[Reader-list] Iran Discussions on the Reader-List (I)

[Junaid]

Dear Shuddha,

Thank you for the informative post on Iran. In that short post you
have managed well to marshal together many facts and figures to
support your well-argued conclusions. You have also summarized nicely
the main issues that have emerged from the debates here so far. But as
we said earlier, our differences on Iran shall remain, mostly on
issues of how to interpret “facts,” the perspectives through which one
sees Iran, and not least of all on how Iran is a perfect example of “a
discourse” which to an incredible level has lost its bearing in
reality.

Something that strikes me as an obsessive “netizen” who reads
everything that is written about Iran on the net, (but also in
newspapers and on TV) is the vehemence with which writers, columnists,
bloggers, TV presenters, analysts, experts, and both right-wing and
left-wing activists are denying that the protestors in Iran are elite
Tehranians, and argue how Moussavi is a ‘changed man.’ It is striking
because I very rarely come across anyone who defends Ahmedinejad and
says the protestors are elites. (Yes, I do—say protestors are mostly
elites –but I don’t defend Ahmedinejad). So this colossal volume of
discussion that is happening around Iran gives us an impression that
there is some huge propaganda machinery they are fighting against. But
the propaganda machinery is nowhere to be seen. Even Iranian
government, which still remains unheard, except two statements—one
from Khamenie and another issued by the Guardian Council, have been so
feeble in its defense. The Press TV, which everyone somehow agrees is
“partially-funded” by the Iranian government, has carried reports
that, if not very favourable to him, have been portraying Moussavi as
a genuine politician with genuine grievances. Most of the left has
sided with the protestors and the few who didn’t are being angrily
criticized. It looks like the Indian lower house of Parliament where
it seems two sides are having an intense debate, but the camera is
focused on the opposition only, who are shouting and debating with a
messianic zeal. The sad fact is that the other side of the house is
empty. There is no one debating from the other side.

I continue to believe that HDI is a very comprehensive method of
evaluating how a country is performing as far as providing a good life
to its citizens goes. The index also takes into account Gender
Development Index while calculating HDI. HDI includes as varied
figures as GDP per Capita to Social Exclusion, Knowledge indicators
like percentage of adults lacking Functional Literary Skills to Access
to Improved Water Source. GDI measures Gender Empowerment, women’s
participation in social life, representation in legislatures, jobs,
education, and the values of their earned income (PPP$US). Countries
are heavily penalized for having larger value of GDI. And funnily Iran
has performed very well in terms of HDI, as you also maintain.

You point out that this trend predates the Islamic Revolution.
However, UNDP started using HDI for its Human Development Reports only
after 1990. We don’t have any credible sources which take as aggregate
a picture as HDI does to see how Iran was under the Shah’s regime. But
as far as history and conjecture can tell us Iran was doing very badly
before the Revolution. The royalty along with the elites in Iran made
windfall profits out of the boom in oil prices and built assets
worldwide (which allowed them to emigrate later very comfortably to
easy lives in the West) but most of the peasantry and the working
population continued to remain stuck in their impervious poverty. How
else can one explain the massive disenchantment with Shah’s regime or
the emergence of revolution and probably even a radical move towards
religion?

You rightly point out the massive toll Iran took in a war imposed by
the Bathists on them. The utter devastation it caused as far as
millions of able-bodied Iranians were destructed.  You use it to
explain women’s entry into education and jobs, which is ok. And as you
say, that is mostly how women in many western countries entered into
public life. You can observe the rise of women in industry and
services and agriculture and public life generally follows major wars,
when men can’t keep up with the requirements of the captains of
industry. But I don’t understand how this argument suggests Iran is
developing strangely or funnily enough as compared to western
countries as to deserve a special comment. I would have thought it
worthy of an exceptional commentary if Iranian govt had somehow
prevented Iranian women from taking jobs or entering schools and
colleges, like the Taliban did. The strong feminist voice in Iran is a
pleasant development and needs consistent support because as in most
other countries women continue to suffer a society dominated by men.
Equal wages for women is still a dream in most other countries. In a
number of countries it is enshrined into law, but is rarely practiced
on ground—same old difference between word and substance.

