[lbo-talk] Juan Cole: preliminary reactions to the Iranian vote totals

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sun Jun 14 19:42:54 PDT 2009


On Sun, 14 Jun 2009, KJ wrote:


> if cole is right, that the "culture wars" have been the central issue of
> the past decade

I think the post you are referencing here is worth posting in its entirety:

http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/class-v-culture-wars-in-iranian.html

Informed Comment Sunday, June 14, 2009

Class v. Culture Wars in Iranian Elections: Rejecting Charges of a North Tehran Fallacy

Some comentators have suggested that the reason Western reporters were

shocked when Ahmadinejad won was that they are based in opulent North

Tehran, whereas the farmers and workers of Iran, the majority, are

enthusiastic for Ahmadinejad. That is, we fell victim once again to

upper middle class reporting and expectations in a working class

country of the global south.

While such dynamics may have existed, this analysis is flawed in the

case of Iran because it pays too much attention to class and material

factors and not enough to Iranian culture wars. We have already seen,

in 1997 and 2001, that Iranian women and youth swung behind an obscure

former minister of culture named Mohammad Khatami and his 2nd of

Khordad movement, capturing not only the presidency but also, in 2000,

parliament.

Khatami received 70 percent of the vote in 1997. He then got 78% of the

vote in 2001, despite a crowded field. In 2000, his reform movement

captured 65% of the seats in parliament. He is a nice man, but you

couldn't exactly categorize him as a union man or a special hit with

farmers.

The evidence is that in the past little over a decade, Iran's voters

had become especially interested in expanding personal liberties, in

expanding women's rights, and in a wider field of legitimate expression

for culture (not just high culture but even just things like Iranian

rock music). The extreme puritanism of the hardliners grated on people.

The problem for the reformers of the late 1990s and early 2000s was

that they did not actually control much, despite holding elected

office. Important government policy and regulation was in the hands of

the unelected, clerical side of the government. The hard line clerics

just shut down reformist newspapers, struck down reformist legislation,

and blocked social and economic reform. The Bush administration was

determined to hang Khatami out to dry, ensuring that the reformers

could never bring home any tangible success in foreign policy or

foreign investment. Thus, in the 2004 parliamentary elections,

literally thousands of reformers were simply struck off the ballot and

not allowed to run. This application of a hard line litmus test in

deciding who could run for office produced a hard line parliament,

naturally enough.

But in 2000, it was clear that the hard liners only had about 20% of

the electorate on their side.

By 2005, the hard liners had rolled back all the reforms and the reform

camp was sullen and defeated. They did not come out in large numbers

for the reformist candidate, Karoubi, who only got 17 percent of the

vote. They nevertheless were able to force a run-off between hard line

populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former president Akbar Hashemi

Rafsanjani, a pragmatic conservative billionaire. Ahmadinejad won.

But Ahmadinejad's 2005 victory was made possible by the widespread

boycott of the vote or just disillusionment in the reformist camp,

meaning that fewer youth and women bothered to come out.

So to believe that the 20% hard line support of 2001 has become 63% in

2009, we would have to posit that Iran is less urban, less literate and

less interested in cultural issues today than 8 years ago. We would

have to posit that the reformist camp once again boycotted the election

and stayed home in droves.

No, this is not a north Tehran/ south Tehran issue. Khatami won by big

margins despite being favored by north Tehran.

So observers who want to lay a guilt trip on us about falling for

Mousavi's smooth upper middle class schtick are simply ignoring the

last 12 years of Iranian history. It was about culture wars, not class.

It is simply not true that the typical Iranian voter votes conservative

and religious when he or she gets the chance. In fact, Mousavi is

substantially more conservative than the typical winning politician in

2000. Given the enormous turnout of some 80 percent, and given the

growth of Iran's urban sector, the spread of literacy, and the obvious

yearning for ways around the puritanism of the hard liners, Mousavi

should have won in the ongoing culture war.

And just because Ahmadinejad poses as a champion of the little people

does not mean that his policies are actually good for workers or

farmers or for working class women (they are not, and many people in

that social class know that they are not).

So let that be an end to the guilt trip. The Second of Khordad Movement

was a winning coalition for the better part of a decade. Its supporters

are 8 years older than the last time they won, but it was a young

movement. Did they all do a 180 and defect from Khatami to Ahmadinejad?

Unlikely. The Iranian women who voted in droves for Khatami haven't

gone anywhere, and they did not very likely much care for Ahmadinejad's

stances on women's issues:

<snip>

Mir Hosain Mousavi was a plausible candidate for the reformists. They

were electing people like him with 70 and 80 percent margins just a few

years ago. We have not been had by the business families of north

Tehran. We've much more likely been had by a hard line constituency of

at most 20% of the country, who claim to be the only true heirs of the

Iranian revolution, and who control which ballots see the light of day.

posted by Juan Cole @ 6/14/2009 12:39:00 AM



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