I was reading Shaul Bakhash’s The
Reign of the Ayatollahs, when I came across this passages describing Bani-Sadr’s views on
Islamic government. (page 94) . How politicians can delude themselves!
Bani-Sadr’s ideas of Islamic
government stemmed from an extreme reaction to all forms of authority,
authoritarian figures, and restraints on the individual. His ideal Islamic
state is characterized by the absence of formal structures and considerable diffusion
of power. In such a state, he wrote, here will be no concentration of
economic, political, or intellectual power, no classes and no dominant
ideology, because “any ideology that becomes official becomes an instrument of
power, the opinion of the masses; because authority, in using belief to
legitimize itself, will use it as a club.” This structure applies to Islam
itself, for “will Islam not become an opiate if you turn it into an instrument
of administration?”
In its foreign policy, an
Islamic government will not seek to dominate others, base relations on power,
or use the army for offensive purposes. Since the entire community will be
engaged in a continuous holy war to achieve a society of divine unity,
all the citizenry will be armed, leading to the disappearance of the military
as the instrument of class domination and “the dissolution of the army in the
society.” Even clothing will reflect the absence of power relations and serve
only a pragmatic function, since “Islam forbids to the individual dress that
distinguishes him from others.”
The people will exercise
supervision over their leaders through their network of mosques where “the
Government of God” will be realized, “for the mosque is a place where no one
has the right to give orders to anyone; only God has sovereignty. “ The
community will have an imam, or leader; but he will not represent any special
class of interest, be idolized, or become the focus of the cult of personality:
“good and beloved men must be cherished, but not made absolute.” Rather,
leadership itself will become diffused, and each member of the community,
through piety and self-discipline, will become an imam. The imamate will thus
be “generalized,” all will share in the leadership, “all will become mojtaheds [jurists] and no one will need
to ask his duty from another… Otherwise, religious tyranny will result.