[Reader-list] Fwd: Class v. Culture Wars in Iranian - by Juan Cole (forwarded)

[Venugopalan K M]

http://www.crisesmagazine.org/index.php/June-18-to-June-25-2009/class-v-culture-wars-in-iranian.html

          Class v. Culture Wars in
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   Written
by Juan Cole

[image: in the past little over a decade, Iran's voters had become
especially interested in expanding personal liberties, in expanding women's
rights, and in a wider field of legitimate expression for culture]

in the past little over a decade, Iran's voters had become especially
interested in expanding personal liberties, in expanding women's rights, and
in a wider field of legitimate expression for culture
Some comentators have suggested that the reason Western reporters were
shocked when Ahmadinejad won was that they are based in opulent North
Tehran, whereas the farmers and workers of Iran, the majority, are
enthusiastic for Ahmadinejad. That is, we fell victim once again to upper
middle class reporting and expectations in a working class country of the
global south.
While such dynamics may have existed, this analysis is flawed in the case of
Iran because it pays too much attention to class and material factors and
not enough to Iranian culture wars. We have already seen, in 1997 and 2001,
that Iranian women and youth swung behind an obscure former minister of
culture named Mohammad Khatami and his 2nd of Khordad movement, capturing
not only the presidency but also, in 2000, parliament.
Khatami received 70 percent of the vote in 1997. He then got 78% of the vote
in 2001, despite a crowded field. In 2000, his reform movement captured 65%
of the seats in parliament. He is a nice man, but you couldn't exactly
categorize him as a union man or a special hit with farmers.
The evidence is that in the past little over a decade, Iran's voters had
become especially interested in expanding personal liberties, in expanding
women's rights, and in a wider field of legitimate expression for culture
(not just high culture but even just things like Iranian rock music). The
extreme puritanism of the hardliners grated on people.
The problem for the reformers of the late 1990s and early 2000s was that
they did not actually control much, despite holding elected office.
Important government policy and regulation was in the hands of the
unelected, clerical side of the government. The hard line clerics just shut
down reformist newspapers, struck down reformist legislation, and blocked
social and economic reform. The Bush administration was determined to hang
Khatami out to dry, ensuring that the reformers could never bring home any
tangible success in foreign policy or foreign investment  [image: Quotation]The
Bush administration was determined to hang Khatami out to dry, ensuring that
the reformers could never bring home any tangible success in foreign policy
or foreign investment[image: Quotation]
 . Thus, in the 2004 parliamentary elections, literally thousands of
reformers were simply struck off the ballot and not allowed to run. This
application of a hard line litmus test in deciding who could run for office
produced a hard line parliament, naturally enough.
But in 2000, it was clear that the hard liners only had about 20% of the
electorate on their side.
By 2005, the hard liners had rolled back all the reforms and the reform camp
was sullen and defeated. They did not come out in large numbers for the
reformist candidate, Karoubi, who only got 17 percent of the vote. They
nevertheless were able to force a run-off between hard line populist Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a pragmatic
conservative billionaire. Ahmadinejad won.
But Ahmadinejad's 2005 victory was made possible by the widespread boycott
of the vote or just disillusionment in the reformist camp, meaning that
fewer youth and women bothered to come out.
So to believe that the 20% hard line support of 2001 has become 63% in 2009,
we would have to posit that Iran is less urban, less literate and less
interested in cultural issues today than 8 years ago. We would have to posit
that the reformist camp once again boycotted the election and stayed home in
droves.
No, this is not a north Tehran/ south Tehran issue. Khatami won by big
margins despite being favored by north Tehran.
So observers who want to lay a guilt trip on us about falling for Mousavi's
smooth upper middle class schtick are simply ignoring the last 12 years of
Iranian history. It was about culture wars, not class. It is simply not true
that the typical Iranian voter votes conservative and religious when he or
she gets the chance. In fact, Mousavi is substantially more conservative
than the typical winning politician in 2000. Given the enormous turnout of
some 80 percent, and given the growth of Iran's urban sector, the spread of
literacy, and the obvious yearning for ways around the puritanism of the
hard liners, Mousavi should have won in the ongoing culture war.
And just because Ahmadinejad poses as a champion of the little people does
not mean that his policies are actually good for workers or farmers or for
working class women (they are not, and many people in that social class know
that they are not).
So let that be an end to the guilt trip. The Second of Khordad Movement was
a winning coalition for the better part of a decade. Its supporters are 8
years older than the last time they won, but it was a young movement. Did
they all do a 180 and defect from Khatami to Ahmadinejad? Unlikely. The
Iranian women who voted in droves for Khatami haven't gone anywhere, and
they did not very likely much care for Ahmadinejad's stances on women's
issues:
'In a BBC News interview, Mahbube Abbasqolizade, a member of the Iranian
Women’s Centre NGO, said, “Mr. Ahmadinejad’s policies are that women should
return to their homes and that their priority should be the family.”
* Ahmadinejad changed the name of the government organization the “Centre
for Women’s Participation” to the “Centre for Women and Family Affairs”.
* Ahmadinejad proposed a new law that would reintroduce a man’s right to
divorce his wife without informing her. In addition, men would no longer be
required to pay alimony. In response, women’s groups have initiated the
Million Signatures campaign against these measures.
* Ahmadinejad’s administration opposes the ratification of the UN protocol
called CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women. This doctrine is essentially an international
women’s Bill of Rights.
* Ahmadinejad implemented the Social Safety program, which monitors women’s
clothing, requires the permission from a father or husband for a woman to
attend school, and applies quotas limiting the number of women allowed to
attend universities.'
Mir Hosain Mousavi was a plausible candidate for the reformists. They were
electing people like him with 70 and 80 percent margins just a few years
ago. We have not been had by the business families of north Tehran. We've
much more likely been had by a hard line constituency of at most 20% of the
country, who claim to be the only true heirs of the Iranian revolution, and
who control which ballots see the light of day.

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*Juan Cole **is President of the Global Americana Institute*