The cult of Rajavi

A matter of control and freedom

Majority of those who joined Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK/PMOI) and spent years and decades trapped in the leftist group could never dream that their quest for a socialist utopia would lead them to the abyss of a destructive cult of personality. Many of defectors that managed to break the embrace of the cult confess that what they gained in all those lost years was an understanding that they had been the sure victims of a man’s power abuse and ambitions who had not the least idea what democracy could be like.

Kept totally in ignorance of the true nature of the group, since the group severely controls the outlet and leak of information, even the sympathizers living in the free world of modern European countries as well as a handful of European parliamentarians, who seem to be after their own party and political interests rather than caring about Iranian people, have been led to a prejudice that the organization is a pro-democratic political group struggling for the institution of democracy in Iran. However, a merely show of sympathy does not seem to harm anybody. But when it comes to sympathize with a cult and terrorist group to further keep and enslave its members against their will it makes different.

Looking it from a humanitarian point of view, let’s support voluntarily return of MKO members to Iran or any other country they wish to move according to international regulations and through the organizations concerned. Let’s help those in Ashraf decide where to live rather than who controls them. They have had enough of any form of control and what at the present need is to be free.

September 27, 2008 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Fostered ambiance of distrust within Mujahedin

As was explained in previous articles, one of the controlling techniques practiced within MKO is espionage. Despite the fact that in almost all political systems and groups it is attempted to conceal the identity of the spies, within MKO spying is respected and valued so all members are involved in it openly and consider it to be an ideological and organizational duty. It seems that Mojahedin have redefined some terms. According to a former member:

Many reactionary features such as blind obedience and submission are considered to be positive ones. In fact, terms have lost their original meaning and the most shameful actions are introduced as revolutionary and valued characteristics and vice versa (1).

It is a fact that Mojahedin’s leadership resorts to appropriate approaches in accordance with the existing situation and conditions so that utmost security and control is achieved. According to some MKO ex-members, the strategy of spreading mistrust among members was taken after the ideological failure of Rajavi in the operation Eternal Light (Forugh-e Javidan). In other words, faced with a strategic impasse concerning the issue of the overthrow of the Iranian regime, Rajavi decided to put more strict control over the internal relations and MKO members.

It has to be noted that Rajavi had clear justifications for his decisions. For example, this strategy would control individual members one by one and consequently all the MKO members would be under control. What was of utmost importance for Rajavi in this critical phase was the danger of emotional relations of the family. Therefore, he decided to create mistrust among family members in order to prevent the negative consequences of their family ties. The leadership was well aware that after the failure in the operation Eternal Light, the family relations might intensify the challenges the organization was facing. As a result, the leadership tried to make family members pessimistic against each other by means of different approaches one of which was spying against each other.

Inter-organizational marriages that aimed at making the mind of members engaged in other issues rather than thinking of organizational challenges turned itself into a problem that threatened the organizational potentialities in next phases. One of the former Mojahedin members, Hadi Shams Haeri, refers to the main reasons behind obligatory organizational marriages in the first phase of the ideological revolution and the obligatory divorces in the second phase and writes:

Another trick played by Rajavi was creating much pessimism and hostility in women against men to create a resultant deep gap. Also the organization announced repeatedly that ‘men coveted women to satisfying their own sexual desires. For them, women are like properties and dolls. They are very selfish and aim to exploit women. Men are wild creatures and the ideological revolution is to solve the existing disparity’. Such comments affected the family relations negatively and made it full of distrust and disfavor (2).

He further explained that this controlling strategy was taken after the initiation of the first phase of the ideological revolution in 1985-6. He himself can be referred to as one of the victims of this strategy. As he says:

After the ideological revolution in 1985, I never felt secure at home. I talked to my wife cautiously since I felt that she controlled me like a spy. In fact she reported my words to the officials many times and they interrogated me for that. She was very different from the early years of our marriage turning to an obedient spy who did whatever she was ordered. She told me many times: ‘why are you such a subordinate member? I expected you to help me win promotion’ (3).

There are many reported instances in MKO in which the couples are made to belittle each other by spitting at their spouses’ face, using ideological swears and expressing hate to each other in order to pave the way for the leadership to put more control and hegemony over the members.

Anne Singleton, an MKO former member, elaborates on this controlling procedure and believes that Rajavi has generalized the absolute distrust exercised in the external policy of the organization to that of internal relations of the members in that the members felt pessimistic toward the outside world as well as other members and even their family members to the extent that all members tried to act in a cautious way not to be subject to the suspicion of others.

In such an atmosphere, any event resulting in others’ misunderstanding and doubt may lead to a lack of trust on the part of the leadership toward the members. According to Eric Hoffer, any individual’s reaction in such a milieu is the result of his adaptation with circumstances came across and the sole inlet into a system of values is renouncing individual wills to be dissolved in a collective whole:

Only the individual who has come to terms with his self can have a dispassionate attitude toward the world. Once the harmony with the self is upset, and a man is impelled to reject, renounce, distrust or forget his self, he turns into a highly reactive entity (4).

This mechanism may be interpreted as the best instrument for controlling members by their own family members after losing trust in each other to become reactive entities. According to Anne Singleton:

There is total trust between all the members of the Mojahedin, as a group of people facing an outside enemy (the rest of the corrupting world) they must trust one another completely. But, there is also a total absence of trust between all the members because no-one can ever be sure what anyone else is really thinking, or even what oneself is thinking and therefore it is easy to lose trust in oneself as a rational being. The only certainty that remains is to listen to and obey Rajavi (5).

