The state-run media in Iran are trying to rationalize a response that the regime’s founder, Ruhollah Khomeini, gave shortly before his plane landed in Tehran’s airport following the overthrow of the Shah’s dictatorship. In reply to a reporter who asked him what he felt as he was arriving in Iran after years in exile, Khomeini famously said, “nothing.”
On January 29, the state-run Fars news agency published a report entitled “reaction to a an important issue left unanswered and ambiguous since the outset of the revolution,” in which it quoted Sadegh Tabatabai’s justification in a state-run TV interview.
Tabatabai had said, “When we were on the return flight to the country in the presence of His Excellency Imam [Khomeini], I asked him several times what will happen? Will we eventually reach Iran or not? Each time [Khomeini] replied that nothing will happen.
When we got closer to Iran, as soon as I left my seat beside him, a Japanese reporter sat down by the Imam and asked him how is feeling. [Khomeini] was still preoccupied in his mind with my questions, and he thought that the foreign reporter asked him a similar question and in response he gave that answer again [“nothing”].
Tabatabai added, “Some unfortunately recounted the event as if in the face of all the people’s deep-felt emotions and enthusiasm, [Khomeini] harbored no passion for the popular sentiment. They cited the Japanese reporter’s question. But, the truth is not that at all.”
The facts, however, paint a different story and demonstrate the falsity of this explanation as well as the lack of any sense of patriotism whatsoever on Khomeini’s part, who usurped the Iranian people’s revolution in 1979.
A video clip of the interview shows one of Khomeini’s confidants http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaBGawcNgQ , Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, who became his foreign minister and director of the state-run TV and radio but was later senselessly executed by Khomeini, sitting by his side and translating the reporter’s question.
Ghotbzadeh, who was himself visibly surprised by Khomeini’s answer, once again explained the question to Khomeini, and even tried to couch Khomeini’s reply in a more sensible language.
On January 29, the state-run Fars news agency published a report entitled “reaction to a an important issue left unanswered and ambiguous since the outset of the revolution,” in which it quoted Sadegh Tabatabai’s justification in a state-run TV interview.
Tabatabai had said, “When we were on the return flight to the country in the presence of His Excellency Imam [Khomeini], I asked him several times what will happen? Will we eventually reach Iran or not? Each time [Khomeini] replied that nothing will happen.
When we got closer to Iran, as soon as I left my seat beside him, a Japanese reporter sat down by the Imam and asked him how is feeling. [Khomeini] was still preoccupied in his mind with my questions, and he thought that the foreign reporter asked him a similar question and in response he gave that answer again [“nothing”].
Tabatabai added, “Some unfortunately recounted the event as if in the face of all the people’s deep-felt emotions and enthusiasm, [Khomeini] harbored no passion for the popular sentiment. They cited the Japanese reporter’s question. But, the truth is not that at all.”
The facts, however, paint a different story and demonstrate the falsity of this explanation as well as the lack of any sense of patriotism whatsoever on Khomeini’s part, who usurped the Iranian people’s revolution in 1979.
A video clip of the interview shows one of Khomeini’s confidants http://www.youtube.com/wat
Ghotbzadeh, who was himself visibly surprised by Khomeini’s answer, once again explained the question to Khomeini, and even tried to couch Khomeini’s reply in a more sensible language.
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