This paper is the seventh of an on-going series of selected chapters excerpted from Dr. Eppink's upcoming book, "Hidden Goals in Modern Globalizing Culture", and is herein offered in conjunction to an earlier paper by Dr. Eppink, Cross-Cultural Communication in the Age of Globalization, which appeared in the January-February 2002 issue of this Journal. (For Parts I-V of Dr. Eppink's Introduction, please refer to Modern Globalizing Culture - July-August 2002 Issue, Modern Globalizing Culture Part II - September-October 2002 Issue, Modern Globalizing Culture Part III - November-December 2002 Issue, Modern Globalizing Culture Part IV - January-February 2003 Issue, and Modern Globalizing Culture Part V - March-April 2003 Issue and Modern Globalizing Culture Part VI - May-June 2003 Issue). Of note: Dr. Eppink presented his insights on Modern Globalizing Culture during his presentation as Closing Speaker at the 2002 International Congress of the BWW Society in Saint Germain-en-Laye, August 2002.

 

Back to the consequences of Khomeini's political views. Seeing nothing other than disunity in the Muslim world, to Khomeini, of course, the culprits were not his Shiite brothers-in-the-faith, let alone the Shiite clergy (which parochial would look at home?). The culprits behind Muslim disunity were the Western powers and their vassals, the Muslim monarchs. Khomeini: “They have divided the Muslim country, and created different, independent nations.”

 

Parochial Approbation easily induces hatred against outsiders. Not only against non-Muslim unbelievers, against all ‘dissident’ Muslim unbelievers as well. The idea of “the unjust ruler” together with the hatred against “unbelievers” culminates in the Khomeinian concept of “the Muslim revolutions”, a chain of several revolutions necessary to “reestablish” Muslim Unity. Since all unorthodox and non-clerical rulers are perverted ‘devils’ who are the tools of Satan, and perhaps even Satan himself, “It is every Muslim’s duty to destroy them, to annihilate them in the community of believers”, says Khomeini, also in the whole Muslim world (Umma). Therefore not only one revolution would do. First “the governments still dependent on the ex-colonial powers must be liquidated” (Saddam Hussein in Iraq, then the Saudi Arabian ruling families etc.).

 

At this points the convictions of Khomeini, bin Laden, and all Muslim extremists harmonize; their targets are different. Dependent on their financial means, communication facilities, their capability to appeal to the masses and to make followers, to channel their frustrations, and to organize cells of activists, they will succeed in spreading their revolutions, which means: terror.

 

The entire world should be conscious of this very danger which Muslim extremist leaders are representing. Their chances to spread hatred and terror will be enlarged the more communication facilities increase.

 

Why is the appeal of dangerous leaders to the masses so easy? The majority of Muslim people, for generations indoctrinated into parochial truths, will be prone to share extremist ideas. These ideas will not die with the death of a Khomeini or a bin Laden. In particular, the uneducated masses, indoctrinated into tribal sentiments of Honor and Islam’s Inviolability are easy prey for dangerous leaders.

 

The Leader is All, The Human Being is Nothing

 

Within a culture or country much cause for suffering starts from the idea “God is all, the human being is nothing”, if used as a political concept. The dangerous leaders, in their striving for Honor and Glory, see themselves as the representatives of God. Consequently a political concept “God is all, the human being is nothing” is replaced by: “the leader is all, the human being is nothing”. Only the leader knows God’s Will.

 

In the little words “is all” is the very danger of the obstructing HG Inviolability. As soon as God, the Nation, the Party, the People are politically proclaimed to be “all”, one should be cautious, because the following implication is always that “the human being is nothing” will follow. Those identifying themselves with the “all” are striving for Inviolability. And since God, the Nation, the Party, the People, et cetera, are invisible, it is their representatives who themselves become “all”. And in their megalomania they think all is permitted to them. Suppression and slaughter of “unbelievers” or other “dissidents”, chaos and discontinuity will be the inevitable outcome.

 

That “not all” Muslims share extremist convictions, and a statement that Islam itself is a peaceful[1] religion will not help to diminish the danger. That not all people are criminals, and that man in his essence may be good, does not alter the fact criminality exists.

It is not (Muslim or any other) religion itself that is attacked by the conclusion that dangerous religious leaders exist. What is attacked, and what has to be fought, are the leaders and followers who spread a religious version of intolerance, hatred, and terror.

