|
|
|
|
Mohammad Khatami
|
| |
|
| |
Seyed Mohammad Khatami (pronounced []) (born September 29, 1943, in Ardakan, Yazd Province) is an Iranian scholar and politician. He served as the fifth President of Iran from August 2, 1997 to August 3, 2005. He also served as Iran's Minister of Culture in both the 1980s and 1990s.
Khatami attracted global attention during his first election to the presidency when, as "a little known cleric, he captured almost 70% of the vote." Khatami had run on a platform of liberalization and reform.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Mohammad Khatami' Start a new discussion about 'Mohammad Khatami' Answer questions from other users |
Encyclopedia
Seyed Mohammad Khatami (pronounced []) (born September 29, 1943, in Ardakan, Yazd Province) is an Iranian scholar and politician. He served as the fifth President of Iran from August 2, 1997 to August 3, 2005. He also served as Iran's Minister of Culture in both the 1980s and 1990s.
Khatami attracted global attention during his first election to the presidency when, as "a little known cleric, he captured almost 70% of the vote." Khatami had run on a platform of liberalization and reform. During his two terms as president, Khatami advocated freedom of expression, tolerance and civil society, constructive diplomatic relations with other states including those in the European Union and Asia, and an economic policy that supported a free market and foreign investment.
Khatami has been criticized for being unsuccessful in achieving his goal of making Iran freer and more democratic. In a 47-page "letter for the future", Khatami said his government had stood for noble principles, but had made mistakes and faced obstruction by hardline elements in the clerical establishment.
On February 8, 2009, Khatami announced that he will run in 2009 presidential election.
Early life
Khatami received a B.A. in Western philosophy from Isfahan University, but left academia while studying for a Master's degree in Educational Sciences at Tehran University and went to Qom to complete his previous studies in Islamic sciences. He studied there for seven years and completed the courses to the highest level, Ijtihad. After that, he went to Germany to chair the Islamic Centre in Hamburg, where he stayed until the Iranian revolution.
Before serving as president, Khatami had been a representative in the parliament from 1980 to 1982, supervisor of the Kayhan Institute, Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance (1982-1986, and then for a second term from 1989 to May 24, 1992 (when he resigned), the head of the National Library of Iran from 1992 to 1997, and a member of the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution.
Khatami was among the group of Iranian parliamentarians who did not allow Mehdi Bazargan to finish his famous speech in Iranian parliament on October 18, 1981. He reportedly chanted "death to Bazargan". Mehdi Bazargan, a well known Iranian intellectual, academic and former prime minister of Iran, was a member of Iranian parliament. As the editor chief of Kayhan daily, Khatami wrote an editorial and criticized Bazargan, calling him "American".
Bazargan is known as an advocate of free speech, rule of law and a pioneer of religious intellectualism, a circle to which Khatami has been associated in his later life.
He is also a member and chairman of the Central Council of the Association of Combatant Clerics.
Presidency
Running on a reform agenda, Khatami was elected president on May 23, 1997 in what many have described as a remarkable election. Voter turnout was nearly 80%. Despite limited television airtime, most of which went to conservative Speaker of Parliament and favored candidate Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, Khatami received 70 percent of the vote. "Even in Qom, the center of theological training in Iran and a conservative stronghold, 70% of voters cast their ballots for Khatami." He was re-elected on June 8, 2001 for a second term and stepped down on August 3, 2005 after serving his maximum two consecutive terms according to the Islamic Republic's constitution.
Khatami supporters have been described as a "coalition of strange bedfellows, including traditional leftists, ... business leaders who wanted the state to open up the economy and allow more foreign investment" and "women and younger voters."
The day of his election, the 2nd of Khordad, 1376, in the Iranian calendar, is regarded as the starting date of "reforms" in Iran. His followers are therefore usually known as the "2nd of Khordad Movement".
Khanomi is regarded as Iran's first reformist president, since the focus of his campaign was on the rule of law, democracy and the inclusion of all Iranians in the political decision-making process. However, his policies of reform led to repeated clashes with the hardline and conservative Islamists in the Iranian government, who control powerful governmental organizations like the Guardian Council, whose members are appointed by the Supreme Leader. Khatami lost most of those clashes, and by the end of his presidency many of his followers had grown disillusioned with him.
