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Parviz: Khamenei’s Aura of Invincibility Shattered
[editorial note: I just received this email by MoA regular Parviz (not his real name) who lives in Iran and I decided to publish it immediately without any change or correction – b.]
Hi Bernhard,
Your monitoring has been atrocious but I submit the following as a new thread to redress the balance and compensate for all the doubts you have expressed about the genuineness and independence of Iran’s reform movement:
TITLE: Khamenei’s Aura of Invincibility Shattered
MoA threads and comments were so one-sided that I left the Blog, but I’ve decided to stop lurking and recommenced commenting out of a sense of responsibility to your armchair intellectuals, and especially in support of those non-Iranian posters (God bless them) who are continuing to ask the same questions I and others repeatedly asked and to which you pointedly refused to respond.
(Some examples: How can you defend “counting” done in complete secret by security officials? What about Karroubi’s missing 7 million votes? What about the statement of powerful Ayatollahs in the Holy City of Qom – Grand Ayatollahs Montazeri, Sanei and the Qom Seminary — that the election was rigged? Why does the Guardian Council say it needs 10 days to check 10 % of votes when the ENTIRE election votes were allegedly counted in just one hour? Exactly how ‘random’ do you think those ‘samples’ will be? Why do all the titles of your threads invariably defend Khamenei/Ahmadinejad and cast doubts on Moussavi’s credibility and on the broad-based strength of the protest movement that reached 3 million on Thursday in Tehran alone? etc.,.):
Today I tried to participate in the peaceful demonstration (which is permitted under Article 27 of the very same Islamic Constitution that the Islamicists have subverted, meaning that no Interior Ministry permit is constitutionally necessary), and managed to walk past huge groupings of riot police, Revolutionary Guards and plainclothes militia (Baseej), plus huge numbers of Arab troops (I guess on loan from Hamas and Hezbollah), all heavily armed and wielding truncheons and other weapons. Near Tehran University (= 2 km from Enghelab Square where the peaceful demonstration was to occur) I was stopped by some ugly looking Baseej group which threatened to beat me and my friends up if we walked even one step further south.
When they drew their weapons we were forced to give up the venture, and the thugs probably inadvertently did my group a favour by turning us back before we could get anywhere near the proceedings, because many others who got through have been beaten up, many are missing and Tehran is in chaos and under military rule. I am now back home watching Al Jazeera that showed video footage of one young girl shot through the head by a sharpshooter, among other atrocities.
b, here is what the regime you inexcusably defend actually did today as reported by this eye-witness:
They had troops, Guards and militia stationed at every crossroads and along the length and breadth of every route from the very “upper-middle-class” North of Tehran down to Fadayeen Street (= a total area of about 200 square miles). I guess maybe up to one million regime “helpers” were involved in a Clausewitz-style show of overwhelming strength. This was because, as officially declared by the current Mayor of Tehran, the street protests reached a peak of 3 million on Thursday and were growing daily. As you correctly point out above (sometimes I can agree with you) the regime’s aim was to PREVENT millions of people reaching the focal point, so they could kill and maim and arrest the few who actually made it. They closed off all approaches to the Square and then (as evidenced by the latest videos) picked off the demonstrators like penned-in animals.
I believe (but have no proof) that the ‘coincidental’ bomb explosion near Khomeini’s tomb was set off by the regime itself as an excuse for an even harder crackdown. Khamenei mentioned the possibility of bombings at Friday Prayers, and right on cue the next day (today) such an event occurs 25 miles away from the demonstrators. Funny that it served the purpose of ‘desecrating’ Khomeini’s tomb even though the bomb went off outside, giving the regime the excuse it needed to label the opposition ‘Godless’ and escalate violence even further against these clearly peaceful protesters.
If the regime hadn’t cracked down so hard today the crowds in Tehran alone would have swelled to well over the earlier 3 million, as those not bribed/coerced by the regime are sick to death of 30 years of religious hypocrisy and misrule.
Anybody here still believe the Islamic regime is ‘democratic’? It’s a regime of thugs, run by thugs on behalf of thugs. Any help to Hamas and Hezbollah is not to help Palestinians but a) for leverage against the U.S., and b) to generate ‘coupons’ that they can use in situations like this. Everybody I spoke to today thought we were in Lebanon after seeing so many heavily armed Arabs in and around Ferdowsi Square and Chamran bridge.
The main thing is that the aura of invincibility and (God forbid) ‘Godliness’ about Khamenei has been shattered. This won’t end until the regime is either overthrown or reforms dramatically and becomes part of the Revolution.
Nobody I know gives a damn about the U.S. or Israel. We are all simply fed up.
Best wishes to all,
Parviz
[additional note: I do not have time today to respond to Parviz’ note, but I promise to do so tomorrow – b.]
There’s no real harm in all these people standing on the sidelines throwing in their two bobs’ worth, is there? I just don’t know, like Yuri I don’t much like standing outside a seeming popular uprising and finding fault with the players because, that job is normally well in hand by those corrupted by power and seeking to hang on to it. But this isn’t the first such ‘popular uprising’ that has inspired great misgivings in me.
