And the real question: which claim will get bigger play in the next week in the blather-sphere? The UK Telegraph reports that Ahmadinejad is Jewish, with the amusing sub-headline, "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's vitriolic attacks on the Jewish world hide an astonishing secret, evidence uncovered by The Daily Telegraph shows." Golly! This is unrefined non-sense, although it does mean that for the next month or so Ahmadinejad will have to be decorously referred to as "self-hating" instead of just "anti-Semitic."
Far more interesting was a poll Yoshie Furuhashi posted on MRZine, here. The key finding?
There are methodological problems with the polling along with other issues, such as some Iranians' probable hesitance to denounce Ahmadinejad as illegitimate, perhaps worried about phone-monitoring and the prospect of getting sent to prison or otherwise repressed. But the point stands--81 percent of respondents to a poll don't consider a government "legitimate" if it was a "social fact" that the government was elected illegitimately, e.g. fraudulently, in the first place. About time to take that claim and find a garbage can capacious enough to accommodate it. If 81 percent of Iranians think Ahmadinejad legitimate--somewhat less actually like him--the questions that were largely begged rather than raised in the June-August furor can be re-opened, perhaps more calmly, and preferably by someone who trots out to south Tehran and the countryside to see what the people living there have to say, and what they think.
Given all that, it was especially welcome to read in the New Left Review that
Many further questions remain open. Among those consistently glossed over or ignored in standard treatments of Iranian politics are the comparative economic and political records, in practice, of the Rafsanjani/Khatami and Ahmadinejad governments; the class composition of the Green bloc of 2009; the social basis of regime loyalism; the exact roles, respectively, of the Armed Forces and the Revolutionary Guards in the power structure of the country; the intellectual, regional or other grounds of factional divisions within the clergy.
Perhaps with NLR's imprimatur we won't have to watch frothing reactions to the idea that the "Green Movement" even had a class composition, and if so, we'll be able to read something somewhat more rigorous than the impressionistic non-sense that was grandly reprinted during the summer as "analysis." Certainly the recent suggestion that "For a few weeks, a large, mainly urban middle-class-based socio-political movement emerged around the two reformist candidates (Moussavi and Karroubi), mobilizing a large segment of the population in the name of the Green Movement for reform and change" hasn't inspired people to lose their minds muttering about Euro-centric leftists, probably because the above-cited author is Iranian, and was speaking about the pre-vote mobilization and not the post-vote uproar.
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This story re Ahmadinejad’s grandpa is just hilarious and love your “self-hating Jews” bit. Shall he be encouraged to make aliyah? Apparently about 10% of Iranians can claim a Jewish grandpa, making them eligible for aliyah. That’s about four million Iranians, a good step toward a one-state solution.
Hmm. And Meretz or Likud , that’s the real question. If the Palestinians were very lucky maybe all the olim would all join hadash.
I wasn’t aware that I frothed. In any case, for those who are interested in what the anti-capitalist opposition in Iran is saying, a visit to http://revolutionaryflowerpot.blogspot.com/ is strongly recommended.
I’m well aware of what the anti-capitalist opposition in Iran is saying [in English anyway, same problem as I suspect you have] but the question is who is reading and who are they saying it to. Probably not the 81 percent of Iranians expressing support for Ahmadinejad, nor the 64 percent that voted for him.
I’m well aware of what the anti-capitalist opposition in Iran is saying [in English anyway, same problem as I suspect you have] but the question is who is reading and who are they saying it to. Probably not the 81 percent of Iranians expressing support for Ahmadinejad’s legitimacy, nor the 64 percent that voted for him.
I think the protests also occured because of the country’s coming economic crisis what with high unemployment among youth as described by Salehi-Isfahani so there were other greivances besides complaining about losing an election. As for anti-semitism, Ahmadinejad may not display it when speaking to the U.N., but he does when speaking to Tehran university: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3778788...
Ahmadi’s personal views on anti-Semitism are unknown; his statements are an extremely calculated provocation that do leave him some wiggle room. The grievance model of social mobilization you’re positing has been totally ripped apart. It’s more complicated than that, but sure, there are some who are in the streets with economic grievances; so? Also polling suggested that more Iranians trust Ahmadi’s management of the economy than don’t.