As President, according to the Iranian political system, Khatami was outranked by the Supreme Leader, and had no legal authority over many key state institutions such as the armed forces (the police, the army, the revolutionary guards, etc.), the state radio and television, the prisons, etc. (See Politics of Iran).
Khastani presented the so called "twin bills" to the parliament during his term in office, these two pieces of proposed legislation would have introduced small but key changes to the national election laws of Iran and also presented a clear definition of the president's power to prevent constitutional violations by state institutions. Khatami himself described the "twin bills" as the key to the progress of reforms in Iran. The bills were approved by the parliament but were eventually vetoed by the Guardian Council.
Economic policy
Khatami's economic policies followed the previous government's commitment to industrialization. At a macro-economic level, Khatami continued the liberal policies that Rafsanjani had embarked on in the state's first five year economic development plan (1990-1995). On April 10, 2005 Khatami cited economic development, large-scale operations of the private sector in the country's economic arena and the 6-percent economic growth as among the achievements of his government. $5 billion had been allocated to the private sector for promoting the economy, adding that the value of contracts signed in this regard has reached $10 billion.
Conservative critics accused President Khatami of neglecting the economy in favour of politics.. A year into his first term as president of Iran, Khatami acknowledged Iran's economic challenges, stating that the economy was, "chronically ill ... and it will continue to be so unless there is fundamental restructuring".
For much of his first term, Khatami saw through the implementation of Iran’s second five-year development plan. On 15 September 1999, Khatami presented a new five-year plan to the Majlis. Aimed at the period from 2000-2004, the plan called for economic reconstruction in a broader context of social and political development. The specific economic reforms included "an ambitious program to privatize several major industries ... the creation of 750,000 new jobs per year, average annual real GDP growth of 6% over the period, reduction in subsidies for basic commodities ... plus a wide range of fiscal and structural reforms." Unemployment remained a major problem, with Khatami’s five-year plan lagging behind in job creation. Only 300,000 new jobs were created in the first year of the plan, well short of the 750,000 that the plan called for. The 2004 World Bank report on Iran concludes that "after 24 years marked by internal post-revolutionary strife, international isolation, and deep economic volatility, Iran is slowly emerging from a long period of uncertainty and instability."
At the macroeconomic level, real GDP rose from 2.4 percent in 1997 to 5.9 percent in 2000. Unemployment was reduced from 16.2 percent of the labor force to less than 14 percent. The consumer price index fell to less than 13 percent from more than 17 percent. Both public and private investments increased in the energy sector, the building industry, and other sectors of the country's industrial base. The country's external debt was cut from $12.1 billion to $7.9 billion, its lowest level since the Iran-Iraq cease-fire. The World Bank granted $232 million for health and sewage projects after a hiatus of about seven years. The government, for the first time since the 1979 wholesale financial nationalization, authorized the establishment of two private banks and one private insurance company. The OECD lowered the risk factor for doing business in Iran to 4 from 6 (on a scale of 7).
The government's own figures put the number of people under the absolute poverty line in 2001 at 15.5 percent of the total population--down from 18 percent in 1997, and those under relative poverty at 25 percent, thus classifying some 40 percent of the people as poor. Private estimates indicate higher figures.
Among 155 countries in a 2001 world survey, Iran under Khatami was 150th in terms of openness to the global economy. On the United Nation's Human Development scale, Iran ranked 90th out of 162 countries, only slightly better than its previous position at 97 out of 175 countries four years earlier. The overall risk of doing business in Iran improved only marginally from "D" to "C."
Foreign policy
During Khatami's presidency, Iran's foreign policy began a process of moving from confrontation to conciliation. In Khatami's notion of foreign policy, there was no "clash of civilizations", he favoured instead a "dialogue among civilizations". Relations with the US remained marred by mutual suspicion and distrust, but during Khatami's two terms, Tehran increasingly made efforts to play a greater role in the Persian Gulf region and beyond.
