James Crabtree
President Ahmadinejad vs the Mullahs
President Ahmadinejad is today signed in formally as President of Iran, for a new four year term, in a public ceremony. But yesterday, in a second ceremony only broadcast on state television, the President was officially blessed by the Supreme Leader. The ceremony has attracted attention largely because it was boycotted by the three major opposition figures in Iranian politics — opposition leader Mousavi, along with two former Presidents, Rafsanjani and Khatami. Behind this, however, lies a deeper split: between the senior clerics in the regime, and the senior clerics outside it who are increasingly critical of a regime whose religious purity they see as being tarnished by the compromises of power.
Its a theme examined in a piece from Christopher De Bellaigue, who reports for Prospect from Iran. Christopher writes: “According to a common complaint, the clerical class has been trivialised by political leadership, with the popular esteem it once enjoyed tarnished by engagement with Iran’s corrupt and inefficient economy. Some popular films in Iran incorporate a new archetype: the unloved mullah, mocked by the people he is supposed to be serving.” And behind this, lies a set of problems which lead most Mullahs to support the opposition in the elections, and which questions the foundations of the Islamic Republic itself. Christopher’s piece is being made free to read on our website today, here.
Tehran speaks, but for how long will it have a voice?
As we’ve seen in recent days, the political crisis that has gripped Iran has sparked protests—against what many Iranians call the “stolen” presidential election—on a scale unprecedented since the 1979 revolution that gave birth to the Islamic republic.
On Thursday 18th June the day of mourning rally called by Mousavi was attended by more than 100,000 black-clad protesters in Tehran and observed by many others in cities such as Shiraz. These events are intensely reminiscent of the events that led to the revolution of 1979. Every tragic killing by the shah’s regime led to funeral processions that proliferated as bigger and bigger marches mourned the dead.
Yet today Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Iran’s supreme leader commanded that the protests must end. For now, then, it seems to be down to battle of wills and the big question is: can the protesters keep the momentum going?
This is was one of the most popular posts on Balatarin this afternoon written by Hanaa:
I will take part in the rally tomorrow. It might become violent. Perhaps I may be one of the people who is meant to die. I am listening to all the beautiful songs that I’ve ever heard before…. I always wanted to thin out my eyebrows… I am looking through all my family photo albums from the start. I have to call my friends and say goodbye. I just have two bookshelves full of books to my name in this world; I have told my family who to give them to. I have two units to go before I get my degree, but the hell with that… I just wrote these scattered sentences so that the next generation knows that we weren’t irrational and emotional. So that they know we did what we could to make our lives better… but we refused to give in to oppression.
Nasrin Alavi, author of We are Iran, will be reporting for Prospect online in the coming weeks about how Iran’s protest movement has mobilised through the internet.
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