Mohammad Khatami

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mohammad Khatami سید محمد خاتمی
5th President of Iran
In office August 3, 1997 – August 2, 2005
Vice President(s)	Hassan Habibi (1997–2001) Mohammad Reza Aref (2001–2005)
Preceded by	Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
Succeeded by	Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Born	September 29, 1943 Ardakan, Iran
Political party	Militant Clerics League

Mohammad Khatami (Persian : سید محمد خاتمی Seyyed Moḥammad Khātamī), born on September 29, 1943, in Ardakan city of Yazd province, is an Iranian intellectual, philosopher and political figure. He served as the fifth President of Iran from August 2, 1997 to August 2, 2005, and was succeeded by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Khatami was elected president on May 23, 1997, and was re-elected on June 8, 2001, for a second term. Khatami won largely due to the female and youth vote, who voted for him because he promised to improve the status of women and respond to the demands of the young generation in Iran.

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 or anybody who was following that current are therefore usually known as the "2nd of Khordad Movement".

[edit] Early career

Khatami has a bachelor's degree in Western philosophy from Isfahan University, but he left academia while studying for a master's degree in Educational Sciences at Tehran University, and instead 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 24 May 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.

He is also a member and chairman of the Central Council of the Militant Clerics League.

[edit] Presidency

Khatami 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 judiciary, the prisons, etc. (See Politics of Iran).

Khatami 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.

[edit] Cabinet

[edit] Economic policy

Khatami's economic policies follow the previous government's commitment to industrialization. As for the macro-economic policies, Khatami continued the liberal policies that Rafsanjani had embarked on in the state's first five year economic development plan (1990-1995). Right-wing critics accuse President Khatami of neglecting the economy in favour of politics. [7] In 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. A year into his first term as president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami admitted that the Iranian economy was "chronically ill ... and it will continue to be so unless there is fundamental restructuring". His economic team has managed to address a number of economic shortcomings but many problems remained unresolved. The remaining difficulties can be attributed to the limited capability of his team, the structure of the economy and society, and also the power struggle.

[edit] Foreign policy

Year 2001 was named the year of dialogue after Mohammad Khatami's proposal

During Khatami's presidency, Iran's foreign policy had entered into a new phase; moving from confrontation to conciliation. Khatami's worldview and his notion of foreign policy was different from his predecessors'. In Khatami's notion of foreign policy, there was no "clash of civilizations", he favours a "dialogue among civilizations". The detente policy of Khatami had created a congenial atmosphere for expanding relations with the world, and its relations with the major powers (Iran's) was improving. Relations with the US alone were still marred by mutual suspicion and distrust. During Khatami's two terms, Tehran was increasingly making efforts to play a greater role in the Persian Gulf region and beyond.

Khatami has met with many influential figures, including Pope John Paul II, Koichiro Matsuura, Jacques Chirac, Johannes Rau, Vladimir Putin, Abdulaziz Bouteflika and Hugo Chávez.

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.[8] [9] 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[10]

[edit] Khatami and Iran's 2004 parliamentary election

In February 2004 Parliament elections, the Council of Guardians banned thousands ^[1] 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^{[citation needed]} 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 weighty members of the Guardian Council are all appointed directly by the Supreme Leader and thus are considered as 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 nation, then we are the nation's enemy," and closed his speech.

[edit] Dialogue Among Civilizations

Mr. 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 [11] [12]. 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.^[2]

[edit] Personal life and family

President Khatami on the last day of his presidency, "reconciles" with his family. His son Emad, and his younger daughter Narges are seen in the picture

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 university professor of Mathematics, 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 former businessman with a master's degree in Industrial Engineering from Fort Lee, N.J., 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 speaks several languages including Persian, Arabic, English and German.

[edit] Research field

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 curious 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.^[3]

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.^[4]

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."^[5]

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."

[edit] Post-presidential career

• 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. [13]

• On November 14, 2005, Mohammad Khatami urges all religious leaders to fight for the abolishment of atomic and chemical weapons. [14] [15]

• 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. [16]

• 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." [17]

• On September 7, 2006, during a visit to Washington, Mohammad Khatami calls for dialogue between the United States and Iran.^[6]

• 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. ^[7] 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.^[8][9]

[edit] The Man with the Chocolate Robe

Original caption reads: "Someone certainly looks happy!". Khatami on the stage standing next to Pegah Ahangarani (left), a popular Iranian actress who was a presenter of the event, and Baran Kowsari (right), during Chelcheragh's "A Night with 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 "مردی با عبای شکلاتی" ("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.

