The ongoing conflict between Iran’s rulers and the Iranian public is the result of a head-on collision between two contradictory forces. In recent years, public attitudes in Iran have become more liberal. At the same time, power has shifted from conservative pragmatism toward a much more militant fundamentalism. The call by the most important group of Iran’s clerics for the election results to be thrown out is but the latest sign of the fightback of both the reformist and pragmatic conservative factions.
Thirty years after the Islamic revolution, Iranians are growing demonstrably less religious and more liberal. Two face-to-face surveys of more than 2,500 Iranian adults, conducted in 2000 and 2005, clearly show the trend. The percentage of those who “strongly agree” that democracy is the best form of government increased from 20 percent to 31 percent.
Similarly, on a number of questions concerning gender equality — including political leadership, equal access to higher education and wifely obedience — the numbers continued a downward trend. Those who considered love as the basis for marriage increased from 49 percent to 69 percent, while those who depended on parental approval fell from 41 percent to 24 percent. In 2005, a much higher percentage than in 2000 defined themselves as “Iranian, above all” rather than “Muslim, above all.”
This trend is not hard to understand. The imposition of a monolithic religious discourse on society has made liberal values attractive to Iranians. But, while this was reflected in reformist trends in the country’s wider political life, a movement toward militant fundamentalism took shape within the regime’s power structure. Reform-minded politicians were partly to blame for this change. Far from opposing absolutist power as an impediment to religious democracy, they tried to persuade the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of the value of reform.
But Khamenei had no interest in reform, as he made plain in dismantling the reform movement. The presidency of Mohammad Khatami, an avowed reformer, who served eight years, beginning in 1997, convinced the Supreme Leader that his authority would be assured only if the presidency was held by a subservient fundamentalist such as the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In this, Khamenei was following the lead of the late Shah, who kept Amir Abbas Hoveyda, a loyal retainer, as prime minister from 1965 until the Shah was overthrown in 1979.
The problem with the Supreme Leader’s calculation, however, is that Ahmadinejad is a loose cannon. His populist rhetoric and religious fundamentalism have alienated a large section of conservative-pragmatist clerics and their supporters.
Many members of this group honor the institution of private property and Ahmadinejad’s talk of redistributing wealth is not to their liking. More disturbing to them is his apocalyptic conviction regarding the imminent advent of the Hidden Imam, the Mahdi, whose appearance is believed to lead to the destruction of the world and the end of time. Generally, Ahmadinejad begins his public speeches with prayers for the Mahdi’s immediate return.
For the Shia religious hierarchy, long accustomed to relegating the advent of the Mahdi to a distant future, Ahmadinejad’s insistent millenarianism is troublesome. They have often dismissed as unorthodox, if not heretical, any claim of personal contact with the Imam or speculation about his arrival. Several ayatollahs opined that such talk about the Mahdi is unbecoming of a president or, worse, indicative of an unstable leader.
These concerns were reflected in the fact that the Society of Combatant Clergy, a conservative body, was unable to endorse Ahmadinejad’s candidacy.
Defiance of the Supreme Leader by millions of Iranians just a day after he firmly endorsed Ahmadinejad threw the country into a political crisis. Worldwide broadcasts of the beating and killing of protesters have undermined the regime’s religious credentials.
Seeking a way out of this difficult situation, the Supreme Leader declared that the electoral disputes must be settled through legal channels, not on the street. Given his role in justifying electoral fraud, this argument seems like an effort to buy time to clear the streets of demonstrators, put opposition leaders under severe physical and psychological stress, and isolate presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, the presumed real winner of the vote.
Nonetheless, Khamenei’s invocation of the law echoes the demands of many conservative-pragmatists who lean toward Mousavi, who is not in a position to challenge Khamenei’s authority directly. Mousavi must carefully continue his legal campaign, without compromising the trust he has gained from the majority of Iranians. He must stand by his two principal demands: nullification of the election and establishment of an impartial committee to rule on the government’s violations of the electoral law.
Should Mousavi persuade Khamenei to reconsider his position, the Supreme Leader’s hold on power will be shaken. If Khamenei holds fast, Mousavi cannot gain the presidency, but he will continue to represent the hopes of the majority of Iranians who differ dramatically from their government. For now, what will happen depends on Mousavi’s perseverance.
Mansoor Moaddel is a professor of sociology at Eastern Michigan University and has conducted numerous opinion surveys in the Middle East.
COPYRIGHT: PROJECT SYNDICATE
China badly misread Japan. It sought to intimidate Tokyo into silence on Taiwan. Instead, it has achieved the opposite by hardening Japanese resolve. By trying to bludgeon a major power like Japan into accepting its “red lines” — above all on Taiwan — China laid bare the raw coercive logic of compellence now driving its foreign policy toward Asian states. From the Taiwan Strait and the East and South China Seas to the Himalayan frontier, Beijing has increasingly relied on economic warfare, diplomatic intimidation and military pressure to bend neighbors to its will. Confident in its growing power, China appeared to believe
After more than three weeks since the Honduran elections took place, its National Electoral Council finally certified the new president of Honduras. During the campaign, the two leading contenders, Nasry Asfura and Salvador Nasralla, who according to the council were separated by 27,026 votes in the final tally, promised to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan if elected. Nasralla refused to accept the result and said that he would challenge all the irregularities in court. However, with formal recognition from the US and rapid acknowledgment from key regional governments, including Argentina and Panama, a reversal of the results appears institutionally and politically
Legislators of the opposition parties, consisting of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), on Friday moved to initiate impeachment proceedings against President William Lai (賴清德). They accused Lai of undermining the nation’s constitutional order and democracy. For anyone who has been paying attention to the actions of the KMT and the TPP in the legislature since they gained a combined majority in February last year, pushing through constitutionally dubious legislation, defunding the Control Yuan and ensuring that the Constitutional Court is unable to operate properly, such an accusation borders the absurd. That they are basing this
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) was on Monday last week invited to give a talk to students of Soochow University, but her responses to questions raised by students and lecturers became a controversial incident and sparked public discussion over the following days. The student association of the university’s Department of Political Science, which hosted the event, on Saturday issued a statement urging people to stop “doxxing,” harassing and attacking the students who raised questions at the event, and called for rational discussion of the talk. Criticism should be directed at viewpoints, opinions or policies, not students, they said, adding
RSS