Fatima Shaik:

Translation, Semantics,

and Race

February 6, 2012 | PEN American

In the essay below, taken from a larger work, Fatima Shaik reflects on her father’s involvement with the New Orleans Société d’Economie—the founder of Economy Hall, an early jazz venue in Trémé—and on the translation of African American metaphor used in a time when free expression by blacks was punishable by death.

Photo via Tulane University’s Hogan Jazz Archives

Translation, Semantics, and Race

In the 1950s, my father discovered a mountain of old journals on the back of a dump truck. They had been sitting outside for hours and had gotten soaked in New Orleans’s daily, tropical rain. He brought 24 of the books home, dried them on the porch and the living room table. Then, he stored the journals in a closet because they were “very important.” They sat for the next 40 years without being opened.

Looking for a new book project one day, I began reading the journals. Scrawled on a page, glued to the inside cover of the first book, were the words: “Déclaration, Janvier 1836 …” Translated into English, the writing continued, “Considering all the advantages and the benefits that are repaid to a group of men joined together in Society, in order to put into practice good morals to mitigate and relieve human suffering, we have committed ourselves to persevere and to put all our efforts into instituting a society upon a solid and strong foundation, being composed of men distinguished by their private lives, noble sentiments and virtues.”

On the surface, the journals marked the founding of the Société d’Economie et d’Assistance Mutuelle, later known as the Economy Society, the proprietor of an early jazz venue in Trémé called the Economy Hall.

But I recognized the family names of the signatories—the same as my classmates and neighbors in once-segregated New Orleans—and realized that this written declaration of communal loyalty meant so much more.

The Economie was a secret club of Battle of New Orleans’s veterans, Haitian immigrants, traders, and businessmen—all free men of African descent—who joined together at a critical time in the history of America, only three decades past French colonial rule when the fear of slave uprisings and of an increasing population of color prompted many new, restrictive laws.

One of the new rules said that the authors of any material which might cause slaves or free people to think seriously about their oppression were subject to imprisonment or death.

The response of the Economie’s literate, wealthy blacks was not to become silent, but to couch their true sentiments in a metaphoric, context-driven language.

Writers may not think of translation with regard to the African American experience. But the diversity of black culture in theUnited Statesoffers several lessons. First, not everyone speaks or writes in English. Second, the texts of a culture under siege will rarely impart a simple, literal meaning.

The Economie, an enclave of “anciennes”—as the native families of Louisiana were called—spent the better part of the 19th century refuting the racist, mainstream definitions of their community.

After the United States purchased Louisiana and required the term “homme de coulour libre” or “femme de coulour libre” on every record—from births to property transactions—to identify a free man or woman of color, it re-defined the position of the natives of African descent. They had written in 1804 to the governor and identified themselves as “the free citizens ofLouisiana,” meaning they expected equality with the Americans without regard to race.

But they didn’t get it.

So in 1836, when the Economie members listed the organization’s goals—“to help one another, (and) teach one another while holding out a protective hand to suffering humanity”—the ambiguity of the language kept them within legal boundaries at a time when the government outlawed most of Louisiana’s people of African descent from becoming literate, participating in banking, and forming corporations—in effect, removing these people from the fortunes to be made in booming 19th century New Orleans, a major entryway into the interior to the United States with a port second only to New York.

The Economists, however, may have had even larger ambitions “to help” and “to teach” all of the people of African descent in the city—in total about 43,000 people or 41 percent of the city’s population. The organization’s first president said at his inaugural speech: “We find our hearts full of all the ardor necessary to conquer the obstacles which chain our efforts from narrow limits or paralysis because of the lack of aptitude necessary for our development.”

“Enchainer,” for example, meaning chain or shackle, is a figure of speech not to be taken lightly in an environment of slave ownership.

Over the next century, some Economie members moved to Europe, Haiti, and Mexico in response to continued government repression. Most of the members, however, remained in a small circle of intimates, keeping their history and their records to themselves.

