Re: [Marxism] "Violence flares as Ahmadinejad wins vote"

[Mehmet Cagatay <mehmetcagatayaydin@xxxxxxxxx>]

Yesterday, Maryam Namazie posted an interview with Hamid Taqvaee, leader of the 
Worker-Communist Party of Iran:

http://maryamnamazie.blogspot.com/2009/06/on-todays-presidential-election-in-iran.html

Although I find his opinion about the widespread opposition against the regime 
is slightly exaggerated, I agree with his conviction that it is inaccurate to 
call the elections in Iran as a farce whilst in actuality there has not been 
any elections whatsoever. It differs from elections in standard 
capitalist-democracy both formally and functionally. In the formal sense, 
participation in elections is strictly restricted by the Guardian Council of 
the Constitution to prevent any possible discrepancy within the current 
political arrangement from the start. Functionally, since an "apathetic public 
consensus" (Badiou) has already been established in Western democracies as a 
result of numerous years of practice and capital-labor friction has been 
comparably softened with some grease acquired through the imperialist plunder, 
a typical elections in Western democracy functions as a sham, but a sincere 
sham in which every four of five years people come together in
 a carnivalesque fashion and pit their insignificant differences against 
another just to confirm the comfortable delusion that they possess democracy 
which guarantees difference of opinion among people. Eventually the triumphant 
side seals the victory with a blissful musical gathering. (For instance, I'm 
very disappointed with the outcome of the latest elections in the U.S for the 
sole reason that they seized our modest enjoyment of listening Pete Seeger. 
That is all). But, because democracy itself is a shameless sham in Iran, as 
Hamid Taqvaee puts it, elections functions to ensure the continuality of the 
regime, not as a celebratory ritual about public consensus but as a disturbing 
symptom which compensates and masks the absence of it.  

mç    


      

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