In the name of God
"Evin Prison Everywhere"
Dear Faraj Sarkouhi:
Unfortunately, I read your recent article titled "A Critique of Verdicts and…" and I was very sorry. Why? For the reasons I will set out below.
I came to the conclusion long ago that what goes on in Evin Prison is a reflection of the reality of society outside (see my piece "Two Incurable Ailments," now on the website sazegara.com). That is, in Evin Prison there is a scenario in the minds of the interrogators and their overall chief, namely the Leader, and they then try, with every trick and ruse, every beating and every blow of the club, to pin it on the wretched prisoner. Outside prison, in relations among us Iranians, the same thing goes on in every sphere of life. Empirical data do not matter to us. What we think up in our minds, guess at, or concoct is what counts, and others must fit into our mold and play their part in our mental scenario. It makes no difference what evidence, documents or empirical facts they present. We think the other person must be who we imagined and must have done what we imagined. In other words, the scientific method has not yet taken root in the minds of us Iranians. We have had universities and university graduates for years, yet in our lives and daily affairs there is no trace of scientific training. Research, inquiry and testing the findings of our minds have no place in our lives. And of course, in the political arena this shortcoming sometimes gives rise to catastrophe and crime.
Dear Faraj:
To make my claim clear, let me cite as evidence this very article of yours, which in my view is one of the most recent examples proving my point. In this piece you have tried to describe an event that took place several years ago at an annual meeting of International PEN (P.E.N), and of course, with your fluent and charming pen, you have described it well. In brief, you report in this piece that in the list of participants they had written "PEN Iran – Abdolkarim Soroush." In other words, an "Iran PEN Center" that did not exist had appeared in the list of participants, and represented by Dr. Soroush at that. (Up to this point a factual statement has been reported.) But what went through your mind and the minds of your friends was this: in Iran the regime and the Khatami government, in order to cover up the killings of writers and the suppression of the "Writers' Association," had colluded with the Finnish government and Foreign Ministry to slip a "fake Iran PEN" into the conference, and Dr. Soroush, knowingly or unknowingly, had become the instrument of this trickery. Without questioning or investigating the accused in this case, especially Dr. Soroush, who was present right there in Finland, you then, by your own account, in effect issued a guilty verdict with ease and tried with all your might to have Dr. Soroush excluded from the PEN general assembly. And he, who was in fact staying at another hotel, took offense, refused to attend the public sessions where he would have had the chance to speak, and left in a car belonging to the Iranian Foreign Ministry or embassy. (End of trial. I pass over the other side issues in your piece.) Do you see where the problem lies? Issuing verdicts, punishments and exclusions on the basis of a scenario and an analysis built in the mind, with no need for investigation, questioning, or reliance on empirical data. Interestingly, even now, after so many years since that event, you still see no need for investigation and questioning, and the guilty verdict issued in your mind is what counts for you.
For a long time, however, I have struggled with myself to apply the scientific method I studied in high school and university, as far as possible, in daily life and especially in my dealings with others. I have followed up this affair. As far as I could, I have investigated and tried to ask those involved, so that the picture of the event becomes as clear as possible. Of course, I still do not dare issue a verdict. As jurists say, the case is still open in my mind.
Naturally, I first went to Dr. Soroush, the so-called accused, or victim, of the affair. His account of the event is as follows. In Tehran, a few months before the Helsinki conference, he received an invitation from PEN, not from the Finnish embassy or Foreign Ministry. He says that for years he has tried to take part only in gatherings hosted by academic and non-governmental circles. So had he known that the Finnish or Iranian government was involved, he would never have accepted the invitation. When he arrived in Helsinki a day before the conference began, he realized that an intense campaign had been waged against him: statements had been distributed, and there had been attempts to keep him out of the conference. They had even changed his hotel, which had been in the same place as the other participants', and moved him to a shabby hotel somewhere else. The campaign against him centered on the claim that he was a purger of professors, a censor and an accomplice of the Iranian regime, and they succeeded in preventing him from giving any speech, even in the public sessions. So there was essentially no way for him to take part. He had wished at least to ask you, whom he respected, about the details of what had happened. But you refused to talk with him. Only once, in passing, did you say hello, tell him you were very busy and had no time, and walk off. You refused to have even a simple conversation with him.
