Iran, Ciphers and Social Facts

Reading liberal and left-wing com­men­tary on what’s going on in Iran, I’ve been rather shocked. Everyone–including this writer–transforms into a savagely incisive Iran scholar equipped to pon­tif­i­cate on Iranian society, its domestic political insti­tu­tions, the velayat-e faqih, the social com­po­si­tion of Ahmadine­jad sup­port­ers and Mousavi sup­port­ers, etc. etc., enlight­ened by studious Twitter research, perusal of YouTube videos, a glance at Juan Cole’s blog, and for the extremely careful, a quick read through the last 50 pages of A People Inter­rupted.

The axis around which com­men­tary spins isn’t what the Iranians want, or what they think will be good for their society. For radicals the search is on for that rare animal, Rev­o­lu­tion. Said beast looks a tad like another species in his genus, Reform, and a bit less like two other related species, Protest and Riot. See, when dusky Middle East­ern­ers get agitated, we hope for the best: We Hope for Democracy. Mea culpa. Trouble is, things are a touch more com­pli­cated than that. Consider this aston­ish­ingly naive, dogmatic, and idiotic comment:

That said, the tactical and strategic supe­ri­or­ity of organized non­vi­o­lent revolt, of the kind seen in this video — in contrast to yesterday’s scattered street skir­mishes and battles — is what offers the Iranian resis­tance its fastest and cleanest path to victory.

What this scene tells us is that at the grass­roots level, there are many Iranians that “get” how it works. And that means that yesterday’s wave of violent repres­sion by the state can already be chalked up as an Epic Fail. It didn’t succeed a whit in quelling the revolt.

The piece from which it is extracted doesn’t comment on the social com­po­si­tion of the pro­test­ers. Nor their demands. Nor what per­cent­age of Iranian society they represent. Changes in who is protest­ing or why they’re protest­ing are sidelined. Calls from students for strikes are cast as har­bin­gers of socialist rev­o­lu­tion. Such writing is a simple and idle cel­e­bra­tion of protest. This isn’t analysis. It’s cheer-leading, scribbled away on a computer terminal “Somewhere in a country called America,” words like “resis­tance” and “revolt” in lieu of pom-poms and chants, ulti­mately, it being perhaps a vicarious variant of activis­tism.

This isn’t to say labor has been quiet. The Iranian bus workers’ union released a statement dis­avow­ing support for any candidate but calling for sup­port­ing the pro­test­ers. This is brave, because if there is a crackdown, they may well be subject to it, as will the students whose tweets have per­co­lated around the internet, whose faces have appeared on a million YouTube videos, who will need sol­i­dar­ity of a somewhat different sort when the crackdown begins. Mousavi is also cir­cu­lat­ing a call for a general strike. There are “uncon­firmed reports” of a general strike involving 30 percent of the workforce (betting odds are that they’ll stay unconfirmed).

Here’s what else we know and what’s rel­a­tively undis­puted: Khamanei threw in his lot with Ahmadine­jad on Friday, sup­port­ing the election results at a rally that appar­ently drew in excess of a million people. On Saturday, amid violent repres­sion, mere thousands of par­tic­i­pants came out into the streets (the number 3,000 has been widely reported. Earlier in the week, millions were out in Tehran and Isfahan). The state hasn’t yet unleashed a hundredth of its repres­sive instru­ments. Among the many killed, one name has taken on par­tic­u­lar salience: Neda Agha-Soltan, an Iranian young woman killed Saturday.

Richard Cohen writes of her funeral. One woman he inter­viewed comments, “I’m scared that all the blood shed for this cause may be wasted.” Today, a thousand pro­test­ers came together in Haft-e-tir Square in central Tehran. They were swiftly dispersed. Basij out­num­bered pro­test­ers by 3:1 or 4:1. Imagine 5,000 pro­test­ers disputing an election in Herald Square. It’d merit a news-story, perhaps. Robert Fisk calls the pro­test­ers cause “hopeless.” Other Iranians report that “The people know that this is not about regime change. Most people want Iran to remain an Islamic Republic. But they feel that perhaps there is a way open to them now to improve things a little from within the system. At least to keep alive the repub­li­can elements of the system that [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad’s years in power have been eroding.”

On Sunday, Mousavi called the elections ille­git­i­mate and said that they should be tossed out. A week ago, he’d claimed victory before the votes were even counted. Today, mere hundreds gathered, alacritously dispersed by basij. Fraud? Maybe, except this datum on the Guardian Council stu­diously ignores Iranian voting procedure, wherein Iranians can vote wherever they wish, and this analysis suggests that claims of fraud are fraudulent.

Mousavi, meanwhile, is an execrable figure, by all accounts except for the ones getting the most media coverage, deeply involved in repres­sion, although now a paladin of pro­gres­sive change. It doesn’t seem that Iranian hopes for him had been so high: ““We thought that perhaps, being so well-established in the regime would give him the ability to really change things.”

Green Rev­o­lu­tion? Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

NB: This piece lavishes some attention on the Western left, when the focus should be osten­si­bly Iran. Again and again, I can’t help but think that Iran is for the Iranians to figure out. The Western left–since we is us–is for us to figure out. So that includes trying to tell the truth about Iran. But since our readers are prin­ci­pally and unfor­tu­nately ourselves, it means offering meta-critique too, the two best of which I’ve seen are at Jews Sans Fron­tieres and Lenin’s Tomb, neither of which I agree with fully, but both thought­ful and considered.

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Tech­no­rati Tags: Ahmadine­jad, Iran, Islamic Rev­o­lu­tion, lib­er­al­ism, Mosavi, rev­o­lu­tion

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