Vigilante Group Leader In Iran Turns Politician
A vigilante leader in Tehran has rebranded himself as a conservative politician and has established his own party to run for the upcoming parliamentary elections.
A vigilante leader in Tehran has rebranded himself as a conservative politician and has established his own party to run for the upcoming parliamentary elections.
As the 8-year-long Iran-Iraq war ended in the late 1980s, some of the veterans who returned home, realized that the country has changed while they were in the battlefronts. Their generals got financial concessions from the government, and the cities looked as if there had never been a war, with women defying the compulsory hijab and male and female students mingling at the campuses and elsewhere.
Furthermore, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s death almost a year after the war made the situation look even worse for the veterans. Saddam Hussain, the Islamic Republic's arch enemy was now being referred to as Brother Saddam and an ally.
So, the former soldiers organized themselves as Ansar Hezbollah and started to attack the relatively moderate government of President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Having been indoctrinated during the war with Islamist propaganda, they beat women and university students in the streets of Tehran, Esfahan, Mashhad, and other major Iranian cities.
When the new leader, Ali Khamenei came to power, he used the Ansar on a few occasions to suppress dissent in Tehran and Mashhad, but generally, he did not give them much of a space to be politically active. Hossein Allahkaram, the vigilante group's leader was not happy with the spoils of war he had won, which was the much-sought license for a travel agency that could make anyone rich almost overnight. He wanted to have a say in politics, but everyone looked at the vigilante group as a bunch of reckless thugs.
Allahkaram, cleared the streets and went to the university using the government entitlement given to former soldiers. After his graduation, according to Etemad newspaper, he was no longer a man to stand in the streets. Now he wanted to sit at the political bureau of a political party. That was how he officially established The Society of Combatants Defending the Islamic Revolution, aka known as Razma.
The party's platform is one of "eliminating poverty, offering political and cultural insight, explaining the merits of the revolution, preparing cadres for the country, and nominating revolutionary candidates for elections." This, he said, "Is an independent party."
Coming from the lower depths of the Iranian society, and the poor neighborhoods of southern Tehran, Allahkaram, now 67, still travels on a motorbike and lives near a cemetery in southern Tehran. His violent past is almost forgotten, and he can now invest in his credentials as someone from the poor neighborhoods. Until late 1990s, he organized rallies in the affluent northern part of Tehran against capitalism and "hijablessness" and heavy-handedly tackled any barrier to the rallies. The price he paid, was the ban on his group's publications, otherwise he and his group passed the test of time almost without any serious consequence.
The government turned a blind eye on his activities as hardliners benefitted from his street battles with "liberals". However, Allahkaram never assumed any responsibility for the violence his group employed in the streets. His political track record includes his support for government agents murdering Iranian intellectuals in the 1990s and his mild criticism of Iranian thugs who attacked the British embassy in 2011.
Allahkaram may not be in a good position to compete with Iranian hardliners who are now at the center of Iranian politics, and he may not win as many seats in the parliament as he hopes. Other hardliners have turned into dragons and monsters, while Allahkaram and his group fought in Iraq, Bosnia and on the streets.
Iranian media reported in November that the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution (SCCR) had renamed certain events on the official calendar including the pre-Islamic winter Festival of Yalda, which millions of Iranians celebrate on the night of December 21 when winter begins.
The council which is tasked with neutralizing non-Islamic cultural influences and ideologies, among other things, had decided that the day of the Winter Solstice be referred to as "Day of Promoting the Culture of Hosting and Connecting with Relatives” in the calendar.
Family of Mahsa (Jina) Amini, remembering their daughter on the longest night of the year.
Many believed that this irrelevant name was an onslaught on the deep-rooted culture and customs of Iranians.
Iran's religious establishment and hardliners often refer to ancient festivals as "pagan" calendar events and sometimes even demand that they should be banned. But despite endless religious propaganda, ancient traditions appear to have gained more popularity since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In defiance of the regime, social media users vowed to celebrate their beloved festivals such as Yalda, which they celebrate with family and friends, with even more splendor and merry-making this year, and shared numerous jokes about the lengthy new names assigned to their cherished festivals.
Municipality billboard in Tehran Honoring Yalda
The public's reaction to the renaming of the ancient festivals was so strong that the Council's spokesman, Abbas Mirza Hosseini, had to deny the removal of the names of ancient festivals from the official calendar. He claimed that the new names were only complementary and emphasized the "national identity and Islamic-Iranian culture and civilization."
In the past few days, presumably in response to such criticism, IRIB, which has a monopoly on broadcasting in the country, has shown unprecedented interest in the celebration of Yalda. It has also aired some Yalda entertainment programs including one with stand-up comedian Hassan Reyvandi who had been persona non grata at IRIB for some time.
The municipality of Tehran and some other cities also displayed an unprecedented interest in honoring Yalda. A massive billboard in Tehran’s Vali Asr Square congratulated citizens for Yalda and municipality trucks decorated with balloons and mascots played music on the streets.
The family of a victim of last year’s protests, Erfan Khazaei, celebrated Yalda at his grave.
The celebration of Yalda on the night of Winter Solstice and the Iranian New Year (Nowrouz) on the day of Spring Equinox both date to ancient, pre-Islamic times. The non-Islamic Nowrouz is still the main calendar event for most Iranians. The strength of the Nowrouz tradition is such that even the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei makes a televised speech on that day.
Iranians send each other millions of text messages to congratulate Yalda just as they do on Nowruz, and increasingly more in recent years, Christmas and western New Year.
“I do not understand the resistance that some [in the religious and political establishment] show against elements that build culture and a sense of national identity,” former government spokesman, reformist politician and sociologist Ali Rabiei wrote in a commentary in Etemad newspaper Thursday entitled “The Indelible Yalda”.
Rabiei opined that introducing a new name for the festival in the calendar was an attempt to obscure the festival’s ancient roots through “historical transformation”. He also urged the regime to stop “engineering cultural calendar events”.
“The pressure of the people and public opinion has forced the Islamic regime to retreat repeatedly in the past 44 years in trying to ban music, short-sleeved clothes, video players, satellite TV, Yalda night, even Nowruz … Don't underestimate your power,” a tweet said.