Iran: The Civil Resistance Breaks Through the Censorship, Again

Hey

thanks for all your hardwork, and for commenting on this.

I just want to note that in the UK at least I have still seen articles on Iran and the protests between July and now. Yes, it wasn't as featured. But it was still there. Not only of the higher up stuff, but the local citizen resistance.

Hi Al,

As usual this is an insightful write up. I was outside the US when first wave of unrest broke out in Iran and followed it closely listening to BBC world radio and other networks. I was very much infuriated by the grandstanding that McCain, the Republicans, and the American media embarked on trying to goad President Obama to openly support the protesters, when we were hearing that the people on the ground in Iran actually wanted a tactical silence from the West.

So, do you think the relative dearth of reporting from the Western media (probably due to their own myopia rather than strategic thinking) this time around, may eventually work in favor of the grassroots movement in Iran so long as citizen journalists are chronicling every minute of events? Let's hope the Republicans remain pre-occupied with the "attempted terror attack" fear parade long enough to leave the Iranian grassroots action alone to take it's natural course. The last thing we want is any more grandstanding from this side of the globe.

An ongoing series of poignant historical essays, based in large part on personal experience, have been posted throughout the past six months on the Tehran Bureau site by Dr. Muhammad Sahimi, a professor of chemical engineering at USC in Los Angeles. His most recent instalment http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2009/12/december-18... reviews the intersection of political mobilization and the Shi'a religious calendar from 1963 to the present. Sahimi speaks eloquently as a member of the nationalist generation who overthrew the Shah and whose progressive elements have been gradually purged by what Sahimi in the cited post calls "a theocracy... which has now devolved into a repressive military junta headed by a cleric."

What's happening in Iran on the part of the people right now is amazing.

Zizi - You make a very good point. In the context that Western media almost always gets a story wrong, that it can be used by the regime as a way of trying to portray its indigenous opposition as somehow duped by foreign interests, and the Western media's historic overplaying of all stories in that region in often bellicose language, the civil resistance there probably is better off, ironically, because of the state censorship of it.

It is almost impossible to argue today, in the wake of the events of Ashura, that this social movement doesn't have legitimacy and grassroots support that is totally independent from what other countries or their leaders might think of the regime.

Of course, it is also harder to demonize an Iranian student with a cell phone camera posting to YouTube than it is to run against "the media." The citizen journalism is part and parcel of the resistance, and an increasingly important part.

From Juan Cole 12/28/09.

http://www.juancole.com/2009/12/iran-roiled-crowds-burn-banks-police.html

Another remarkable dimension of Sunday's events was the sheer number of cities where significant rallies and clashes occurred………

The most ominous sign of all for the regime is the reports of security men refusing orders to fire into the crowd.

Your description of events in Iran sounds like China's Cultural Revolution, with the state leader using street thugs to undermine elite political opponents. As with Mao, Khamenei appears to be undermining his own legitimacy.

But events also resemble the Intifada, with young people throwing stones to defend themselves against an oppressor.

How long is the Iranian military going to stand by watching this brutal mistreatment of the people they are supposed to protect?

Your article: sorely needed and worthwhile, especially after the frustratrating coverage by USA MSM.  Faux fox journalism showed in their abrupt U-turn from reportage on events in Iran to the coverage of Michael Jackson!

Que lastima!

It's easy to decide things in black and white, to decide the regime is evil and must go - and therefore all opposition is right. I'm not digging the flavor of this opposition, I have to say. First it was Moussavi, an American-hating '79 revolutionary heavy who ordered the death of Salman Rushdie. Now it's Molotov-cocktail throwers.

Yeah, the regime is evil. But the current religious junta may be replaced by another - and so what? Andrew Sullivan's attempt to discern the flavors of Islamic ethics is comical - he's an awful journalist, in my opinion. His melodramatic recounting of events in the streets of Iran from his desk is an embarassment on a par with his strange and abhorrent Palin gynecology obsession. To wit: "This breaks a profound taboo, violates the integrity and core meaning of the religious festival, and places the regime symbolically as the enemy of Shia Islam." Says Andrew Freaking Sullivan?! Ridiculous. Sorry, Al we disagree on this - I find it be dreck.

Further, I think President Obama and Secretary Clinton should underplay their hands - ie, wait and see. I don't want to hear more 'Twitter revolution' malarkey from the State Department.

All that said, the streaming of information out of Iran - including footage recorded by the increasingly violent opposition gangs - is fascinating. We can now watch a factional civil war in what aspires to be a closed society in almost real time - and make our own judgement on what's actually happening.

and rebukes the thugs in Iran for their actions.

http://www.cspan.org/Watch/Media/2009/12/28/HP/R/27837/Pres+Obama+Orders...

I particularly appreciate that he states that

"What's taking place within Iran is not about the United States or any other country. It's about the Iranian people and their aspirations for justice and a better life for themselves. And the decision of Iran's leaders to govern through fear and tyranny will not succeed in making those aspirations go away."

Tom - First, what we agree on: that a US government or president should not make moves that allow the Iranian regime to paint its domestic opposition as foreign dupes. And that does require a soft touch even when it comes to the words used (and yes, the June "State Dept asks Twitter to stay open" thing was an unnecessary boast).

As for Andrew Sullivan, agree or disagree with him, he is doing a lot of heavy lifting compiling and linking to the available YouTube videos, blog and Internet reports from Iran, and English language analysis of it, and he's fairly pluralist about it, letting many differing views in. One doesn't have to agree with his take to appreciate that he's providing materia prima for his huge readership (I would guess he is the most highly read English language political blog of any hosted by a single individual). He's got clout and he's deploying it with hard work. I can't argue with that.