Their jazz hall became famous—over one hundred oral histories of musicians in the area mention the Economy Hall. But no one knew the history of the French society that supported the culture.

Because the journals of a “Negro” organization had no cachet in segregated New Orleans where my family lived in the 1950s, the books were assumed to have no material or intellectual value. But they were priceless to my father as he studied at the University of Ottawa, driving across the United States every summer to speak and study in French, and to become educated outside of an environment drenched with racial stereotypes. The written French of the Economie is unlocking for me as a writer the semantics of an American culture known only on the surface, a community largely unrecorded by historians and a new path of the African diaspora.

 

Fatima Shaik is a journalist and fiction writer whose work has appeared in The Southern Review, Callaloo, The New York Times, In These Times, and others. An expert on Afro-Creole New Orleans, she teaches at Saint Peter’s College.

UNSUNG—MILLIE JACKSON

Millie Jackson was one of the most controversial R&B artists of the 70s and 80s. A great singer who took a more raucous approach to fame, she followed her own rules and released albums that were unlike anything else of the time.

Here is the full episode of TV One's "Unsung" chronicling Millie's fascinating life. We hope you like it. Be sure to check out "Unsung" every Monday night on TV One.

Posted February 7th, 2012 by administrator

Millie Jackson was one of the most controversial R&B artists of the 70s and 80s. A great singer who took a more raucous approach to fame, she followed her own rules and released albums that were unlike anything else of the time.

Here is the full episode of TV One's "Unsung" chronicling Millie's fascinating life. We hope you like it. Be sure to check out "Unsung" every Monday night on TV One.

 

Posted February 7th, 2012 by administrator

Video:

K’naan ‘Coming To America’

 

February 9, 2012 Posted by: killakam

 

K’naan drops another lyric-video for More Beautiful Than Silence track “Coming To America.” He dished on the making-of the song in our interview:

We were in the studio, me and Chuck Harmony, messing around talking about Eddie Murphy’s flick. And I mentioned to him I have this idea of doing a song about that. Kind of the non-comedy version of it, the real serious version of it. Then he pulled out some samples and we used that real prominent sample. That stereotype of Africa, what they hear when they think Africa — that Paul Simon Graceland, you know. That kind of sound. I wanted to slip that in, so we made that song.

The David Nathan Meyerson Fiction Prize

Named for the late David Nathan Meyerson (1967-1998), a therapist and talented writer who died before he was able to show to the greater world the full fruits of his literary potential, the prize consists of $1,000 and publication in SWR. With the generous support of Marlene, Marti, and Morton Meyerson, the award will continue to honor David Meyerson's memory by encouraging and taking notice of other writers of great promise.

RULES

The prize is open to writers who have not yet published a book of fiction, either a novel or collection of stories.

Submissions must be no longer than 8,000 words.

A $25.00 reading fee must accompany each submission.

Work should be printed without the author's name (if work is submitted online, please omit the author's name from the final "submission content text area"). Name and address should appear only on the cover letter or at the top of the online form.

Submissions will not be returned. For list of winners, include a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

No simultaneous or previously published work.

Postmarked deadline for entry is May 1, 2012. (Winner will be announced in August.)

The winning story will appear in Southwest Review Vol. 97, No. 4 (autumn), 2012.

All entries will be considered for publication.

Mailed entries should be addressed to:

The Meyerson Fiction Prize
Southwest Review
P.O. Box 750374
Dallas, TX 75275-0374

You may enter the Meyerson Prize online by following the directions below.

click here to pay your Meyerson entry fee with a VISA, MasterCard, or Discover card.

%20swr@smu.edu?subject=Meyerson Fiction Contest Entry"> click here to submit your Meyerson entry by email.

NOTE: Your entry is not complete until you have completed both of the above steps.
 

To submit your work for regular publication, click here.

 

For information about the 2011 Meyerson winner and finalists, click here.

For information about the 2010 Meyerson winner and finalists, click here.

For information about the 2009 Meyerson winner and finalists,

click here.

