Iran: Hardliners' Last Stand?

Just getting around to reading bits of last Sunday's New York Times.  This article on the bursting fault lines in Iranian society made a powerful impression on me (although its impact was vitiated when the Times carelessly misrepresented a photo of violent criminals being paraded in the streets as one of mere dress-code violators, and had to print an embarrassing retraction).  Students, intellectuals, and women are seething, the economy is flailing -- the world's second largest oil exporter may soon have to ration gasoline domestically -- and Ahmadinejad is desperately trying to divert attention to the American moral and military menace.

In the only wryly funny bit, we see fundamentalists using the YouTube ethos to play moral "gotcha":

[A]ttention has been strategically focused on Mr. Ahmadinejad’s political enemies, like the former president, Mohammad Khatami, and the controversy over whether he violated Islamic morals by deliberately shaking hands with an unfamiliar woman after he gave a speech in Rome.

Mr. Khatami, the lost hope of Iran’s reform movement, felt compelled to rebut the accusation because such a handshake is religiously suspect, but contended that the crowd seeking to congratulate him for his speech was so tumultuous that he could not distinguish between the hands of men and women. Naturally a video clip emerged, showing the cleric in his typical gregarious style bounding over to the first woman who addressed him on the orderly sidewalk, shaking her hand and chatting amicably.

The rest of the article is pretty grim.

Some analysts describe it as a “cultural revolution,” an attempt to roll back the clock to the time of the 1979 revolution, when the newly formed Islamic Republic combined religious zeal and anti-imperialist rhetoric to try to assert itself as a regional leader. [...]

The country’s police chief boasted that 150,000 people — a number far larger than usual — were detained in the annual spring sweep against any clothing considered not Islamic. More than 30 women’s rights advocates were arrested in one day in March, according to Human Rights Watch, five of whom have since been sentenced to prison terms of up to four years. They were charged with endangering national security for organizing an Internet campaign to collect more than a million signatures supporting the removal of all laws that discriminate against women.

Eight student leaders at Tehran’s Amir Kabir University, the site of one of the few public protests against Mr. Ahmadinejad, disappeared into Evin Prison starting in early May. Student newspapers had published articles suggesting that no humans were infallible, including the Prophet Muhammad and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The National Security Council sent a stern three-page warning to all the country’s newspaper editors detailing banned topics, including the rise in gasoline prices or other economic woes like possible new international sanctions, negotiations with the United States over the future of Iraq, civil society movements and the Iranian-American arrests [...three ... have been in prison for more than six weeks].

As bad as the hard-liners' crackdown on dissent is, it has a sense of desperation and futility about it.   

The entire campaign is “a strong message by Ahmadinejad’s government, security and intelligence forces that they are in control of the domestic situation,” said Hadi Ghaemi, an Iran analyst for Human Rights Watch. “But it’s really a sign of weakness and insecurity.”

The tide of commonsense modernity, borne on the tsunami wave of the Internet, is already swamping the dikes and levees of censorship and repression.   Modernity has had excesses of its own, but it is already receding from them.  Women's equality and freedom of religion, trade, and communication are the wave of the future.  Barring catastrophe, they are irresistible.

Which is why Ahmadinejad, drawing power from his poor, unplugged rural constituency, is so dangerous right now.  These are the real "Left Behind" of today.  Their backs are against the wall, and their only hope of postponing the inevitable is to blow up the tracks of the bullet train that's bearing down on them.

Comments

[joared]

Well, let's hope that bullet train barrels right on through toward the light at the end of the tunnel for the Iranian people. Guess the government figures that if women could just be kept in their place, they could slow down that train. Let's hope the government's effort is futile.

[Internet Ronin]

From an American policy perspective, whatever, or whoever, comes after Ahmadinejad will be little or no better. That's the reality of the situation, I think, and is unlikely to change any time soon.

[wj]

In some ways, the critical question is: can the administration refrain from providing the Iranian government with a foreign menace for long enough to let the domestic opposition go over the top? Which means that the mullahs' best friend right now is the US Vice President.

[amba]

Interesting!! Generally speaking extremes clandestinely perpetuate each other (morally, too).

It's a delicate balance that's needed -- keeping the optimal amount of pressure on the pressure cooker ...

