Iranian democracy

vimothy

yurp
Isfahan yesterday:

12713990.jpg
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
so where does it stand now?

Mousavi has crossed the rubicon - see here - and Rafsanjani may have broken ranks behind doors.

There's no coming back from this, is there?

Either those two, and a swarm of allies, wind up dead/banished/jailed, or the Islamic Republic undergoes some major, major changes, possibly even fatal ones.
 

scottdisco

rip this joint please
Lenin's Tomb is hilarious.

Richard 'I used to have a Hizbollah banner on my website when SWP leadership liked them' Seymour, yesterday

He also pointedly satirises Orientalist assumptions of the Reading-Lolita-in-Tehran variety
:rolleyes:

Lenin has written about Mousavi's infamous crimes when in office in the last couple of days, which, certainly in the case of one post about two days ago, was hand-in-hand with a lot of digs at the USA from mine host.

c.f. Craner making the same point, but better and shorter.

It's safe to say that Mousavi, no instinctive reformer, has become a default figurehead for something far larger, and fundamental. This is already bigger than 1999, and when it dies down, the aftershocks will be profound

re. Isfahan, my mate's dad is from there. he was a student activist against the Shah, harassed, all that. he left Iran around the time of the revolution when it became apparent that what Khomeini had in mind was to be even worse than the tyranny they had just overthrown. ended up running a corner shop in Staffordshire.
 
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vimothy

yurp
Reading some of the comments yesterday, the line seemed to be that AN is a populist Marxist with good anti-Zionist credentials, also unpopular with the sickening liberal pansies, and Mousavi is a neo-liberal, which seems to be the worst thing that anyone can be over at Lenin's Tomb.
 

vimothy

yurp
This is a good analysis. Apologies if already posted. I'm following about 15 different threads at the moment...

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 Ahmadin­ejad 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.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
2.15pm:
Football update from Robert Tait: The green armband wearing members of Iran's national team appear to have been forced to remove their pro-Mousavi emblems. The team emerged for the second half of the match against South Korea with none of its members wearing the symbols.

The match ended in a 1-1 draw, putting Iran's qualification for the World Cup in doubt.

Reading some of the comments yesterday, the line seemed to be that AN is a populist Marxist with good anti-Zionist credentials, also unpopular with the sickening liberal pansies, and Mousavi is a neo-liberal, which seems to be the worst thing that anyone can be over at Lenin's Tomb.

(AN=Ahmadinejad?)

God, Lenin's Tomb is a dismal shithole. Is there even a crumb of evidence that Mousavi is a neo-liberal, other than he's found himself at the head of a movement popular with non-Trots?
 

vimothy

yurp
(AN=Ahmadinejad?)

Yep.

God, Lenin's Tomb is a dismal shithole. Is there even a crumb of evidence that Mousavi is a neo-liberal, other than he's found himself at the head of a movement popular with non-Trots?

I think for the hard-of-thinking, Iranian reformist movement = neo-liberalism. Or something.
 
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josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
(AN=Ahmadinejad?)

God, Lenin's Tomb is a dismal shithole.

There are two forces in the world. Socialism, and capitalism. The first is good, the second is bad. All conflicts are ultimately a conflict between socialism and capitalism. They may not initially seem like it. But they are. You can tell the difference between them because, helpfully, the bad guys wear black hats, and the good guys wear white hats. Like in a cowboy movie. Now, it may not initially seem like it. But remember, comrade: there are two colors in the world: black and white. Other colours - for instance, green - are, in fact, either black or white. Green is a neo-liberal (black) illusion. Capitalism wants you to believe in green. Green is a capitalist trick. The party sees through green. To the black and white essence. Let me explain to you how this works. You see, in the beginning was capitalism, and it was acting all capitalistically, and... [continues for another ten thousand pages)
 

polystyle

Well-known member
Before the US elections last year, Twitter was still a new thing,
a small start up supported by a NYC tech fund with a 'next' thing that was catching on among early adopters and other interested parties.
It's use blew up during the election , continued afterwards and with the State Dept's call to them asking them to 'stay up', it's been prime Twitter time.