As President, Khatami met with many influential figures including Pope John Paul II, Koichiro Matsuura, Jacques Chirac, Johannes Rau, Vladimir Putin, Abdulaziz Bouteflika and Hugo Chávez. In 2003 Khatami refused to meet militant Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
After the 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran, the Iranian government rebuffed Israel's offer of assistance. On April 8, 2005, Khatami sat near Iranian-born Israeli President Moshe Katsav during the funeral of Pope John Paul II because of alphabetical order. Later, Katsav claimed that he shook hands and spoke with Khatami. Katsav himself is in origin an Iranian Jew, and from a part of Iran close to Khatami's home - he stated that they had spoken about their home province. That would make this incident the first political contact between Iran and Israel since diplomatic ties were severed in 1979.
However, after he returned to Iran, Khatami was subject to harsh criticism from conservatives for having 'recognised' Israel by speaking to its president. Subsequently, the country's state-run media reported that Khatami strongly denied shaking hands and chatting with Katsav
In 2003, Iran approached the United States with proposals to negotiate all outstanding issues including the nuclear issue and a two-state settlement for Israel-Palestine.
Currency crisis
During 1995-2005, Khatami's administration successfully reduced the rate of fall in the value of the Iranian Rial bettering even the record of Mousavi. Nevertheless, the currency continued to fall from 2,046 to 9005 to the US Dollar during his term as president.
Khatami and Iran's 2004 parliamentary election
In February 2004 Parliament elections, the Council of Guardians banned thousands of candidates, including most of the reformist members of the parliament and all the candidates of the Islamic Iran Participation Front party from running. This led to a win by the conservatives of at least 70% of the seats. Approximately 60% of the eligible voting population participated in the elections.
Khatami recalled his strong opposition against holding an election his government saw as unfair and not free. He also narrated the story of his visit to the Supreme Leader, Khamenei, together with the Parliament's spokesman (considered the head of the legislature) and a list of conditions they had handed him before they could hold the elections. The list, he said, was then passed on to the Guardian Council, the legal supervisor and major obstacle to holding free and competitive elections in recent years. The members of the Guardian Council are appointed directly by the Supreme Leader and were considered to be applying his will. "But," Khatami said, "the Guardian Council kept neither the Supreme Leader's nor its own word [...] and we were faced with a situation in which we had to choose between holding the election or risking huge unrest [...] and so damaging the regime." At this point a slogan was repeatedly chanted by the student protesters: "Jannati* is the nation's enemy." Khatami strangely replied, "If you are the representative of the nation, then we are the nation's enemy." However, after a clarification by students stating that "Jannati, not Khatami," he took advantage of the opportunity to claim a high degree of freedom in Iran.
When the Guardian Council announced the final list of candidates on January 30, 125 Reformist members of parliament declared that they would boycott the election and resign their seats, and the Reformist interior minister declared that the election would not be held on the scheduled date, February 20. However, President Khatami then announced that the election would be held on time, and he rejected the resignations of his cabinet ministers and provincial governors. These actions paved the way for the election to be held and signaled a split between the radical and moderate wings of the Reformist movement.
Cultural and political image
Dialogue Among Civilizations
Following earlier works by renowned philosopher Dariush Shayegan, President Khatami introduced the theory of Dialogue Among Civilizations as a response to Huntington's theory of Clash of Civilizations. After introducing the concept of his theory in several international societies (most importantly the U.N.) the theory gained a lot of international support.
Consequently the United Nations proclaimed the year 2001 as the United Nations' Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations, as per Khatami's suggestion . Pleading for the moralization of politics, Khatami argued that “The political translation of dialogue among civilizations would consist in arguing that culture, morality and art must prevail on politics.” Khatami has become an international personality, and he has gained much fame among intellectuals all over the world.
Khatami’s dialogue of civilisations, challenging Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order (Huntington, 1998), is not just a domestic plea but a worldwide invitation. In 1998, Khatami addressed an international audience at the United Nations General Assembly in New York to delineate his main arguments (Khatami, 2001c, pp. 11–22) and the UN declared the year 2001 as the Year of Dialogue Among Civilisations. His proposal for such a dialogue is an inclusive concept that reaches beyond Iranian/non-Iranian, Muslim/non-Muslim dichotomies. It is an appeal to all humanity in the midst of growing violence and conflict worldwide, ultimately aiming at the betterment of human life. The dialogue of civilisations has several goals: laying the ground for peaceful, constructive debate among nations; providing a context in which civilisations can learn from each other’s strengths and weaknesses; replacing fear, blame, and prejudice with reason, fairness, and tolerance; and facilitating a dynamic exchange of experiences among culture, religions, and civilisations aimed at reform and amelioration. Khatami believes that such dialogue would strike a balance between the two extremes of self-denial, unquestioning imitation, and surrender and hatred, irrational rejection, and execration.
