Iran is the Fad of the Week!

Response to the election in Iran has been, to say the least, astounding. We are as practically up-in-arms here as they are in Iran, proclaiming our "support" for the Iranian people in their time of need (ahem).

But I take issues with this whole thing. Largely to do with how the media has taken it on as a personal Crusade and how the American public (now bored with the economy and swine flu) have latched on to it. Iran is the new yoga.

First, I’m fairly certain that the election was fraudulent. I mean, counting 40 million hand-written ballots in a couple of hours is laughable, at best. But really, did we expect anything else? Ahmadinejad is crazy; we all know that. The Iranians know that. The Supreme Leader supports him because though he’s not particularly religious (in fact, his party has come out against government crackdowns on women who aren’t wearing the correct hijab), he tends to not get uppity about religious issues. So he doesn’t challenge the Ayatollah’s authority. If we all started treating him more as crazy and less as a real threat, he’d probably go away.

So my first problem is as follows: elections are rigged ALL THE TIME. We Americans are all up in arms about democracy and we “stand in support of the Iranian people” and all that crap. But as far as unfair elections go, this was pretty tame. I mean, tons of people showed up to vote and (more or less) were all allowed to do so. The results weren’t so blatant and ridiculous (like say, 100% of the votes in Cuba always went to Fidel Castro, and he swore up and down that it wasn’t rigged) as to draw immediate cries of “fraud” from people other than us. The Iranian people figured out on their own that something seemed a little fishy and staged some peaceful protests (and we like to pretend that here in the US our peaceful protests NEVER turn out violent, despite the fact that every time there is a protest for race issues in Cincinnati, at least one person gets shot and dies).

So if we’re all so big on democracy and want to see it everywhere, where was our overwhelming support for, say, the Kenyans when they had their issues a couple years ago? Nobody really seemed to care then, and the fraud was much more blatant and the reactions much more violent. So…. We don’t care about Africa, apparently? Or Nepal? Do we not care about them, either? That seems rather hypocritical to me.

Second, nobody in the US would give a damn if the situation in Iran were reversed. If it was Mousavi who was cheating and Ahmadinejad who was the victim of election fraud. We’d be happy. We’d say to Ahmadinejad’s supporters, “Oh you lost, get over it, that’s how democracy works.” We only seem to care about democracy in the developing world if we hate the person they elect, and then we get all up in their business as if we had a perfect democracy and they should all be like us. That, too, seems hypocritical.

Third, most people I have spoken to who are in support of who they deem to be “the Iranian people” and are demanding recounts and whatever genuinely believe that by calling Mousavi a “reformer,” the media means that 1) he will stop developing nuclear weapons and 2) (more important for all us liberals) that he will reform the religious law (and the oppression that, personally, I feel come with ALL religious law, Muslim or not) in the country. Except he will do neither of those. The Iranian people aren’t voting for or against a revolution here; they aren’t voting for or against the supreme leadership of the Ayatollahs. They are voting for someone who will be in charge of political decisions, international affairs and the economy. Maybe whoever becomes president will ease up on the strict clothing and travel restrictions for women (though I should point out that women can vote in Iran, which is more than can be said in many Muslim countries, notably our good buddy Saudi Arabia), and maybe that person will be a little nicer to the US (though certainly not to Israel), but whoever becomes the new president will not reform Islamic Law. Nor do I think people really want him to. I think by and large, Iranians like the fact that they live in an Islamic Republic; they just wish it was a little more fair. They want freedom of speech and freedom to hold peaceful demonstrations, and they don’t want to get beaten to death if caught with their wrists showing in public. Women want to be able to have better jobs and more respect and more education (all of which, by the way, are emphasized in the Qur'an). These aren’t things that conflict with Muslim law, and they know that. But it will still be an Islamic Republic. Everything Mousavi will do, if he becomes president, will be subject to the approval of the Ayatollah. Ahmadinejad does not, despite what all the media outlets are saying, represent the “clerical regime.” He has never been particularly religious. The pro-Ahmadinejad supporters who are rallying now are not necessarily rallying in support of the Ayatollah, just as those rallying in support of Mousavi are not rallying against the Ayatollah (if they were, you can be sure that they would all disappear very quickly and silently). This isn’t a revolution, it’s a regime change. And nobody in the US knows that.

I mean, I guess it could turn into a revolution, especially if foreign journalists keep pressing the idea that only way to fix it is to stop the religious government. So maybe Ahmadinejad being crazy will be the downfall of the Ayatollah? I’d be surprised, but I guess it could happen.

Anyway, we are so busy criticizing Iran for rigging elections that we’ve forgotten that 5 years ago, these kinds of demonstrations would have been stopped swiftly and violently. Dissenters would have been purged and would have disappeared. I think it means something that people feel informed enough and comfortable enough to protest like this and that this has happened within the confines of an Islamic state. It’s a young state, and they’re still working out their issues and this whole democracy. It took us 200 years and several very bloody and very violent wars to get us even close to where we are today, democracy-wise. Why should we expect everybody else to do it in 30 years and without violence?

So the point: I’m not surprised this is happening, and I do think the government is up to no good, but I don’t think it is the big crisis we Americans think it is. I’m on Twitter and I keep up with Al Jazeera, BBC and CNN, and it’s fascinating to follow the headlines and note how different they all are. Take the whole Gordon Brown problems going on right now… CNN seems WAAAAYYY more concerned about the whole things than BBC does. Similarly, CNN is a great deal more pessimistic and dramatic about this Iranian Incident than Al Jazeera, which has taken a kind of bemused, “yes this is a concern, but the Iranian people will prevail, whatever the outcome, so we’re just going to sit back and watch” approach. Plus, they are way more concerned that somebody kidnapped their journalists in Afghanistan. Following these headlines is certainly an interesting study. The American media seem way more concerned about the fact that we can't really get in there to snoop around than what is really happening. And I don't think that cheating in the election has anything to do with it being an Islamic republic (despite what AP would have you believe), because they've had perfectly valid elections before, and election fraud happens just about everywhere. But I am heartened that the Iranian people feel that they can demonstrate as such to demand fair elections, and because I do think that something is dodgy, I think its a fair demonstration (though to be fair, I have seen demonstrations after elections where I'm like dude guys, get over it you lost, it sucks, try again next time and stop whining).

So, American, let's not make any more assumptions and base our foreign policy on misinformation!