The war of words and deeds is heating up even further between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadâ??s secular Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who is rumored to be a presidential hopeful in 2013, and the mullahs wishing to sustain velayat-e faqih, or guardianship by the clerics, as the sole form of government in Iran.
Previously, Mashaei had criticized the clerics as incompetent politicians and tyrannical administrators who are out of touch with most Iranians. His website even called for their ouster. The mullahs in turn have labeled him a heretic and vowed to block his political ambitions.
Now Mashaei is taking on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei directly.
Lately the Supreme Leader has been denouncing music â?? both Persian and Western â?? as unsuitable for the Islamic Republic:
'"Teaching and encouraging music is not compatible with the highest values of the sacred system of the Islamic Republic."'
Khamenei reportedly prefers prayer and revolutionary chants.
However, Iranâ??s increasingly independent youth are turning amass to music as a form of rebellion against the Islamic regime and embracing globalization.
The 50-year old Mashaei, who has increasingly been positioning himself as the champion of younger Iranians, ridiculed the Supreme Leaderâ??s anti-music stance while addressing a gathering of artists in the city of Arak (Sultanabad):
'When I speak frankly, they [the mullahs] call me a blasphemer. But many of them donâ??t understand music and so they claim music is religiously unacceptable. They pray so much â?¦ that they have become unaware of God. They see not God but an illusion â?¦ for they pray facing the wrong Kaaba [in the Grand mosque at Mecca] and so don't understand music either. They are incapable of comprehending the world of poetry and arts which is the pinnacle [of civilization]. Unlike them I am an engineer; consequently I understand the seabed of the arts.'
Mashaei is already on record as claiming that those Iranians who focus on religion rather than science will never see heaven.
So despite Supreme Leader Khamenei's attempts at reconciliation between the warring factions of Iranâ??s ruling class, to preserve his own authority, the breakup continues apace at his expense.
(AP Photo)