Tehran and the Party Line

I don’t know a tenth as much about Iran as Robert Dreyfuss, a hundredth as much as Juan Cole, a thou­sandth as much as Hamid Dabashi. I know enough to be quiet about what I don’t know. And I know that when main­stream and liberal-left opinion call an official enemy’s election “disputed,” or a coup d’état, they either have evidence, or they are waging pro­pa­ganda war. It’s despi­ca­ble, but it may not matter, at least for now. Events in Iran have, it seems, overtaken the Ori­en­tal­ist fantasies of Western analysts. Consider context, then a quick look at Western reaction.

Iran’s top leg­isla­tive body is now prepared to recount the votes, a procedure oppo­si­tion candidate Mousavi has rejected (anyway, recall that Mousavi is a pretty recent convert to demo­c­ra­ti­cism).  At least 20 pro­test­ers are dead. Iranian state news agencies are con­firm­ing at least seven deaths. Robert Fisk reports that many fear there has been a massacre of uni­ver­sity students in Tehran. The basij–hardcore militia–have attacked students in Isfahan. Videos of violent repres­sion by jack­booted thugs are coming onto the internet at a quickened clip. Foreign jour­nal­ists are being ordered to stay in their hotels, although many are appar­ently ignoring this order. Still, it is report­edly extremely difficult for them to get out of Tehran. The police were also ordered to stand down at the Mousavi rally. This oscil­la­tion between violence and tol­er­a­tion of the defiance of ille­git­i­mate state orders is indica­tive of a gov­ern­ment in total flux. The situation is almost out of its hands.

The vast deploy­ment of state violence has created a legit­i­macy crisis for the Iranian state. Gov­ern­ments shouldn’t beat up their citizens for par­tic­i­pat­ing in non-violent protests. And I should add that I have seen (twitter) reports that police have been deployed without weapons, due to the state’s mis-trust of them, and that in any event the police have arrested several rampaging basij, many of whom are Arabs, from Lebanon and elsewhere, and so deemed more trustworthy.

Now, there are at the very least three ana­lyt­i­cally distinct and I think relevant questions: one, supposing the vote totals are accurate–or even if they are not–how did Ahmadine­jad accrue his votes? This is a time for sober reflec­tion on the Iranian government’s political and more impor­tantly social policies. It’s easy to dismiss the Iranians as tawny idiots, but not exactly laudable. Polls showing strong support for Ahmadine­jad should be analyzed, not dismissed out-of-hand.

Two,  and most impor­tantly, what will be the outcome of the demon­stra­tions? To what extent will their com­po­si­tion shift from over­whelm­ingly middle or upper-middle class students to a more vibrant mix? What will they rally around? This is partially tied to the result of the first question. If Ahmadinejad’s numbers are credible, or if he received 40 or 50 percent of the vote, the soci­o­log­i­cal com­po­si­tion of the demon­stra­tions will be less likely to shift to a broader chunk of the Iranian pop­u­la­tion. Nev­er­the­less, students’ will­ing­ness to defy the gov­ern­ment, to get beaten, jailed, killed, could well attract workers repulsed by state violence. A video has appeared of orange-garbed garbage-men joining the pro­test­ers. This is important. Students alone cannot and should not make a rev­o­lu­tion.

Fur­ther­more, it should not be sur­pris­ing that students are first out in the streets. As Staughton Lynd comments regarding the Vietnam War protests, “Students came first. And this is under­stand­able, given the fact that most students are not yet committed to liveli­hood and support of a family, and are in a setting and a period of their lives where excite­ment over general ideas is encour­aged.” Still, they will have to coalesce around something more alluring than Moussavi’s neo-liberal program if unrest is to turn into social progress.

Now, on the election results: Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty wrote yesterday in the Wash­ing­ton Post that

The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people…Our survey indicated, though, that Azeris favored Ahmadine­jad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi…Iranians view their support for a more demo­c­ra­tic system, with normal relations with the United States, as consonant with their support for Ahmadine­jad. They do not want him to continue his hard-line policies. Rather, Iranians appar­ently see Ahmadine­jad as their toughest nego­tia­tor, the person best posi­tioned to bring home a favorable deal.

Dozens of anecdotal data-points sup­port­ing this argument can be found across the internet, including from rel­a­tively main­stream sources, including unabashed sectors of the estab­lish­ment like Stratfor. This isn’t evidence that Ahmadine­jad won. We still don’t know.

Juxtapose with Robert Dreyfuss’s Nation piece. The headline is “Iran’s Ex-Foreign Minister Yazdi: It’s a Coup.” Dreyfuss’s evidence? Essen­tially an interview with Iran’s ex-Foreign Minister. Thin gruel. Or with Al Giordano’s com­par­isons of the goings-on in Iran with the 2002 military coup d’etat in Venezuela. Hamid Dabashi calls Mousavi a Mandela or a King. Richard Seymour calls the com­par­i­son absurd, but remember, Mandela implanted the neo-liberal agenda that’s incited profound class struggle in South Africa. Might be a good parallel. Foreign Policy in Focus is simply calling it a coup.

Would pro­gres­sive reporters take such a ridicu­lous attitude toward what actually happened in the case of anyone but a cynical demagogue known for mouthing inflam­ma­tory state­ments about the Holocaust?

But the Western reaction, while important, is currently ancillary. There’ll be time to analyze this charade. For now, the Iranians hold all attention.

Addendum: I wrote above that “And I should add that I have seen (twitter) reports that police have been deployed without weapons, due to the state’s mis-trust of them, and that in any event the police have arrested several rampaging basij, many of whom are Arabs, from Lebanon and elsewhere, and so deemed more trust­wor­thy.” Well, this remains true, but it’s also true to say that I’ve heard reports that both Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy exist. I shouldn’t’ve given the reports on Arabs being amongst the basij any credence. The point is debunked here.

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