Abtahi Confesses

Mohammad Ali Abtahi is former vice-president to president Mohammad Khatami and among reformists who have been arrested following the June 12the contested presidential election. There are reports in some government media that there have been attempts to force him to make public “confessions”. The following piece was written by satirist Ebrahim Nabavi speculating on what he may say should he be forced to make such a confession.

In the name of God, I am Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a mullah, hired by the world imperialist. Through my personal weblog (webneveshteha) I have tried to seduce people, I have created riots, fooled the public and committed other crimes.  For a period of time, I was an assistant and secretary to the President (Bang, slap… . Some bandages are put on Abtahi’s face). I am sorry, I will correct my words, he was not the President but traitor Khatami.  I am still not sure whether what I did was a service or acts of betrayal.

I confess that during one of my trips to the holly city of Mecca a dreadful CIA agent contacted me.  He introduced himself as Hassan Agha, his factious name. I guess his real name was Roger Waters or Michael Laden.  “Come on, let’s have a velvet revolution,” he told me, and as you can see (pointing to his green shawl and bracelet) he succeeded in deceiving me.  Back then I was an assistant to the President so I asked this CIA guy, “What’s in this for me?”   “If you lead the velvet revolution properly we will make you an assistant to the minister”, he replied.  “Are you nuts or what?  I am the assistant to the President right now!” I said.  But Hassan Agha or the CIA agent did not listen to me and went (slap, bang, …. . “Please stop hitting me” … another bandage on his face, with some bruises).

Yes, I definitely accepted his offer, I mean the velvet thing.  But the fact is that when I went back to Iran I saw no opportunity for the velvet revolution, because, come on guys, the president was one of us and so was the whole parliament.  Finally one day a man with a huge mustache (beep) came to me.  Apparently he found out about my velvet thing through the intelligence ministry.  The guy’s name was Chamran (beep, beep, beeeeep).  He said:  “OK, now you have power, what more do you want?  Give me your velvet revolution.  We have a bunch of so called “Abadgaran” palls who have nothing to do.  Let’s do the velvet revolution so the project won’t go wasted.   “Against whom are you going to do the velvet revolution?” I asked.  “Against you, who else?” he replied.  “OK. No problem. But how are you going to do the velvet thing?”.  “We have millions of jobless and bored Basijis who just wander around and bite the pavements.  We want to give this project to them. Uh, and we also have the military and army.  “.  “Brother!  What you do with millions of armed Basijis is not a velvet revolution anymore.  Go and do something else. I don’t know what. You can start the third world war or a bloody military coup.”  Chamran thought for a while and then said: “Yeah, you’re right.  I’ve never thought about that.” and went away.

So the velvet revolution project was undone until the recent presidential election.  I told Mr. Khatami (bang, bang, slap, ….) sorry, traitor Khatami that now was the time for the velvet revolution.  He looked into my eyes and said this: “ Mamali! We will win the election without the velvet revolution.”  I was doubtful and said, “Seyyed! Why not? We can have both, the presidency and the velvet revolution.”  But he didn’t agree to that and from then things didn’t go well between us.  I went to Mir-Hossein Mousavi and said,  “Come on, let’s have a velvet revolution”.  He was not the right guy.  He didn’t say even a word.  So in the end I offered the project to Mr. Karroubi. And he accepted it.  Back then, about five months before the election, the green velvet was the best available velvet in the market. We bought three rolls of this velvet. He put two rolls on his shoulder and I took one. We went to the car and drove back home.

On one occasion, while walking in the street, we saw everything was green: cars had green flags and girls wore green shawls, and everyone had a green bracelet.  I told Mr. Karroubi,  “Gee!  Someone has already started the velvet revolution before us”.  So we gave up the idea (bang, bang, slap. A crack in the head, an ambulance, a broken window, etc). Yes, as I was saying, we started our cooperation with Mousavi’s gang.  Every single night we would hold a rally in the streets.  I even imported green velvet from England and Israel. We were in Heaven. CNN Journalist Christiane Amanpour supported us with billions of Dollars and now we have started our own green velvet trade.

