From Khatami to Khatami
Sam Ghandchi
http://www.ghandchi.com/4551-az-khatami-taa-khatami-english.htm

از خاتمی تا خاتمی

http://www.ghandchi.com/4551-az-khatami-taa-khatami.htm

This quote from Karl Marx comes up a lot when he writes: "Hegel states somewhere that all the great events and figures of the historical world appear twice. He forgets to add that: the first time as a tragedy, the second time as a comedy show"! The fact is that we don't know how history will go and we only know about past events and of course many of those events may or may not be lessons for the future! In the past 45 years, there has been a personality in the world of Iranian politics and he is still alive, named Hojat ol-Islam Seyyed Mohammad Khatami, about whom this writer has written a lot. In Iran, after the 1979 revolution, I was active in publishing a newspaper called Nedaye Azadi * -- which for a short time was published in the days after the revolution, and it had nothing to do with the newspaper of the same name that was later published by the Islamic reformists!

Anyway, I returned to USA in 1982 following the closing of the political space in Iran and the beginning of the IRI executions of 1980's, and although I had a Green Card before the revolution, this time after my return I became an American Citizen and I am a dual citizen! Since then, I have traveled to Iran 3 times to visit my family. The first time was during the presidency of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani that I renewed my Iranian passport in the USA and traveled to Iran for 3 months in the summer of 1995, when I had a great time. The second time was during the presidency of Hojjatul ol-Islam Mohammad Khatami, that time also for visiting family and I traveled to Iran for 3 months in the summer of 1998 and had a good time. On the second trip, my mother was still alive. Although one of my mother's sisters, Azar Motaghedi Javanshir, was one of the leaders of the Tudeh Party, and another sister was an Islamic activist who supported Khomeini, but my mother (and my father), were always non-political, both during the Shah's time and during the Islamic regime, however, when I had gone to Iran in the summer of 1998, my mother told me that the year before that she had participated in the presidential election of 1997 and had voted for Khatami and proudly said that Khatami is our president. Personally, I did not participate in any election except for the first parliament, because secular people did not have the right to be elected, however, it was interesting for me to hear that even my mother, who had never participated in an election, had participated in that election. To this day, even though I have written a lot of critiques about Mohammad Khatami, I must admit that I cannot make a final judgment about Mohammad Khatami! Mohammad Khatami was appointed as head of the then Islamic Kayhan Newsaper in the early years after the revolution when Dr. Ebrahim Yazdi was removed from the management of Keyhan Tehran Daily. A lot has been said about Ibrahim Yazdi in the press, and this writer has also written a lot of criticism about Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi, but the truth was that during the time of Dr. Ebrahim Yazdi, the Keyhan newspaper was much more democratic than during the time of Mohammad Khatami.

Anyway, Mr. Khatami's presidency began with many promises in 1997, and in the summer of 1998, I had my second trip from America to Iran after 1982, and I was in Iran for 3 months and I had a good time again. But it was not three months after I returned to the USA from Iran that I read the news of the murder of martyrs Dariush and Parvaneh Forouhar in the press, and we all know the rest of the events of what have been rightly or wrongly called Serial Murders in these years! Is it possible to blame Mohammad Khatami and his policies in relation to those events? Personally, I have always been against Reactionary Reformism * and I have expressed my opinion many times, especially after Nowruz 2004; However, it is very difficult to make a final judgment about Iranian historical figures such as the role of Hojjat ol-Islam Mohammad Khatami in events such as the murder of Forouhars. But it is obvious that what started in December 1998 with the murder of Forouhars has destroyed any hope for Islamist reforms in Iran. However, I have always supported progressive reforms. This writer did not travel to Iran after that date for 16 years until I went to Iran for 3 months on the eve of Nowruz of 2014 during the second year of the first term of Hojjat ol-Islam Hassan Rouhani's presidency and I was able to visit my family, and with my brother who is now deceased, went to the graves of my parents for the first time, who had passed away during those years, and of course, apart from the pain of remembering the sadness of the loss of the deceased, I still had a good time. We are now starting a new era in Iran with the new president of the Islamic regime, Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian *, and I hope with the efforsts of Iran's Nelson Mandela Mr. Hossein Ronaghi and many others, we soon move on to Secular Democracy, and I hope nothing like the murder of martyrs Dariush and Parvaneh Forouhar will ever happen again in Iran!

Hoping for a democratic and secular futurist republic in Iran,

Sam Ghandchi
IRANSCOPE
http://www.ghandchi.com/index2.html
July 6, 2024

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