s pure sophistry! To suddenly come out with “You belong to the universe,” as if that could
give someone a sense of belonging.
PHILOSOPHER: It’s true, there’s no way one can just imagine the entire universe all of a sudden. Even so, I
would like you to gain the awareness that you belong to a separate, larger community that is beyond the
one you see in your immediate vicinity—for example, the country or local society in which you live—
and that you are contributing in some way within that community.
YOUTH: Then what about in a situation like this? Say there’s a guy who’s unmarried, who has lost his job
and his friends, and who avoids the company of other people and just lives off the money his parents left
him. So he’s basically running away from all the tasks of work and tasks of friendship and tasks of love.
Would you say that even a guy like that belongs to some sort of community?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course. Say he goes out to buy a loaf of bread. He pays for it with a coin. That coin does
not simply go back to the bakers of the bread. It goes to the producers of flour and butter, to the people
who deliver those ingredients, to the purveyors of the gasoline used by the delivery vehicles, to people in
the oil-producing countries where that fuel comes from, and so on. So it’s all connected. People are never
truly alone or separate from community, and cannot be.
YOUTH: So you’re saying I should fantasize more when I buy bread?
PHILOSOPHER: It is not fantasy. It is fact. The community Adler speaks of goes beyond things we can see,
like our households and societies, to include those connections that we cannot see.
YOUTH: Excuse me for saying so, but you’re escaping into abstract theory. The issue we should be
addressing here is the sense of belonging, that “it’s okay to be here.” And then, with regard to the
meaning of this sense of belonging, it is the community we can see that is stronger. You will agree with
that, won’t you? For example, if we compare the “company” community with the “earth” community,
the sense of belonging of someone who says “I am a member of this company” would be stronger. To
borrow your terminology, the distance and depth of the interpersonal relations are completely different.
It’s only natural that when we search for a sense of belonging, we will be attracted to the smaller
community.
PHILOSOPHER: That is a perceptive observation. So let’s start thinking about why we should be aware of
multiple and larger communities. As I stated earlier, all of us belong to multiple communities. We
belong to our households, our schools, our workplaces, and the local societies and the countries in which
we live. This far you agree, yes?
YOUTH: Yes, I do.
PHILOSOPHER: Well, suppose that you, as a student, regarded the community that is “school” as absolute.
In other words, school is everything to you, your “I” exists because of school, and no other “I” is possible
without it. But naturally, there will be occasions within that community when you run into adversity. It
could be getting bullied, or not being able to make friends, or not keeping up with your schoolwork, or
not adapting to the system of the school in the first place. That is to say, it’s possible that with regard to
the community that is your school, you won’t have that “It’s okay to be here” sense of belonging.
YOUTH: Yes, absolutely. That’s quite possible.
PHILOSOPHER: When that happens, if you are thinking of school as being everything to you, you will end
up without a sense of belonging to anything. And then, you will escape within a smaller community,
such as your home. You will shut yourself in, and maybe even turn to violence against members of your
own family. And by doing such things, you will be attempting to gain a sense of belonging somehow.
What I would like you to focus on here, though, is that there is “a more separate community” and,
moreover, that there is “a larger community.”
YOUTH: What does that mean?
PHILOSOPHER: That there is a larger world that extends far beyond the confines of the school. And every
one of us is a member of that world. If there is no place of refuge in your school, you should find a
different refuge outside the walls of the school. You can change schools, and it’s fine to withdraw from
school, too. A community that you can break relations with by simply submitting a withdrawal notice is
one that you can have only so much connection to, in any case. Once you know how big the world is,
you will see that all the hardship you went through in school was a storm in a teacup. The moment you
leave the teacup, that raging storm will be gone, and a gentle breeze will greet you in its place.
YOUTH: Are you saying that as long as you keep yourself shut up inside the teacup, you’ll never stand a
chance outside it?
PHILOSOPHER: Secluding yourself in your room is akin to staying in the teacup, as if you are hunkering
down in a small shelter. You might be able to wait out the rain for a short while, but the storm will
continue unabated.
YOUTH: Well, maybe in theory, anyway. But it’s hard to break out. The decision to withdraw from school
itself isn’t something to be taken lightly.
PHILOSOPHER: I am sure you are right—it would not be easy. Therefore, there is a principle of action that
I would like you to commit to memory. When we run into difficulties in our interpersonal relations, or
when we can no longer see a way out, what we should consider first and foremost is the principle that
says, “Listen to the voice of the larger community.”
YOUTH: The voice of the larger community?
PHILOSOPHER: If it is a school, one does not judge things with the common sense of the community that
is the school, but instead follows the common sense of a larger community. Now, let’s say it’s your
school, and your teacher has been behaving in an authoritarian manner. But the power or authority your
teacher wields are nothing more than an aspect of the common sense that operates only within the small
community that is the school. From the standpoint of the community that is “human society,” both you
and your teacher are equal humans. If unreasonable demands are being thrust on you, it is fine to object
to them directly.
YOUTH: But it will be very difficult to object when the teacher is right in front of me.
PHILOSOPHER: Not at all. Though this might be termed a “you and I” relationship, if it is one that can
break down just because you raise an objection, then it is not the sort of relationship you need to get into
in the first place. It is fine to just let go of it. Living in fear of one’s relationships falling apart is an unfree
way to live, in which one is living for other people.
YOUTH: You’re saying to choose freedom at the same time that I have community feeling?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, of course. Do not cling to the small community right in front of you. There will
always be more “you and I,” and more “everyone,” and larger communities that exist.
Do Not Rebuke or Praise
YOUTH: Well, all right. But don’t you see? You haven’t touched on the essential point, that is, the course
of progression from the separation of tasks to community feeling. So first, I separate the tasks. I think of
my tasks as being up to this point, and everything beyond that is other people’s tasks. I don’t intervene in
other people’s tasks, and I draw a line so that other people won’t intervene in mine. But how can one
build interpersonal relations with this separation of tasks and arrive in the end at the community feeling
that “it’s okay to be here”? How does Adlerian psychology advise us to overcome the life tasks of work,
friendship, and love? It seems like you’re just trying to confuse me with abstract words, without going
into any concrete explanation.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, you’ve hit on the important point. How does carrying out the separating of tasks
connect with good relations? That is to say, how does it connect with building the kind of relations in
which we cooperate and act in harmony with each other? Which brings us to the concept of “horizontal
relationship.”
YOUTH: Horizontal relationship?
PHILOSOPHER: Let’s start with an easily understood example, that of the parent-child relationship.
Whether the circumstances are, for example, those of child-rearing, or of training junior staff in the
workplace, generally speaking there are two approaches that are considered: one is the method of raising
by rebuke, and the other is the method of raising by praise.
YOUTH: Ah. That is a hotly debated issue.
PHILOSOPHER: Which one do you think is the better choice? To rebuke or to praise?
YOUTH: It’s better to raise by praising, of course.
PHILOSOPHER: Why?
YOUTH: Take animal training, for example. When teaching animals to do tricks, you can make them obey
with a whip. This is the typical “raising by rebuke” way. On the other hand, it’s also possible to get
animals to learn tricks by holding up rewards of food or saying kind words. This is “raising by praise.”
Both ways can lead to the same results—they learn new tricks. But the motivation for moving toward the
objective is completely different if the animal is doing it because it will be rebuked or doing it because it
wants to be praised. In the latter instance, it will come with a feeling of joy. Rebuke only makes the
animal wither. But raising with praise naturally allows it to grow strong and healthy. This seems like an
obvious conclusion.
PHILOSOPHER: Animal training is an interesting example. Now let’s look at this from the standpoint of
Adlerian psychology. In Adlerian psychology, we take the stance that in child-rearing, and in all other
forms of communication with other people, one must not praise.
YOUTH: One must not praise?
PHILOSOPHER: Physical punishment is out of the question, of course, and rebuking is not accepted, either.
One must not praise, and one must not rebuke. That is the standpoint of Adlerian psychology.
YOUTH: But how is that even possible?
PHILOSOPHER: Consider the reality of the act of praise. For example, suppose I praised a statement you
made by saying, “Good job!” Wouldn’t hearing those words seem strange somehow?
YOUTH: Yes, I guess it would put me in an unpleasant mood.
PHILOSOPHER: Can you explain why it would feel unpleasant?
YOUTH: What’s unpleasant is the feeling that from the words “Good job!” one is being talked down to.
PHILOSOPHER: Exactly. In the act of praise, there is the aspect of it being “the passing of judgment by a
person of ability on a person of no ability.” A mother praises her child who has helped her prepare
dinner, saying, “You’re such a good helper!” But when her husband does the same things, you can be
sure she won’t be telling him, “You’re such a good helper!”
YOUTH: Ha-ha, you are right about that.
PHILOSOPHER: In other words, the mother who praises the child by saying things like “You’re such a good
helper!” or “Good job!” or “Well, aren’t you something!” is unconsciously creating a hierarchical
relationship and seeing the child as beneath her. The example of animal training that you just gave is also
emblematic of the hierarchical relationship—the vertical relationship—that is behind the praising. When
one person praises another, the goal is “to manipulate someone who has less ability than you.” It is not
done out of gratitude or respect.
YOUTH: So you’re saying that one praises in order to manipulate?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. Whether we praise or rebuke others, the only difference is one of the carrot or
the stick, and the background goal is manipulation. The reason Adlerian psychology is highly critical of
reward-and-punishment education is that its intention is to manipulate children.
YOUTH: No way, you’re wrong there. Because think of it from the standpoint of the child. For children,
isn’t being praised by their parents the greatest joy of all? It’s because they want praise that they do their
studies. It’s because they want praise that they learn to behave properly. That’s how it was for me when I
was a child. How I craved praise from my parents! And even after becoming an adult, it’s been the same
way. When your boss praises you, it feels good. That’s how it is for everyone. This has nothing to do with
reason—it’s just instinctual emotion!
PHILOSOPHER: One wishes to be praised by someone. Or conversely, one decides to give praise to
someone. This is proof that one is seeing all interpersonal relationships as “vertical relationships.” This
holds true for you, too: It is because you are living in vertical relationships that you want to be praised.
Adlerian psychology refutes all manner of vertical relationships and proposes that all interpersonal
relationships be horizontal relationships. In a sense, this point may be regarded as the fundamental
principle of Adlerian psychology.
YOUTH: Is this something that is conveyed by the words “equal but not the same”?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. Equal, that is to say, horizontal. For example, there are men who verbally abuse their
wives, who do all the housework, with such remarks as “You’re not bringing in any money, so I don’t
want to hear it” or “It’s thanks to me that there’s food on the table.” And I’m sure you’ve heard this one
before: “You have everything you need, so what are you complaining about?” It’s perfectly shameful.
Such statements of economic superiority or the like have no connection whatsoever to human worth. A
company employee and a full-time housewife simply have different workplaces and roles, and are truly
“equal but not the same.”
YOUTH: I agree entirely.
PHILOSOPHER: They are probably afraid that women will grow wise to their situation and start earning
more than men do, and that women will start asserting themselves. They see all interpersonal relations as
vertical relationships, and they are afraid of being seen by women as beneath them. That is to say, they
have intense, hidden feelings of inferiority.
YOUTH: So in a sense, they are getting into a superiority complex in which they are trying to make a show
of their abilities?
PHILOSOPHER: So it seems. In the first place, the feeling of inferiority is an awareness that arises within
vertical relationships. If one can build horizontal relationships that are “equal but not the same” for all
people, there will no longer be any room for inferiority complexes to emerge.
YOUTH: Hmm. Maybe I do have an awareness of manipulation somewhere in my psyche when I go
about praising other people. Laying on the flattery to get in good favor with my boss—that’s definitely
manipulation, isn’t it? And it’s the other way around, too. I’ve been manipulated by being praised by
others. Funny, I guess that’s just the sort of person I am!
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, in the sense that you have not been able to break out of vertical relationships, it would
seem so.
YOUTH: This is getting interesting! Please go on!
The Encouragement Approach
PHILOSOPHER: As you may recall from our discussion on the separation of tasks, I brought up the subject
of intervention. This is the act of intruding on other people’s tasks. So why does a person intervene?
Here, too, in the background, vertical relationships are at play. It is precisely because one perceives
interpersonal relations as vertical, and sees the other party as beneath one, that one intervenes. Through
intervention, one tries to lead the other party in the desired direction. One has convinced oneself that one
is right and that the other party is wrong. Of course, the intervention here is manipulation, pure and
simple. Parents commanding a child to study is a typical example of this. They might be acting out of the
best of intentions from their points of view, but when it comes down to it, the parents are intruding and
attempting to manipulate the child to go in their desired direction.
YOUTH: If one can build horizontal relationships, will that intervention disappear?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, it will.
YOUTH: Well, it’s one thing if you’re just talking about a child’s studies. But when someone’s suffering
right there in front of you, you can’t just leave him or her be, can you? Would you still say that lending a
helping hand is intervention, and then do nothing?
PHILOSOPHER: One must not let it go unnoticed. It is necessary to offer assistance that does not turn into
intervention.
YOUTH: What is the difference between intervention and assistance?
PHILOSOPHER: Think back to our discussion of the separation of tasks, to the subject of a child’s
schoolwork. As I stated then, this is a task that the child has to resolve himself, not something that parents
or teachers can do for him. So intervention is this kind of intruding on other people’s tasks and directing
them by saying things like “You have to study” or “Get into that university.” Whereas assistance, on the
other hand, presupposes the separation of tasks, and also horizontal relationships. Having understood
that studying is the child’s task, one considers what one can do for him. Concretely speaking, instead of
commanding from above that the child must study, one acts on him in such a way that he can gain the
confidence to take care of his own studies and face his tasks on his own.
YOUTH: And that action isn’t forced?
PHILOSOPHER: No, it’s not. Without forcing, and with the tasks always kept separate, one assists the child
to resolve them by his own efforts. It’s the approach of “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t
make him drink.” He is the one who has to face his tasks, and he is the one who makes the resolution.
YOUTH: So you neither praise nor rebuke?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right, one neither praises nor rebukes. This kind of assistance, which is based on
horizontal relationships, is referred to in Adlerian psychology as “encouragement.”
YOUTH: Encouragement, huh? Right, that’s the term you mentioned some time ago. You said you’d
explain at a later date.
PHILOSOPHER: When one is not following through with one’s tasks, it is not because one is without
ability. Adlerian psychology tells us that the issue here is not one of ability but simply that “one has lost
the courage to face one’s tasks.” And if that is the case, the thing to do before anything else is to recover
that lost courage.
YOUTH: But we’re just going around in circles! That’s basically the same as giving praise. When one is
praised by another person, one becomes truly aware of one’s ability and regains one’s courage. Please do
not be stubborn about this point—just acknowledge the necessity of giving praise.
PHILOSOPHER: No, I will not acknowledge that.
YOUTH: Why not?
PHILOSOPHER: The reason is clear. Being praised is what leads people to form the belief that they have no
ability.
YOUTH: What did you say?
PHILOSOPHER: Shall I repeat myself? The more one is praised by another person, the more one forms the
belief that one has no ability. Please do your best to remember this.
YOUTH: Do such foolish people even exist? It’s got to be the other way around! It is as a result of being
praised that one becomes truly aware of one’s ability. Isn’t that obvious?
PHILOSOPHER: You are wrong. Even if you do derive joy from being praised, it is the same as being
dependent on vertical relationships and acknowledging that you have no ability. Because giving praise is a
judgment that is passed by a person of ability onto a person without ability.
YOUTH: I just cannot agree with that.
PHILOSOPHER: When receiving praise becomes one’s goal, one is choosing a way of living that is in line
with another person’s system of values. Looking at your life until now, aren’t you tired of trying to live
up to your parents’ expectations?
YOUTH: Um, well, I guess so.
PHILOSOPHER: First, do the separation of tasks. Then, while accepting each other’s differences, build equal
horizontal relationships. Encouragement is the approach that comes next.
How to Feel You Have Value
YOUTH: So concretely speaking, how does one go about this? One cannot praise, and one cannot rebuke.
What other words and choices are there?
PHILOSOPHER: Think about a time when you’ve had help in your work—not from a child but from a
partner who is your equal—and you will probably see the answer right away. When a friend helps you
clean your home, what do you say to him?
YOUTH: I say, “Thank you.”
PHILOSOPHER: Right. You convey words of gratitude, saying thank you to this partner who has helped
you with your work. You might express straightforward delight: “I’m glad.” Or you could convey your
thanks by saying, “That was a big help.” This is an approach to encouragement that is based on horizontal
relationships.
YOUTH: That’s all?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. The most important thing is to not judge other people. “Judgment” is a word that
comes out of vertical relationships. If one is building horizontal relationships, there will be words of
more straightforward gratitude and respect and joy.
YOUTH: Hmm, your point that judgment is created by vertical relationships certainly seems to be true.
But what about this? Could the words “thank you” actually have such a great power as to be able to bring
back courage? After all, I think I’d prefer to be praised, even if the words I hear are ones that come from
vertical relationships.
PHILOSOPHER: Being praised essentially means that one is receiving judgment from another person as
“good.” And the measure of what is good or bad about that act is that person’s yardstick. If receiving
praise is what one is after, one will have no choice but to adapt to that person’s yardstick and put the
brakes on one’s own freedom. “Thank you,” on the other hand, rather than being judgment, is a clear
expression of gratitude. When one hears words of gratitude, one knows that one has made a contribution
to another person.
YOUTH: So even if you’re judged as “good” by another person, you don’t feel that you’ve made a
contribution?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. This is a point that will connect to our subsequent discussion as well—in
Adlerian psychology, a great deal of emphasis is given to “contribution.”
YOUTH: Why is that?
PHILOSOPHER: Well, what does a person have to do to get courage? In Adler’s view, “It is only when a
person is able to feel that he has worth that he can possess courage.”
YOUTH: When a person is able to feel that he has worth?
PHILOSOPHER: Do you recall when we were discussing the feeling of inferiority that I spoke of this as
being an issue of subjective worth? Is one able to feel one has worth, or does one feel one is a worthless
being? If one is able to feel one has worth, then one can accept oneself just as one is and have the courage
to face one’s life tasks. So the issue that arises at this point is how on earth can one become able to feel one
has worth?
YOUTH: Yes, that’s it exactly! I need you to explain that very clearly, please.
PHILOSOPHER: It’s quite simple. It is when one is able to feel “I am beneficial to the community” that one
can have a true sense of one’s worth. This is the answer that would be offered in Adlerian psychology.
YOUTH: That I am beneficial to the community?
PHILOSOPHER: That one can act on the community, that is to say, on other people, and that one can feel
“I am of use to someone.” Instead of feeling judged by another person as “good,” being able to feel, by
way of one’s own subjective viewpoint, that “I can make contributions to other people.” It is at that point
that, at last, we can have a true sense of our own worth. Everything we have been discussing about
community feeling and encouragement connects here.
YOUTH: Hmm. I don’t know, it’s starting to get a bit confusing.
PHILOSOPHER: We are getting to the heart of the discussion now. Please stick with me awhile longer. It is
about having concern for others, building horizontal relationships, and taking the approach of
encouragement. All these things connect to the deep life awareness of “I am of use to someone,” and in
turn, to your courage to live.
YOUTH: To be of use to someone. That is what my life is worth living for . . . ?
PHILOSOPHER: Let’s take a little break. Would you like some coffee?
YOUTH: Yes, please.
The discussion of community feeling had become more confusing than ever. One must not
praise. And one must not rebuke, either. All words that are used to judge other people are words
that come out of vertical relationships, and we need to build horizontal relationships. And it is
only when one is able to feel that one is of use to someone that one can have a true awareness of
one’s worth. There was a major flaw in this logic somewhere. The young man felt it instinctively.
As he sipped the hot coffee, thoughts of his grandfather crossed his mind.
Exist in the Present
PHILOSOPHER: Well, have you worked things out?
YOUTH: Gradually, but yes, it’s getting clearer. You don’t seem to be aware of it, but just now you said
something really over the top. It’s a dangerous, rather extreme opinion that just negates everything in the
world.
PHILOSOPHER: Oh, really? What is it?
YOUTH: It’s the idea that being of use to someone is what gives one a true awareness of one’s worth. If you
put it the other way around, a person who isn’t of any use to others has no worth at all. That’s what you
are saying, isn’t it? If one takes that to its logical conclusion, then the lives of newborn babies and of
invalids and old people who are bedridden aren’t worth living either. How could this be? Let’s talk about
my grandfather. He spends his days bedridden at an old people’s home. Since he has dementia, he doesn’t
recognize any of his children or grandchildren, and his condition is such that he would not be able to go
on living without constant care. One simply couldn’t think of him as being of use to someone. Don’t
you see? Your opinion is basically the same thing as saying to my grandfather, “People like you aren’t
qualified to live!”
PHILOSOPHER: I reject that definitively.
YOUTH: How do you reject that?
PHILOSOPHER: There are parents who refute my explanation of the concept of encouragement by saying,
“Our child does bad things from morning to night, and there is never an occasion to tell him, ‘Thank
you,’ or ‘You helped a lot.’ ” The context is probably the same as what you are talking about, isn’t it?
YOUTH: Yes, it is. So tell me please how you justify that.
PHILOSOPHER: At this point, you are looking at another person on the level of his acts. In other words,
that that person “did something.” So from that point of view, it might seem that bedridden old people are
only a nuisance and are of no use to anyone. So let’s look at other people not on the “level of acts” but on
the “level of being.” Without judging whether or not other people did something, one rejoices in their
being there, in their very existence, and one calls out to them with words of gratitude.
YOUTH: You call out to their existence? What on earth are you talking about?
PHILOSOPHER: If you consider things at the level of being, we are of use to others and have worth just by
being here. This is an indisputable fact.
YOUTH: No way! Enough joking around. Being of use to someone just by being here—that’s got to be
straight out of some new religion.
PHILOSOPHER: Well, for example, suppose your mother has a car accident. Her condition is serious, and
her life may be in danger. At a time like that, you would not be wondering if your mother “did
something,” or anything of the sort. More than likely, you will just be thinking you’ll be glad if she makes
it, and you’re glad she is holding on right now.
YOUTH: Of course I would!
PHILOSOPHER: That’s what it means to be grateful on the level of being. Your mother might not be able
to do anything in her critical condition that would be considered an act, but just by being alive, she
would be supporting the psychological state of you and your family, and would therefore be of use. The
same could be said for you, too. If your life were in danger, and you were hanging on by a thread, the
people around you would probably feel very gladdened just by the very fact of your existing. They would
simply feel thankful that you are safe in the here and now, and would not be wanting you to perform
some direct act. At the very least, there is no reason they would have to think that way. So instead of
thinking of oneself on the level of acts, first of all one accepts oneself on the level of being.
YOUTH: That’s an extreme example—everyday life is different.
PHILOSOPHER: No, it is the same.
YOUTH: What is the same about it? Try and give me a more everyday example, please. If you can’t, I
won’t be able to agree with this.
PHILOSOPHER: All right. When we look at other people, we are prone to construct our own ideal images
of ourselves, which we then detract from and judge. Imagine, for example, a child who never talks back
to his parents, excels in both schoolwork and sports, attends a good university, and joins a large company.
There are parents who will compare their child to such an image of an ideal child—which is an impossible
fiction—and then be filled with complaints and dissatisfaction. They treat the idealized image as one
hundred points, and they gradually subtract from that. This is truly a “judgment” way of thinking.
Instead, the parents could refrain from comparing their child to anyone else, see him for who he actually
is, and be glad and grateful for his being there. Instead of taking away points from some idealized image,
they could start from zero. And if they do that, they should be able to call out to his existence itself.
YOUTH: Okay, but I’d say that’s just an idealistic approach. So are you saying that even with the kind of
child who never goes to school or gets a job, but just shuts himself in and stays home, one should still
communicate one’s gratitude and say thank you?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course. Suppose your shut-in child helped you wash the dishes after a meal. If you were
to say then, “Enough of that already—just go to school,” you would be using the words of such parents
who detract from an image of an ideal child. If you were to take such an approach, the child would
probably end up even more discouraged. However, if you can say a straightforward thank you, the child
just might feel his own worth and take a new step forward.
YOUTH: That’s just utterly hypocritical! It’s nothing more than the nonsensical talk of a hypocrite. It
sounds like the “neighborly love” that Christians talk about. The community feeling, the horizontal
relationships, the gratitude for existence, and so on. Who on earth could actually do such things?
PHILOSOPHER: With regard to this issue of community feeling, there was a person who asked Adler a
similar question. Adler’s reply was the following: “Someone has to start. Other people might not be
cooperative, but that is not connected to you. My advice is this: you should start. With no regard to
whether others are cooperative or not.” My advice is exactly the same.
People Cannot Make Proper Use of Self
YOUTH: I should start?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. Without regard to whether other people are cooperative or not.
YOUTH: All right, I’ll ask you again. “People can be of use to someone else simply by being alive, and have
a true sense of their worth just by being alive.” Is that what you are saying?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes.
YOUTH: Well, I don’t know. I am alive, right here and now. “I,” who is no one else but me, am alive right
here. But even so, I don’t really feel that I have worth.
PHILOSOPHER: Can you describe in words why you do not feel that you have worth?
YOUTH: I suppose it’s what you’ve been referring to as interpersonal relations. From childhood up to the
present, I have always been belittled by people around me, especially my parents, as a poor excuse for a
little brother. They have never really tried to recognize me for who I am. You say that worth is something
one gives to oneself. But that’s just an impracticable theory. For example, at the library where I work, for
the most part my job is just sorting the returned books and putting them back on the shelves. It’s routine
work that anyone could do once they’ve been taught. If I stopped going to work, my boss would have no
trouble finding someone to replace me. I am needed only for the unskilled labor I provide, and it doesn’t
actually matter at all if it is “I” who is working there or someone else, or a machine, for that matter. No
one is requiring “this me” in particular. In such circumstances, would you have confidence in yourself?
Would you be able to have a true sense of worth?
PHILOSOPHER: From an Adlerian psychology point of view, the answer is simple. First of all, build a
horizontal relationship between yourself and another person. One is enough. Let’s start from there.
YOUTH: Please don’t treat me like a fool! Look, I have friends. And I am building solid horizontal
relationships with them.
PHILOSOPHER: Even so, I suspect that with your parents and your boss, and with your junior colleagues
and other people as well, the relationships you are building are vertical ones.
YOUTH: Of course, I have different kinds of relationships. That’s how it is for everyone.
PHILOSOPHER: This is a very important point. Does one build vertical relationships, or does one build
horizontal relationships? This is an issue of lifestyle, and human beings are not so clever as to be able to
have different lifestyles available whenever the need arises. In other words, deciding that one is “equal to
this person” or “in a hierarchical relationship with that person” does not work.
YOUTH: Do you mean that one has to choose one or the other—vertical relationships or horizontal
relationships?
PHILOSOPHER: Absolutely, yes. If you are building even one vertical relationship with someone, before
you even notice what is happening, you will be treating all your interpersonal relations as vertical.
YOUTH: So I am treating even my relationships with my friends as vertical?
PHILOSOPHER: That is correct. Even if you are not treating them in a boss-or-subordinate kind of way, it is
as if you are saying, “A is above me, and B is below me,” for example, or “I’ll follow A’s advice, but
ignore what B says,” or “I don’t mind breaking my promise to C.”
YOUTH: Hmm!
PHILOSOPHER: On the other hand, if one has managed to build a horizontal relationship with at least one
person—if one has been able to build a relationship of equals in the true sense of the term—that is a
major lifestyle transformation. With that breakthrough, all one’s interpersonal relations will gradually
become horizontal.
YOUTH: What nonsense! There are so many ways I could refute that. Think of a company setting, for
example. It wouldn’t really be feasible for the director and his new recruits to form relationships as
equals, would it? Hierarchical relationships are part of the system of our society, and to ignore that is to
ignore the social order. Look, if you heard that a new recruit at your company, who’s only twenty or so,
had suddenly started buddying up to the sixty-something director, don’t you think it would sound pretty
far-fetched?
PHILOSOPHER: It is certainly important to respect one’s elders. In a company structure, it is only natural
for there to be different levels of responsibility. I am not telling you to make friends with everyone, or
behave as if you are close friends. Rather, what is important is to be equal in consciousness, and to assert
that which needs to be asserted.
YOUTH: I am not someone who can mouth off to my seniors, and I would never think of trying. My
social common sense would be called into question if I did.
PHILOSOPHER: What is “senior”? What is this “mouthing off”? If one is gauging the atmosphere of a
situation and being dependent on vertical relationships, one is engaging in irresponsible acts—one is
trying to avoid one’s responsibilities.
YOUTH: What is irresponsible about it?
PHILOSOPHER: Suppose that as a result of following your boss’s instructions, your work ends in failure.
Whose responsibility is it then?
YOUTH: Well, that’d be my boss’s responsibility. Because I was just following orders, and he was the one
who decided on them.
PHILOSOPHER: None of the responsibility is yours?
YOUTH: No, it isn’t. It’s the responsibility of the boss who gave the orders. This is what’s known as
organizational accountability.
PHILOSOPHER: You are wrong. That is a life-lie. There is space for you to refuse, and there should also be
space to propose a better way of doing things. You are just thinking there is no space to refuse so that you
can avoid the conflict of the associated interpersonal relations and avoid responsibility—and you are
being dependent on vertical relationships.
YOUTH: Are you saying I should disobey my boss? Sure, in theory, I should. Theoretically, it’s exactly as
you say. But I can’t do that! There’s no way I could build a relationship like that.
PHILOSOPHER: Really? You are building a horizontal relationship with me right now. You are asserting
yourself very well. Instead of thinking about this or that difficulty, you can just start here.
YOUTH: I can start here?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, in this small study. As I told you earlier, to me you are an irreplaceable friend.
YOUTH: . . .
PHILOSOPHER: Am I wrong?
YOUTH: I appreciate it, I really do. But I am afraid. I am afraid of accepting your proposal.
PHILOSOPHER: What are you afraid of, exactly?
YOUTH: The tasks of friendship, naturally. I have never befriended an older man like you. I have no idea if
a friend relationship with such a difference in age is even possible, or if I had better think of it as a studentteacher
relationship.
PHILOSOPHER: Age does not matter in love and friendship. It is certainly true that the tasks of friendship
require a steady courage. With regard to your relationship with me, it will be fine to reduce the distance
little by little. To a degree of distance in which we are not in very close contact but can still reach out and
touch each other’s faces with our outstretched arms, so to speak.
YOUTH: Please give me some time. Just once more, I would like some time to try to figure things out on
my own. Our discussion today has given me much to think about. I would like to take it all home and
ruminate on it calmly on my own.
PHILOSOPHER: It takes time to gain a true understanding of community feeling. It would be quite
impossible to understand everything about it right here and now. Please return to your home and give it
some careful thought, while checking it against everything else we have discussed.
YOUTH: I will. In any case, it was quite a blow to be told that I never really look at others, and I only have
concern for myself. You’re really a dreadful fellow!
PHILOSOPHER: Ha-ha. You say it in such a happy way.
YOUTH: Yes, I enjoy it immensely. It hurts, of course. It’s like a sharp pain that shoots through me, as if I
were swallowing needles. But still, I enjoy it immensely. It’s habit-forming, having these discussions with
you. I realized a little while ago that maybe I don’t just want to take apart your argument—I want you to
take apart mine, too.
PHILOSOPHER: I see. That’s an interesting analysis.
YOUTH: But don’t forget. I told you that I am going to take apart your argument and bring you to your
knees, and I haven’t given up.
PHILOSOPHER: Thank you. I’ve had a good time, too. Come by whenever you’re ready to pick this back
up.