 

Potentially dangerous are all Muslims who believe that an entity such as the Muslim state existed during the first epoch of Islam or that such a Muslim state can be realized in the future. This idea is inalienably connected with a parochial intolerance and the hatred of outsiders.

 

The Outcome of the Theocratic Muslim State

 

The Shiites believe that only the descendants of the caliph Ali, Mohammed’s son-in-law, were legitimate Imams, its religious rulers. (Not to be confused with the Sunni imam, or the ministers in the mosques.) After Ali’s lineage became extinct, some Shiites began to believe in the “hidden Imam” who will manifest himself as the messiah, the Mahdi, will prepare the Last Judgment and redeem the true believers. Although not all Shiite sects believe in the “hidden Imam”, all share the belief in the messiah (Imam, or Mahdi) who will once again return and establish the Golden Era (of Inviolability). In the meantime it is the religious leaders who rule the believers. After the year 1501 the “hidden Imam” version of Islam became the Persian state religion and the ayatollahs became those in charge.[2]

 

 The dangerous leaders -- both Shiites and Sunnites[3], both in the past as in the future -- make clever use of the concept of the (hidden) Imam -- the coming messiah -- to reach their own goals. The Assassins did this, and so did Khomeini. The ayatollah was too prudent to call himself the Imam, as others in the past had done, but in his behavior and actions he did everything to hold himself up as the Imam’s representative. His descendency from the family of Ali was a great help in this charade. It is worth mentioning that during World War II Khomeini and his clerical entourage were (like the Persian Shah) admirers of Adolph Hitler, and in fact the Shiite clergy considered Hitler to be pro-Muslim: “Who knows", thought some parochials "was Hitler perhaps a secret follower of the first Imam, Ali?" After all, they opined, Hitler fought the godless Soviets, and sought to annihilate the Jews. Still today, in the minds of many a Muslim "the Germans” are the only good Westerners.[4]

 

Parochial Inviolability Tolerates Only Black & White Thinking

 

The theocratic Muslim state is much a matter of black and white. The effects of the theocratic Muslim state have been displayed in Khomeini's Iran, a Society of Gloom, giving us a glimpse how the orthodox Almoravids and Almohads would have proceeded, and indicated the course of the Taliban had they succeeded.

 

The political principles of a Society of Gloom are as follows:

 

* There is no law other than God’s will. His law is the only constitution.

 

* Theocracy is the only form of -- constitutional -- government. The Imam or his representatives are the executors of the Law. “The prophet was once the head of the government. The clergy are his heirs [a rather unorthodox statement, AE], and by consequence only they have the right to rule, even today.”

 

* All governments of Muslim peoples must give over their power to the Theocracy.

 

* To achieve unity, all adversaries should be liquidated.

 

* Mankind is prone to lust. Therefore, God’s laws must be enforced upon the people. Democracy[5], representation of the people, and man-made laws are unacceptable.

 

* Crime, prostitution, alcoholism, fornication, cruelty, corruption, and pleasure (music and cinema) would not have existed if in the past Islam had ruled, and if religious leaders had been in charge. Such violations of the law must be punished on the spot.

 

* A military police force and a network of informants within the population should help the religious leaders maintain God’s laws.

 

* Property is greed; it provokes struggle for power and the struggle to expand one’s possessions; by consequence property is oppression. All property must be common, administrated by religious leaders representing common interests.

 

In particular, the principle on property is attractive to many Muslim-communists. Here communists and pious Muslims can meet each other. A faction of the forbidden communist Tudeh Party -- which opposed the Persian Shah -- joined in the anti-Shah Khomeinian revolution. For the same reason -- that of having a common enemy -- communists, people’s republicans and Muslim fundamentalists became allied in other Muslim countries. Many among them had sincere and righteous intentions to create equal and just societies.

 

The development and subsequent downfall of the USSR demonstrated how these intentions work in practice. I don’t doubt Marx’s intentions nor those of Lenin’s, and in fact the first communists were most probably sincere in the creation of their "workers' paradise". I can even believe the intentions of Khomeini and of bin Laden’s were originally sincere. Sincerity, however, is no safeguard that concepts, once implemented, will result in righteous actions.

 

The ideas mentioned above express sentiments of paranoiac fear. As in the case of the psychotic-depressive post-natal mother who kills her child to save it from danger, the intentions are good but delusive.