[Adrian]

"Women's equality and freedom of religion, trade, and communication are the wave of the future. Barring catastrophe, they are irresistible."

I certainly hope so, but do you really think so? There are many honor killings in Europe today, unless I'm mistaken I don't think the concept even existed over there a few decades ago. Aren't things, at least in that part of the world, moving in very much the wrong direction?

As for Iran, I wrote about this here. I am always very hopeful for a liberal revolution over there, but am growing more and more pessimistic. I'm probably wrong about this, but it seems to me that here in America and over in Europe, people were almost too quick to start a revolution over comparatively much smaller things than are happening in Iran, yet the Iranians do very little, besides a handful of student protestors.

Plus, keep in mind that a lot of apparent Iranian reformists are just part of the regime's shell game. They have a history of fooling the west with a good cop - bad cop routine. I firmly believe this was the case with the supposedly reformist
Khatami, who I think was a total fraud.

[wj]

Adrian,
Before you lose too much sleep over the rise in honor killings in Europe, take another look at what is really happening.

First, the reason that the concept did not exist in Europe a few decades ago is that the people whose culture includes such tings had not yet migrated to Europe in any numbers. So a more useful number would be the number (per 1000 girls) compared to the number in the country from which the parents came. And even then, you'd want to allow for the fact that in Europe even girls from rigid immigrant families have vastly more possibilities than they would have had in the old country.

Similarly, look at the numbers over time in the countries those immigrants came from. Again, the girls today have a lot more choices available today, even if their families object strongly. But the number subjected to honor killings is certainly not rising correspondingly.

Not to say that it isn't a problem. Or that I don't regret that Europe doesn't have America's experience (on knack) for acculturation of immigrant groups. But a sign of lost ground for women it really isn't.

As for Iran, you are correct that the so-called "reformers" are at best merely less reactionary than those in power today. But that doesn't mean that they are the only alternative. And while a few student protesters are what is visible from the outside, that rather misses the point. The usual course of revolution under these circumstances is
- a few students or other small group protest
- they get repressed and nothing much seems to have happened
- something provides the last straw, and a huge chunk of the population turns out and throws the rascals out.

The last straw doesn't even have to be something as visible and as widely felt as gasoline price increases or rationing. It just takes generally rising unhappyness with the regime, a few protesters to give people the concept of pushing back, and then something amazingly minor can push the population over the top.

Is Iran there yet? Or anywhere near? I have way too little information to judge. But from the bits that I have picked up, not to mention the behavior fo the Iranian government, I wouldn't be massively surprised.

[amba]

Adrian,

WJ said what I was going to say. It's not that Europeans have started committing honor killings. It's that people have now migrated to Europe from parts of the world that are still in the dark ages when it comes to the humanity of women. They have tried to bring their darkness with them, just for comfort and familiarity, but it's not going to be able to hold out.
The only thing that's astonishing is the lack of confidence of Europeans in their own tradition.

[Adrian]

great way to look at it, i certainly hope you're right!

[reader_iam]

They have tried to bring their darkness with them, just for comfort and familiarity, but it's not going to be able to hold out.

I think time span plays in to this, and that there are also "it depends" factors.

The only thing that's astonishing is the lack of confidence of Europeans in their own tradition.

Why astonishing? Not snark; I'm just a little surprised by "astonishing."

[amba]

We have so much more confidence in the absolute value of the Western tradition than they do.

[reader_iam]

I wish I felt that confident, Amba. But I can't, though it wouldn't be accurate to say I'm pessimistic. I keep thinking of the progression of things, in European countries, and parallels, and, oh, other stuff.

Glad that you--and I mean this sincerely--are part of those keeping the flame alive. We need this.

[amba]

I'm both optimistic and terrified. That is, I think those who see their very reality coming to an end can be dangerous, because they are so frightened, and there are power-hungry religious politicians who see their main chance in throwing fuel on that fear.

Freedom isn't easy, and the question is whether more of the species is going to take it on or turn it away. Partly that depends on how well the former group uses it, and that's where I am not so optimistic, though I do think the worst is over.

[reader_iam]

Blecccch! Sorry for the awful grammar in the last paragraph of my previous comment.

Eh, packing and otherwise preparing for departure. Not really an excuse, because, really, shouldn't be hangin' in the 'sphere period. Leads to sloppy things on all fronts.