As for "so much for nonviolence," while it's clear that traditional nonviolence hasn't been practiced in the past 72 hours in many circumstances, I don't think it can be qualified as aggressive violence either. It's mainly self defense. For example, I've seen various videos when the protesters took control away from the Basiji police. In each of those moments, they could have beaten the guy to death right there on the spot. Instead, they're just taking his weapons and uniform away and usually letting him run away. That might not be "nonviolence" in a Gandhian sense but it does show a great level of *discipline* and understanding of the strategic dynamics at work that borrow lots from Gandhi and similar practitioners. There is an amazing lack of cruelty or violence for violence's sake when they do get the upper hand. And youths can also be seen in many of the videos organizing to keep crowds from spilling into a level of pure unadulterated riot.

So what's the difference between..........Al Giordano's support for "peaceful revolution" in Iran, and the support of, say, George W Bush's CIA?

Al raises the meme about Western Media always being wrong, yet Al's take on Iran is the same.  Sure, Al mentions the corporate media's perspective of "looking up", but what is the difference, really, Al?  Can you be clear about the difference, if any, please?

Al also seems to be admitting the tactical benefits of censorship - he admits the Iranian protests might benefit from an absence of Western Media exposure.

Absent such exposure, how are people expected to gain any inkling of what is going on?  How does Al Giordano find out, for example?

And whilst Western Media's lack of interest might be of benefit to the Iranian protestors, Al Giordano is reporting the protests.  And Al Giordano's position seems very similar to Western Media perspective -  support for the protests - a pespective seemingly consistent with the wishes and aims of the American State Department.

So.......whilst there's an air of criticism here of "Western Media", I can't see how Al Giordano's position is different.  Both Al and the "Western Media" support the protests, both take the perspective the protests are "good"/"progressive", both hold the elections were unsound/fraudulent, both have continued reporting such.

Likewise I can't see a difference between Al G's position and that of the US State Dept, under Obama or Bush.

It might be interesting if Al Giordano would explain a little.

Also of interest would be some description of what the movement Al Giordano seems to be supporting in Iran is all about. What makes it so progressive?  What interests does it serve?  A frustrated bourgeois capitalist class?  Or what?

Also of interest would be how Al Giordano knows this information?   Bit of an Iranian expert, is he?

Dear Paranoid Nutcase,

First of all, you have some homework to do, Missy (or Buster, or whatever the moniker is to show the proper lack of respect). This isn’t the first essay I’ve written on the situation in Iran, and some have addressed crackpot logic like yours directly already:

Iran: A 1930s Level Crossroads for the International Left, June 18, 2009, The Field

Iran Khodro Auto Workers Begin Work Slowdown to Protest the Regime, June 18, 2009, The Field

Iranian Bus Workers Join the Resistance, June 20, The Field

Noam Chomsky and 50+ Intellectuals Back Freedom to Assemble in Iran, June 25, The Field

How do I know – and why should you know – that the Iranian working class opposes, organizes against and receives the blows of the illegitimate regime?

Because they write us and tell us, Sherlock!

Here’s another piece of homework reading for ya:

Letter from the Free Union of Iranian Workers to trade unions around the world, May 4, 2009

In that letter, written before last year's regime "elections" and the post-electoral resistance, the unions of Iran wrote:

International Workers’ Day 2009 in Iran, as is customary every year, was violently attacked by the police, and hundreds were beaten, verbally abused and detained.  In Tehran over 170 people and in Sanandaj 6 people were arrested.  In Tehran the police savagely attacked the participants in the May Day rally at Laleh Park, using batons, tear gas and pepper gas spray.  As a result, many people were poisoned.  Suffering from burning eyes, throat and nose and unable to defend themselves, these people were severely beaten with clubs and batons, sustaining serious injuries to the head, face and arm.  The only crime of these decent, liberty-seeking working people was commemorating international workers’ day, which is among their most basic human rights.

Your faux-leftist poseur stance in fact abandons and betrays the struggles of the authentic Iranian working class.

While I don't claim to be any kind of expert on that part of the world, I'm neither a blogger-come-lately to events there. I began paying attention to Iranian politics and history in the 1970s. My first sources were Iranian students of socialist, communist and other leftist and pro-worker tendencies who were fighting then against the US-backed Shah of Iran, a brutal dictator of the secular right wing. When those attending university in the US would hold protests, thousands of them would have to wear these cardboard orange masks to shield their identities from the SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police force, who would kill their family members back home if one of the protesters was recognized through a photograph or video.

In 1979 I watched good people like those young friends bring down the Shah dictatorship only, soon after, to become persecuted by the new theological regime. After the 1979 revolution, the Islamic liberation theologians – great leaders like the late Ayatollah Montazeri whose massive funeral last week, attacked by the regime’s basij police, sparked this latest round of resistance - that my friends had joined in coalition with to topple the Shah had lost an internal struggle to what might be called the Iranian equivalent of the religious right in the US.

Your logic (lacking any, really) is that whatever the policy of the United States is said to be places you on the other side. Oh, really? When, in the 1980s, the US Congress changed US policy to then oppose the Apartheid regime in South Africa, did you suddenly change sides and throw in against the African National Congress with the racist segregationists of the right?

The world is a lot more complicated than your copout position - of choosing your side based on what Washington does or says - allows. There are morons who support US policy blindly, I'm sure you think you are oppositional to them, and there are those, like you, that offer knee jerk opposition to it. Both are equally manipulated and dupes of the whirling Wurlitzer of media spin.

But I take an especially dim view of you and yours, because while claiming to be oppositional, you are in fact giving Washington absolute power over your opinions and letting its policies (or whatever you think they are) determine your political stances, even if in the negative. That’s simply pathetic and earns nothing but ridicule and scorn from me. You can safely expect to be upset by my future writings, too. And I can expect to be provided with years of happiness causing tantrums by you and yours, the slow class of the academic left.