The Simmering Iranian Revolution
July 2, 2009
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
The following series of excerpts, from a variety of news sources, will give the readers a good insight as to the nature of the type of revolution we are now observing in Iran. This particular update is really a continuation of the last blog we issued on July 1.
Begin Excerpt from UK Guradian via World News
Keeping hope alive in Iran
Mousavi’s criticism of the Iran regime is no longer about the election – it’s about the future of the opposition movement
Baqer Moin
guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday 1 July 2009 20.30 BST
No election since the inception of the Islamic Republic has left the Iranian nation so divided in all its components as the one that took place on 12 June. It has divided the clergy in Qom, the leading political conservative or principalist actors in Tehran and the state institutions. It forced the supreme leader to side with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a great cost to his own position and the ruling clergy, undermining the very agreed consensus among the top officials. Statements issued by losing candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi are a sad reflections of the Iranian reality couched in the language of hope for millions who are waiting in expectation that something might be done. “Not all is lost” is the core of their messages.
Both candidates are frank about the difficult predicaments they are in, and yet they want to keep the newly formed opposition movement united and act within the law.
They want their supporters to use every opportunity to express their disapproval of what they consider an illegitimate government.
By emphatically saying all is not lost, it seems that they are banking on creating a democratic movement based on the constitution and preparing the ground for the next election, or for a time the ruling bloc exhaust itself with its radical policies.
The pragmatics among the conservatives are concerned about the handling of the election by the Guardian Council and the supreme leader’s office. “Ahmadinejad pulled wool over the supreme leader’s eyes” a leading conservative clergy is quoted as saying. Mousavi may well be banking on the fact that the conservatives would soon start to fight each other, as has been the case the in the past. Some may see this as a pious hope.
The election has also brought to light the depth of maturity in Iran’s civil society: calm, rational and pragmatic about change. Would the civil society keep its hope alive, or would it turn into a cynical, demoralised and depoliticised mass
? This is the danger for Mousavi, Karroubi and Mohammad Khatami, the former president. That is why they are threading a fine line between remaining loyal to
the constitution and at the same time containing the radicalisation of a movement that no longer wants to take the supremacy of the clergy for granted.
Mousavi made an interesting remark in his statement that illustrate the dynamism of the Iranian situation: “At the beginning, the objective for us all in participating in the election was to bring back religious rationalism to the management of the country, but en route we were guided towards higher objectives.” He goes on to conclude: “The rulers will have to understand that peoples’ votes and will are above them all, which they no longer can ignore.”
Begin Excerpts from Jerusalem center for Public Affairs/Daily Alert
July 2, 2009
Excerpt 1 from Washington Post
Defiant Iranian Opposition Leaders Refuse to Accept Ahmadinejad Government
Thomas Erdbrink
Three opposition leaders including leading presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, former speaker of parliament and presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi, and former president Mohammad Khatami openly defied Iran’s top political and religious authorities Wednesday, vowing to resist a government they have deemed illegitimate after official certification of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s reelection. They called for annulment of the June 12 vote and the continuation of protests.
The three made clear that they do not oppose Iran’s system of religious government, but they charged that the country is turning into a dictatorship.
(Washington Post)
Excerpt 2 from New York Post
Ahmadinejad Unwelcome in Parts of Iran
Amir Taheri (New York Post)
For 30 years, the tradition has been for each newly elected president to travel to the “holy” city of Mashad, to the tomb of Ali bin Mussa, the only one of Shiism’s twelve imams buried in Iranian soil.
This year Ahmadinejad was forced at the last minute to scrub
the trip. The authorities couldn’t guarantee the president’s safety – let alone deliver the enthusiastic, welcoming crowds that he requires for propaganda purposes.
Last Friday, his visit to Shiraz, Iran’s cultural capital, was called off on “security grounds.”
The authorities have had to deploy tens of thousands of security agents, kill dozens of protestors and imprison more than 4,000 dissidents to prevent Ahmadinejad’s victory from being challenged by millions of protest marchers every day.
He governs thanks to the batons and bayonets of the security agents – not what populist Ahmadinejad had hoped.
Begin Excerpt from CNN
Opposition movement in Iran not over, experts say
Analysts say Iran protests may decrease but that opposition will persist
Some liken regime’s foes to U.S. civil rights activists of ’50s and ’60s
Post-election unrest left at least 17 people dead in Iran
Author says movement is about people seeking greater freedom
By Samari Simore (CNN)
July 1, 2009
(CNN) — The chants, the clashes, the outrage, the blood — for more than two weeks, the world watched as the fallout from Iran’s presidential elections unraveled from peaceful demonstrations to government-led crackdowns on city streets.Saying it has tallied the votes and investigated the complaints, Iran’s Islamic leadership considers the election that gave incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad an overwhelming win “case closed.” And the massive protests that concentrated in Tehran are growing thinner in number.
Yet for the hundreds of thousands who spilled into the streets — demanding that their votes be counted, their voices be heard — the movement is far from over, experts say.
“This movement isn’t going away anytime soon, but it may not manifest itself as we’ve seen as of late,” said Trita Parsi, president of the Washington-based National Iranian American Council.
But how it will play out is up for debate, w
ith some experts recalling the Islamic revolution that overtook Iran 30 years ago, while others liken the opposition players to the civil rights champions who rocked the United States.
