3arabawy BookMarx 06/19/2009 (p.m.)
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Where is Rafsanjani? « SOUTH / SOUTH
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Though the support of ‘immensely wealthy and deeply unpopular ex-president‘ Machiavelli Rafsanjani is ’sorely needed by Mr Moussavi, public backing for him could be detrimental. The protests have been led by civil society and Mr Rafsanjani, a shrewd operator, is deeply unpopular on the streets.’ Rafsanjani, as a miniature U.S. example, is what Mayor Daly was to Obama in Chicago: a deeply entrenched and corrupt figure central to ‘opposition’ sponsorship.
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Anyone who attempts to simplistically align Ahmadinejad with the religious elite is making a grave error. It is true that Khamenei formally endorsed Ahmadinejad for a second term but the reality is not so straight forward.
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Ahmadinejad’s 4 year term was marked by constant bickering between the executive and the religious sections of the ruling class. The fear amongst the religious establishment was that the President was going too far to antagonise the west and subsequently was damaging the trade deals that have been in place since the 90’s. During the campaign period Khamenei himself came forward to discredit a claim by Ahmadinejad that Mousavi’s wife and campaigner, Zahra Rahnavand, is not a real Doctor. So it is clear that are real splits opening up inside the regime, which certainly does not bode well for its long term survival.
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One thing that is absolutely clear is that any repression of any protest is unacceptable. People have the right to protest and political expression and any attempts to halt this must be rejected. Reports from the last couple of days actually show a shift in the attitude of the Iranian police towards the protestors. Rather than be used by the state as a tool of repression they have begun to protect the protestors from the feared Basiji and the other thugs.
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However, we must also understand Iran in a global context. This situation is very different to a General Strike in France where we can analyse this as the state vs. the people. As already outlined such an analysis is far too simplistic. We have to question why the situation in Iran is grabbing so many headlines and the attention of the world. When in Egypt the state rigged the elections and massive protests erupted, why did this not receive the same coverage? The simple answer is that as far as the imperialists are concerned, this could be the perfect opportunity to dismantle Iran as an obstacle to the domination of the Middle East. The Iraq war has only strengthened Iran as a regional power; all the worse that it is prepared to stand up to the West. Very few countries are as vocal as Iran on issues such as Palestine and very few countries, if any, can or will not provide the support that the resistance across the Middle East needs.
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We must be clear that we will not allow the West to hijack this movement and use it to its advantage. Since 1989 western powers have used genuinely democratic movements to further their own aims, as seen across Eastern Europe and beyond. The same cannot and must not happen with Iran. The vast majority of Iranian people themselves reject Western influence in their affairs; the revolution of 1979 was based around sweeping aside foreign rule. The collective memory of the ghost of 1953 when Iranian Nationalist leader Dr Mossadeq was overthrown in a CIA coup has not been forgotten. Western powers must stay firmly out of this affair. For years the liberal imperialists have argued that we must intervene in countries with human rights abuses, because the people of these nations are not capable of doing it themselves. If this new movement in Iran proves one thing it is that this formulation is false. The Iranian people are displaying that they are not ‘too oppressed to fight back’ or in any way too weak to fight their own battles. They do not want western intervention and they do not need western intervention.
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So what will happen next? I honestly don’t know. Clearly we have a series of events on a scale not seen in Iran since 1979. However, for all of the parallels this is not 1979 again. Protestors on both sides are chanting Islamic slogans and we will not see an overthrow of the Islamic Republic. There may well be changes in personnel, policies and other reforms but I expect it to go no further, at least at this stage. The Iranian left needs to play a better role and provide some organisation to the movement. But like 1979 the Iranian left is cutting itself off from society. They are not central to these protests and would rather see the Western powers launch an invasion than any continuation of the current regime.
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YouTube – Listening Post – The media role in Iran’s election – 19 June 09 – Pt1
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The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب: Thomas Friedman in Beirut
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The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب: Rift
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When it comes to Iranian developments, I clearly always notice a rift between Iranian left and Arab left.
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The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب: Champion of the masses
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I heard somebody on Fox News describe Rafsanjani as “the champion of the masses”. He forgot to add that he is also a champion of his own wealth and looting of public money.
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The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب: non-bearded
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You can take this to the bank. Western media rules dictate that non-bearded demonstrators are always better than bearded demonstrators and that poorer demonstrators are always less preferable than more affluent demonstrators, especially if they are dressed in fashionable Western clothes.
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Iranian Elections: The ‘Stolen Elections’ Hoax
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In general, Ahmadinejad did very well in the oil and chemical producing provinces. This may have be a reflection of the oil workers’ opposition to the ‘reformist’ program, which included proposals to ‘privatize’ public enterprises. Likewise, the incumbent did very well along the border provinces because of his emphasis on strengthening national security from US and Israeli threats in light of an escalation of US-sponsored cross-border terrorist attacks from Pakistan and Israeli-backed incursions from Iraqi Kurdistan, which have killed scores of Iranian citizens. Sponsorship and massive funding of the groups behind these attacks is an official policy of the US from the Bush Administration, which has not been repudiated by President Obama; in fact it has escalated in the lead-up to the elections.
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What Western commentators and their Iranian protégés have ignored is the powerful impact which the devastating US wars and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan had on Iranian public opinion: Ahmadinejad’s strong position on defense matters contrasted with the pro-Western and weak defense posture of many of the campaign propagandists of the opposition.
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The great majority of voters for the incumbent probably felt that national security interests, the integrity of the country and the social welfare system, with all of its faults and excesses, could be better defended and improved with Ahmadinejad than with upper-class technocrats supported by Western-oriented privileged youth who prize individual life styles over community values and solidarity.
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The demography of voting reveals a real class polarization pitting high income, free market oriented, capitalist individualists against working class, low income, community based supporters of a ‘moral economy’ in which usury and profiteering are limited by religious precepts. The open attacks by opposition economists of the government welfare spending, easy credit and heavy subsidies of basic food staples did little to ingratiate them with the majority of Iranians benefiting from those programs. The state was seen as the protector and benefactor of the poor workers against the ‘market’, which represented wealth, power, privilege and corruption. The Opposition’s attack on the regime’s ‘intransigent’ foreign policy and positions ‘alienating’ the West only resonated with the liberal university students and import-export business groups. To many Iranians, the regime’s military buildup was seen as having prevented a US or Israeli attack.
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Amhadinejad’s electoral success, seen in historical comparative perspective should not be a surprise. In similar electoral contests between nationalist-populists against pro-Western liberals, the populists have won. Past examples include Peron in Argentina and, most recently, Chavez of Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia and even Lula da Silva in Brazil, all of whom have demonstrated an ability to secure close to or even greater t
han 60% of the vote in free elections. The voting majorities in these countries prefer social welfare over unrestrained markets, national security over alignments with military empires.
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ABOUT 3ARABAWY
Hossam el-Hamalawy is an Egyptian journalist from Cairo
hossam [at] arabawy [dot] org