 

---

Southern Methodist University
PO Box 750374 . Dallas TX 75275-0374
214-768-1037 .  Fax 214-768-1408
Email: swr@smu.edu

 

 

Copyright Southwest Review 2011

2012 Poetry Contest
Final Judge: Linda Gregg
Entry Deadline: March 5, 2012

All submissions should be previously unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are fine if you withdraw immediately upon acceptance elsewhere. We’ll select our ten favorite entries and send to Linda Gregg for final judging. For general examples of poems we like, visit our archives.

Details
-1^st Prize: $500 and publication
-2^nd Prize: $250 and publication
-All entries will be considered for publication.
-All entrants will receive a print copy of Booth Three, scheduled for release in March 2012.
-Winners will be announced on March 30, 2012.
-Entry fee is $10.

Submit to the contest.

Final Judge
Linda Gregg’s awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Writer’s Award, an NEA grant, a Lannan Literary Foundation Fellowship, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, and multiple Pushcart Prizes. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, the Paris Review, the Atlantic Monthly, and Ploughshares, and her books include All of it Singing: New and Selected Poems, In the Middle Distance, Things and Flesh, Alma, Chosen By The Lion, and The Sacraments of Desire. Ms. Gregg has taught at the University of Iowa, Columbia University, Princeton University, and the University of California at Berkeley.

Fine Print
Our Poetry Contest is compliant with the CLMP Contest Code of Ethics(see below). All rights revert to the author upon publication. Students and former students of Butler University and of this year’s judge may not enter. Butler University employees are ineligible as are close friends of the judge. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but you must withdraw your work from consideration if it becomes committed elsewhere. Details on the reading and judging process are available upon request.

CLMP Contest Code of Ethics
“CLMP’s community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to 1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors; 2) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines — defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and 3) to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public. This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.”

The Brown International Writers Project is currently seeking nominations and applications for its one-year fellowship with residency.  The Fellowship is designed to provide sanctuary and support for established creative writers - fiction writers, playwrights, and poets - who are persecuted in their home countries or are actively prevented from pursuing free expression in their literary art.  The Fellow will be a member of a supportive community that includes faculty members and graduate students in Brown's Department of Literary Arts and the Watson Institute for International Studies, co-sponsors of the Project.  The fellowship will be accompanied by a series of lectures, readings and other events that highlight the national artistic and political culture of the writer and address the global issues of human rights and free expression.  It will include a stipend, relocation funds, and health benefits. Brown will aid the writer in the visa and relocation process and provide administrative support, equipment and office space on the Brown campus in Providence, Rhode Island. 

To apply or to nominate a candidate, send a letter, providing publishing history and explaining need, together with a resume, and if available, a writing sample (preferably in English) of creative work by the candidate to Literary Arts, Box 1923, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, or by email to iwp@brown.edu.  Supporting letters from others would be helpful. The application/nomination deadline for the next Fellowship is February 15, 2012.

__________________________

Filmmaker Tanya Wright

Speaks To S&A About

Her Feature Film

Directorial Debut

"Butterfly Rising",

Screening This Week At

Oxford Film + Music Festivals

Features by Emmanuel Akitobi | February 9, 2012

L-R: Tanya Wright, Adam Clark  

She's had the fortune of starring in some of some of TV's biggest hits, like 24, E.R., NYPD Blue, and most recently, True Blood.  And if that's not enough, she even got to play Theo Huxtable's girlfriend on a couple episodes of The Cosby Show.  This week I had the pleasure of speaking to actress Tanya Wright, who's now in the spotlight as the writer, director, producer, and star of her debut feature film Butterfly Rising.

Butterfly Rising will be screening this week in Oxford, MS at the Oxford Film Festival, Feb. 9 - 12 @ The Malco Studio Theater, and at the Lyric Theater on Feb. 11, as part of the Oxford Music Festival.  The book version of Butterfly Rising is also currently for sale on-line.  Wright was kind enough to take time out of her busy schedule to tell me what Butterfly Rising is all about; how the project came to be; and how she ended up doing what she's doing with her life.