THE FIFTH NIGHT:
To Live in Earnest in the Here and Now
The young man thought to himself, Adlerian psychology is engaged in a thorough inquiry into
interpersonal relationships. And the final goal of these interpersonal relationships is community feeling.
But is this really enough? Isn’t there something else that I was brought into this world to achieve? What is
the meaning of life? Where am I headed, and what sort of life am I trying to lead? The more the young
man thought, the more it seemed to him that his own existence had been tiny and insignificant.
Excessive Self-Consciousness Stifles the Self
PHILOSOPHER: It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?
YOUTH: Yes, I last came about a month ago. I have been thinking about the meaning of community
feeling since then.
PHILOSOPHER: So how do you feel about it now?
YOUTH: Well, community feeling is definitely an attractive idea. The sense of belonging, that “it’s okay to
be here,” for example, which we possess as a fundamental desire. I think it is a brilliant insight into our
existence as social creatures.
PHILOSOPHER: It’s a brilliant insight, except . . . ?
YOUTH: Funny, you caught on right away. That’s right, I still have some issues with it. I’ll say it straight
out—I have no idea what you are going on about with your references to the universe and all that, and it
ends up reeking of religion from beginning to end. There’s this kind of cultish quality to it all that I just
can’t shake.
PHILOSOPHER: When Adler first proposed the concept of community feeling, there was a great deal of
opposition in a similar vein. People said that psychology is supposed to be a science, and here was Adler
discussing the issue of worth. That sort of thing isn’t science, they said.
YOUTH: So in my own way, I tried to figure out why I couldn’t understand what you were talking about,
and I’m thinking that the order of things might be the problem. You’re starting off with the universe and
inanimate objects, and the past and the future and so on, so I lose track of things. Instead, one should get
a firm grasp of the “I.” Next, one should contemplate one-on-one relationships. That is to say, the
interpersonal relationships of “you and I.” And once one has done that, the larger community should
come into view.
PHILOSOPHER: I see. That is a good order.
YOUTH: Now, the first thing I want to ask about is attachment to self. You are saying that one has to stop
being attached to the “I” and make the switch to “concern for others.” I am sure it is exactly as you say—
concern for others is important, I agree. But no matter what, we worry about ourselves; we look at
ourselves all the time.
PHILOSOPHER: Have you thought about why we worry about ourselves?
YOUTH: I have. If I were a narcissist, for example—if I were in love with myself and constantly fascinated
with myself—maybe that would simplify things. Because your instruction, “Have more concern for
others,” is a perfectly sound one. But I am not a self-loving narcissist. I am a self-loathing realist. I hate
who I am, and that’s exactly why I look at myself all the time. I don’t have confidence in myself, and
that’s why I am excessively self-conscious.
PHILOSOPHER: At what times do you feel that you are excessively self-conscious?
YOUTH: Well, at meetings, for example, I have a hard time raising my hand and making myself heard. I
think needless things, like If I ask this question, they’ll probably laugh at me, or If the point I want to make
is irrelevant, I’ll get ridiculed, and so on, and I just clam up. Truthfully, I falter even when it comes to
telling silly jokes in front of people. Every time, my self-consciousness kicks in and puts the brakes on,
and it’s as if I’ve been straitjacketed. My self-consciousness won’t allow me to behave in an innocent way.
But I don’t even have to ask for your answer. I’m sure it’ll be the same as always: Have courage. But you
know, such words are of no use to me. Because this isn’t just a matter of courage.
PHILOSOPHER: I see. Last time, I gave an overview of community feeling. Today, we will dig deeper.
YOUTH: And where will that take us?
PHILOSOPHER: We will probably arrive at the question, What is happiness?
YOUTH: Oh! So happiness lies beyond community feeling?
PHILOSOPHER: There is no need to rush the answers. What we need is dialogue.
YOUTH: All right, then. So let’s get started!
Not Self-Affirmation— Self-Acceptance
PHILOSOPHER: First of all, let’s look at what you were just saying, about your self-consciousness putting
the brakes on and not letting you behave in an innocent way. There are probably many people who
experience this trouble. So let’s go back to the source again and think about your goal. What could you
be trying to gain by putting the brakes on your own innocent behavior?
YOUTH: It’s the genuine desire to not be laughed at, to not be thought of as a fool.
PHILOSOPHER: So in other words, you do not have confidence in your innocent self, in yourself just as
you are, right? And you stay away from the kind of interpersonal relationship in which you would just
be yourself. But I’ll bet that when you’re home alone, you sing out loud and dance to music and speak in
a lively voice.
YOUTH: Ha-ha! It’s almost like you’ve set up a surveillance camera in my room! But yes, it’s true. I can
behave freely when I’m alone.
PHILOSOPHER: Anyone can behave like a king when they’re alone. So this is an issue that should be
considered in the context of interpersonal relations. Because it isn’t that you don’t have an innocent self
—it is only that you can’t do such things in front of others.
YOUTH: Well, what should I do then?
PHILOSOPHER: It’s about community feeling, after all. Concretely speaking, it’s making the switch from
attachment to self (self-interest) to concern for others (social interest) and gaining a sense of community
feeling. Three things are needed at this point: “self-acceptance,” “confidence in others,” and
“contribution to others.”
YOUTH: Interesting. New keywords, I see. What do they refer to?
PHILOSOPHER: Let’s start with self-acceptance. On our first night, I brought up that statement of Adler’s:
“The important thing is not what one is born with but what use one makes of that equipment.” Do you
remember this?
YOUTH: Yes, of course.
PHILOSOPHER: We cannot discard the receptacle that is the “I,” and neither can we replace it. The
important thing, however, is “what use one makes of that equipment.” One changes one’s way of looking
at the “I”—that is to say, one changes how one uses it.
YOUTH: Does that mean be more positive and have a stronger sense of self-affirmation? Think about
everything more positively?
PHILOSOPHER: There is no need to go out of one’s way to be positive and affirm oneself. It’s not selfaffirmation
that we are concerned with, but self-acceptance.
YOUTH: Not self-affirmation, but self-acceptance?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. There is a clear difference. Self-affirmation is making suggestions to oneself,
such as “I can do it” or “I am strong,” even when something is simply beyond one’s ability. It is a notion
that can bring about a superiority complex, and may even be termed a way of living in which one lies to
oneself. With self-acceptance, on the other hand, if one cannot do something, one is simply accepting
“one’s incapable self” as is and moving forward so that one can do whatever one can. It is not a way of
lying to oneself. To put it more simply, say you’ve got a score of 60 percent, but you tell yourself, I just
happened to get unlucky this time around, and the real me is 100 percent. That is self-affirmation. By
contrast, if one accepts oneself as one is, as 60 percent, and thinks to oneself, How should I go about
getting closer to 100 percent?—that is self-acceptance.
YOUTH: So even if you’re only 60 percent, there’s no need to be pessimistic?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course not. No one is perfect. Do you recall what I said when I was explaining the
pursuit of superiority? That all people are in this condition of wanting to improve? Put the other way
around, there is no such thing as a 100 percent person. This is something we should actively
acknowledge.
YOUTH: Hmm. What you are saying sounds positive in various respects, but it has a negative ring to it as
well.
PHILOSOPHER: Here I use the term “affirmative resignation.”
YOUTH: Affirmative resignation?
PHILOSOPHER: This is also the case with the separation of tasks—one ascertains the things one can change
and the things one cannot change. One cannot change what one is born with. But one can, under one’s
own power, go about changing what use one makes of that equipment. So in that case, one simply has to
focus on what one can change, rather than on what one cannot. This is what I call self-acceptance.
YOUTH: What one can change, and what one cannot.
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. Accept what is irreplaceable. Accept “this me” just as it is. And have the
courage to change what one can change. That is self-acceptance.
YOUTH: Hmm. That reminds me of a line that the writer Kurt Vonnegut quoted in one of his books:
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and
wisdom to know the difference.” It’s in the novel Slaughterhouse-Five.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, I know it. It is the Serenity Prayer. These words are well known and have been
transmitted for many years in Christian societies.
YOUTH: He even used the word “courage.” I read the book so intently I should know it by heart. But I
never noticed this point until now.
PHILOSOPHER: It’s true. We do not lack ability. We just lack courage. It all comes down to courage.
The Difference Between Trust and Confidence
YOUTH: There is something about this “affirmative resignation” that sounds pessimistic. It’s just too bleak
if the upshot of all this lengthy discussion is resignation.
PHILOSOPHER: Is that so? Resignation has the connotation of seeing clearly with fortitude and acceptance.
Having a firm grasp on the truth of things—that is resignation. There is nothing pessimistic about it.
YOUTH: A firm grasp on the truth . . .
PHILOSOPHER: Of course, just because one has arrived at affirmative resignation as one’s self-acceptance, it
does not automatically follow that one finds community feeling. That is the reality. When one is
switching from attachment to self to concern for others, the second key concept—confidence in others—
becomes absolutely essential.
YOUTH: Confidence in others. In other words, believing in others?
PHILOSOPHER: Here, I will consider the words “believing in others” in the context of distinguishing trust
from confidence. First, when we speak of trust, we are referring to something that comes with set
conditions. We refer to it as credit. For example, when one wants to borrow money from a bank, one has
to have some kind of security. The bank calculates the amount of the loan based on the value of that
security, and says, “We will lend you this much.” The attitude of “We will lend it to you on the condition
that you will pay it back” or “We will lend you as much as you are able to pay back” is not one of having
confidence in someone. It is trust.
YOUTH: Well, that’s how bank financing works, I guess.
PHILOSOPHER: By contrast, from the standpoint of Adlerian psychology, the basis of interpersonal
relations is founded not on trust but on confidence.
YOUTH: And “confidence” in this case is . . . ?
PHILOSOPHER: It is doing without any set conditions whatsoever when believing in others. Even if one
does not have sufficient objective grounds for trusting someone, one believes. One believes
unconditionally without concerning oneself with such things as security. That is confidence.
YOUTH: Believing unconditionally? So it’s back to your pet notion of neighborly love?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course, if one believes in others without setting any conditions whatsoever, there will
be times when one gets taken advantage of. Just like the guarantor of a debt, there are times when one
may suffer damages. The attitude of continuing to believe in someone even in such instances is what we
call confidence.
YOUTH: Only a naïve dimwit would do such a thing! I guess you hold with the doctrine of innate human
goodness, while I hold with the doctrine of innate human evilness. Believe unconditionally in complete
strangers, and you’ll just get used and abused.
PHILOSOPHER: And there are also times when someone deceives you, and you get used that way. But look
at it from the standpoint of someone who has been taken advantage of. There are people who will
continue to believe in you unconditionally even if you are the one who has taken advantage of them.
People who will have confidence in you no matter how they are treated. Would you be able to betray
such a person again and again?
YOUTH: Um, no. Well, it would be . . .
PHILOSOPHER: I am sure it would be quite difficult for you to do such a thing.
YOUTH: After all that, are you saying one has to appeal to the emotions? To keep on holding the faith, like
a saint, and act on the conscience of the other person? You’re telling me that morals don’t matter to
Adler, but isn’t that exactly what we’re talking about here?
PHILOSOPHER: No, it is not. What would you say is the opposite of confidence?
YOUTH: An antonym of confidence? Uh . . .
PHILOSOPHER: It is doubt. Suppose you have placed “doubt” at the foundation of your interpersonal
relations. That you live your life doubting other people—doubting your friends and even your family
and those you love. What sort of relationship could possibly arise from that? The other person will detect
the doubt in your eyes in an instant. He or she will have an instinctive understanding that “this person
does not have confidence in me.” Do you think one would be able to build some kind of positive
relationship from that point? It is precisely because we lay a foundation of unconditional confidence that
it is possible for us to build a deep relationship.
YOUTH: Okay, I guess.
PHILOSOPHER: The way to understand Adlerian psychology is simple. Right now, you are thinking, If I
were to have confidence in someone unconditionally, I would just get taken advantage of. However, you
are not the one who decides whether or not to take advantage. That is the other person’s task. All you
need to do is think, What should I do? If you are telling yourself, I’ll give it to him if he isn’t going take
advantage of me, it is just a relationship of trust that is based on security or conditions.
YOUTH: So one separates tasks there, too?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. As I have stated repeatedly, carrying out the separation of tasks returns life to an
astonishingly simple form. But while the principle of the separation of tasks is easy to grasp, putting it
into practice is difficult. I recognize that.
YOUTH: Then you are telling me to keep on having confidence in everyone, to keep on believing in all
other people even when they deceive me, and just go on being a naïve fool? That’s not philosophy or
psychology or anything of the sort—it’s just the preaching of a zealot!
PHILOSOPHER: I reject that definitively. Adlerian psychology is not saying “have confidence in others
unconditionally” on the basis of a moralistic system of values. Unconditional confidence is a means for
making your interpersonal relationship with a person better and for building a horizontal relationship. If
you do not have the desire to make your relationship with that person better, then go ahead and sever it.
Because carrying out the severing is your task.
YOUTH: Then what if I’ve placed unconditional confidence in a friend in order to make our relationship
better? I’ve jumped through all sorts of hoops for this friend, gladly satisfied any requests for money, and
been unstinting with my time and efforts in his regard. But even in such cases, there are times when one
is taken advantage of. For example, if one were horribly taken advantage of by a person one has believed
in completely, wouldn’t that experience lead one to a lifestyle with an “other people are my enemies”
outlook?
PHILOSOPHER: It seems that you have not yet gained an understanding of the goal of confidence.
Suppose, for example, that you are in a love relationship, but you are having doubts about your partner
and you think to yourself, I’ll bet she’s cheating on me. And you start making desperate efforts in search of
evidence to prove that. What do you think would happen as a result?
YOUTH: Well, I guess that would depend on the situation.
PHILOSOPHER: No, in every instance, you would find an abundance of evidence that she has been
cheating on you.
YOUTH: Wait? Why is that?
PHILOSOPHER: Your partner’s casual remarks, her tone when talking to someone on the phone, the times
when you can’t reach her . . . As long as you are looking with doubt in your eyes, everything around you
will appear to be evidence that she is cheating on you. Even if she is not.
YOUTH: Hmm.
PHILOSOPHER: Right now, you are only concerned about the times you were taken advantage of, and
nothing else. You focus only on the pain from the wounds you sustained on such occasions. But if you
are afraid to have confidence in others, in the long run you will not be able to build deep relationships
with anyone.
YOUTH: Well, I see what you’re getting at—the main objective, which is to build deep relationships. But
still, being taken advantage of is scary, and that’s the reality, isn’t it?
PHILOSOPHER: If it is a shallow relationship, when it falls apart the pain will be slight. And the joy that
relationship brings each day will also be slight. It is precisely because one can gain the courage to enter
into deeper relationships by having confidence in others that the joy of one’s interpersonal relations can
grow, and one’s joy in life can grow, too.
YOUTH: No! That’s not what I was talking about, you’re changing the subject again. The courage to
overcome the fear of being taken advantage of—where does it come from?
PHILOSOPHER: It comes from self-acceptance. If one can simply accept oneself as one is, and ascertain
what one can do and what one cannot, one becomes able to understand that “taking advantage” is the
other person’s task, and getting to the core of “confidence in others” becomes less difficult.
YOUTH: You’re saying that taking advantage of someone is the other person’s task, and one can’t do
anything about it? That I should be resigned, in an affirmative way? Your arguments always ignore our
emotions. What does one do about all the anger and sadness one feels when one is taken advantage of?
PHILOSOPHER: When one is sad, one should be sad to one’s heart’s content. It is precisely when one tries
to escape the pain and sadness that one gets stuck and ceases to be able to build deep relationships with
anyone. Think about it this way. We can believe. And we can doubt. But we are aspiring to see others as
our comrades. To believe or to doubt—the choice should be clear.
The Essence of Work Is a Contribution to the Common
Good
YOUTH: All right. Well, suppose I have managed to attain self-acceptance. And that I have attained
confidence in others, too. What kind of changes would there be in me then?
PHILOSOPHER: First, one accepts one’s irreplaceable “this me” just as it is. That is self-acceptance. Then,
one places unconditional confidence in other people. That is confidence in others. You can accept
yourself, and you can have confidence in others. So what are other people to you now?
YOUTH: My comrades?
PHILOSOPHER: Exactly. In effect, placing confidence in others is connected to seeing others as comrades.
It is because they are one’s comrades that one can have confidence in them. If they were not one’s
comrades, one would not be able to reach the level of confidence. And then, having other people as one’s
comrades connects to finding refuge in the community one belongs to. So one can gain the sense of
belonging, that “it’s okay to be here.”
YOUTH: In other words, you’re saying that to feel “it’s okay to be here,” one has to see others as comrades.
And that to see others as comrades, one needs both self-acceptance and confidence in others.
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. You are grasping this more quickly now. To take it a step farther, one may say
that people who think of others as enemies have not attained self-acceptance and do not have enough
confidence in others.
YOUTH: All right. It is true that people seek the sense of belonging, that “it’s okay to be here.” And to get
that they need self-acceptance and confidence in others. I have no objection to that. But I don’t know.
Can one really gain a sense of belonging just by seeing others as comrades and having confidence in
them?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course, community feeling is not something that is attainable with just self-acceptance
and confidence in others. It is at this point that the third key concept—contribution to others—becomes
necessary.
YOUTH: Contribution to others?
PHILOSOPHER: Is to act, in some way, on one’s comrades. To attempt to contribute. That is “contribution
to others.”
YOUTH: So when you say “contribute,” you mean to show a spirit of self-sacrifice and to be of service to
those around you?
PHILOSOPHER: Contribution to others does not connote self-sacrifice. Adler goes so far as to warn that
those who sacrifice their own lives for others are people who have conformed to society too much. And
please do not forget: We are truly aware of our own worth only when we feel that our existence and
behavior are beneficial to the community, that is to say, when one feels “I am of use to someone.” Do
you remember this? In other words, contribution to others, rather than being about getting rid of the “I”
and being of service to someone, is actually something one does in order to be truly aware of the worth of
the “I.”
YOUTH: Contributing to others is for oneself?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. There is no need to sacrifice the self.
YOUTH: Uh-oh, your argument is starting to crumble here, isn’t it? You’ve done a wonderful job of
digging your own grave. In order to satisfy the “I,” one makes oneself of service to others. Isn’t that the
very definition of hypocrisy? I said it before: Your entire argument is hypocritical. It’s a slippery
argument. Look, I would rather believe in the villain who is honest about his desires than the good guy
who tells a pack of lies.
PHILOSOPHER: Those are a lot of hasty conclusions. You do not understand community feeling yet.
YOUTH: Then I wish you would provide concrete examples of what you consider to be contribution to
others.
PHILOSOPHER: The most easily understood contribution to others is probably work. To be in society and
join the workforce. Or to do the work of taking care of one’s household. Labor is not a means of earning
money. It is through labor that one makes contributions to others and commits to one’s community, and
that one truly feels “I am of use to someone” and even comes to accept one’s existential worth.
YOUTH: You are saying that the essence of work is contribution to others?
PHILOSOPHER: Making money is a major factor too, of course. It is something akin to that Dostoevsky
quote you happened upon: “Money is coined freedom.” But there are people who have so much money
that they could never use it all. And many of these people are continually busy with their work. Why do
they work? Are they driven by boundless greed? No. They work so they are able to contribute to others,
and also to confirm their sense of belonging, their feeling that “it’s okay to be here.” Wealthy people who,
on having amassed a great fortune, focus their energies on charitable activities, are doing so in order to
attain a sense of their own worth and confirm for themselves that “it’s okay to be here.”
YOUTH: Hmm, I suppose that is one truth. But . . .
PHILOSOPHER: But what?
Self-acceptance: accepting one’s irreplaceable “this me” just as it is. Confidence in others: to place
unconditional confidence at the base of one’s interpersonal relations rather than seeding doubt.
The young man found these two concepts sufficiently convincing. Contribution to others,
however, was something he could not quite grasp. If that contribution is supposed to be “for other
people,” then it would have to be one of bitter self-sacrifice. On the other hand, if that contribution
is actually “for oneself,” then it’s the height of hypocrisy. This point has to be made utterly clear. In
a resolute tone of voice, the young man continued.
Young People Walk Ahead of Adults
YOUTH: I will acknowledge that work has aspects of contribution to others. But the logic that says that
officially one is contributing to others when, in actuality, one is doing it for oneself, is nothing other than
hypocrisy. How do you explain that?
PHILOSOPHER: Imagine the following kind of scene. It’s after dinner at home, and there are still dishes left
on the table. The children have gone off to their rooms, and the husband is sitting on the sofa watching
television. It’s been left to the wife (me) to do the dishes and clear everything up. To make matters worse,
the family takes that for granted, and they don’t make the slightest effort to help. In such a situation,
normally one would think, Why won’t they give me a hand? or Why do I have to do all the work? Even if I
do not hear the words “thank you” from my family while I am cleaning up, I want them to think that I
am of use to the family. Instead of thinking about what others can do for me, I want to think about, and
put into practice, what I can do for other people. Just by having that feeling of contribution, the reality
right in front of me will take on a completely different hue. In fact, if I am grumbling to myself as I wash
the dishes, I am probably not much fun to be around, so everyone just wants to keep their distance. On
the other hand, if I’m humming away to myself and washing the dishes in good spirits, the children might
come and give me a hand. At the very least, I’d be creating an atmosphere in which it is easier for them to
offer their help.
YOUTH: Well, that might be the case in that setting, anyway.
PHILOSOPHER: Now, how come I have a feeling of contribution in that setting? I have it because I am able
to think of the members of my family as comrades. If I cannot do that, inevitably there will be thoughts
running through my head like, Why am I the only one doing this? and Why won’t anyone give me a
hand? Contribution that is carried out while one is seeing other people as enemies may indeed lead to
hypocrisy. But if other people are one’s comrades, that should never happen, regardless of the
contributions one makes. You have been fixating on the word “hypocrisy” because you do not
understand community feeling yet.
YOUTH: Okay . . .
PHILOSOPHER: For the sake of convenience, up to this point I have discussed self-acceptance, confidence
in others, and contribution to others, in that order. However, these three are linked as an indispensable
whole, in a sort of circular structure. It is because one accepts oneself just as one is—one self-accepts—
that one can have “confidence in others” without the fear of being taken advantage of. And it is because
one can place unconditional confidence in others, and feel that people are one’s comrades, that one can
engage in “contribution to others.” Further, it is because one contributes to others that one can have the
deep awareness that “I am of use to someone” and accept oneself just as one is. One can self-accept. The
notes you took down the other day, do you have them with you?
YOUTH: Oh, you mean that note on the objectives put forward by Adlerian psychology? I’ve kept it on
me ever since that day, of course. Here it is: “The two objectives for behavior: to be self-reliant and to live
in harmony with society. The two objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviors: the
consciousness that I have the ability and the consciousness that people are my comrades.”
PHILOSOPHER: If you overlap the content of this note with what we have just been discussing, you should
be able to gain a deeper understanding. In other words, “to be self-reliant” and “the consciousness that I
have the ability” correspond to our discussion of self-acceptance. And then “to live in harmony with
society” and “the consciousness that people are my comrades” connect to confidence in others and then to
contribution to others.
YOUTH: I see. So the objective of life is community feeling. I think it will be some time before I can get
this clear in my head, though.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, it probably will. As Adler himself said, “Understanding a human being is no easy
matter. Of all the forms of psychology, individual psychology is probably the most difficult to learn and
put into practice.”
YOUTH: That’s exactly right! Even if the theories are convincing, it’s hard to put them into practice.
PHILOSOPHER: It is even said that to truly understand Adlerian psychology and apply it to actually
changing one’s way of living, one needs “half the number of years one has lived.” In other words, if you
were to start studying it at the age of forty, it would take another twenty years, until you turned sixty. If
you were to start studying at the age of twenty, it would take ten years, until you turned thirty. You are
still young. Starting at such an early stage in life means that you might be able to change more quickly. In
the sense that you can change quickly, you are walking ahead of the adults of the world. To go about
changing yourself and making a new world, in a way you are ahead of me, too. It is okay to lose your way
or lose focus. Do not be dependent on vertical relationships or be afraid of being disliked, and just make
your way forward freely. If all the adults could see that young people were walking ahead of them, I am
sure the world would change dramatically.
YOUTH: I am walking ahead of you?
PHILOSOPHER: You certainly are. We walk on the same ground, and you are moving on ahead of me.
YOUTH: Ha-ha. You’re the first person I’ve ever met who would say such a thing to someone young
enough to be his son.
PHILOSOPHER: I would like more and more young people to learn about Adler’s thought. And I would
like more adults to learn about it, too. Because people can change, regardless of their ages.
Workaholism Is a Life-Lie
YOUTH: All right. I readily admit that I do not have the courage to take steps toward self-acceptance or
confidence in others. But is this really the fault only of the “I”? Isn’t it also actually a problem brought
about by other people, who accuse me unreasonably and attack me?
PHILOSOPHER: To be sure, not everyone in the world is a good and virtuous person. One goes through
any number of unpleasant experiences in one’s interpersonal relations. But there is something one must
not get wrong at this juncture: the fact that, in every instance, it is “that person” who attacks you who has
the problem, and it is certainly not the case that everyone is bad. People with neurotic lifestyles tend to
sprinkle their speech with such words as “everyone” and “always” and “everything.” “Everyone hates me,”
they will say, or “It’s always me who takes a loss,” or “Everything is wrong.” If you think you might be in
the habit of using such generalizing statements, you should be careful.
YOUTH: Well, that does sound rather familiar.
PHILOSOPHER: In Adlerian psychology, we think of this as a way of living that is lacking in “harmony of
life.” It is a way of living in which one sees only a part of things but judges the whole.
YOUTH: Harmony of life?
PHILOSOPHER: In the teachings of Judaism, one finds the following anecdote: “If there are ten people, one
will be someone who criticizes you no matter what you do. This person will come to dislike you, and you
will not learn to like him either. Then, there will be two others who accept everything about you and
whom you accept too, and you will become close friends with them. The remaining seven people will be
neither of these types.” Now, do you focus on the one person who dislikes you? Do you pay more
attention to the two who love you? Or would you focus on the crowd, the other seven? A person who is
lacking in harmony of life will see only the one person he dislikes and will make a judgment of the world
from that.
YOUTH: Intriguing.
PHILOSOPHER: Some time ago, I participated in a workshop for people who stammer and their families.
Do you know anyone who has a stammer?
YOUTH: Yes, there was a student at the school I went to who stuttered. That must be hard to deal with,
both for the person who has it and for his family, too.
PHILOSOPHER: Why is stammering hard to deal with? The view in Adlerian psychology is that people who