Khatami as a scholar
Khatami's main research field is Political philosophy. One of Khatami's academic mentors was Javad Tabatabaei, a very influential Iranian political philosopher. Later on Khatami became a University lecturer at Tarbiat Modarres University where he taught Political philosophy. Khatami also published a book on political philosophy in 1999. The ground he covers is the same as that covered by Javad Tabatabaei: the Platonizing adaptation of Greek political philosophy by Farabi (d. 950), its synthesis of the "eternal wisdom" of Persian statecraft by Abu'l-Hasan Amiri (d. 991) and Mushkuya (miskawayh) Razi (d. 1030), the juristic theories of al-Mawardi and Ghazali, and Nizam al-Mulk's treatise on statecraft. He ends with a discussion of the revival of political philosophy in Safavid Isfahan in the second half of the 17th century.
Further, Khatami shares with Tabatabaei the idea of the "decline" of Muslim political thought beginning at the very outset, after Farabi.
Aristotle's Politics became available in Persian to Khatami's generation only in a translation by the late Hamid Enayat (d. 1982). Like Tabatabaei, Khatami brings in the sharply contrasting Aristotelian view of politics to highlight the shortcomings of Muslim political thought. Khatami's explanations of the decline in Muslim political thought in terms of the transition from political philosophy to royal policy (siyasat-i shahi) and its imputation to the prevalence of "forceful domination" (taghallub) in Islamic history carries little conviction.
Khatami highlights the contradiction between the Western notion of "liberty" and the Islamic concept of "salvation". The Western concept of liberty refers to emancipation from outside bonds and aims at social, political, and civil freedom. Its positive achievements are having humans determine their own fate while governments serve the people and are accountable to them. A negative consequence of this school of thought, according to Khatami, is unbridled individualism and the belief that humans and their needs and desires are of central importance at all times. The Islamic notion of salvation, on the other hand, refers to emancipation from internal bonds, such as carnal desires, lust, and worldliness. Khatami believes that both viewpoints are incomplete. Salvation neglects humans’ social and political freedom.
In his address at Washington National Cathedral, Khatami, a philosopher and scholar who specialized in German and Western philosophical trends in modern and post-modern eras, provided a historical overview of Western thought from the Renaissance to the current post-modern age. The West is driven by intellectuals who emphasize individuality, he pointed out, and who have turned human beings into a new religion: Westerners believe that man can successfully dominate the world and nature, and have turned to aggression, domination and colonialism. In Khatami’s opinion, Western thinkers propagated the views of "survival of the fittest" and "might is right". The West went on to build aggressive social and political systems, and dominate both nature and weak societies. The Eastern spiritual beliefs of the three Abrahamic faiths, based on the principles of truth and justice, have suffered as a result. With the advance of Western civilization, the West either dominated or integrated other "civilizations into a unified Western one", Khatami said. Western philosophers and politicians now expect "older civilizations" to give in and accept Western ideals, just as "agricultural civilizations physically gave in to the industrial and post-industrial civilizations."
In his "Letter for Tomorrow", he wrote: "This government is proud to announce that it heralded the era where the sanctity of power has been turned into the legitimacy of critique and criticism of that power, which is in the trust of the people who have been delegated with power to function as representatives through franchise. So such power, once considered Divine Grace has now been reduced to an earthly power that can be criticized and evaluated by earthly beings. Instances show that although due to some traces of despotic mode of background we have not even been a fair critique of those in power, however, it is deemed upon the society, and the elite and the intellectuals in particular, not to remain indifferent at the dawn of democracy and allow freedom to be hijacked."
Post-presidential career
After his presidency, Khatami founded two NGOs which he currently heads:
- International Institute for Dialogue among Cultures & Civilizations . In Persian: ????? ??? ?????? ?????? ??????? ? ??????. This institute is a private (non-governmental) institute that was founded by Mr. Khatami after the end of his presidency and it is not to be confused with a center with a similar name operated by the foreign ministry of Iran. The European branch of Mr. Khatami's institute is headquartered in Geneva and has been registered as Foundation for Dialogue among Civilizations .
