If things had gone as people expected, and Moussavi had been elected in the natural course of events, critics like I could have fixed our deprecative, cynical gaze on scenes like those 12 years ago when Khatami was elected, of people waving Iranian flags and dancing in the streets, shaken our heads at the display of enthusiasm, and “known better” than to put all hope in that man. But, as we all know, things didn’t go this way.

After a week of violence, those most thoroughly disillusioned just shook their heads at me: “All these protests, the deaths, for nothing really, in the name of a man who is just another cog in the system”. Actually, just why this man got so popular, is a legitimate question I would well like to find an answer to. On the one hand it can be said that the irony that, in this election, the most conservative candidate was a secularist, and the most progressive one indeed a mollah, seems to have been lost on the larger Iranian public. What, in the eyes of at least a part of the electorate spoke for Moussavi and against Karoubi, his actually more reformist adversary, was the simple fact that the former is a secularist and the latter is a cleric. Furthermore, Moussavi’s clever move of implicating his wife in his election campaign and the fact that ex-president Khatami openly supported him must have been active reasons behind the fact that his popularity was buoyed up to such prominence.

Despite the fact that his policies had been hampered by the conservative majority of parliament at the time doing everything they could to throw a wrench in the spokes of his reforms, not stopping short of violent, extralegal ways, and forcing a maximum of concessions out of him, Khatami is very well remembered up to this day. This combines well with the fact that during the campaing Moussavi seems to have gone deliberately anti-Ahmadinedjad in his self-portrayal, which was visibly a powerful catalyst. Because after one term under Ahmadinedjad acting as a foil, the educated, liberal-minded upper classes remember the freer days under Khatami with a good deal of genuine wistfulness.

Economically, Khatami was the second neo-liberalist the country had seen after Rafsanjani’s presidency. Hajjarian, the theorist of Khatami’s reforms, had formulated the reasoning that a political opening of the system represented a precondition for economic development and at the same time would soften the nefarious effects that economic growth would have on the lower social classes.
In the 2005 elections, Khatami had reached the end of his maximum two terms in power and had to cede. Ahmadinedjad, an ex-commander of a Pasdaran elite brigade whose election relied heavily on the mobilisation of the Revolutionary Guards, emerged as the surprise winner. Instead of allying economic liberalism with cultural and political reformism as Khatami had done 1997 -2005, Ahmadinedjad seemed to aspire to the Chinese model of economics –liberalise the market without changing the authoritarian structures of power. This explains his popularity with the No. 1 of the country, Supreme Leader Khamenei, intent on keeping his power intact.

Khamenei and Ahmadinedjad were a perfect match: At the end of the eighties, with Khamenei’s charismatic predecessor Khomeini’s death and the end of the 80-88 Iran-Iraq war, two important glues that had held the regime together fell away. At this point many actually anticipated the collapse of the regime. If Khamenei averted the fulfilment of this prospective, it was because he started consolidating his power around a third pillar that Khomeini had so deftly put in place just before his death with the 1988 mass executions: Fear. Khamenei’s move was to consolidate his base among the organisation that had the power to exercise control of this fear, the Revolutionary Guards, or Pasdaran.

As a statesman, Khomeini’s last political stance before his death was one of moral conservatism, but with a strong role played by the social state. Today, somewhat ironically when looking at the details of the peripeties of history, Khamenei and Ahmadinedjad can be seen to continue this tradition in straight logical sequence, and Moussavi, who at the time was the man executing Khomeini’s political direction, has reneged on his old stance. But that, of course, is another story...

Iran - The Hizbullah Connection

Yesterday Jadi twittered with astonishment about an instance at the Djam-e-djam rally where "motorcycle riding hardliners attacked the people, but police arrested them".

Then, early this morning, the following hearsay was twittered by persiankiwi:

# - military has refused orders to shoot protesters - #Iranelection

# - only baseej militia and Etellaat folowing orders - they cannot contain country without Army - #Iranelection

# -in azadi sq the killing was by baseej ONLY - military did not react - #Iranelection

# - several Generals have been arested - #Iranelection


Indeed in the past, it has not been uncommon for police on place in minority regions to defect in conflictual situations and for the centre to decide to move around exolingual police from other regions that can be used more effectively. When dealing with a nationwide insurrection, this of course won't do the trick. So what the Iranian authorities have long been suspected to be up to is using members of the allied Lebanese movement Hezbullah to engage in repression (the most conspicuous indication in the past having been a lost Lebanese ID card at a rally a few years ago which was picked up by activists).