Actually I was mostly cooperating with Karroubi’s gang and was not concerned about the green movement so much, because you know, the movement belonged to Mousavi.  He even won the green color at a TV drawing event (Auch!  What did I do wrong? Ok, ok, I’ll say that brother. Bang, hammer, … ) Yes, as I was saying, I was pretending that I was with Karroubi, while in fact I was managing the whole green movement.  I had some secret contacts with Mousavi’s gang and usually went to his residence using the back door so no one would see me.  In Mousavi’s gang I was known as Tajzadeh. Yes, I was Tajzadeh. Tajzadeh himself was not there, believe it or not.  On the Internet I also used to incite rioters by writing bad things.  I had many fictitious names. Let’s see; hmmm, names such as Sakineh, Safura, Soghra etc.  May the Lord forgive me.

Mr. Karroubi and I were ready for the elections. I used to regularly publish the progress of our work on the Internet, and also used satellite for my evil purpose.  One day in the middle of our activities I told Mr. Karbas-chi (Karbas in Persian means “canvas”) that Moussavi had the velvet revolution, let’s try a canvas revolution which would be related to you and also won’t cost as much as velvet (bang, slap, bang, siren of an ambulance, behind the wall they take the numb body of Saeed Hajjarian to the hospital).  Yes, who said canvas? I did not. I was next to Moussavi until the very end.  Do you know how many ribbons I myself tied around the wrists of young girls and boys?  I was that active.

Investigator’s voice:  Confess to your affairs.

Abtahi breaks into tears:  I am so ashamed. May the great Iranian nation forgive me because of my filthy behavior.  I had an affair not only with my own wife but also with many women around the whole world.  I am really ashamed, but I will confess.  In Paris I met a woman. Her name was Angelina Jolie and she had a very ugly and terrible husband.  By the way, at home she was called “Fereshteh”. So she met me and of course fell in love with me and that is when our affair started.  I also had an affair with Marilyn Monroe… (he looks into the camera, bang, siren of an ambulance).  Yes, I am sorry, Marilyn actually died a long time ago. I forgot.  I had an affair with Madonna in London and with Scarlet Johansson (known as “Morvarid (Pearl)”)  in Barcelona and now I am awfully ashamed of myself.  Oh, I almost forgot to mention that in Paris I also had an affair with Carla Bruni, you know in reality she had a crush on me and followed me everywhere.  In the end Khatami, asked Sarkozi to marry her. Maybe she will let me go.

I am really sorry, I am even ashamed to look into this camera (looks at the investigators and displays pain).  I do apologize to dear President Mousavi (mortar explosion, ambulance, Katyusha rockets, bang).  I really apologize to Mr. Ahmadinejad, the beloved president and the supreme leader (another huge explosion) and also to the martyrs’ family.  I ask the dear court for the most terrible penalties which I really deserve.  I hope that Mr. Ahmadinejad wins every single election in Iran and also all around the world by having eighty and even more, by hundred and fifty percent of the votes. They shall overcome. That means the revolution will win and the velvet revolution will lose.  I deeply apologize to the dear interrogator, Basijis who kindly hit me and beat me up, and also thank the president’s assistants who tried to chase the protesters on motorcycles and arrest them without a pause.  I thank Keyhan journalists who kindly enlightened us by pushing and injecting the truth into the body of the prisoners.  I wish all of them success. Keep going.

The interrogator’s voice:  Short pants you idiot moron…

Abtahi: Oh yeah, as one of my kind brothers reminded me, I confess that during one of my trips to Beirut I wore short pants and as Mr. interrogator reminded me that this was an act against national security.  He is right.  I want to say in fact that in fact what I wore was not short pants but loose pants. Anyway, I am sorry for committing this crime.  Once in Koln I wore a cap and in Damascus I dared to wear a chapeau that I hope our great nation and our fearing government will forgive.