S&A:  For our readers who haven't seen the film or read the novel, tell us what Butterfly Rising is all about and where the idea for the story originated.

Tanya Wright:  About 8 years ago, my brother died, and things changed quickly for me.  I think that there’s something about death that really makes you start thinking about life.  And after his death, I started thinking about my own life, and what it was I was doing, and if I was doing all that I came here to do.  And I realized that I was not.  So I got in the business of writing and directing this film, Butterfly Rising.

L-R: Wright, McGhee Monteith  

 

It’s a story about two women who take a road trip to meet a mythical medicine man named Lazarus of the Butterflies.  I wrote the part that I really wanted to play in this world, and in my life.  I wrote it because I felt like “Well, I don’t want to ask people to cast me in something when I have the ability to create my own world, really.”  And it’s what I did with Butterfly Rising.  Butterfly Rising is a very contemporized take on the story of Mary and Martha, from the Bible.  It is black woman and a white woman.  They are metaphorical sisters; they are not literal sisters. 

And it is provocative. It makes provocative sexual statements.  It makes provocative spiritual statements.  It makes provocative statements about love, forgiveness, and trust.  And it’s something I’m quite proud of.  I actually made the movie, and then wrote the book after I made the movie, which I know is a little unusual.  And right now, I’m working on the game version.  So Butterfly Rising is the only trans-media project written, directed, produced, and starring an African-American woman on the film festival circuit right now.  I’m very interested in a multi-dimensional screening experience, and that’s how I’m going to launch it when I launch it this summer.  I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve for the release of this thing.

L-R: Wright, Ava DuVernay  

 

I’m also very heartened and excited about what Ava [Duvernay] has been able to create and do with AFFRM.  I’m heartened and excited by a lot of filmmakers, like Terrance Nance, Matthew Cherry, and a lot of them that I met at Sundance this year.

S&A:  How does a native New Yorker like yourself manage to write about the southern American experience with such detail and fervor?

TW:  I don’t know.  The only thing that I can think of is that I spent summers in Charleston, SC with my grandfather, and my sister.  And those were delightful times for me, to go crabbing with him on his boats in the summer.  That is my reference o the South, throughout my life.  Other than that, I don’t what to say.  You know, I wrote a television series called Biloxi, set in Biloxi, MS.  There’s just something about the South that resonates really strong with me.  I am a Bronx girl, born and bred.  I’ve lived in two places in my life; New York and Los Angeles-- that’s it.  But for whatever reason, southern stories come out of me.

 

S&A:  Why did you choose Columbus, MS as the shooting location for your film?

TW:  My investor and executive producer lives in Columbus, MS.  She and I were talking about doing a fleet of films, and the other films that we had, that I wrote, are bigger budget.  This one, Butterfly Rising, was something that I could shoot quickly . . . and the setting was perfect.  I don’t know if you know anything about Columbus, MS, but it is a place that is picturesque, and it’s just beautiful.  And it made the perfect landscape for this movie that I felt that I could shoot real quick, while we were talking about the bigger ones.  And so that’s what I did.

S&A:  How did this all start for you?  How did you end up in the entertainment industry?

TW:  I’ve been an actor all my life.  My first job ever . . . was Theo’s girlfriend on The Cosby Show.  I was a pretty shy girl, and I sort of got roped into doing The Cosby Show.  I was shy and The Cosby Show was the biggest show in the world, so it’s not something a shy person gravitates toward—or maybe they do.  But that’s a recurring theme in my life, where the thing that I fear the most is the thing that I realize that I most gravitated towards.  And I was always a writer; I was a writer before I was an actor.  Acting jobs came; and another one came, and another one came, and another one came.  And in life, I think, you go in the direction that the horse is riding.  And I kept riding that horse.  It’s a horse I continue to ride very happily.  Hopefully, I’ll ride it into the sunset.  But I’ve always been writing.  So while I’ve been riding, I’ve been writing.  And so I have amassed a stockpile of scripts; feature films, television series, web series, and in the case of Butterfly Rising, a book.  So while I was on the set, I wrote, and read a lot of scripts as an actor.  I read really great scripts.  I read really bad scripts.  I read really mediocre scripts.  I’m fascinated by people, and what makes people tick, and what makes people do the things that they do.  So I kind of naturally gravitated toward character-driven stories.  So I started out as an actor, and I’m still an actor.