The Lebanese Shiite organisation indeed was initially fostered by the Iranian militant movement that toppled the Shah throughout its early years in power, when the official line was to export the Islamic revolution. Lebanon with its strong Shiite minority seemed obvious starting point.

As Persian kiwi twittered yesterday: "[There are] rumours that some of the motorbike riders are Arabic speakers - cannot confirm if Hezbollah from Lebanon."

A new colour revolution?

Observers have already called the electoral fraud "the end of the republican era". Others agree to call it a "coup d'etat". What we are observing now might be the revolution countering it. Throughout the campaign and more and more towards the end of it, Moussavi supporters have showed their support by clipping green ribbons to their clothing or wearing green shawls or wristbands. As seen in my earlier posts, the demonstrations have been gaining momentum over the weekend. Although the colour is not quite as widespread as was orange in the Ukrainian revolution what is in the making now might be the "Green Revolution".
Indeed, in an echo from the days of the Islamic Revolution itself, people are on the roofs again, shouting "Allaho Akbar". Equally can be heard: "Down With the Dictator" and "Mousavi/Karroubi where is my vote?"

But even if Ahamedinedjad can be ousted and someone else can claim presidency, could the change provoked really live up to the qualifier "revolution"?
As I glean from the Iranian blogosphere, and as an Al-Jazeera journalist worded it, Moussavi seems to be "the man of the day". Although of course, Iranian political activists still find many a nit to pick with this man. He has a dark spots in his resume as he was in power as Prime minister during the mass executions of 1980s and some of the liberal measures he now advocates are incoherent with his past policies. In any case he is more moderate in his reformist demands than the preferred candidate of the activists, Karroubi, who personally acted against the arrests of political activists this year and who ran on a platform that included a promise to "ensure equality of men and women".

But even though green bands can be seen worn everywhere by demonstrators, this doesn't mean the protests are strictly speaking pro-Moussavi. They are riots against the system itself. And with the sweeping support of the people, maybe Moussavi, the moderate reformist who never even claimed the label, would be pushed to making changes that go further than he originally intended. It would not be unheard of in regional regimes.

"Today Ahmadi Nizhad tried to show that country is completely calm and nothing is wrong. There were riots yesterday (saturday), but that was NOTHING comparing to what happened tonight (sunday)! Last night only some parts of the city were rioting but tonight there wasn't a quarter in Tehran without demonstrations of people! We have burnt too many of their motorcycles, cars, buses, all the streets are separated with fires! They can only disperse us with tear gas and pepper spray!! But tonight people used hand made Molotov cocktails!! This situation is nationwide. All the big cities are rioting!! I have seen the videos and the riots are as good as Teheran. Tomorrow there is going to be a big demonstration of people with Mousavi and Karoubi on the front line. I hope that the movement is on the right path now.

best wishes,
Pouriyah"

I don't know whether we can really say that "tonight there wasn't one quarter of Teheran that didn't riot" (how about the spread out working class south for example?), same as about the alleged known number of deaths in the previous post (which may well be smaller -many people without experience who see someone who has just been shot in the throat for example simply assume that he or she will die, even though she may be carried out alive). Obviously Pouriyah, like anyone in Téhéran, can only perceive a splinter of the great confusing mosaic of events that have flown up around them, with too much information whirling about to disentangle, order, and fish the meat bits out of, which inevitable are also intermixed with misinformation of different natures. But it sure is an impassioning e-mail to read.

News from Teheran

"It is now 10:06 in the morning and though my house is far from the center I hear ambulances and fire engines moving in the city" started off a mail I got from
Pouriyah today, a guy I contacted through the noble institution of the Anarchist Yellow Pages in 2007 and at whose house I subsequently stayed when I was in Teheran. Maybe Pouriyah is not really a thoroughbred libertarian, because it seems he cares about the elections. The tone of the mail speaks of the anger and frustration the youth of the country is going through; it called what happened yesterday a coup d'état and was peppered with swear words (unusual for my soft spoken friend). It also provided information I haven't been able to confirm through the official news, notably that "they have killed more than 10 boys and girls yesterday". Another friend of mine in Teheran said about this: "I also heard these rumours, but they are not confirmed". There are videos on youtube showing the Iranian police beating a man motionless.
Pouriyah went on: "They have imprisoned Mousavi and Karoubi in their houses, disabled mobile communication, disabled SMS, filtered all the news agencies website, hacked Mousavi's website, shut down universities and schools and they're saying in their news agencies that everyone in Iran is happy about the results and they are celebrating as if nothing had happened!!!!!! Also, they are not validating expired VISAs of foreign reporters, and they have suggested to other reporters to leave Iran immediately!
As far as I know same movements have been in Shiraz. I hope today other cities also join us and finish off these mother fuckers!"


