WEDNESDAY AUGUST 12, 2009
In Iran, a hostage-taker
is now a hostage
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Service
Last week Iran’s theocracy
widened its crackdown from
suppressing an opposition
movement to putting on trial
the very revolutionaries who
launched the Islamic republic.
This new purge may be more
profound politically than the
campaign against the followers
of Mir Hossein Mousavi: The
Iranian revolution is eating its
children.
Mohsen Mirdamadi saw it all
coming. He warned me about it
five years ago. The only thing he
didn’t foresee was his own role.
Last week, he sat in a revolu-
tionary court, dressed in gray
prison pajamas, as one of its vic-
tims.
I’ve followed Mirdamadi since
the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover.
In 1981, I stood below the plane
that brought 52 American diplo-
mats to freedom in Algeria and
wondered about the type of peo-
ple who seized, interrogated and
brutalized hostages for 444 days.
Mirdamadi was one of three
ringleaders. Former hostage
John Limbert remembers him as
“particularly nasty.” I met him a
decade ago.
Like many early revolutionar-
ies, Mirdamadi had evolved
over the intervening two
decades from a scruffy student
radical into a balding, pinstripe-
suited realist. In 2000, he ran
for parliament as a reformer.
A surprisingly small man,
Mirdamadi took the powerful
chairmanship of parliament’s
national security and foreign re-
lations committee, a platform he
used to advocate political open-
ings, freedom of assembly and
speech, women’s rights, and an
independent press, albeit within
the boundaries of Islamic propri-
ety. He launched the newspaper
Norouz, or New Year, which ad-
vocated the rule of law and chal-
lenged authority. Ultimately, the
authorities charged him with li-
bel, subversion, “encouraging
hooligans to undermine public
order” and propagating “moral
decadence.” The paper was
banned.
Unrepentant about the
hostage drama, he nevertheless
urged better relations with
Washington. “Once enmity with
America was in line with our in-
terests,” he said in 2002, “but it
is not like that today. Our inter-
ests today lie in detente with
America.”
Some women worth more?
From Page 12
years in prison, for “small trans-
lation errors.” America claims to
uphold freedom of speech, yet
the U.S. voiced no support for
Lee. Does that freedom not ap-
ply to views that question
American business practice that
might have harmed Koreans?
While political leaders are
muddled about who deserves
help and who does not, civil so-
ciety organizations are develop-
ing more equitable internation-
al approaches.
Most famously, “Amnesty
International” has fought for
the rights of political prisoners
such as Aung San Suu Kyi since
1961. But Amnesty does not
only support high profile prison-
ers. For example, it drew atten-
tion to another female prisoner
in Myanmar, Ma Khin Khin
Leh, a school teacher who was
arrested with her 3-year-old
daughter. She was given a life
sentence because her husband
helped plan a demonstration in
1999. She was released last
February.
“Reporters Sans Frontieres”
(RSF) (Journalists without fron-
tiers) tracks what is happening
to journalists around the world.
So far in 2009, 26 journalists
have been killed, 186 are im-
prisoned, and 83 “cyberdissi-
dents” have been detained.
There is no prioritization for ac-
tion based on nationality, and no
distinction between males and
females.
Another civil society organi-
zation, “Reprieve,” addresses
the human rights of prisoners,
including those on death row in
America, and in Guantanamo
Bay. It provides legal support to
prisoners who cannot pay for a
lawyer, and promotes the ethic
that even prisoners have equal
rights under international law.
The British organization,
“Prisoners Abroad,” provides ad-
vice, information and support to
Mirdamadi came to represent
the forces that carry revolutions
into their final phase, what
Crane Brinton in his classic
“The Anatomy of Revolution”
called “the convalescence.” But
he apparently went too far.
When he registered to run for re-
election in 2004, he was disqual-
ified by the clerical Council of
Guardians. Dozens of incum-
bents and some 2,500 others
were also disqualified.
Mirdamadi led a mass resigna-
tion of 124 parliamentarians, al-
most half the total, in protest. It
was the beginning, he told me a
few months later, of what he
feared would become a “blood-
less coup.”
In 2006, he became leader of
his party, the largest reform fac-
tion. In 2008, he backed Mousavi
for president. And in June, he
was among the first arrested
when Iran’s uprising erupted.
While Mirdamadi was in parlia-
ment, Amnesty International is-
sued 13 “urgent action” appeals
asking supporters to write him
demanding the release of politi-
cal prisoners. Last month, it is-
sued an appeal about him — as a
political prisoner.