L-R: Sean Blakemore, Wright  

 

Butterfly Rising also features perfomances from actors Sean Blakemore (Blackout, General Hospital) and Adam Clark (Mississippi Damned), and McGhee Monteith.

Israel teams with terror group

to kill Iran's nuclear scientists,

U.S. officials tell NBC News

Thu Feb 9, 2012 6:16 AM EST

Mehdi Marizad / Fars via AP file

A car that was bombed by two assailants on a motorcycle in Tehran on Jan. 11, killing Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahamdi Roshan, is removed by a mobile crane. The photo was distributed by the semi-official Iranian photo agency Fars.

 

 

By Richard Engel and Robert Windrem
NBC News

Updated: 11:14 a.m. ET -- Deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service, U.S. officials tell NBC News, confirming charges leveled by Iran’s leaders.

ROCK CENTER EXCLUSIVE

The group, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, has long been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, accused of killing American servicemen and contractors in the 1970s and supporting the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran before breaking with the Iranian mullahs in 1980.

The attacks, which have killed five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and may have destroyed a missile research and development site, have been carried out in dramatic fashion, with motorcycle-borne assailants often attaching small magnetic bombs to the exterior of the victims’ cars.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement.

The Iranians have no doubt who is responsible – Israel and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, known by various acronyms, including MEK, MKO and PMI.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, describes what Iranian leaders believe is a close relationship between Israel's secret service, the Mossad, and the People's Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.

“The relation is very intricate and close,” said Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, speaking of the MEK and Israel.  “They (Israelis) are paying … the Mujahedin. Some of their (MEK) agents … (are) providing Israel with information.  And they recruit and also manage logistical support.”

---

Moreover, he said, the Mossad, the Israeli secret service, is training MEK members in Israel on the use of motorcycles and small bombs.  In one case, he said, Mossad agents built a replica of the home of an Iranian nuclear scientist so that the assassins could familiarize themselves with the layout prior to the attack.

Much of what the Iranian government knows of the attacks and the links between Israel and MEK  comes from interrogation of an assassin who failed to carry out an attack in late 2010 and the materials found on him, Larijani said. (Click here to see a video report of the interrogation shown on Iranian televsion.)

The U.S.-educated Larijani, whose two younger brothers run the legislative and judicial branches of the Iranian government, said the Israelis’ rationale is simple. “Israel does not have direct access to our society. Mujahedin, being Iranian and being part of Iranian society, they have … a good number of … places to get into the touch with people. So I think they are working hand-to-hand very close.  And we do have very concrete documents.”

NBC's Robert Windrem discusses the allegations that Israel's secret service is teaming up with an Iranian dissident terrorist group to kill Iran's nuclear scientists.

 

 

Two senior U.S. officials confirmed for NBC News  the MEK’s role in the assassinations, with one senior official saying, “All your inclinations are correct.” A third official would not confirm or deny the relationship, saying only, “It hasn’t been clearly confirmed yet.”  All the officials denied any U.S. involvement in the assassinations. 

As it has in the past, Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined comment. Said a spokesman, "As long as we can't see all the evidence being claimed by NBC, the Foreign Ministry won't react to every gossip and report being published worldwide."

For its part, the MEK pointed to a statement calling the allegations “absolutely false.” 

Ali Safavi, a long-time representative of the MEK, underscored the denial after publication of this article,

"There has never been and there is no MEK member in Israel, period," he said. "The MEK has categorically denied any involvement. The idea that Israel is training MEK members on its soil borders on perversity. It is absolutely and completely false."

The sophistication of the attacks supports the Iranian claims that an experienced intelligence service is involved, experts say. 