 

To believe that the human problem of greed, especially for property, will fade away if all property will be put in the care of the clergy, the church, or the party, is an illusion, if not a delusion. There is no guarantee that religious leaders or party officials are they themselves free from human desires or free from the temptations of corruption.

 

Theocracy -- like communism -- lacks a mechanism by which the leaders can be called to account for their actions.

 

 

The Greed to Bestow Damnation, and the Delusive Idea that all Satisfaction is Sin.

 

All over the world many leaders are driven by greed for power or property (Instant-Satisfaction). Although they may be highly disruptive within their environments and causing much discontinuity, not all of them are dangerous. Their Knowledge (HG Information) or their capabilities in Communication and networking (HG Social Contact) can reduce their bad effects.

 

The leaders who are truly “Dangerous” are those who are not principally driven by a greed for luxury and leisure, but have turned their greed into a greed for the power to pass damnation upon others. Condemning all luxury and leisure, theirs is a greed to judge others and to promulgate the gloomy idea that the earthly world is all-evil. They adore and adulate suffering. Their followers must endure and suffer for their own good.

 

Why care for housing the poor or for diminishing poverty? Endure, and you will help to build a better (communist or Muslim) society, and eventually be happy in a better life in paradise! Thus Khomeini stopped the big building projects already started during the ancient regime.

 

In this fundamentalism line of thinking, Satan, sin, and unbelievers -- and even satisfaction -- should all be destroyed. Endurance, sobriety, temperance, abstinence, sacrifice, and martyrdom: these are the arms of the “true believers” who will escape the final judgment and avoid damnation. Thus how nicely the greed to damn is combined with Approbation and Inviolability! The concept of damnation is strongly linked to both: only those who are true believers will be Inviolable and Approved.

 

Whether Muslim, communist or of another signature, this parochial fiction will be of little harm if it is restricted to a small circle. However, as soon as parochialism is combined with the HG Control (and expansion), matters grow worse. Real danger is born if, at the top, the leaders appropriate the right to judge and damn for themselves in an attempt to satisfy their craving for power. The lust for power enhances soon the lust for blood. Convinced as they are that only what they themselves think is truth, regardless of how short or long their reigns may last, they will not only damage their own followers but outsiders as well (although damage will be done primarily to the outsiders).

 

For all outsiders must be destroyed. According to Khomeini, the outsiders intend to destroy Muslim civilization. In that case, “if justice, truth, and Islam are endangered, he who possesses the power must act mercilessly. Under no circumstance he may be merciful.”  In the Koran, God is, in the first place, the Merciful. Evidently for Khomeini, God is no example.

 

Sobriety and Martyrdom Against Pleasure, Leisure and Luxury.

 

Islam teaches that words and ideas should not be taken at face value. To be able to test someone’s words, you must take note of his personal way of life.[6] In 1979 Khomeini became Iran’s spiritual and political leader. The Minister-President, however, was still Mr. Bazargan, a Muslim himself. To receive orders from his Head of State Mr. Bazargan traveled several times to the town Qum, the residence of the ayatollah Khomeini who wanted to avoid living in the "perverted" capital. Everywhere in the country Khomeini's portrait -- only those similes approved by himself -- adorned public places as well as private houses in the manner of worldly monarchs and other worldly rulers. This glorification of Khomeini is all the more striking since the Koran forbids images of human beings. Do we detect here the ayatollah’s longing for Honor and Glory, expressions of the HG Approbation?

 

In the holy city of Qum thousands of pilgrims came together, from far and near, to honor and to cheer the ayatollah. As the prophet Mohammed himself had done, the spiritual and political leader was sitting on the floor surrounded by a crowd of people who wanted advice, or wanted merely to be in the presence of this holy man. He, always occupied, of course had no time for the Minister-President who was kept sitting in the crowd. The same fate suffered the Kuwaiti foreign minister who had hoped to establish a good relation between rulers of the Arabian Gulf States and the new Iranian head of state; after some politeness the ayatollah seemed entirely absorbed by questions from the crowd in the room. Khomeini despised monarchs, their ministers, and all authorities except the Muslim clergy. In his mind, to rule a people no ministers were needed, and no official notes. Mr. Bazargan was stunned as he later learned the ayatollah’s remark that he never had read the reports that the department of the Minister-President had sent to him. (Mr. Bazargan subsequently asked to be dismissed, and went into exile.).

