[Peace-discuss] A skeptical view of the Iran protests

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Richard Seymour is the author of "The Liberal Defence of Murder" (Verso, 2008). 
  He has a blog "Lenin's Tomb" at <leninology.blogspot.com>.  --CGE]

	Iran: What Can the Opposition Win?
	by Richard Seymour

Hamid Dabashi[1] points out that, whatever the truth on the elections, the "fix" 
has become a "social fact" inasmuch as millions of Iranians are staking their 
lives on that very belief.  He also pointedly satirizes Orientalist assumptions 
of the Reading-Lolita-in-Tehran variety and takes the opportunity to remind 
people that solidarity, not "democracy promotion," is what is required.

Unfortunately, his excitement about the possibility of a mass civil disobedience 
campaign arising leads to an astonishing final sentence: "Mir-Hossein Mousavi 
has the make up of an Iranian Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr. in him." 
  The idea that Mousavi could be a Nelson Mandela or a Martin Luther King 
beggars belief.  In fact, the more one learns about Mousavi, the more unsavory 
he seems, and the more it becomes clear that his candidacy is essentially an 
enterprise of the plutocratic Rafsanjani family.[2]  And, as the Angry Arab[3] 
has pointed out, when Mousavi was prime minister the Iranian state was much more 
repressive than it is now.  In fact, it's hard to go along with Dabashi's 
wholehearted support for the "reformists" who have yet to demonstrate that they 
are worthy of leadership of such a movement as this.

The movement is still in its earlier stages, but there is an interesting 
document circulating that purports to be a "manifesto"[4] of the Iranian 
opposition.  I don't know how reliable this is: one has to make allowances for 
the possibility of it being a forgery, or e-mail spam, or some NED bureaucrat's 
wet dream.  Still, it does seem to summarize the main thrust of the protests -- 
put Mousavi in charge, review the constitution, free political prisoners, and 
disband the apparatus of repression.  If the main goals are to be achieved, it 
looks as if the movement will have to move way beyond Mousavi in ideas and 
practice.  If the protest movement were to die down following a recount in which 
Mousavi won, the result would probably be a few blunted reforms coupled with a 
more aggressive neoliberal policy.  If a dozen deaths are to mean anything, the 
movement must surely acquire an independent organizational backbone to sustain 
it when the inevitable disappointments come.

________

    1  Hamid Dabashi, "Diary of a Defiance: Iran Un-Interrupted," Payvand (15 
June 2009).

    2  Simon Tisdall, "Rafsanjani: Shark or Kingmaker?" (Guardian, 15 June 2009).

    3  As'ad AbuKhalil, "Iranian Developments" (Angry Arab News Service, 15 June 
2009).

    4  "A Manifesto," posted in "The Daily Dish by Andrew Sullivan" (The 
Atlantic, 15 June 2009).

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