Tweets via The Dish:
Tonight, the roar Allah Akbar and all the cities of Tehran was long
But a sobering first-hand account in this week’s Die Zeit by Navid Kermani. Here’s a fast and loose translation of the last paragraph:
On the plane back I’m amazed about the euphoric tone of the commentary in the international papers, which extoll the demonstrators. It may be meant well, but ignores the fact that the opposition doesn’t stand a chance in the face of this overmighty and violent security apparatus. At this point the Revolutionary Guard has not even been let loose. Even if – but how? – the protests somehow are continued and hundreds of thousands or millions take to the streets again just as before the Supreme Leader’s Friday Prayer, then there could be a backstage revolt in Tehran or Qom. If not, it won’t be the jurists calling the shots from hereon, but batons, water canons and rifles.
On MSN Messenger yesterday my father was similarly amazed at some of the commentary I quoted (he also chortled at the fact that The Guardian had ditched its Iran Live Blog for a Michael Jackson Live Blog – it’s all about clicking those ads nowadays, isn’t it?).
Meanwhile, here’s Kermani’s colleague Ulricht Ladurner in the same edition of Die Zeit:
At the moment the regime might have brought the streets back under its control, but there have been surprises, not least the fact that Mir Husein Mussavi, the defeated presidential candidate who sees himself as the legitimate winner of the election, is ignoring the commands of the Supreme Leader. Khamenei demanded an end to the demonstrations, but Mussavi called on the people to continue taking to the streets and demand justice. This “refusal to obey orders” [sic] is remarkable. Mussavi is a child of the revolution and a friend of the system he finds himself now in opposition to. This is a new development – and could be the beginning of significant change.
Or the fact that as of now the revolution is going to devour its own children. I think we’re back to reading tea leaves.
June 27, 2009 at 12:40 pm
This is all so very sad. I briefly had my hopes up that things might change in Iran. What really appals me, however, are the responses on “the left” – some of the Guardian baloney that Norm had written about, but also the kind of stuff you get to read in the left bloggosphere. This article in Spiegel has some truly disturbing information:
http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,632499,00.html
June 27, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Things will change, they have to, even if it will take longer than one might wish. But the population is too well-educated, too pluralistic and too dissatisfied to tolerate the type of society the current regime envisions. I’m keeping my hopes up.
That Reinhard Mohr article is scary. I just don’t get it. What is it with this Che Guevera complex?
June 27, 2009 at 3:44 pm
There’s a lot of primitive thought around on the left side of the political spectrum (and not only in extreme circles, like Die Linke: simple binarisms, juvenile Freund-Feind schemata, a truly reductive understanding of power (Das System, das System ….).
To tell you the truth, I don’t know whom to vote for this year. The SPD is getting more and more ridiculous by the day. And ever since I heard Volker Beck speak about genetics like a Vatican press officer even the Greens have become inacceptable.
June 27, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Did you see this?
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/26/746990/-Galloway:-Khameneis-British-mouthpiece
June 28, 2009 at 10:23 am
1) I don’t envy your dilemma come September. You can’t even not vote, lest Munte will sternly tell you off.
It’s obviously not my place to dispense with advice. I’m nudging my girlfriend to change allegiance from the Greens to the FDP just this one time. As a tactical vote. Four years of Schwarz-Gelb would allow the SPD to get its house in order. Besides, given the recession and the budget deficit there isn’t much any coalition can do that might endear it to the public. Why not let the nasties of the centre-right take the blame for the ensuing cuts and allow a centre-left government to pick up where they left off in four years time?
It’s one argument. Arguably, not the best.
2) Yes, I found it via the HuffPo Live Blog on Iran. He is an odd one, isn’t he? Honestly, shouldn’t any connection between the religious and anyone calling himself a Marxist be anathama? How does one justify it to oneself?
July 1, 2009 at 6:58 pm
[...] Iran commentary from Ario (dated 6/27). Not the best [...]