Oh for fuck’s sake, So we need to forget about the tortured and restricted protesters and force their peers and family members to bow down to Ahmadi? Hell, that peace in Iran interview even pointed out he was being repressive. You’re slowly inheriting Yoshie’s complete denial now, I see.
Jenny, this type of thing is barely worth replying to. go to my post where I wrote, “such as some Iranians’ probable hesitance to denounce Ahmadinejad as illegitimate, perhaps worried about phone-monitoring and the prospect of getting sent to prison or otherwise repressed“
and then think about what you just wrote.
[…] the blog Jewbonics: This is unrefined non-sense, although it does mean that for the next month or so Ahmadinejad will […]
Max, I honestly have no aspirations to “speak” to the 81 percent of Iranians who think that Ahmadinejad is the legitimate President. My interest since 1967 has been to build the Marxist movement. I am trying to link up with Iranian Marxists, no matter how tiny their numbers. I have never been susceptible to “how many divisions does the Pope have” arguments in the past and see no reason to change now.
You may or may not be susceptible to such arguments, but I don’t see the relevance, because no one was making such an argument. The argument is twofold. The first point is that Iranian Marxists must speak to that 81 percent if they’re ever to have any hope of building a movement in Iran that however-imperfectly accords with their ideals. The second is that if you want to understand Iranian society, you have to understand that 81 percent, not the .5 percent of them that already agrees with you. You say your “interest since 1967 has been to build the Marxist movement.” Do you think that speaking only to those who agree with you is the way to do so?
Yes, I understand what you wrote,but continue as if that poll is ultimately correct such as your response of why people approve of ahmadin’s economic policies when I lamented of a possible common grievance that inspired the protests.
the poll isn’t “correct,” polls aren’t “correct” or “incorrect,” unless they’re exit polls for voting, they’re an approximation of societal sentiment. the comment that “polling suggested that more Iranians trust Ahmadi’s management of the economy than don’t” is a statement of fact.
of course some in the streets had economic grievances, but that isn’t how most have been reading the movement, even its most vociferous supporters.
But Iranian Marxists are speaking to the 81 percent (accepting for a moment that this is accurate). They are putting forward a class perspective and challenging the hegemony of the clerics. They are doing about the same thing that Marxists are doing in the USA, of course without the obstacles of arbitrary arrest and torture–at least for the time being.
OK, well now that’s an empirical claim, for which you haven’t offered any evidence. There’s plenty of Iranian Marxist analysis about the Green Movement, less evidence that the (minuscule) number of Iranian Marxists are anything more than a fringe phenomenon within that movement, and still less evidence that they are speaking to that 81 percent [an 81 percent which seems to totally ignore their analyses casting pox on both houses if you look at the rest of the poll cited].
If they’re doing “about the same thing that Marxists are doing in the USA,” then it’s pretty safe to say they’re speaking to each other, and other international Marxists, much as we* are right here, both literally and figuratively.
*I’m not a Marxist, but close enough that it’d be strange and preening to specify what I am
Phrases such as “the hegemony of the clerics” shows that you know nothing about Iran or Iranian politics. Ahmadinejad was OPPOSED by clerics. Mousavi, his main opponent, represents an establishment cleric named Rafsanjani, widely considered to be one of the wealthiest individuals in Iran.
A-Jad is always good for a laugh. But unfortunately now he’ll be forced to exterminate himself.
http://doodiepants.com/2009/10/04/mahmoud-ahmadin...
There are actually two polls conducted bu US NGOs that show Ahmadinejad as being popular — one was taken a couple of weeks before the elections, and one after. The one before was dismissed in the US media as being “dated” (it occured 2 weeks before the actual elections) and the one after is being ignored.
And if you mention the word “Marxist” to anyone in Iran — especially the members of the bourgeois “Green Movement” — you’d be laughed at out loud. WHo do you think in IRan can afford to “Twitter” and stuff in English, the members of the working class?
Yes. But it’s more pleasant to dream right?
Is hass saying the protests were orchestrated?
[…] blog Jewbonics offers a nice, scathing insight: “This is unrefined non-sense, although it does mean that for […]