Meanwhile, a revolution unfolds in Iran

Andrew Sullivan: "The cries of freedom. They bring tears to my eyes and hope to my soul. The sound: it makes every human stop in their tracks and demand that this vicious oppression end."

Police in Iran shot at protesters today, killing at least 10, including the nephew of a prominent opposition leader. Today is the holiday of Ashura, a sacred observance in the Muslim calendar which honors the martyrdom of the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. More: New York Times, BBC, and a statement of condemnation from the White House. Times Online: Is this Iran's Berlin Wall moment? I'm following Cyrus Farivar on Twitter for English-language pointers to updates, please share other links in the comments.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Anonymous

“Is this Iran’s Berlin Wall moment?”

No, for two reasons.

One, the Soviets (and by extension, the East German government) had thankfully lost the will to punish its citizenry for trying to escape to the West, a move that was seen as a pressure-relief valve for internal crises. The Iranian government is all to eager to crack down mercilessly on those who don’t toe the government line. Iran is still under Stalin, not Gorbachev.

Secondly, encouragement from outside Iran is tepid at best. There is no Reagan calling for an equivalent “Iranian Wall” to be dismantled; instead we have a President who spent his first year in office ignoring the most turbulent period in the Islamic Republic’s history and choosing dialog with its thugocracy instead of the people in the street.

I would love to see a democratic Iran emerge from the dysfunctional mess it is in now. But it ain’t gonna happen all by itself. Look at Iraq, for example: even in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein was at his weakest, there was no serious uprising, no coup, no indigenous push towards democracy.

Thanks for continuing to cover this. I just wish more of the so-called “professional” media would as well.
Nadreck

The Persians are one of the truly great people of the world – every single one that I’ve ever met has impressed the hell out of me. I wish I could think that they’ll therefore get through this Ok but technology would seem to make this unlikely. If the regime doesn’t get 100% of its own way %100 or the time it will probably just start using its newly minted nuclear bombs against its own populace and blame it on Jews and Yanks.
Avram / Moderator

Jaytkay @2, so what? Does Sullivan having been wrong about Iraq six years ago mean he must be wrong about everything else?

My friend Jim Henley wrote earlier this year (see ct #10 in that thread):

The really good bloggers, as opposed to me, produce a lot of material, and based in their moment-to-moment reactions and understandings. They will and should contradict themselves. Then they will and should go back and grapple with the contradictions. That’s why Sully, god love ‘em, is the best practitioner of our art. He posts too damn much, he gets caught up in foolish enthusiasms and writes things he regrets and needs to walk back. But he fucking means it. Blogging is not about carefully hewing to even one’s own line.
- mdh
  
  I can’t disagree, because that says exactly what I believe about him, he has a record of enthusiastic wrongheadedness on regional issues. Let him be heard, of course, but not first or last.
- jaytkay
  
  RE:
  
  [Andrew Sullivan] posts too damn much, he gets caught up in foolish enthusiasms and writes things he regrets and needs to walk back…
  
  Agreed. Sullivan writes like a twelve-year old on Twitter. His fatuous twaddle does not deserve attention or respect.
Anonymous

It is too bad that our president is on the wrong side in this conflict. He has said nothing to encourage the protestors, or to show them that we will help them or support them if they overthrow the regime, but has time and again offered his hand to Ahmadinijad. It has been said that when Ronald Reagan gave his “tear down the wall” speech, it gave great inspiration to the Russian people. Where is Obama’s support for freedom and justice? For that matter, where is his support for OUR freedom and justice?…….
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  It is too bad that our president is on the wrong side in this conflict.
  
  Believe it or not, much of the world’s population considers an endorsement from the US to be evidence of treason. Or demonic possession. We’ve intervened in Iranian politics before. That’s a major factor in why they have their current government. If we hadn’t propped up the Shah and his father, there’s a half decent chance that Iran would be a model democracy today.
  - querent
    
    Note that we did not just prop up the Shah. We deposed of his predecessor, Mossaddeq, in the CIA’s first successful overthrow of a democratically elected leader in 1953.
mdh

You know, this scene from today is pretty impressive.

