The Iranian Uprising is Home Grown, and Must Stay That Way
Stellan Vinthagen June 23rd, 2009
This article was Published on Friday, June 19, 2009 by CommonDreams.org and written by the California Professor and well-recognized Middle-East expert Stephen Zunes
It is a very interesting article and I have re-posted the beginning of the article below, but if you want to read the whole article you find it on CommonDreams: article link.
THE BEGINNING OF THE ARTICLE BY Prof. Zunes:
The growing nonviolent insurrection in Iran against the efforts by the ruling clerics to return the ultra-conservative and increasingly autocratic incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinjead to power is growing. Whatever the outcome, it represents an exciting and massive outpouring of Iranian civil society for a more open and pluralistic society.
Ironically, defenders of Ahmadinejad’s repression are trying to blame everyone from the U.S. government to nonviolent theorist Gene Sharp to various small NGOs engaged in educational efforts on strategic nonviolent action as somehow being responsible for the popular uprising in Iran. It appears to be based upon the rather bizarre assumption that millions of Iranians would somehow be willing to pour out onto the streets in the face of violent repression by state security forces only because they have been directed to do so by people from an imperialist power which overthrew their last democratic government and subsequently propped up the tyrannical regime they installed in its place for the next quarter century.
Even putting aside the bizarre spectacle of self-proclaimed “leftists” coming to the defense of a right-wing fundamentalist autocratic like Ahmadinejad, this claim ignores several key factors:
1) Neo-conservatives and other American hawks were hoping for a victory by the hard-line incumbent to justify their opposition to President Barack Obama’s tentative steps at rapprochement with the Islamic Republic.
2) Opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and the vast majority of his supporters are strongly nationalist, anti-American, anti-imperialist, and would neither desire nor accept U.S. support.
3) There has been a longstanding Iranian tradition of such largely nonviolent civil insurrections against imperialist powers and autocratic rulers and no outside power is needed to convince the Iranian people to rebel.
- Media , Protest , Resistance , Revolution , Surveillance , Technology , Violence
- Comments(1)
Thanks Stellan for posting the article. One important point in the article is the fact that Iranians have a history of making change despite often internal and external powers who wish the contrary.
It is also interesting to realize what gets censored even on a progressive sites, under the rubrics of name calling, no evidence, conspiracy…
Zunes seems to confuse few things and provide no evidence some of his claims. For example:
Most people on the “left” that are writing on Iran, are not saying that Iranians poured on the streets in response to “outside” calls. Most are writing that outside forces are mingling in Iranian politics, especially those who have a history of not wishing any good for Iranians or any other people in the region.
People on the “left” are not defending Ahmmadenejad. They are critical of the hippocratic governmental statements and media representation in the U.S., Europe and elsehwhere.
The right wing in the U.S. is for chaos in Iran and not with Ahmadenejad. Just watch FOX News and you get the statements of conservatives in the U.S. on the issue.
The main issue that many on the “left” are trying to highlight, is for progressives to be cautious so that not to undermine Iranians who want change, and not allow states and governments in Israel, the U.S. and Europe to hijack the destiny of Iranian people again and again.
Also, it is important to reflect on how such critique/support is payed out, and why such voices seem to be less so clear in their support of peoples’ aspirations when it comes to the issue of Israel/Palestine. When it comes to that issue, many liberals never fail to highlight that there are many sides to the story, not all Israelis are the same…etc., and not all Palestinians are to be supported.
It seems, in the U.S. at least, “liberals” got a new life with the election of Obama, and feel again ok to get back into business of other peoples struggles, under what Mahmood Mamdani calls the “The New Humanitarian Order”, or in other words humanitarian imperialism.