References

1. Shams Haeri, Hadi, The Swamp, vol 1.

2. ibid.

3. ibid, p.131.

4. Hoffer, Eric, The true believer, p. 80.

5. Singleton, Anne; Saddam’s private army.

September 21, 2008 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Enforced internal intelligence activities in MKO

Mojahedin-e Khalq organization (a cultist group also known as MKO, MEK, PMOI) resorts to brainwashing and controlling techniques as well as engaging in other blameful activities such as training spies in a way different from other political and security systems. Normally, espionage is considered to be a profession by itself. However, in most cases it emerges as a result of ignorance, unfounded demands, and an ever-increasing phobia on the part of those involved in it. Although it means gathering, transmitting, or losing, of information by those who pretend to be part of a system or group, Mojahedin relate it to ideological and religious issues as a valued activity.

Cultist groups make psychological use of such a phenomenon. Eric Hoffer refers to it as a marvelous slime to cement the embittered and disaffected into one compact whole, a unifying agent. He writes:

The awareness of their individual blemishes and shortcomings inclines the frustrated to detect ill will and meanness in their fellow men. Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves. Thus when the frustrated congregate in a mass movement, the air is heavy-laden with suspicion. There is prying and spying, tense watching and a tense awareness of being watched. The surprising thing is that this pathological mistrust within the ranks leads not to dissension but to strict conformity. Knowing themselves continually watched, the faithful strive to escape suspicion by adhering zealously to prescribed behavior and opinion. Strict orthodoxy is as much the result of mutual suspicion as of ardent faith (1).

Then he refers to some examples in right Fascist parties and expounds on such an assumed sacred process as follows:

Mass movements make extensive use of suspicion in their machinery of domination. The rank-and-file within the Nazi party were made to feel that they were continually under observation and were kept in a permanent state of uneasy conscience and fear. Fear of one’s neighbors, one’s friends and even ones relatives seems to be the rule within all mass movements. Now and then innocent people are deliberately accused and sacrificed in order to keep suspicion alive. Suspicion is given a sharp edge by associating all opposition within the ranks with the enemy threatening the movement from without. This enemy-the indispensable devil of every mass movement-is omnipresent. He plots both outside and inside the ranks of the faithful. It is his voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges. If anything goes wrong within the movement, it is his doing. It is the sacred duty of the true believer to be suspicious. He must be constantly on the lookout for saboteurs, spies and traitors (2).

Such a deep theoretical consideration within the cultist relations of MKO constitutes what we call ideological sacredness which paves the way for the application of espionage activities. Subornation is used in order to convince members of being engaged in espionage in MKO, a common approach in the world of politics practiced by Mojahedin as well. One of the Mojahedin former members expands on such a controlling procedure and writes:

One of the undemocratic and even un-revolutionary relations is that of training spies. Spy is a person communicating with others in a friendly manner and then reporting his/her actions and speeches to the leader of the organization. This approach has penetrated within the families too. Wife spies against her husband, sister spies against her brother and vice versa giving the report to the officials which debilitates the marital relations resulting in suspicion and hatred in the families. Even in one or two hours allowed to be with each other, no one dares to talk to or consult with her/his spouse since it may end in giving secret information or criticizing the organization both of which are forbidden (3).

Hadi Shams Haeri describes such a process as follows:

Spying was another means for the mental reformation of members. The organization asked members to make daily reports of their family members and give it to their person in charge to control the affairs. Even talking in a specific dialect was forbidden not to disclose information in this way. As a result, distrust was spreading among the members and every one considered other members as security agents. Also the reporting person was affected negatively turning to a double-faced person (4).

Saeed Shahsavandi, former member of Mojahedin’s central democratic cadre, in his letter to Masoud Rajavi (MKO ideological leader) refers to one of the doctrines of the ideological revolution of Mojahedin, writing:

Members’ espionage and even that of couples is done as report writing. It was initiated after the development of the ideological revolution and nowadays is ever-increasingly practicing (5).

In a nutshell, espionage turned to be a kind of organizational advancement after the initiation of ideological revolution. In most ideological sessions of Mojahedin especially that of the so-called ‘article c’, members were told to be involved in espionage in order to get promotion. It is very interesting that this approach has no red line and all members were obligated ideologically to write reports. For example, European members returning to Camp Ashraf were accused of being secret agents too. In this regard, Masoud Banisadr writes:

By now not only we had to give reports about ourselves, and our thought, but as we were told that we have to be safeguard of each other, and report back misbehaviour of each other. God knows how many people gave such reports about us from abroad that didn’t know about this new situation. Some times I could not believe my ear when I could hear some facts people were giving about themselves or others. In a meeting, a brother was accusing another brother who sat on a seat occupied before be a sister. He was accused of wanting to touch a seat, already touched by a woman (6).

According to some detached members, sometimes even the common recollection of members they chat over turned to a means for their own indictment. However, although such exchange of information in no way aimed at giving reports, the internal relations of MKO made it inevitable to end the ordinary and day-to-day chitchats of members in giving reports against one another.

The most pitiful event was that of family members’ spy against each other done under the pretext of ideological and religious considerations. Making all members indebted to the leader is one of the most important phases of the ideological revolution without which organizational membership and advancement is impossible. This principle affected common emotional relations between relatives and made members mostly concerned about organizational upgrading and contentment of the leadership.

