The Corruption of Power

I've been dropping in on Nico Pitney's blog on Huffington Post for updates on what's happening in Iran. CNN is another news source. Pitney reports news sent him from individuals in Iran as well as from traditional news sources. A couple of items caught by attention as I scanned the blog this morning. The first one was about a letter reported to have been signed by some 40 members of the Assembly of Experts. In this letter, the clerics call for an annulment of the presidential election results and also accuse Supreme Leader Ali Khamenai of working to have his son succeed him as Supreme Leader. According to the letter, Khamenai has lung cancer. Ah, how those in power want to hold onto that power, even in death. The second item that caught my attention was the news from the Wall Street Journal that European technology companies Nokia and Siemens provided the Iranian government "one of the world's most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet, allowing it to examine the content of individual online communications on a massive scale." Ah, how those in power want even more power. The seduction of power is not limited to Iran and other authoritarian governments.

Can You Watch and Not Weep?

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

William Butler Yeats

What do They Want?

Update Below

I am by no means as knowledgeable as I would like to be about the Middle East, Iran in particular. However, William Pfaff, author and political commentator on international relations, makes sense to me in his article "The Islamic Republic is Not in Danger, posted on Truthdig. Pfaff writes that

Iran’s cosmopolitan and liberal middle classes and its students are making a revolutionary bid without intending a revolution. The Islamic Republic is not in danger. At least not now.

Few think that the demonstrations in Tehran, and now in other Iranian cities, can produce a change in regime. The government’s police power, and that of the Revolutionary Guards, with the support of the farming and working-class population that believes it has a defender in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, makes that convincing.

What is being challenged is the reactionary social and political form the Iranian system has assumed under Ahmadinejad and the most conservative clerics. The Islamic state itself is not, or at least not yet, in real danger.

The mass rallies and marches in Iran have been compelling, even inspirational, but from what I've read and observed, it seems that those rallying and marching are not advocating overthrow of the government, with American-style freedom as an object. They seem, rather, to be speaking out against the government's repressing their votes. The leader they would want to rule their country would still be an advocate of the Islamic Republic of Iran. I don't think most of those protesters want separation of their religion and the state; they would prefer, however, a relaxation of religious restrictions and a more modern outlook.

Granted, I draw these conclusions from my reading and my small number of Iranian contacts, three or four people whom I know. One is a woman my age (or a little older) and the others are young women in their twenties. The older woman left Iran years ago, has lived in the United States for many years, and is an American citizen. She openly expresses her desire for a secular Iranian government. She returns to Iran, however, to visit family.

The younger women are more closely tied to Iran and less dismissive of the religious rule in Iran. They moved to the United States as children but have many contemporary friends and extended family members living in Iran. They are experts with Twitter, the Internet, and texting; they are in as constant contact with their Iranian friends and family as they can possibly be in this technological age. Over the past few months, I have listened to these younger women describe their visits to Iran, their anxiety over dressing correctly so as not to get arrested or to get their male companions arrested. (One of these young women has been arrested before.) One must pay attention to the neckline of one's outfit--the morality police might deem it too low and revealing. Tunics buttoned up the middle rather than slit on the sides are suspect because they may reveal the crotch of one's pants. Such restrictions on dress seem arbitrary at times. Women are often harassed or arrested for wearing bright colors; one year, pink seemed to be a particularly egregious color choice.

This week, an exchange between one of the younger women and the older woman illustrated to me the difference I see between these two generations. The two women were talking about the rallies in Iran. The older woman said that she didn't think the rallies would produce a real change in government, and, of course, she would like to see Islamic removed from the name of the government. She has little sympathy for religious leaders telling people what to do. The younger woman demurred. "That's not the point [of the protests]," she said. "We want our vote counted." She has followed the news from Iran as closely as possible, getting little sleep and frequently checking the internet and her cell phone throughout the day.

My impression was that the younger woman, who is representative of many of the young people like her in Iran, is not interested in an overthrow of the government. It's Ahmadinejad she doesn't like, as well as the overly restrictive religious requirements in public space. Young Iranians want a more modern Iran but not necessarily secular democracy.

