Wishful Thinking from Tehran

[Lydia Leftcoast]

This article suggests that Iran has an urban-rural divide like ours, and that Ahmedinajab may have won on the strength of the rural districts:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/13/iranian-election

I have been in Iran for exactly one week covering the 2009 Iranian election carnival. Since I arrived, few here doubted that the incumbent firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad would win. My airport cab driver reminded me that the president had visited every province twice in the last four years – "Iran isn't Tehran," he said. Even when I asked Mousavi supporters if their man could really carry more than capital, their responses were filled with an Obamasque provisional optimism – "Yes we can", "I hope so", "If you vote." So the question occupying the international media, "How did Mousavi lose?" seems to be less a problem of the Iranian election commission and more a matter of bad perception rooted in the stubborn refusal to understand the role of religion in Iran.



As far as international media coverage is concerned, it seems that wishful thinking got the better of credible reporting. It is true that Mousavi supporters jammed Tehran traffic for hours every night over the last week, though it was rarely mentioned that they did so only in the northern well-to-do neighborhoods of the capital. Women did relax their head covers and young men did dance in the street.

On Monday night at least 100,000 of the former prime minister's supporters set up a human chain across Tehran. But, hours before I had attended a mass rally for the incumbent president that got little to no coverage in the western press because, on account of the crowds, he never made it inside the hall to give his speech. Minimal estimates from that gathering have been placed at 600,000 (enthusiasts say a million). From the roof I watched as the veiled women and bearded men of all ages poured like lava.


Perhaps from the start Mousavi was destined to fail as he hoped to combine the articulate energies of the liberal upper class with the business interests of the bazaar merchants. The Facebook campaigns and text-messaging were perfectly irrelevant for the rural and working classes who struggle to make a day's ends meet, much less have the time to review the week's blogs in an internet cafe. Although Mousavi tried to appeal to such classes by addressing the problems of inflation and poverty, they voted otherwise.

Western media are naturally going to be sympathetic to Mousavi, but as I mentioned on another thread, just because there are demonstrations in Tehran doesn't mean that people in the rest of the country are equally unhappy.

It wouldn't be the first time that reporters who don't know the language, don't know the culture, and never set foot outside the Westernized neighborhoods failed to understand what is going on in a non-Western country and just concentrated on the surface. The prime example would be the journalists who believed that the Shah of Iran was popular because he spoke good English and encouraged Westernization and were astonished at the massive support for Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.

[aquart]

1. Bull cookies.

Kinda like the Miracle of the Religious Bigots that was supposed to have carried our George to victory?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. And your inside information on Iran is...?

If you've ever seen Iranian films, you know that the country outside of the large cities is stuck in the nineteenth century.

[regnaD kciN]

12. If that were what happened...

a) You'd see a big divide in the reported votes from the urban and rural districts. Instead, Ahmedinajad "won" big virtually everywhere, including the big cities and hometowns of his opponents. As someone pointed out on 538.com, it's as if, in 2004, Bush had been reported as winning NYC and San Francisco.

b) You'd have still seen the same pattern of vote-reporting as in previous elections, i.e. a long pause before the first, rural results trickled in. This time, virtually as soon as the polls closed, election officials reported they'd already counted 40% of the vote nationwide, with the incumbent holding a 2:1 advantage.

[aquart]

14. Yep. If you can't smell a coup with that, then you're holding your nose.

Or you have really bad allergies and you're all stuffed up.

[MADem]

16. The vast majority of the population, though, is concentrated in the cities.

Teheran, of course, Tabriz, Kerman, Mashad, Shiraz, Esfahan, etc....the countryside is sparsely populated.

I'm sorry--I don't buy this guy's assertions. I was in Iran during the revolution, and the images I am seeing on my computer today are very familiar to me, they are bringing up memories I had long forgotten--only the street violence this time is much more brutal. The shah intimidated with tanks and soldiers. There was some gunplay, and it was frightening, mostly sniper action, but you were at greater risk of being shot by the pasaradan on rooftops, sowing terror, than you were by a soldier.

These very intimate, very personal beat-downs are horrific. And there's FEAR behind them, too--the thugs know damn well they're stealing something. That's why they use way too much force.

[DJ13]

2. Nothing to see, just move on

That is the worst form of journalism I have seen since Florida in 2000.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. You don't believe it because it contradicts CNN?

:shrug:

Believe it or not, sometimes people in other countries like leaders that Americans don't like.

[DJ13]

5. No, it doesnt contradict CNN

Its obvious the writer went into to Iran expecting to see a reelection, so he wont admit its likely that election fraud took place.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. So a guy named Abbas Barzegar (an Iranian name)

who can speak Farsi and talk to anyone on the street isn't capable of figuring out what's going on, as opposed to a bunch of Western journalists who are dependent on the English-speaking elites to find out what's going on?

There may have been election fraud. On the other hand, maybe the Western journalists were talking to only a small segment of the population. I wonder how many of them went into the small towns and villages to interview voters. Iran is a large country.

I'm not saying there wasn't election fraud, but reporters who don't speak the local language are easily fooled by English-speaking elites.

[MADem]

17. Christiane Amanpour is fluent in Farsi. She's half-n-half.

Her father was a bigwig with Iran Air and she spent her childhood in Teheran.

She doesn't use the language in interviews on camera, but she's entirely familiar with the language, culture and nation.

[Flabbergasted]

9. .

[rpannier]

6. Actually I don't believe it for a few reasons

1. It contradicts everything that had been written by Al-Arabiya, Al-Jazeera, and other news organizations that operate in the area.

2. The 60+% numbers they gave are impossible for him to have achieved

3. The Iranian Government reports he won the provinces of his rivals -- all four of them -- often by outrageously high totals

4. They counted those votes at a rate of almost 5 million an hour -- which as you point out how remote many of these areas are -- is virtually impossible.

[Flabbergasted]

7. I agree for the most part. It is not as though things have gotten worse under the current president

I can imagine him winning. Maybe not.

This protest, and western media campaign, seems like just the sort of the thing we would have set up to undermine Tehran. Well doesn't it? Be honest. No we don't like Ahmedinejad but win or lose it is not our choice.

IOW...us in the US have no fucking clue who won and could be and likely are sheeple to the propaganda of our media.

[rpannier]

10. Not with the numbers they're reporting

[tabatha]

11. Things have actually gotten worse under the current president.

And in the last election, he barely won - so to win by a landslide makes no sense, especially with the higher turnout.
70% of the population are youngsters, and want their "freedom".
So, I agree "bull cookies".

By the way, read Juan Cole who has enormous credibility, knowledge and smarts:
http://www.juancole.com/

[aquart]

15. 85% turnout? Not to confirm an incumbent.

That turnout is to throw the bastards out.

[tabatha]

19. agreed

[MADem]

18. Under the Dinner Jacket, they've rationed gasoline (because they lack

refining capacity) which is causing a real hardship for some people, inflation is RAMPANT--worse than we have ever seen here, ever--and the Morality Police are cracking down on everything from unchaste behavior to immodest dress--and that includes boys in tee shirts. No, I am not joking.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, too. Things are getting more authoritarian and more sacrifice is being demanded.

[Rhiannon12866]

13. Well, I did hear, before the election, that Ahmedinejad did have support in rural districts.

Apparently he directed a lot of money their way, subsidies and the like. But that doesn't mean that he received a majority of the votes. We may never know. I found myself wishing that Jimmy Carter was overseeing this election, then realized how improbable and ironic that this would be... :-(