The irony is that the purge
taking place to prevent an al-
legedly foreign-backed “velvet
revolution” may in fact spur one.
President Mahmoud Ahma-
dinejad’s inaugural speech
Wednesday was full of inane
bluster. “We must play a key role
in the management of the
world,” he told parliament.
But the regime only looks
more desperate with each
passing week. Tens of thou-
sands of security forces had to
be deployed in Tehran to pre-
serve order on inauguration
day, yet YouTube snippets still
showed Iranians on crowded
subway escalators shouting
“death to the dictator.” The
widening polarization of soci-
ety will make it difficult for
Ahmadinejad to rule during
his second term.
“The goals of the revolution
are being forgotten as this gov-
ernment becomes more of a dic-
tatorship,” Mirdamadi said, pre-
dicting the current turmoil. “But
people still want change.”
Robin Wright, a former
Washington Post reporter and a
public policy scholar at the
Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars, is the au-
thor of four books on Iran. — Ed.
British citizens in prison abroad
and their families. It works with
overseas justice systems, and of-
ten helps to transfer prisoners
back to the U.K. There is noth-
ing wrong with this, but what
about overseas prisoners who
are not British?
In 1910, Winston Churchill
argued that “the civilization of a
society can be judged by the way
it treats its prisoners.” In a glob-
alizing, high mobility world, it is
time to apply that ethic to the
international community.
Could the U.N. build on the
work of the civil society organi-
zations, and develop interna-
tional standards about prison-
ers’ rights, to replace random bi-
lateral negotiations and person-
al preferences? Might it try to
evolve a consensus about how to
sanction countries guilty of judi-
cial lawlessness?
The British press reacted to
Clinton’s intervention with the
obvious cartoons. One shows
Clinton meeting the North
Korean leader, and saying, “I
thought Kim was a chick.”
Another shows him surprising
Iranian President Ahmadinejad
and Ayatollah Khamenei, at the
presidential inauguration, say-
ing, “Yo! More despot pariahs!
Where’s the hostages? Where’s
the chicks?” Perhaps that is un-
fair, but I do not hold out much
hope of me being rescued by Bill
Clinton if I were in a North
Korean jail.
This all evokes the British sto-
ry of St. George and the Dragon.
But before any other female
Korean journalists think of ven-
turing into North Korea in the
belief that Bill Clinton would
rescue them, they should note
another British cartoon from the
era of our “Iron lady” Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher.
The cartoon showed Thatcher
tied to a post, with the dragon
breathing fire at her. St. George
appeared, rode to her side, and
rescued the dragon.
The sorrow of a divided nation
Whenever I travel to a foreign
country and need to fill out an
entry form or customs report, I
always hesitate for a moment. I
hesitate because I am not quite
sure how to fill in the blank for
KIM SEONG-KON “country.” If I were Japanese or
French, I could simply write
down, “Japan” or “France.” As a
South Korean, however, things
are not so simple. I always hesi-
tate and ponder “Should I write
South Korea, the Republic of
Korea, or just Korea?” My coun-
try’s official name is the
Republic of Korea.
Some people But foreigners may question
whether it stands for North or
w ould argue South Korea. If I simply write
thatofficially “Korea,” foreigners may still
wonder whether I mean North
adopting the or South Korea. If I write South
title ‘North’ Korea, no such confusion will
occur, but South Korea is not
and ‘South’ the official name of my country.
K orea implies When I flew into New York
several weeks ago, I just wrote
that we have “Korea” on my I-94 entry card.
given up on The Homeland Security officer
at the Kennedy Airport did not
unification have any issues with my card.
Perhaps he knew that North
permanently. Koreans are not allowed to trav-
el to the United States.
However, things were a bit more
complicated at the U.S. Post
Office where it is possible to
send mail to North Korea. A few
days ago, wanting to send some
documents to Seoul by priority
mail, I handed my envelope to
an American clerk at the post of-
fice. Seeing the package was
In cults, a darker side of 1960s rebellion
By Jayanti Tamm the Unification Church — the
Washington Post Service Moonies. Communes and
ashrams sprouted across
At my local bookstore on the America. In the 1960s, the
eve of the 40th anniversary of decade now mythic for its anti-
Woodstock, 1960s nostalgia is in conformity, flocks of people con-
high gear. A display table is formed to the dictates of self-
stacked high with pricey coffee proclaimed prophets.
table books, each with its own In 1968, the Beatles sat at the
variation on psychedelic rainbow feet of the Maharishi.