suffer from stammering are concerned only about their own way of speaking, and they have feelings of
inferiority and see their lives as unbearably hard. And they become too self-conscious as a result and start
tripping over their words more and more.
YOUTH: They are concerned only about their own way of speaking?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. There are not many people who will laugh at or make fun of someone when
he trips over his words now and then. To use the example I just mentioned, it would probably be no
more than one person in ten, at most. In any case, with the sort of foolish person who would take such an
attitude, it is best to simply sever the relationship. But if one is lacking in harmony of life, one will focus
only on that person and end up thinking, Everyone is laughing at me.
YOUTH: But that’s just human nature!
PHILOSOPHER: I have a reading group that meets on a regular basis, and one of the participants has a
stammer. It comes out sometimes when it’s his turn to read. But not a single person there is the sort who
would laugh at him for that. Everyone just sits quietly and waits in a quite natural way for the next words
to come out. I am sure this is not a phenomenon that is isolated to my reading group. When one’s
interpersonal relations do not go well, it cannot be blamed on a stammer or a fear of blushing or
anything of the sort. Even though the problem is really that one has not attained self-acceptance or
confidence in others, or contribution to others, for that matter, one is focusing on only one tiny part of
things that simply should not matter and from that trying to form judgments with regard to the entire
world. This is a misguided lifestyle that is lacking in harmony of life.
YOUTH: Did you actually convey such a harsh idea to people who suffer from stammering?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course. At first, there were some adverse reactions, but by the end of the three-day
workshop, everyone was in deep agreement with it.
YOUTH: It certainly is a fascinating argument. But focusing on people who suffer from stammering seems
like a rather special example. Could you give me any others?
PHILOSOPHER: Well, another would be the workaholic. This, too, is an example of a person who is clearly
lacking in harmony of life.
YOUTH: A workaholic is? Why is that?
PHILOSOPHER: People who suffer from stammering are looking at only a part of things but judging the
whole. With workaholics, the focus is solely on one specific aspect of life.
They probably try to justify that by saying, “It’s busy at work, so I don’t have enough time to think
about my family.” But this is a life-lie. They are simply trying to avoid their other responsibilities by using
work as an excuse. One ought to concern oneself with everything, from household chores and childrearing
to one’s friendships and hobbies and so on. Adler does not recognize ways of living in which
certain aspects are unusually dominant.
YOUTH: Ah . . . That’s exactly the sort of person my father was. It was just: Be a workaholic, bury yourself
in your work, and produce results. And then rule over the family on the grounds that you are the
breadwinner. He was a very feudalistic person.
PHILOSOPHER: In a sense, that is a way of living of refusing to acknowledge one’s life tasks. “Work” does
not mean having a job at a company. Work in the home, child-rearing, contributing to the local society,
hobbies, and all manner of other things are work. Companies and such are just one small part of that. A
way of living that acknowledges only company work is one that is lacking in harmony of life.
YOUTH: It’s exactly as you say! And it’s not as if the family he’s supporting has any say in the matter,
either. You can’t argue with your father when he growls with a violent tone of voice, “It’s thanks to me
that there’s food on the table.”
PHILOSOPHER: Such a father has probably been able to recognize his own worth only on the level of acts.
He works all those hours, brings in enough money to support a family, and is recognized by society—
and, on that basis, he views himself as having greater worth than the other members of his family. For
each and every one of us, however, there comes a time when one can no longer serve as the provider.
When one gets older and reaches retirement age, for example, one may have no choice but to live off
one’s pension or support from one’s children. Even when one is young, injury or poor health can lead to
being unable work any longer. On such occasions, those who can accept themselves only on the level of
acts are severely damaged.
YOUTH: You mean those people whose lifestyle is all about work?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. People whose lives lack harmony.
YOUTH: In that case, I think I’m starting to get what you mean by the level of being, which you brought
up last time. And I certainly haven’t given much thought to the fact that someday I won’t be able to
work any longer or do anything on the level of acts.
PHILOSOPHER: Does one accept oneself on the level of acts, or on the level of being? This is truly a
question that relates to the courage to be happy.
You Can Be Happy Now
YOUTH: The courage to be happy. Well, let’s hear what kind of courage that should be.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, that is an important point.
YOUTH: You say that all problems are interpersonal relationship problems. And then you turn that
around and say that our happiness is to be found in our interpersonal relations, too. But I still find these
aspects hard to accept. Is what human beings call happiness merely something within our good
interpersonal relations? That is to say, do our lives exist for such minuscule repose and joy?
PHILOSOPHER: I have a good idea of the issues you are grappling with. The first time I attended a lecture
on Adlerian psychology, the lecturer, Oscar Christensen, who was a disciple of one of Adler’s disciples,
made the following statement: “Those who hear my talk today can be happy right now, this very instant.
But those who do not will never be able to be happy.”
YOUTH: Wow! That’s straight from the mouth of a con man. You’re not telling me you fell for that, are
you?
PHILOSOPHER: What is happiness to human beings? This is a subject that has been one of the consistent
threads of philosophy since ancient times. I had always regarded psychology as nothing more than a field
of philosophy, and as such had very little interest in psychology as a whole. So it was as a student of
philosophy that I had concerned myself, in my own way, with the question: What is happiness? I would
be remiss if I did not admit to having felt some reluctance on hearing Christensen’s words. However, at
the same time that I experienced that reluctance, I realized something. I had given much deep thought to
the true character of happiness. I had searched for answers. But I had not always given deep thought to
the question: How can one be happy? It occurred to me then that even though I was a student of
philosophy, maybe I wasn’t happy.
YOUTH: I see. So your first encounter with Adlerian psychology began with a feeling of incongruity?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right.
YOUTH: Then, please tell me: Did you eventually become happy?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course.
YOUTH: How can you be so sure?
PHILOSOPHER: For a human being, the greatest unhappiness is not being able to like oneself. Adler came
up with an extremely simple answer to address this reality. Namely, that the feeling of “I am beneficial to
the community” or “I am of use to someone” is the only thing that can give one a true awareness that one
has worth.
YOUTH: Do you mean the “contribution to others” you mentioned earlier?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. And this is an important point: When we speak of contribution to others, it doesn’t
matter if the contribution is not a visible one.
YOUTH: It doesn’t matter if the contribution is not a visible one?
PHILOSOPHER: You are not the one who decides if your contributions are of use. That is the task of other
people, and is not an issue in which you can intervene. In principle, there is not even any way you can
know whether you have really made a contribution. That is to say, when we are engaging in this
contribution to others, the contribution does not have to be a visible one—all we need is the subjective
sense that “I am of use to someone,” or in other words, a feeling of contribution.
YOUTH: Wait a minute! If that’s the case, then what you are calling happiness is . . .
PHILOSOPHER: Do you see it now? In a word, happiness is the feeling of contribution. That is the
definition of happiness.
YOUTH: But . . . but that’s . . .
PHILOSOPHER: Is something wrong?
YOUTH: There’s no way I can accept such a simplistic definition. Look, I’m not forgetting what you told
me before. You said that even though on the level of acts, one might not be of use to anyone, on the level
of being, every person is of use. But if that’s the case, according to your logic, all human beings would be
happy!
PHILOSOPHER: All human beings can be happy. But it must be understood that this does not mean all
human beings are happy. Whether it is on the level of acts or on the level of being, one needs to feel that
one is of use to someone. That is to say, one needs a feeling of contribution.
YOUTH: So you are saying that the reason I am not happy is that I don’t have a feeling of contribution?
PHILOSOPHER: That is correct.
YOUTH: Then how can I get a feeling of contribution? By working? Through volunteer activities?
PHILOSOPHER: Earlier, we were talking about desire for recognition. In response to my statement that one
must not seek recognition, you said that desire for recognition is a universal desire.
YOUTH: Yes, I did. But honestly, I’m still not entirely certain about this point.
PHILOSOPHER: But I am sure that the reason people seek recognition is clear to you now. People want to
like themselves. They want to feel that they have worth. In order to feel that, they want a feeling of
contribution that tells them “I am of use to someone.” And they seek recognition from others as an easy
means for gaining that feeling of contribution.
YOUTH: You are saying that desire for recognition is a means for gaining a feeling of contribution?
PHILOSOPHER: Isn’t it so?
YOUTH: No way. That contradicts everything you’ve been saying until now. Because isn’t receiving
recognition from others supposed to be a means for gaining a feeling of contribution? And then you say,
“Happiness is the feeling of contribution.” If it is, then fulfilling one’s desire for recognition is directly
linked with happiness, isn’t it? Ha-ha! At last, you’ve acknowledged the necessity of the desire for
recognition.
PHILOSOPHER: You are forgetting an important issue. If one’s means for gaining a feeling of contribution
turns out to be “being recognized by others,” in the long run, one will have no choice but to walk
through life in accordance with other people’s wishes. There is no freedom in a feeling of contribution
that is gained through the desire for recognition. We are beings who choose freedom while aspiring to
happiness.
YOUTH: So one can have happiness only if one has freedom?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. Freedom as an institution may differ depending on the country, the times, or the
culture. But freedom in our interpersonal relations is universal.
YOUTH: There’s no way that you will acknowledge the desire for recognition?
PHILOSOPHER: If one really has a feeling of contribution, one will no longer have any need for
recognition from others. Because one will already have the real awareness that “I am of use to someone,”
without needing to go out of one’s way to be acknowledged by others. In other words, a person who is
obsessed with the desire for recognition does not have any community feeling yet, and has not managed
to engage in self-acceptance, confidence in others, or contribution to others.
YOUTH: So if one just has community feeling, the desire for recognition will disappear?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, it will disappear. There is no need for recognition from others.
The philosopher’s points could be summed up as follows: People can be truly aware of their
worth only when they are able to feel “I am of use to someone.” However, it doesn’t matter if the
contribution one makes at such a time is without any visible form. It is enough to have the
subjective sense of being of use to someone, that is to say, a feeling of contribution. And then the
philosopher arrives at the following conclusion: Happiness is the feeling of contribution. There
certainly seemed to be aspects of the truth there. But is that really all that happiness is? Not if it’s
the happiness I’m searching for!
Two Paths Traveled by Those Wanting to Be “Special
Beings”
YOUTH: You still have not answered my question. Maybe I could actually learn to like myself through
contribution to others. Maybe I could come to feel that I have worth, that I am not a worthless being.
But is that all a person needs to be happy? Having come into this world, I think that unless I am able to
accomplish the sort of grand undertaking that future generations will remember me for, unless I can
prove myself as “I, who am no one else but me,” I will never find true happiness. You are trying to frame
everything within interpersonal relations without saying a thing about self-realizing happiness. If you ask
me, that’s nothing but evasion!
PHILOSOPHER: I’m not really sure what you mean by “self-realizing happiness.” What exactly are you
referring to?
YOUTH: It’s something that is different for each person. I suppose there are those who want to succeed in
society and those who have more personal objectives—a researcher endeavoring to develop a wonder
drug, for instance, or an artist who strives to create a satisfying body of work.
PHILOSOPHER: What is it for you?
YOUTH: I still don’t really know what I am looking for or what I’ll want to do in the future. But I know
that I’ve got to do something. There’s no way I’m going to spend the rest of my days working in a
university library. When I find a dream that I can devote my life to, and I attain self-realization, that’s
when I’ll experience true happiness. My father was someone who buried himself in his work from day to
night, and I have no idea if that was happiness to him or not. To my eyes, at least, he seemed forever busy
and never happy. That is not the kind of life I want to lead.
PHILOSOPHER: All right. If you think about this point using children who engage in problem behavior as
an example, it might be easier to grasp.
YOUTH: Problem behavior?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. First of all, we human beings have a universal desire that is referred to as
“pursuit of superiority.” Do you recall our discussion of this?
YOUTH: Yes. Simply put, it’s a term that indicates “hoping to improve” and “pursuing an ideal state.”
PHILOSOPHER: There are many children who, in their early stages, try to be especially good. In particular,
they obey their parents, comport themselves in a socially acceptable manner, apply themselves
assiduously to their studies and in sports, and excel in extracurricular activities as well. In this way, they
try to get their parents to acknowledge them. However, when being especially good does not work out—
their studies or sports don’t go well, for example—they do an about-face and try to be especially bad.
YOUTH: Why do they do that?
PHILOSOPHER: Whether they are trying to be especially good, or trying to be especially bad, the goal is the
same: to attract the attention of other people, get out of the “normal” condition and become a “special
being.” That is their only goal.
YOUTH: Hmm. All right, please go on.
PHILOSOPHER: In any case, whether it is one’s studies or one’s participation in sports, either way one
needs to make a constant effort if one is to produce any kind of significant results. But the children who
try to be especially bad—that is to say, the ones who engage in problem behavior—are endeavoring to
attract the attention of other people even as they continue to avoid any such healthy effort. In Adlerian
psychology, this is referred to as the “pursuit of easy superiority.” Take, for example, the problem child
who disrupts lessons by throwing erasers or speaking in a loud voice. He is certain to get the attention of
his friends and teachers. Even if it is something that is limited to that place, he will probably succeed in
becoming a special being. But that is a pursuit of easy superiority, and it is an unhealthy attitude.
YOUTH: So children who commit delinquent acts are engaging in the pursuit of easy superiority, too?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, they are. All types of problem behavior, from refusing to attend school, to wrist
cutting, to underage drinking and smoking, and so on, are forms of the pursuit of easy superiority. And
your shut-in friend, whom you told me about at the beginning, is engaging in it, too. When a child
engages in problem behavior, his parents and other adults rebuke him. Being rebuked, more than
anything else, puts stress on the child. But even if it is in the form of rebuke, the child wants his parents’
attention. He wants to be a special being, and the form that attention takes doesn’t matter. So in a sense,
it is only natural that he does not stop engaging in problem behavior, no matter how harshly he is
rebuked.
YOUTH: It’s because of their rebuking that he doesn’t stop the problem behavior?
PHILOSOPHER: Exactly. Because the parents and other adults are giving him attention through the act of
rebuking.
YOUTH: But previously, you spoke of the goal of problem behavior as being revenge on the parents, right?
Does that connect with this in some way?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. “Revenge” and “pursuit of easy superiority” are easily linked. One makes trouble for
another person while trying at the same time to be “special.”
The Courage to Be Normal
YOUTH: But how . . . ? It would be impossible for all human beings to be especially good, or anything like
that, wouldn’t it? No matter what, people have their strengths and weaknesses, and there will always be
differences. There’s only a handful of geniuses in the world, and not everyone is cut out to be an honors
student. So for all the losers, there’s nothing for it besides being especially bad.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, it’s that Socratic paradox, that no one desires evil. Because to children who engage in
problem behavior, even violent acts and theft are accomplishments of “good.”
YOUTH: But that’s horrible! That’s a line of reasoning with no way out.
PHILOSOPHER: What Adlerian psychology emphasizes at this juncture are the words “the courage to be
normal.”
YOUTH: The courage to be normal?
PHILOSOPHER: Why is it necessary to be special? Probably because one cannot accept one’s normal self.
And it is precisely for this reason that when being especially good becomes a lost cause, one makes the
huge leap to being especially bad—the opposite extreme. But is being normal, being ordinary, really such
a bad thing? Is it something inferior? Or, in truth, isn’t everybody normal? It is necessary to think this
through to its logical conclusion.
YOUTH: So are you saying that I should be normal?
PHILOSOPHER: Self-acceptance is the vital first step. If you are able to possess the courage to be normal,
your way of looking at the world will change dramatically.
YOUTH: But . . .
PHILOSOPHER: You are probably rejecting normality because you equate being normal with being
incapable. Being normal is not being incapable. One does not need to flaunt one’s superiority.
YOUTH: Fine, I acknowledge the danger of aiming to be special. But does one really need to make the
deliberate choice to be normal? If I pass my time in this world in an utterly humdrum way, if I lead a
pointless life without leaving any record or memory of my existence whatsoever, am I to just be satisfied
with my lot, because that’s the sort of human being I am? You’ve got to be joking. I’d abandon such a life
in a second!
PHILOSOPHER: You want to be special, no matter what?
YOUTH: No! Look, accepting what you call “normal” would lead to me having to affirm my idle self! It
would just be saying, “This is all I am capable of and that’s fine.” I refuse to accept such an idle way of
life. Do you think that Napoleon or Alexander the Great or Einstein or Martin Luther King accepted
“normal”? And how about Socrates and Plato? Not a chance! More than likely, they all lived their lives
while carrying the torch of a great ideal or objective. Another Napoleon could never emerge with your
line of reasoning. You are trying to rid the world of geniuses!
PHILOSOPHER: So what you are saying is that one needs lofty goals in life.
YOUTH: But that’s obvious!
“The courage to be normal”—what truly dreadful words. Are Adler and this philosopher really
telling me to choose such a path? To go about my life as just another soul among the utterly
ordinary, faceless masses? I’m no genius, of course. Maybe “normal” is the only choice I have.
Maybe I will just have to accept my mediocre self and surrender to leading a mediocre, everyday
existence. But I will fight it. Whatever happens, I will oppose this man to the bitter end. We seem to
be approaching the heart of our discussion. The young man’s pulse was racing, and despite the
wintry chill in the air, his clenched fists shone with sweat.
Life Is a Series of Moments
PHILOSOPHER: All right. When you speak of lofty goals, I am guessing that you have an image of
something like a mountain climber aiming for the top.
YOUTH: Yes, that’s right. People, myself included, aim for the top of the mountain.
PHILOSOPHER: But if life were climbing a mountain in order to reach the top, then the greater part of life
would end up being “en route.” That is to say, one’s “real life” would begin with one’s trek on the
mountainside, and the distance one has traveled up until that point would be a “tentative life” led by a
“tentative me.”
YOUTH: I guess that’s one way of putting it. The way I am now, I am definitely an “en route” person.
PHILOSOPHER: Now, suppose you didn’t make it to the mountaintop, what would that mean for your
life? With accidents and diseases and the like, people don’t always make it all the way, and mountain
climbing itself is fraught with pitfalls and often ends in failure. So one’s life would be interrupted “en
route,” with just this “tentative me” leading a “tentative life.” What kind of life would that be?
YOUTH: That’s . . . Well, that’d be a case of getting one’s just deserts. So I didn’t have the ability, or I
didn’t have the physical strength to climb a mountain, or I wasn’t lucky, or I lacked the skill—that’s all!
Yes, that is a reality I am prepared to accept.
PHILOSOPHER: Adlerian psychology has a different standpoint. People who think of life as being like
climbing a mountain are treating their own existences as lines. As if there is a line that started the instant
one came into this world, and that continues in all manner of curves of varying sizes until it arrives at the
summit, and then at long last reaches its terminus, which is death. This conception, which treats life as a
kind of story, is an idea that links with Freudian etiology (the attributing of causes), and is a way of
thinking that makes the greater part of life into something that is “en route.”
YOUTH: Well, what is your image of life?
PHILOSOPHER: Do not treat it as a line. Think of life as a series of dots. If you look through a magnifying
glass at a solid line drawn with chalk, you will discover that what you thought was a line is actually a series
of small dots. Seemingly linear existence is actually a series of dots; in other words, life is a series of
moments.
YOUTH: A series of moments?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. It is a series of moments called “now.” We can live only in the here and now. Our
lives exist only in moments. Adults who do not know this attempt to impose “linear” lives onto young
people. Their thinking is that staying on the conventional tracks—good university, big company, stable
household—is a happy life. But life is not made up of lines or anything like that.
YOUTH: So there’s no need for life planning or career planning?
PHILOSOPHER: If life were a line, then life planning would be possible. But our lives are only a series of
dots. A well-planned life is not something to be treated as necessary or unnecessary, as it is impossible.
YOUTH: Oh, nonsense! What an absurd idea!
Live Like You’re Dancing
PHILOSOPHER: What is wrong with it?
YOUTH: Your argument not only denies the making of plans in life, it goes as far as to deny even making
efforts. Take, for example, the life of someone who has dreamed of being a violinist ever since childhood,
and who, after years of strict training, has at long last become an active member in a celebrated orchestra.
Or another life, one of intensive studies that successfully leads to the passing of the bar examination and
becoming a lawyer. Neither of these lives would be possible without objectives and plans.
PHILOSOPHER: So in other words, like mountain climbers aiming to reach the mountaintop, they have
persevered on their paths?
YOUTH: Of course!
PHILOSOPHER: But is that really the case? Isn’t it that these people have lived each and every instant of
their lives here and now? That is to say, rather than living lives that are “en route,” they are always living
here and now. For example, the person who had dreams of becoming a violinist was always looking at
pieces of music, and concentrating on each piece, and on each and every measure and note.
YOUTH: Would they attain their objectives that way?
PHILOSOPHER: Think of it this way: Life is a series of moments, which one lives as if one were dancing,
right now, around and around each passing instant. And when one happens to survey one’s
surroundings, one realizes, I guess I’ve made it this far. Among those who have danced the dance of the
violin, there are people who stay the course and become professional musicians. Among those who have
danced the dance of the bar examination, there are people who become lawyers. There are people who
have danced the dance of writing and become authors. Of course, it also happens that people end up in
entirely different places. But none of these lives came to an end “en route.” It is enough if one finds
fulfillment in the here and now one is dancing.
YOUTH: It’s enough if one can dance in the now?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. With dance, it is the dancing itself that is the goal, and no one is concerned with
arriving somewhere by doing it. Naturally, it may happen that one arrives somewhere as a result of
having danced. Since one is dancing, one does not stay in the same place. But there is no destination.
YOUTH: A life without a destination, who ever heard of such a thing? Who would acknowledge such an
unsteady life, that bends whichever way the wind blows?
PHILOSOPHER: The kind of life that you speak of, which tries to reach a destination, may be termed a
“kinetic (dynamic) life.” By contrast, the kind of dancing life I am talking about could be called an
“energeial (actual-active-state) life.”
YOUTH: Kinetic? Energeial?
PHILOSOPHER: Let’s refer to Aristotle’s explanation. Ordinary motion—which is referred to as kinesis—
has a starting point and an end point. The movement from the starting point to the end point is optimal
if it is carried out as efficiently and as quickly as possible. If one can take an express train, there is no need
to ride the local one that makes every stop.
YOUTH: In other words, if one’s destination is to become a lawyer, it’s best to get there as quickly and as
efficiently as one can.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. And the road one takes to get to that destination is, in the sense that one’s goal has not
yet been reached, incomplete. This is kinetic life.
YOUTH: Because it’s halfway?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. Energeia, on the other hand, is a kind of movement in which what is “now
forming” is what “has been formed.”
YOUTH: What is “now forming” is what “has been formed”?
PHILOSOPHER: One might also think of it as movement in which the process itself is treated as the
outcome. Dance is like that, and so is a journey.
YOUTH: Ah, I’m getting confused . . . What is this about a journey?
PHILOSOPHER: What kind of goal is the act of going on a journey? Suppose you are going on a journey to
Egypt. Would you try to arrive at the Great Pyramid of Giza as efficiently and quickly as possible, and
then head straight back home by the shortest route? One would not call that a “journey.” You should be
on a journey the moment you step outside your home, and all the moments on the way to your
destination should be a journey. Of course, there might be circumstances that prevent you from making
it to the pyramid, but that does not mean you didn’t go on a journey. This is “energeial life.”
YOUTH: I guess I’m just not getting this. Weren’t you refuting the kind of value system of aiming for the
mountaintop? What happens if you liken energeial life to mountain climbing?
PHILOSOPHER: If the goal of climbing a mountain were to get to the top, that would be a kinetic act. To
take it to the extreme, it wouldn’t matter if you went to the mountaintop in a helicopter, stayed there for
five minutes or so, and then headed back in the helicopter again. Of course, if you didn’t make it to the
mountaintop, that would mean the mountain-climbing expedition was a failure. However, if the goal is
mountain climbing itself, and not just getting to the top, one could say it is energeial. In this case, in the
end it doesn’t matter whether one makes it to the mountaintop or not.
YOUTH: That sort of argument is just ridiculous! You’ve fallen into a completely self-defeating
contradiction. Before you lose face before the whole wide world, I’ll cut through your shameless
nonsense, once and for all.
PHILOSOPHER: Oh, I’d be much obliged.
Shine a Light on the Here and Now
YOUTH: Look, in your refutation of etiology, you rejected focusing on the past. You said that the past
does not exist, and that it has no meaning. I acknowledge those points. It is true that one cannot change
the past. If there is something that can be changed, it is the future. But now, by advocating this energeial
way of living, you are refuting planning; that is to say, you are rejecting even changing one’s future of
one’s own volition. So while you reject looking back, you are rejecting looking forward, too. It’s like
you’re telling me to just walk blindfolded along a pathless path.
PHILOSOPHER: You can see neither behind you nor in front of you?
YOUTH: That’s right, I can’t see!
PHILOSOPHER: Isn’t that only natural? Where is the problem here?
YOUTH: What? What are you talking about?
PHILOSOPHER: Imagine that you are standing on a theater stage. If the house lights are on, you’ll probably
be able to see all the way to the back of the hall. But if you’re under a bright spotlight, you won’t be able
to make out even the front row. That’s exactly how it is with our lives. It’s because we cast a dim light on
our entire lives that we are able to see the past and the future. Or at least we imagine we can. But if one is
shining a bright spotlight on here and now, one cannot see the past or the future anymore.
YOUTH: A bright spotlight?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. We should live more earnestly only here and now. The fact that you think you can see
the past, or predict the future, is proof that rather than living earnestly here and now, you are living in a
dim twilight. Life is a series of moments, and neither the past nor the future exists. You are trying to give
yourself a way out by focusing on the past and the future. What happened in the past has nothing
whatsoever to do with your here and now, and what the future may hold is not a matter to think about
here and now. If you are living earnestly here and now, you will not be concerned with such things.
YOUTH: But . . .
PHILOSOPHER: When one adopts the point of view of Freudian etiology, one sees life as a kind of great big
story based on cause and effect. So then it’s all about where and when I was born, what my childhood was
like, the school I attended and the company where I got a job. And that decides who I am now and who I
will become. To be sure, likening one’s life to a story is probably an entertaining job. The problem is, one
can see the dimness that lies ahead at the end of the story. Moreover, one will try to lead a life that is in
