More than two decades ago when Massoud Rajavi informed of the great change and ideological revolution within Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), still believing to be active as a political group, hardly anybody first came to assume that it was actually the beginning of a long path leading the organization into the abyss of internal and external challenges. Although Rajavi’s marriage with his comrade’s wife received appreciations of a novel move in the group’s internal relations, soon the magnitude of the marriage itself was faded in comparison with other significant consequences of the move that required time to be actualized. The intended personality change in the insiders could not take effect overnight ant it really consumed time to accomplish Rajavi’s plotted ideological principles. Even Rajavi himself anticipated prolongation of the process when he said: “If you fail to comprehend now, be patient. I do not know, maybe you come to understand in one, five or ten years”.
It was in no way an overstated assertion since he knew well what would come out of his initiated revolution. Still many aspects of his devised ideological ploy and its profound effects remain concealed and beyond the scope of the world. Only in the recent years, and following the disclosures made by many defected members, the outside world has been to some extent informed of the organization’s cultic aspects and internal human tragedies. Interestingly enough, the modern world was even shocked to a great degree to learn about horrible, deplorable stories related by the ex-members about what passes inside the organization.
Of the most outrageous, scandalous cult records recently revealed are hysterectomy operations and Rajavi’s sex scandal, his polygamous marriage with the female cadres of the Leadership Council. Being under the constant influence of cultic behaviors that show most abnormal to the outsiders, the insiders and even the separated members consider them as typically normal. As expounded by Thaler Singer “If you spend enough time in any environment, you will develop a personal history of experience and interaction in it. When that environment is constructed and managed in a certain way, then the experiences, interactions, and peer relations will be consistent with whatever public identity is fostered by the environment and will incorporate the values and opinions promulgated in that environment”. 1
It is of great importance to perceive to what extent the detached members of MKO have come to incorporate abnormal experiences and interactions of the group’s cultic environment now out of that milieu. Long being engaged in cooperative activities with other comrades in an environment that hardly could they realize its cultic structure under the cover of political campaign, these members fail to perceive that they had been coerced into many abnormalities. It has to be pointed out that it is a fact most cult members have experienced and as Singer explains “when you engage in cooperative activity with peers in an environment that you do not realize is artificially constructed, you do not perceive your interactions to be coerced. And when you are encouraged but not forced to make verbal claims to "truly under- standing the ideology and having been transformed," these inter. actions with your peers will tend to lead you to conclude that you hold beliefs consistent with your actions. In other words, you will think that you came upon the belief and behaviors yourself”. 2
So explicitly explained by cult experts, the insiders and newly defected members are unaware of the change in them while in the cult and which are regarded bizarre behaviors by the outside onlookers. The defectors should know that whatever they consider as the mist ordinary, normal and unimportant are much objectionable, bizarre and abnormal to the outside societies. Then, it is best recommended that the defected members of MKO be sensitive to whatever monotonous regularity they were putting up with in the cult and to disclose them to the world to judge for itself.
References:
1. Thaler Singer, Margaret, Cults in our midst, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass; A Wiley Imprint, p.76.
2. Ibid.