 

That the ayatollah’s attitudes were not sincere is proved by the fact he collaborated with ‘Satan’ Israel when he bought Israeli weapons to use against Iraq (remember Iran-gate).

 

The way the ayatollah governed his people had to maintain the appearance of the traditional manner of the tribes -- with the small difference that in the traditional tribal gatherings there had been always several elders, not one ayatollah. It was more like a Muslim monarch imitating a tribal meeting.

 

Khomeini had no social or political plan. His program was that of an idealist, and a very simple one at that: if all people will embrace Islam, all will be well. Any idealist has such a simple plan in mind. Khomeini, however, was a "no-good-idealist", hence his program needed the following supplement: Islamic law must be enforced on the people, for their own good.

 

Now, his political program was complete. (The Taliban developed the same political program.).

 

The curious implementation of his political program was realized by statements by which Khomeini governed. The pilgrims who came from Qum spread the words of the holy ayatollah as if these were the words of the prophet received by divine inspiration. The words became the principles and the rules of the local administrators of the Khomeini-appointed “revolutionary councils”, supported by “the revolutionary guard”[7].

 

Khomeini was an opponent of any kind of pleasure. The “guards of the revolution” -- mostly fanatic young men -- charged themselves with the task of executing the ayatollah’s directions, even if they were contradictory (sometimes due to incorrect transmissions). Thus Khomeini had said about the new social housings under construction in the capital that daily attracted a stream of poor country immigrants: “As if the believers are housed in coffins”, and immediately the construction was stopped. At another statement: “I don’t see any difference between music and opium”, the “guards of the revolution” (a kind of Nazi Gestapo) broke into houses of citizens searching for music and video tapes, music instruments, playing cards, and other signs of pleasure, leisure and luxury. The military police of the orthodox Almohads in al-Andalus once had acted similarly. The orthodox Afghan Taliban executed the same terror.

 

“For, the human being is not on earth for his own pleasure” (but to please God). As if the fanatic bigots, like Khomeini, rigid by a paranoiac fear for the Last Judgment, are able to judge what pleases God!

 

In the sober Islamic theocratic Muslim state, only the reciting Koran verses, prayers and preaches are allowed. Another statement attributed to the ayatollah: “Music betrays Islam[8], it is an invention of foreigners to destroy the pure religion.” Khomeini warned the broadcasting functionaries that their programs had not the function to entertain.

What Khomeini saw as the only diversion in life, was … martyrdom.

 

Persian culture knows a long tradition of martyrdom. The first Shiite martyrs were Ali and his sons Hassan and Hussein. The latter, in particular, is the great saint of Shiite Islam. To honor him thousands of young man yearly flock the street on the day of his feast, Ashura, the remembrance day of Hussein’s murder in Karbala. Karbala is to the Shiites what Rome is to Catholics: the center of their faith. However, the comparison with Mount Calvary, where Jesus died, is more appropriate.

 

On Ashura-day real passion-plays are performed, culminating in processions of flagellant youths marching through the streets, wounding themselves severely on head and shoulders with sharply pointed cats-o’-nine-tails. For this reason the processions have often been forbidden by the authorities. The passion-plays were revived in Khomeini's time, and everyone could see the bloody pictures on television. (As I witnessed them myself during that time.)

 

The ayatollah is said to have stated “his holiness Hussein never laughed in his life”; the ayatollah himself despised smiling, too, because the world is a sheer vale of tears. Therefore, it is preferred to die by martyrdom. In another chapter it has been mentioned how young boys are willing to sacrifice themselves, as are parents - even the mothers - willing to sacrifice their sons.

 

Honor, revenge, blood, and Glory are the attributes of Persian Approbation. Since Hussein’s death they have shaped its culture. The culture of martyrdom is a typical expression of the combination Approbation-Inviolability. Martyrdom brings Glory (Approbation) in this world, and provides the martyr, immediately after his death, a secure place in paradise which makes him, of course, Inviolable forever.

 

The ayatollah had prepared a conflict with neighboring Saddam Hussein of Iraq. “Now Karbala will be repeated, the battle between good and evil. Now, however the good shall win” were Khomeini's war slogans. In military camps young soldiers -- ever younger and younger -- were indoctrinated into Islam and martyrdom. They were happy to die, serving as cannon fodder. The first attacks brought victory, but the generals knew that a war cannot be won by the masses, and how knew the difficulty of exercising an orderly retreat. Five offensives took place, numbered Karbala 1 to 5. The result was what “Karbala” has come to stand for: defeat. In these prestige wars -- obviously not intended to be won -- hundreds of thousands succumbed, and in total, some one million perished.