- Baran Foundation . BARAN meaning "rain" is an acronym in Persian for "Foundation for Freedom, Growth and Development of Iran" . This is also a private (non-governmental) institute founded by Khatami after the end of his presidency (registration announced on 9 Sep 2005) and a group of his former colleagues during his presidency. This institute is focused on domestic rather than international activities.
Notable events in career of Mr. Khatami after his presidency include:
- On September 2, 2005, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appoints Mohammad Khatami as a member of the Alliance of Civilizations.
- On September 28, 2005, Mohammad Khatami retires, after 29 years of service in the government.
- On November 14, 2005, Mohammad Khatami urges all religious leaders to fight for the abolishment of atomic and chemical weapons.
- On January 30, 2006, Mohammad Khatami officially inaugurates the office of "International Center of Dialogue Among Civilizations". An NGO with offices in Iran and Europe that he will be heading, after his retirement from the government.
- On February 15, 2006, during a press interview Mohammad Khatami announces the formal registration of the European office of his Institute for Dialogue among Civilizations in Geneva.
- On February 28, 2006, while attending a conference of the Alliance of Civilizations at Doha, Qatar, he states that "The holocaust is a historical fact." However, he adds that Israel has "made a bad use of this historic fact with the persecution of the Palestinian people."
- On September 7, 2006, during a visit to Washington, Mohammad Khatami calls for dialogue between the United States and Iran.
- January 24-28 2007, Mohammad Khatami attended the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British prime minister Tony Blair, former U.S. President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton, Vice Presidents Al Gore and Dick Cheney and Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell were among attendees. Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and Senator John Kerry have expressed similar opinions and shared words with each other in the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The Man with the Chocolate Robe
On December 22, 2005, a few months after the end of Khatami's presidency, the monthly magazine Chelcheragh with a group of young Iranian artists and activists organized a ceremony in honor of Mr. Khatami. The ceremony was held on Yalda night at Tehran's Bahman Farhangsara Hall. The ceremony, titled A Night with: The Man with the Chocolate Robe by the organizers, was widely attended by teenagers and younger adults. One of the presenters and organizers of the ceremony was Pegah Ahangarani, a popular young Iranian actress. The event did not get a lot of advance publicity, but it drew a huge amount of attention afterwards. In addition to formal reports on the event by the BBC, IRNA, and other major news agencies, googling the term "???? ?? ???? ??????" ("The Man with the Chocolate Robe" in Persian) shows thousands of results of mainly young Iranians' weblogs mentioning the event. The significance of this event was that it was arguably the first time in the history of Iran that an event in such fashion was held in honor of a head of government. Some weblog reports of the evening described the general atmosphere of the event as "similar to a concert!", and some reported that "Khatami was treated like a pop star" among the youth and teenagers in attendance during the ceremony. Many bloggers also pointed out the disappoinment of many of his supporters because of his failure to carry out his plans for a more democratic, tolerant, and open society after his 8 years of presidency. The event itself, and the enormous amount of weblog and internet discussions that were sparked by it, are considered by many to be indicative of the strong feelings still evoked in Iran's youth by Mr. Khatami and the reform program he was associated with.
- Mohammad Ali Abtahi's weblog report of the evening
- A blogger's report: Tears at the night with The Man with the Chocolate Robe
- BBC News: The Man with the Chocolate Robe
- Photo report of the ceremony
2008 International Conference on Religion in Modern World
In October 2008, President Khatami organized an international conference on the position of religion in the modern world. Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, former Norwegian prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, former Italian prime minister Romano Prodi, former French prime minister Lionel Jospin, former Swiss president Joseph Deiss, former Portuguese president Jorge Sampaio, former Irish president Mary Robinson, former Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunga and former UNESCO director general Federico Mayor as well as several other scholars were among the invited speakers of the conference.
The event was followed by a celebration of the historical city of Yazd, one of the most famous cities in Persian history and the birthplace of President Khatami. Khatami also announced that he is about to launch a television program to promote dialog among cultures.
