Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 1999, pages 68-70

Northeast News

Iranian-American Professor Predicts Gradual Turn Away From Extremism for Iranian Revolution

By David P. Johnson Jr.

The Iranian Revolution is at a crossroads, and will likely evolve into a more democratic state, according to an Iranian-American professor. However, although Islamism as a governmental philosophy appears to be declining, Iran will continue to remain a strongly Islamic nation, Dr. Ali Banuazizi told an audience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Nov. 17.

In his talk, “Iran: Toward a Post-Islamist Order,” he cautioned that the Iranian situation is unstable and making predictions is risky. Nevertheless, the professor of cultural psychology at Boston College said, “I would favor the gradual transformist path…the idea that there will be an entire transformation through a coup d’état is unlikely. The road to change will take time, will be a gradual change and an arduous road.”

He cited the stunning election of Syed Mohammed Khatami as a sign that many Iranians favor a gradual change from the early days of the revolution. Iran’s improved relationship with Saudi Arabia is another example of Iran’s changing politics, he said. “Khomeini said the King is worse than the Shah, now [Saudi Arabia and Iran] are practically cheek-to-cheek.”

Noting that fears that Iran would export revolution to Central Asia have not materialized, the professor compared Iran’s businesslike approach in the region to South Korea’s.

He also distinguished between Islamism, which he defined as the philosophical foundation of the current Iranian government, and the actual religion of Islam.

“Islamism as the legitimizing force behind the state has run its course,” he stated. “By this I don’t mean to suggest that secularism has triumphed. There is no general decline of religiosity in Iran.”

The Iranian Revolution was swept into power by various groups opposing the Shah, including secular leftists and Marxists, intellectuals, and various factions of the clergy, Banuazizi explained. Some in the clergy favored a cultural and political revolution, but not widespread social change. Because the Iranian Revolution succeeded so quickly, a protracted battle with the state, such as is currently taking place in Algeria, was avoided. “The revolution was a surprise to most participants,” the professor said.

Much of the Iranian clergy was not officially opposed to the Shah, Banuazizi said, pointing out that some Muslim clergy are reluctant to make Islam overtly political. “Some conservative members of the clergy fear that by politicizing Islam it makes it susceptible to the wrath of the people and completely compromises its independence and reduces its spiritual, religious content.”

In some detail, Banuazizi discussed the various factions of the clergy and how events came together to bring Ayatollah Khomeini to power. Although all groups accepted Khomeini, his successor, Ayatollah Khameni, is seen as less legitimate in the role of supreme revolutionary leader, Banuazizi said. “Khameni was a compromise choice. At the time he did not have the qualifications to be an ayatollah and certainly not a grand ayatollah.”

Banuazizi said various ideological disputes, such as the export of the revolution and other foreign policy issues, and cultural questions such as Islamic law, have made the government less unified. In addition, he said a history of secularism reduced the totality of the Islamic Revolution. “Iranian society, by virtue of the fact that it had gone through seven decades of secularization and contact with the West, never quite buckled under Islamization.”

Women and intellectuals have continued to play an active role in Iranian life after the revolution, Banuazizi said, adding that women “resorted to very creative strategies, mastering the terms of the clergy and putting up a strong defense.” Iranian women at no time bowed out of the public space, he explained. Intellectuals, including religious thinkers, remained independent of government thought.

The professor said many Iranians believe that religion itself remains sacred and immutable, while its interpretation is open to anyone. To a certain extent that balanced the view that only an ayatollah could interpret the Qur’an.

Banuazizi urged the United States to improve relations. He said that to openly embrace Khatami would hurt him, but that a relaxation of the boycott of Iranian trade would help the economy and thereby help the more pro-Western faction.

Activists: Lift Iraqi Sanctions

Sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United States and the United Nations constitute an ongoing act of war that is killing more people than the Gulf war and should be lifted immediately, according to a group of Boston activists.

As the sanctions linger on, life in Iraq grinds to a halt with devastating consequences, they said, noting that one million children under five years old, 30 percent of that age group, are chronically malnourished and stunted. With medical supplies nonexistent, epidemics of polio, cholera, measles, whooping cough, typhoid fever and malaria are breaking out with increasing frequency, according to George Capaccio, who visited Iraq with the group Voices in the Wilderness.

“Every effort is being made to crush the people of Iraq, yet we supply millions of dollars in aid to Israel,” said Nancy Gust, who went on the same trip. She said that although U.S. officials “think it’s OK for us to do something illegal, starving a population is illegal.” She described sanctions as a means of carrying out a corrupt U.S. Middle East policy.

Noting that sanctions have killed 10 times as many Iraqis as did the Gulf War, she said, “We have killed more people than Hussain has.” She said some 6,000 children die each month, with a child dying every nine minutes.