line with that story. And then one says, “My life is such-and-such, so I have no choice but to live this way,
and it’s not because of me—it’s my past, it’s the environment,” and so on. But bringing up the past here
is nothing but a way out, a life-lie. However, life is a series of dots, a series of moments. If you can grasp
that, you will not need a story any longer.
YOUTH: If you put it that way, the lifestyle that Adler is advocating is a kind of story, too.
PHILOSOPHER: Lifestyle is about here and now, and is something that one can change of one’s own
volition. The life of the past that looks like a straight line appears that way to you only as a result of your
making ceaseless resolutions to not change. The life that lies ahead of you is a completely blank page, and
there are no tracks that have been laid for you to follow. There is no story there.
YOUTH: But that’s just living for the moment. Or worse, a vicious hedonism!
PHILOSOPHER: No. To shine a spotlight on here and now is to go about doing what one can do now,
earnestly and conscientiously.
The Greatest Life-Lie
YOUTH: To live earnestly and conscientiously?
PHILOSOPHER: For example, one wants to get into a university but makes no attempt to study. This an
attitude of not living earnestly here and now. Of course, maybe the entrance examination is still far off.
Maybe one is not sure what needs to be studied or how thoroughly, and one finds it troublesome.
However, it is enough to do it little by little—every day one can work out some mathematical formulas,
one can memorize some words. In short, one can dance the dance. By doing so, one is sure to have a
sense of “this is what I did today”; this is what today, this single day, was for. Clearly, today is not for an
entrance examination in the distant future. And the same thing would hold true for your father, too—he
was likely dancing earnestly the dance of his everyday work. He lived earnestly here and now, without
having a grand objective or the need to achieve that objective. And, if that was the case, it would seem
that your father’s life was a happy one.
YOUTH: Are you telling me to affirm that way of living? That I should accept my father’s constantly
work-burdened existence . . . ?
PHILOSOPHER: There is no need to make yourself affirm it. Only instead of seeing his life as a line that he
reached, start seeing how he lived it, see the moments of his life.
YOUTH: The moments.
PHILOSOPHER: And the same may be said with regard to your own life. You set objectives for the distant
future, and think of now as your preparatory period. You think, I really want to do this, and I’ll do it
when the time comes. This is a way of living that postpones life. As long as we postpone life, we can never
go anywhere and will pass our days only one after the next in dull monotony, because we think of here
and now as just a preparatory period, as a time for patience. But a “here and now” in which one is
studying for an entrance examination in the distant future, for example, is the real thing.
YOUTH: Okay, I’ll accept that. I can certainly accept living earnestly here and now, and not setting up
some fabricated line. But I don’t have any dreams or objectives in my life. I don’t know what dance to
do. My here and now is nothing but utterly useless moments.
PHILOSOPHER: Not having objectives or the like is fine. Living earnestly here and now is itself a dance.
One must not get too serious. Please do not confuse being earnest with being too serious.
YOUTH: Be earnest but not too serious.
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. Life is always simple, not something that one needs to get too serious about.
If one is living each moment earnestly, there is no need to get too serious.
And there is another thing I would like you to keep in mind: When one has adopted an energeial
viewpoint, life is always complete.
YOUTH: It’s complete?
PHILOSOPHER: If your life, or mine, for that matter, were to come to an end here and now, it would not
do to refer to either of them as unhappy. The life that ends at the age of twenty and the life that ends at
ninety are both complete lives, and lives of happiness.
YOUTH: So if I have lived earnestly here and now, those moments will always be complete?
PHILOSOPHER: Exactly. Now, I have used the word “life-lie” again and again throughout our discussion. I
would like to conclude by talking about the greatest life-lie of all.
YOUTH: Please do.
PHILOSOPHER: The greatest life-lie of all is to not live here and now. It is to look at the past and the future,
cast a dim light on one’s entire life, and believe that one has been able to see something. Until now, you
have turned away from the here and now and shone a light only on invented pasts and futures. You have
told a great lie to your life, to these irreplaceable moments.
YOUTH: Oh, okay!
PHILOSOPHER: So cast away the life-lie and fearlessly shine a bright spotlight on here and now. That is
something you can do.
YOUTH: That is something I can do? Do you think I have in me the courage to live out these moments
earnestly, without resorting to the life-lie?
PHILOSOPHER: Since neither the past nor the future exists, let’s talk about now. It’s not yesterday or
tomorrow that decides it. It’s here and now.
Give Meaning to Seemingly Meaningless Life
YOUTH: What are you saying?
PHILOSOPHER: I think this discussion has now reached the water’s edge. Whether you drink the water or
not is entirely up to you.
YOUTH: Ah, maybe Adlerian psychology, and your philosophy, are actually changing me. Maybe I am
trying to let go of my resolve not to change, and choose a new way of living, a new lifestyle . . . But wait,
there is one last thing I’d like to ask.
PHILOSOPHER: And what would that be?
YOUTH: When life is taken as a series of moments, as existing only here and now, what meaning could it
possibly have? For what was I born, and for what am I enduring this life of hardship until I reach my last
gasp? The point of it all is beyond me.
PHILOSOPHER: What is the meaning of life? What are people living for? When someone posed these
questions to Adler, this was his answer: “Life in general has no meaning.”
YOUTH: Life is meaningless?
PHILOSOPHER: The world in which we live is constantly beset by all manner of horrendous events, and we
exist with the ravages of war and natural disasters all around us. When confronted by the fact of children
dying in the turmoil of war, there is no way one can go on about the meaning of life. In other words,
there is no meaning in using generalizations to talk about life. But being confronted by such
incomprehensible tragedies without taking any action is tantamount to affirming them. Regardless of the
circumstances, we must take some form of action. We must stand up to Kant’s “inclination.”
YOUTH: Yes!
PHILOSOPHER: Now, suppose one experiences a major natural disaster, and one’s response is to look back
at the past in an etiological manner and say, “What could have caused such a thing to happen?” How
meaningful would that be? An experience of hardship should be an opportunity to look ahead and think,
What can I do from now on?
YOUTH: I agree entirely!
PHILOSOPHER: And Adler, having stated that “life in general has no meaning,” then continues, “Whatever
meaning life has must be assigned to it by the individual.”
YOUTH: Assigned to it by the individual? What does that mean?
PHILOSOPHER: During the war, my grandfather was firebombed, and his face was severely burned. In
every way, it was a horrendous and inhumane event. It would certainly have been within the realm of
possibility for him to choose a lifestyle with the perspective of “the world is a horrible place” or “people
are my enemies.” However, when my grandfather rode the train on visits to the hospital, there were
always other passengers who would give up their seats for him. This is something I heard about through
my mother, so I do not know how he actually felt. But this is what I believe: My grandfather chose a
lifestyle with the perspective of “People are my comrades, and the world is a wonderful place.” That is
exactly what Adler is pointing to when he says whatever meaning life has must be assigned to it by the
individual. So life in general has no meaning whatsoever. But you can assign meaning to that life. And
you are the only one who can assign meaning to your life.
YOUTH: Then, please tell me! How can I assign proper meaning to a meaningless life? I do not have the
confidence yet!
PHILOSOPHER: You are lost in your life. Why are you lost? You are lost because you are trying to choose
freedom, that is to say, a path on which you are not afraid of being disliked by others and you are not
living others’ lives—a path that is yours alone.
YOUTH: That’s right! I want to choose happiness, and choose freedom!
PHILOSOPHER: When one attempts to choose freedom, it is only natural that one may lose one’s way. At
this juncture, Adlerian psychology holds up a “guiding star” as a grand compass pointing to a life of
freedom.
YOUTH: A guiding star?
PHILOSOPHER: Just like the traveler who relies on the North Star, in our lives we need a guiding star. That
is the Adlerian psychology way of thinking. It is an expansive ideal that says, as long as we do not lose
sight of this compass and keep on moving in this direction, there is happiness.
YOUTH: Where is that star?
PHILOSOPHER: It is contribution to others.
YOUTH: Huh? Contribution to others!
PHILOSOPHER: No matter what moments you are living, or if there are people who dislike you, as long as
you do not lose sight of the guiding star of “I contribute to others,” you will not lose your way, and you
can do whatever you like. Whether you’re disliked or not, you pay it no mind and live free.
YOUTH: If I have the star of contribution to others high in the sky above me, I will always have happiness
and comrades by my side.
PHILOSOPHER: Then, let’s dance in earnest the moments of the here and now, and live in earnest. Do not
look at the past, and do not look at the future. One lives each complete moment like a dance. There is no
need to compete with anyone, and one has no use for destinations. As long as you are dancing, you will
get somewhere.
YOUTH: A “somewhere” that no one else knows!
PHILOSOPHER: That is the nature of energeial life. If I look back on my own life up to now, no matter
how I try, I will never arrive at a satisfactory explanation as to why I am here and now. Though, at one
time, the study of Greek philosophy was my focus, before long I took up the study of Adlerian
psychology in tandem with it, and here I am today, deep in conversation with you, my irreplaceable
friend. It is the result of having danced the moments—that is the only way to explain it. When you have
danced here and now in earnest and to the full, that is when the meaning of your life will become clear to
you.
YOUTH: It will? I . . . I believe you!
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, please believe. Through my many years living with Adler’s thought, there is
something I have noticed.
YOUTH: And that is?
PHILOSOPHER: It is that the power of one person is great, or, rather, “my power is immeasurably great.”
YOUTH: What do you mean?
PHILOSOPHER: Well, in other words, if “I” change, the world will change. This means that the world can
be changed only by me and no one else will change it for me. The world that has appeared to me since
learning of Adlerian psychology is not the world I once knew.
YOUTH: If I change, the world will change. No one else will change the world for me . . .
PHILOSOPHER: It is similar to the shock experienced by someone who, after many years of being
nearsighted, puts on glasses for the first time. Previously indistinct outlines of the world become well
defined, and even the colors are more vivid. Furthermore, it is not only a part of one’s visual field that
becomes clear but also the entire visible world. I can only imagine how happy you will be if you have a
similar experience.
YOUTH: Ah, if only I’d known! I wish I had known this ten years ago, or even just five years ago. If only I
had known five years ago, before I got a job . . .
PHILOSOPHER: No, that is not the case. You say you wish you had known this ten years ago. It is because
Adler’s thought resonates with you now that you are thinking this. No one knows how you would have
felt about it ten years ago. This discussion was something that you needed to hear now.
YOUTH: Yes, I certainly did!
PHILOSOPHER: One more time, I give you the words of Adler: “Someone has to start. Other people might
not be cooperative, but that is not connected to you. My advice is this: You should start. With no regard
to whether others are cooperative or not.”
YOUTH: I cannot tell yet if it is I who have changed, or if it is the world that I can see from that vantage
point that has changed. But there is one thing I can say with conviction: Here and now is shining
brightly! Yes, it is so bright that I can see almost nothing of tomorrow.
PHILOSOPHER: I believe that you have drunk the water. So young friend who walks ahead, shall we walk
together?
YOUTH: I believe you, too. Yes, let’s walk together. And thank you for all your time.
PHILOSOPHER: Thank you, too.
YOUTH: I hope you will not mind if, at some point, I visit you here again. Yes, as an irreplaceable friend.
And I won’t be saying anything more about taking apart your arguments.
PHILOSOPHER: Ha-ha! At last, you have shown me a young person’s smile. Well, it’s quite late already.
Let’s pass our own nights, and greet the new morning.
The young man slowly tied his shoelaces and left the philosopher’s house. On opening the door,
he found a snowy scene spread out before him. The full moon, its floating form obscured,
illuminated the shimmering whiteness at his feet. What clear air. What dazzling light. I am
going to tread on this fresh snow, and take my first step. The young man drew a deep breath,
rubbed the slight stubble on his face, and murmured emphatically, “The world is simple, and life
is too.”
Afterword
In life, there are encounters in which a book one happens to pick up one day ends up completely altering
one’s landscape the following morning.
It was the winter of 1999, and I was a youth in my twenties, when I had the great fortune of
encountering such a book at a bookshop in Ikebukuro. This was Ichiro Kishimi’s Adorā Shinrigaku
Nyūmon (Introduction to Adlerian Psychology).
Here was a form of thought, profound in every way, yet conveyed in simple language, that seemed to
overturn our accepted wisdoms at their very roots. A Copernican revolution that denied trauma and
converted etiology into teleology. Having always felt something unconvincing in the discourses of the
Freudians and Jungians, I was affected very deeply. Who was this Alfred Adler? How had I never known
of his existence before? I purchased every single book by or about Adler that I could get my hands on and
became completely engrossed and read them over and over again.
But I was struck then by a certain fact. What I was interested in was not solely Adlerian psychology
but rather something that had emerged through the filter of the philosopher, Ichiro Kishimi: It was
Kishimi-Adler studies that I was seeking.
Grounded in the thought of Socrates and Plato and other ancient Greek philosophers, the Adlerian
psychology that Kishimi conveys to us reveals Adler as a thinker, a philosopher, whose work went far
beyond the confines of clinical psychology. For instance, the statement “It is only in social contexts that a
person becomes an individual” is positively Hegelian; in his laying emphasis on subjective interpretation
over objective truth, he echoes Nietzsche’s worldview; and ideas recalling the phenomenology of Husserl
and Heidegger are in abundance.
Adlerian psychology, which draws inspiration from these philosophical insights to proclaim “All
problems are interpersonal relationship problems,” “People can change and be happy from this moment
onward,” and “The problem is not one of ability, but of courage” was to utterly change the worldview of
this rather confused youth.
Nevertheless, there was almost no one around me who had heard of Adlerian psychology. Eventually,
it occurred to me that I would like to make a book some day with Kishimi that would be a definitive
edition of Adlerian psychology (Kishimi-Adler studies), and I contacted one editor after another and
waited impatiently for the opportunity to arise.
It was in March 2010 that I was at last able to meet with Kishimi, who lives in Kyoto. More than ten
years had passed since my first reading of Introduction to Adlerian Psychology.
When Kishimi said to me then, “Socrates’s thought was conveyed by Plato. I would like to be a Plato
for Adler,” without a second thought, I answered, “Then, I will be a Plato for you, Mr. Kishimi.” And
that is how this book was conceived.
One aspect of Adler’s simple and universal ideas is that there are times when he may seem to be stating
the obvious, while at others he is likely to be regarded as espousing utterly unrealizable, idealistic theories.
Accordingly, in this book, in hopes of focusing on any doubts that might be harbored by the reader, I
have adopted the format of a dialogue between a philosopher and a young man.
As is implied in this narrative, it is not a simple thing to make the ideas of Adler one’s own and put
them into practice. There are points that make one want to rebel, statements that are difficult to accept,
and proposals that one may struggle to grasp.
But the ideas of Adler have the power to completely change a person’s life, just like they did for me
over a decade ago. Then it is only a question of having the courage to take a step forward.
In closing, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Ichiro Kishimi, who never treated me as a
disciple, even though I was much younger than he, but met me forthrightly as a friend; to the editor
Yoshifumi Kakiuchi, for his steadfast and unstinting support at every step of the way; and last but not
least, to all the readers of this book.
Thank you very much.
Fumitake Koga
More than half a century has passed since the death of Adler, and the times still cannot catch up with the
freshness of his ideas. Though compared to Freud or Jung, the name Adler is little known in Japan today.
Adler’s teachings are said to be a “communal quarry” that anyone can excavate something from. And
though his name often goes unmentioned, the influence of his teachings has spread far and wide.
I had been studying philosophy ever since my late teens, and it was around the time my child was
born, when I was in my early thirties, that I first encountered Adlerian psychology. Eudaimonic theory,
which investigates the question “What is happiness?,” is one of the central themes of Western philosophy.
I had spent many years pondering this question before I attended the lecture where I first learned of
Adlerian psychology. On hearing the lecturer declare from his podium, “Those who have listened to my
talk today will be able to change and be happy from this moment onward,” I felt repulsed. But at the
same time, it dawned on me that I had never thought deeply about how I myself can find happiness, and
with the notion that “finding happiness” itself was perhaps easier than I’d imagined, I took an interest in
Adlerian psychology.
In this way, I came to study Adlerian psychology side by side with philosophy. I soon realized,
however, that I could not study them separately, as two distinct fields.
For instance, the idea of teleology, far from being something that appeared suddenly in Adler’s time,
is present in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. It became clear to me that Adlerian psychology was a
way of thinking that lay in the same vein as Greek philosophy. Moreover, I noticed that the dialogues that
Socrates engaged in with youths, which Plato recording in writing for posterity, could be said to
correspond very closely to the counseling practiced today.
Though many people think of philosophy as something difficult to understand, Plato’s dialogues do
not contain any specialized language.
It is strange that philosophy should be something that is discussed using words understood only by
specialists. Because in its original meaning, philosophy refers not to “wisdom” itself but to “love of
wisdom,” and it is the very process of learning what one does not know and arriving at wisdom that is
important.
Whether or not one attains wisdom in the end is not an issue.
A person reading Plato’s dialogues today may be surprised to find that the dialogue concerning
courage, for instance, ends without arriving at any conclusion.
The youths engaged in dialogues with Socrates never agree with what he says at the outset. They refute
his statements thoroughly. This book is continuing in the tradition of philosophy since Socrates, and that
is why it follows the format of a dialogue between a philosopher and a youth.
Upon learning of Adlerian psychology, which is another philosophy, I became dissatisfied with the
way of living of the researcher who only reads and interprets the writings of his predecessors. I wanted to
engage in dialogues in the way that Socrates did, and eventually I began to practice counseling at
psychiatry clinics and other venues.
In doing so, I met many youths.
All of these youths wanted to live sincerely, but many of them were people who had been told by
worldly, jaded elders to “be more realistic” and were on the verge of giving up on their dreams, people
who had been through arduous experiences of being entangled in interpersonal relationships that were
complicated precisely because they were pure.
Wanting to live sincerely is an important thing, but it is not enough on its own. Adler tells us that all
problems are interpersonal relationship problems. But if one does not know how to build good
interpersonal relationships, one may end up trying to satisfy other people’s expectations. And unable to
communicate out of fear of hurting other people even when one has something to assert, one may end
up abandoning what one really wants to do.
While people may certainly be popular among those they know, and not many people will dislike
them perhaps, they will end up being incapable of living their own lives.
To a young person like the youth in this book, who has many problems and has already had a harsh
awakening to reality, the views put forward by this philosopher, that this world is a simple place and that
anyone can be happy from this day onward, may come as a surprise.
“My psychology is for all people,” says Adler, and dispensing with specialized language much as Plato
did, he shows us specific steps for improving our interpersonal relationships.
If Adler’s way of thinking is hard to accept, it is because it is a compilation of antitheses to normal
social thinking, and because to understand it one must put it into practice in everyday life. Though his
words are not difficult, there may be a sense of difficulty like that of imagining the blazing heat of
summer in the dead of winter, but I hope that readers will be able to grasp keys here to solving their
interpersonal relationship problems.
The day Fumitake Koga, my collaborator and writer for this book, first visited my study, he said, “I
will be a Plato for you, Mr. Kishimi.”
Today the reason we can learn about the philosophy of Socrates, who left no known writings, is that
Plato took down his dialogues in written form. But Plato did not simply record what Socrates said. It is
thanks to Plato’s correct understanding of his words that Socrates’s teachings are still conveyed today.
It is thanks to the exceptional powers of understanding of Koga, who persisted in carrying out
repeated dialogues with me over a period of several years, that this book has seen the light of day. Both
Koga and I often made visits to our teachers in our university days, and the youth in this book could be
either one of us, but more than anyone, he is you, who picked up this book. It is my sincere hope that
while your doubts may linger, I will be able to support your resolution in all manner of life situations
through this dialogue with a philosopher.
Ichiro Kishimi
The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
This reading group guide for The Courage to Be Disliked includes an introduction, discussion questions,
and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group
find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your
conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
The Courage to Be Disliked follows a conversation between a young man and a philosopher as they
discuss the tenets of Alfred Adler’s theories. Alder, a lesser-known twentieth-century psychologist whose
work stands up to Freud and Jung, believes in a liberating approach to happiness in which each human
being has the power and potential to live a happy and fulfilled life without worry about the past or
future. Their dialogue spans five nights, and the reader is invited to journey alongside the youth as he
grapples with, fights against, and is ultimately moved by the profundity of Alder’s wisdom.
Topics & Questions for Discussion
The First Night: Deny Trauma
1. Like the youth, do you feel determined from the outset to reject the philosopher’s theories? Why
might that be?
2. “Everyone wishes they could change,” the youth says. Do you agree? If you could change one thing
about yourself, what would it be and why?
3. What “equipment” do you possess? Assess how successfully, on a scale from 1–10, you are using your
equipment to bring happiness to your life in this moment?
The Second Night: All Problems Are Interpersonal Relationship Problems
4. Do you find it comforting to hear that it is “basically impossible to not get hurt in your relations with
other people”? Why or why not?
5. Describe a time when your own feeling of inferiority acted as a kind of launchpad to change or move
forward in your life.
6. Do you agree that love is the most difficult life-task? Why do you think so?
The Third Night: Discard Other People’s
7. Answer the philosopher’s question: why does one want to be praised by others? (page 116)
8. The philosopher offers the following definition of freedom: “Freedom is being disliked by other
people.” How would you define freedom?
9. Do you have the courage to be disliked? Or do you know anyone in your life who seems to? If so, do
their relationships or yours seem “things of lightness” as the philosopher suggests?
The Fourth Night: Where the Center of the World Is
10. From where in your life do you derive a sense of community feeling?
11. Is your life worth living because you are of use to someone? Consider how we manifest this worth—
think of the jobs we take, the places we chose to live, or the experiences we accept or decline.
12. The philosopher offers the youth the same advice Adler offered once: “someone has to start.” That is,
to create a meaningful life, a sense of community, it must begin with you regardless of what others
around you are doing. How practical do you find this advice? What are concrete ways you might
begin to “start”?
The Fourth Night: Where the Center of the World Is
13. Were you surprised, comforted, and/or fascinated to read that “there is no such thing as a 100 percent
person”? How can you actively acknowledge this fact to yourself, as the philosopher suggests?
14. Labor is one way we come to feel useful and worthwhile, and therefore happy. What aspects of your
work give you a sense of fulfillment? Do some aspects of your labor detract from your happiness?
15. Share how you plan to cast a spotlight on the here and now. What sort of action plan can you make to
focus on living in the present moment?
Enhance Your Book Club
1. The Courage to be Disliked is a book that instructs readers how to have the courage to live a happy,
authentic life. All of the advice of the philosopher hinges on retraining your mind to accept yourself
as you are, and in turn to accept others as they are. In order to help declutter your mind, spend some
time in meditation with your book club. Turn the lights down and sit in a circle. Together, practice
relaxation techniques, including breathing in deeply through your nose and out through your
mouth. Visualize your entire body filling with air and then emptying out completely. In the
background, play some relaxing music or ocean sounds. Feel yourself relax and prepare to discuss
the concepts you find most challenging in the book.
2. The structure of The Courage to be Disliked is inspired by Socratic dialogue, a literary genre derived
from Plato’s dialogues in which Socrates is a main character who, through conversation, seeks to
answer questions on the meaning of life. Participate in your own version of this ancient quest for
discovering truth. Have your book club perform a Socratic circle. Come up with a list of a few
questions you’d like to discuss and prepare responses individually. Once your group meets, form an
inner circle and an outer circle. The inner circle will do the discussing, while the outer circle will
watch, listen, and take notes. Over lunch, discuss how the circle felt different from your regular
book club meeting. Did the tone of the conversation change? Rules for a Socratic circle can be
found here: http://www.corndancer.com/tunes/tunes_print/soccirc.pdf
3. Go on a nature walk with your book club. Notice everything around you using your five senses—
what do you hear? Smell? See? Taste? How do you feel in this moment? Are you happy? Collect as
much “data” on your walk as possible, feeling the ground underneath you, the air around you, the
sky overhead. In essence, “shine a spotlight on the here and now . . . earnestly and conscientiously.”
Once the walk is complete, reconvene with your book club and exchange notes about the
experience. What was it like to live in the moment? Was it a new experience for you, or something
you try often? Were you successful at shutting out the past and/or future? Why or why not?
About the Authors
ICHIRO KISHIMI was born in Kyoto, where he currently resides. He writes and lectures on
Adlerian psychology and provides counseling for youths in psychiatric clinics as a certified counselor and
consultant for the Japanese Society of Adlerian Psychology. He is the translator, into Japanese, of selected
writings by Alfred Adler—The Science of Living and Problems of Neurosis—and he is the author of
Introduction to Adlerian Psychology, in addition to numerous other books.
FUMITAKE KOGA is an award-winning professional writer and author. He has released numerous
bestselling works of business-related and general nonfiction. He encountered Adlerian psychology in his
late twenties and was deeply affected by its conventional wisdom—defying ideas. Thereafter, Koga made
numerous visits to Ichiro Kishimi in Kyoto, gleaned from him the essence of Adlerian psychology, and
took down the notes for the classical “dialogue format” method of Greek philosophy that is used in this
book.
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
SimonandSchuster.com
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Ichiro-Kishimi
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Fumitake-Koga
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Copyright © 2013 by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
English translation copyright © 2017 by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
First published in Japan as Kirawareru Yuki by Diamond Inc., Tokyo in 2013
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Atria
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Interior design by Jason Snyder
Jacket design by Albert Tang
Jacket art © Elinacious/Depositphotos
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kishimi, Ichiro, 1956- author. | Koga, Fumitake, 1973- author.
Title: The courage to be disliked : the Japanese phenomenon that shows you how to change your life and achieve real happiness / Ichiro
Kishimi, Fumitake Koga.
Other titles: Kirawareru Yuki. English
Description: New York : Atria Books, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018002432 (print) | LCCN 2018009555 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Adler, Alfred, 1870-1937. | Self-actualization (Psychology) | Adlerian psychology. | Conduct of life. | Thought and
thinking. | BISAC: SELF-HELP / Personal Growth / Happiness. | SELF-HELP / Motivational & Inspirational. | PHILOSOPHY / Free
Will & Determinism.
Classification: LCC BF637.S4 (ebook) | LCC BF637.S4 K553513 2018 (print) | DDC 158—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018002432
ISBN 978-1-5011-9727-7
ISBN 978-1-5011-9729-1 (ebook)
This English edition published by arrangement with Diamond, Inc. c/o Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo through Chandler Crawford
Agency, Massachusetts, USA.