Some members had to divorce their spouse just because of losing their organizational status. The family turned into a place of mistrust and spying within MKO. Every one was obligated to report all events happened in his/her family to the organization. There was no freedom at home. Every one with a higher organizational status had hegemony over others and more facilities and welfare (7).

Taking members under control by means of spying is one of the appalling mechanisms practiced within MKO. According to some MKO ex-members, some members ignored all ethical principles accusing their fellow warriors falsely in order to satisfy the leadership. One of the most famous gatherings of Mojahedin in which a member was condemned harshly and sometimes beaten by others was called ‘pot’. It was like being put in a pot and boiled on fire as members were put under heavy, inescapable psychological pressures and reproach. Such sessions were formed based on the reports given to the officials about members.

The process of espionage in MKO is different from other systems and organizations; in the latter it is preferred to hide the identity of spies while in MKO it is respected because it is a duty to prove loyalty to the leadership. The value given to surveillance results from the fact that MKO leadership has theorized it ideologically. As Hoffer refers to psychological aspects of this issue, Mojahedin make use of the same aspect as well as ideological considerations thus making it an ordinary daily activity.

The study of such controlling mechanisms in MKO is of special significance since they make members do self-censorship due to the fact that no one can distinct spies from ordinary members. As a result, all members control each other automatically preventing the occurrence of any tension within the organization. There are many evidences provided by separated members proving this fact. The cases discussed above well illustrate the quality and quantity of such an unethical phenomenon in the internal relations of Mojahedin many of which are not mentioned here.

References:

1. Hoffer, Eric, The true believer, p.114

2. ibid, p.115

3. Shams Haeri, Hadi, The impasse of deviations, p.26

4. Shams Haeri, Hadi, The swamp

5. Shahsavandi, Saeed, Documents of my letters to Masoud Rajavi

6. Banisadr, Masoud, The memoirs of an Iranian rebel, p.376

7 Shams Haeri, Hadi, The swamp

September 18, 2008 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Who cares about children in the cult of Rajavi?

On April 15th,2008, a report was published on Boston.com, according to which “ Texas officials took 416 children from a polygamist retreat into state custody …” These children were taken from the cult due to the risk of abuse. Marissa Conzales spokeswoman for the State children ‘s Protective Services agency said: ” it is not the normal practice to allow parents to accompany the child when an abuse allegation is made.” According to Jenniffer Donaber and Michael Graczyk, the Associated Press correspondents, the state is accusing the sect of physically and sexually abusing the youngsters and wants to strip their parents of custody. The parents are accused of being manipulated as it is normal in all Cults The parents in the sect are accused of being manipulated as it is normal in all sects such as MKO where after the Ideological Revolution the spouses were indoctrinated manipulated and eventually forced to divorce and in 1990 during the first Gulf War, they were forced to leave their children under the care of the organization. But there is no protective service agency to care for MEK members’ children who were transferred to Europe where they live in group houses in a very poor condition, and every morning they should hail to Uncle Masud and Aunt Maryam ( since they do not have any idea of Mother, Father and Family) As Elizabeth Rubin quoted from Nadereh Afshari MKO’s former member in her article ‘’ the Cult of Rajavi’’: ”Every morning and night, the kids, beginning as young as 1 and 2, had to stand before a poster of Massoud and Maryam, salute them and shout praises to them… They saw these kids as the next generation’s soldiers. They wanted to brainwash them and control them.” Where are the judges, juries, attorneys and lawyers to defend the case of MKO members’ children whose parents have no idea of where they live. The children are forced to participate in fund raising propaganda of the organization soliciting European citizens with their poor appearance. Is it a normal practice to see children living a difficult life in the modern European cities. The democratic cover of MKO activities have hidden their anti – human behavior towards their members especially children who are considered as the future militia by MKO. So what is called children’s rights abuse? Isn’t it the abuse of a child’s life to prevent him from living a normal life within his family, enjoying education in a free school of a free country? Batul Soltani is a mother whose children were taken of her in the organization. Now that she has left MKO, she is looking for her beloved children whose photos were hidden in her clothes during the dark years of living behind the bars of Rajavi’s cult. She will hopefully find her children someday but who can return those grieving years of missing her children? The years when she was not even allowed to think about them.

September 9, 2008 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

A Cult called NCRI

Most cultish groups in the world are active in recruiting, expanding their activities, and gaining money and power [62]. One cannot resolve the problems related to the cults through a philosophical debate or their denunciation through heated discussions on TV. The threat that the cults impose on our societies goes beyond that. The cults, in fact, threaten the physical condition, psychological health, political power and democratic freedoms in our societies. The cults may even threaten the lives of our people.

In a cult, the self appointed leader is the centre of power and is the one who determines the values and goals. There is no limit to the authority of the leader. He/She will not respond to any-one and preaches a sort of a religion that has been invented by the superficial extraction of elements from this or that religion. Some of the most common and important methods that the leadership of a given cult uses for preserving and expanding its dominating power are:

The physical elimination of its opponents

Discrediting and treating the opponents as traitors before and after the physical elimination,

Slandering, accusing and using abusive language against its opponents and critics

Impetuously inverting the ideological and political positions

Inculcation and making the others believe what the cult says as true and inciting its members to self-humiliation and destruction of their own character are among other main tactics used against who have doubts, questions, hesitations or opposition to the leadership of the cult. The individual by turning to be a devotee inculcates in himself that he has no power to distinguish and understand the issues. Thus it is the leader who builds up the ideas and interprets the meaning of life.