I love the way you club Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan and
which-gobsmacked-country together in saying how their elites live
double-lives and have assets abroad! What about elites of every other
country? What about India? What about double-lives lived in India and
by Indians abroad? I feel it is an exercise more in “de-hyphenation”
that Indians want vis-à-vis Indo-Pak as it is designed to reaffirm a
sense of “failed state” to all these above mentioned countries.

To give a better sense of unemployment and poverty, let me give you an
example of economic disingenuity in this regard. Employment in its
usual sense can mean percentage of employable people who work to get a
wage or salary. Unemployment however does not take into account
“underemployment,” which is most rampant in India. Indian govt. has
consistently peddled a figure of 7 percent unemployment, ignoring the
fact of how many people are underpaid, or unemployed for much of the
year, and what percentage get just basic minimum wages. If all that is
taken into account, coupled with the fact of how many women work
compared to men, it presents a much uglier picture as compared to Iran
and many other developing countries. There is still almost a quarter
of Indian population that lives below poverty line, and another
quarter that hovers just above it. Tell me how many people in India
have access to clean drinking water. Even big cities like Bombay don’t
have water these days. The sky-rocketing stock-market and
Manmohan-Montek rate of growth for the last 20 years (exactly the time
when Iran began its post-war reconstruction) is not reflected anywhere
as far as improvement of the lives of Indians in general is concerned.
Compare that to Iran, which had all the back-log to work with,
sanctions on its trade and consistent threats to the country by
Israel-and US, India has fared much worse.

You used figures from three sources: IMF, World Bank, and CIA fact
book. And all of them give a drastically divergent figure when it
comes to GDP per capita. For Iran, IMF says the figure is 4732
--2008(a figure you choose to quote), World Bank says it is 5352,
while as CIA fact book says it is estimated to be 5803. This
difference of more than a 1000 is crucial (for India the difference is
just 52) when it comes to understanding the economic impact of the
Islamic Revolution in Iran. It can lead to differences of opinion on
how well or badly Ahmedinejad’s policies have been.

Although the figures for Iran’s GDP per capita based on Purchasing
Power Parity are similarly divergent in the three sources indicated
above but what is interesting in the figures is how the difference
widens between India and Iran when it comes to GDP pc PPP—a more
realistic understanding of people’s economic prosperity. For Iran it
is close to $12000—a gain of almost $7000, while for India it is
around 2800—a gain of just $1700.

Dear Shuddha I think you have made a mistake in understanding GINI
coefficient for India and Iran. The sources you indicate suggest that
Iran has more rich and more middle class people as compared to India
which seems to have less rich and less middle class percentage
population. India gets a higher gini because of the sheer number of
people that are poor, which makes household incomes more equal among
the majority at the bottom. Plus the data for India is from 2004,
while for Iran it is 1998. It is 6 years too many. And makes a
difference.

On your point about incarceration I think you are off the mark. The
rate of incarceration may in reality point to divergent conclusions.
For example, in the report you point to, Cuba comes almost close to
the top while Saudi Arabia comes below Iran. US has a better gini
coefficient than Iran, yet the rate of incarcetation in the US is four
times more than Iran. Same for Israel, the gini coefficient is lower
yet the rate of incarceration is greater than Iran. I think many other
factors result in higher rates of incarceration, and one important one
is effectives of the law and order enforcement—Rwanda is an exception
because of its peculiar recent history. Many countries with low rate
of incarceration like Belgium have low crime rate or political
opposition, while countries like India have higher crime and political
opposition but law and order mechanism is inefficient or the jail
capacity is small. However, I am not suggesting that rate of
incarceration and inequality has nothing to do with each other.