In the most recent attack, on Jan. 11, 2012, Mostafa Ahamdi Roshan died in a blast in Tehran moments after two assailants on a motorcycle placed a small magnetic bomb on his vehicle. Roshan was a deputy director at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and was reportedly involved in procurement for the nuclear program, which Iran insists is not a weapons program.

Previous attacks include the assassination of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, killed by a bomb outside his Tehran home in January 2010, and an explosion in November of that year that took the life of Majid Shahriari and wounded Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, who is now the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.

In the case of Roshan, the bomb appears to have been a shaped charge that directed all the explosive power inside the vehicle, killing him and his bodyguard driver but leaving nearby traffic unaffected.

Although Roshan was directly involved in the nuclear program, working at the huge centrifuge facility between Tehran and Qom, Iran’s religious center, at least one other scientist who was killed wasn’t linked to the Iranian nuclear program, according to Larijani.

Speaking of bombing victim Ali-Mohammadi, whom he described as a friend, Larijani told NBC News, “In fact this guy who was assassinated was not involved in the nitty-gritty of the situation.  He was a scientist, a physicist, working on the theoretically parts of nuclear energy, which you can teach it in every university. You can find it in every text.”

“This is an Israeli plot.  A dirty plot,” Larijani added angrily. He also claimed the assassinations are not having an effect on the program and have only made scientists more resolute in carrying out their mission.

Not so, said Ronen Bergman, an Israeli commentator and author of “Israel’s Secret War with Iran” and an upcoming book tentatively titled, “Mossad and the Art of Assassination.”

Israel has long used assassination against its enemies, "hoping that by taking out individuals, they can alter, change the course of history," says Ronen Bergman, an Israeli commentator and author of "Israel's Secret War with Iran" and an upcoming book tentatively titled "Mossad and the Art of Assassination."

Bergman said the attacks have three purposes, the most obvious being the removal of high-ranking scientists and their  knowledge. The others:  forcing Iran to increase security for its scientists and facilities and to spur “white defections.” 

He explained the latter this way: “Scientists leaving the project, afraid that they are going to be next on the assassination list, and say, ‘We don't want this.  Indeed, we get good money, we are promoted, we are honored by everybody, but we might get killed.  It isn't worth it.  Maybe we should go back to teach … in a university.’”

There are unconfirmed reports in the Israeli press and elsewhere that Israel and the MEK were involved in a Nov. 12 explosion that destroyed the Iranian missile research and development site at Bin Kaneh, 30 miles outside Tehran.  Among those killed was Maj. Gen. Hassan Moghaddam, director of missile development for the Revolutionary Guard, and a dozen other researchers. So important was Moghaddam that Ayatollah Khamenei attended his funeral. 

Unlike the assassinations, Iran claims the missile site explosion was an accident; the MEK, meanwhile, trumpeted it but denied any involvement. 

Indeed, there may be other covert operations carried out either by Israel acting alone or in concert with others, according to Bergman.

“Two labs caught fire,” said Bergman, enumerating the attacks. “Scientists got blown up or disappeared.  A missile base and the R&D base of the Revolutionary Guard exploded some time ago, with the director of the R&D division of the Revolutionary Guard being killed along with … his soldiers.” 

Bergman added, “So, a long series of … something that was termed by an Israeli (Cabinet) minister … as ‘mysterious mishaps’ happening and rehappening to the project. Then the Iranians claim, ‘This is Israeli Mossad trying to sabotage our attempts to be a nuclear superpower.’”

Dr. Uzi Rabi, director of the Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, said the supposed accidents could all be part of “psychological warfare” conducted against Iran. “It seems logical. It makes sense,” he said of possible MEK involvement, “and it’s been done before.”

Rabi, who regularly briefs Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, on Iran also said the ultimate goal of the range of covert operations being carried out by Israel is “to damage the politics of survivability … to send a message that could strike fear into the rulers of Iran.”