Charging that to date “nearly two million have died,” Gust said at Baghdad hospitals, dying babies are lined up on plastic. “They’re underweight, orange, wrinkled from malnourishment. Those are children who are not going to live.”

The sanctions also have worsened medical problems caused by the Gulf war, Gust and Capaccio said. Significant increases in cancer, especially leukemia, are being blamed by Iraqi authorities on the bullets tipped with depleted uranium used in the war, they noted. In addition, the bombing of oil refineries, chemical plants and nuclear facilities in Iraq released tons of toxic material into the atmosphere, they maintained.

Capaccio has been to Iraq four times in the past few years. On each trip, he finds society has disintegrated further from dwindling food supplies, lack of medicine and no parts to fix anything. “Every time I go there it’s worse. It gets shabbier and shabbier. There is sewage in the street because the pipes can’t be repaired. The middle class is no longer middle class.”

Although they conceded that the black market provides anything for those who can pay—usually those connected with the military or the government—the average wage earner must work five weeks to buy a bottle of milk, one week for a package of cheese and one day for an egg. Food packages rationed to the public are no longer sufficient to meet basic nutritional needs. Chronic malnutrition and anemia are now widespread.

They also said it was sad to see people selling anything of value, silver, rugs, furniture, even the doors from their houses, along roads or near hotels, hoping to earn enough cash to buy additional food on the black market. Those who have nothing to sell, beg.

The $5 billion annual oil production permitted by the U.N. can’t be met since there are no parts to pump the oil, he explained.

Capaccio and Gust are working with the Cambridge group Mobilization for Survival. Jennifer Horam and Wells Wilkinson of that group agreed that the sanctions have become counterproductive.

They stated that there is little chance the Iraqi people will rise up against Saddam Hussain as long as the country is so isolated. Agreeing that Hussain is a brutal dictator, Horam and Wilkinson went on to say that sanctions have actually strengthened his position because he can now blame the United States for his country’s economic problems.

Members of the group also charged that the U.S. government is failing to distinguish between the Iraqi government and its people. They noted that Americans traveling in Iraq are greeted warmly and are frequently told that Iraqis blame the U.S. government, not Americans in general, for the sanctions.

Despite the bleak picture, Wilkinson said in the U.S. public opinion is beginning to change. “I’m actually very hopeful that sanctions will be lifted,” he said.

For more information on Mobilization for Survival call (617) 354-0008, or e-mail Salaamg@aol.com, or write 11 Garden St., Cambridge, Mass., 02138.

Education Is Open Book for Women’s Club

Not all Arab Americans need to become engineers, Palestinian-American professor Dr. Edward Said told an audience of mostly Arab students at MIT last year. The remark brought widespread laughter, yet was only half humorous. It underlined some serious points. Arab Americans value education as highly as does any immigrant group and professions such as engineering provide good incomes and are relatively immune to the prejudice which could hurt employment opportunities for Arab Americans in other fields. Also, despite the stereotypes, among Arab Americans higher education is not just for men.

Helping women go to college was one of the main reasons the Syrian Lebanese Women’s Club of Greater Boston was founded 65 years ago, and is still thriving today as it prepares for a giant anniversary party next spring to raise money for college scholarships for girls of Arab descent.

At a recent meeting, club members stressed that education for women is the key to integrating into American life. “I feel it’s a very good solid foundation,” said Mary Battikha, the club’s former president, who moved to the Boston suburbs from Damascus 20 years ago. She added that one reason the club has survived has been its consistent goal “in wanting to help others.”

Battikha, whose daughter is a recent scholarship recipient, noted that some of the scholarship recipients are now lawyers, engineers, doctors and professors, who credit the club with helping launch their careers. Activist Evelyn Menconi pointed out that Dr. Elaine Hagopian, a Simmons College professor and well-known Arab-American activist, was a scholarship winner and now belongs to the group herself. “She [Hagopian] got a $100 scholarship in the 1950s and she’s never forgotten it,” Menconi noted, adding that Hagopian helps review scholarship applications. In addition, Hagopian is often called upon to speak on Arab issues, Menconi said. “When we need someone who knows the issues, we call her.”

Current president Leila Bunai said that education is essential to integrate into American life. “I came in 1959,” she said, learning English and adapting to life in Boston. “Now, I love this country.”

Although the club’s 45 or so members are scattered all over the Boston area, it was different when it was started back in 1934, recalled Rose Maloof, who at 89 is the organization’s matriarch and one of the few founding members still active.

She remembered when the Arab community lived near each other in Boston’s South End, adding that the town house in now fashionable Union Park which her family could barely get rid of for $6,000 in the 1930s was recently sold for $1.1 million.

Mrs. Maloof said that in the early days the club provided a welcome social outlet as well, with regular dances (including some to which women invited men!), fashion shows and parties.