 

Political Tactics: All Means are Permitted

 

In the one million dead that the revolution has cost, those Iranians that have been executed as adversaries of Islam are included. In the beginning no mullahs (the clergy) were executed, however this later changed in case where they disagreed with the ayatollah, and they were dealt with as everyone who was in his way. Khomeini liked quick action. The interior political tactics were medieval in their simplicity.

 

The exterior tactics required somewhat more deliberation but were simple too: sowing hatred, cheating, and attacking where possible, but above all, exporting revolutions and terror.

 

Khomeini's hatred was not directed toward the United States or against Israel, because he needed the American military technicians and the Israeli weapons. The first target of his hatred was the Soviet Union which had invaded Afghanistan to hinder the establishment of a theocratic Muslim state, modeled Khomeini-style by the Taliban. However, the people in the streets shouted “Satan U.S.” because of the friendly relations between America and the Persian shah. The exiled shah, the real “Satan” of Khomeini, was welcome nowhere. At once, he was received in America by Mr. Kissinger and Mr. Rockefeller. Khomeini feared a conspiracy; he could not believe the official declaration that the shah had to be operated on for cancer (which was true; he died some months after the operation). The occupation of the U.S. embassy in the capital city of Teheran was by mere chance, and was not planned. The ayatollah took advantage of the occupation, and did nothing to resolve the political conflict.[9] The occupants’ dictate was to hand over the shah to Iran for execution. President Carter ordered a doomed military intervention to free the hostages. The 444 days of "America Held Hostage" blackened U.S. prestige in the Muslim world, as well as that of the president. The hostages were not set free until the inauguration of the incoming new president Ronald Reagan; by that time the shah was dead.

 

These events are mentioned here because they gave an enormous insight into the self-esteem of Muslims, not only in Iran but within the entire Muslim world. In their eyes, the super-power America was ashamed, humiliated, and degraded. The U.S. was powerless, Islam was invincible (Inviolable). Until today, men like bin Laden are inspired by occupation of the U.S. embassy. The ayatollah's exportation of revolutions became successful.

 

The terror organization Hezbollah (“the Party of God”) was founded by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard after the invasion of Israel into Lebanon. Another terror organization, the Lebanese Amal, infamous due to its airplane hijacking, was supported by Khomeini.

 

Terror became the ayatollah’s favorite export article. In Afghanistan the Taliban were supported by him by all means available. In Egypt, the very influential terrorist organization Jihad (Holy War) still considers the U.S. to be its principal enemy. In their own country of Egypt these terrorists tried to establish a theocratic Muslim state by staging a war of terror on tourists. [10] The ties between Jihad and the Al Qaeda of bin Laden became very strong.

 

The problem is today’s communication media -- mobile telephone, video, audio, internet et al -- help revolutionary ideas to spread quickly. (In his exile in France, Khomeini had discovered the value of the telephone and the power of audio tapes. Bin Laden also has made use of audio and video recording, and also of the internet.).

 

No Human Rights, No Individual Freedom

 

Freedom, let alone individual freedom, does not fit into theocratic ideas. Theocratic fanatics are strong opponents of individual Freedom. They are even opposed to social measures that lessen poverty and pain.

 

Proposing no alternative plan for the housing projects after declaring that "housing people would be like living in a coffin" was perfectly in line with fundamentalist thinking. The line of the theocrats admits to having no plans at all …… since only God makes plans, according to his (only) will. Man should not strive to do away with poverty and pain: all human suffering is God’s will. The true believer who obeys God’s will shall be rewarded in paradise. Paradise must be his unique goal, not earthly happiness and material things. Worrying about housing, health, happiness, or other social planning, is, from Khomeini's point of view, unworthy of the true Muslim. Man must be patient, and must endure. Suffering and martyrdom are better than all earthen matters.

 

The social problems of the people were in the eyes of the ayatollah of no importance. All problems would be solved by Islam. Every Muslim fanatic thinks in this line. The only thing the fanatic must do is fight for Islam and die a martyr.

 

It is within this mindset that the attacks on innocent citizens by Muslim militants and extremists have to be understood, like that of September 11.