Controversy and criticism
Khatami's two terms as president were regarded, by some people, as unsuccessful in achieving their goals of making Iran more free and democratic, and he has been criticized by conservatives, reformers, and opposition groups for various policies and viewpoints.
2007 hand shaking incident
Khatami was criticised by the conservative press for committing an "unforgivable offense against sacred Islamic rules" in May 2007, after a video was released showing Mohammad Khatami publicly shaking hand with two female participants of a conference in Italy where he was a guest speaker. After initially denying the handshake had occurred, Khatami admitted he "might have shaken some hands, but I don't remember exactly".
Websites close to the conservative government of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that an increasing number of clerics and extremists in the holy Shiite city of Qom believed that Khatami should be convicted for his behaviour.
Human rights and democracy
Some people have criticized Khatami for being unsuccessful in achieving his goal of making Iran more free and democratic. In a 47-page "letter for the future", Khatami said his government had stood for noble principles, but had made mistakes and faced obstruction by hardline elements in the clerical establishment.
Khatami was criticized for describing a former chief guardian of the infamous Evin Prison, Asadollah Lajevardi, as a "valiant son of Islam and revolution, a servant of the regime and the people". Mr Lajevardi is known for his role in suppression of political prisoners. Khatami also expressed his sadness upon the death of Sadeq Khalkhali, known as the hanging judge. He also praised Mohammad Fazel Lankarani, calling him "an open-minded Muslim", "prominent follower of Khomeini's path" and "valubale figures in seminaries". Lankarani is well-known for his death fatwas for Rafiq Tagi and Salman Rushdi as well as his fatwa against the attendance of women in sport stadiums.
Khatami also came under attack from philosopher Abdolkarim Soroush, who accused him of failing to push for reforms since his May, 1997, election. "The peaceful and democratic uprising of the Iranian people against religious dictatorship in May 1997 was a sweet experience," Soroush said in a letter addressed to Khatami. "But your failure to keep the vote and your wasting of opportunities put an end to it and disappointed the nation. Now, failures have turned into unrest."
Khatami's definition of civil society and freedom has been also subject to criticisms. Khatami raised the idea of civil society when he came to power. That encouraged many thinkers and scholars to write about the issue extensively. But suddenly Khatami said in one of his speeches: "what I meant by civil society was the Prophet’s Medina". His statement disappointed many Iranian scholars. Referring to this point Abdolkarim Soroush said:
"That poured cold water on everyone. Either this was the understanding that he had of civil society from the start or he later changed his mind for particular political and theoretical reasons and replaced civil society with the Prophet’s Medina. This was clear vacillation in his thinking. We witnessed this same vacillation when he spoke about freedom."
In a speech in November 18 1998, Khatami said: "the right to political activity and existence in Iran [is reserved for those] who have faith in Islam and the leadership."
Despite the fact that President Khatami declared himself a supporter of free expression and human rights, he responded to Iranian Shirin Ebadi's Nobel Peace Prize by waiting several days and then tempering his congratulations by saying “The Nobel prize for peace is not that important, as it is usually bestowed on political considerations."
President Khatami affirmed the principle of velayat-e-faqih: political rule by the religious scholar, the governmental principle imposed by Ruhollah Khomeini. After taking the office Khatami said: "We declare to the world that we will continue to tread along Imam Khomeini’s path...We will persevere to do so". He also added: "Imam Khomeini’s notion of velayat-e faqih is the main pillar of the Islamic Republic. All citizens of the Islamic Republic have a practical commitment to velayat-e faqih. This means that all those who live under this system must abide by this principle and regulate their conduct within the framework of the constitution."
In an interview at Harvard University, Khatami was asked about his opinion on homosexuality. He said: "homosexual activity is a crime in Islam ... And crimes are punishable ... And the fact that a crime could be punished by execution is debatable."
In 2001, some 78 Iranian lawmakers have called on President Mohammad Khatami to allocate an appropriate share to the Sunni minority of the country. However Khatami did not appoint any one from the Sunni minority to cabinet posts in his 8 years of presidency. He did however appoint Shia Kurds to his cabinet, a first in post-Revolutionary Iran.
