A Different Iranian Revolution

Op-Ed Contributor

A Different Iranian Revolution

By SHANE M.
Published: June 18, 2009

This article was written by a student in Iran who, for reasons of safety, did not want to be identified by his full name.

Tehran

WE look over this wall of marching people to see what our friends in the United States are saying about us. We cannot help it — 30 years of struggle against the Enemy has had the curious effect of making us intrigued. To our great dismay, what we find is that in important sectors of the American press a disturbing counternarrative is emerging: That perhaps this election wasn’t a fraud after all. That the United States shouldn’t rush in with complaints of democracy denied, and that perhaps Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the president the Iranian people truly want (and, by extension, deserve).

Do not believe it. Those so-called experts warning Americans to be leery of claims of fraud by the opposition are basing their arguments on an outdated understanding of Iran that has little to do with the reality of what we here are experiencing during these singular days.

For instance, some American analysts assert that the demonstrations are taking place only in the sections of Tehran — in the north, around the university and Azadi Square — where the educated and well-off reside. Of course, those neighborhoods were home to the well-to-do ... 30 years ago. The notion that these areas represent “the nice part of town” will come as a surprise to their residents, who endure the noise, congestion and pollution of living in the center of a megalopolis.

People who haven’t visited a city in decades are bound to give out bad directions. But their descriptions of where the protests are taking place, and why, also draw on pernicious myths of an iron correlation between religion and class, between location and voting tendency, in Iran.

This false geography imagines South Tehran and the countryside as home only to the poor, those natural allies of political Islam, while North Tehran embodies unbridled gharbzadegi (translated as “Weststruckness” or “Westernitis”) and is populated by people addicted to the Internet and vacations in Paris. It is as if political Islam withers north of Vanak Square and the only residents to be found are “liberals” who voted for the opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi.

We must not assume that the engagement of members of society with their religion is uniform or that religious devotion equals automatic loyalty to a particular brand of politics. To do so is certainly to deny Iran’s poor the capacity to think for themselves, to deny that the politics of the past four years may have made their lives worse — and plays right into Mr. Ahmadinejad’s dubious claim to be the most authentic representative of the 1979 revolution. Mr. Moussavi was, let’s not forget, a favored son of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and a member of Iran’s original cohort of revolutionaries, and he remains a firm believer in the revolution and the framework of the Islamic Republic.

But the United States seems able to view our country only through anxieties left over from the 1979 revolution. In the “how did we lose Iran?” assessments after the overthrow of the shah, many American intelligence agents and policy makers decided that their great mistake was to spend too much time canoodling with the royal family and intellectual elites of the capital. Commentators now are worried that, by siding with the opposition today, the United States will once again fall into the trap of backing the losing side.

But the fact is, Tehran is not the Iranian anomaly it was 30 years ago. It has become more like the rest of the country. Internal migration, not just to Tehran but to other major cities, has accelerated, driven in part by the growth of universities in places like Isfahan, Tabriz, Mashad and Shiraz, and now nearly 70 percent of Iranians live in cities. The much vaunted rural vote represents not a decisive bloc for Mr. Ahmadinejad but a minimum, one that was easily swamped by the increased turnout of city dwellers, who normally sit elections out.

And, of course, Iran in 2009 — better yet, Iran on June 12, 2009 — is not the same as Iran in 1979. Just as Tehran’s neighborhoods cannot be fixed in time, the cultural lives of Iranians have greatly changed in the past 30 years. The postrevolutionary period has seen the expansion of education, the entry of women into the work force in large numbers, and changing patterns of marriage and even of divorce. These have all shaped Iranian society. The pseudo-sociology peddled by so many in the West would easily dissolve with a week’s visit.

Let’s also forget the polls, carried out in May by Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion, that have been making the rounds this past week, with numbers that showed Mr. Ahmadinejad well ahead in the election, even in Mr. Moussavi’s hometown, Tabriz. Maybe last month Mr. Ahmadinejad was indeed on his way to victory. But then came the debates.

Starting on June 1, the country was treated to an experience without precedent in the 30 years of the Islamic Republic of Iran: six back-to-back live and unscripted debates among the four presidential candidates. Iranians everywhere were riveted, and the poll numbers began to move.

By the Wednesday before the election, Mr. Moussavi was backed by about 44 percent of respondents, while Mr. Ahmadinejad was favored by around 38 percent. So let’s not cloud the results with numbers that were, like bagels, stale a week later. (And let’s ignore the claim that polling by Iranians in Iran is “notoriously untrustworthy.” A consortium of pollsters and social scientists working for a diverse range of political and social organizations systematically measured public opinion for months before the election.)