 

Probably Khomeini, the black-clothed and black-minded defective idealist, did not despise mankind, the individual, or the people (however we shall never know). Perhaps he was sincerely concerned (although, as mentioned previously, in the way of the delusive mother who drowns here child to “save” it).

 

In any case, by the theocrats Independence is placed on the utmost lowest step in the HG ranking. The theocratic concept of human rights is limited to the rights of the true-believers as defined by Khomeini. This concept believes that the human being tends always to evil, and his intentions and actions are tending to evil.[11] Man has ever to be guided, controlled, and in the case of wrongdoing severely punished, or executed if necessary. For his own good, or for Islam’s sake. A network of spies, informants, and guards shaped this theocratic culture of hatred and accusations.

 

During Khomeini's time, as well as thereafter, “the corrupters of morals” in Iran were hanged on the spot by the revolutionary guards.

 

Goodness and mercy, too, were banned to an abysmally low place on the HG ranking.

 

Conclusions

 

The Khomeini theocracy in Iran is a case comparable to those of Nazi Germany and Soviet communism, all three cases being examples of cultures based mainly on obstructing HGs[12] (indeed, a culture; however due to their obstructing HGs such cultures do not tend to continue very long, although they can survive several generations[13]).

 

Within the fabric of all three cultures, no human rights exist, one citizen spies another, false accusations are a daily matter, one half of the population fears the other half, the leaders and their followers grow more and more paranoid (leading to the slaughter of adversaries and ‘dissidents’), and the entire population is distressed.

 

In the preamble phase the intentions of the leadership may be well-intentioned, based on idealistic ideas of religious or social reform (HG Order). Nevertheless the sincere idealistic leaders themselves follow obstructing HGs which distort their sense of reality in the direction of what they really want: their own meglomaniacal Glory.[14] They fight prestige wars they cannot win.

 

Soon, the ideas spread, and Order is surpassed by Ambitious, Expansive Control.

In the next phase, the obstructing HGs spoil the idealistic ideas; the obstructing HGs will have the upper hand in fantasies or programs of Honor, Glory, revenge, victory, martyrdom, paradise, or the 1000-year Reich.

 

The leader(s) with their greed for Glory and Power attract the wrong people with whom to collaborate. They become surrounded by hypocrite Pharisees, or by other fanatics even more fanatic than themselves; in both cases reality-checking is generally lacking, or entirely absent from the whole system. The perceived reality of the leader becomes the dictated truth.

 

The obstructing HGs - especially the parochial Inviolability ideas - obstruct the tolerance for outside Information and external Social Contact and Communication.  Independence and individual freedom are degraded and take the last position in the HG ranking.

 

The end is Order without Goodness, or rather chaos where all Order has disappeared.

 

The theocratic and Nazi cultures can be characterized according to their HG-rankings:

 

THEOCRATIC AND NAZI CULTURES
Preamble phase: Order (religious Law,              social reform)	à Control (Expansion)
Next phase:   Order	à Approbation (Honor, Glory, revenge, victory etc.)                                        +  Inviolability (martyrdom, paradise, or the 1000-year Reich[15]).
For their leaders:	+ Instant-Satisfaction    (greed for power, greed to dominate)
Final outcome:	Approbation + Inviolability + Instant-Satisfaction (the greed to judge, lust for blood) + Control        (all together: terror, bloodshed). Oppressed: outside Information/Knowledge   and external Social Contact and Communication Last: Freedom/Independence

 

 

 

 

About the Author: BWW Society Member Dr. Andreas Eppink received his Doctorate degree in Social Sciences in 1977 from the University of Amsterdam, went on to study Clinical Psychology, and was officially registered as a Psychotherapist. He has worked as a Management Consultant, especially in the television, advertising, daily press, family business, transport, and public administration sectors, including work with the town of Maastricht. Prior to this, as an Anthropologist specializing in the study of culture, Dr. Eppink was a pioneer in the field of migration study, in particular mental health and occupation. In 1971 he founded the Averroes Foundation for the study of these areas. He headed this institute from 1978 to 1983, as it then became state run. He was an intergovernmental expert of the European Committee for Migration in Geneva, a member of the Board of Advisors to the Dutch Minister of the Interior, and an expert with different European committees in Strasbourg and Brussels. Dr. Eppink speaks five languages and reads several more.