Miscalculations abound in Iran
BY SHAHIR SHAHIDSALESS
Twenty-eight years ago, on June 20, 1981, after almost two years
of friction between the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation (MKO) – a militant
revolutionary group – and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – the Iranian leader of
the 1979 revolution – the dispute escalated into armed conflict. The ayatollah
attacked the MKO leaders and followers as non-believers and "monafeqin"
(hypocrites hidden inside Islamic society). He encouraged people to confront the
movement. The MKO was driven underground but the fierce campaign, which cost the
lives of hundreds of the MKO’s followers, crushed and rooted the organisation
out of the country.
Now history is repeating its terrible self. However,
misleadingly, while the two events look similar on the surface, there are
fundamental differences.
Threatened by supporters of the defeated presidential candidate,
Mir Hossein Mousavi, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as part of the
ruling elite, delivered an unambiguous message during last Friday’s sermon (June
19). "Street challenges after the elections are not the right thing to do… I
want everyone to end this sort of action. If they do not stop then the
consequences of this rest with them… I will not give in. This sets an illegal
precedent… Please note, it is a wrong impression that some people have, thinking
that through illegal street gatherings they can create a lever of pressure
against the system," Khamenei told the huge crowd gathered at Tehran University.
The impatient Khamenei didn’t wait for the Guardian Council, the
12-member ruling body, to examine vote-rigging claims. In the same speech, he
completely ruled out any election fraud and maintained, "Sometimes the
difference is 1,00,000, 5,00,000 or even one million [votes]. In that case, one
could say that there might have been vote-rigging but how can they rig 11
million votes?"
As expected, two days after his speech, the Guardian Council
announced, "The vote tally affected by such issues as votes cast surpassing the
number of eligible voters could be just over three million and would not
noticeably affect the outcome of the election."
Mousavi didn’t retreat. In an unprecedented statement, he fired
off an attack at the ayatollah and directly challenged his authority.
"Protesting against lies and fraud is your right," he stated. Although he was
warned by the Supreme National Security Council and police against holding
rallies, Mousavi, addressing his supporters, wrote: "I continue to strongly
believe that the request for annulling the vote and repeating the election is a
definite right that has to be considered by an impartial and nationally trusted
delegation instead of dismissing the results of this investigation a priori or
preventing people from demonstrating by threatening them with bloodshed. The
National Security Council, instead of responding to people’s legitimate
questions about the plain-clothes forces’ role in dispersing the crowds by
intimidation and inflammation, blames the bloodshed on others."
The Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki said on June 24
that Iran may downgrade ties with Britain, accusing London of meddling in the
post-election unrest that has continued on the streets of Iran for nearly two
weeks. The announcement came a day after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
said two Iranian diplomats had been expelled in a tit for tat move after Tehran
ordered two British diplomats to leave. Iran’s intelligence minister, Gholam
Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, claimed on June 24 that some people with British passports
"had a role in the riots".
Tens of thousands of people have protested daily on the streets
of Tehran and other cities since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected
for another four-year term on June 12. At least 17 people have been reported
killed in clashes with police, plain-clothes Basij militants and security
forces.
In an effort to confirm his authority, Khamenei made a fatal
mistake. He saw himself in Khomeini’s position and the protesters and Mousavi as
the MKO, a scenario similar to the uprisings of 1981. He didn’t realise that he
was not dealing with just a political radical group.
Even the disputed results of the election show that Mousavi had
the support of 14 million people. This is a grass roots movement for change in
Iran. Among these 14 million people, prominent intellectuals, writers, artists,
university students, professors and educated and young urbanites are
distinguishable. Crushing the protests equates to suppressing a large section of
society, leaving people with utmost rage and deep resentment towards the system.
Amazingly, the same miscalculation applies to the Mousavi camp.
Their evaluation of the current events as people versus the dictator has flaws
as does Khamenei’s and the ruling elite’s perception of the Islamic ummah
(nation) against "dust and dirt" as implied by Ahmadinejad.
According to a document allegedly leaked by personnel of the
ministry of interior which is responsible for the security of the information
technology network during the elections, the real number of votes for Mousavi
and Ahmadinejad were 19 and 11 million respectively. The document was widely
published on the Internet by Mousavi’s camp and referred to as the real outcome
of the presidential elections.
Taking the above-suggested vote count at face value – 11 million
votes for Ahmadinejad – one cannot brand the current events in Iran as that of
people versus the government, as many in the western media portray, for the
government also enjoys a strong grass roots support.
The reality unobserved by the western media is that today’s
crisis is not about people against a totalitarian regime. Rather, it is a
struggle between two factions of society. One faction is seeking a dramatic
liberalisation of society while the other advocates strict adherence to
religious principles. This is an extraordinarily unique situation. This is
tradition against modernity.
The battle between the two was fierce and merciless during the
shah’s time before his ouster in 1979. It was the root cause of the revolution
and has continued to stay that way to the present and will extend into the
foreseeable future.
To call the existing crisis velvet, colour or any other type of
"revolution" is an absolute misperception. Many in the western media have
misunderstood the situation, buying into the concept that the election was a
fraud and therefore people turned against the government with "death to
dictator" and "where is my vote" slogans. They failed to see that Ahmadinejad’s
support is also widespread among the pious segments of Iranian society.
In his uncompromising speech, mentioning "enemies" (or enemy) 15
times and relating the post-election events to the West, Khamenei proved
incapable of distinguishing between the dynamics of the current movement and the
MKO’s uprising in 1981. Likewise, Mousavi’s camp, convinced that it is a stolen
election, doesn’t acknowledge Ahmadinejad’s massive support among the poor in
the urban and suburban areas. Instead, they tend to depict the crisis as people
versus dictatorship.
Behzad Nabavi, a top reform theorist who was detained last week
(June 16), wrote after the 2005 election: "Look at the votes in Tehran. It is so
accurate. In the first round, people from Revolution [Enqelab] Square to the
north [where citizens with the higher socio-economic status live] voted for Dr [Mostafa]
Moin [a reform candidate] and in the second round, [Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani
won the large majority of the votes in that same area. The further south we go
[towards the poorer neighbourhoods], the more we see people voting for
Ahmadinejad." Ahmadinejad defeated Rafsanjani in the second round in 2005.