Such a major shift has happened before. A month before the 1997 elections, the establishment candidate, Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri, was trouncing his opponents in surveys. Then, a week before the vote, the tide changed, bringing to power a reformer, Mohammad Khatami.

The reason for this fluidity in voter preference is simple. Iran has no real political parties that can command a fixed number of predictable votes. With elections driven primarily by personality politics, Iranians are always swing voters. So Mr. Moussavi, hampered by a lack of access to state-run news media and allowed only two months to campaign, began to make inroads into Mr. Ahmadinejad’s lead only during the final days leading into the election, his poll numbers rising with his visits to provincial cities and the debate appearances.

One final note: the election does reveal a paradox. There is strong evidence that Iranians across the board want a better relationship with the United States. But if Mr. Moussavi were to become president and carry out his campaign promise of seeking improved relations with America, we would probably see a good 30 percent of the Iranian population protesting that he is “selling out” to the enemy.

By contrast, support for Mr. Ahmadinejad’s campaign was rooted in part in his supposed defense of the homeland and national honor in the face of United States aggression. Americans too-long familiar with the boorish antics of the Iranian president will no doubt be surprised to learn that the best chance for improved relations with the United States perhaps lies with Mr. Ahmadinejad. But Mr. Ahmadinejad is perceived here as being uniquely able to play the part of an Iranian Nixon by “traveling to the United States” and bringing along with him his supporters — and they are not few.

In other words, Iranians believe they face a daunting choice: a disastrous domestic political situation with Mr. Ahmadinejad but an improved foreign policy, or improved domestic leadership under Mr. Moussavi but near impossible challenges in making relations with the United States better.

The truth is, it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. The open-air parties that, for one week, turned Tehran at night into a large-scale civic disco, were an accident. People gathered by the tens of thousands in public squares, circling around one another on foot, on motorcycle, in their cars. They showed up around 4 or 5 in the afternoon and stayed together well into the next day, at least 3 or 4 in the morning, laughing, cheering, breaking off to debate, then returning to the fray. A girl hung off the edge of a car window “Dukes of Hazzard” style. Four boys parked their cars in a circle, the headlights illuminating an impromptu dance floor for them to show off their moves.

Everyone watched everyone else and we wondered how all of this could be happening. Who were all of these people? Where did they come from? These were the same people we pass by unknowingly every day. We saw one another, it feels, for the first time. Now in the second week, we continue to look at one another as we walk together, in marches and in silent gatherings, toward our common goal of having our vote respected.

No one knew that it would come to this. Iran is this way. Anything is possible because very little in politics or social life has been made systematic. We used to joke that if you leave Tehran for three months you’ll come back to a new city. A friend left for France for a few days last week and when he returned the entire capital had turned green.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Until last week, Mr. Moussavi was a nondescript, if competent, politician — as one of his campaign advisers put it to me, he was meant only to be an instrument for making Iran a tiny bit better, nothing more. Iranians knew that’s what they were getting when they cast their votes for him. Now, like us, Mr. Moussavi finds himself caught up in events that were unimaginable, each day’s march and protest more unthinkable than the one that came before.

Al Qaida in the US? What is the problem?

A small port town in Bari, Italy holds key figures in al-Qaeda's European organisation

BIG BAD AMERICA can't handle any?

And guess what? NO WATER BOARDING necessary!

What a joke we are- it is no wonder America does not even rank in the top 25 for education worldwide!


http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Bari, Italy


Al-Qaeda suspects 'plotted attack on Britain' from behind bars
Italian police have arrested two alleged al-Qaeda terrorists suspected of planning attacks on Britain and France from inside prison.

During wiretapped conversations, the men discussed an attack on Charles De Gaulle airport outside Paris and spoke of the need to "strike at the British", Italian police said.

Bassam Ayachi, 62, a Syrian imam with French citizenship, and Raphael Frederic Gendron, 33, a Frenchman who converted to Islam, were allegedly part of an al-Qaeda cell operating in Europe.

They have been in prison in Bari, a port town in southern Italy, since November, ...

"We are extremely satisfied to have stopped the masterminds, the heads of the organisation, the people who educated would-be suicide attackers in the name of Jihad,"

Police said the pair had for years lived in Belgium, where Bassam was an imam at an extremist Islamic centre and one of al-Qaeda's "spiritual guides", while Gendron, a computer expert, was the "media propaganda point man, via the internet, for the French-speaking community."

