>
> I forwarded these comments to Hamid, who writes:
>
> thanks doug for the interview--my assessment of M's economics is based on
>> what he has done, not on what he might do--if he is elected and he becomes a
>> neoliberal i will write against him (but i just read that he and his wife
>> have been arrested)--i am fully aware of his past regarding the tudeh and
>> the university and have repeatedly pointed out to them as "nasty skeletons
>> in his closet"--as for MLK comparison, this is based on my reading of this
>> event as a civil rights movement, and not as the sort of jerk-off
>> revolutions that your responder seems to enjoy and has prompted him to think
>> me silly--i might indeed be silly in my assessment, but not delusional like
>> he/she is--
>
>
Hamid is talking out of his amply furnished fundament, I'm afraid.
1) Mousavi has explicitly expressed his neoliberal priorities - thus much really isn't a matter of controversy. There is no need to wait and see what he might do, because he has said what he intends to do. To call him a 'socialist' in these circumstances based on 'what he has done' *two decades ago* when he was a centre-left PM with strong support from the 'Islamic Left' in the Majles is, I am afraid, silly.
2) Of course this movement has the makings of a civil right movement, and possibly more besides. That does not mean that Mousavi has the makings of a Martin Luther King (or even, as Dabashi also suggested, a Nelson Mandela). Hamid Dabashi states that he is aware of the "nasty skeletons" in Mousavi's closet (ie when he was part of the state that was outlawing and executing opponents). I didn't doubt that for a second. But since this is so, the claim that Mousavi could potentially be comparable to MLK or Mandela, in either his substantive politics or his role, seems even more outlandish.
Really. If he's going to be abusive, he might as well aim for coherence while he's about it.