[Marxism] "Iran's anger will not fade fast"

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/14/iran-election-ahmadineja
d-ayatollah/print
Iran's anger will not fade fast
These are the broadest protests since the 1979 revolution. 
Ahmadinejad and Khamenei face a crisis of authority

Ali Ansari  Sunday 14 June 2009 19.30
Reports over the -weekend that as many as 110 Iranian -reformist politicians
had been -arrested late at night have given further -credence to suggestions
that more is afoot than simple -election manipulation, and that the
"landslide" election -victory of the country's incumbent president, Mahmoud
-Ahmadinejad, is a means to a broader end.

Indeed, a question from a hardline journalist at yesterday's press
conference provided further evidence of a deeper agenda being pursued by
Ahmadinejad with the apparent full support of the supreme leader, Ali
Khamenei. The question addressed the letter sent last week by the hitherto
powerful chairman of the Expediency Council, the former president Ali Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani, in which he had protested against the lies and slander
hurled against him and his -family by Ahmadinejad. What was -crucial in the
question was the depiction of Rafsanjani as another Ayatollah Montazeri.
Montazeri had been the heir apparent to Ayatollah Khomeini before serious
political differences about the direction of the country resulted in
Montazeri's banishment from the -political scene and house arrest for the
better part of a decade.

The analogy was ominous, but does draw attention to the fact that this
-election was never really about the two main candidates. It was about more
fundamental issues of the direction of the Islamic Republic, and whether the
republican elements - severely eroded since the first controversial
-election of Ahmadinejad in 2005 - should be discarded altogether as an idea
which has outlived its sell-by date, or whether it should actually be given
a new lease of life.

Ahmadinejad's protestations about the free and fair nature of the recent
election are, of course, par for the course. They are the standard rhetoric
of the autocratic populist the world over, and the events since the results
were announced belie the notion of a popular politician basking in the
-mandate of a euphoric electorate. Even if the disturbances could be put
down to "troublemakers", it seems odd to move quickly to arrest opponents.
Surely such an -election -victory and popular endorsement should be security
enough?

This is about reshaping the country in a particular image. It can broadly be
defined as conservative, Islamic and autocratic. Its footsoldiers are the
-seemingly pervasive pious poor who populate the Iranian countryside,
inherently conservative and largely neglected. They are juxtaposed against a
diffident and socially disconnected north Tehran elite. It is a nice
dichotomy, and it makes for an easy explanation, but it doesn't bear serious
scrutiny. Iran for example, is now overwhelmingly urban (70:30), which means
that elections are fought and won in the cities. Moreover, many prominent
reformists do not reside in north Tehran, in stark contrast to their
political opponents. But it is also a fact that the last landslide elections
were won by a reformist, Mohammad Khatami, who, much to the chagrin of
Ahmadin-ejad and his supporters, has remained a formidable and highly
-popular figure to this day. In other words, the "pious poor" are not the
natural and automatic constituents of the hardline conservatives.

This myth of the conservative silent majority is one that we are all meant
to swallow. But it has proved a difficult fact to fully digest in light of
Khatami's persistent popularity. So now we have an election, with an
exceptionally high turnout, which has finally provided Ahmadinejad with more
"votes" than Khatami ever achieved. With this -apparent mandate Ahmadinejad
and the supreme leader will try to move quickly to consolidate their
position. All will apparently be normal, while behind the scenes opponents
will be arrested and/or intimidated into submission. This is, after all,
about domestic hegemony.

The trouble is that the legitimacy they crave has evaded them. Far from
being a fait accompli, they face a -crisis of authority entirely of their
own invention. The people being beaten on the streets are not members of the
"north Tehran elite" who happen to be bored. People are angry; and people
feel humiliated by a government and establishment that appear to have taken
their submission for granted. This is a dangerous game to play, to raise
expectations and to dash them with such reckless abandon. The protests are
broader - socially and -geographically - than they have been since the
revolution, but perhaps more important, they now include -disaffected
members of the revolutionary elite. If these wounds are not healed quickly
and judiciously, they may not heal at all. 



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