Dr JJ Snyman

Die Iranese Revolusie in 1979 was aardskuddende gebeure. Nie net vir die Moslem-wêreld nie, maar ook vir die Weste en veral die VSA. Die monarg van Iran, ‘n brutale diktator wat deur die VSA aan bewind gehou is, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, is vervang deur die Islamitiese republiek van die Grand AyatollahRuhollah Khomeini.

Waarom was dit so verrykend? Dit het in die eerste plek gewys dat godsdiens en veral die Moslem godsdiens ‘n faktor is waarmee rekening gehou sal moet word. Daarmee saam is die houvas wat die Weste op die res van die wêreld gehad het verbreek.

Die gebeure is deur die Center for International Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology soos volg beskryf:

"The Iranian Revolution has highlighted one of the principal religious and political developments of our time: the revival of Islamic fundamentalism from Indonesia to Morocco and from Turkey to Central Africa."

Dr. Algar, professor in Persiese en Islamitiese Studies aan die Universiteit van California, Berkeley het opgemerk:

“The subject of the Islamic Revolution in Iran is one whose importance hardly needs underlining. With the passage of time, its importance will become even clearer, as being the most significant and profound event in the entirety of contemporary Islamic history. Already we see the impact of the Islamic Revolution manifested in different ways across the length and breadth of the Islamic world from Morocco to Indonesia, from Bosnia to the heart of Europe down to Africa."

Die Ayatollah was die held van die ganse Moslem-wêreld. Ook is ‘n nuwe regstelsel bekend as Sharia-reg ingevoer wat sy voorskrifte uit die Koran gekry het. Sedert 1979 is op permanente basis kennis geneem van die Moslem-probleem.Turkye, Pakistan, Egipte, Afghanistan, Indonesië, Malaysië, Somalië, Nigerië, Senegal, Tunisië, Morokko en Jordanië het as Moslem-state op die nuustoneel verskyn.

Imperialisme en Kolonialisme

Kennis is geneem van Islam, die invloede daarop en die strominge binne Islam.

Duidelik kon Moslem-lande nie meer deur Westerse state gebruik word soos Afrikastate vroeër ook gebruik is nie. En Iran se olie was juis so aantreklik. Daarom het dit dan ook die VSA gepas om ‘n diktator aan bewind te stel in die vorm van die Shah, ‘n posisie wat hy sedert 1952 beklee het.

Imperialisme en kolonialisme het in Iran ‘n verdere hou teen die kakebeen gekry. In seker een van die insiggewendste boeke oor die onderwerp imperialisme, geskryf deur JA Hobson, Imperialism: A Study word die saak volledig beskryf.Hobson skryf in die inleiding van die boek (gratis bekombaar op die Internet) soos volg:

“Those readers who hold that a well-balanced judgment consists in always finding as much in favor of any political course as against it will be discontented with the treatment given here. For the study is distinctly one of social pathology, and no endeavor is made to disguise the nature of the disease."

Die sosiale patologie waarna Hobson verwys is die vervlakking van politiek en spesifiek nasionalisme deur "Special interests," finansieël in karakter wat die belange van die burgers van ‘n staat minag. So, anders as wat algemeen aanvaar word, het die burgers van Westerse lande niks gebaat by imperialisme en kolonialisme nie. Wie gebaat het was die magte van geld.

John Stuart Mill, die filosoof, het die volgende definisie van ‘n nasie (volk) gegee:

“A portion of mankind may be said to constitute a nation if they are united among themselves by common sympathies which do not exist between them and others. This feeling of nationality may have been generated by various courses. Sometimes it is the effect of identity of race and descent. Community of language and community of religion greatly contribute to it. Geographic limits are one of the causes. But the strongest of all is identity of political antecedents, the possession of a national history and consequent community of recollections, collective pride and humiliation, pleasure and regret, connected with the same incidents in the past."

Nasionalisme is inderwaarheid geskaad deur die beleid van imperialisme en kolonialisme. Deur ander state in te palm en regeer doen nasionalisme skade want dit is a-nasionalisties. Nasionalisme verword in imperialisme en kolonialisme. En baie duidelik het besigheidsbelange voorkeur geniet bo die algemene belang van die burgers. Hobson stel byvoorbeeld Brittanje se probleem soos volg:

"How is the British nation induced to embark upon such unsound business? The only possible answer is that the business interests of the nation as a whole are subordinated to those of certain sectional interests that usurp control of the national resources and use them for their private gain. This is no strange or monstrous charge to bring; it is the commonest disease of all forms of government."

Hy haal ook Sir Thomas More aan:

“Everywhere do I perceive a certain conspiracy of rich men seeking their own advantage under the name and pretext of commonwealth."

Eerlike geskiedskrywers het die saak onmiddellik raakgesien destyds, anders as vandag waar almal byna verblind of gekoop is deur die geldmagte. En hierdie imperialisme het duidelik net die belange van enkeles binne die Westerse state bevoordeel. Hobson beskryf dit soos volg:

“Although the new imperialism has been bad business for the nation, it has been good business for certain classes and certain trades within the nation ...It is idle to meddle with politics unless we clearly recognise this central fact and understand what these sectional interests are which are the enemies of national safety and the common weal. We must put aside the merely sentimental diagnosis which explains wars or other national blunders by outbursts of patriotic animosity or errors of statecraft ...There is, it may be safely asserted, no war within memory, however nakedly aggressive it may seem to the dispassionate historian, which has not been presented to the people who were called upon to fight, as a necessary defensive policy in which the honor, perhaps the very existence, of the state was involved."

