Friday, January 8, 2010

Get the popcorn: Iran's "back-off" show is on!

I consider it a tactical "media" back off that reflects regime's fear and recognition of its instability, but I welcome it--albeit VERY cautiously--because at least it is moving us beyond the rhetoric of civil-war that was starting by the Ahmadinejadist/Mesbahists on one side and the radicalist green-pompom shakers on the other.

More of regime's ultra-conservatives are coming out to either pose as defeated and disillusioned--such as Hosseininan (to perhaps give the illusion that the hardliners are going to take the back seat); or to suddenly start talking moderate and acknowledge the "need" for acknowledgement of the opposition--such as the conservative Motahari (who is trying to trivialize the situation as "jealousy" and "stubbornness" resulting from "personal ego"--and not fundamental constitutional flaws that people are protesting to--and is calling for Ahmadinejad to apologize); or Raja News that is trying to "propose" President Khatami as the moderating figure and a front-face to the Greens (attempting to kick Mousavi and KAroubi off the ring); or even donkey-poets and Fars-News favorites such as Alireza Qhazveh, who is protesting to fundamentalists intolerance of Mohsen Rezayee's "solution letter". Even conservative newspapers have suddenly dared to become critical of the Intelligence ministry's intolerance to publication of Mousavi's "solution" statement (#17)!

That the IRIB airs an interview with a leading conservative who is ALSO critical of Ahmadinejad and acknowledges the need for reconciliation with "the people" is significant. One of the first "solution" points suggested by Hashemi in the first Friday prayer after the earliest protest to coup d'etat was that IRIB abandon its biased and single-sided narrative to regain its credibility.

Another softening in the behavior of the IRIB appeared last week when they invited Mohammad Dadkan. Dadkan, the previous head of the Iranian soccer federation who was fired from his position by Ahmadinejad's hand-picked incompetent Sports "minister", Ali-Abadi openly criticized politicization of Iran's sports and made a statement that his highest points in his career were being appointed to his position during the presidency of the reformist President Khatami, and being fired by the incompetent Ali-abadi during Ahmadinejad's regime!

Interestingly, shortly after, Aliabadi made a public statement, acknowledging the politicization of Irans sports and direct meddling of Ahmadinejad in the Sports organization. Almost at the same time, Afshin Ghotbi, the once adored and now hated head soccer coach acknowledged that Iran's once powerful soccer was struggling in political mud!

One other conciliatory gesture is the fact-finding committee's report, indicting 12 individuals as the main perpetrators of the Kahrizak-Prison crimes, and throwing Ahmadinejad's butcher hyena Ghazi Mortazavi in the ring of blame (interestingly reported by government-channel Press TV). Although indictment of Mortazavi is not public yet, but many suspect he will, similar to Saeed Emami, be victimized to save Vali-Faghi's turban. (Good riddance, I would say!)

Nevertheless, the hardliners have not given up! Yesterday, Karoubi was violently attacked in Qazvin, where he attended a private mourning ceremony hosted by a cleric. Today, as he tried to leave Qazvin to not jeopardize the safety of his friends, his car came under gun fire. Despite the "conciliatory" posturing, the harliners are adamantly after Mousavi's and Karoubi's head: implying Ahmadinejad's head for Mousavi+Karoubi's combined--unless they swear allegiance to Imam Khamenei!!

It is not unlikely that Hashemi has entered a pact with his hand-picked pal, Khamenei, to get rid of the "extremists" of their camps, in exchange for a few years longer grip on economic power. However, Mousavi survived both Khamenei and Hashemi to remain in the circle of the fanatic in chief, Khomeini (old pictures of them all). By comparison, Ahmadinejad's a dispensable rookie, especially if he loses IRGC (or Mashayee/Mossad's?!) artillery support! Cognition of his low esteem within the establishment may very well explain his erratic attention-seeking behaviors--posing as the champion of social justice!!!

I am watching nervously. Clearly, I am not the only Iranian who is suspicious of the macabre of the cadaver (the regime) conspiracy! The Iranian's collective vigilance about the regime's tactical moves gives me some comfort; the IRI must handle a much tougher and smarter crowd this time around; they will soon realize that media posturing won't get them too far! They are wrong to think the greens are just virtual propaganda balloons who will deflate with a couple of pokes! There pretense to "reconciliation" doesn't divert our attention from their continued violation of human right abuse--which a few hours ago started aiming at Bahai targets. Notwithstanding their superficiality and lack of ingenuity, I still welcome these conservative's efforts because clearly, they are FORCED by the will of the people to at least try to adopt a "pseudo-democratic" lingo (or at least utter the word freedom!)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

kheili bahali baba shoma. love your posts.

