With the quelling of this revolt, the religious leaders who
followed Khomeini were in virtually total control of the new
government. But they were by no means in agreement over how
the country should function. Author James Haskins surmised:
“The mullahs disagreed on so many things that they left
the average Iranian in a state of fear and confusion. The various
revolutionary guards and committees that made up the ruling
structure acted quite independently of each other.”^45
In general, the ruling committees sought to reveal crimes
against Islamic teachings and to punish the perpetrators.
Paranoia became the norm in Iranian society. Citizens were
encouraged to spy on one another and report wrongful actions
or attitudes. Naturally, some of their accusations were unproven,
if not deliberately falsified. Teachers became suspicious of
their students, for even small children were engaged to report
on adults.
Morale in Iranian society plummeted. People faced uncertainty,
not just for the future but from day by day. The outside world
looked aghast at a country that seemed to have come under the
thumb of a merciless religious fanatic. Many Iranians reached the
same sobering conclusion. Yet, their ayatollah was the leader they
had clamored for in their zeal to bring down the Pahlavi dynasty.
By the end of 1982, even the ayatollah himself realized that
the Islamic Republic he had created was too repressive against
its own people to succeed. In a risky but necessary concession,
he proclaimed sweeping reforms of the government system.
Citizens’ privacy, he announced, was to be protected. In fact,
people were allowed to wage complaints against government
brutality. The rampant personal spying he originally had
encouraged among neighbors, families, and students was now
considered a crime.
But was his new policy to be entirely trusted? If someone lodged
a complaint alleging mistreatment by a government agent or
committee, might they be arrested or abused, even executed, if the
leadership later returned to its harsh stance? The decade of the
1980s for Iranians was one of unprecedented insecurity and fear.
Khomeini in Power 67