15 July 2024
Citing Matthias Küntzel, Germany and Iran: From the Aryan Axis to the Nuclear Threshold, translated by Colin Meade (Telos Press Publishing, New York, 2014)
President Cyril Ramaphosa's African National Congress government played a significant role in bringing Iran into the BRICS global coalition on New Year's Day, this year.
The "RIC" of Russia-Iran-China - now both figuratively and literally the centre of BRICS - is a totalitarian political/military axis, with the Islamic jihad state of Iran effectively replacing Hindu-majority India as its "I" and with its "S" - South Africa - as a fake cover of anti-apartheid, anti-West "liberation".
South Africa's political alliance with Iran needs far greater attention from the people of South Africa, and also from each political party now linked in the so-called "Government of National Unity" - in particular, from the Democratic Alliance.
In a detailed article in May headed "Was South Africa bribed by Iran to bring 'genocide' case against Israel?", the Jewish Chronicle (London) reported the former chief executive officer of the SA Institute of Race Relations, Dr Frans Cronje, stating that South Africa's "collaboration" with Iran was "part of Tehran’s ideological and military offensive against Israel and the West."
The article continues: “ 'South Africa’s foreign policy structures have been sold to the Iranians,' said Cronje. 'It’s state capture'.”
It's impossible to get a proper understanding of contemporary Iran without good knowledge about its founding political leader, Ayatollah (the honorific title for highest-ranking Shia Muslim clegy) Ruhollah Khomeini, who was born in 1900/or 1902 and died in 1989.
I've put together below a detailed and carefully researched portrait of Ayatollah Khomeini and his ideological backgound, written by a highly respected German historian, Matthias Küntzel, copied from his study, Germany and Iran: From the Aryan Axis to the Nuclear Threshold, translated by Colin Meade (Telos Press Publishing, New York, 2014), following its original publication as Die Deutschen und der Iran: Geschichte und Gegenwart einer verhaengnisvollen Freundschaft, Wolf Jobst Siedler jr, Berlin, 2009).
I begin with Matthias Küntzel's portrait of Khomein, showing his understanding that an "ideological link with Germany had to do with the Shiite religious myths and Adolf Hitler's initial successes: many Iranians considered the German Fuhrer to be the Twelfth Imam. ..." (p.33)
[On Nazi Germany's wartime Radio Zeesen] "The former ambassador to Iraq, Fritz Grobba, [stated] ... on July 2, 1942: '... The Jews are pulling the Americans' strings.' The closer the defeat of the Nazis came, the more energetically this anti-Western antisemitism was stirred up: according to Josef Goebbels some 70-80 percent of the spoken material on Radio Zeesen in 1943 consisted of attacks on the Jews.
"Among the regular listeners to this material was a man of whom the world was later to hear much more: Ruhollah Khomeini. 'Germany's Persian service was, during the war, to enjoy the widest possible audience in Iran and Iraq,' writes Amir Taheri in his biography of Khomeini. When, in winter 1938, Khomeini, then aged 36, returned from Iraq to Qum [in Iran], he 'had brought with him a radio set made by the British company Pye which he had bought from an Indian Muslim pilgrim. The radio proved a good buy. ... It also gave him a certain prestige. Many mullahs and talabehs [religious students] would gather at his home, often on the terrace, in the evenings to listen to Radio Berlin and the BBC.' ..."(pp.44-45)
A Shiite Muslim ideologue and militant "who probably contributed more than anyone else to the creation of an Iranian Islamism" was Navvab Safavi. "Born in 1924 as the son of a cleric, Safavi was the founder and leader of the Iranian terrorist organization Fadayan-e Islam ('Martyrs of Islam'). He was hanged [by the Shah's regime] in 1956 when he was 32 years old." (p.77)
"Among the topics that Navvab and Khomeni discussed, sometimes all night long, was the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the seedbed of Islamism and the first Muslim urban mass movement, founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna. Navvab and Khomeini were both familiar with the Brotherhood's program. In 1937 and 1938 Khomeini had made an intensive study of al-Banna's writings, 'Navvab [also] had read about the Muslim Brotherhood's inspiring activities against imperialism and its regional puppets, and he always admired and esteemed them,' recalled Mehdi Abd-e Khodali, one of his acolytes. ...
