18 June 2009

I’ve spent the last three days following the events unfolding in Iran. The disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has resulted in probably the largest protest ever seen. People on the ground have reported crowds in the hundreds of thousands, some exceeding half a million people standing up for their fundamental human right to fair representation in their government. If brought to fruition, the events in Iran hold the promise of being as significant as the anti-communist uprisings that started across Eastern Europe in 1989.

Initially, the government attempted to use its standard tactics of repression and suppression. The government, however, is accustomed to suppressing student results of maybe fifty thousand people in a localized area. This revolt is not those revolts; word and reports indicate that this is nationwide. Some have claimed, and quite possibly accurately, that this is larger by far than the Revolution of ’79 wherein the US puppet the Shah of Iran was deposed. Having watched some of the video and news reports that have made it out, I tend to concur.

The demonstrators have exercised incredible restraint in their dealings with government forces. In all of the official statement made thus far, though the government blames violence on protestors, they have not yet made a credible claim to any single act perpetrated by those protesting. From the videos and reports, the protestors have reacted in such a way as to stop government-sponsored violence through nullification. There are so many people on the streets that they are able to rapidly disarm those that attack them. Once they realized and implemented this, only the Basijs continued to do violence. The Basijs are pro-government militias that appear to be as often as not non-Iranian thugs enlisted to do violence on the Iranian people that Iranian police and military would not.

The protestors, as of Tuesday, seemed to have adopted an approach to the police that was novel and effective. In response to assaults by the police, the crowd would flank, surround and disarm them. Some police officers were beaten, but it seems that once they were sufficiently cowed, the crowd protected them and got them medical treatment. In the militia compound shooting incident of Monday night, wherein seven pro-Mousavi protestors were killed by militiamen firing from their compound, the compound was overtaken during the night, with no militia members killed. It appears that the protestors have since managed to similarly neutralize other militia compounds. Resultantly, as of Wednesday, the police and even special forces troops have tended toward permitting the protestors and, according to at least one report, protecting them from the still-marauding Basijs. There has even been one unconfirmed report of police wearing green scarves in a show of support for the protestors.

Seeing that the uniformed forces of the government have backed down from and even shown limited support for the uprising, the government non-uniformed agents, to include the Basijs, have begun a quiet campaign of usually less-than-lethal terror. They have managed to track some protestors, particularly the known reformists and dissidents and are arresting them in their homes and when they seek medical treatment at hospitals. It has also been reported that protestors are receiving calls at home with ominous anonymous voices telling them that they will be dealt with. One provincial prosecutor has even announced on state TV- the only ones allowed to report now- that rioters will be executed. Which requires the response of, how do you propose to execute half a million or more people in Tehran alone?”

Several prominent clerics, including Grand Ayatollahs, have called the election a sham and the government’s response to the uprising a farce. These holy men, some dissidents, some not, have declared the government’s actions as against Islam and reason. The uprising has come so far that now not only President Ahmadinejad’s position, but that of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei’s, as well is in danger. It has been said that Ahmadinejad’s initial election in 2005 was the result of election rigging. If that is true, then this time, it seems, was one case too many of the Supreme Council influencing election results in order to put a rubberstamp figurehead of a President in place.

There is a report, declaimed as a hoax, but possibly still true, of a Ministry of the Interior clerk revealing the actual results of the election. In this “rumor”, which is probably just that given that Iranian ballots are hand-counted, the clerk revealed that the actual tally put Ahmadinejad took not first, but third place. One problem is that the numbers given in the account show Mousavi with nineteen million of twenty-five million votes cast, but most accurate independent projections indicate a total closer to thirty-nine million total votes. Leading to the unconfirmability of this report is the follow up that said clerk was killed in a suspicious car accident late Tuesday. The name of the clerk involved in this is Mohammed Asgari.

Right now there is a practical blackout and blockade of news from Iran. The protestors and their allies are using various tactics to thwart the government’s attempt to prevent communication both internally, and particularly externally. There is a lot of traffic from cell phones and, finally, Twitter has actually demonstrated its real-world utility. In order to better follow events, I finally signed up, having been one of those who questioned Twitter’s usefulness. People from around the world have switched their time-zone stamp to Tehran (GMT+3:30) in order to confuse the Iranian special security efforts to track and locate specific protestors and block communications. Cell phone signals have been variously jammed to revive later. Facebook has been jammed, and, in a twist, the government has itself been the victim of retaliatory DDOS internet attacks. I’m not tech-savvy enough to go deeply into that discussion; but, I do realize that communications technology has helped rather than hindered the efforts of the demonstrators. Now it seems that someone in Chicago has set up a fax line to facilitate the transmission of documents in the event that cell service is blocked in Iran.

The events in Iran forebode a new day, a new chapter in Iran’s relationship with itself and with the world. Even if Ahmadinejad and Khamenei manage to maintain their grasp on the reins of power, it will, of necessity, be a far less firm grasp. They cannot arrest, imprison, or otherwise realistically retaliate against such a significant portion of the Iranian population without risking the growth of the discontent. Should they do so, a popular uprising and protest will become a new Iranian Revolution.

There is a liveblog on these events over at Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/13/iran-demonstrations-viole_n_215189.html