It is the leader who defines what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad and who are friends and enemies. He is not answerable to the followers and there is a huge distance between him and the rest.

He is a person considered beyond a normal human being and capable of doing impossible things; and therefore others should obey and follow him. Contrary to the authentic religions who invite followers to obey God, in cults, the leader of the cult itself takes the place of God and becomes sacred and divine. Most cults try to use a deviated language and culture of religions to gain legitimacy. It is for this reason that they claim that the leader of the cult inspired by divine teachings is aware about the secrets of the world creation and world view and the nature of the human being. That’s why telling lies, deception and temptation and having multiple personas are justifiable in the cult and having these characteristics would be permissible to protect the leader and members of the cult.

The leader of the cult forms the society under his/her control in a closed and confidential manner. In this way, secrecy and confidentiality of issues –even minor ones- are vital and irrefutable. Emphasis on protecting the cult secrets is aimed at creating a harsh discipline and security hierarchy based on total and blind obedience. [63]

MKO, taking Marxism as a model, as of its inception and during expansion of its organi-sational structure, administered itself based on democratic centralism or central rule based on majority of votes. According to the Organisation there was a transitional period between the years 1978 and 1979 and between 1979 and 1984 when Rajavi’s authoritarian rule was established and from 1984, the organisation transformed itself into a cult. According to Iran Interlink, 1985 saw the start of the internal ideological revolution:

“[It was] Introduced at the time of the marriage of Massoud Rajavi with Maryam Azdonlou in February 1985. Rajavi declared himself the self-appointed ideological leader of the Mojahedin, or spiritual leader – a role taken over in public by his wife Maryam Rajavi since his disappearance after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Along with this role he introduced ‘phases’ of the Internal Ideological Revolution which would in his terms lead the members to a full understanding of his ideological beliefs. The phases includ-ed daily reporting of thoughts and feelings; forced marriage followed by forced divorces; separation of children from parents; confession of sins including erotic dreams and fantasies. The aim of these phases is to connect the member to the leader with nothing between them in an exclusive relation-ship of total submission to the leader’s will.” [64]

Former member Anne Singleton, on the BBC’s Newsnight programme, also describes the effects of the cult upon her and confirms the many reports of MKO survivors (former members) of the brain washing activities of the group. The piece mentions that many former MKO members gave account of the ‘psychological manipulation’ that was designed by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi to control the minds of the MKO members. Ann Singlton and her husband Massoud former MKO activists who had served MKO for 20 years in “absolute loyalty” were amongst them. It was launched in the name of “permanent ideological revolution”. The project aimed the renunciation of all types of sexual feel-ings and family connections. MKO leaders decreed that every member of the organization should divorce their spouses in order to dedicate their entire effort, energy and thoughts for the sake the Rajavi Family. Ann Singleton states that MKO expected that its members devote their wholel being to the Rajavi family. This was enforced through a system of daily reporting. Any types of erotic thoughts and fantasies had to be reported to the organisation in “details” in the form of complete openness [65].

According to Bahar Irani, the drift towards a cult started before the internal ideological revolution:

“The most explicitly expressed views in this respect are stated in a book entitled Ravand-e Jodaee "the process of separation" edited by a number of MKO’s separated members. The book is in fact the formal declarations of a number of Iranian students in abroad who published it just after the start of the ideological revolution. It investigates the strategic deviations of MKO and Rajavi from the organizational principles that inevitably led the organization into a cult:

“It is highly probable that Mojahedin, if they fail in their identification with liberalism and assuming the political power and face an overall stalemate, will turn into a cult because of their separation and isolation from the masses; something which is not unprecedented in the history. [1]

“In this regard, another ex-member has nearly the same opinion:

“Before the initiation of the military phase in 1980, some eminent political figures imprisoned by Shah [Pahlavi’s regime] who were somehow familiar with MKO envisaged it would turn into a cult! It was predicted that if the organization failed to settle it with the liberals, it had to inevitably suffer isolation and turned into a closed religious cult. [2]

“In this regard, Ali Ferasati, an MKO member, states that in 1984 Rajavi ordered the infor-mation bureau of the affiliated associations to do some investigation about the structure of cults. He says:

“In 1984, the information bureau of associations was asked to investigate the western religious cults. The reason was said to be since the imperialists were pushing policies ahead through religious cults, the organization needed to find out what the cults were doing and under what mechanism. [3]

“As Ferasati points out, he had managed to realize the real intention of Rajavi:

“At the time I got to the bottom that Massoud [Rajavi] was aware of the fact that the organization was getting dissociated and thus, wanted to see how the western cults operated so he could model on them[4]” [66]

In this period, the tendency towards a single person’s rule increased and gradually dominated all over the organisation. From December 1979 Masoud Rajavi’s tyranny became more evident and he became the lead man in the organisation.