Over the years Boston’s Arab community moved from its original neighborhood in the South End, branching out to Roslindale and West Roxbury and then dispersing in the suburbs.

The first wave of Arab immigrants to Boston was largely Christian and came from Syria and what later became Lebanon. More recent immigrants have arrived from all over the Arab world and are more apt to be Muslim. The club, which started as the Boston Syrian Women’s Club, changed its name after the independence of Lebanon following World War II.

Club members include Muslims, Maronite Catholics and Orthodox Christians.

Despite their advances in society, many of the women said widespread confusion about Arabs remains.

“Most of us have stories of prejudice,” said blonde, pale-skinned Carolyn Ganim. “Never in a million years do they guess that I’m a Syrian,” she said with a wry laugh.

Kim Watson worked at the Institute of Arab Studies in the early 1980s. When the organization closed down in 1984, she was forced to look for another job. When Watson told interviewers that the institute had run out of money, the response invariably was, “‘Arabs ran out of money? I thought they were rich.’ Either they think you’re a terrorist or that you have an oil well,” Watson remarked.

With good food and good cheer, the club meetings generally concentrate on projects to raise scholarship money. The most recent project was compilation of Generations, a cookbook containing the favorite Middle Eastern recipes of club members.

“We’re all good cooks,” Bunai said with a laugh. The cookbook contains such popular favorites as stuffed grape leaves, spinach pie and shish kabob.

It is available for $8 and $2.50 for shipping, by contacting P.O. Box 243, West Roxbury, MA 02132.

The organization also participates in such projects as the annual International Festival held in Boston. The club also contributed a Christmas display, “A Child’s Christmas in Bethlehem,” for the Museum of Science annual presentation of Christmas around the world.

Anyone interested in more information, or in attending the anniversary party, to be held May 23 in Boston, should call (617) 323-8661.

Palestinian American Honored for Heart Research

“This has been an interesting year. I think I’m just lucky this year,” Dr. Shukri F. Khuri said modestly during a recent interview. The Palestinian-born chief of surgery at the Brockton/West Roxbury, Mass., Veterans Affairs Medical Center has recently received four awards for his pioneering research on heart surgery, including the federal government’s prestigious Frank Brown Berry Prize in Federal Medicine.

Since the Berry Prize encompasses the entire federal medical apparatus, including the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense and other agencies, it is considered a major honor. Of the 200 nominees, 10 were finalists and one received the award. The West Roxbury VA facility, where Khuri has worked for 22 years, contains the oldest and largest open-heart surgery center in the entire Veterans Administration system.

Khuri, who is also vice chairman of the department of surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, received the award at a recent dinner in Washington, DC.

He received the Berry Prize for pioneering work to improve open-heart surgery, reducing the amount of blood lost during surgery which results in a reduced need for potentially dangerous transfusions.

“We have been able to reduce this amount of bleeding [during surgery] significantly,” he stated. “We have cut down on the need for blood products 80 percent over 10 years.”

During open-heart surgery, Khuri explained, blood is cut off from the heart and re-routed into the veins to keep it flowing throughout the body. By using a device which monitors the acidity of the heart during surgery, the condition of the heart can be monitored.

“We’re the only ones who do that,” he said.

The other awards Khuri received this year included the Distinguished Service Award from the Nicholas G. Beram Veterans Association, whose members are Arab Americans; the Paul Dudley White Award from the American Heart Association in Massachusetts; and an Innovation 1998 Award from Application Development Trends Magazine for use of the Internet in keeping patient records.

Born in Jerusalem, Khuri moved in 1948 with his family to Beirut, where he attended the Preparatory School of the American University of Beirut and then the university and its medical school. In 1972 Khuri went to Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Hospital on a fellowship in heart surgery research. After a year and a half, he transferred to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

“I really wanted to go back to Lebanon,” he said. “But 1976 was the height of the war, so I started looking for a job.” That year he came to VA hospital, where he has worked ever since.

Despite all his accomplishments, Khuri said, “after all these years you realize that the most important thing is your family.”

His wife, Randa, originally came from Haifa and also lived in Beirut. A former nurse, she paints, plays the flute and sings with the Dedham Choral Society and plays in a chamber music trio. The Khuris recently returned from a week in Mondsee, Austria, where Randa sang in concert with the Berkshire (Mass.) Choral Festival. Hania, his eldest daughter, is a senior graphic designer with Samet & Blackstone in Boston, and his other daughter, Maya, is a second-year law student at Northwestern University in Chicago. His son, 19-year-old Naseem, is a sophomore at Bowdoin College in Maine who may go into medicine.

Khuri is also a senior warden at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Westwood.

Although he is not active politically, Khuri dreams of a free Palestine. “I am actually very hopeful,” he says, “that the Palestinians will have the peace and justice they deserve and have a free and democratic Palestinian state.”