Adamu Adamu
26 June 2009
opinion
But there is also the possibility that Musavi and a religious fringe of the reform movement may have gone beyond the pale.
With the limelight created by the international media behind them and with their own inclination not that much different from a Westernised mindset, they may have actually begun believing their and the media's own lies. They may have finally come to a confluence with the terminus of their own supporters - northern Tehranis: alienated youths, the Western-educated plutocrats, the Baha'is and the Zionist-Freemasons affiliated to the court of the Shah. Their main qualification is that they are Western-educated and they are rich.
And even the leading lights who created the Musavi phenomenon could boast of impeccable Western credentials--even among the leading lights of the religious reformers. Former President Khatami, who stepped aside to give Musavi way, spent a large part of his early adult life in Germany; and Rafsanjani, though a leading cleric and a supposed protégé of the Imam, comes from one of the richest families in Iran, has been to the US and is known to have a soft spot for it.
There is much ignorance in the world and a basic misunderstanding about the nature and the scope of the change that has come over Iran. And here the world includes a large proportion of those outside and even inside Iran who support the Islamic Revolution; and now, indeed, it must include even those who were thought to have led it.
The revolution didn't just come to challenge US President Jimmy Carter or expose his so-called human rights policy or just to free Iran from an exploitative American embrace or merely put Iran face-to-face with America in a one-off encounter. It was a challenge that came and would keep coming; but so far it had proved difficult for the world to understand that what happened in Iran was not the business-as-usual coup d'état, or the bloody communist take-over, or the duplicitous liberal reform, or an anti-corruption putsch. What happened was a revolution in its truest sense - a sense that would remain difficult to comprehend and impossible to gauge by a materialist standard.
The revolution came to challenge, with the hope that it would also change, the underpinnings, the assumptions and the conventions upon which the modern international system was based. The post war world was a prize packed neat--signed, sealed and delivered to the winners of the Second World War; and if there were values in the world, this needed to be challenged, if only to underline the fact that might is not right. And it is good that this is being done by religion to a world that prided itself in having finished religion off.
Those who thought Iran should by now have become sober, should have striven to become acceptable to the West, should forget about Salman Rushdie, should not develop nuclear energy, should not espouse a variant of Islam that is so militantly anti-imperialist, know neither the religion of Islam nor the modern world. The election in Iran was not just a choice between candidates. It was a choice between tendencies - the tendency that the Muslim people of Iran have chosen and the tendency that the West and the Western-educated Muslims want for them.
The West has shown how easily it can coexist with the oil-sheikh type of Islam - the Islam that has legitimised the theft of public property, the Islam that like every other nation-state fears the United States of America, the Islam that lives in terror of Zionism, the Islam that tiptoes around the world in fear of upsetting the china shop of the international system. Within the last two weeks, we have seen the two in a show of strength on the streets of Iran, where only 30 years ago the Shah was slaughtering thousands to the applause of the United States and with its weapons. At that time, Iranians came out onto the streets in spite of the Shah and those supporting him; today they came out onto the streets precisely because of the Islam that they want to uproot.
The West tried to portray the protest as a sign of the oppressiveness of the Iranian Islamic system. But that protest is the sign that Islam respects individual freedom and the government in Iran is in tune with it. None of those demonstrators would have lasted a minute in those Gulf countries in which the US is worshipped today. That type of demonstration will not have been tolerated in any Muslim capital in the world. And it makes little difference whether the country is headed by a king, or by a colonel, or by a president or by a prime minister or by anyone.
And while that Iranian protest lasted, the world didn't get the truth; it was treated to a serving of Western patriotic gut journalism in defence not of the truth but of the greater Western consensus. The West wanted Musavi: it had anointed him; and, so, he must be the winner; and for them, wishful thinking became the new reality that they must now defend at all costs. They could tolerate anything but Islam; Musavi for them was their new Shah. In desperation, they clutched at every available straw, changing position as events unfolded.
Prior to the election, for instance, Western news agencies were predicting low voter-turnout, a result of what they said was disenchantment with Ahmadinejad. But with the election underway, the predicted boycott turned into a massive, unprecedented popular participation. More than 85% of eligible voters turned out to cast their ballot, shaming the comparatively dismal participatory record of all the so-called established Western democracies.
Believing that their favoured candidate was going to win, they praised the impressive turn-out and noted the orderly conduct of the electorate. But the moment that it became clear that Musavi, the big West-Hope, appeared set to lose the election, the question of rigging suddenly reared its head.
In the CNN, there was deliberate but subtle transposition of images and fraudulent commentary. While discussing Musavi and his supporters, footage of Ahmadinejad were always shown. On June 14, on its online edition, BBC threw caution to the wind and cropped out Ahmadinejad from a picture taken at his rally and labelled it as a Musavi rally. It was promptly caught out; and its editors were forced to apologise and take the picture off.
Of course, international media could twist and turn world opinion against Iran and even against Islam, but its patrons know that their agenda is but a pipe dream; because they could never succeed in secularising the Muslim mindset, or, in this limited sense, alienate Iranian and other conscious and independent Muslims from supporting the Islamic revolution or opposing the West in its many injustices. And for many of them Ahmadinejad stands as a symbol.
For those who have witnessed evidence and nature of the popularity of the Iranian president first hand, the truth is that instead of showing evidence of rigging, the result of the election for Ahmadfinejad should have been seen as an anticlimactic resolution of sorts. He should have felt disappointed that he led Musavi only 2 to 1. But a writer in Crescent International quoted an article by Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty and in the Washington Post [15/6/2009] in which they said that Ahmedinejad's 2 to 1 margin was actually confirmed by their own scientific survey of public opinion conducted in Iran three weeks earlier. The result of the poll accurately captured and confirmed the resulf of the election; it showed Ahmadinejad beating Musavi 2 to 1 even among his native Azeris.
"While Western news reports from Tehran in the days leading up to the voting portrayed an Iranian public enthusiastic about Ahmadinejad's principal opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, our scientific sampling from across all 30 of Iran's provinces showed Ahmadinejad well ahead."
The poll was undertaken by two US non-profit organizations--Terror-Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion, and the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. The poll was conducted by telephone and questionnaire and field work were carried out in Persian by a polling company that has worked for ABC News and the BBC. Its work in the Middle Eastern region has received an Emmy award. The poll itself was paid for by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. But they will not believe even their own scientific work if it clashes with their wishful thinking.
And that is the way it is with a vulture. It is very patient. It can wait very long. And it has - for 30 years. But, unfortunately, this time, it will have to go unfed because there is no carrion for it to eat.
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You fail to realize that Iran a country a of nearly 80 million people, with over a millennium of (genetic) experience of foreign intervention (and not just the west) has other more immediate worries than the over simplified almost childish point of view that you spouse in your article. You also fail to mention China and Russian, two countries with very dubious moral records at best, who have rushed to legitimize the election in order to protect this coup government who is more aligned with them than Iran has ever been with a foreign power in almost 75 yrs.
The revolution of 79 was the third attempt in Iran for independence. That was what it was about. This Coup disguised as an election, is a reaction to the country once again reacting to foreign influence trumping Iran's best interest. The results are visible in the 44% unemployment rate, the 25% inflation. No sir, it's not the Northern Tehran kids and rich families that are on the streets, they like most other places in the world, never left the comfort of their home.
I suggest that you and your readers read some analysis of the internal dynamic of the elections and the specific policies of the candidates. Iran is a large and power country with over 90% educated population, and we live in a much different world than the one that was ruled through the dynamics of the cold war. Here is a good article/analysis of the election, it's players and the issues effecting the lives of the Iranian people. http://www.merip.org/mero/mero062809.html