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“Their leader, Maryam Rajavi, worshiped in the North Korean style, poses as the Revolutionary Woman and has already been proclaimed as the ‘future President of Iran’. They call themselves democrats, but former members who succeeded in getting out of their grasp, tell of an organisation within which an iron discipline is imposed and all dissent is severely punished”. |
A Strange Revolution
The wind has shifted and events have gone on inside the PMOI to turn it into something very far from what it pretends to be in its hidden dialectics. Even the original founders would have trouble recognising an undertaking that only serves personal needs.
Their old ideological friends need not be surprised since this type of group already contains the seeds of its own unorthodox changes. Even Mao justifies this evolution:
“The circumstances are in perpetual change and, if our ideas are to adapt to new conditions, we must learn. Even those who know Marxism well and have a relatively strong proletarian stance must continue learning, taking in what is new and studying new problems”. 1
The Mojahedin went even further and the disciple has overtaken his Chinese Master:
“Mani’s disappointment deepened when Rajavi started the ‘second ideological revolution’ in 1986. During this, he imposed a new organisation on the movement and a ‘new culture’ which were heavy burdens for the membership. ‘He dissolved the Central Committee and all its members became simple militants’. Then he started this strange innovation: obligatory divorce for members. He called marriage a ‘form of slavery’. Rapavi thought that family life weakened his people’s devotion to the organisation when they should be completely devoted to the movement and to himself’. 2
This could only set off strong feelings and anger. Yet, the equation is simple: bow your head and accept without discussion or leave!
There was no place for the lukewarm. There had to be only the committed and the fanatics.
Le Monde’s journalist, Mouna Naim, a major specialist on the issue, wrote:
“Their leader, Maryam Rajavi, worshiped in the North Korean style, poses as the Revolutionary Woman and has already been proclaimed as the ‘future President of Iran’. They call themselves democrats, but former members who succeeded in getting out of their grasp, tell of an organisation within which an iron discipline is imposed and all dissent is severely punished”. 3
Everything was in place to demand the supreme sacrifice from everyone, as Jean- Pierre Perrin reported in Liberation:
“The Passion, the cult of sacrifice pushed to its paroxysm, goes hand in hand with the god-like status given Maiyam, the Chief Warrior Goddess who commands the armed wing of the Mojahedin and has been named as ‘future President of Iran’. In the movement’s politico-religious gibberish, Massoud Rajavi’s wife is the incarnation of the perfect woman: the absolute role model. She is one who also consoles and comforts. When she appears, the militants shout, ‘Maryam, Sun of the Revolution, you will lead us to Teheran’. Her arrest was seen as sacrilege. That was why the militants made the supreme sacrifice”. 4
1.- “Speech to the National Conference of the Chinese Communist Party on Propaganda Word”, op. cit., 12 march 1957
2.- Ismail Zayer, op cit.
3.- “Une organisation bien structurée et efficace — D’anciens militants font état d’une discipline de fer” by Mouna Naim, Le Monde, 19 June 2003
4.- Jean-Pierre Perrin, op. cit.