For the United States, the alleged role of the MEK is particularly troublesome.  In 1997, the State Department designated it a terrorist group, justifying it with an unclassified 40-page summary of the organization’s  activities going back more than 25 years.  The paper, sent to Congress in 1998, was written by Wendy Sherman, now undersecretary of state for political affairs and then an aide to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

The report, which was obtained by NBC News, was unsparing in its assessment. “The Mujahedin  (MEK) collaborated with Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow the former shah of Iran,” it said. “As part of that struggle, they assassinated at least six American citizens, supported the takeover of the U.S. embassy, and opposed the release of the American hostages.”  In each case, the paper noted, “Bombs were the Mujahedin's weapon of choice, which they frequently employed against American targets.”

“In the post-revolutionary political chaos, however, the Mujahedin lost political power to Iran's Islamic clergy. They then applied their dedication to armed struggle and the use of propaganda against the new Iranian government, launching a violent and polemical cycle of attack and reprisal."

Sean Gallup / Getty Images file

Maryam Rajavi, president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, greets several hundred Iranian expatriates who had gathered to welcome her at Tegel Airport in Berlin, Germany, on March 22, 2010.

 

 

U.S. officials have said publicly that the information contained in the report was limited to unclassified material, but that it also drew on classified material in making its determination to add the MEK to the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. 

 

The MEK and its sister organizations have since the beginning been run by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, a husband-wife team who have maintained tight control despite assassination threats and internal dissent. Massoud Rajavi, 63, founded the MEK, but since the U.S. invasion of Iraq has taken a backseat to his wife.

The State Department report describes the Rajavis as  “fundamentally undemocratic” and “not a viable alternative to the current government of Iran.”

NBC News correspondent Tom Aspell visits an MEK base in Iraq in this Nightly News piece that aired on May 26, 1991.

 

 

One reason for that is the MEK’s close relationship with Saddam Hussein, as demonstrated by this 1986 video showing the late Iraqi dictator meeting with Massoud Rajavi. Saddam recruited the MEK in much the same way the Israelis allegedly have, using them to fight Iranian forces during the Iran-Iraq War, a role they took on proudly.  So proudly, they invited NBC News to one of their military camps outside Baghdad in 1991.

“The National Liberation Army (MLA), the military wing of the Mujahedin, conducted raids into Iran during the latter years of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War,” according to the State Department report. The NLA's last major offensive reportedly was conducted against Iraqi Kurds in 1991, when it joined Saddam Hussein's brutal repression of the Kurdish rebellion. In addition to occasional acts of sabotage, the Mujahedin are responsible for violent attacks in Iran that victimize civilians.”

“Internally, the Mujahedin run their organization autocratically, suppressing dissent and eschewing tolerance of differing viewpoints,” it said. “Rajavi, who heads the Mojahedin’s political and military wings, has fostered a cult of personality around himself.”

The U.S. suspicion of the MEK doesn’t end there. Law enforcement officials have told NBC News that in 1994, the MEK made a pact with terrorist Ramzi Yousef a year after he masterminded the first attack on the World Trade Center in New York City.  According to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Yousef built an 11-pound bomb that MEK agents placed inside one of Shia Islam’s greatest shrines in Mashad, Iran, on June 20, 1994.  At least 26 people, mostly women and children, were killed and 200 wounded in the attack.

That connection between Yousef, nephew of 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, and the MEK was first reported in a book, “The New Jackals,” by Simon Reeve. NBC News confirmed that Yousef told U.S. law enforcement that he had worked with the MEK on the bombing.

In recent years, the MEK has said it has renounced violence, but Iranian officials say that is not true, that killings of Iranians continue.  Still, through some deft lobbying, the group has been able to get the United Kingdom and the European Union to remove it from their lists of terrorist groups. 

The alleged involvement of the MEK in the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists provides the U.S. with a cloak of deniability regarding the clandestine killings. Because the U.S. has designated the MEK as a terrorist organization, neither military nor intelligence units of the U.S. government, can work with them.  “We cannot deal with them, “ said one senior U.S. official. “We would not deal with them because of the designation.”