What are the discrepancies between patient and provider explanatory models of illness and disease?

CULTURAL COMPETENCY AND QUALITY OF CARE:
OBTAINING THE PATIENT’S PERSPECTIVE
Quyen Ngo-Metzger, Joseph Telfair, Dara H. Sorkin, Beverly Weidmer,
Robert Weech-Maldonado, Margarita Hurtado, and Ron D. Hays
October 2006
ABSTRACT: Provision of “culturally competent” medical care is one of the strategies advocated
for reducing or eliminating racial and ethnic health disparities. This report identifies five domains of
culturally competent care that can best be assessed through patients’ perspectives: 1) patient–provider
communication; 2) respect for patient preferences and shared decision-making; 3) experiences
leading to trust or distrust; 4) experiences of discrimination; and 5) linguistic competency. The
authors review the literature focusing on these domains, summarize the salient issues and current
knowledge, and discuss the policy and research implications. Incorporating patients’ perspectives
on culturally and linguistically appropriate services into current measures of quality will provide
important data and create opportunities for providers and health plans to make improvements.
Support for this research was provided by The Commonwealth Fund. The views presented here
are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Commonwealth Fund or its directors,
officers, or staff. This report and other Fund publications are available online at www.cmwf.org.
To learn more about new publications when they become available, visit the Fund’s Web site and
register to receive e-mail alerts. Commonwealth Fund pub. no. 963.