“After the death of Mussa Khiyabai in February 1991, Rajavi became the irrefutable ruler of the organisation. From this time, Masoud Rajavi soon engaged himself to downgrade this political/religious organisation into a semi-religious/Mafia cult. Masoud Rajavi sat in place of God and all members of the organisation were duty bound, openly and officially, to bow in front of this new idol.” [67]

Maryam Azadonlou [68] repeatedly in her speeches, talked about “Rajavism” or “Masoudism” school of thought. “Rajavi considers himself the sole rightly designated representative of God on earth and calls the organisation the arrowhead.” [69] The following reasons indicate that the organisation turned itself into a cult:

Adopting a mixed ideology

Sanctification of Rajavi leadership

Its position regarding the family

Organisational divorces

Ideological revolutions and secret inter-organisational relationships

September 7, 2008 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

The NCR, an alias for Mujahedin Khalq

It may seem hard to believe that the first seeds of MKO’s transition to a cult of personality were sown in the heart of the Western democratic and free soil following the initiation of the ideological revolution within MKO. In fact, before MKO relocation to Iraq to execute cultic relations in Camp Ashraf as its main cult bastion, the cult thought had passed its embryo stage at Auvers-Sur-Oise in Paris. The importance of Camp Ashraf lies in the fact that it was the best remote and controlled spot as needed for cult activities. It well reinforces the first of the eight main conditions that Lifton identified as indicating the presence of ideological totalism in an organization:

Milieu control. As Lifton postulated it, this is primarily the use of techniques to dominate the person’s contact with the outside world but also their communication with themselves. People are "deprived of the combination of external information and inner reflection which anyone requires to test the realities of his environment and to maintain a measure of identity separate from it. 1

Burt before establishing its main controlled base to practice its cult process, MKO first requisite was to expand its extraordinarily exalted view of its role in political scene as the main Iranian opposition. As a result, it needed a prestigious ancillary establishment with prominent, opponent figures to confer required political legitimacy. The formation of the National Council of Resistance (NCR/NCRI) in France worked as an important alias that could accomplish the cause. It has to be pointed that formation of aliases was in no way an overnight happening. A look at the history of MKO especially after the advent of Islamic Republic in Iran reveals that the group had taken on the strategy of forming a number of affiliated groups under different pseudonyms as a working tool to recruit from among the social ranks and classes and obtain the needed public support.

Compared with other many formed aliases, the NCR is known to be MKO’s most important political wing in the West. Because of the wide membership diversity, the NCR is an exception to MKO’s cult influence. However, it has been itself utilized to intensify and expand cult relation. Although the formation of the NCR soon after MKO’s settlement in France aimed on creating an exclusively united front against the Islamic Republic, it soon turned to function as another alias for MKO. The main goal was on the one hand to recruit members with no ideology or whose ideology somehow contradicted that of MKO, and on the other hand the NCR was intended to act as a catalyst between the West and MKO. Explaining on the goal, an ex-member has said:

The fundamental reason for this new development of the NCRI was that Rajavi desperately needed to rebuild his contact with the West. He couldn’t do this directly himself as none of the Western countries would accept him whilst he continued to maintain relations with Saddam. Nor would Saddam let him loose to leave Iraq and do what he wanted beyond his control. 2

However, Rajavi needed a second trustable chip to introduce. Presentation of Maryam Rajavi as his surrogate in the West at the head of the NCR is known to be one among many errors made by Rajavi; she is hardly qualified to administer some ordinary organizational affairs let alone be elected and accepted as the president elect:

Rajavi hoped that by presenting Maryam as a President and giving her over 150 devoted members to choose from, she could go to the West and start building a place for him again in the political scene. It became a costly mistake. Maryam, as good as she was at promoting Rajavi for the members of the Mojahedin, could not act as a good CEO and take advice. 3

Still, Rajavi is the one to lead the NCR and his hegemonic rule is the sole cult characteristic that dominates it. That was enough for a number of members to leave it as they did. Yet, MKO’s active members constitute a big part of its membership, that is to say, the insiders living in a cult milieu out of a cult’s bastion.

References:

1. Dennis Tourish & Tim Wohlforth: On the edge; political cults right and left, p. 12.

2. Anne Singleton; Saddam’s Private Army, Iran-Interlink, 2003.

3. Ibid.

August 30, 2008 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

The inside and outside members of the Mujahedin Cult

Cult of Mojahedin, the inside and outside members

Cults generally tend to function in isolation and are usually remote from the society and keep away to have direct contact with people. However, for some purposes cults need to make contact with the outside world, that is, recruiting new members, fundraising and more. Sending the members to live among the free society is even more crucial when the cult comes to be a hypocritically political one that needs the society as the wheels to push the cult forth.

Although cults cut members off from easy and tete-a-tete contact with outsiders, there are a number of members in certain cults that live out of the cult among the ordinary people to fulfill the mentioned purposes. It does not mean that these outside members can escape tense, thought reform processes executed within the cult. These members seemingly living separate from the cult are also under the severe cult control and undergo the same mechanisms that are used against the insiders to changing their behavior. Explaining the mechanism in her book entitled Cults in Our Midst, Thaler Singer states that:

In most live-in cults, every detail of life comes under group scrutiny. For example, there are dress codes, food restrictions, and enforced marriages or relationships. In such cults, the members generally live together at the headquarters or at specified locations around the country or over, seas and work for cult-owned enterprises. However, there are also cults whose devotees appear to remain active in quite a few major aspects of the outside world, earning a living outside the cult. But for all practical purposes these individuals also live under rules governing such crucial features of their personal life as the people with whom they associate, what happens to their money, whether they raise their own children, and where they live. (p. 11)

At the present, Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK/PMOI), or Mojahedin Cult as it is notoriously referred to, may be the sole political cult of personality that avails big number of live-in and live-out members. The group’s main bastion being located in Camp Ashraf in Iraq, its headquarters are situated in Auvers-Sur-Oise in Paris with countless aliases aiding the cult in fundraising activities, recruitment, propaganda blitz, organizing rallies and so forth. Thus, it is of great importance to know:

– Under what aliases the cult is running its illegal activities

– How the members and sympathizers in these affiliated groups are controlled and receive cult instructions

– How essential are these cult relations to the cult

– What is the difference between the mechanisms applied against the Camp Ashraf live-ins and those living in the Western countries

– How crucial is the role of Camp Ashraf to establish contact with the outside world and the live-out members

As released by the State Department Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism on April 30, 2007 MKO is active under a variety of pseudonyms known as MKO; Mujahedin-e Khalq; Muslim Iranian Students’ Society; National Council of Resistance; National Council of Resistance (NCR); Organization of the People’s Holy Warriors of Iran; The National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA); The People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI); National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI); Sazeman-e Mujahedin-e Khalq-e Iran.