Nou moet mens egter vra waarom geleerde mense en kerkmense, wat tog in staat was om dit te kon insien, dit nie gedoen het nie. Soos Ivor Benson dit stel:

“But how could the people of Europe, especially their educated classes, including even their churchmen, allow all this to happen? How did this imperialism escape general recognition for the narrow and sordid thing it was? Each nation would accuse its rivals of hypocrisy in masking greedy, aggressive and destructive behavior with pretensions of altruism, but all were permitted by these educated classes to be equally guilty.”

Die kerk en groot geld

Daar was nog altyd mense met goeie bedoelings. Maar duidelik is hulle bedoelings uitgebuit deur gewetenlose swendelaars wat godsdiens betrek het vir hulle bose oogmerke. Hobson beskryf dit soos volg:

“They [the imperialists] simply and instinctively attach to themselves any strong elevated feeling which is of service, fan it and feed it until it assumes fervor, and utilize it for their ends."

Toe koning Leopold beheer van die Kongo geneem het, het hy verklaar:

“Our only program is that of the moral and material regeneration of the country."

Selfs Winston Churchill het die godsdienstige faktor misbruik om sy bose doelwitte met kolonialisering te verberg.

Die Christelike godsdiens het dus in tandem met die geldmagte gewerk. Wat mens net laat besef; dit is reeds lank aan die taan.

Die Nuwe Imperialisme

Imperialisme het in die twintigste eeu ‘n nuwe vorm aangeneem. Waar dit weer in state gekonsentreer is, het dit nou bo-oor staatsgrense kragte saamgesnoer.

Interessant genoeg het die leier van die Kommunistiese Party in Amerika, Earl Browder vir president Truman die resep verskaf hoe dit gedoen moes word. In sy boek Teheran, Our Path in War and Peace skryf Browder:

"Our government can create a series of giant industrial development corporations, each in partnership with some other government or group of governments, and set them to work upon large-scale plans of railroad and highway building, agricultural and industrial development, and all-round modernization in all the devastated and undeveloped areas of the world.... Closely related socially, economically and politically with Africa are the Near Eastern countries of Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Here also a broad program of economic development is called for.”

Browder die Kommunis skryf dus voor aan die “kapitalis” hoe dit gedoen moet word. Douglas Reed skryf hieroor:

“There must be in America under President Truman, as under President Roosevelt, some group or force strong or persuasive enough to sell Communist aims to political leaders and simultaneously to convince them that these will stop Communism."

Hoe was dit moontlik? Die Duitse historikus, Oswald Spengler het na die “Russiese” revolusie geskryf:

"There is no proletarian movement, not even a Communist one, which does not operate in the interest of money, in the direction indicated by money and for the period permitted by money, and all this without the idealist in its ranks having the slightest suspicion of the fact."

Die sjah van Iran kon net sy mag behou deur middel van geld en die VSA se hulp deur brutaal op te tree teen enige opposisie.Die sjah het uitdrukking gegee aan Lord Acton se woorde:

"power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Sonder ‘n morele basis moes hy hom noodwendig tot geweld wend. En as gevolg van olie en die VSA het sy bewind lank gehou. Op 8 September 1978 word 4 000 mense gedood in Teheran wat in opstand kom teen die sjah se diktatorskap. Wat die sjah nie besef het nie, en Amerika ook nie, is watter krag godsdiens kan monster. Maar hierdie keer was dit die Islam en nie die verwaterde Christendom nie.

Professor Algar beskryf hoe dit gebeur het:

“The revolution in Iran and the foundation of the Islamic Republic is the culmination of a series of events that began in the sixteenth century of the Christian era with the adherence of the majority of the Iranian people to the Shi'i school of thought in Islam. Indeed, one of the important factors that sets the Iranian Revolution apart from all the other revolutionary upheavals of the present century is its deep roots in the historical past."

Ivor Benson skryf die sukses van die Islamitiese Revolusie toe aan die volgende:

“Shi'ism has presented in sharper and clearer outline of the religious configurations of what we might call Political Man. This has entailed the politicization of the ulama and its involvement in public affairs to a degree unequalled anywhere outside Iran. The leaders of the other Islamic states, while sharing with Iran deep concern about policies being implemented by the Western powers in the Middle East, see what has happened in Iran as a usurpation by the religious class that could place their own regimes in danger.”

Nie eers die slagting van nog 15 000 mense deur die sjah om die revolusie te stop, kon die Islamitiese fundamentaliste keer nie. Martelaarskap het ‘n deug geword. Die dood kon die martelare nie afskrik nie.

Die revolusie het dus geslaag omdat ‘n verwaterde Christendom wat hom tot imperialisme gewend het om “sy belange” te behartig in ‘n vreemde land, nooit bestand was teen ‘n geloof wat allesomvattend was en waar die dood geen afskrikking is nie.