Renaissance in Teheran

The long night of banishment is over for Salman Rushdie. That is big news. Hopefully, the clergy, the guardians of Koranic truth, won't n...

The long night of banishment is over for Salman Rushdie. That is big news. Hopefully, the clergy, the guardians of Koranic truth, won8217;t nullify the modernising spirit of the political leadership in Teheran.

8220;We should consider the Salman Rushdie issue as completely finished8221;. This statement could have been quite blasphemous in another era, in another Iran. For, the hounded imagination8217; marked the desperation of the Great Islamic Revolution. But Khatami could say it: the Rushdie issue is over. And he said it in, of all places, New York.

The symbolism may be accidental, but Khatami, the redeemer of freedom, could no longer be seen as an accident in the evolving Islamic republic. His courage, his vocabulary, his pragmatism mark the beginning of an Iranian Renaissance, an awakening that repudiates the medieval fury of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Khatami8217;s performance in New York 8212; a perfect Satanic motif in Islamic demonology 8212; was a confirmation of his status as the Renaissance Man in contemporary politicalIslam. So at the UN, it was the philosopher-president: 8220;Allow me to speak here as a man from the East, the origin of brilliant civilisations and the birthplace of Divine Prophets: Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed8230;8221; A far cry from the familiar rhetoric of vengeance and retribution. Also missing from his speech were the customary Shaitanification of the American imperium and the Save-Jerusalem war cry. Khatami wants to break the Great Wall of Iranian isolation, built by misread scriptures as well as western stereotype.

What is happening is this: an Iranian glasnost. Islam8217;s Gorbachev wants to author another revolution. Like the last communist ruler in the last days of the Soviet Union, Khatami has pitted himself against a legacy of which he is a beneficiary, of which he intends to be the demolition man.

True, Khomeini8217;s revolution was a defining moment in Islam in power8217;. Soon, following the script history had written for every other revolution in this century, the Islamic revolution too becamehostage to the hallucinations of the revolutionary. The spreading veil at home, the Hezbollah death camps in Lebanon and a banished novelist in London 8212; the revolt for renewal was reduced to a few images of domestic sledgehammer and extraterritorial terror.

Understandably, a new international imagery was born: Islam, the evil after communism; and Iran, the biggest exporter of Islamic jihad. Khatami defied the system while being part of it. His arrival marked negation as well as true renewal. He opened the windows to the world. He said he had no problem in talking with the Great Shaitan8217;.

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Now the world should have no problem in coming to terms with Mohammed Khatami and his changing Iran. Unfortunately, Iran for a large part of the world is still the same old closed society. It is not, and it is no longer the epicentre of Islamic terrorism. You may have to seek out your angry warriors in Islamic robes in places like Afghanistan and Algeria. The demonisation of Iran is so remote from the reality inIran.

India too should realise that. Will Delhi de-Satanise The Satanic Verses? Rushdie8217;s freedom, after all, celebrates a larger freedom 8212; the freedom of Mohammed Khatami to take his nation to the vital centre of the civilised world.