Iranian political prisoners are international superstars but nobody
gives a care for Indian political prisoners. Neda (killed by unknown
people—not even involved in protests) becomes an icon, while Sheikh
Aziz, shot dead by Indian forces openly infront of hundreds of
thousands of people, leading a peaceful procession against Indian rule
gets no NY Times or Wall Street coverage. And as I said earlier
Journalist Zubeiri arrested and released in Iran becomes toast of the
world media, but Iftikhar Gilani’s year long imprisonment and brutal
beating and torture of Kashmiri journalists gets ignored. I call this
“mind games”. Not in the high-politics sense, but in the sense of what
is happening to us inside, how desperately we try to feel good about
ourselves. And then there is the discourse, but about that later…

Unlike North Korea, US, Russia, China, and India, Iran spends a very
small percentage of its budget on defence. In fact it is one of the
least spenders in the region on defensive and offensive armaments.
Saudis and Israelis outstrip Iranians by billions. So where did all
the oil money go? I don’t think it helps Khamenie to have assets in US
or Europe, given the fact that he will never live there. Nor will
Ahmedinejad or for that matter Moussavi or Montazerri and Khatami.
Plus Iranian assets abroad are very likely to be frozen which is not
perhaps a risk worth taking.

It is also strange that just when the oil price boom happened (in 1973
and 1979) the economic indicators in Iran fell drastically. I guess if
Shah’s regime was sincere then that money should have helped improve
the life standards of Iranian masses. But Shah was more given to
grandeur and organizing massive celebrations of Persia’s great past
than using that money judiciously.

 The reports that you quote from Press TV can actually suggest the
same for India. If poverty line is adjusted a little to the up,
imagine how many Indians till now considered not BPL will become BPL.
See the figure that is the cut-off for Iran for BPL is much higher
than India. In fact, Iranian BPL was till a few years ago the GDP per
capita in India. Also the minimum monthly wage in India is much below
what Iran has—as suggested by the report you quote—even after the fall
in wage rate in Iran.

I am not suggesting here that Indian government is not working to
improve the lives of its people, and I know a big population presents
a major challenge for India. Comparison between India and Iran can
sometimes deflect our attention away from the fact that India is beset
with a billion people. Similarly we can’t compare Norway (4.5 million
people) with Iran (around 70 million people), because of different
histories and experiences. When was the last time Norway fought a war?
To say that Iran has oil so it should have no problems is not
intelligent because of the complexities of the Iranian society and the
kind of back drop in which Islamic Revolution took place.

I am no fan of the revolution or the clergy or Khamenie or
Ahmedinejad, but I think Iran is not too exceptional a country to
deserve such great negative attention from the world or threats from
global bullies. Indian government’s policies haven’t turned around the
fortunes of its people but should that mean its people should all bury
its constitution and destroy the parliament or its institutions.

The figure you give for the urban population of Iran is right as Iran
has urbanized rapidly albeit without industrialization. This has led
the poor people from villages and small towns to migrate and become
urban poor in cities like Tehran and Mashad. Ahmedinejad govt used
some of the oil money to create subsidies for the poor, a policy that
you call “squandering away the money earmarked for future”. I don’t
agree it is wasteful to give benefits to the poor. It is immediate and
effective. Liberal economics would call this policy wasteful, and that
is why Public Distribution System was wrapped up in India. Apart from
its own burgeoning young employable people, Iran also holds one of the
largest refugee populations in the world. Most of them are from
Afghanistan and Iraq. Iranian govt has had to deal with the situation
all by itself, because UNHCR has practically contributed nothing. And
none of the refugee problems are a result of Iranian actions.
Ahmedinejad’s focus, as I said earlier has been “redistribution”
instead of “growth” which annoys a lot of clergy as well as the
members of the majlis.

I think, Shuddha, we can read why the news from Iran died down,
differently. I think it was not the “news” from Iran that was killed
by the news of Michael Jackson’s death; it was the protest itself.
There will be a lot of talk about Khamenie’s crony sons, like there
was talk of Saddam’s sons. There will be a Joe Biden saying Israel
(200 undeclared nuclear weapons) should do what it wants; while Iran
(signatory to NPT) must prove that it has no intention to develop
N-weapons. I don’t know how intentions can be proved. Probably by
putting a humongous gold necklace around Mr. Obama’s neck. Or, by
offering all its airports to the US to launch attacks into Afghanistan
even when the US doesn’t need it (remember Jaswant Singh).

I wish all states begin to unravel on their streets and towns and
villages. We could then have Gandhiji’s village republics but with no
Board of Trustees.

Junaid