lettering, each claiming to reveal Consciousness-raising went
the untold story of the “peace mainstream. Reciting Sanskrit
and music” festival. I under- chants, wearing japa beads and
stand the lucrative business of finding a guru became chic.
selling those hazy memories — Everyone who was anyone read
the Woodstock museum, Cherry “I Am That” and “Autobiography
Garcia ice cream, even the new of a Yogi.” Many free spirits obe-
movie “Taking Woodstock.” I just diently changed their names,
can’t buy into it. dropped out of college and aban-
It’s not because, as a Gen- doned their families. Ironically,
Xer, I feel slighted that I missed their wild-child rebellion landed
out on all the fun. It’s because them in rigidly structured cults
for me and many other children that controlled their lives — and
of the flower children, our rose- those of their children. For
colored glasses are not just many, that life eventually grew
slightly tinted, but darkly old. They retired their mantras
tainted. and moved on. But for others,
Along with the iconic music my parents included, the in-
and fashion came myriad new trigue never faded.
religions and a foolish rush to Like the Beatles, my hippie
embrace peddlers of spiritual parents met their guru in 1968.
snake oil. A flood of swamis, yo- Sri Chinmoy, based in New
gis and self-proclaimed enlight- York, promised them enlighten-
ened beings preyed on hippies ment — if they obeyed his dic-
who were disillusioned by tates. All they had to do was
mainstream religion and in surrender their lives to him. To
search of an alternative path. my trusting and vulnerable
By the time the mud had mother, and to my eccentric
dried at Woodstock, Swami and contemplative father, the
Prabhupada had created the offer sounded like a bargain.
Hare Krishnas and the Rev. Arriving in the United States
Sun Myung Moon had founded in 1964, Sri Chinmoy had vast
bound for Korea, he punched
the computer keyboard to look
up the postage rate. After star-
ing at the screen for a while he
asked, a bit confused, “Is it the
Democratic Republic, or just the
Republic?” “Just the Republic,” I
replied promptly, “Without
Democratic.” “So it’s the
Republic without People, with-
out Democracy,” the clerk said
to himself, looking at the com-
puter screen. Then he realized
his mistake and hurriedly cor-
rected it. “Oops! I mean, without
Democratic.” We both chuckled
at his inadvertent mistake. Or
was it a joke?
Indeed, it is not easy for for-
eigners to distinguish between
South and North Korea’s offi-
cial names. For instance, who
would imagine “the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea” is
actually the notoriously unde-
mocratic country known as
North Korea? Judging by its of-
ficial title, North Korea ironi-
cally sounds like a democratic
country, “of the people, for the
people, by the people,” while
South Korea does not.
Perhaps that is why the pro-
North Korea leftists in South
Korea criticize the South
Korean government as unde-
mocratic and tyrannical, while
strangely keeping silent about
the political oppression and
three generation-long dictator-
ship in North Korea. Perhaps
that is why they chant for “peo-
ple’s government” and “people’s
ambitions. He aimed to infil-
trate the United Nations, win a
Nobel Prize and gain a world-
wide following. His disciples
were to lead austere, celibate
lives, devoting themselves and
their financial resources entire-
ly to his mission. In 1970 when
my mother became pregnant —
a clear breach of the rules —
the guru saved face by divining
me as his chosen soul.
I was raised in the ashram of
this man who declared himself
an incarnation of God. Before I
could walk, my parents dressed
me in a sari and took me on
their recruiting trips. Instead of
acting in school plays and play-
ing soccer, I distributed leaflets
proclaiming the guru’s divinity
from parade floats that wound
through city streets. I spent
summers scrubbing the cages
of the zoo housed in the base-
ment of the guru’s Queens
home.
When Chinmoy wanted to at-
tract more media attention, he
staged elaborate weightlifting
feats, hoisting elephants, heli-
copters and even Nelson
Mandela and Mikhail
Gorbachev — a smoke-and-
mirrors spectacle I never un-
derstood. How could lifting ele-
phants illuminate and ulti-
mately transform the world?
When I was a teenager, the
guru’s strict rules banning all
contact and relationships with
the “outside” world provoked
OPINION 13
literature,” as if South Korea is
a country without people and
democracy. To their blinded
eyes North Korea is a democra-
tic nation where political power
is in the hands of the people.
These days few countries em-
ploy the prefix “Republic of” in
their names. Even the People’s
Republic of China and the
Republic of China are now cus-
tomarily called China and
Taiwan for convenience’s sake.