• [18] Mohammad Ali Abtahi's weblog report of the evening
• [19] BBC News: The Man with the Chocolate Robe
• [20] Photo report of the ceremony
• [21]Chelcheragh Magazine website's report on the event
• [22] A blogger's report: Tears at the night with The Man with the Chocolate Robe

[edit] Primary sources

[edit] Publications

Khatami has written a number of books in Persian, Arabic and English:

Books in Persian

• Fear of the Wave (بیم موج)
• From the World of the Polis to the Polis of the World (از دنیای شهر تا شهر دنیا)
• Faith and Thought Trapped by Despotism (آیین و اندیشه در دام خودکامگی)
• Democracy (مردم سالاری)
• Dialogue Among Civilizations (گفتگوی تمدنها)
• A Letter for Tomorrow (نامه ای برای فردا)
• Islam, The Clergy, and The Islamic Revolution (اسلام، روحانیت و انقلاب اسلامی)
• Political Development, Economic Development, and Security (توسعه سیاسی، توسعه اقتصادی و امنیت)
• Women and the Youth (زنان و جوانان)
• Political Parties and the Councils (احزاب و شوراها)
• Reviver of the Truth of Religion [title roughly translated from Persian] (احیاگر حقیقت دین)

Books in English

• Islam, Liberty and Development^[10] ISBN 978-1883058838

Books in Arabic

• A Study of Religion, Islam and Time [title roughly translated from Arabic] (مطالعات فی الدین و الاسلام و العصر)
• City of Politics [title roughly translated from Arabic] (مدینة السیاسة)

A full list of his publications is available at his official personal web site (see below).

[edit] Trivia

• President Khatami is not related to Ahmad Khatami, a hardliner cleric and Friday Pray Imam of Tehran.

[edit] Awards and honors

Islam, Liberty and Development by Mohammad Khatami

• Gold medal from Greek University of Athens
• The special medal of Spain's Congress of Deputies and Senate, Key to Madrid
• Honorary PhD, Moscow University of International Relations
• Honorary degree of doctorate in philosophy, The University of Moscow
• Honorary PhD degree, Tokyo Institute of Technology
• Honorary doctorate degree by the Delhi University
• Honorary doctorate from Azerbaijan's Academy of Science
• Degree of honor in political sciences, University of Lebanon
• Pakistan's highest civilian honour
• Plaque of honor and medal of distinction by the International Federation for Parent Education
• Honorary doctorate from Sudan's Nilein University.
• Honorary doctorate of Law from University of St Andrews.

[edit] See also

• List of national leaders
• Iranian presidential election, 1997
• Iranian presidential election, 2001
• Politics of Iran
• 2nd of Khordad Movement
• Modern Islamic philosophy
• Liberal movements within Islam

[edit] References and notes

[edit] Further reading

• Clawson, Patrick. Eternal Iran. 2005. ISBN 1-4039-6276-6 Palgrave Macmillan Publishers

[edit] External links

• Official website of Mohammad Khatami
• Biography in I.R.I.B. Archive
• Biography in Encyclopedia Britannica
• Web site of the International Center for Dialogue Among Civilizations
• UNESCO: Dialogue among civilizations speech by HE Mr. Mohammad Khatami
• (Persian) Biography
• Khatami; from the presidency of Islamic Center in Hamburg to the presidency of Islamic Republic of Iran
• CNN: Transcript of Interview with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami
• Iran's ex-leader sees new Islam
• Iranian Economy in Six Snapshots
• (Persian) ISNA (Iranian Students' News Agency) reports about Mohammad Khatami
• An unofficial weblog about the news related to Mohammad Khatami on Blogger
• Address of H.E Seyed Mohammad Khatami at the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) Sept 2, 2006
• Khatami 'from material that makes for great leaders'

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Mohammad Khatami

Presidents of Iran
Banisadr | Rajai | Khamenei | Rasfanjani | Khatami | Ahmadinejad