iii
CONTENTS
About the Authors……………………………………………………………………………………………. iv
Acknowledgments …………………………………………………………………………………………….. v
Executive Summary………………………………………………………………………………………….. vi
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………………………..1
Methodology…………………………………………………………………………………………………….3
Aspects of Culturally Competent, Patient-Centered Care…………………………………………. 3
Patient–Provider Communication…………………………………………………………………… 3
Shared Decision-Making and Respect for Patient Preferences ……………………………… 7
Experiences Leading to Trust or Distrust ………………………………………………………….. 9
Experiences of Discrimination………………………………………………………………………. 13
Linguistic Competence ……………………………………………………………………………….. 14
Discussion……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 20
Implications ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 22
Recommendations for Providers and Health Systems ……………………………………….. 22
Recommendations for Applied Research ……………………………………………………….. 23
Incorporating Patients’ Perspectives of Cultural Competence
into Quality Measures …………………………………………………………………………………. 25
Notes……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 29
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Figure 1 Conceptual Framework of Culturally Competent Care
from the Patient’s Perspective ………………………………………………………………. 2
Table 1 Comparisons of Diverse Patients’ Health Care Experiences and
Quality of Care Domains Covered by the CAHPS Instruments ……………….. 26
iv
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Quyen Ngo-Metzger, M.D., M.P.H., is assistant professor of medicine and director of
Asian health studies at the Center for Health Policy Research at the University of
California, Irvine, and adjunct natural scientist at the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica,
Calif. Her research interests include the health status and health care needs of immigrant
populations. In particular, she is interested in how cultural and linguistic barriers
contribute to health disparities, and in developing interventions to improve chronic
disease management among vulnerable populations. She received her M.D. from the
University of Chicago and her M.P.H. from the Harvard University School of Public Health.
Joseph Telfair, Dr.P.H., M.P.H., M.S.W., is professor of public health research and
practice at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and senior advisor to the
Center for Cultural Competence at Georgetown University. Dr. Telfair received his dual
M.S.W./M.P.H. from the University of California at Berkeley. He later graduated from
Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health as a Doctor of Public
Health. His expertise and areas of interests include community-based and communityoriented
program evaluation and research; culturally competent research and evaluation;
health practice, research, program evaluation, and policy issues of women, teens and
children with chronic conditions.
Dara H. Sorkin, Ph.D., is assistant professor at the Center for Health Policy Research
at the University of California, Irvine. The focus of her research involves understanding
and promoting social psychological factors that contribute to the effective management of
Type 2 diabetes, particularly among ethnically diverse older adults. Other research interests
include investigating the impact of social relationships on psychological and physical health
in later life. She received her Ph.D. in psychology and social behavior from the University
of California, Irvine.
Beverly Weidmer, M.A., is a survey director in the survey research group at the
RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif. Ms. Weidmer has more than15 years
experience in both quantitative and qualitative survey research methodology, has worked
on numerous studies focusing on racial and ethnic inequalities in access to care, and has
considerable experience working with immigrant and minority populations. Ms. Weidmer
is experienced in all aspects of survey design and management, survey operations,
instrument design methods, and has special expertise in community-based, participatory
research and in working with difficult-to-reach populations. She received her M.A. from
the University of Texas, Austin.
v
Robert Weech-Maldonado, M.B.A., Ph.D., is associate professor of health services
research, management, and policy at the College of Public Health and Health Professions,
University of Florida. His research examines the impact of organizational and market
factors on access, quality, and costs of care for vulnerable populations, particularly the
elderly and racial/ethnic minorities. Dr. Weech-Maldonado and colleagues were the
recipients of the 1999 American College of Health Care Executives Health Management
Research Award for their study on diversity management of hospitals in Pennsylvania. He
received his M.B.A. from the University of Puerto Rico and his Ph.D. in business
administration from Temple University.
Margarita Hurtado, Ph.D., M.H.S., is principal research scientist at the American
Institutes for Research in Silver Spring, Md. Her research focuses on quality of care
measurement and improvement, survey and evaluation research, and health
communication research. She has a special interest in Latino health and health care for
underserved communities. Dr. Hurtado received her Ph.D. in health services research
from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, as well as an
M.H.S. in international health and an M.A. in international relations.
Ron D. Hays, Ph.D., is professor of medicine in the division of general internal
medicine and health services research at the University of California, Los Angeles, and
senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, Calif. He received
his Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to express their gratitude to Anne Beal, senior program officer at
The Commonwealth Fund, and Laurin Mayeno for their valuable assistance in reviewing
the drafts of this document and to Disa Lubker and Michelle Nguyen for their
administrative support.
Editorial support was provided by Martha Hostetter.
vi
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Noteworthy problems with access to health care and poor health outcomes among
racial and ethnic minorities have been documented. Provision of “culturally competent”
medical care is one of the strategies advocated for reducing or eliminating racial and ethnic
health disparities. Cultural competence has been defined by the Office of Minority Health
as “a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system,
agency, or among professionals that enables effective work in cross-cultural situations.”
This report examines culturally competent care from the patient’s perspective, explores
methods for assessing culturally competent care, and identifies areas for further research. In
particular, the authors sought to:
• develop a conceptual framework that identifies domains of culturally
competent care from the patient’s perspective;
• review the literature focusing on these domains;
• summarize the salient issues and current knowledge; and
• discuss the policy and research implications.
Aspects of Culturally Competent Care from the Patient’s Perspective
Patient–provider communication. Patient–provider communication can be affected by
such factors as differences in verbal and non-verbal communication styles and explanatory
models of illness. Minority patients and individuals from lower socioeconomic
backgrounds tend to receive less health-related information from their providers compared
with non-minorities and individuals from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. Lack of
patient–provider communication about the use of complementary and alternative medical
practices is also a noteworthy problem.
• Provider/health system recommendations: The authors recommend that health
care providers and health systems continually monitor their patient populations
through quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. Specifically, data
collection should include patients’ race or ethnicity, socioeconomic status, English
language skills, and preferred language or language spoken at home. Intake forms
should be modified to include questions that measure health literacy, English
proficiency, language spoken at home, and use of complementary and alternative
medical practices.
vii
• Applied research recommendations: Research is needed to examine factors that
influence patient–provider interactions among diverse racial/ethnic groups.
Further research is needed to investigate the roles that patient navigators/coaches,
community health workers, parish nurses, interpreters, and case managers can play
in influencing patient–provider communication.
Shared decision-making and respect for patient preferences. Patient-centered care requires
effective patient–provider partnerships, including shared decision-making among
providers, patients, and families. Providers should work with patients to select treatments
that take into account patients’ health-related values, weighing available treatment options
and patient preferences. Current research shows that minority and low-income
populations are more likely than white or higher-income patients to feel disenfranchised
in the decision-making process and perceive a lack of respect for their preferences. In
addition, studies have found that patients who make frequent use of complementary or
alternative medicine often feel that providers do not respect their decision to use such
therapies instead of (or in addition to) conventional medicine.
• Provider/health system recommendations: The authors recommend that providers
investigate patients’ explanatory models of common diseases and their healthrelated
values and preferences (e.g., why a patient thinks he has lung cancer and
how he wants to involve his family in end-of-life decisions). At the systems level,
policies should aim to democratize decision-making processes among patients,
their families, and providers. Additionally, policies are needed to recognize
patients’ rights to use alternative therapy or community-based programs in addition
to conventional medical facilities.
• Applied research recommendations: Research is needed to investigate the
association between patients and providers’ race/ethnicity and their treatment
preferences. It is also important to examine what happens when patients and
providers disagree on treatment options. More research is needed to determine
how patients’ disclosure of their use of complementary or alternative medicine
affects patient–provider interactions. Finally, research is needed to examine the use
of lay health workers or other “cultural communicators” as facilitators. Cultural
communicators observe the doctor–client interaction and help the health care
provider and client understand each other.
Experiences leading to trust or distrust. Only a few studies have looked at the
underlying causes of patient dissatisfaction and distrust of providers among racial and
ethnic minorities. The existing studies consist mainly of small, qualitative investigations of
viii
special populations. Current research indicates that minority patients who have raceconcordant
providers report higher levels of satisfaction with their care and lower levels
of distrust.
• Provider/health system recommendations: It is important to evaluate the factors
that affect patients’ trust in their providers. Such factors may differ by racial/
ethnic populations as well as socioeconomic and insurance status. Providers should
seek to develop open channels of communication and empower patients
to speak up about issues affecting their trust.
• Applied research recommendations: Further research is needed to understand
why some patients prefer to be race concordant with their providers, and to
gauge the effects of racial concordance on access to care, quality of care, and health
outcomes. Research is also needed to explore and understand the root causes of
distrust in providers, particularly among Latino and African American patients, for
which studies conducted in different health care settings have
yielded contradictory results. Finally, there is a need to explore whether differences
in levels of trust of providers among racial and ethnic minorities, compared with
whites, result from past experiences with the medical system
or varying expectations.
Experiences of discrimination. Compared with white patients, racial and ethnic
minorities perceive more instances of racism in the medical care system, tend to be less
satisfied with their health care, and have higher levels of distrust in their health care
providers. The reasons for these perceptions have not been definitively determined.
Research on the role of racial bias or discrimination in the practice and delivery of health
care is needed, as are valid measures for use in large-scale, population-based studies of the
causes and health effects of perceived discrimination.
• Provider/health system recommendations: Providers need to be aware that racial
and ethnic minority patients might perceive discrimination or bias in the health
care system. Specific complaints of discrimination should be investigated and
structural, system-wide changes and improvements should be sought. Patients
should be given opportunities to voice their concerns about discrimination.
• Applied research recommendations: More research is needed to determine the
placement of responsibility (e.g., on providers, staff, or others) for discrimination in
health care settings and the characteristics (of patients or of the providers/staff
members) that are most associated with incidents of bias. In addition,
ix
understanding the consequences of perceived discrimination or bias on health is an
important next step for future research.
Linguistic competence. Compared with English-speaking patients and those with
higher levels of health literacy, limited English proficiency (LEP) patients and those with
low health literacy are less likely to use health care services and adhere to medical
regiments and more likely to have worse health outcomes. Linguistic competence includes
communication strategies for LEP individuals and those with low health literacy. Language
concordance between patients and providers is the most effective strategy to improve
communication and health outcomes for LEP patients, though the use of professional
interpreters can also be effective. Still, the majority of LEP patients lack access to trained
interpreters. There are also effective techniques for communicating with patients with low
health literacy.
• Provider/health system recommendations: The Joint Commission on
Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and National Committee for
Quality Assurance (NCQA) should require hospitals and health plans to collect
data on their patients’ health literacy and English proficiency as part of the
accreditation process. Insurers and policymakers should provide incentives for
health care providers to improve services that specifically target patients who have
low health literacy or limited English proficiency. Providers and health care
systems should avoid the use of ad-hoc interpreters to communicate with LEP
patients, and instead rely on trained bilingual staff and professional interpreters.
Health plans and providers must monitor and assess the quality of interpreter
services. Finally, medical schools and other health professional schools should
incorporate issues pertaining to communication with patients who have low health
literacy and/or LEP into their curricula. Medical schools should seek to increase
recruitment and retention of bilingual students.
• Applied research recommendations: Further research is needed to assess the impact
of various communication strategies for low health literacy patients, considering
effects on health-related knowledge, compliance with care regimens, and health
outcomes. More research on the mechanisms through which low health literacy
and LEP may affect health outcomes is also needed. Finally, it is important to
consider the implications for the health care system of patients who have both low
health literacy and LEP.
Patient–provider communication, shared decision-making, and trust affect the
quality of care of all patients, not just racial/ethnic minorities or those with low
x
socioeconomic status. However, problems in these areas of patient-centered care
disproportionately affect vulnerable populations. Incorporating patients’ perspectives on
culturally and linguistically appropriate services into current measures of quality
will provide important data and create opportunities for providers and health plans to
make improvements.
1
CULTURAL COMPETENCY AND QUALITY OF CARE:
OBTAINING THE PATIENT’S PERSPECTIVE
INTRODUCTION
Ample research has documented the existence of significant racial and ethnic disparities in
access to health care, as well as poorer outcomes and health status among racial and ethnic
minorities.1 Various studies have looked at the causes of these disparities and
recommended strategies for reducing or eliminating them. Among the strategies advocated
is the provision of “culturally competent” medical care. The Office of Minority Health,
using the definition developed by Cross and colleagues, has defined cultural and linguistic
competence as “a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in
a system, agency, or among professionals that enables effective work in cross-cultural
situations.”2 Although there has been much discussion in the medical, research, and public
health communities about “culturally competent care,” little is known about how to
accurately measure it.
In recent years, a “patient-centered” approach to the process and delivery of health
care has been identified as crucial to providing culturally competent medical care. The
Institute of Medicine defines patient-centered care as “care that is respectful of and
responsive to individual patient preferences, needs, and values.”3 McWhinney described
patient-centered care as being able to “see through the patient’s eyes.”4 Thus, one
important way to measure the quality of culturally competent care is to obtain patients’
perspectives. Patients experience health care through their interactions with providers and
other staff, and within the context of the health care systems such as health insurance plans
and health care clinics. Patients’ previous experiences and unique characteristics will affect
their views. For example, the perspective of care “through the patient’s eyes” may be
different for an older African American woman from Haiti than for a young, white, non-
Latino male.
This report examines culturally competent care from the patient’s perspective,
explores methods for assessing culturally competent care, and identifies areas for further
research. Figure 1 depicts a conceptual framework for obtaining patients’ perspectives on
culturally competent care. The authors developed this framework based on the conceptual
model of measuring health care quality among diverse populations developed by Bethell
and colleagues.5 Many provider and system factors contribute to culturally competent care;
this report focuses on the overlap between the three circles in Figure 1, which represents
areas of care best measured through patient reports, rather than through provider reports
or other sources.
2
The first two domains in these areas of overlap—patient–provider communication
and respect for patient preferences/shared decision-making—include interactions between
patients and providers: The other three domains—patient experiences leading to trust or
distrust; experiences of discrimination; and linguistic competency—refer to patient–
provider interactions, as well as patients’ interactions with other health care staff and the
health care system overall.
Patients may be the best and perhaps the only source for these types of
information. For example, one study found that Asian immigrants with limited English
proficiency (LEP) reported experiencing discrimination from office staff, including
interpreters, who “looked down” on them because of their limited English language
abilities.6 This type of information would not have been revealed from interviews with
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework of Culturally Competent Care
from the Patient’s Perspective
Patient Factors Provider Factors
Healthcare System Factors
•Access (ability to get appointments quickly, short wait time during visits, etc.)
•Healthcare facilities convenient for community
•Diverse workforce reflecting patient population
•Coordination of care between different providers and health care settings
•Quality improvement environment with continued patient feedback
•Patient/provider
communication
•Respect for patient
preferences/shared
decision-making
•Experiences leading
to trust or distrust
•Experiences of
discrimination
•Linguistic competency
•Race/ethnicity
•Age
•Gender
•Training/specialty
•Experience with
diverse populations
•Language competency
•Communication style
•Religion/spirituality
•Beliefs and values
•Explanatory models
•Race/ethnicity
•Age
•Gender
•Socioeconomic status
(education, income, etc.)
•Health literacy
•Insurance status
•Utilization (time constraints, transportation, etc.)
•Religion/spirituality
•Beliefs and values
•Explanatory models
•Expectations
•English proficiency
3
providers or health care administrators. Thus, the authors determined that these five
domains of culturally competent care should be measured “through the patient’s eyes.”
Other domains of care, such as access and coordination, are important aspects of quality of
care in general. However, because these domains of quality have been extensively
examined as part of “patient-centered” care, they are not examined in this report.
METHODOLOGY
Using the conceptual framework, the authors reviewed the literature addressing these five
domains of care. The authors searched for articles published in English from January 1990
to September 2005, focusing on empirical studies conducted in the United States that
included people of color (African Americans, Latinos, Asians and Pacific Islanders, and
Native Americans).
ASPECTS OF CULTURALLY COMPETENT, PATIENT-CENTERED CARE
Patient–Provider Communication
Some racial/ethnic minority groups and those with lower socioeconomic status have a
high probability of being uninsured, impeding their ability to seek and obtain health
services.7 But even when access to care, diagnosis, and illness severity are the same, some
minorities use health services that require a doctor’s referral at lower rates than whites.
This suggests that barriers to care may emerge in the context of patient–provider
interactions, rather than in accessing providers.8
Indeed, communication during medical interactions plays a central role in
decisions about subsequent interventions, and can influence patient adherence, satisfaction
with care, and health outcomes.9 One goal of the Cultural and Linguistic Access to
Services (CLAS) standards on “Language Access Services,” as derived from the Healthy
People 2010 goals, is to ensure the use of communication strategies to improve health.10
As defined in the Healthy People 2010 and CLAS documents, health communication is
“the use of communication strategies to inform and influence individual and community
decisions that enhance health.”11 This includes efforts to assist patients in reaching their
personal health goals. Better patient–provider communication increases awareness of
health risks and risky behaviors, helps patients make choices by clarifying complicated
issues, and increases the likelihood that patients understand and adhere to complex
treatment regimens.12 The negative impacts of ineffective patient–provider
communication on health may be increased when cultural and linguistic barriers are also
factors. Implementing the CLAS standards is expected to increase demand for appropriate
health services and lower demand for inappropriate services.13
4
A Commonwealth Fund survey conducted in 2001 found that there was a positive
association between physicians’ cultural sensitivity and patient ratings of the quality of
patient–physician interactions (including communication behaviors), regardless of the
patient’s racial/ethnic group.14 However, Asian Americans were less satisfied with care,
more likely to report not being involved in decisions about their care, and less likely to
report the doctor ever talking to them about lifestyle or mental health issues compared
with white patients.15 Another study suggests that some physicians may be more verbally
dominant, engage in less patient-centered communication, and exhibit lower levels of
positive exchanges with African American patients than with white patients.16 The study
did not explore the reasons for these differences, though racism may have played a factor.
Disparities in patient–provider communication. Some racial/ethnic groups and
individuals of lower socioeconomic status are more likely than non-minority individuals
and those of higher socioeconomic status to report poor communication with their
physicians.17 Findings from the Commonwealth Fund’s 2001 Health Care Quality Survey
indicate that, while all demographic groups reported problems with patient–provider
interactions, such difficulties were most pronounced for patients from racial/ethnic
minority groups as well as populations with low education levels, low health literacy, and
low incomes.18 Differences in communication styles and explanatory models of illness and
disease can affect patient–provider communication.
Differences in communication styles. Patient–provider communication styles can be
broadly grouped into verbal and non-verbal behaviors. As defined in the literature,
“verbal” health communication includes providing directions, giving information, asking
for clarification, showing concern, offering reassurance, talking socially, and establishing
agreement. “Non-verbal” communications includes body language, including facial
expressions and gestures designed to convey information and feelings such as happiness
and distress.
Communication works in two directions. More expressive patients seem to fair
better with Western providers than those that tend to be less expressive. Both verbal and
non-verbal interactions can be affected by expressiveness, a trait that is influenced both by
the patient’s individual personality and his cultural background. Street et al. found that
physicians’ dispensing of information was influenced by patients’ communication styles,
such as whether they asked questions or were otherwise expressive.19 Research has also
found that some physicians give more information to particular types of patients: for
example, more educated patients receive more diagnostic and health information than
their less-educated counterparts.20
5
Strategies to encourage patients to express themselves have been shown to
strengthen patient–provider communication. In a study of women with HIV/AIDS from
various minority groups, patients involved in activities to encourage participation in
decision-making about their care reported higher levels of communication with their
providers and received more information and had more positive interactions than those
who were not involved in such activities.21 In another study, Krupat and colleagues
showed that assertive behavior among black patients and those with low socioeconomic
status—but not among whites or those with low socioeconomic status—resulted in a
greater likelihood that physicians would order full tumor staging for women seeking care
for breast cancer.22
Examining the issue of communications from patients’ perspectives can yield
insights into how different groups value the different aspects of medical interactions.
African American, Latino, and Asian patients rated providers’ displays of “concern,
courtesy, and respect” as the most important factor in the health interactions.23 Physicians’
non-verbal and interpersonal communication behaviors related to empathy and
establishing rapport were found to be more important to minority patients compared with
white patients than the verbal transmission of health-related information.24 In separate
studies based on the Commonwealth Fund 2001 Health Care Quality Survey, both Ngo-
Metzger and Saha found that listening and spending adequate time were especially
important aspects of health interactions for Asian and Latino patients.25 In another study,
Latinos were more likely than other racial groups to mention accessibility and availability
as being important, while Asians and Pacific Islanders were more likely to mention that
physicians ordering tests and giving appropriate referrals was important.26 In contrast,
African Americans cited participating in decision-making and building a trusting
relationship with providers as the most important aspects of provider–patient
interactions.27
Discrepancies between patient and provider explanatory models of illness and disease.
Patient–provider communication involves the use of meaningful language and gestures by
providers to elicit a patient’s explanatory model of illness and arrive at a common
understanding.28 This approach to the construction of the meaning of health problems and
concerns has been labeled the “explanatory model” by Kleinman and defined as “notions
about episodes of sickness and its treatment that are employed by all those engaged in the
clinical process.”29 From a Western medical perspective, disease is the objective, measurable
pathophysiology that creates the illness, which is the meaning of the disease to the individual
and his or her social group.30
6
Discrepancies between a patient’s and a provider’s explanatory models of illness
and disease can lead to miscommunication. People who become ill, after self-treatment and
home remedies, make choices about what to do next (e.g., whether to consult popular, folk,
or professional sectors for additional assistance) based on their own assessment of their health
needs. Individuals may choose to seek advice or treatment from relatives (e.g., for routine or
familiar conditions), sacred folk healers (e.g., for spiritual or moral matters in which their
expertise is required), and/or physicians or nurses (e.g., for serious biomedical conditions).
People may act on one or more of these choices. For example, a state of illness perceived as
divine retribution for a dishonest act may be treated with prayer and repentance alone, or
may be treated with prayer together with medication prescribed by a physician.
Physicians, patients, and their families have explanatory models to guide them in
making choices about illnesses and treatments and give personal and social meaning to their
health experiences. Most providers trained in Western biomedicine belong to a biomedical
culture in which diseases are natural, mechanistic errors, correctable by repairing organs or
manipulating chemical pathways.31 In Western biomedicine, “disease” has no spiritual or
metaphysical causes, though some diseases (such as sexually transmitted diseases) may have
moral undertones related to risky behaviors. In contrast, patients from non-Western or
indigenous cultures may understand their illnesses differently, and the separation of mind,
body, and spirit characteristic of Western biomedicine may be difficult for such patients to
accept.32 For some patients, the meaning of illness may include natural explanations (such as
a fall that breaks a bone), supernatural (God’s will or malevolent spirits), or metaphysical (such
as bad airs or seasonal changes).33 Miscommunication may occur when providers view the
biomedical view of disease as the “right way” and discount the patient’s perspective on his or
her illness. When a provider and patient understand each other’s explanatory models of
disease and illness, negotiations for shared decision-making can take place in an atmosphere
of mutual respect rather than frustration and misunderstanding.34
Lack of communication about complementary and alternative medical practices.
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) refers to diverse practices and products
that are not currently considered part of conventional medicine.35 The use of CAM has
increased in the last two decades. It is estimated that a racially and ethnically diverse group
of 36 to 42 percent of the U.S. population used CAM in 2003, representing about $27
billion in out-of-pocket spending.36 An estimated 26 percent of African Americans, 28
percent of Hispanics, 36 percent of non-Hispanic whites, and 43 percent of Asian
Americans use CAM.37
7
The prevalence of CAM use among different racial/ethnic groups varies depending
on the definition used.38 For example, if the definition is expanded to include prayers for
one’s own health and megavitamins (high-dose vitamins), then approximately 60 percent
of whites, Asians, and Latinos and 71 percent of African Americans use CAM.39
Despite a steady increase in use of alternative therapies, there has been little change
in the rate of patients’ disclosure of CAM usage to their providers.40 It is important for
patients to discuss their use of CAM with their medical practitioners. Some therapies, such
as herbal or vitamin therapies, may cause adverse events or interfere with medical
regimens. Furthermore, knowledge of patients’ CAM practices can provide valuable
insight into patients’ values, lifestyles, and health beliefs, which may, in turn, assist
practitioners in providing optimum care.41 Yet, in a national survey of U.S. adults, 70
percent of patients who used CAM reported that their providers did not discuss CAM use
with them.42
Communication and patient-centered care. Effective patient–provider communication is
crucial to the health outcomes of patients, yet some demographic groups disproportionately
experience communication breakdowns. These problems may be partially explained by
differences in communication styles, explanatory models of illness, and views of conventional
Western medicine versus CAM.43 However, little is known about the types of interventions
that can help to bridge these communication gaps and improve patient–provider interactions.
Relationships between providers and patients are central to patient-centered care,
which is based on partnerships among clinicians, patients, and their families and takes into
account patients’ needs and preferences.44 This is furthered when patients receive
information that is easy to understand, when providers are aware of potential communication
challenges, and when care is provided with respect for patients’ explanatory models, social
environment, family context, and cultural beliefs and practices.45
Shared Decision-Making and Respect for Patient Preferences
The Institute of Medicine encourages providers to respect patients’ preferences and
promote their active participation in clinical decision-making to the extent that patients’
feel comfortable and are willing to take part. Patients may participate in their care in a
variety of ways, including having meaningful discussions about their preferences, knowing
all of the available options, and making final decisions about treatment. Patients who are
active participants in their care have been shown to have improved health outcomes,
including lower levels of blood pressure and blood glucose.46
8
Many people of color and those with lower socioeconomic status report problems
with shared decision-making and respect for their preferences.47 These individuals are
more likely than white patients and those of higher socioeconomic status to perceive a
lack of mutual trust and respect between them and their providers.48 Lack of mutual trust
and respect may limit clinicians’ ability to provide care and patients’ willingness to follow
clinicians’ advice. This can lower the quality of care and lead to increased morbidity and
mortality. Ideally, in shared decision-making, a provider helps a patient translate their
values into treatment decisions. Patients and providers collaboratively rank health-related
values as they pertain to the decisions at hand, weighing available treatments against
patient preferences.
A recent report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that
“blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and low income populations are more likely to feel
disenfranchised in the decision-making process.”49 In a national survey, nearly one of four
people reported that they were not as involved in health care decisions as they would like.
Compared with whites, African Americans and Asians more frequently reported underinvolvement
in the health care decision-making process (e.g., 22% of whites, versus 27%
of African Americans and 42% of Asians reported that they were “not as involved as they
would like to have been”). Similarly, Latinos were more likely than non-Latino whites to
report feeling disenfranchised (34% vs. 21%), and low-income populations were more
likely than higher-income populations to report this (30% vs. 20%).50 In another study,
more African American patients reported that their visits with physicians were less
participatory than did whites.51
Roter et al. used audiotape analysis of 537 interactions to explore the relationships
between primary care doctors and their patients.52 A key finding of the study was that
African American and low-income patients were approached by their physicians in a
narrowly biomedical pattern of communication (e.g., one that precluded psychosocial
discussions and shared decision-making), compared with other patient groups. The reasons
for this are unclear, although provider bias and stereotyping may be part of
the explanation.53
Shared decision-making and CAM use. An important component of respect for
patient preferences is respect for their explanatory models of illness. As mentioned
previously, many patients choose to use CAM in addition to conventional Western
medicine. In a study among cancer patients, 35 percent of patients’ attempts to initiate
discussions about CAM were ignored by their providers.54 In another study that included
Latino patients, providers asked questions about the use of alternative therapies during
only 3 percent of discussions.55 To many patients, this lack of communication signified
9
disinterest on the part of their providers. Patients also worried that their providers may be
unsupportive of CAM use, or try to persuade them not to use CAM.56 Some patients
feared that their providers might emphasize the need for scientific evidence. Or, when
attempting to discuss CAM with their providers, patients feared they would become
overwhelmed by the statistics and data demanded by the provider.57
As discussed above, effective communication about CAM use is especially crucial
for patients who take herbs or vitamins that can interact with prescription medications.58
Patients are more likely to discuss CAM with their providers if they are confident that
their preferences will be respected. Showing respect for patient’s preferences should lead
to a more effective relationship and potentially better health outcomes.59 However, this
assumption has not been tested and is an important area of future research.
Experiences Leading to Trust or Distrust
Patients who perceive positive characteristics in their providers (such as being thorough,
understanding, responsive, and respectful) are more likely to seek treatment and heed
medical advice.60 Patients with higher levels of trust report improved satisfaction in the
patient–provider relationship and patients with lower levels of trust report lower levels of
satisfaction.61 A study by Thom et al. found that patients with low levels of trust in their
providers were substantially less likely than those with higher levels to report that they
intended to adhere to their physician’s advice, and more likely to say they did not receive
the services they requested or needed.62 When providers deny patients’ requests for tests or
treatment, patients’ trust in their physicians may be eroded.63 Bell et al. found that patients
who felt their expectations for care had not been met reported less satisfaction with their
visits, less improvement in their health conditions, and weaker intentions to adhere to
treatment, compared with patients who felt their expectations had been met.64
Collaboration and satisfaction in patient–provider relationships are associated with patients’
participation in their care, fewer appointment cancellations and no-shows, and improved
outcomes.65
Racial and ethnic differences in patient trust. Several recent studies found low levels of
patient trust and satisfaction among racial and ethnic minorities.66 In a study of the
foundations of mistrust in physicians, Schnittker found that people of lower
socioeconomic status and members of racial and ethnic minorities said their physicians
were less responsive and they were less trusting of their physicians compared with those of
higher socioeconomic status and non-minority patients. In a study by LaVeist et al., both
African American and white patients reported substantial mistrust of the medical system,
yet African Americans were significantly more likely than white patients to report mistrust
10
across all measures. In this study, African American patients were more likely than
whites to report racial discrimination as playing a factor in access to care. Those who
perceived more racism and felt more mistrust of the medical system reported less
satisfaction with care.
Using data from a nationally representative sample of adults, Hunt et al. found that
the restrictiveness of an individual’s health plan did not explain why some minority groups
were less satisfied with their care.67 African Americans and Latinos were less trusting and
less satisfied with their physicians than whites regardless of their health plan characteristics.
Other studies have found that Latinos and African Americans were less satisfied than
whites were with their care and health plans. Weech-Maldonado et al. also found that
Asians and Pacific Islanders had lower levels of satisfaction with their care and health plans
than did whites.68 In a study looking at patients’ preferences for initial care by specialists,
Wong et al. found that blacks and Asian patients had the least trust and the lowest ratings
of specialists and were much less likely to prefer a specialist than were whites.69
Only a few studies have looked at the underlying causes of patient dissatisfaction
and mistrust, particularly among racial and ethnic minorities.
Organizational factors that affect patient trust. Some studies consider how the
organization and delivery of medical care affect patient–provider relationships and patient
trust and satisfaction. One study found a significant decline in the quality of patient–
physician interactions between 1998 and 2000, as reported by Medicare beneficiaries.70
Respondents reported “less thorough discussions about their problems and symptoms,
greater difficulty reaching their doctor by phone for medical advice and in seeing the
doctor when sick, and interpersonal treatment that felt less caring and more rushed.” A
study of low-income, mostly African American women demonstrated that primary care
offices that were accessible (e.g., through long hours, short waiting times for
appointments, easy telephone contacts, and ample time for individual appointments) and
offered continuous and coordinated care (by assigning patients to the same clinicians and
helping to coordinate specialty services) were associated with strong patient–provider
relationships. Respondents who described their delivery sites as accessible and as ones that
offered continuous and coordinated care were more likely than those who did not to say
they had high levels of trust in their physicians.71
Hsu et al. found that patients who were allowed to select their primary care
providers (PCPs) were more likely to retain their providers after one year and reported
greater overall satisfaction with them, compared with patients who did not have such a
11
choice.72 In addition, patients who were allowed to choose their providers were more
likely than those who were not allowed to do so to: follow their providers’ advice, say
their provider offered the best medical care, believe their provider thought the same way
as they did, and believe their provider was well qualified and knew them well. Such
patients also reported that their PCP created less of a barrier to obtaining care with
specialists or prescription medications.
Hunt et al. found evidence that enrollment in a tightly managed health
maintenance organization (HMO) was significantly associated with patients’ reporting
lower levels of trust in their physicians, compared with enrollment in a preferred provider
organization (PPO).73 The researchers also found that enrollment in a capitated HMO
plan was significantly associated with lower levels of patient satisfaction, compared with a
PPO plan. These findings are important, because racial and ethnic minorities are more
likely than whites to be enrolled in restrictive, tightly managed health care plans.74
Patient trust and health care utilization. The literature exploring the causes of patient
mistrust among racial and ethnic minorities includes primarily small, qualitative studies of
special populations. Nevertheless, these studies provide some insight into the factors that
increase or decrease patient trust among racial and ethnic minorities, and the effects of trust
on patient satisfaction and health care utilization.75 A study of low-income, mostly minority,
prenatal and postpartum women found that patient trust is closely associated with a provider’s
behaviors. This study found that patients’ perceptions of a provider’s competence were
closely associated with their interpersonal skills and expressions of caring.76 Three
