Dr. Terry Lacey

Development Economist

Tay Tian Yan writing in the Sien Chew Daily, Malaysia, accuses Iran of starting a Myanmar style bloody crackdown against protestors “frustrated with the electoral malpractices of the Ahmadinejad administration “with students, workers and women “struggling to break free from the 30 years of bondage in Iran.” (Jakarta Post 23.06.09).

So in Myanmar the West supported protesters who had their election victory taken from them. In Palestine the West stole the election victory from those who voted for Hamas and boycotted a democratically elected government. And in Iran the West is sitting on the fence, with its trousers snagged, because Ahmadinejad won the elections, and the claimed malpractices were not a deciding factor, as the Iranian Guardian Council correctly says, now backed by Russia.( AP and Jakarta Post 2.06.09).

So should the press support propaganda because the readers like the protesters, or truth when it supports the side the readers don’t like ?

Or shall we look at the underlying frustrations about the Iranian Islamic revolution on which the protesters have a strong case, even though a convincing majority of Iranians just voted for the Islamic revolution?

And why would they have voted for Ahmadinejad unless they are stupid, extremists, or forced to cast their ballots for a mad President by his demented henchmen ? And what if none of these are true, and lots of Iranians, the clear majority, had good reasons to vote for him and the Islamic revolution?

Because the Islamic revolution succeeded to include large numbers of poorer, less educated, conservative, traditional Muslims in the benefits of the revolution, although it failed to see the new liberal middle class opposition coming up.

What we are seeing is the collision of these two social forces. This clash has to be reconciled by Iranian political leaders and not used by the West, or any other interested parties, to propel Iran into civil war.

To find out what happened, don’t go to Teheran. They have battened down their hatches and arrested key journalists.

Go instead to the land of the free and ask Uncle Sam what really happened in Iran and get a hint of the replica of the battle of Battle of Teheran being fought out in the US NGOs, foundations and corridors of power.

Ken Ballen is the President of Terror Free Tomorrow, a non profit institute and Patrick Doherty is deputy director at the New America Foundation. Backed by the Rockefellar Brothers Fund they polled 1,001 Iranians by telephone.

What they found was that the strongest supporters for Ahmadinejad were aged 18 to 24. The only group with a clear majority for Mousavi were university students, graduates and the wealthy. The pre-poll majority for Ahmadinejad was 2 to 1.

They concluded, “The fact may simply be that the reelection of President Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people wanted”. (Washington Post 15.06.09).

They also found that 80 percent, including most Ahmadinejad supporters, want the right to elect the supreme leader, that 77 percent want normalized relations with the US and 70 percent favor giving up nuclear weapons, but want peaceful nuclear development, in return for outside aid and investment.

On this last point I misread the report myself the first time I saw it because I read the word “support” and the words “nuclear weapons” and assumed it said they supported nuclear weapons. I fear I made the same mistake as many people over Iran. We are reaching conclusions based on our pre-conceptions and prejudices and not looking carefully enough at the facts.

Seen from Indonesia, the third largest democracy in the world and with the largest Muslim population, the Jakarta Post in an Editorial (23.06.09) advises Iran, from a friend, that:

 “Iran cannot completely reject all global trends and progressions, such as the shift toward democracy the world over.  Otherwise Iran will fall into backwardness, isolated from international development and relations.”

But apparently that’s what Iranians, including Ahmadinejad supporters are trying to say. That’s why they want their elected President to negotiate a new deal with the West, and not to be forced into further isolation by a Western campaign against Iran.

Terry Lacey is a development economist who writes from Jakarta on modernization in the Muslim world, investment and trade relations with the EU and Islamic banking.

terrylacey2003@yahoo.co.uk   

drterry@c4d-info.org   

© Copyright Cooperation for Development (Europe) www.c4d-info.org

Home | Contact us | Links | Archives | Search