However, these are not all aliases but those officially announced. To the list can be added numerous political, social, charity, art and much more groups and societies wherein hardly you can trace them back to the mother group. They all function according to the taste and culture of the societies among whom they live and mostly propagate under democratic standards. For instance, the women and girls officially active as MKO insiders are forced to wear outfits covering all their body parts and the head. Even Maryam Rajavi herself in spite of dressing in colorful non-transparent outfit never shows in the public bareheaded. But there are many occasions in which women sympathizers and activists assemble in extravagant western fashions in favor of MKO.

It has to be also mentioned that many of these sympathizers are unaware of the real nature of MKO and work as propaganda tools to beguile the Westerners. As soon as they are recruited as the formal members, they have to consent to cult principles that includes the clothing as well. And Camp Ashraf is the very same remote bastion of the cult housing the live-in members and where the cult standards are outlined and demarcated for the active outsiders in the West.

August 30, 2008 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

A Cult Technique to Crush Antagonism

There always exist among the members of a cult or political group ones that display high level of antagonism and threaten the life of the cult or occurrence of schism. Unless cults and groups take countermeasures, the schism is inevitable. Being a cult of personality and susceptible to schism especially after the coupe d’état-like internal ideological revolution, MKO, facing increasing internal challenges, concocted excuses mainly to confront dissidents that could possibly nurture schism.

Massoud Rajavi’s marriage with his commander’s wife, Maryam Azodanloo, was considered by many to be a scandal and surfaced perversion. Being an undeniable truth, the organization developed a scenario to remodel the shaped mentality. The organization came up with the plan of organizing forced sessions of analyzing members’ political, moral and personal viewpoints about Rajavi. So complicated was the scenario that soon all antagonistic attitudes towards Rajavi floated up and the members tried to outmatch each other in demonizing and disparaging Rajavi and strongly condemned him of his eccentric deed.

Unknowingly, members were condemning themselves rather than Rajavi. The sessions meant to strongly condemn members of the guilt they had done in their past life and the way they tried to justify the vices. Explaining the process, Massoud Banisadr has stated:

This time as it was told by Masoud, we had to take him to negative infinity and accuse him of any thing which we could think of, and then judge him, if we reached to the verdict that he is not guilty, then we had to make him as mirror and this time judging ourselves. Meant accusing ourselves for the same crimes, which we accused him of. Following that we had to find our class tendencies. And our true nature, hidden under nice and gentle behaviour of ours. 1

Oddly enough, the process soon turned into a criterion to decide about qualified members for organizational promotions. The technique of eliciting confessions was practiced in collective gatherings and the members were forced to admit to their antagonistic and contradictory outlook not only about the leadership but also about other organizational issues; they had to ‘vomit their thoughts’ as the organization called it.

The sessions were somehow as if the members were on trial. The members’ confessions were enough to accuse them to demand Rajavi’s forgiveness. Feeling ashamed of accusing Rajavi, they would compose piles of recantation letters and urging Rajavi to forgive them. Ludicrous as it may seem, in many of these letters, members confessed to have been ignorant of Rajavi’s infallibility all the time. But the outcome of these trial-like sessions was critically serious:

In these hearing sessions the defendants had no advocate and besides, it was not so appropriate an atmosphere to provoke any protest; they held heads down and others spat at them. But what requires further consideration is that so the Falangist element and cult characteristics had bulged in the course of these years that a sister volunteered to kill her sister. 2

The interesting point is that such a process came to be justified under the philosophy of the ideological revolution. The dissenters and whoever repulsed the revolution had to pay a price. It was even much unbearable for a high ranking member:

High ranking members who couldn’t have the revolution, were not allowed to leave the organisation so in some cases they had no alternative except killing themselves. While they were living among us, they were forbidden to do anything, even helping in the kitchen was denied to them. 3

And some committed suicide because they could not tolerate the so-called revolution that ended to disgrace for all the organization:

Nasser, one of our army commanders, has killed himself with a blade given to him for shaving. … Later in another meeting, I heard from Rajavi that Eshagh, who was working with me in New York, has gone to hunger strike because his revolution has not been accepted. Few years later, after I left the organisation, I heard he hanged himself about the same time, but we were not told then, so I presume there were some more suicides which we didn’t hear about them. 4

Thus, a technique mainly developed to trace dissidents and disloyal to revolution turned into a lasting achievement with a multi-purpose function. Mojahedin’s irreparable loss after the military operation Eternal Light needed scapegoats to justify Rajavi’s insanity of masterminding such a mass suicide. Again the members were forced to confess that lack of total trust in Rajavi and their attachments to worldly attractions was a reason not to stand by their commitment to him. They had to devote themselves only to Rajavi and nothing else had to enter their hearts but his love. As Mohsen Rezai, a ranking cadre is quoted saying:

To follow him [Rajavi] ideologically, and not only politically, you have to see him and accept him not only in your mind, but in your heart. And you cannot do it unless you first open your heart to him. You should have no secret from him, no boundary should separate you from him. He should be the one and only, the closest person to you. To reach this close relationship, you have to work hard, beginning with the expression of all your contradictions and secrets, especially those concerning him. 5

So, a process formulated to detect and hamper attempts for schism and to accomplish a throughout internal purge becomes an integral part of a cult that practices deceptions, lies and exhibits murder in its heart under the disguise of a pro-democratic organization.

