Khomeini and the Veiled Lady

Italy's Orlana Fallaci gets another probing interview

Iran's state radio and television last week once again attacked Western news organizations. This time, Tehran's anger was directed against those who "raise hell when Iran punishes murderers but shut up when the best youths of Iran are murdered by agents of Zionism and imperialism." That was a reference to the fact that newsmen in Tehran had paid little attention to an ambush by Kurdish rebels in which 52 Islamic militiamen were killed. But if the Western press is not to be trusted, why then did the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini sit for an interview with Italian Journalist Oriana Fallaci? One factor, explained Nassiros-sadat Salami, the Iranian translator of Fallaci s book, Interview with History who served as interpreter, was Khomeini's acquaintance with a devastating interview that Fallaci had done with the Shah in 1973. The Shah, deeply offended, had it banned in Iran.

The interview with Fallaci was only the second that Khomeini has given to a Western journalist since his return from Pans last February (the first was to Eric Rouleau of Le Monde, in May). Fallaci's article was first published in the Milan daily Corriere della Sera, and appeared last week in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. The interview was also reprinted in two Tehran newspapers.

Although the interview, done in Fallaci's characteristically provocative style does not reflect it, she told TIME last week that she was impressed by Khomeini's great dignity and splendid bearing It was the first time that I have ever felt charisma." She was surprised by "the difference between the reality I saw there surrounding the Ayatullah and the way the Western press reports on him. The reality is that the people want him."

The interview took place at the Ayatullah's residence in the holy city of Qum and lasted, in all, for about three hours. As a sign of respect for Khomeini, Fallaci decided to wear a chador, the traditional floor-length black veil worn by Muslim women in Iran. "I don't wear blue jeans to interview the Pope," she explained. As it happened, the chador produced the most dramatic moment of the interview. In the midst of several questions about the role of women in an Islamic society, Fallaci charged that the chador was symbolic of the segregation into which women have been cast by the revolution. "They have to take a dip apart in their chadors," she said. "By the way how do you swim in a chador?" "Our customs are none of your business," Khomeini answered. "If you do not like Islamic dress, you're not obliged to wear it because Islamic dress is for good and proper young women."

"That's very kind of you," said Fallaci. And since you said so, I'm going to take off this stupid, medieval rag right now." When she did so, recounts Fallaci, Khomeini got up "like a young cat" and left the room without saying a word. Khomeini, however, agreed to see her again the next day.

Typically, Fallaci pulled no punches and started out with what she calls my toughest questions." One of them was directed to the charge that people were now calling Khomeini a dictator. "It hurts me," the Ayatullah answered, "because it is unjust and inhuman to call me a dictator. On the other hand, I couldn't care less, because I know that wickedness is a part of human nature, and such wickedness comes from our enemies. Considering the road that we have chosen, a road that is opposed to the superpowers it is normal that the servants of foreign interests prick me with their poison and hurl all kinds of calumnies against me. . . Dictatorship is the greatest sin in the religion of Islam. Fascism and Islamism are absolutely incompatible. Fascism arises in the West, not among people of Islamic culture. . . Fascism would be possible only if the Shah were to return or if Communism were to take over."

For the most part, Khomeini fielded the questions with aplomb, calmly denying many of the charges raised in the West against his rule. He denied that leftists played a major role in the revolution "None of them fought or suffered. If anything, they took advantage of the people who fought and suffered." Khomeini also charged that the left had been created by the Americans "to launch slanders against us, to sabotage and destroy us." It was of no consequence, he said, that Iran would not be called an Islamic Democratic Republic, since the "word Islam does not need adjectives such as democratic. Precisely because Islam is everything, it means everything." He defended the paramount role that the clergy will play under the new constitution: "Since people love the clergy, have faith in the clergy, it is right that the supreme religious authority should oversee the work of the Prime Minister or of the President of the Republic, to make sure that they don't go against the law, that is, against the Koran."

Khomeini defended the trials and executions of 600 people since the revolution on the ground that those found guilty had been involved in tortures and massacres. But he became somewhat agitated when Fallaci cited executions of those convicted of adultery, prostitution or homosexuality. "If your finger suffers from gangrene, what do you do? Letting the whole hand and then the body become filled with gangrene, or cutting the finger off?. . . Corruption, corruption. We have to eliminate corruption."

One thing the Ayatullah does seem to know: that Iran's revolution will go its own way regardless of what outsiders think. "If you foreigners do not understand, too bad for you," he said at one point. "It's none of your business. If some Persians don't understand it, too bad for them. It means they have not understood Islam."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.