[R-G] Hamid Dabashi on Why Mousavi Couldn't Be an Iranian Obama

[Gregory Meyerson]

yoshie sends interesting articles.  I am grateful for this.  I don't  
understand her strange cherry picking, however.  Let's look at the  
paragraph preceding the one she cites.



An equally important loser in this campaign, though declared its  
winner, is the populist buffoonery of that unsurpassed charlatan  
Ahmadinejad, the bastard son of the Islamist revolution. In his  
demagoguery and fanaticism he represents the most fascistic  
tendencies of the Islamic revolution and republic. All revolutions  
have a dose or two of populism and demagoguery mixed with their  
idealism and high aspirations. What has happened in the Islamic  
revolution is that its innate populism has now been personified in  
one demagogue who seeks to stay in power by manipulating the poor and  
disenfranchised segments of his constituency by fraudulent economic  
policies that gives people fish instead of teaching them how to fish,  
gives governmental subsidies and handouts instead of generating jobs.  
The economic policies of Ahmadinejad have been catastrophic and  
institutionally damaging, causing double-digit inflation and endemic  
unemployment in an oil-based economy at the mercy of global market  
fluctuation far beyond Ahmadinejad's control or comprehension. His  
religious populism and ludicrous claims to divine dispensations is a  
cruel joke on signs and symbols people hold sacred.

The next loser was Mousavi's poorly run presidential campaign -- ill- 
advised, ill-prepared, sentimental, full of necessary colour  
symbolism but lacking substance, a clearly articulated platform,  
economic detail, political programming or an attempt to reach out to  
a wider spectrum of his constituency. His campaign was too elitist,  
tied in its visual paraphernalia to a northern Tehran sensibility and  
lacking appeal across an oil-based economy. His delay in entering the  
race, his to-ing and fro-ing with Mohamed Khatami, suggested poor  
preparation, as did his debate with Ahmadinejad. While Ahmadinejad  
had come with charts and graphs and dossiers, flaunting his lumpen  
demeanour, thinking himself "a man of the people", Mousavi had  
nothing except his gentility to offer. He rambled along, read from  
written statements in a barely audible voice, ran out of things to  
say before his time was over. The problem with the Iranian democratic  
movement is not that it is unable to produce an Obama -- if he is the  
model. Mousavi could have very well been an Iranian Obama. The  
problem is there was no David Axelrod or David Plouffe, what the  
Mousavi campaign desperately needed and sorely lacked. A band of self- 
indulgent Muslim yuppies surround him with not an idea of how to  
reach his multiple constituencies

On Jun 27, 2009, at 9:33 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

> A little over ten days ago, Hamid Dabashi was saying that "Mir-Hossein
> Mousavi has the make up of an Iranian Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther
> King Jr. in him" (at
> <http://www.hamiddabashi.com/election-june-2009-a.html>).  Now he says
> Mousavi "sorely lacked" an Iranian "David Axelrod or David Plouffe."
> :-0
> Yoshie
>
> <http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/953/op121.htm>
> People power
> The Iranian elections show that the people's democratic will can no
> longer be held in, writes Hamid Dabashi
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>
> The next loser was Mousavi's poorly run presidential campaign --
> ill-advised, ill-prepared, sentimental, full of necessary colour
> symbolism but lacking substance, a clearly articulated platform,
> economic detail, political programming or an attempt to reach out to a
> wider spectrum of his constituency. His campaign was too elitist, tied
> in its visual paraphernalia to a northern Tehran sensibility and
> lacking appeal across an oil-based economy. His delay in entering the
> race, his to-ing and fro-ing with Mohamed Khatami, suggested poor
> preparation, as did his debate with Ahmadinejad. While Ahmadinejad had
> come with charts and graphs and dossiers, flaunting his lumpen
> demeanour, thinking himself "a man of the people", Mousavi had nothing
> except his gentility to offer. He rambled along, read from written
> statements in a barely audible voice, ran out of things to say before
> his time was over. The problem with the Iranian democratic movement is
> not that it is unable to produce an Obama -- if he is the model.
> Mousavi could have very well been an Iranian Obama. The problem is
> there was no David Axelrod or David Plouffe, what the Mousavi campaign
> desperately needed and sorely lacked. A band of self-indulgent Muslim
> yuppies surround him with not an idea of how to reach his multiple
> constituencies.
>
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