References:

1. Masoud Banisadr; Memoirs of an Iranian Rebel.

2. Shams-e Haeri, Hadi; The swamp, vol. II.

3. Masoud Banisadr; Memoirs of an Iranian Rebel.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

August 11, 2008 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

The Concept of Change in Cults

What is of great significance in most cults, especially if they are political cults, is to design programs to and develop techniques to induce radical changes in facets of a person’s world view and subsequently to generate great conformity to organizationally specified prescriptions for behavior. Generally, as Thaler Singer suggests, “Cults tend to require members to undergo a major disruption or change in lifestyle”. Many cults put great pressure on new members to leave their families, friends, and jobs to become immersed in the group’s major purpose. This isolation tactic is one of the cults’ most common mechanisms of control and enforced dependency.

No doubt, any group of specific political, philosophical and social nature somehow tries to induce its members and followers to become immersed in the group’s major purpose. However, cults follow the same line with the exception that their employed techniques are in absolute contradiction with legitimate social purpose. The change cults focus on and tempt the members to undergo violates human and social standards and is imposed on them against their will. The process is also dominating in some political parties and organizations whose focal point is certain ideologies as in some active leftist and social parties.

In many political groups, regardless of the members’ religious and ideological commitment as well as social class and life-style, the members engage in activities outlined according to the group’s doctrine and protocol to accomplish the group’s legitimate goals. It can be said that they reach a broad consensus on struggling for the accomplishment of certain social interest while preserving their own personal penchants and faiths. Unlike them, cults’ main focus is on followers’ self-renunciation and surrender; members are required to give up all personal attachments and regular life-style and accept and submit to whatever they are called for or compelled to do. A cult’s extremity of shalt and shalt not principles depend on its sphere of activity and ideological as well as, if any, political preaching and instructions.

Drawing a difference between cults (referring to them as mass movements owith a variety of origins) and practical organizations, Hoffer explicates that:

THERE IS A FUNDAMENTAL difference between the appeal of a mass movement and the appeal of a practical organization. The practical organization offers opportunities for self-advancement, and its appeal is mainly to self-interest. On the other hand, a mass movement, particularly in its active, revivalist phase, appeals not to those intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self. A mass movement attracts and holds a follower not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation. 1

Thus, it appears that cults insist to induce change more to advance their own ends which lead to further personal decline of the members. The process of the change begins with a gradual ideological diversion and proceeds with a complete behavioral change and ends at the point where the cult dictates the smallest private affairs:

Cults are known to dictate what members wear and eat and when and where they work, sleep, and bathe as well as what they should believe, think, and say. On most matters, cults promote what we usually call black-and-white thinking, an all-or-nothing point of view. 2

The process is fulfilled most appropriately if the members are cut off from the social atmosphere and family. Life in isolation is what most cults try to encourage believers to adopt since the rationality of the outside world ceases to discourage the accomplishment of the process:

Cults tend to require members to undergo a major disruption or change in lifestyle. Many cults put great pressure on new members to leave their families, mends, and jobs to become immersed in the group’s major purpose. This isolation tactic is one of the cults’ most common mechanisms of control and enforced dependency. 3

It will be much absurd if a cult stays passive in generating change in the members. Cults are totalistic in nature and nobody accents to be under their control unless they have been totally dominated through the process of change:

Cults tend to be totalistic, or all-encompassing, in controlling their members’ behavior and also ideologically totalistic, exhibiting zealotry and extremism in their worldview. Eventually, and usually sooner rather than later, most cults expect members to devote increasing time, energy, and money or other resources to the professed goals of the group, stating or implying that a total commitment is required to reach some state such as "enlightenment." 4

In general, a totalistic cult necessarily entails emphasis on an absolute boundary between the followers and the exterior social environment so they feel fundamentally separate from the outside world. As a result, a sense of relationship is attained by forming intense identifications with the cult and moral and ideological principles are internalized as absolutes. Impulses, fantasies, behaviors and opinions not fully approved by the cult are denied and dissociated.

References:

1. Eric Hoffer; The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, New York: First Perennial Classics 2002, p. 21.

2. Thaler Singer, Margaret; Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace, p. 10.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

August 11, 2008 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Implication of Change in MKO

As stated, a cult to form a totalitarian society needs to bring about a profound change in members for achieving oneness with cult. Depending on the cult’s sphere of activity, the change is programmed under a variety of identified values to create receptivity to a new ideology.

