Do you have an oujia board?
No? Well, I have one and think everyone should also have it. It is a board through which you communicate with the ghosts of the past, even in the deepest recesses of Hades.
The board's name comes from a mixture of "oui" (yes in French) and "ja" (yes in German) but you could use any of the 6000 languages still in use in our shrinking Tower of Babel.
Tokok, you Morse a name on the board and the ghost you invite responds.
The other day I used the board, acquired from an old Kalmuk Ishan in Kyzilyar in Caucasia, to summon Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani Bahremani Kermani.
At first, there was some confusion because the late President of the Islamic Republic used many different names to disguise his identity and protect his secret bank accounts.
In the end, however, the board shook with his answer: "Yes! What do you want?"
I said I wanted to know how his old pal turned rival and finally foe, Grand Ayatollah Imam Sayyed Ali Hussaini Khamenei ended up where he is, that is to say in a hiding hovel on the margin of events with a tenuous hold on reality.
Bahremani or whatever he calls himself down there answered:
"Well, my friend was always on the margin of events while fancying himself at the center of a universe built in his imagination. Remember, he was a poet or at least fancied himself as one, and when you say poet you mean a man with an imaginary existence."
Bahremani continued: "Ali Aqa as we called him during the early phases of the revolution was one of those characters who happen to be there in every revolution without anyone, least of all themselves, knowing why they are there.
Because they happen to be there, they often end up being asked to fill a slot in the leadership of the revolution. And as you might know, all revolutions start with lots of vacant slots because post-factum revolutionaries knock on the door to offer services after the revolution has succeeded to set up its banquet.
The Imam of the time, Grand Ayatollah Ruhallah Mussawi Khomeini wanted someone to fill the slot of Deputy Minister of Defense. By chance Ali Aqa happened to be there; so I suggested he fill the slot and the Imam agreed.
Ali Aqa, however, was screaming he didn't want the job and when forced to accept he called from a phone booth near the ministry to ask me whether it was safe for him to enter the building. But once there his poetic imagination took over; he started wearing khaki uniform and reciting Antar Ibn Shaddad's rajaz qaisdahs by rote."
Then what happened? I tapped on the board.
Bahremani answered:
"Well, as you know almost the entire tier of our revolutionary leadership, seventy-two of them, were sent to heaven in a terrorist attack at a meeting that Ali Aqa and I missed.
We were in a situation like Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians novel: each day one slot became vacant and Ali Aqa was asked to fill it. Once the Imam got rid of Ayatollah Hussain-Ali Montazeri who had been anointed his successor and Friday Prayer Leader of Tehran, we wondered who should fill the slot.
Once again, Ali Aqa was the Alice Available of the situation.
The pattern continued when the Imam sacked the elected President of the Republic Abol-Hassan Banisadr only to see his successor Mohammad-Ali Rajai blown up in an explosion. Once again, Ali Aqa -- always there and not there, like the Cheshire Cat -- was readily available as President of the Islamic Republic of Iran."
We asked: What quality did Imam and you as his éminence grise see in him?
Bahremani replied: "If you have read Robert Musil's novel: The Man Without Qualities you know the answer. Such a man can never be a threat, just as nahas, the moving bronze puppet, never threatened the sultan. Like Musil's personage, Ali Aqa was useful by simply being there."
Toktok; we asked: "But when did he start to change to the point that he jostled you out of the field and cast a shadow even on the Imam?
Bahremani's answer: "That happened when as president, he paid a 10-day visit to North Korea and fell head and heels for Kim Il-Sung's brand of rule.
On return, he started talking of defeating the American Great Satan, liberating Jerusalem and creating the global imamian empire. He loved Kim's shibboleth "juche" (self-sufficiency), counseled shutting Iran off from the corrupt outside world and urged frugality as supreme virtue.
He also pressed for devoting more resources to a gigantic military machine to export revolution and crush domestic opponents. Also like Kim he wanted a capacity to make nuclear bombs if and when necessary.
When Imam Khomeini had died, we were faced with the biggest empty slot.
As all senior clerics were hostile to our revolution, we couldn't find anyone to fill the vacancy. Once again, Ali Aqa did the job by just being there.
That gave him a free hand to put Iran on a trajectory that was bound to lead where it has led, that is to say humiliation across the board, huge material losses and I guess a broken heart."
We toktoked on the board again: "But is it fair to blame it all on him ? Weren't others, including Your Eminence, involved in authoring that story?"
Bahremani answered: "Although I have no reason to find excuses for him, I think you have a point. He sent almost all members of my family to jail and humiliated me by declaring me unfit to stand for election in any capacity. My family thinks he also ordered his henchmen to suffocate me in my swimming pool. I don't know whether that is true or not, but I assure you that I suffered water-boarding of the kind that even Abu-Ghuraib didn't have on the menu.
Nevertheless, I admit that I and thousands, perhaps millions, had a role in turning that shy, head-in-the-clouds aspiring poet who had never done a day's work and certainly hadn't committed any crime except writing bad poetry into one of the most controversial figures of history.
When I propelled Ali Aqa into the imamate slot by claiming Khomeini had chosen him, he was honest enough to publicly say he didn't merit the job.
He even added : If you choose me as Supreme Guide, we must cry blood for Iranian nation!
Yet, nobody listened. World leaders, including US presidents, wrote flattering letters to him. Leftist intellectuals praised him as hero of anti-Imperialism. Our operatic generals saluted him as commander-in-chief and told him he had conquered Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Yemen and won the hearts of European and American youths.
Here is the bitterest part: Many Iranians chose to treat him as a passing bad odor and didn't join those brave young men and women who at the cost of their lives challenged him in the streets of over 900 Iranian cities
Finally, mea-culpa, remember this: Ali Aqas are always a collective creation. If there is no one to take down a dictation, there would be no dictator."
Mark