[R-G] Would MLK Back Iran's Protesters?

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

<http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6270>
Would MLK Back Iran's Protesters?

Rostam Pourzal | July 16, 2009

Combine Iran's post-election turmoil with the controversy over the
nation's nuclear advances, and few Americans are likely to be
unsympathetic toward the opposition movement there. Some bloggers have
even suggested that the reformist-led protests are inspired by the
teachings of Martin Luther King, Jr. Several commentators have
referred to the wave of anti-theocracy rallies as Iran's "civil rights
movement, perhaps implying that the social conservatives who rule the
country resemble Mississippi fundamentalists.

Reese Erlich and others have reported that the insurrection now
sweeping Iran spans class divisions. Middle East expert Stephen Zunes,
in supporting the Iranian opposition, has written that "[h]istorically
individuals and groups with experience in effective mass nonviolent
mobilization tend to come from the left."

But the Iranian reformist minority's proudly argued definition of
anti-poverty action is a Reaganesque, business-friendly policy
presumed to "lift all boats." Accordingly, the movement openly aims to
overturn affirmative action programs and other "unfair benefits"
enjoyed by less privileged Iranians. Judging by its literature, the
opposition defends primarily the interests of Iranians who either aim
for or already enjoy white-collar status. More often than not, this
constituency has felt betrayed by the Islamic Republic for three
decades.

Since Ahmadinejad was first elected in 2005, Iran's investor,
academic, and professional interest groups, including numerous
clerics, have complained bitterly that the president has bypassed them
to go straight to the grassroots on his wildly popular monthly
provincial tours. Ahmadinejad's first provocation after he took office
was to auction the luxury presidential jet ordered by his reformist
predecessor, Mohammad Khatami.
Entitlements and Perceptions

Testimony that the current unrest is, among other things, a backlash
against government services to have-nots comes from none other than
the opposition's iconic leader himself. In gleeful remarks carried on
July 5 online by the pro-reform daily Emruz, Mir Hossein Mousavi told
a gathering of sympathetic academics, "Our society is quite different
from what it was six months ago…The middle class has achieved a
consciousness that, if channeled properly, is very constructive…The
current [Ahmadinejad] administration has no plans for this class and
the situation is hopeless."

In an opinion survey, funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund three
weeks before the recent elections, pollsters Ballen and Doherty found
that the "only demographic groups in which our survey found Mousavi
leading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and
graduates, and the highest-income Iranians." Mousavi's most
influential backer is industrialist and former president, Hashemi
Rafsanjani, who is best known for pushing privatization and
deregulation packaged as "citizen empowerment." Rafsanjani ran against
Ahmadinejad and lost by a wide margin four years ago. Mousavi has not
distanced himself from Rafsanjani's overt hostility to government
spending on subsidies and social welfare, which is expressed in a
language similar to right-wing denunciations of "welfare queens" in
the United States. Martin Luther King, Jr. would not likely approve of
such a position.

Ervand Abrahamian, a world authority on modern Iranian history and
known critic of the theocracy, recently attributed the longevity of
the Islamic Republic to its constituent services and subsidies. In an
article in Middle East Report, Abrahamian examined and dismissed other
common explanations, including intimidation and the use of force
against government opponents. If Abrahamian's analysis is accurate, it
can explain the reluctance of a large sector of the Iranian society to
throw away the baby (social programs) with the bathwater (morality
police). Nevertheless, another candidate among the three who
challenged Ahmadinejad this spring, Mohsen Rezaei, denounces the
incumbent's spending on the infrastructure needs of common folks as
"communism" and calls for "radical surgery" on the economy so as to
please investors.

The solution offered by a third candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, for the
ever-growing cost of college education is only slightly less
cold-hearted. Noting that tuition at private institutions is
burdensome for most families, he promised student loans for all if
elected. He could have instead called for an expansion of Iran's
superior state university system, which costs students nothing. But
that would have been politically unfeasible, because the opposition's
patron saint, Rafsanjani, is a cofounder and fiercest defender of the
country's largest chain of private colleges.

The opposition's insensitivity toward less affluent Iranians has gone
unnoticed in the Western media, including the left-leaning press. They
often prefer characterizations like "fundamentalist" and "enlightened"
in describing the candidates. That leaves our pundits free to describe
the opposition as a civil rights movement.

The stereotypes are pervasive as much as they are misleading. A major
achievement of the U.S. civil rights movement was to teach African
Americans that they were intelligent and "black is beautiful." King
and his associates worked tirelessly to persuade people of color to
believe in themselves as equals to whites. In Iran, the public hears
this message of equality (with the West) over and over from the
Ahmadinejad camp, as it celebrates Iran's industrial achievements and
independent foreign policy. By contrast, the Iranian youth who
notoriously opt by the thousands for aesthetic nose surgery for a
Hollywood look are predominantly from the ranks of Mousavi supporters.
In hundreds of conversations with this constituency, which includes
virtually all of my Iranian friends, I consistently hear contempt for
the blue-collar and rural voters courted by Ahmadinejad.

Reformist leaders deserve credit for promoting equal opportunity for
women. Mousavi has even distinguished himself by calling for cultural
rights for Iran's numerous ethnic minorities. But since they don't
target poverty and elite corruption and cost next to nothing, these
sincere "civil society" initiatives are poor substitutes for Iran's
welfare state. A true civil rights movement would demand expanded
affirmative action for all marginalized Iranians.
Local Bully, Global Aggressors

The Iranians who risk arrest and worse to challenge social
restrictions and the apparent re-election of President Ahmadinejad
deserve praise for their dissent. The abuse they suffer has drawn
support from Bon Jovi, U2, and Joan Baez. But they do not speak for
the truly voiceless, as a civil rights movement by definition should.