“This is a movement that has swept across all dividing lines in Iranian society — both rich and poor, the merchants and the intellectuals, the young and old,” said Reza Aslan, author of the book “No God But God,” an analysis of Islam in politics and culture.
“They’re not united because they want certain civil rights; they are united in what they don’t want,” he added. “They don’t want the present course that is leading to the militarization of the state — other than that, they have nothing else in common.”
Still, other Iran experts who have watched the chaos unfold compare the opposition movement not to the Islamic Revolution that ushered in Iran’s theocratic establishment, but to the civil rights movement that sought to outlaw racial discrimination against black Americans in the United States in the 1950s and ’60s: A long-term push, bolstered by conviction, challenged by setbacks, moments of progress and, at times, bloodshed.
“This is a civil rights movement — this is not a revolution,” said Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University in New York. “Comparatively, we have to have a frame of reference — in this case, the civil rights movement of the United States.”
The demonstrators “acknowledged they’re not going to overthrow the government and they didn’t intend to do that,” said Pantea Beigi, a native of Iran and human rights expert with Colorado-based PeaceJam, focusing on youth movements.
“It is a closing of a chapter of events that took place, but it’s also the start of every citizen being an activist. … And as in any civil rights movement in any part of the world, it always starts like this.”
The movement will likely change strategies, possibly shifting from demonstrations to general strikes and other organized efforts, said Abbas Milani, the director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University.
“They are continuing the struggle,” Milani said. “It’s not over yet — only one aspect is over.”
Iranians understand the restrictive regime they live under. What’s at stake, experts say, is the big picture: The Islamic republic could grow into a militaristic state with more power handed to its Revolutionary Guard (think North Korea), or it could maintain its repressive state and still open lines to the West (think China).
The Revolutionary Guard — which directly answers to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei — effectively cracked down on demonstrators with its troops and members of the Basij, the guard’s paramilitary arm that dispersed the crowds and attacked scores of protesters.
Amnesty International says as many as 1,000 people, including demonstrators, dissidents and journalists, have been jailed.
“We know that there will not be some sort of huge power change or revolution, but what I believe is that Iran is at a crossroads,” Beigi said. “One road is complete militarization and control of the people and being completely cut off from the rest of the world like North Korea, and another road is being the dictatorship it is but opening up to the rest of the world and moving forward with the rest of the world in technology, in athletics and many other respects, which would in turn naturally provide a little bit more freedom for the youth each step of the way.”
Which brings us to the unlikely leader of the youth-dominated opposition, Mir Hossein Moussavi. Observers say it’s not that his supporters thought he would bring major changes to the Islamic regime — but, as a reformist, he may have shifted the government out of Ahmadinejad’ s hardline policie
s.
Iran’s election authority — the Guardian Council — initially declared Ahmadinejad the winner of the June 12 elections, sparking huge protests and, at times, clashes between demonstrators and government troops and the Basij. At least 17 protesters were killed in the chaos, according to official statistics, though the actual number may be higher.
While the protests at first signaled outrage at the election results — with the vast majority of protesters supporting Moussavi, Ahmadinejad’s chief rival — the collective movement is no longer about the elections, observers say.
Moussavi himself — Iran’s prime minister under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who spearheaded of the Islamic revolution and the overthrow of the shah of Iran — became an unlikely leader of the electoral backlash.
“This has been quite a surprise … he’s a reformist but not a revolutionary,” said Ali Alfoneh, a research fellow at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute who has researched the relationship between Iranian civilians and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.
Moussavi, along with candidate Mehdi Karrubi, questioned the legitimacy of the June 12 vote count and demanded that the Guardian Council annul the results.
The council never entertained the idea.
And even though Moussavi continues to defy the government, some say he’s not a practical choice for any long-term movement.
The government has warned him to stand down, and human rights organizations have reported that his campaign advisers have been detained as political dissidents.
Thus, he, too, is at a crossroads: Will he make nice with the government and accept
the election results? Or will he choose to support the movement, risking imprisonment or expulsion?
“Mr. Moussavi may face no choice other than seeking refuge,” Alfoneh said.
Even so, Moussavi’s supporters and key figures, including senior politicians and clerics, fueled rifts within Iran’s Islamic leadership that were “evident for the whole world to see,” Dabashi said.
Khamenei, the supreme leader, publicly supported Ahmadinejad in the election while former President Mohammad Khatami –who served under Khamenei — withdrew his own bid for the 2009 presidential race to support Moussavi.
Other senior clerics — responsible for preserving the principles of the Islamic revolution and expressing loyalty to the supreme leader — spoke out against the government’ s crackdown on the prote
sts. For example, Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri issued a statement on his Web site, saying that confronting protesters threatened the legitimacy of the Islamic republic because it was no longer representing the people.
The movement is about people asking for greater freedoms, Aslan said. “It’s about the people who created the Islamic republic to begin with, saying, ‘Wait a second, that’s not what we wanted.’ ”
What’s clear is that those fed up with a heavy-handed Islamic regime did make history with their movement.
Many experts suspect they will continue to do so.
“Nobody can go back to business as usual,” Dabashi said. “It doesn’t matter if they voted for Moussavi, or if they voted for Ahmadinejad — that’s entirely irrelevant.”
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