[Reader-list] Iran-discussions on the readerlist

[Isaac souweine]

Interesting stuff everyone. Thanks for sharing.

Shuddha - Wondering what you are basing your claims on that: "To the large
majority of Iranians, he [Moussavi]  represents the realistic possibility of
change," and also "The Ahmadinejad
regime is. . . deeply unpopular amongst the working poor." I mean - I
understand your qualitative arguments, but your choice of words seems to be
hinting at some quantitative assessments that frankly I would find a bit
surprising.

Cheers,
Isaac


On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 2:28 PM, Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha at sarai.net>wrote:

> Dear Junaid,
>
> Thank you for your well argued response to my post on Iran.
>
> I have no hesitation at all in saying that with respect to the regime
> that rules Iran, I think my usage of the word 'hatred' is a measured
> and considered. I have nothing but hatred and rage for the
> Ahmedinejad-Khamenei clique, and the reason I have this is because I
> have a deep and abiding engagement with Iran and its history.
>
> You and I may agree on many things, and we usually do, especially on
> Kashmir, but I have to say that on Iran we have to be clear that we
> have differences. And that does not worry me at all, nor does it
> diminish my categorical support to your positions on Kashmir.
> Differences are healthy and positive things. I write to you, not in
> opposition, but in the spirit of critical solidarity, and I hope it
> will be understood as such.
>
> Let me, first of all say a few things in order to clarify where I am
> coming from on Iran.
>
> I actually despise the Hugo Chavez regime. And I say this as a person
> who places himself squarely on the left.  think Chavez represents the
> worst form of authoritarian populism, buttressed (not unlike
> Ahmadinejad) by oil wealth, and the backing of the military
> establishment, and I think his brand of politics is actually harmful
> for the building up of a credible global left wing alternative. I
> also think Hamas are reactionary.
>
> But, notwithstanding my personal distaste for Chavez and what he
> represents, and Hamas, I do not doubt that both Chavez and Hamas
> command the support of the majority of the populations in Venezuela
> and the Gaza strip (though not, for Hamas, in the West Bank in
> Palestine). And so, I have no hesitation in saying that they enjoy
> the electoral mandate given to them by the populations that they
> represent. The intenrational observers in place during the Venezuelan
> and Palestinian elections, have also not indicated that the elections
> in Venezuela and Palestine/Gaza were anything but regular.
>
> Iran is a different matter. Elections were also regularly held in the
> Soviet Union, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia (during the years of
> Soviet hegemony) and they continue to be held in China. In each of
> these cases, the ruling regime always maintained that it had won, and
> by ludicrously handsome figures. It won due to massive manipulation
> of the electoral process. Not very far from home, until recently (and
> until electronic voting machines introduced a new, as yet, untried
> technology of selection) the ruling Left Front government in West
> Bengal had near perfected techniques of 'electoral management' that
> always gave them the edge. George Bush did exactly the same with his
> 'stolen election'. You yourself know very well how elections have
> been and are 'managed', especially by the intelligence agencies of
> the Indian state  in Jammu and Kashmir. I think that the elections we
> have witnessed in Iran are not very different from these instances.
> Finally, let us at least concede that an electoral process in which
> candidates are vetted by an unelected, unrepresentative body, like
> happens in Iran, where the Guardians Council decides who is suitable
> and who is not, can never be characterized as a free and fair
> election. So we can never really say who, or what kind of politics
> enjoys the confidence of the majority of the population of Iran. Even
> if that is the case, there was a feeling
>
> There are numerous instances of electoral irregularities, which
> include the fact that the polling percentage for Ahmadinejad
> stayed constant, from the very beginning to the very end of the