The Islamic Republic did not allow a single Sunni mosque to be built in Tehran. Although President Mohammad Khatami promised during election times to build a Sunni mosque in Tehran, he later refused after taking office. After he won the elections, he was reminded of his promise but he claimed that the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had not agreed to the proposal.
In July 2007, Khatami said that Ruhollah Khomeini was the leading "reformist" of our time. Ruhollah Khomeini is considered a populist and fundamentalist by some experts . Khomeini was also a leader of a movement that led to a revolution and radical change in Iranian political structure.
Khatami in many occasions praised Basij. President Mohammad Khatami told the cabinet on 22 November 2000 that "the Basij is a progressive force which seeks to play a better role in maintaining religious faith among its allies, and acquiring greater knowledge and skills." Khatami also praised Basij activities during the July 1999 unrest in Iran. "The Basij forces, standing alongside the Law Enforcement Forces, demonstrated courage, firmness, and initiative. They demonstrated the power and potency of the system, and they also revealed the self-restraint exercised by the system." " By not resorting to deadly force, Khatami said, the Basij "brought the unrest to an end, and in the process they brought calm and security back to the country."
2009 Presidential election
Khatami contemplated running in the 2009 Iranian presidential election. In December 2008, 194 alumni of Sharif University of Tech wrote a letter to him and asked him to run against Ahmadinejad to save the nation. On February 8, 2009 he announced his candidacy at a meeting of pro-reform politicians.
Personal life
Khatami married Zohreh Sadeghi, daughter of a famous professor of religious law, and niece of Imam Musa al-Sadr, in 1974 (at the age of 31). They have two daughters and one son: Leila (born 1975) who is now a mathematics professor, Narges (born 1982), and Emad (born 1988).
Khatami's father, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khatami, was a high ranking cleric and the Khateeb (the one who delivers the sermon for Friday prayers) in the city of Yazd in the early years of the Iranian Revolution.
Khatami's brother, Dr. Mohammad Reza Khatami was elected as Tehran's first member of parliament in the 6th term of Majlis, during which he served as deputy speaker of the parliament. He also served as the secretary-general of Islamic Iran Participation Front (Iran's largest reformist party) for several years. Mohammad Reza is married to Zahra Eshraghi, granddaughter of Ayatollah Khomeini (founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran) who is a feminist human rights activist.
Khatami's other brother, Ali Khatami, a businessman with a master's degree in Industrial Engineering from Brooklyn, served as the President's Chief of Staff during President Khatami's second term in office, where he kept an unusually low profile.
Khatami's eldest sister, Fatemeh Khatami was elected as the first representative of the people of Ardakan (Khatami's hometown) in 1999 city council elections.
Mohammad Khatami is not related to Ahmad Khatami, a hardliner cleric and Provisional Friday Prayer Leader of Tehran.
Mohammad Khatami speaks several languages including Persian, Arabic, and some English and German.
Primary sources
Publications
Khatami has written a number of books in Persian, Arabic and English:
Books in Persian
- Fear of the Wave (??? ???)
- From the World of the Polis to the Polis of the World (?? ????? ??? ?? ??? ????)
- Faith and Thought Trapped by Despotism (???? ? ?????? ?? ??? ????????)
- Democracy ( ??????? ???? ??????)
- Dialogue Among Civilizations (?????? ??????)
- A Letter for Tomorrow (???? ?? ???? ????)
- Islam, The Clergy, and The Islamic Revolution (?????? ??????? ? ?????? ??????)
- Political Development, Economic Development, and Security (????? ?????? ????? ??????? ? ?????)
- Women and the Youth (???? ? ??????)
- Political Parties and the Councils (????? ? ??????)
- Reviver of the Truth of Religion [title roughly translated from Persian] (?????? ????? ???)
Books in English
- Islam, Liberty and Development ISBN 978-1883058838
Books in Arabic
- A Study of Religion, Islam and Time [title roughly translated from Arabic] (??????? ?? ????? ? ??????? ? ?????)
- City of Politics [title roughly translated from Arabic] (????? ???????)
A full list of his publications is available at his official personal web site (see below).
Awards/Honors
See also
External links
-
-
-
- Address of Mohammad Khatami at Annual Meeting of World Economic Forum, Davos, 21 January 2004, Chaired by Klaus Schwab, 26 min 37 sec,
|
| |
|
|