Only one of the PEN officials came to see him, and said that the gist of what your Iranian friends were saying was that you had wronged professors and writers in Iran. That is, at that moment he was a condemned man who did not even properly know what had happened to him, let alone why. Then, naturally, he intended to leave Helsinki. At that point officials of the Finnish Foreign Ministry set about apologizing and tried at least to change his hotel and move him somewhere respectable, which they did. Nor was any Iranian embassy car involved. In fact, the ambassador at the time, Mr. Mahmoud Boroujerdi, Mr. Khomeini's son-in-law, would not even show his face to Dr. Soroush. That is the affair as told by another party to this story.
I have also learned about a third side of this affair, whose names you unfortunately did not mention in your piece and tried to pass over: the two people who distributed statements against Dr. Soroush at the PEN meeting. As you yourself say, the text reveals its writer. Your piece shows that distributing those statements and making those accusations was an unchivalrous act. That is why you repeatedly try to say that you are not a member of the "Writers' Association in Exile" or "Iran PEN in Exile," that you in fact had no knowledge of, or involvement in, that campaign of agitation against Dr. Soroush, and that you were only seeking to safeguard the integrity of "International PEN" and to neutralize the Iranian regime's plot. But one of those two people tells it differently. The story goes like this.
In 2004, when I spent a year in England for eye surgery, many friends showed me great kindness, among them my dear friend Dr. Manouchehr Sabetian. He is a renowned and skilled surgeon, a veteran leftist activist and one of the founders of the worldwide Confederation of Iranian Students, and he has lived in England for more than fifty years. On the recommendation of my highly esteemed friend Dr. Ajoudani, Dr. Sabetian rushed to my aid and truly spared nothing in kindness and friendship. He patiently treated, free of charge, some of the illnesses I had contracted in prison and during hunger strikes. He bought medicine for me out of his own pocket, put up with my irritability and impatience, and sympathized with my painful illness. In the end he arranged the hospital and my eye surgery. As far as he could, he bargained with the eye hospital and put himself on the line so that they would give me a discount, and by borrowing from another friend I was able to pay the hospital costs. He helped me get my eye operated on and treated. I am indebted to him for life.
Once, as we were talking about all sorts of things in the office of a mutual friend, the conversation turned to PEN and this same Helsinki affair. Dr. Sabetian has been a member of PEN for years. With great relish, and in his charming storytelling manner, he explained how he had stood up to the Iranian regime and, with the help of you (Faraj) and others, had exposed Dr. Soroush, an agent of the regime, and how you had not allowed him into the conference. I sensed that he was not very well informed about Iranian affairs. When I talked a little about Dr. Soroush and his standing, and explained that he is not the agent of the Iranian regime and torturer he imagined, he fell silent and grew thoughtful. In Dr. Sabetian's account there was no mention whatsoever of that story about an Iranian government plot or of Dr. Soroush being presented as the representative of a fake Iran PEN.
An accurate picture of this affair requires two more sides as well. One is the Iranian regime, whose documents we currently have no access to. The other is International PEN and its Finnish officials. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to carry out a comprehensive investigation. But what has alarmed me is that, even in this preliminary research, there is no trace of that famous and central sentence you quote in your piece: "PEN Iran, Abdolkarim Soroush." The only thing that remains is the memory of the efforts by you and others to keep Dr. Soroush out of every part of the conference. I beg you, if you have any document showing that sentence, "PEN Iran, Abdolkarim Soroush," publish it. I dread continuing this investigation. Until now I thought your problem was the same unscientific subjectivism that afflicts me, others, and all Iranians. But if, God forbid, this document does not exist, the image I have had, and still have, of you as one of the most honorable and self-sacrificing people in Iran will be seriously damaged. It is still too early for any judgment, and more investigation and a more precise picture of every element of this incident are needed.
There is another important and fundamental point implicit in your piece: the practice of dividing people into khodi and biganeh, "insiders" and "outsiders." I have promised a friend to write an article under that very title for his website, so I will leave it for that article.
And my success is only through God
Mohammad Mohsen Sazegara
4 Mordad 1386 (26 July 2007)