A warship intercepted a skiff carrying the nine Somali suspects

Spanish capture 'Somali pirates'

Spanish forces have arrested nine Somalis suspected of being the pirates who attacked an Italian cruise ship.

A warship intercepted a skiff carrying the nine Somali suspects, the Spanish defence ministry said.

The nine were captured near the Seychelles and handed over to authorities there, officials said.

The Italian cruise ship, the Melody, was attacked by a group of pirates in a speedboat in the area on Saturday. No-one was hurt in the incident.

The ship's crew and security men repulsed the attack by firing into the air and spraying the gunmen with water.

About 1,500 people were on the vessel.

Search launched

After the hijacking attempt, a search was launched for the pirates by the Spanish frigate Numancia, along with patrol planes from the Seychelles and France and an Indian navy ship.

Spanish officials said that during the search they found two small boats with nine suspects on board close to the scene of the attack.

The suspects abandoned one of the boats and were later caught in the skiff.

The Numancia "intercepted a skiff with nine occupants who could be connected to the hijacking attempt of the Italian cruise ship which was eventually repelled by the boat," the defence ministry said in a statement quoted by AFP news agency.

The nine are the latest suspected pirates to be arrested by international forces operating off the coast of Somalia.

France has charged three people with hijacking and false imprisonment after a rescue operation involving a yacht in the Indian Ocean on 10 April.

A Somali teenager is also facing trial in the US after being captured during the rescue of a ship's captain off the coast of Somalia earlier this month.

A Russian warship has seized a pirate vessel with 29 people on board off the Somali coast, Russian news reports say.

A Russian warship has seized a pirate vessel with 29 people on board off the Somali coast, Russian news reports say.

Guns and navigation equipment were found during a search of the pirate boat, officials were quoted as saying.

They said the suspected pirates were thought to have launched two unsuccessful attacks against a tanker with a Russian crew.

Russia is one of the countries that has deployed naval ships against pirates operating in the area.


See map of how piracy is affecting the region and countries around the world

Navies from Nato, the EU, Japan, China, India, Yemen, US Malaysia and Singapore have also been patrolling the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden.

However, the number of attacks has continued to rise.

Somali pirates have hijacked 25 vessels since the beginning of this year and are holding more than 260 crew around the stronghold of Eyl in northern Somalia, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

Naval patrols have captured pirates on a number of occasions.

Some have been put on trial in Kenya, while France has charged three suspected pirates and a Somali teenager is facing trial in the US.

Earlier on Tuesday, regional leaders in Somalia's northern Puntland region told the BBC they have put together a militia of fishermen to catch pirates.

Twelve armed pirates in two boats have been captured by the vigilante groups, they said.

Somali pirates could face the death penalty under recent get-tough measures

Somali vigilantes capture pirates

Somali vigilantes have captured 12 armed pirates in two boats, as coastal communities begin to fight back against the sea raiders.

Regional leaders at Alula and Bargaal in Somalia's northern Puntland region told the BBC they have put together a militia of fishermen to catch pirates.

They decided to act as they were fed up with their fishing vessels being seized at gunpoint by the ocean-going bandits.

Meanwhile, the Seychelles said it had arrested nine suspected pirates.

The men were intercepted by a Spanish frigate near the Indian Ocean archipelago on Monday.

They are accused of firing on Saturday at the Italian cruise ship the Melody - which had more than 1,500 passengers - in an attack repelled by Israeli security guards.

"They are now in detention in a prison cell of the Seychelles police force and are expected to be charged and tried in the islands," Seychellois President James Michel's office said in a statement on Tuesday, reported AFP news agency.


See map of how piracy is affecting the region and countries around the world
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8022820.stm

Somali pirates have hijacked 25 vessels since the beginning of this year and are holding more than 260 crew around the stronghold of Eyl in Puntland, according to the International Maritime Bureau.





They decided to confront... the problems of the sea piracy

Traditional leader Faarah Mohammed


Piracy symptom of bigger problem
Now frustrated regional leaders have taken the law into their own hands.

One of them, Faarah Mohammed, told the BBC: "There is a security committee set up by the communities who live in Bargaal and Alula.

"And they decided to confront whatever was creating problems in their areas and particularly, the problems of the sea piracy.

"And eventually their effort led to the capture of three boats and 12 men with their weapons. One boat got away."








The BBC's Somali Service says the militia will have to hand the pirates over to the local authorities.

Somali pirates could face the death penalty under recent get-tough measures announced by the internationally recognised but unsteady Somali government.

Navies from Nato, the EU, Russia, Japan, China, India, Yemen, US Malaysia and Singapore have been patrolling the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden in an effort to deter the gangs.

