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November 22, 2003
Paradoxes
She speaks fluent English, learned as a child in the U.S. She is also the only female in the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Massoumeh Ebtekar was known as "Mary," during the hostage crisis 25 years ago when she was the spokesperson for the student hostage-takers. Today, as the Vice President in charge of Iran's Department of Environment, she's traded in her revolutionary talk for a reformist vision. Appointed by President Khatami in 1997, she's often a guest at environmental conferences around the world.
After several weeks of phone calls and faxes, I was able to obtain permission to interview with Ms. Ebtekar. I hired a cameraperson and went to her office on Wednesday. Although the Department of Environment has some new offices way out in an "ecopark" in western Iran, Vice-President Ebtekar's office is in a modest older green office building in downtown Tehran near my hotel. The elevators don't work on every floor and the conference room in which we talked was noisy and hot.
Despite having a career as a feminist before taking over her current post, Dr. Ebtekar (she has a doctorate in immunology) wears a full chador. The tight covering, similar to a nun's habit, as well as her heavy lids, make her look older and more severe than her 44 years. Still, when she smiles she can flash a great grin.
I was stressed when I met her, not because I was nervous about the interview, but because the camera situation was going very badly. Despite having what I thought was a responsible cameraman with good gear, he showed up late in a car that almost broke down. Then after we set up the interview location, he found that he had a bad cable and so the light couldn't reach the wall. So we quickly change the location.
Dr. Ebtekar walked in and he was still fumbling with the microphone. To my absolute horror, he couldn't get it to work. I had all sorts of spare mikes in my bag at the hotel, but hadn't brought them since I was paying a professional. He put up a stand mike on the table in front of her. But between her quiet voice and the traffic noise in the room, I knew I was in trouble. Still, I had to just cross my fingers and start.
Vice President Ebtekar is candid about the problems that Iran faces in the environment, with rapid population growth forcing the need for an additional 800,000 jobs a year. The resulting industrialization, she admitted, makes it very difficult to strike a balance between the economy and the environment. Interestingly, she characterized Iran's gasoline subsidies, which encourage overuse of the fuel, as "perverse." She also says she endorses a full ban on logging near the Caspian Sea for a while. Clearcutting has been blamed for the massive recent flooding in the area.
She also said she looks to the EPA as a role model for her agency, saying that it has done a "significant job" and is an example for developing countries like Iran. At the same time, with a glint in her eye, she said that it was a shame that the current American administration was "moving backwards" on its environmental standards.
In response to criticism that her department has lax enforcement, she said that her agency is trying to take a different approach, using incentives instead of punishments--the carrot versus the stick, basically. It sounded very much like the philosophy in my home state of Idaho, or for that matter, our current federal administration.
We also talked about Iran's need for nuclear power as a cleaner source of energy, something which doesn't often get much play in the press.
"For a country that?s been actually suffering from fossil fuels from the past two or three decades, in terms of air pollution in its major cities, the nuclear hazard for nuclear waste is not such an issue," she said. She also reinforced the position of other Iranian leaders that it was the right of their country to be able to develop nuclear power.
"It?s been a policy pursued by the former regime as well," she remarked. "So it?s not necessarily a political agenda of this regime, but it?s an agenda that the country has been following for the past three decades, actually."
After talking about environmental issues, I asked her about her thoughts on the revolution 25 years later. What did she still feel was undone? Interestingly, she said that women's rights still have a ways to go. She said that Ebadi's award showed that this type of work could be done in Iran. As an aside, some people think that Ebtekar herself could make some more statements about women's rights, or make a simple statement by removing the chador she wears and wearing a scarf, as many of her staff do.
Some environmentalists are also frustrated that while Mrs. Ebtekar is very good at talking about the problems Iran's environment faces, they think she isn't doing enough to solve them. Factories continue to spew their chemical waste into the air and water, poaching is rampant, and traffic is at an absolute standstill. Her administration has let go a number of good people, some of whom I have interviewed.
Yet Ebtekar enjoys quite a good reputation internationally. While I was in Iran, her department brokered a significant environmental agreement between the countries around the Caspian Sea. Ironically, the English she learned in the US when her father was studying here probably gives her a great advantage.
It was interesting to look into the eyes of someone who took American citizens hostage. I remember those days very well, as I grew up in DC and the tension hung in the air. And yet I bear no ill will because of that situation towards her. I guess I can allow myself to believe that the difference between a 19-year old and a 44-year old can be great.
But on the issue of environmental regulation, which is immediate and modern, Ebtekar's administration seems to have a way to go. Iran has some good laws. It has good people. But it does not yet have a management system in place to comprehensively and systematically attack the problems there.
You can read more about her in this interview she did with Frontline and this BBC page.
Posted by MJF at November 22, 2003 12:14 PM