There are countless ways and different avenues, and usually no single motivation, that drives people with different predispositions into cults. Many go to cults through their heads and some other go through their heart and emotions. However, what is of worth notification is that when a person melts in a cult, his/her whole strategy of attribution undergoes a total change and comes to believe that the new adopted ideology is the truest one in the world. There are also those who pretend to be followers because of the fearsome atmosphere of the cult and the employed measures of castigation. As Hoffer describes the converts of a cult:

Both they who convert and they who are converted by coercion need the fervent conviction that the faith they impose or are forced to adopt is the only true one. With- Jut this conviction, the proselytizing terrorist, if he is not vicious to begin with, is likely to feel a criminal, and the coerced convert see himself as a coward who prostituted his soul to live. 1

It can well be argued that as the recruits are involved in a group over a longer period of time, through the structure of the group, through new disciplines, through new behaviors and so forth, they shape a new personhood. So, it has a lot to do with when they are evaluated, and how far they’ve come from where they were before. It is the value system of the cults that attracts people to choose the gate opening to the most desired and optimal option; being it an avenue to salvation or terrestrial utopia.

Being recognized a cult of personality after its recognition as a terrorist group, Mojahedin Khalq Organization, MKO/MEK/PMOI, has developed its own terminology of cult values to entrap new recruits and to subjugate the already activists. It borrows the characteristics of a leftist cult proselytizing under a variety of catchy mottos like revolution, social change, freedom, emancipation of women and much more. To achieve the goals, first the members have to undergo a change themselves and the change is enforced through a number of processes if they show signs of reluctance; only the leaders and high ranking cadres seem to have already been acclimated to the changes and the whole body of the rank and file had to suffer the crushing pressure of the changing processes.

Some may question that why MKO insists on compelling the members to adapt themselves to the required changes? It has to be pointed out that MKO’s theoreticians of the group’s internal ideological revolution believe that any system of value has to be tested in a miniature model of society, the organization itself, before being generalized for the actual, real society and overpowering the ruling political power. But the first organizational objectives can be numerated as:

1- To destabilize members’ power of thinking in the face of critical circumstances

2- To prepare for change in the exterior milieu

3- To block members’ contact with the outside world

4- To prevent internal antagonistic moves against the made decisions

5- To get members ready for committing whatever command

6- To grow in members the illusion of being on the right path

7- To detect suspected infiltrators

8- To enforce unquestionable submission and total devotion to the leadership

9- To detach members from all personal attachments

10- To instill into members that they are safe until they are consistent with collective organizational identity

The organization strongly believes that the authority of change is beyond questioning and it is the most urgent task to be accomplished because:

1. It is essential for any ideological alteration

2. It is to legitimize organizational identity

3. It is the criterion to determine ideological disobedience

4. Being passive against it equals to becoming passive and slanting to enemy

5. Any reluctance to undergo it means being overpowered by anti-revolutionary, bourgeois attributes

6. vAnd finally, submission to change means an everlasting attraction towards the pole of the ideological leadership

Once Massoud Rajavi said “the effect indicates the cause”. He meant to say that change sets up the base for the continuation and legitimacy of the organization and it has to be ascertained within the organization through a change in ideological principles and teachings. It eventually crystallized into a cult. The ideological revolution set the door open for the change and Rajavi insisted it was a rebirth that all members necessarily had to go through it:

All have to experience this rebirth. All the sins you have committed comes to an end. Either you leave or accent to change. Make sure nobody remains but revolutionized among the real Mojahedin. Except those who may have not be informed. 2

Rajavi would compare the ideological revolution to a forge wherein the members had to be melted and reshaped as he desired them:

This [ideological revolution] is to test you; we need iron men. We seek new versions of power and capacity. Those Mojahedin who pass through this forge will be more rough and resistant. 3

As stated earlier, it was not a change only intended for the organization but aimed to encompass a grater milieu out of the organization:

Because of the fundamental role of this value system [ideological revolution] in ideology in general, the extent of the consequent changes within it included all the reactions and the individual- organization relations with the widespread scene of social and political sphere. 4

Thus, the ideological revolution turns into a standard to measure the members’ fidelity and commitment to the organization and leadership:

It is the ideological gauge that decides how good you are, and you are bad to the extent of the criticism you receive, and your power of dynamism depends on the change you undergo. 5

The ideological revolution before being considered an extraordinary way of initiating change in Mojaheidn Organization can well be defined as an internal coup d’état to accomplish Rajavi’s own ambitions and promoting him to the highest and unbeatable status of a hegemonic leader and even above that. Explained by Anne Singleton:

It [ideological revolution] is now operating around a pseudo-religious ideology for which Rajavi is the deity. Was the change necessary? Did they have to change in order to survive? It is possible to argue that any organisation has a degree of organic and dynamic change built into it. Also, that it must be flexible enough to make pragmatic alterations to the way it operates as a consequence of both the world it exists in and the demands of the situation it is in direct relation to. But the Mojahedin has done almost the opposite of what could have been expected. Rather than change in response to external demands, the organisation has wilfully ignored these and instead, obeying its own internal dynamic, rendered itself more and more distant from any constituency it might possibly have previously had recourse to for support. This internal dynamic is controlled directly by Rajavi himself and it demands that the organisation, down to every last member, must be kept totally and unquestioningly obedient to him. 6

References:

1. Eric Hoffer; The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, New York: First Perennial Classics 2002, p. 99.

2. Massoud Rajavi’s speech in Paris, 1985.

3. Ibid.

4. Niyabati, Bijan; A different look at the internal ideological revolution within MKO, Khavaran publication.

5. Mahdi Abrishamchi’s speech on ideological revolution, 1985.

6. Anne Singleton; Saddam’s Private Army, Iran-Interlink, 2003.

August 11, 2008 0 comments

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