Authoritarianism
Turning up the heat in Iran?
Now things really seem to be getting crazy: “In Iran: A Call For Arrest Of Mousavi & Khatami," reports NPR blogger Mark Memmott. Once you make protest illegal, though, and put people on show trials for participating in it, such a move would be a logical next step. Will they really go there? It seems possible, after more incremental steps in weakening the opposition, assuming that weakening is what is actually happening, which might not be the case at all. Or it could be that such a statement is more a sign of frustration over divisions within Iran’s leadership. Hard to say.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
So Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is standing by the highly improbable fiction that the election was a fair one. It seems to me that he and his supporters are playing a dangerous game. Sure, Khamenei has the instruments of oppression at his disposal. He can use the state and vigilante citizens to crack down on the protesters, and he might even win the day. In the end, however, he has made all too clear that the democratic elements of the system are no more than window dressing. Instead of sacrificing his preferred candidate, he is now risking the entire system. How can it now escape the opposition that the president is not the problem, but the entire system itself?
The Fast Pace of Time in Iran
It seems to me that Iran’s clerical leadership is playing a dangerous game. The main opposition candidate is a conservative political insider who supports the current system, but who looks moderate in an Iranian context. His supporters are not demanding a change to the system either. They too just want the system to live up to its own official standards. But as time passes, expectations and goals might very easily expand to a vision that is even more at odds with what Iran’s clerical leadership wants for the country. Shouldn’t they concede before this happens?
One problem is that the opposition wants a new election, because the one they just had is tainted. But what would a new election mean? Among other things, more national discourse on the future of the country, and I suspect such a conversation would lead people to probe even deeper into the country’s problems, perhaps even to their systemic foundation, even if politicians are not allowed to question the country’s political system.
Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad’s supporters could become increasingly insistent about their desires, and that could easily undermine Iran’s social stability still further. Time is not on the side of those who support the status quo. Unfortunately, that does not mean it is on the side of the opposition.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The jury is still out on whether or not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad really won the election and, if so, to what extent. How this will play out is also anybody’s guess. One thing I already find worrying, however, is Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric, which talks about freedom and bipartisanship, on one hand, and delegitimizes legitimate political opposition, on the other. The following combination of quotes from today’s Washington Post is chilling:
This election was so free that you could say it was complete freedom. . . . The election is gone and done. It is time for friendship, coalition and building the country. . . . [Reporters should talk to] true Iranians . . . Like the people you meet at my rallies. . . . [As for the opposition,] There is no other choice than to surrender. . . You think you are of the elite? That you are above the people? . . . The society must be purified of these people. . . . They will try to stop me, but I will expose them to the great nation of Iran.
The first statement rings hollow. What is “complete freedom,” especially in the Iranian system where unelected religious leaders determines who may run for office? The second statement sounds eminently reasonable, something like a well-wishing plea for bipartisanship in the United States. Then things get spooky. It is one thing to demonize the other side as not truly patriotic. We experienced that last fall with Sarah Palin’s rhetoric of “real America,” the “media elite,” and so on. While I find such rhetoric reprehensible, at least it did not come right out and say that the other side had no right to exist. It understood the concept of a loyal opposition, even if that opposition supposedly loves America less than Palin’s and McCain’s supporters do.
If Ahmadinejad’s legitimately won the election, which is far from clear, his rhetoric shows that he has no respect for democratic processes. Elections without the concept of a loyal opposition are meaningless. Here’s hoping that Iran’s Supreme Leader gets that.
Perhaps it will. After all, the oppositional candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, was screened and approved by religious authorities. We are talking about opposition that is legitimate within the narrow confines of Iran’s political system, not our own. If even that is not acceptable, then what will be left of Iran’s revolution? Iranian independence, to be sure, as well as clerical rule and possibly the more extensive subjugation of women, but what about the semi-democratic elements of its constitution? The campaign, polling, and post-election protests suggest that they matter to Iranians. And well they should. The legitimacy of Iran’s post-1979 system depends on them.