Over on Facebook yesterday afternoon, we were chuffed to see our friend Judy Nylon in an information exchange with Christiane Amanpour from CNN about tweeting between the two countries ...
No matter what one thinks of CNN the corporate entity, this was more, well ... personal.
With some ring of 'local' too as last year we looked up from dinner to see Christiane ordering Japanese to take out not far from home.

Speaking to an x Iranian citizen early last week about the then upcoming election was striking in that she felt there was no way forward into change in the present condition in Iran.

As Clay Shirky says in his TED talk Vimothy linked to ...
' on Twitter -Talk some more about the sense of participation on Twitter. It seems to me that that has spurred an entirely deeper level of emotional connection with these events.

Absolutely. I've been saying this for a while -- as a medium gets faster, it gets more emotional. We feel faster than we think. But Twitter is also just a much more personal medium. Reading personal messages from individuals on the ground prompts a whole other sense of involvement. We're seeing everyone desperate to do something to show solidarity like wear green -- and suddenly the community figures out that it can actually offer secure web proxies, or persuade Twitter to delay an engineering upgrade -- we can help keep the medium open.

When I see John Perry Barlow setting himself up as a router, he's not performing these services as a journalist. He's engaged. Traditional media operates as source of inofrmation not as a means of coordination. It can't do more than make us sympathize. Twitter makes us empathize. It makes us part of it. Even if it's just retweeting, you're aiding the goal that dissidents have always sought: the awareness that the ouside world is paying attention is really valuable.

Of course the downside of this emotional engagement is that while this is happening, I feel like I can't in good consicence tweet about anything else!

There was fury on Twitter against CNN for not adequately covering the situation. Was that justified?
In a way it wasn't. I'm sure that for the majority of the country, events in Iran are not of grave interest, even if those desperate for CNN's Iran info couldn't get access to it. That push model of one message for all is an incredibly crappy way of linking supply and demand.

CNN has the same problem this decade that Time magazine had last decade. They simultaneously want to appeal to middle America and leading influencers. Reaching multiple audiences is increasingly difficult. The people who are hungry for info on events of global significance are used to instinctively switching on CNN. But they are realizng that that reflex doesn't serve them very well anymore, and that can't be good for CNN.

Older media does what older media does, but there is almost always something new tech -wise to utilize.
That old William Gibson phrase ref. in the music forum's recent thread about those DJ's who ran that iTunes scam - ' the street finds it's uses for things ' goes around again.

What's next ?

In the next week or so until Guardian Council makes announcement about some 'partial recount' ... 1. that's a good , long time. Anything can happen.

The opposition gives up ? ...
Used to be protestors shouted ' the whole world is watching' engaging in wishful thinking.
But now ... the world IS either 'watching' or able to get a proxie watching effect in no small part due to new US tech.
Iran World Cup soccer team members wearing green bands ? ( they tied the game they needed to win )
There's no time like the present.
Day by day now ... 5 PM today Tehran > wear green
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/world/middleeast/18iran.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Virtual mosque
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/opinion/17friedman.html
 
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crackerjack

Well-known member
There are two forces in the world. Socialism, and capitalism. The first is good, the second is bad. All conflicts are ultimately a conflict between socialism and capitalism. They may not initially seem like it. But they are. You can tell the difference between them because, helpfully, the bad guys wear black hats, and the good guys wear white hats. Like in a cowboy movie. Now, it may not initially seem like it. But remember, comrade: there are two colors in the world: black and white. Other colours - for instance, green - are, in fact, either black or white. Green is a neo-liberal (black) illusion. Capitalism wants you to believe in green. Green is a capitalist trick. The party sees through green. To the black and white essence. Let me explain to you how this works. You see, in the beginning was capitalism, and it was acting all capitalistically, and... [continues for another ten thousand pages)

and which are you, with your (deliberately?) confusing use of both color and colour?;)
 

polystyle

Well-known member
One million Iranians living in California -didn't know the number was that large.
Internet buzz, radio talk and protests on the street - not so big yet, but we'll have to see how things go ...
 
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