I have listed plenty of others, ones where I am much more familiar with the communities. Which is not to say I don’t know any Iranians but most of those I do know were refugees from the original Islamic revolution and have no objectivity at all when it comes to Iran.
I haven’t spent months in various parts of Iran getting to know people from all walks of life, which is how I prefer to get a feel of a society/ies before feeling able to know sure which way the people are likely to move.
The thing that really concerns me about this revolution/uprising/expression of discontent is that as far as I can see those Iranians who are participating are putting more emphasis on dialogue with people outside Iran than with those inside Iran.
They hold up signs in english which play well on the audiences in USuk living rooms but what about the Iranian people in the rural areas? Many of whom voted for Ahmadinejad, sure, but they are fellow Iranians that the urban protestors need to get on side if their campaign is truly based around securing the best for all Iranians – how are they communicating with them?
The rural communities are less likely to have satellite dishes capable of picking up the BBC, and therein lies the biggest danger.
The reliance on getting the message out via a foreign media service, one that has consistently betrayed the best interests of a host of peoples, not only in the Middle East, but in Africa, the Indian sub-continent, South East Asia and Latin America, really makes me wonder if those who are hitting the street in anger and frustration (that has built up over the course of a plethora of regimes including that of their new heroes Mousavi and Rafsanjani) are really thinking clearly about what is best for them and their fellow Iranians.
BBC World’s other regions are full of propaganda and half truths about Iran and the disputed elections. Imagine getting even that (probably milder) agit-prop (the farsi service into Iran is only a couple of months old which may or may not be a coincidence) into a society where up until BBC Farsi most TV stations didn’t discuss the issues the BBC is now headlining. Objectivity would be difficult. The novelty of the station its methodololgy and it’s messages would make it difficult for even the most intuitive or sceptical viewers to accurately assess the validity of information being broadcast. Remember the station is staffed by expats many of whom will have axes to grind with the current regime.
The BBC Iranian experts include the likes of Nazenin Ansari; journalist, Voice Of Amerika Persian News producer and paid up member of the “Iran is the devil” school of journalistic thought.
For example during the period of civil unrest in France during 2005, I heard Ms Ansari repeteatedly claim on the BBC Dateline program, where she has been a regular talking head since the post Kelly affair BBC shake-up, that the riots as she called them were an act of war against France instigated by the Iranian regime with agents-provaucateurs. Such remarks used to spill from her lips practically whenever she could inject them into the debate in on Dateline, but that was back before the beeb set up an Iranian TV service so she wouldn’t have so much concern about getting offside with any Iranians who may be watching. I stopped watching that dreadful piece of imperialist spin a long time ago, because too many of the talking heads were like Ms Ansari (ie anything but objective) and have no idea what her current stance is. (r’giap do you still force yourself to watch it?)
Ansari is an expat Iranian who fled Iran in the 70’s and seems to have been living in the West since. Perhaps that is why she finds it so easy to alternate between advocating bringing Iran to it’s knees with sanctions or stopping the Iranian plan to build nuclear warheads with military intervention by the west or even with Israel’s ‘assistance’.
One article by her which seems almost reasonable in comparison to her less strategised ad-libs to camera on live TV, is rather tellingly titled Divide and Empower” and proposes more sanctions against Iran. Too bad that it is the people of Iran who suffer the most from sanctions, however ‘targeted’ they may claim to be. When billions are being shifted a lot more people stand to benefit that merely the Iranian moving the money, and, as I have seen here with the so called targetted sanctions against the military leadership in Fiji, those who are most effected are the powerless who according some arcane rule are judged to fall withing the scope of a particular sanction. The really big wigs always cop an exception in the ‘interests of the nation’ ie some rich prick.
It seems she has accepted one reality, that force shouldn’t be used. Not because it would cause great misery and suffering to the Iranians whose interests she claims to represent but because:
“Most Iranian reformers are adamant that a western military attack will be a gift for the current regime because it will neutralise the disenfranchised elements of the military and paramilitary forces—who might otherwise switch sides. To effect change in Iran’s posture, they insist that Khamenei should be made to realise that people power counts more than the security forces. The aim for the west should be to weaken the latter while empowering the former.
The entire article which was published in June 06, reads like a blueprint for what has taken place in Iran over the last week. Worth reading as long as one applies critical thinking. ie considers the lack of supporting data for many of the ‘facts’ she claims. Any evidence is largely hearsay eg “Blah Blah, a prominent dissident, maintains . . .” then a story carefully aimed at the sympathies of the potential readership is dropped into the article.
Ms Ansari’s views are typical of those who are the driving force behind the BBC farsi service and I question whether the Iranians marching each day are really aware of either the strategies or the motives of some of the most influential players in this ‘movement’.
Examining the history of those inside Iran like Rafsanjani is cautionary enough but studying those on the outside openly enabling, and quietly steering the action, should give Iranians cause for concern.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 21 2009 0:44 utc | 83
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