Where does this one fit in this show?

Larijani is defending Rezaei: http://www.ayandenews.com/news/17217/

Publicola said...

»THE MACABRE OF THE CADAVER CONSPIRACY«
[quote from Naj’s blog]

A retrospective view
or
A COMPARISON SHEDS LIGHT ON WHAT HAPPENED IN IRAN IN 2009

RALLIES IN EUROPE 1950 – 2010

During the post-election-rallies in Iran according to opposition-sources 72 people were killed, according to government-sources a reduced figure of 36 is admitted as having been killed.



‘COMMUNIST’ EASTERN BLOC

These figures are quite unusual from a post-war European point of view. If restricting oneself to the period of the last 60 years, major figures of deaths during rallies to be mentioned can usually only be observed in the ‘Communist’ Eastern bloc, when sections of foreign armies (!) were involved in the suppression of the public statement of will by the respective population.

During the uprising in East Germany in 1953 sources mention 55 fatalities.
[“The uprising in Berlin was violently suppressed by tanks of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany and the ‘Volkspolizei’. In spite of the intervention of Soviet troops, the wave of strikes and protests was not easily brought under control. Even after June 17, there were demonstrations in more than 500 towns and villages.”]
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uprising_of_1953_in_East_Germany ) .

During Prague Spring, i.e. the invasion of the Warsaw troops into then Czechoslovakia in 1968 to subdue and finish off the governmental period of political liberalization, 72 humans had been killed.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring#Soviet_reaction )



WESTERN EUROPE

Figures of deaths due to police operations during rallies for the same period are probably minuscule and absolutely not worth mentioning.
My subjective guess amount to a figure below the value of 10 in the whole West-European area.



For the sake of exactitude:
TWO STATISTICAL OUTLIERS / RUNAWAY VALUES


For the indicated period there are however two statistical runaway values / outliers both for the ‘communist’ Eastern bloc and for the Westeuropean area.

‘Communist’ Eastern bloc / HUNGARY
During the Hungarian uprising over 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet troops were killed in the conflict, and 200,000 Hungarians fled as refugees.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956 )



Western Europe / FRANCE
An untypical exception here is, however France at the times of the Algerian anti-colonial struggle, when Algerians – usually not in the possession of French citizenship – were demonstrating in in Paris:
“The Paris massacre of 1961” when under orders from the head of the Parisian police, Maurice Papon, the French police attacked a peaceful but illegal demonstration of some 30,000 Algerians. After 37 years of denial, the French government acknowledged 40 deaths in 1998, although there are estimates of up to 200.
[An aside: Maurice Papon by the way had been convicted for crimes against humanity for his participation in the deportation of over 1600 Jews during World War II when he was secretary general for police of the Prefecture of Bordeaux]
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961 )

Naj said...

IRan doesn't have a ministry of sport; but "sazman-e tarbiat badani" is a vast organization; and sports is a "popular"--hence politically sensitive--medium.

shevy said...

Whenever Iranian sports team represent Iran, they also represent the regime.

This is why it was important to show that they support a movement for change (symbolized by green), because they show that they do not represent the current powerheads of the regime.

Publicola said...

1) Thank you for that interpretation of a confusing unintelligible quantity of informational details, making somehow and to a certain degree comprehensible what is happening in Iranian politics!

This vast amount of different numerous details suggesting background-reasons of these tactical minuscule steps of power-tussles, hagglings, attempts to move into the direction of compromise-like reactions though not really wanting compromises etc. etc. would never be accessible to a non-Iranian, and I honestly doubt, if some (only some?) Iranians inside and outside their country might be able to construe any sense out of the facts.

2) As I found your observations ["some blog-postings of yours ago"] of what was visible and deductible from the videos scrutinized by you highly momentous [i.e. mainly only uniformed members of the ordinary police forces seemed to experience a sort of rough handling on the part of some people demonstrating],
I quoted your observations (with source) [assuming your umspoken approval ??] combined with similar findings from other bloggers & commentators onto) German newspaper-blogs discussing the question of violence and the "green" movement. So thanks again for that particular momentous puzzle-piece of insight as well !


All the best

Publicola

Publicola said...

stylistic correction:

"[assuming your tacit approval??]"

Apology!

Naj said...

Anonymous: jang-e zargari! Larijani's an opportunist; and so is rezai; they are trying to catch fish from mudd!

Friends; somehow i am not getting warning about your comments and so they remain unmoderated. And now, i am not sure about the order of their posting!

I shall trouble-shoot.

Publicola said...

THANKS !