> counting process, leading to the reasonable suspicion that the
> outcome was somehow 'fixed' in advance. The opposition has in fact
> indicated more than 600 specific and concrete instances of
> irregularity. Here is only one instance - that deliberate confusions
> within the ballot marking system (between the number for the
> candidate and a code of endorsement) such as 4 for Moussavi and 44
> for Ahmadinejad, lay them open to manipulation. Numerous instances of
> voter intimidation by the Basij, especially in poorer Industrial and
> rural districts. And finally, the crackdown on phones, internet and
> email communication that made communication difficult for opposition
> activists.I have been in touch with friends in Iran throughout this
> process, and they are utterly dismayed at what happened, exactly as
> people were dismayed when elections were blatantly rigged in Kashmir
> in 1987. They have told me that reliable sources from within the
> ministry of the interior have communicated to them that the election
> was utterly, utterly rigged. And that the rigging was well planned
> from before.
>
> I am not a champion of Moussavi. I know very well that he is a part
> of the ruling establishment of the Islamic Republic, and that he was
> close to the section of left-leaning intellectuals in Iran who
> colluded with the Khomeini faction in the initial years after 1979,
> and that they were complicit (as was for instance the well known
> Iranian filmmaker, now Mousavi's representative, Mohsen Makhmalbaf,
> in the brutal repression of the 'left opposition' - their own former
> comrades). He is like a Khruschev after Stalin. No doubt a part of
> the system, but also its own internal adversary. This does not make
> him any less a luminary of the Islamic Republic, just as Khruschev
> was no less a Soviet luminary. And notwithstanding my critique of the
> Islamic Republic and the post 1920s Soviet Union, I can still
> maintain that there is a difference between a Khruschev and a Stalin,
> and that there are differences between Khomeini, Khameini,
> Ahmedinejad and Moussavi.
>
> But I also know that, over the years, Moussavi has grown closer to
> Ayatollah Montazeri, (once seen as Khomeini's successor) who made his
> opposition to the excesses of the regime quite clear and open, and
> who has been kept under virtual house arrest, since his removal from
> all positions of influence.
>
> But, at the present juncture, things are way beyond the question of
> what exactly Mousavi represents. To the large majority of Iranians,
> he represents the realistic possibility of change. The Ahmadinejad
> regime is, contrary to what you say, deeply unpopular amongst the
> working poor. Inflation has skyrocketed in Iran, wages have been cut,
> people have been laid off, there is deep economic discontent. He may
> have once enjoyed the support of a section of the working poor,
> because of his apparently 'incorruptible' image, but the growing
> corruption and nepotism, especially within the industrial and
> economic agencies managed by the elite of the Revolutionary Guard
> have strongly alienated him. So has his brutal handling of legitimate
> working class protest. Only last year, the Vahed Transport workers
> strike was brutally crushed, union leaders were arrested, tortured
> and one even had his tongue cut off. There has also been constant
> attrition in the Khodro automobile works (the regions biggest
> automobile producer) and in large sectors of industry.
>
> As for Ahmadinejad's anti-American and anti-Zionist posturing, I have
> very little to say. I do not think that the rhetoric of 'Anti-
> Imperialism' , 'Anti-Zionism' and 'Anti-US' postures alone, which
> sustained tyrants ranging from Idi Amin to Indira Gandhi, necessarily
> has to endear us to anyone who spouts the same rhetoric, especially
> if they do so in the company of Klu Klux Klan functionaries like
> David Duke (as Ahmadinejad did in one of his 'Holocaust Investigation
> Conferences' in Tehran). In fact, I reiterate, Ahmadinejad is the
> best bet for reactionaries within the US and Israel. They can trust
> him, they know him, and they know that they can use his anti-Semitic
> lunacy to paint themselves as victims or potential victims and thus
> build the case for war against Iran. That is why people like Daniel
> Pipes and Efraim Halevy (former Mossad director) would rather have