Iranian officials initially accused the Israelis and MEK of being behind the attacks, but they have since added the CIA to the list. Three days after the Jan. 11, 2012, bombing in Tehran that killed Roshan, the state news agency IRNA reported that Iran’s Foreign Ministry had sent a diplomatic letter to the U.S. claiming to have “evidence and reliable information” that the CIA provided “guidance, support and planning” to assassins directly involved in the attack.  

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton  immediately denied any connection to the killings. “I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran,” Clinton told reporters on the day of the attack.

But at least two GOP presidential candidates have no problem with the targeting of nuclear scientists.  In a November debate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich endorsed “taking out their scientists,” and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum called it, ”a wonderful thing.”

The MEK’s opposition to the Iranian government also has recently earned it both plaudits and support from an odd mix of political bedfellows.

A group of former Cabinet-level officials have joined together to support the MEK’s removal from the official U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organization list, even taking out a full-page ad last year in the New York Times calling for the removal of the MEK from the U.S. terrorist list.  Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton; former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former FBI Director Louis Freeh and former Rep. Patrick Kennedy were among those whose signatures were on the ad.

“There’s an extraordinary group of bipartisan or even apolitical leaders, military leaders, diplomats, the United States … the United Kingdom, the European Union, even a U.S. District Court in Washington, said that this group that was put on the foreign terrorist organization watch list in 1997 doesn’t deserve to be there,” Ridge said in November on “The Andrea Mitchell Show” on MSNBC TV.

U.S. politicians also have been pushing the U.S. government to protect the 3,400 MEK members and their families at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, about 35 miles north of Baghdad.  With the departure of U.S. troops, the MEK feared that Iraqi forces, with encouragement from Iran, would attack the camp, leading to a bloodbath. At the last minute, however, agreement was brokered with the United Nations that would permit the MEK members’ departure for resettlement in unspecified democratic countries.  As of this week, there’s been little movement on the planned resettlement.

Jassim Mohammed / AP file

Iranian fighters with the National Liberation Army, the military wing of the MEK, clean armored personnel carriers in 1997 after a field exercise near Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

 

 

The Iranians see what’s happening as terrorism and hypocrisy by the United States.  They have forwarded documents and other evidence to the United Nations – and directly to the United States, they say. 

“I think this is very cynical plan.  This is unacceptable,” said Larijani. “This is a bad trend in the world.  Unprecedented.  We should kill scientists … to block a scientific program?  I mean this is disaster!”

Daniel Byman, a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and also a senior fellow with the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, said that if the accounts of the Israeli-MEK assassinations are accurate, the operation borders on terrorism.

“In theory, states cannot be terrorist, but if they hire locals to do assassinations, that would be state sponsorship,” said Byman, author of the recent book, “A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism.” “You could argue that they took action not to terrorize the public, the purpose of terrorism, but only the nuclear community.  An argument could also be made that degrading the program means that you don’t have to take military action and thus, this is a lower level of violence and that really these are military targets, where normally terrorist targets are civilians.”

But ultimately, Byman said, there is a “spectrum of responsibility” and that Israel is ultimately responsible.

Ronen Bergman, while not speaking on behalf of the Israeli government, suggests that there is a justification, citing an oft-repeated but disputed quote in which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s said that Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth.

“Meir Degan, the chief of Mossad, when he was in office, hung a photograph behind him, behind the chair of the chief of Mossad,” notes the Israeli commentator.  “And in that photograph you see -- an ultra-orthodox Jew -- long beard, standing on his knees with his-- hands up in the air, and two Gestapo soldiers standing -- beside him with guns pointed at him.  One of -- one of them is smiling.

“And Degan used to say to his people and the people coming to visit him from CIA, NSA, et cetera, ‘Look at this guy in the picture. This is my grandfather just seconds before he was killed by the SS,’” Bergman said. “’… We are here to prevent this from happening again.’"

Richard Engel is NBC News' chief foreign correspondent; Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer.