Over the past decades, much of the attention of the world have been focused on the radical extremist groups such as AlQaeda and ISIS. But the true threat actually comes from the cult-like structure of these groups. Cult-like controlling system and the indoctrination methodology of these groups finally results in the most horrible acts of violence.
The Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/MEK) is characterized as one of these destructive cults that threat the world’s security. Elizabeth Rubin the prominent journalist of the New York Times, was first to call the MKO, “the Cult of Rajavi”. The phrase was based on her first-hand experience of visiting the group’s base in Iraq, Camp Ashraf. About the world she witnessed in the MKO camp, she wrote:
“When I arrived at Camp Ashraf, the base of the group’s operations, in April 2003, I thought I’d entered a fictional world of female worker bees. Everywhere I saw women dressed exactly alike, in khaki uniforms and mud-colored head scarves, driving back and forth in white pickup trucks, staring ahead in a daze as if they were working at a factory in Maoist China. I met dozens of young women buried in the mouths of tanks, busily tinkering with the engines. One by one, the girls bounded up to me and my two minders to recite their transformations from human beings to acolytes of Ms. Rajavi. “[1]
As Rubin asserts, members of the Cult of Rajavi transformed from “human beings to acolytes of Rajavi “. But what the leaders of the cult want to show off is entirely different from what they really are. Jeremiah Goulka is one of the authors of the RAND Corporation report on the Mujahedin Khalq. He criticizes the US high profiles who support the group and finally removed it from the list of terrorist organization. ”Accidentally or not, though, the speakers were helping to raise the profile and legitimize the aims of a cult group that will not bring democracy to Iran and has no popular support in the country,” he warned. [2]
The group will not bring democracy because it has not practiced democracy in its four-decade history. “After my visit, I met and spoke to men and women who had escaped from the group’s clutches,” Rubin writes. “Many had to be deprogrammed. They recounted how people were locked up if they disagreed with the leadership or tried to escape; some were even killed.” [3]
“Friendships and all emotional relationships are forbidden. From the time they are toddlers, boys and girls are not allowed to speak to each other. Each day at Camp Ashraf you had to report your dreams and thoughts.” [4]
Rubin also refers to RAND report, “ A 2009 RAND Corporation study found that up to 70 percent of the group’s members there might have been held against their will. “ [5]
Regarding the cult-like terrorist substance of the MKO, its leaders’ efforts to pretend the group as a democratic alternative to the Islamic republic is ridiculous. The so-called president elect of the group starts her fabrications in an article raising the issue of the “radical factions” who shake “the world with their ability to convince ordinary people to commit unspeakable atrocities.”
As leaders of a cult, Massoud Rajavi and his wife definitely know how “to convince ordinary people to commit unspeakable atrocities”. The “acolytes” of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, committed numerous acts of violence including military operations, mortar attacks, suicide attacks and assassinations. One significant example of the MKO’s “unspeakable atrocities” was the suppression of Kurdish uprising in Iraq. Read Rubin’s account of the story: “In 1991, when Mr. Hussein crushed a Shiite uprising in the south and attempted to carry out a genocide against the Kurds in the north, the Rajavis and their army joined his forces in mowing down fleeing Kurds.
“Ms. Rajavi told her disciples, “Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.” Many followers escaped in disgust.” [6]
Today, with the increasing growth of defection from the MKO and the decline of the group following the relocation of its rank and file from Iraq to Europe, the group leaders make efforts to hook their survival to the West. In their masquerades to boast a democratic portrait, Rajavi introduces her cult as “moderate Muslim” that is suppressed by the Islamic Republic.
Presenting a solution to the trouble of the region, she tries to pass her cult off as “an interpretation of genuine Islam that is both democratic and tolerant” that should be accompanied with “military campaigns and intelligence operations in the region”.
Jeremiah Goulka correctly suggests that the MKO’s real aim is “to have the United States install the MEK as Iran’s new government”. He warns, “That would mean war. The MEK may deny wanting violent regime change, but the only conceivable way it could become the next government in Tehran would be at the head of a U.S. invasion force.”[7]
Goulka advises the American supporters of the MKO, “Aligning ourselves with the MEK would undermine any attempt at credibility among Iranians because it would make us look like dupes.” [8] He is absolutely right but looking like “dupes” is the least danger that a community in which the MKO followers are living is posed to.
Brainwashed members of the Cult of Rajavi have several times showed their ability to commit “unspeakable atrocities”. A dozen of them set themselves on fire to protest the arrest of their leader by the French Police, in June 2003. Two female members of the cult lost their life because of self-immolation.
The Rajavis are definitely professional on the most effective methods to turn ordinary people into devotees who commit appalling violence.
By Mazda Parsi
Sources:
[1] RUBIN, ELIZABETH, An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends, The New York Times, August 13, 2011
[2] Goulka, Jeremiah, The Cult of MEK, The American Prospect, July 18, 2012
[3] RUBIN, ELIZABETH, An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends, The New York Times, August 13, 2011
[4] ibid
[5] ibid
[6] ibid
[7] Goulka, Jeremiah, The Cult of MEK, The American Prospect, July 18, 2012
[8]ibid