> Ahmadinejad around.
>
> Finally, let me put a few other things in perspective. You invoked
> Mossadeq and the CIA-MI6 engineered coup against him in 1953, which
> to my mind, is the 'original sin' that began the whole process that
> led up to the mess in the entire region. The coup and its details are
> little known. And there is a kind of caginess surrounding it, even in
> Iran. Ahmadinejad himself has spoken about it once, in his famous
> 'love letter' to George Bush (where he invited George Bush, the good
> Christian, to join him, the good Muslim, in ridding the world of
> Evil). But even in that letter, Ahaminejad's reference to the event
> is opaque.
>
> What is little known, is the fact that the Islamists in Iran (though
> not all religious figures were Islamists) were strongly behind the
> coup. They were in fact injected with serious amounts of cash by the
> local CIA station then, and it is with this event that they first got
> their taste of political influence. Mossadeq's one time ally,
> Ayatollah Kashani (Khomeini's mentor) fell out with Mossadeq, when he
> (Mossadeq) introduced legislation hinting at land reforms and rights
> for women. It was at this time that bridges began being built between
> the beleagured Shah, the CIA station and the Ayatollah Kashani camp.
> Incidentally, one of the couriers between the Shah and the Ayatollah
> Kashani (and his ally in the town of Qom, Ayatollah Uzma Broujerdi)
> was the then young and rising, charismatic 'Hojatolislam' Ruhollah
> Musavi Khomeini (none other than the later 'Ayatollah' Khomeini).
>
> "Before and after the coup he (Khomeini) opposed Dr. Mossadegh and
> cooperated with the Shah. According to the Iranian historian, Nasser
> Pakdaman, in January 1953, after Mossadeq's cabinet had submitted a
> bill to Majles granting women the vote, Ayatollah Kashani opposed it.
> Ruhollah Khomeini — who was a hojatolislam at the time -- gave a
> sermon in Qom and called upon the folks in the mosque to go out and
> protest against the Mossadeq government and the bill."
>
> (See - http://www.ghandchi.com/iranscope/Anthology/Kazemzadeh/
> 28mordad.htm)
>
> The Shah was grateful for the help he received, via the CIA from
> Khomeini and his mentors. And it was only later, in 1961-63, that the
> Islamists fell out with the Shah, and Khomeini began to take on an
> active 'oppositional' role. The Iranian Islamist regime has made many
> attempts to whitewash the realities of the 1953-1961 period and the
> honeymoon that the Shah had with the Islamists at that time, during
> and after which, he used the Islamist Fadayeen-e-Islam (with which
> Kashani and Khomeini were closely associated) to eliminate many
> traces of the 'left opposition'.
>
> This is reasonably well documented, and if you are interested, I can
> point you to more sources for this.
>
> This is why, Khomeini never had much regard for Mossadeq, and is even
> reported to have said 'Mossadeq slapped Islam, and we would have had
> to slap him back'.  Incidentally, in one of the numerous flip-flops
> that characterized Khomeini's ascendancy the Avenue named after
> Mossadeq in the initial heady days after the 1979 revolution was
> renamed, and almost all traces of his memory were eliminated. It is
> only recently that the legacy of Mossadeq is being put to some
> (limited) use, as an attempt to build a 'nationalist' consensus by a
> beleagured regime.
>
> If you examine the history of Iran carefully, I think one cannot but
> come to the conclusion that had the CIA not meddled in 1953, had the
> Shah not been restored, figures like Ayatollah Khomeini, and the
> eventual rise of the Islamic Republic might not have happened. In
> that case, we can only conclude that the Ayatollah Khomeini, and the
> regime that he inaugurated, is a beneficiary of CIA policies. Just as
> Hamas would never have had the influence it now commands if it did
> not tolerate the tacit acceptance, and indeed benevolence of the
> State of Israel, during the 1970s and 80s.
>
> Chickens do come to roost in the end. And the best laid plans go awry.
>
> warm regards,
>
> Shuddha
>
>
> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
> The Sarai Programme at CSDS
> Raqs Media Collective
> shuddha at sarai.net
> www.sarai.net
> www.raqsmediacollective.net
>
>
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