In Tehran, Second Holocaust Cartoon Contest after a Decade

'Iran never denied Holocaust' tweeted Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in 2013, during his early months into the cabinet. "The man who was perceived to be denying it" --that is, former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad-- "is now gone" he said, when greeting Rosh Hashanah, the new Jewish year.

Though the twentieth century catastrophe may not be questioned at the higher executive level in Iran anymore, advocates of 'the Holocaust myth' and those who call it an excuse to justify suppression of Palestinians have no plans to relent.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's controversial remarks about the Holocaust that started during his first months in presidential office were part of the shift in Iran's foreign policy mentality, from the pro-détente, friendly diplomacy of the Reformist Mohammad Khatami, to one that believed the best defense is a good offense and tried to hit the West and Israel where it hurt the most.

At the time, it was said that Mohammad-Ali Ramin, media advisor to the president and –interestingly-- graduate of Clausthal University in Germany, was the mastermind behind the anti-Holocaust campaign. To give a more serious tinge, the government hosted an international conference on Holocaust afterwards, with former leader of Ku Klax Klan David Luke as an invitee, plus an international cartoon contest. Both events raised strong international objection from world leaders.

The political fallout created by the Holocaust denial campaign, and the harmful synergy it created in combination with struggle over Iran's nuclear program, was not admitted, or at least not confessed, until Ahmadinejad's fall of grace in his second term of presidency. As the 2013 presidential elections approached, Principlist hopefuls, from former IRGC Commander Mohsen Rezaei to former Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel distanced themselves from Holocaust remarks, calling them 'unhelpful'. "Even Ahmadinejad regrets his comments about Holocaust," said Mohammad Shariatmadari, a moderate figure.

Nonetheless, on Saturday May 14, 2016, Hozeh Honari, the key state-run art forum, kicked off the Second International Holocaust Cartoon Contest in Tehran. "We want to show how the Zionist Regime is the most racist, despised, and violent state in the world; and we want to expose Holocaust, the foundation of this regime," said Massoud Shojaei Tabatabei, secretary of the conference, in an interview on April 26, 2016. "We wanted to prove that absolute freedom of speech in countries that support Israel is a lie." Tabatabaei also complained about Zarif's comparison of the contest organizers to Ku Klax Klan.

The contest "runs against the spirit of openness of the rich Persian Culture, and to the values that guided the Islamic Republic of Iran in its initiative for the 2010 International Year for the Rapprochement of Culture" said UNESCO Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova on Saturday. Such objections will hardly leave an impact in Tehran, however, where the opposition knows how the contest can help thwart Hassan Rouhani's reconciliation with the West.

IRD/66