For pictures from the riots yesterday scroll down here.

For someone who professes to take interest in only two things in life -beer and politics- I am usually prone to an astonishingly complete indifference towards all that regards elections and their corollaries. But these ones seem to be at the beginning of somewhat of a new era: The Iranian regime has reached yet another level of illegitimacy.
The hand that was offered to the West throughout the nineties with the moderate presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami shall not be stretched out again (and into the bargain this obviously comes at an important juncture when the USA, for once, were actually willing to hold out a hand in their turn), and the citizens of Iran shall be locked into another cycle of four years into conservative moral policing and devastating foreign policy.

Despite being conscious of all the limitations of their reformist movement, there was genuine enthusiasm among Iranian political activists and the youth at large. Even the most chronically disaffected went out to vote on Friday. The results of these elections came as a shattering blow to their hopes.
This youth constitute the first generation of Iranians born into the system, not yet having gone through the full cycle of insurrection and repression and worn out by it, and they are willing to fight again.
There was the hope (although coupled with fear for repression) that this may cause significant riots. But street fights are reported to have been scattered and to (have) fail(ed) to coalesce into a cohesive uprising, organisation having been made difficult by the shutting down of the SMS system a day before the polls and by the riot police having a new efficacious technique of catching up with rioters through being extremely mobile on "small nimble motorcycles" (Al-Jazeera). The BBC reports a couple of these have been joyously put on fire during the protests.

Recent Readings

This may be the perception of an outsider distending the importance of what locals perceive to be mere details, but the Netherlands seems to be the European country where public debate about Islam is the most contentious and most polarized (I am thinking of such public figures as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geerts Wilders).
The Dutch blogosphere has already abundantly taken notice of a neologism the "Groene Amsterdamer" made up earlier this month - "Polderislam". The word is untranslatable, but self-explanatory once we clear up the first two syllables: "Polders" are those areas of the Netherlands which were claimed from the sea in defiance of natural law and which up to this day are protected by dykes and picturesquely dotted with windmills.

As part of the collection of articles about the phenomenon, an interview with the Moroccan economist Fouad Laroui was published. Educated in Casablanca, Paris and the United Kingdom and living in the Netherlands for twenty years now, he has not only academically published in three languages, but is also a French-language novelist whose novels are bestsellers in Morocco. The article made heard pretty critical opinions about Muslim society in the the Netherlands that probably only a Muslim himself can put forward without slithering into controversy (the article is actually entitled "I'm going to end up getting a fatwa for this").

The article represents a two-page race through 1400 years of history, beginning with Mohammed's times and ending with the Palestinian question, giving a glimpse of many an interesting topic and particular view (Mr. Laroui sure is opinionated on some points), but obviously (brevity obliges) leaving much to be desired in terms of depth. Along the way, Laroui philosophizes about Islam and science (name-dropping Ibn-Rushd), Islam and igtheism (assimilating the Mutazilites' philosphy of a god "without attributes" to modern atheism), and Islam and politics ("The division of religion and state in Islam started with Abu Bakr. He was the political successor of Muhammad, but not his spiritual one. How, in god's name, could you be the spiritual successor of a prophet?!").

I have no intention of copyfighting, but for those who can't read Dutch I'll translate just a couple of thought-inspiring passages:

"«The kind of oumma that is now being propagated in Europe is an aggressive one. [...] It is important -and with this I am not making myself popular among muslims- that we distance ourselves from the idea of an "international religious community", membership of which is more important than all other identities. Something is fundamentally wrong if a Dutch Muslim feels he can relate more closely to an imaginary Pakistani ten thousand kilometers away from him, than to his neighbour who happens to be Christian or atheist...»"

"«Islamism was born in the 19th century as a reaction to colonialism. For hundreds of years muslims were the ones who subjugated others, and now suddenly it was the Christians who subjugated the Muslims! Where had it all gone wrong?! One explanation was: We've been led too far astray from the path of our forefathers.» [...] Given the bad reputation that the Salafist movement has now, Laroui is pretty straightforward when it comes to the origins of the movement. Muhammad Abduh the 19th century founder of Salafism considered that a return to pure Islam was perfectly compatible with modernity. For this man rationalism and scientific positivism were the only way through which the Muslim world could overcome the backwardness that was at the root of what subjugated the Muslim world to the West. This progressive kind of Salafism however was supplanted by a "reactionary" kind of Salafism, thought up by the Syrian Rashid Rida, Mohammed Abduh's disciple. It took the return to the past literally and represented the kind of utopianism that almost automatically had to turn into extremism."