As William Pfaff suggests, however, one might not really understand the true nature of one's desires or the consequences:

One wonders to what extent the young people on the streets of Tehran this week are conscious of just what they do want from a new government. They would undoubtedly be happy with a vote recount that gave them Mir Hossein Mousavi as president, and an end to the morality police who patrol in search of symptoms of modernity to stamp out. But if they got this, they would find that it was not enough. That there are far more difficult problems ahead.

Update: The tough response of the Iranian regime (in the form of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei) has resulted in violence. Not wanting to show weakness, Khamenei refused to back down from his support of Ahmadinejad. So now more than the election is being challenged; the legitimacy of the Iranian regime is challenged. It remains to be seen what will come of the reformists' protests and the Iranian government's fierce response. Too bad the reformists don't have a character such as Christian Bale played in Equilibrium, which we watched on the SciFi channel last night. Only in the movies is one person, with guns blazing, capable of toppling an entire regime.

Small World....the Iranian Election

One of my young co-workers is from Iran and has many friends and family there. Today she told me that she hadn't slept in three days because she was so concerned about what was happening in Iran after the re-election of Ahmadinejad. One of her friends there, she said, has been arrested, and no one has heard from her since. It's difficult to get information from Iran; the Iranian government is limiting communication access. Foreign reporters are confined to their hotels and are forbidden to report events. My young friend is trying to keep in touch with her friends through Facebook.

Another of our young co-workers is in Iran now; she and her brother left the U.S. in May to visit family in Iran for several weeks.

When Religion Rules

The earlier words of my colleague from Iran have proven true. When I had asked her if she were avidly following the election in Iran, where young people were taking to the streets in large numbers to support Mir Hossein Mousavi against Ahmadinejad, she shrugged. "In Iran, you know," she said, "votes can be stolen." She dejectedly reminded us that the name of the country reflects the true power in the government: the Islamic Republic of Iran. And indeed, the election results indicate that votes were not merely stolen but that the goods are being brazenly flaunted. Ahmadinejad has been announced the winner by a wide margin, even from areas where opposition support was strong, that no one believes. The supreme religious rulers of the country have made a mockery of the will of the people. And that's what happens when religion rules: whoever speaks for the religious group always claims to have God on his side, the ultimate power. Laura Secor has an interesting article at The New Yorker: "Laura Secor: Iran's Stolen Election," News Desk, New Yorker, June 13, 2009.

And Steven Benen at The Washington Monthly points out that not only our major news networks (which are poor purveyors of news in the world, anyway) but also cable news channels have done a poor job covering the results of Iran's elections and the violent aftermath. Newspapers, evidently, have done a much better job. He also points to Nico Pitney's post on Huffington Post, which is a compilation of a number of news sources, from Twitterers, e-mailers, news columnists in Iran, etc.: "Iran Violence: Protests Erupt, Riot Police Launch Crackdown," posted June 14, 2009.

Here's Middle Eastern expert Juan Cole's take on the elections in Iran: "Stealing the Iranian Election," posted June 13, 2009, on Cole's blog Informed Comment. Cole hedges his analysis with uncertainties, but he theorizes that Mousavi was perhaps bringing in enough votes to be declared the victor in the election but when that news reached Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, "who has had a feud with Mousavi for over 30 years," the religious leaders "sent blanket instructions to the Electoral Commission to falsify the vote counts."

Just a New Saddle?

The director of the tutoring center where I work part-time is from Iran but is an American citizen. She has many relatives in Iran and usually visits once a year or so. When I asked her today if she had been keeping up with all the news covering the election in Iran, where people are taking to the streets in mass numbers to criticize President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, she stuck her hands in her sweater pockets, leaned against a desk, and shrugged her shoulders. "We have a saying in my country," she said,"that goes something like this: It's the same old donkey with a new saddle ."

A less succinct and less colorful quote from a White House official reveals a similar conclusion:

"We take what we get," a White House official said of the forthcoming Iranian elections. "Whether with Ahmadinejad or Khatami in power, it's clear the Iranian president has limited influence, either for better or for worse. So even were Ahmadinejad to lose, there will not suddenly be flowers blooming" in Washington's efforts to engage Iran. (from Laura Rozen's blog The Cable, at Foreign Policy: "Lebanese election results relieve Washington," June 8, 2009; and quoted in Schmuel Rosner's essay, "Who cares who's president of Iran," in Slate, July 11, 2009)