"Navvab's Egyptian trip took place in January 1954. The high points were a visit to the headquarters of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and participation as a guest speaker at a rally of several hundred thousand people in Cairo on January 12, 1954. It was Navvab Safavi who brought the Shiite preacher Khomeini to the attention of the Sunnite Muslim Brothers. He also did more than anyone else to win Khomeini over to the Brotherhood's revolutionary ideas. ...
" ... Contemporary Islam had lost its dominance because most Muslims had been corrupted by Western influences, they claimed. Only a return to the origins of Islam could put an end to the intolerable impositions and humiliations of the Muslims and establish the just Muslim world order.
"... indeed, the main aim and distinguishing mark of Navvab's group was the murder of Muslim 'traitors.'
"There was also agreement on the slogan 'You love life and we love death!' that would first penetrate the consciousness of the international public after September 11, 2001. ... Navvab and Khomeini proved fertile soil for this idea.
"Another point of contact was their hatred of sensuality and sexuality. 'Flames of passion rise from the naked bodies of immoral women and burn humanity into ashes,' states Navvab's manifesto melodramatically. Thus, cinemas and theaters had to be opposed as centers of immorality. ... In July 1979, Khomeini pursued the same line of thought. He summoned the directors of Radio Iran and ordered them to struggle against music, telling them that 'Music corrupts the minds of youth' and 'Music is treason to our nation.'
"There was general agreement on the the subjugation and separation of women. ... Khomeini - who in 1930 maried a prominent ayatollah's ten-year-old daughter, who bore him his first son when she was twelve - could certainly agree both with this idea and with the ... demand that men and women should be kept apart in social life.
"Opposition to the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948 created another area of agreement. In the 1930s the Muslim Brothers had prioritized the fight against Zionism and the Jews, receiving financial support from Nazi Germany for the purpose. ...
"Finally, Navvab adopted the Brotherhood's terrorist tactics. In February 1945 the Brotherhood had shot Egyptian Prime Minister Ali Mahir immediately after he had declared war on Germany. Shortly thereafter, Navvab Safavi committed his first act of terrorism.
"...Forty-seven years before the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, Khomeini wrote: 'My fellow upholders of the faith and honourable youth! ... do what needs to be done.... [T]hose who spout such ravings should be executed in the presence of religious supporters and those who provoke others and corrupt the earth should be eradicated.' " (pp.79-82)
As a "regular listener to Radio Zeesen", Khomeini was "a connoisseur of European antisemitisim. One of Khomeini's most significant writings, The Islamic State, published in 1971, shows the strength of the influence of this Nazi propaganda. 'The Jews ... want to create a Jewish world state,' we read here. 'And since they are liars and determined, I fear that they - God preserve us! - will one day achieve their goal!' The delusion of the 'Jewish world state' is unknown in Islamic tradition. Here, Khomeini has taken on board the central idea of the antisemitic screed The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
"In launching an anti-Jewish campaign, Khomeini was repeating a formula that had prevously proved successful for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood." (pp.89-90)
"On February 1, 1979, Khomeini returned to Iran to a frenetic welcome. In that same month he gave free rein to his anger at the liberation of women.... On February 27, 1979, Khomeini repealed the Family Law of 1967, which had allowed women to seek a divorce. On March 3, women were prohibited from serving as judges. On March 4, Khomeini declared that only men could initiate a divorce. Soon after, he ordered women to cover their heads with the veil. On March 9, women were expelled from all sports clubs and the Olympic team. Subsequently, the female age of marriage was lowered to nine, and the value of a woman's testimony to a court made half that of a man." (p.97)
Readers can judge for themselves.
"Matthias Küntzel is one German intellectual who unflinchingly looks into the heart of darkness that is Khomeini's legacy and hears echoes of the murderous Jew-hatred and fanaticism of Germany's past. This fine book should be widely read by government officials, political leaders, journalists, think tank analysts, scholars, and citizens who want a better understanding of the Germany's considerable impact on the Iranian issue."
— Jeffrey Herf, Distinguished University Professor, Department of History, University of Maryland, US.