qualitative studies of battered, minority women point to the importance of providers’
interpersonal skills in promoting positive relationships with their patients, and to the role
of trust in encouraging women to seek help to address their partners’ violence.77 In
particular, study participants identified provider behaviors such as compassion,
understanding, accessibility, confidentiality, shared decision-making, and communication
as adding to patient trust in providers and encouraging them to seek help for abuse.
Patient preferences, racial concordance, and trust. Studies show that racial and ethnic
disparities in care can be partially explained by minority patients’ preferences for care.
Some studies found that African Americans are less likely than white patients to prefer
certain treatments such as renal transplantation or invasive cardiac procedures.78 In a study
of patients’ preferences for initial care, Wong et al. found that African Americans and
Asians were less likely than whites to prefer initial care by a specialist in both hypothetical
situations (i.e., when presented with a hypothetical scenario) and when asked about actual
health problems. In addition, patients who were older and had more confidence in their
12
PCPs were less likely than younger patients or those with less confidence in their PCPs to
prefer initial treatment by specialists.79
In a study of doctor–patient racial concordance, Laveist and Nuru-Jeter found that
respondents from various racial/ethnic groups, when given a choice among physicians,
were more likely to select a physician of their own race or ethnicity than to select a
physician of a different race/ethnicity.80 Respondents who had physicians of the same
race/ethnicity reported greater satisfaction with their physicians compared with
respondents who were not race concordant with their physicians. This was true across
racial and ethnic groups. The study did investigate why patients tend to choose a physician
of their own race/ethnicity or whether racial concordance was associated with higher
levels of patient trust.
In a study of racial concordance between HIV-positive patients and their providers,
King et al. found that African American patients of white providers received protease
inhibitors much later than did white patients of white providers or African American
patients of African American providers.81 This study did not provide sufficient information
to explain this difference. While it is possible that varying treatment times were the result
of provider discrimination, it is also possible that lower levels of trust and satisfaction
among African American patients in racially discordant patient–physician relationships
influenced their willingness to try new therapies. Further research is needed to understand
why patients prefer providers of the same race or ethnicity and to explore the effects of
such racial concordance on access to care, quality of care, and health outcomes.
In addition, further research is needed to explore the root causes of Asian, Latino,
and African American patients’ mistrust of physicians. In addition, research is needed to
better understand the degree to which patient mistrust is provider-driven (e.g., through
discrimination or bias), structural (e.g., due to the organization and delivery of health
care), or patient-driven (e.g. due to patient expectations and health beliefs). Furthermore,
research is needed to explore whether differences in levels of trust among racial and ethnic
minorities, compared with whites, could result from inadequate measures (e.g., poor
translations or measures that are not culturally appropriate). Future studies should evaluate
existing measures of patient trust and should be conducted in languages other than English
and should explore the associations among age, education, socioeconomic status,
acculturation, and patient trust among racial and ethnic minorities. A better understanding
of the root causes of patient mistrust is crucial to developing strategies to increase trust and
thereby improve health outcomes.
13
Experiences of Discrimination
While research uncovers inequalities in terms of access to and availability of health services
as well as care among racial and ethnic minorities, compared with white patients, the
reasons for these inequalities have not been definitively determined. For example, there is
a large body of literature documenting racial differences in the treatment of cardiovascular
disease.82 Other studies have found racial differences in rates of lung cancer surgery and
immunizations.83 In addition, greater morbidity and mortality from HIV have been
observed among African American patients than whites.84 Some studies have found that
racial and ethnic minorities perceive more racism in the medical care system and tend to
be less satisfied with their health care and their health care providers than white patients.85
As described above, patients’ attitudes toward health providers and health care institutions
affect their willingness to seek medical care, undergo treatments, and adhere to
recommended care.86
While some studies have speculated that racial bias or discrimination in the practice
and delivery of health care is at least partly responsible for racial and ethnic health
disparities, more research on this issue is needed.87,88,89 In particular, further research is
needed to improve our understanding of the consequences of discrimination (or perceived
discrimination) for patients’ health. Some studies have found that perceived discrimination
is associated with negative health outcomes, in addition to lower health care satisfaction
and treatment adherence. For example, Thornburn et al. found that many HIV-positive
patients have experienced discrimination in getting treatment for HIV, and that such
racially and socioeconomically based discrimination was associated with higher rates of
depression and post-traumatic stress symptoms, greater severity of AIDS-related symptoms,
and lower perceived general health.90 However, too few studies have looked at this issue,
and existing studies are limited by small sample sizes, cross-sectional designs, and the use of
discrimination measures that have not been adequately evaluated.
To explore the health effects of perceived discrimination, studies need reliable and
valid measures that can be feasibly used in large-scale, population-based studies. Krieger et
al. set out to fill this gap by investigating the psychometric properties of a short self-report
instrument called the “Experiences of Discrimination” (EOD) measure.91 In this study, the
EOD was tested on a sample of black, Latino, and white adults in the Boston area. The
results yielded evidence in favor of the reliability and validity of the nine-item EOD scale
and showed that single-item discrimination measures were less reliable than, and had low
correlations with, multi-item measures. These findings provide support for use of the
EOD to assess perceived discrimination among African Americans and Latinos.
14
The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) surveys
are designed to assess patients’ health care experiences in a variety of settings.92 A six-item
measure of perceived discrimination adapted from items used in the Commonwealth Fund
2001 Health Care Quality Survey was evaluated as part of a field test of the CAHPS
American Indian survey conducted in 2005.93 Analyses were conducted to examine survey
response rates, items missing data, and the reliability and validity of the survey. The overall
survey findings are encouraging in terms of the quality of the data collected, and
psychometric analyses provided strong support for the reliability and validity of the survey,
but the discrimination items did not coalesce into a homogenous scale (item-scale
correlations tended to be low).94
Linguistic Competence
The National Center for Cultural Competence defines linguistic competence as:
The capacity of an organization and its personnel to communicate effectively,
and convey information in a manner that is easily understood by diverse
audiences including persons of limited English proficiency, those who have
low literacy skills or are not literate, and individuals with disabilities.95
Racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected by communication barriers
associated with LEP and low health literacy.
Health literacy. Healthy People 2010 defines health literacy as the “degree to which
individuals can obtain, process, and understand the basic health information and services
they need to make appropriate health decisions.”96 Health literacy is not limited to reading
and writing; it also includes speaking and listening skills. As such, people with low health
literacy tend to have problems with both written and oral communication.97
According to the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey, half of U.S. adults have
limited or low literacy skills.98 In a meta-analysis of studies on health literacy, Paasche-
Orlow et al. found that the prevalence of low and marginal health literacy was 46 percent.
Low health literacy was significantly associated with level of education, ethnicity, and age.99
Individuals with low health literacy are less likely than those with adequate health
literacy to understand their disease, possess skills to manage their own conditions, and use
preventive health care services.100 In addition, individuals with low health literacy have
lower rates of adherence to recommended treatments, are more prone to experience medication
errors, and are more likely to have poorer health status and worse health outcomes.101
15
The mechanisms by which poor health literacy affects health outcomes are not
clear.102 However, it is likely that poor patient–provider communication may be a
mediating factor. Research has generally found that individuals with low health literacy
have more difficulties understanding health information.103 Schillinger et al. found that,
compared with diabetic patients with adequate health literacy, diabetic patients with low
health literacy were more likely to report worse communication in the domains of general
clarity, explanation of conditions, and explanation of processes of care.104 Communication
barriers can affect all aspects of health care encounters, from history-taking to explaining
diagnoses and treatments.
Physicians’ use of medical terms and the speed with which they transmit
information may cause communication problems. Such problems may be exacerbated by
the fact that patients with low health literacy tend to have passive communication styles.105
Patients with low health literacy may be hesitant to disclose their problems to their
providers or unwilling to admit they do not understand their physicians. Furthermore,
they may lack the vocabulary to phrase their questions.106 Communication barriers may
arise when individuals with low health literacy attempt to understand medical forms and
instructions, which are usually written at high school reading level or higher.107 This
includes informed consent and insurance forms, prescription labels, and medication
package inserts.
Such communication problems may be exacerbated by the current health care
environment, in which physicians have little time for providing information or
explanations. Indeed, the American Medical Association concluded that “physicians are
not successful in communicating essential health care information to their patients,
particularly to those with inadequate health literacy.”108 Often, providers are unaware of
the communication needs of their patients and do not tailor their communication styles to
fit patients’ needs.109 Providers should be encouraged to look for clues of limited literacy
skills. For example, patients may make excuses to avoid reading something (e.g., they have
forgotten their reading glasses or will read it when they get home), fill out forms
incompletely or inaccurately, or bring family members along to office visits.110
Although educational level can be a marker for low literacy, it is not strongly
correlated with literacy skills.111 Therefore, it is recommended that providers formally
assess the health literacy of their patients. Common instruments to assess literacy levels
include the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine, the Test of Functional Health
Literacy in Adults (TOFHLA), a shortened version of TOFHLA, and the Wide Range
Achievement Test (WRAT).112 The only health literacy measure for Spanish-speaking
16
patients that has been evaluated psychometrically is the TOFHLA, and further research is
needed to evaluate the performance of the shortened version of TOFHLA among Spanish
speakers.113 Research is also needed to evaluate these health literacy assessments among
other non-English speakers, especially Asians.
Several strategies have been suggested as ways for providers to improve their oral
and written communication with patients who have low health literacy, as follows: 114
• Reduce the content of discussions to what patients really needs to know; for
example, discussing how to manage a chronic disease as opposed to the disease’s
pathophysiology.
• Avoid use of medical jargon and instead, use commonly understood words.
• Use audiovisual aids to supplement oral and written instructions, such as diagrams
and pictures or short audio or videotaped instructions.
• Include interactive instructions by making patients do, write, say, or show
something to demonstrate their understanding. For example, ask patients to “teach
back” by repeating or restating the instructions as the patient might tell a friend.
• Test the readability of educational materials. Write materials at a sixth-grade
reading level or lower.
• Pretest materials to evaluate whether they are suitable for the intended audience.
Most studies examining the effectiveness of such communication strategies have
focused on their impact on patients’ knowledge, health behavior, biochemical markers,
measures of disease incidence, and use of preventive services.115 To date there have been
no studies examining the impact of communication strategies on health care service use or
health outcomes. The authors’ literature review found only five studies that used a
controlled research design to assess the impact of communication strategies by literacy
level, and these were limited to studying knowledge outcomes. For example, Michielutte
et al. compared the effects on patients’ knowledge of an illustrated brochure on cervical
cancer and a brochure using bulleted text only. The study found that patients with low
health literacy scores understood the illustrated materials better than the text-only
version.116
Limited English proficiency. According to the 2000 census, approximately 47 million
people in the U.S. speak a language other than English at home and over 21 million are
limited English proficient (LEP)—the term used by the U.S. Department of Health and
17
Human Services Office of Civil Rights to refer to people that have poor or no English
skills.117 Previous research has shown that LEP patients have worse access to care and give
poorer ratings of their care than English-speaking patients.118 Strategies used to surmount
language barriers include: bilingual providers who are proficient in the patient’s language
(often referred to as language-concordant encounters); in-person, third-party
interpretation, using dedicated, trained professional interpreters or ad-hoc interpreters,
such as patient’s family members, friends, or clinic staff; and remote, third-party
interpretation using technology.119
A nationally representative survey in 2001 found that only 49 percent of Hispanic
adults who said they needed medical interpretation always or usually got an interpreter.120
Of those who used an interpreter, 55 percent of patients worked with an ad-hoc staff
interpreter, 43 percent relied on a family member or friend, and only 1 percent had a
trained, dedicated medical interpreter. A 2003 survey in California found that, among
non-English-speaking patients who did not have a doctor who spoke their native
language, most (56%) did not rely on interpreters but rather did “the best they can in
English.”121 Only 9 percent had professional interpreters, while 15 percent used ad-hoc
interpreters and 19 percent depended on family members or friends for translation.
Language-concordant encounters. Language-concordant encounters result in better
communication, interpersonal processes, and health outcomes than language-discordant
encounters. Bilingual providers who can speak directly to their patients may develop
better rapport with them.122 Seijo et al. found that Spanish-speaking patients who saw
bilingual physicians asked more questions and had greater information recall of their
physician’s diagnosis, treatment, and recommendations than Spanish-speaking patients
who saw a monolingual (English-speaking) physician.123 Wilson et al. found that, among a
multilingual population, LEP patients with language-discordant physicians were more
likely to report problems understanding a medical situation than LEP patients with
language-concordant physicians.124 Finally, Perez-Stable et al. found that patients with
diabetes and hypertension reported better health outcomes when their physician spoke
their native language.125 One limitation of these studies was that, when considering
language-discordant encounters, they did not differentiate between interpreted and noninterpreted
encounters.
Studies comparing language-concordant encounters with interpreted encounters
have shown that patients in language-concordant encounters have better experiences with
care. For example, studies indicate that language-concordant encounters can result in
patients having a better understanding of their condition.126 Compared with language18
concordant encounters, patients communicating through an interpreter rated their
providers as less friendly, less respectful, less concerned for them as a person, and less likely
to make them feel comfortable.127 These studies did not distinguish between the types of
interpreter services available.
Interpreter services. The limited supply of bilingual providers has led health care
organizations to use interpreter services to bridge language gaps. Research has shown that
language-discordant patients report better experiences with care in interpreted encounters
than in non-interpreted encounters. Work by Baker et al. found that interpreter use
among Spanish-speaking patients led to greater understanding of their disease and
treatment.128 Spanish-speaking patients who communicated directly with their providers
but thought an interpreter should have been called were less satisfied with their provider’s
friendliness, concern, efforts to make them feel comfortable, and the amount of time spent
with them, compared with patients who had language-concordant encounters and those
who used an interpreter.127
When examining the impact of language services, it is important to distinguish
between professional interpreters and ad-hoc interpreters. Availability of professional
interpreters may reduce barriers to care among LEP patients. Jacobs et al. found that
professional interpreter services offered by a managed care organization increased the use
of clinical and preventive services among Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking patients.129
Tocher and Larson reported that the quality of care for diabetic LEP patients was as good,
if not better, than for their English-speaking counterparts when professional interpreter
services were available.130 The availability of staff interpreters has been shown to improve
compliance with follow-up appointments and overall satisfaction.131
Several studies have found communication problems with the use of ad-hoc
interpreters. Although such interpreters are bilingual, they are not formally trained as
interpreters and may lack appropriate knowledge of health-related terminology. As a
result, patients may receive insufficient information about potential side effects and be less
satisfied generally with their care.132 Elderkin-Thompson et al. reported that translation
errors occurred frequently when untrained nurse interpreters were used—approximately
half of the encounters observed had serious miscommunication problems that affected the
physician’s understanding of the patient’s symptoms and concerns.133 Flores et al. found
that, compared with errors committed by professional interpreters, errors committed by
ad-hoc interpreters were more likely to be errors of clinical significance.134 Finally, several
studies in a variety of different settings found significantly higher quality of patient–
19
physician interactions when professional interpreters were used instead of ad-hoc medical
staff or patients’ friends or family members.135
In addition to the potential for the problems discussed above, use of family members
or friends as translators may result in them filtering information to reduce emotional
distress for the patients.136 Furthermore, relaying medical information can be burdensome
on family members or friends—particularly children—and may lead to patient dependency
and passivity.137 There may be certain advantages to using adult family members as
interpreters, including their ability to offer support, help remember details, encourage
adherence to treatment, and increase knowledge in the family.138 Some studies have found
similar levels of patient satisfaction with professional and family member/friend translators,
while other studies indicate that patients prefer professional interpreters.139
Professional interpreter services may be in-person or remote. Remote interpreter
services rely on telephones, video links, or other systems. Some remote interpreter services
offer simultaneous interpretation through wireless headsets, based on the model in use at
the United Nations. One limitation of remote systems is that the interpreter cannot
capture non-verbal communication cues.140 Studies contrasting in-person and remote
interpreter services have had mixed results. Kuo and Fagan found that patients using
professional in-person interpreters were more satisfied than those using telephone
interpreters.141 On the other hand, Hornberger et al. found that remote-simultaneous
interpretation was more accurate than in-person interpretation, and Spanish-speaking
parents reported a significant preference for this interpretation style.142 One limitation of
this study was that training was provided only to the remote-simultaneous interpreters and
not to the in-person interpreters.
There is wide variation in the quality of interpreter services. Interpretation should
include proficiency in both languages, mastery of medical terminology in both languages,
memory skills, ability to negotiate a three-way conversation, and basic knowledge of
cultural aspects that can influence health. Moreover, bilingual providers should be
proficient in the target language, including knowledge of medical terminology.143 There
are currently no minimum requirements for medical interpreter training programs, but the
National Council on Interpreting in Health Care recommends at least 40 hours of
instruction on medical terminology, interpreting skills, ethical issues, role playing, and
cultural awareness.144
20
DISCUSSION
Our review of the literature demonstrates the importance of culturally competent, patientcentered
care to patient satisfaction, adherence, and outcomes. From the patient’s
perspective, the patient–provider interaction is a key, if not the primary, component of
quality medical care.
Yet, multiple studies in multiple settings have found that racial/ethnic minority
patients as well as those with low socioeconomic status or LEP report worse experiences
of care, compared with whites, those with higher socioeconomic status, and English
speakers. The causes of these health disparities remain unclear: they may result from bias
on the part of the providers, differences in patients’ expectations, or miscommunication
across biomedical or cultural divides.145 Organizational factors—such as the lack of
continuous care and pressure on providers to work quickly—may further erode the quality
of patient–provider interactions. Indeed, research has suggested that the pressure on
providers to make decisions in short periods of time may contribute to stereotyping of
patients.146
Given current knowledge, how can we improve the cultural competency of
providers and organizations? Incorporating the patient’s perspective into current quality
improvement efforts is an important step. The authors have identified five domains of care
that are best identified and measured “through the patient’s eyes.”
Patient–provider communication can be affected by such factors as differences in verbal
and non-verbal communication styles and explanatory models of illness and disease. Some
disparities in use of provider services emerge after the patient gets to the provider (in the
context of patient–provider interaction) rather than just difficulties in getting to the
provider, demonstrating that patient–provider communication is not unidirectional: just as
providers can influence patient behaviors, patients can influence provider behavior. For
example, if clients consistently demonstrate an in-ability to understand provider
instructions, the provider must make an effort to modify the means used to communicate
these instructions, such as illustrations or the adoption of terms and phrases that are
commonly used by that client’s group.
In terms of shared decision-making and respect for patient preferences, the authors found
that: 1) patient-centered care requires effective patient–provider partnerships and shared
decision-making among clinicians, patients, and families; 2) providers should work with
patients to select interventions that reflect patients’ values, weighing available treatments
with patient preferences; and 3) shared decision-making is influenced by the unique
21
characteristics of providers and patients, though there is a dearth in the understanding of
how this plays out. Focused, formative research is needed to examine patient–provider
relationships. Then, outcome-based interventions are needed to evaluate findings from the
formative research process.
In terms of experiences leading to trust or distrust, the authors found that: 1) patients
consider their provider’s interpersonal characteristics essential to competent care and take
them into consideration when determining the quality of the care they receive; 2) shared
decision-making between patients and providers is unlikely to occur without mutual trust;
3) patient participation in care is associated with greater collaboration and increased
satisfaction on the part of patients; and 4) few studies have looked at the underlying causes
of patient dissatisfaction and distrust among racial and ethnic minorities. Studies examining
the factors that influence patient–provider relationships should be undertaken. In
particular, evidenced-based studies are needed to gauge the extent to which trust
influences patient–provider relationships.
In the fourth domain, experiences of discrimination, findings indicate that: 1) compared
with white patients, racial and ethnic minorities perceive more racism in the medical care
system, tend to be less satisfied with their health care, and have higher levels of distrust in
their health care providers; 2) the inequalities in access and availability of care among racial
and ethnic minorities have not been definitively explained; 3) further research on the role
of racial bias or discrimination in the practice and delivery of health care is needed; and 4)
reliable and valid measures that can be used in large-scale, population-based studies are
needed to understand the causes and health effects of perceived discrimination.
For the fifth domain of care, linguistic competency, the authors examined
communication strategies for individuals with LEP and low health literacy. They found
that: 1) low health literacy is an important communication barrier, especially among
racial/ethnic minorities; 2) low health literacy can have consequences for health care
utilization, adherence to medical regimens, and ultimately health outcomes; 3) there are
different strategies for providers to improve their oral and written communication with
low health literacy patients; and 4) providers must be cognizant of their patients’ health
literacy needs so they can adapt their communication styles.
With respect to LEP patients, the authors found that: 1) the majority of LEP
patients in the U.S. still lack access to language services; 2) access to language services can
help improve LEP patients’ experiences with and access to care; 3) language-concordant
encounters result in better communication, interpersonal processes, and outcomes than
22
language-discordant encounters; and 4) language concordance between patients and
providers, as well as interpreting by trained professionals, are the most effective strategies
for communicating with LEP patients.
IMPLICATIONS
It is important for all sectors of the health care system to continuously monitor their own
patient populations with regard to the five domains of culturally competent care. In
addition, evaluations of cultural competency should be incorporated at all levels of care.
This should include cultural competency training and assessment of all people who are the
points of contact for clients, such as front-desk staff, providers, and others. Obtaining
patients’ perspective will provide thorough and in-depth knowledge of how to make
improvements. It is also critical that providers seek to understand the community and
socio-cultural environments that influence patients’ beliefs about illness and disease, as well
as the values that patients assign to various elements of the health system.
Recommendations for Providers and Health Systems
Patient–provider communication. The authors recommend that health care providers
and health systems continually monitor their patient populations through quantitative and
qualitative data collection methods. Specifically, data collection should include patients’
race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and linguistic abilities. Intake forms should be
modified to include questions regarding health literacy, English proficiency, language
spoken at home, and use of complementary and alternative medical practices.
Shared decision-making and respect for patient preferences. Providers should work with
patients to select treatments that take into account patients’ health-related values, weighing
available treatment options and patient preferences. To do so, they should adopt strategies
to determine patients’ explanatory models of common diseases. The health system should
implement policies to democratize the decision-making process among patients, their
families, and providers. Policies should also recognize the rights of health consumers to use
community-based agencies and programs in addition to conventional medical facilities.
Experiences leading to trust or distrust. It is important to evaluate the factors that affect
patients’ trust in their providers. Such factors may differ by racial/ethnic populations as well
as socioeconomic and insurance status. Providers should seek to create open channels of
communication and empower patients to speak up about issues affecting their trust.
Experiences of discrimination. Providers must be aware that racial and ethnic minority
patients might perceive discrimination or bias in the health care system. Specific
23
complaints of discrimination should be investigated and structural, system-wide changes
and improvements should be sought. Patients should be given opportunities to voice their
concerns about discrimination. Providers and health systems should use a modified version
of the “Experiences of Discrimination” measure for quality improvement purposes.
Linguistic competence. Health plans and providers should assess the health literacy and
language needs of their patient population, and adopt strategies that will improve their
written and oral communication with patients. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of
Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and National Committee for Quality Assurance
(NCQA) should require hospitals and health plans to collect data on their patients’ health
literacy and English proficiency as part of the accreditation process. Patient assessments of
care such as the CAHPS surveys should include dimensions related to communication
barriers for patients with low health literacy and limited English proficiency. Policymakers
should make health literacy assessments available in languages other than English and Spanish.
Insurers and policymakers should offer incentives for health care providers to
create services that improve care for patients with low health literacy and/or limited
English proficiency. Providers and health care systems should avoid the use of ad-hoc
interpreters to communicate with LEP patients, and instead rely on trained bilingual staff
and professional interpreters. Health plans and providers must monitor and assess the
quality of interpreter services.
Finally, medical schools and other health professional schools should incorporate
issues pertaining to communication with patients who have low health literacy and/or
limited English proficiency into their curricula. Medical schools should seek to increase
recruitment and retention of bilingual students.
Recommendations for Applied Research
Patient–provider communication. Research is needed to examine factors that influence
patient–provider interactions among diverse racial/ethnic groups. Further research is
needed to investigate the roles that patient navigators/coaches, community health
workers, parish nurses, interpreters, and case managers might play in influencing patient–
provider communication.
Respect for patient preferences and shared decision-making. Research is needed to
investigate the association between patients and providers’ race/ethnicity and their
treatment preferences. It is also important to examine what happens when patients and
providers disagree on treatment options. More research is needed to determine how
24
patients’ disclosure of their use of complementary or alternative medicine affects patient–
provider interactions. Finally, research is needed to examine the use of lay health workers
or other “cultural communicators” as facilitators to enhance the shared decision-making
process and improve the desired outcomes of the encounter.
Experiences leading to trust or distrust. Further research is needed to understand why
some patients prefer to be race concordant with their providers, and to gauge the effects of
racial concordance on access to care, quality of care, and health outcomes. Research is also
needed to explore and understand the root causes of distrust in providers, particularly
among Latino and African American patients, for which studies conducted in different
health care settings have yielded contradictory results. Finally, there is a need to explore
whether differences in levels of trust of providers among racial and ethnic minorities,
compared with whites, result from past experiences with the medical system or varying
expectations.
Experiences of discrimination. More research is needed to determine the placement of
responsibility (e.g., on providers, staff, or others) for discrimination in health care settings
and the characteristics of patients or providers/staff members associated with incidents of
reported bias. In addition, understanding the consequences of perceived discrimination or
bias on health is an important next step for future research. It should be possible to modify
the “Experiences of Discrimination” measure to evaluate health encounters.
Linguistic competence. More research on the mechanisms through which low health
literacy and limited English proficiency may affect health outcomes is needed. It is also
important to consider the implications for the health care system of patients who have
both low health literacy and limited English proficiency.
Further research is also needed to assess the impact of various communication
strategies on low health literacy patients, considering effects on health-related knowledge,
compliance with care regimens, and health outcomes. It is also important to examine the
reliability and validity of health literacy assessments that have been translated into
languages other than English.
For patients with limited English proficiency, it is important to evaluate various
translation methods, for example considering the cost-effectiveness of remote versus inperson
professional interpreter services or the appropriateness of using family members as
interpreters.
25
Incorporating Patients’ Perspectives of Cultural Competence into
Quality Measures
To measure and improve care, it will be important to incorporate patients’ perspectives of
cultural competence into existing measures of health care quality. In October 2005,
NCQA and U.S. News & World Report collaborated to rank hundreds of commercial,
Medicare, and Medicaid health plans.147 The NCQA is a private, nonprofit organization
that accredits and certifies a range of health care organizations. NCQA’s accreditation
program is voluntary; participating health plans submit information about member
satisfaction and clinical performance. Two of the five areas used to rank health plans were
access to care and communication with doctors. “Access to care” takes into account
patients’ reports of their experiences with getting needed care, getting care quickly, and
health plan customer service. “Communication with doctors” includes patients’ perceptions
on how well doctors communicate, as well as patient ratings of their personal doctor or
nurse, the specialist seen most often, and the overall health care received. These areas were
assessed using the CAHPS health plan survey version 3.0.
It would be possible to include additional survey questions to assess a health plan’s
cultural competency, at least from the patient’s perspective. For example, the authors
recommend that all health plans, including Medicare and Medicaid plans, routinely collect
the following socio-demographic data from their members: 1) race and ethnicity;
2) education; 3) preferred language; 4) English-language proficiency; 5) health literacy
level; and 6) acculturation level, or degree of assimilation to mainstream American culture.
It would also be important to ask patients about the race/ethnicity of their personal doctor
or nurse and the language spoken during most health encounters. For patients with limited
English proficiency, additional questions could be asked about the language services
available to them and about the quality of interpreter services. Furthermore, patients could
be asked whether they share in the decision-making process with their providers, given
the importance this holds for their adherence to recommended treatments. Given the
widespread use of CAM among all population groups, including whites, it is also
important to determine if providers are asking patients about their use of CAM. Additional
questions about trust and discrimination would provide understanding about patients’
experiences in these areas. Table 1 shows the cultural competency domains discussed in this
report and indicates whether there are existing CAHPS survey questions to solicit patients’
perspectives on these domains of care.
26
Table 1. Comparisons of Diverse Patients’ Health Care Experiences and
Quality of Care Domains Covered by the CAHPS Instruments*
Quality Domains
Diverse Patients’
Health Care Experiences
CAHPS
Questions
Patient–Provider Communication
􀂾 How Well Providers
Communicate
􀂾 How Well Providers
Understand and Respect
Patients’ Explanatory Models
of Illness and Disease
• Providers listen carefully.
• Providers explain things in a way
that is easy to understand.
• Providers spend enough time.
• Providers discuss patients’ health
beliefs and practices in a nonjudgmental
manner.
• Providers can communicate about
non-conventional or complementary
and alternative medical practices.
• Providers find common ground
between biomedical view of disease
and patients’ perspectives on their
illness.
YES
YES
YES
NO
NO
NO
Respect for Patients Preferences/
Shared Decision-Making
• Providers and staff show respect and
treat patients with dignity.
• Providers and staff display empathy
and show emotional support.
• Providers discuss pros and cons of
treatment options.
• Providers allow patients and family to
have a voice in treatment decisionmaking.
YES
NO
YES
YES
Experiences Leading to Patient
Trust or Distrust in Health Care
Systems and/or Providers
• Health Care staff treated patients in a
way that led to distrust.
• Providers treated patients in a way
that led to distrust.
• Patient had experiences with denial of
services that led to distrust.
• Patient had experiences with denial of
payment that led to distrust.
NO
NO
NO
NO
Experiences of Discrimination • Providers or staff treated patients with
disrespect because of patients’
racial/ethnic backgrounds.
• Providers or staff treated patients with
disrespect because of patients’
insurance status.
• Providers or staff treated patients with
disrespect because of patients’ ability
to speak English.
NO
NO
NO
27
Quality Domains
Diverse Patients’
Health Care Experiences
CAHPS
Questions
Linguistic Competence
􀂾 Effective Communication for
Individuals Who Have Low
Health Literacy Skills
􀂾 Effective Communication for
Individuals Who Have
Limited English Proficiency
• Providers and staff use plain language
and not medical jargon.
• Providers and staff provide written
health-related information that is easy
to understand.
• Providers and staff provide nonwritten
patient education materials
such as pictures, models, and
videotapes.
• Providers and staff give patients small
amount of information and repeat
information until patients understand.
• Providers and staff make patients feel
comfortable asking questions and
allow time for questions.
• Patients are able to make
appointments using the language they
are most comfortable with.
• Patients have access to professional,
culturally appropriate interpreters at
the time of visit.
• Interpreters are available at the
appropriate time and spend enough
time as needed.
• Gender-concordant interpreters are
available for sensitive issues.
• Interpreters provide accurate and
complete translations.
• Interpreters treat patients with
courtesy and respect.
• Written and non-written healthrelated
information is provided in the
patients’ native language.
NO
YES
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
* Some CAHPS surveys may include questions that partially cover these domains. Domains that are not covered, or
have limited coverage, have been designated as “NO.”
In collecting such data, it would be important for health plans to address any
methodological issues inherent in the survey design and sampling process. Often, problems
with data collection processes lead to under-representation of low-income, LEP, and low
health literacy patients, resulting in a sample skewed toward populations with higher
socioeconomic status—excluding patients who are most at risk.148
28
Efforts such as the collaboration between the NCQA and U.S. News and World
Report are important ways to give health consumers more information about health care
quality. The authors recommend going a step further to include patient reports and ratings
that will enable evaluations of the cultural and linguistic abilities of a health plan and its
providers. Improving patient–provider communication, shared decision-making, and trust
are quality issues that affect all patients—not just racial/ethnic minorities or patients with
low socioeconomic status. However, the lack of patient-centered care may affect certain
vulnerable populations disproportionately. Incorporating patients’ views on cultural
competency and linguistic services into current quality measures will provide important
information and give health plans and providers opportunities for improvement.
29
NOTES
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40
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The Role and Relationship of Cultural Competence and Patient-Centeredness in Health Care Quality
(October 2006). Mary Catherine Beach, Somnath Saha, and Lisa A. Cooper.
Improving Quality and Achieving Equity: The Role of Cultural Competence in Reducing Racial and Ethnic
Disparities in Health Care (October 2006). Joseph R. Betancourt.
The Evidence Base for Cultural and Linguistic Competency in Health Care (October 2006). Tawara D.
Goode, M. Clare Dunne, and Suzanne M. Bronheim.
Taking Cultural Competency from Theory to Action (October 2006). Ellen Wu and Martin Martinez.
Obtaining Data on Patient Race, Ethnicity, and Primary Language in Health Care Organizations: Current
Challenges and Proposed Solutions (August 2006). Romana Hasnain-Wynia and David W. Baker.
Health Services Research, vol. 41, no. 4, pt. 1 (In the Literature summary).
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Weissman, Joseph R. Betancourt, Eric G. Campbell et al. Journal of the American Medical Association,
vol. 294, no. 9 (In the Literature summary).
Providing Language Services in Small Health Care Provider Settings: Examples from the Field (April 2005).
Mara Youdelman and Jane Perkins.
Who, When, and How: The Current State of Race, Ethnicity, and Primary Language Data Collection in
Hospitals (May 2004). Romana Hasnain-Wynia, Debra Pierce, and Mary A. Pittman.
Insurance, Access, and Quality of Care Among Hispanic Populations (October 2003). Michelle M. Doty.
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Mara Youdelman and Jane Perkins.