But some regional leaders say the foreign navies are protecting foreign fishing boats and allowing them to continue scooping up the fish-stocks that once provided Somalis with their livelihoods.

The lucrative lobster trade with Dubai is said to have collapsed after the foreign boats' giant trawler nets damaged the fragile coral that is the crustaceans' habitat.

As a result some fishermen decided to become pirates, but it appears that the local communities are now turning against these activities, says BBC Africa analyst Martin Plaut.

EFCA, Employee free Choice Act.....

We were warned when Sec Poulsen proclaimed our only export was financial services here in America!

We don't make anything anymore.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031103218.html

"Manufacturing has become too global to permit the United States to revert to the level of manufacturing it had in the good old days of Keynes and Ike, but it would be a positive development if we had a capitalism that once again focused on making things rather than deals. In Germany, manufacturing still dominates finance, which is why Germany has been the world's leader in exports. German capitalism didn't succumb to the financialization that swept the United States and Britain in the 1980s, in part because its companies raise their capital, as ours used to, from retained earnings and banks rather than the markets. Company managers set long-term policies while market pressures for short-term profits are held in check. The focus on long-term performance over short-term gain is reinforced by Germany's stakeholder, rather than shareholder, model of capitalism: Worker representatives sit on boards of directors, unionization remains high, income distribution is more equitable, social benefits are generous. Nonetheless, German companies are among the world's most competitive in their financial viability and the quality of their products. Yes, Germany's export-fueled economy is imperiled by the global collapse in consumption, but its form of capitalism has proved more sustainable than Wall Street's.

So does Germany offer a model for the United States? Yes -- up to a point. Certainly, U.S. ratios of production to consumption and wealth creation to debt creation have gotten dangerously out of whack. Certainly, the one driver and beneficiary of this epochal change -- our financial sector -- has to be scaled back and regulated (if not taken out and shot). Similarly, to create a business culture attuned more to investment than speculation, and with a preferential option for the United States, corporations should be made legally answerable not just to shareholders but also to stakeholders -- their employees and community. That would require, among other things, changing the laws governing the composition of corporate boards."

Earmarks...let's take a look

FY 2002 FY 2003 FY 2004 FY 2005 FY 2006 FY 2006 FY 2006 FY 2006
Earmarks Earmarks Earmarks Earmarks Earmarks R&D Earmarks^ R&D
Defense (military)
336 426 825 1,029 563 73,633
(Army)
120 152 318 322 272 10,821
(Navy)
68 111 178 247 112 18,485
(Air Force)
43 41 134 142 67 22,652
(Defense Agencies)
90 71 127 246 98 19,579
(Other)
13 52 69 72 14 2,097
National Aeron. & Space Admin.
233 190 194 217 50 11,542 50 11,464
Energy
171 138 284 274 167 8,576 318 8,882
(Science programs)
72 50 95 78 35 3,385 49 3,379
(Energy programs)
65 36 114 122 103 1,205 202 1,372
(Defense programs)
35 52 74 73 30 3,986 68 4,131
Health and Human Services
31 62 97 82 5 29,050 4 29,961
(National Institutes of Health)
0 0 0 0 0 27,922 0 28,804
National Science Foundation
50 50 0 0 0 4,163 0 4,124
(Major Research Equipment)
50 50 0 0 0 193 0 193
Agriculture
369 297 220 239 183 2,223 293 2,373
(Agricultural Res. Service)
257 166 86 76 60 1,141 146 1,289
(CSREES)
107 129 125 148 123 624 138 625
(Forest Service)
5 3 8 12 0 329 7 323
Interior
* 14 18 23 12 12 620 12 620
(U.S. Geological Survey)
* 14 11 20 10 10 555 10 555
Transportation
63 54 59 45 0 727 22 742
Environ. Protection Agency
* 62 53 56 51 33 579 33 579
Commerce
72 136 122 109 4 911 198 1,384
(NOAA)
31 107 97 109 4 501 198 693
(NIST)
42 29 26 0 0 379 0 648
Homeland Security
0 0 0 0 0 1,259 0 1,266
Education
0 1 0 3 0 261 0 262
Agency for Int'l Development
4 4 4 4 0 225 4 240
Department of Veterans Affairs
0 0 0 0 0 786 0 805
Housing and Urban Development
30 11 15 5 5 32 5 48
Department of Justice
29 3 0 0 0 82 0 93
All Other
5 2 5 11 0 339 11 357
_____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
Total 1,470 1,444 1,906 2,080 1,023 135,007 951 63,199