Many foreigners suggest that
Korea too should consider elimi-
nating confusing prefixes and go
by just North and South Korea,
like we are called in the inter-
national community. Watch
CNN or BBC — reporters in-
variably refer to our country as
“South Korea.” Similarly, they
use the term “North Korea,” not
the “Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea.” Examine
any international map and we
will find that we are labeled as
South Korea, not the Republic of
Korea. Besides, when we go
abroad, we introduce ourselves,
saying, “I’m from Korea,” or “I’m
from South Korea,” not “I’m
from the Republic of Korea.”
Our country’s name in
Korean poses the same prob-
lem as well. The official title of
our nation is “Daehan
Minguk,” which means “the
Republic of Great Korea.”
Instead of using the preten-
tious name, therefore, we cus-
tomarily refer to South Korea
as “Hanguk” and North Korea
questions and longings for
everything he forbade — col-
lege, career and family. When
he told me to neglect the mind
and forever remain in the heart
“like a 7-year-old,” I finally re-
alized that he was a narcissistic
charlatan, shamelessly exploit-
ing the faithful.
At 25, older than my parents
had been when they renounced
the world to serve the guru, I
was formally banished, losing
all my connections to the com-
munity I’d known since birth.
Fortunately, I was young
enough to forge a life on my
own terms.
For years, I have struggled
with the reckless decision of
some in my parents’ generation
to entrust their present and fu-
ture to those who claimed to be
spiritually enlightened. Cul-
tural historians today portray
the ’60s as a unique time. I
hope they are right. That is, I
hope that the cast of corrupt op-
portunists — gurus, prophets
and messiahs — who profited
from others’ naive belief is in-
deed a unique ‘60s phenome-
non, safely encapsulated in
those glossy anniversary books.
Jayanti Tamm, an English
professor at Ocean County (New
Jersey) College, is the author of
“Cartwheels in a Sari: A
Memoir of Growing Up Cult.”
— Ed.
as “Bukhan.” The formalistic,
pompous sounding “Daehan
Minguk” is used only by patri-
otic crowds when chanting
cheers at the World Cup. As for
the formal name of North
Korea, “Joseon Minjujui Inmin
Gonghwaguk,” few South
Koreans are familiar with it or
use it.
Some people would argue
that officially adopting the title
“North” and “South” Korea im-
plies that we have given up on
unification permanently. How-
ever, the rosy dream of unifica-
tion that the Kim Dae-jung ad-
ministration falsely inspired for
political gain has now turned
out to be a debunked fantasy.
Therefore, foreigners argue
that there is no reason we can-
not go by South Korea. Then we
will no longer need to hesitate
when we write down the name
of our country on foreign docu-
ments. Better yet, we will be
free from the stress of being
asked when overseas, “Are you
North Korean?” after we said,
“I’m from Korea.” We know it,
and yet we still hesitate to offi-
cially call our country “South
Korea.” Perhaps that is the sor-
row of the people from a divided
nation.
Kim Seong-kon is a professor
of English at Seoul National
University and director of the
Seoul National University
Press. — Ed.
A summer
Obama drama
From Page 12
spinach with no dessert.
So Obama sets out to marry
cost control to a prize long
sought by his party — univer-
sal health care. He recognizes
that controlling health-care
costs will require constant ad-
justments, so he seeks to put
decisions in the hands of a Fed-
like board of experts insulated
from politics. He knows reform
will fail if it is forced upon the
system, so from the start he en-
lists key players who in the
past would have opposed re-
form automatically: insurers,
the drug industry, hospitals,
the American Medical Asso-
ciation.
Finally, he calculates that a
win on health-care reform will
give him the political momen-
tum he needs to tackle the fed-
eral debt. But understanding
that Congress, with its ear-
marks and appropriations
barons, will never deliver fun-
damental fiscal reform, he will
take the power away from the
Pelosis and the Reids by
means of a commission that
can take the heat for the hard
decisions he knows must be
made.
This version is also consis-
tent with the facts — so which
is the real movie?
We may get some sense when
the story reaches its exciting
climax — when a health bill
gets to conference, that is —
and we see how hard Obama
will fight for the cost-control,
deficit-controlling side of re-
form.
But, as with other Obama
dualities that have vexed ob-
servers from the start (centrist
or liberal? conciliator or parti-
san?), the real answer may be:
both.
Obama wants universal
health care for its own sake —
what president would want
his legacy defined by the
crabbed, thankless task of bal-
ancing the budget? — but he
also believes it can pave the
way to fiscal reform. It’s an
audacious gamble. But, then,
it wouldn’t be an Obama
movie without one.
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