How does genetics apply in health and disease?

6203NATSCI Applications of Genetics in Health and Disease Practical 1

Today we are going to begin the procedure of using DNA sequencing to profile the bacteria present on your phones. To do this we will firstly swab the bacteria from your phone then we will extract DNA from the bacteria and then finally set up a PCR to amplify bacteria using the 16SrRNA gene (which is routinely used to identify bacteria to species).

You will work in pairs. So decide 1) whose phone you want to swab and 2) whose phone you want to put on agar to see what bacteria grow. The only purpose of putting the phone on LB agar is just to see what bacteria will grow and not for identification. I will take pictures of the bacteria colonies growing on the agar and put them on Canvas later in the week.

At any point if you don’t understand what is a spin column or Eppendorf or collection tube etc. I’ve put pictures at the back of this document.

  1. To swab bacteria of phone:

PUT ON A LAB COAT AND PUT ON SOME GLOVES!

  1. Take your swab and dip it in the sterile water and swab the face of your phone for 2 minutes.
  2. Add 20 µl of PROTEINASE K and 180 µl DIGESTION SOLUTION (Buffer ATL) to a 1.5 ml Eppendorf tube.
  3. Swirl the swab in the solution in the 1.5 ml Eppendorf tube for 2 minutes.
  4. Cut off the swab tip (with scissors) and leave in the liquid.
  5. To extract DNA from your swab:
  6. Close the tube lid and incubate at 56⁰C for 10 mins on heating block/water bath.
  7. Remove swab tip, squeeze out as much liquid as possible and dispose of swab.
  8. Add 200 µl of LYSIS SOLUTION (Buffer AL). Mix thoroughly by vortexing to obtain a uniform suspension.
  9. Add 400 µl of 100% ETHANOL and mix by vortexing. Transfer the prepared lysate to a DNA purification Column (see pictures last page!) inserted in a collection tube. Centrifuge the column for 1 min at 8,000 rpm. IT IS IMPORTANT THAT WHEN YOU CENTRIFUGE YOU DO IT WITH ANOTHER GROUP AS THE CENTRIFUGE MUST BE CORRECTELY BALANCED!
  10. Discard the collection tube containing the flow-through solution. Place the DNA Purification Column into a new 2 ml collection tube.
  11. Add 500 µl of WASH BUFFER 1 (AW1) to the DNA Purification Column. Centrifuge for 1 min at 10,000 rpm. Discard the flow-through and place the purification column back into the collection tube.
  12. Add 500 µl of WASH BUFFER 2 (AW2) to the DNA Purification Column. Centrifuge for 3 mins at maximum speed (13,000 rpm).
  13. Discard the collection tube containing the flow-through solution and transfer the DNA Purification Column to a sterile 1.5 ml Eppendorf tube and chop lid off with scissors.
  14. Add 50 µl of ELUTION BUFFER (Buffer AE) to the center of the DNA Purification Column membrane to elute genomic DNA. Incubate for 2 min at room temperature and centrifuge for 1 min at 10,000 rpm.
  15. Your bacterial DNA is now at the bottom of the 1.5 ml Eppendorf tube so you can throw away the purification column and progress to PCR.
  16. To set up PCR of bacterial 16SrRNA gene

We are going to set up two PCR reactions. One will contain the bacterial DNA you just extracted and the other will contain no DNA, just water (negative control), and will check whether you have contaminated your reagents with bacteria during the DNA extraction process!

The first thing to do is take 2 PCR tubes. They have already been labelled with a number (that’s your group) and on the side one tube is called “+ve” and the other “-ve” corresponding to the tube that has bacterial DNA (+ve) in it and the other which has just water (-ve).

To each of the tubes you need to add the following:

PCR Master Mix:                                                         13 µl

Forward Primer called 27F:                                        2 µl

Reverse Primer called 1492R:                                    2 µl

DNA that you extracted (or water if –ve control):     2 µl

Water:                                                                         6 µl

PLEASE REMEMBER: The negative control will have all the reagents added but NO DNA and 2 µl of water added instead!

FYI: Forward primer contains the DNA sequence: 5’-AGAGTTTGATCMTGGCTCAG-3’

Reverse primer contains the DNA sequence: 5’-TACGGYTACCTTGTTACGACTT-3’, both are at concentration of 10 µM.

Once you have added the ingredients to each tube please put the lid on each, label with your initials and give them to Robbie. This is the end of Practical 1 and (fingers crossed!) you have managed to successfully extract DNA from your bacteria!

The next stage is to run the PCR which I will carry out. The conditions are as follows (if interested):

3 mins at 95⁰C

15 seconds at 95⁰C

35 cycles

30 seconds at 55⁰C

1.5 mins at 72⁰C

8 mins at 72⁰C

Finish at 16⁰C

Has my PCR worked? In order to understand this we have to run a gel. I will do this before the next practical and put the images up on canvas. If it has worked then we will proceed to the next stage which is cloning the PCR product and then heat shocking the bacteria into E. coli (see Prac 2).

Historical Misrepresentation of Voodoo in Hollywood:So what is voodoo?

ENG 450

11/15/19

Historical Misrepresentation of Voodoo in Hollywood

Abstract

People often think they know what voodoo involves. Like me, most people relate it to spells, dolls, potions, and magic. Voodoo has been grossly misrepresented in the media leading people to be fascinated with it today. Going on with my research, my goal is to ultimately find how it evolved as a religion and came to New Orleans and became what it is today. Additionally, I will be hitting points on the history and the religion of voodoo and stereotypes Hollywood has presented to the world.

So what is voodoo? It’s been practiced in different places of the world like Africa and the Caribbean, mainly in Haiti. It is supposed to be a mixture of different traditions like those of the catholic, African, and Native American religions. It mostly community-centered and supports individual empowerment and has little to do with dolls and zombies.(Voodoo 2.0) It has developed into people believing it to only being a spiritual possession practice. Due to Hollywood’s films and shows today, its led people to view it as something scary and dangerous. Movies like Disney’s Princess and the Frog has even led children to believe it is all bad magic. Furthermore, my intention for this research paper will be to answer the questions I have came across in my research and to hopefully help clarify the stereotypes that films have led people to believe in.

 

Introduction

Voodoo, a folk religion of the Haitians, has over the history of Hollywood been misrepresented through the development of cinematic. A study of the indigenous tradition reveals that the current understanding is laced with massive misconceptions and ill-formed depictions. In essence the culture is now associated with witchcraft, barbaric sacrifice and Satanism. The popularity of voodoo in western culture first took effect in the 18th century. However, it is important to understand that initially, the tradition is indeed a spiritual practice that was essentially a mechanism of unity that brought about independence in the Caribbean’s through the Haitian revolution. This paper explores how voodoo has been misrepresented in the western culture while at the same time depicting the essence of voodoo as a product of transnationalism.  Also the paper will demonstrate how the voodoo culture has impacted the inhabitants of New Orleans through history. Ultimately the essay will be the explanation of rediscovering voodoo as one of the most misunderstood religions in the world.  Contemporary images of voodoo in the film industry portrays it as black magic with stereotypes comprising of general physical, emotional and cultural practices. In other cases voodoo has been symbolically used to pass across various social and political undertakings that were perpetrated by western sumpremacists.

Existing Scholarship On Voodoo

            The origin of voodoo is believed to be West Africa with the traditional practices being originally African before the arrival of the Europeans. Once the French explorers enslaved the Africans, transporting them to the shore of Domingues, they attempted to replace the tradition with Christianity. However, the slaves progressed with the practice under the disguise of Catholicism. In this regard as opposed to the popular belief that voodoo is black magic and pagan cult, the tradition is indeed a religion that originated from Africa and is regarded as a way of life and mode of survival.  Those who practice voodoo attest of its potency to heal various maladies including both historical and social-economical misfortunes.

Following the Haitian Revolution, the reign of horrific reign of the French came to an end. However, the population continues to suffer from ill-treatment of the following rule of dictators being subjected to both environmental and economic exploitation. Therefore, the poor and oppressed invoked the voodoo spirits for guidance and salvation to withstand the medical, economic and social-political maladies. In return the spirits required a sacrifice which could be in the form of a simple act such as lighting a candle. However for more severe problems, the people would conduct a more intricate sacrifice for several spirits including animal sacrifice, dancing and even drumming. Mostly, the voodoo tradition was democratic and functional incorporating allowing both women and men to assume the roles of leadership. Also, the authority of the priests and priestesses is limited to the people who voluntarily submit to the initiation to the tradition. Voodoo in present-day Hollywood demonstrates negative US cultural discourse with little or no scholarship on nature and scope.

Misrepresentation of voodoo in literature film and television

The voodoo rituals were meant to demonstrate the interconnection between humans, nature and the spiritual world. However, following colonialism and introduction of Christianity, the harmonic balance between humans and nature was destroyed by the introduction of destructive human practices. Still voodoo culture insisted on the sacredness of nature that provided a conscious approach to the natural world. Additionally in voodoo culture it was believed that after death, the remains of the people remains trapped in the world and it requires the priest to carry out the purification process that that releases the body from the waters. In this regard the voodoo culture promoted intricate engagement with nature unlike how it is portrayed in Hollywood today.

An evaluation of the appearance of voodoo in film, television and literature in the western world indicates several misconceptions about the religion. Referring to H.P. Lovecraft’s story a tale ‘‘The Call of Cthulhu.’’  Is developed describing the cult of Cthulhu. From the description, a horrific mystery is told of the cult and the statue of Cthulhu that was based on one of the blackest of the African voodoo circles (Mcgee 241). From the story the initiates of the cult are portrayed as men who are ignorant, degraded, mentally aberrant who are either Negroes or mulattos.  Further the literature continues to describe their rite as primitive and connected to satanic motives.  For instance, he states that the beings were making sounds, writhing around a bonfire devoid of clothes. In the middle of the bonfire stands a great monstrous statue with bodies of marred and mutilated bodies around (Mcgee 241). The essence of this representation is that Lovecraft draws a connection between voodoo and Satanism.

Additionally, contrary to the actual nature of voodoo, the story also draws a connection between mental inferiority of blacks and mixed-race groups to the belief in voodoo. The religion is portrayed as emanating from diseased, inferior and primitive people. More so the general perception is that voodoo is a mere superstition that is merely suited for the inferior. Similarly from the Lovecraft story one can perceive the connection between voodoo, violence and base sexuality (Mcgee 242). For instance from the rite described, naked people dance and jump around a bonfire of their aimed fellow victims.

Association of zombies with voodoo tradition

Zombies are a minor concept in the Haitian voodoo tradition.  The history of the zombies is based on a combination of political historical and cultural environment. considering that Haiti is a land characterized of hybridity following infusion of Christian religion into a culture that already had exotic mystic values the resulting religion became the voodoo culture.  this culture has since the beginning been maligned and misunderstood as a culture that is associated with death and the spiritual world incorporating the use of dolls, voodoo dolls, charms and most importantly the zombies. The concept of the zombies has struck the westerners with fear and fascination resulting in the what is seen as popularity of the zombies in the Hollywood cinema.

With regard to this tradition zombies referred to dead bodies that have been captured either in the form of the body or soul by a sorcerer who then becomes the master of the zombie. In ancient voodoo cultures, the zombies were used to work in the fields tilling land and harvesting crops and all the other work that was designated for slaves. Similarly the zombies were believed to be sent in the form of spirits to drive other victims of the master mad. From this idea of zombies, several theories have been developed towards the meaning and existence of zombies. Inspired by the voodoo idea of the zombies Hollywood film industry has created films that have propagated voodoo culture into international fame. The first film that featured voodoo culture White Zombie (1932) integrated the concept of using a particular tonic that led to creation of enslaved men who worked in a sugar mill (Gelder 91).

Zombie films that were created after White Zombie (1932) focused on the idea of sexualized females. Afterwards, the concept shifted towards creating zombies by the use of biochemical means. With later developments, the concept of zombies changed without incorporating any essence of voodoo culture. Instead, zombies are only created by the use of contagion, disease, isolation and most importantly unregulated science. Additionally the ideas of zombies in the recent movies codes the zombies a distinctly black bringing the question of the person behind the object of aggression. The erotic appeal of the zombies was lost in the 1970s with the creation of the La Rebellion de las Muertas (1973).

Following the popularity of the first horror movie, Hollywood became interested in identifying the next monster to be portrayed in the screens. According to Bishop (141) filmmakers considered the exotic literature of the Caribbean’s that led them not only o the Caribbean’s but to the island of Haiti where they identified powerful voodoo spirits. They became interested in the exotic African mysticism that enabled priests to kill their enemies and then convert them to mindless servants. This concept acquired many people’s interests and therefore led to invention of the notion of the zombie. Initially in the very first movie based on this discovery, White Zombie was based on the exotic setting of Haiti portraying the primitive stereotypes of the natives and at the same time accentuating the superiority of the western imperialists. Similarly apart from the voodoo culture the film focuses on the portrayal of the post colonial society depicting the danger of the white protagonists becoming zombies in themselves. in essence the films present the horror of the westerners being colonized by the pagans through domination of Hollywood cinema by voodoo zombie culture. all in all, the white Zombie sets the pace for the negative stereotyping of Hollywood cinema propagating the imperialist paradigms of the west and negatively portraying race differences and class struggle of the natives (Gelder 91).

Films like the white zombie did not only exploit the nature of the exotic natives but also focused on the ancient lands that comprised of castes and mysterious figures. In this regard the setting and tone the ancient zombie movies is based on the gothic style. However, been though the real action occurs in the Caribbean’s it is evident that they depict more of the western world. In this regard the zombie horror movies are a blend of the Caribbean’s and the west and not entirely exotic. One feature that is not represented in Hollywood film is the main intention of creation of the zombie. In deed the Haitians would strip off a pagan off their will and subject them to the pagan authority leading to loss of autonomy and control. Therefore, this would be one of the post colonial terrors that this native culture would pose to any invading culture. in essence zombie culture was a manifestation of the superiority of a liberated colony hat would use fear to scare off any invading cultures (Bishop 147). However, the cinematic versions of portrayal of zombies only indicate of the master-slave relationship and the nature of colonialism.

Hollywood has  recreated and misused the concept of zombies in what is seen as imperialist hegemonic model (Bishop 147) the outcome is the portrayal that the people in power can at will enslave  others who are in this case considered to be the slaves. This is a reflection of how the colonialists exerted control on their slaves just as the zombies were commanded by their voodoo masters. In essence, the Zombie provides a retaliation ground enabling the oppressed to oppress the oppressor therefore threatening the western imperialists. Additionally the making of a zombie can be seen as backwardness and uncivilization which is utterly exaggerated in the Hollywood films. One of the misrepresentation in the films is that there s no attempt to civilize the zombies and improve their place in the society unlike in the actual ground where the French missionaries attempted to educate and marginalize the natives of the Caribbean’s. although the first zombie film is direct and melodramatic, it intricately portrays a different time which is the early 20th century which s concurrent with the end of occupation of Haiti by the united states (Bishop 148). one clear depiction is that westerners do not subscribe to any beliefs of the local superstition and are only interested in understanding them and exploiting their backwardness for entertainment purposes. The films also portray the white westerners as superiors to the Haitians in all levels such as wealth class and even enlightenment.

Rebellion as a connection of voodoo with Satanism

Haiti being among the first independent nations is known to have a violent and complex history that incorporates people from three main sources, the natives, slaves from Africa  and European imperialists. In essence as the African slaves outnumbered the imperialists a revolt ensued that was based on voodoo celebrations.  Following the invasion by the united states marines who intended to modernize the island, the voodoo rituals and zombie culture was discovered. Meanwhile the voodoo culture continued to be enriched by the influx of the Africans who were transported from west Africa who were more conversant with the rites and practices. As a result voodoo acquired more part of the Haiti culture. additionally, the growth of the culture was based on the absence of influence from the colonialists. As the west continues to discover the voodoo culture the adoption into entertainment was inevitable as in deemed to be fascinating to the western audiences. However, considering that the first audiences of this cinema would be the westerners it was adopted in such a way that it would suit their beliefs. therefore, the Hollywood entertainment does not entirely demonstrate the native voodoo and pagan ritual practices rather it is developed using the imperialist superiority concept that would suit the believes of the west n the 20th century (Bishop 147).

Most of Hollywood films have feature voodoo culture integrate violent scenes which bring about the essence of Satanism in the culture. In essence, in Haitian culture, the violence was a way of defending their environment from encroachment by foreigners. However, the portrayal of violence in Hollywood films depicts demonic association which is only an imaginary form of voodoo. In connection with rebellion, the Hollywood popular culture has for a long time portrayed voodoo as black magic that is based on African magic characterized with casting spells and placing hexes on individuals who have opposed belonging to the religion (Bartkowski 559).

Princes and The Frog Representation of Voodoo

Among the most popular cultures in the Hollywood recently is the Disney movie. However, contrary to the earlier notion of Disney princesses, the films have incorporated voodoo tradition while depicting dynamic Disney princesses. However the main misrepresenting of facts of voodoo is the portrayal that is only one culture that incorporates the aspects of devil worship. The complexity of the religion is neglected through portrayal of worship of snakes. Additionally, voodoo is mixed up with other traditions such as Christianity. However in princess and the frog voodoo is not shown to be an entirely negative religion, some good is associated with practice of the religion such as acquisition of power.  Therefore, the true meaning of voodoo s blurred through incorporation in the Disney princess movies. All in all it is depicted as only a funny religion that allows the practice of black magic to give people powers.

Movement 3: complications/ rebuttals

In line with the claims that voodoo culture is not based on violence the review of the issues of ethnicity in Haiti reveal that the culture indeed articulates charm that were violent and fatal in nature. In 1804 following the expulsion of the French colonialists in Haiti, the black leader declared the land to be a black republic. According to the constitution that was ratified soon afterwards it was declared that no white man was allowed to set foot in the country as a master or owner of any property. The violence was extended to the Haitian Mullatos who were considered inferior to the blacks.

A study of Haitian culture describes it as one of the richest cultures in the world. In essence Haitians may be considered poor but the voodoo culture makes them unique. Although the western world may be considered to be civilized it is noteworthy that the voodoo culture is an essential culture that holds the entire community together, for instance taking account of the dance, the Haitian voodoo culture can be perceived as a sacred practice. Although considered to be primitive by many, the owners pride in its participation. The tradition is recognized in terms of ethnicity and at the same time the community does not acknowledge hybridity. This means that the ethnicity gives it a sense of belonging. While the Hollywood representation may try to indicate modernity, Haiti continues to be presented as a fatal and promiscuous place in that it has held the practices while the rest of the world has revolutionalized. On the contrary the representation of voodoo in Hollywood may be an attempt to indicate the presence of indigenous culture. However, the changes that have been enacted replace some of the original features of the culture that lead to disorientation of the meaning and deviation from the actual reality of how the traditions were practiced. For instance, voodoo culture was originally practiced by black Haitians but in Hollywood films it has been replaced by white men characters. Being a pragmatic religion, it is evident that voodoo beliefs and ritual practices are a relation of reverence of nature, natural spirits and forces associated with fire and water (Bartkowski 560). However, following colonialism there were massive changes on the ecotheological practices of the religion culminating in ease of dispersion and adoption by the western world.

Criminalization of voodoo

Although western film, television and literature have focused on the use of voodoo to appeal to the popular culture, it has at the same time neglected some of the features of the culture that define its originality. However, Hollywood has also challenged some of the stereotypes that have been set by the same culture. For instance it has challenged the issue of criminalization of voodoo depicting some of the primitive reasons that were perpetrated by the culture. In the same way it has challenged some of the racial anxieties that have been brought forward by the initial initiates of the culture. Imminently religious scholars and spiritual leaders have attempted to erase some of the negative beliefs through public image but it is evident that both imaginary voodoo and original voodoo have become intertwined and have gained international popularity. In this regard, it is expected that the beliefs and traditions portrayed in the media will continue t evolve with new discoveries and adjustments while in essence the original traditions will continue to be practiced by followers of the religion.

Parallel to the notion that voodoo is dangerous; the religion can actually be perceived as a way in which the natives used to resists the gendered and racialized violence that was perpetrated mainly by the colonialists. Just as in Coven, the role of the belief system of voodoo was to make sense of experiences that the people of Haiti and the slaves who were brought from Africa a reality (O’Reilly 36). Various adoption of this religion have been aimed at ensuring that that the practices are used as sites of resistance towards racial violence. Just as voodoo for the Haiti was a means of overcoming oppression, magic for films such as coven have been used to document historical moments and at the same time challenge white supremacy. This way voodoo is given social significance as the characters use it to bring about justice. However, although the traditional re given sensationalizations, it is evident that various misconceptions of the religions are used to bring about derogatory representations of voodoo (O’Reilly 36).

Voodoo not black magic but is an actual religion

Ethnographical study of the Haitian culture reveals that contrary to the black magic stereotypes, the religion is actually based on moral beliefs that the followers have to adhere to. additionally, the belies are in harmony with the gods and, therefore, they facilitate spiritual physical and emotional wellbeing of those that practice the religion. Many scholars including Melville J. Herskovits have refuted the inclusion of the tradition as witchcraft citing the ethnographic characteristics (Middleton 158). She describes the tradition as a practice in which the gods are well known to their worshippers. Additionally, the duties that are owed to the gods are well understood and are fulfilled in a systematic and orderly manner using rituals and rites. In return when the rituals are practiced properly the worshippers acquire benefits such as god harvest, goodwill with other men and good health. n some cases voodoo is considered as the cause of Haiti’s impoverishment (McGee 231).  This notion has however been created for a long time through the imagination. This development is brought about by the blend of Haitian voodoo and imagined voodoo that has resulted in the alteration of the real essence and cultural importance of the religion.

In essence, Herskovits’s has also demonstrated that voodoo is considered as a religion in that takes into account the holistic health of the followers considering the spiritual and physical condition of the people (Middleton 160). The importance of this religion is documented in various medical records of death caused by black magic.  Hollywood media has not focused on the representation of importance of voodoo and the ethnomedical practices. While these practices are important in the western world due to the spiritual and historical roles that they play, they have been adamantly been defined as mere superstitions disregarding their utmost importance.

A study of voodoo reveals the feature of pharmacosm indicating the power to both heal and harm the users. However, the voodoo is only demonstrated as evil and primitive with the health reveals being neglected. Additionally voodoo is considered to be crude neglecting the need for animal sacrifice for both physical and spiritual illnesses. Considering that the traditions arose from the beliefs and practices of the enslaved people, their masters were not interested in the slaves’ wellbeing but their capacity to provide labor (Middleton 160). Knowledge of voodoo medicine placed the slaves at the top of the social hierarchy conferring prestige and power to the slaves. Those with the voodoo knowledge were allowed to serve others and therefore would practice medicine under their masters conjuring prescriptions for various illnesses exchanged for coins and brass amulets. In addition to conjure medicine the slave healers would engage in other powerful rituals performed in peculiar circumstances. Although the voodoo has had massive impact in the mainstream medicine, it has not been adequately explored in the Hollywood representation. Similarly the benefits of faith communities in Haiti have been left out in the exploration and adoption of the voodoo culture (Middleton 165). contrary to the superficial representation of voodoo culture the entertainment industry does not dwell on the historical, medical and cultural perspective of the traditions pointing out the benefits of the religions to the users rather it focuses on the superstitious nature of the religion and the hams it could cause to the people..

Conclusion

Too many voodoo is a dangerous practice that threatens the lives of those who practice as well as those who do not subscribe to the beliefs.  this is the belief that has been propagated by the mainstream media. Most of the horror and zombie films have borrowed their concepts from the voodoo culture but in so doing the concepts are selectively applied to indicate the dark side of voodoo that incorporates the use of charms, rituals and violence as well as primitive rites against those that do not subscribe to the beliefs of the religion. However, the authenticity and legitimacy of the religion have been neglected in the description resulting in what is seen as selective understanding of the true essence of the religion. More so this notion negatively paints the religion indicating it as dark, primitive and laced with racialized violence.  For this reasons the work that is left to be done includes further study by ethnographic scholars to acquire a full understanding of the religion. The context cultural, historical and social understanding of the tradition ought to be properly studied and documented.  This will play a major role promoting the understanding of the religion as well as promoting the cultural essence and importance of the religion in the whole world. Most importantly, promoting the authenticity will preserve the culture considering that it is under ecological attack threatening its extinction. An understanding of the religion will also reduce the misrepresentation of the culture in the entertainment industry. Since the topic of voodoo representation has received little scholarly attention, it will be essential to study the essence of enduring appeal of voodoo in the popular culture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Bishop, Kyle. “The sub-subaltern monster: imperialist hegemony and the cinematic voodoo zombie.” The Journal of American Culture 31.2 (2008): 141-152.

Bartkowski, J. P. (1998). Claims-making and typifications of voodoo as a deviant religion: Hex, lies, and videotape. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 559-579.

Gelder, K. (2000). Postcolonial voodoo. postcolonial studies: culture, politics, economy, 3(1), 89-98.

King, A. K. (2017). A Monstrous (Ly-Feminine) Whiteness: gender, genre, and the abject Horror of the past in American Horror Story: Coven. Women’s Studies, 46(6), 557-573.

McGee, Adam M. “Haitian Vodou and voodoo: Imagined religion and popular culture.” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 41.2 (2012): 231-256.https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/amcgee/files/mcgee-vodou_and_voodoo_in_sr.pdf.

Middleton, B. (2016). Two-headed medicine: Hoodoo workers, conjure doctors, and Zora Neale Hurston. The Southern Quarterly, 53(3), 156-175.

O’Reilly, J. (2019). ‘We’re more than just pins and dolls and seeing the future in chicken parts’: race, magic and religion in American Horror Story: Coven. European Journal of American Culture, 38(1), 29-41.

Roberts, K. (2018). The secret and irreligious doctrines of voodooism: institutionalization versus cultural stigma in New Orleans civil court. Journal of Church and State, 60(4), 661-680.

Weber, A. S. (2018). Haitian vodou and ecotheology. The Ecumenical Review, 70(4), 679-694

Oh, My Pop Culture Voodoo: <em>The Princess and the Frog</em>