LiveLeak has a lot of videos coming in from Iran apparently.
Ito Kagehisa

Perhaps you are right about the final outcome, toyg, but I doubt it. I think it’ll be “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” when the dust finally settles.

But I am not relying on others’ analyses, and I’ve disagreed with every analysis I’ve seen so far of the post-election violence (as well as subsequent events, such as Iran recently seizing control of disputed areas on the Iran/Iraq border).

It seems like a lot of people outside Iran are projecting their hopes of what should or might happen there on events that are completely disconnected from their fantasies.
2nd Palmer

When Obama invades Iran, He’ll site the Iranian governments treatment of these protesters as part of the reason why.
The U.S. government will spin the invasion as a liberation of the oppressed Iranian people from a tyrannical government. Thats why there was such a tepid response from the U.S during the first round of student protests. The protesters have to be crushed bloodily for the U.S. to pretend the invasion is a ride to the rescue.
They don’t want the Iranians to succeed on their own.

The truth is that Iraq and Iran sit on most of the remaining oil, and there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that the U.S. is ever going to pull out of Iraq.
I expect we’ll put down deep roots in Iran as well, and I doubt we’ll leave until either the empire crumbles, or the last drop of oil is pumped out of the ground.

I’m not in favor of any of this, of course. It just appears to me to be the most likely course of events.
watson

Meanwhile the military dictatorship in Honduras continues to oppress the people, and the US media ignores it.
grimc

F*ck Reagan. For everybody trending towards the “Gee, if Ronnie was in charge” line, please to remember that it was during St. Bonzo’s administration that the Iranian theocracy cemented its power. Jaysus.
- aluxeterna
  
  right on. F*ck Reagan indeed. And those who think that Reagan’s “tear down” speech was any sort of turning point in the Cold War hasn’t bothered to look beyond the US media. Grandstanding, pure and simple. And not a good model for what we should be doing now.
Anonymous

I, as an Iranian, appreciate your attention to our current situation. Unfortunetly we are dealing with dark days in history of my country and as much as world. I wish sooner we reach peace by replacing this terrorist group with a new government that would work for their own nation beside help of other nations of world.
We need your support, your prays for our success. I am very optimistic about future,
God bless us, you and mankind.
jjasper

The NY Times notes that there was also a political assassination in all of the tumult. A man who’s the nephew of a French based opposition group got ran down by and SUV and shot at close range by government thugs. The family was ordered not to have a funeral.

Khamenei and Ahmadinejad are trying as hard as they can to beat out Kim Yong-il, Robert Mugabe and the military leadership of Burma for sheer bloody bastard tyranny.
IWood

“White House condemns “unjust” actions in Iran”

Issued by National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer. It’ll be interesting to see what happens…he could get reined in, there could be further statements, or this could be the extent of it.
Teapunk

Definetely not a “Berlin Wall Moment”. As Anonymous said before, the demonstrations in Berlin were non-violent and while the possibility of a “Chinese solution” (tanks, military) was discussed, it fortunately never happened.
The police in Iran do not hesitate to open fire and are fully in favour of the Chinese solution – this modus operandi works so well in Tibet, no? And in Myanmar. And Xinjiang.
- noahz
  
  …and Bucharest?
Ito Kagehisa

Which pro-theocratic jingoistic thugs am I supposed to be rooting for again?

Is it the dictator Khamenei and the populist demogogue Ahmadinejad, an established pair of jingoistic thugs who won the election just as everyone with a two brain cells to rub together expected them to? I suspect there were far more voting irregularities in the US elections than in the Iranian ones. I’ve noticed that incumbent populist demagogues are rarely defeated in elections.

Or is it Rafsanjani, believed to be the richest man in the world, and Mousavi, personal friend of the Ayatollah Khomenei and extreme authoritarian hardliner? There’s an unlikely pair! A man noted for corruption and pandering to western business interests and a man noted for intolerance of dissent during his tenure as Prime Minister 20 years ago… both of whom have always been completely supportive of religious dictatorship.

I can only see one difference between them; Rafsanjani wants expanded trade so he’s in favor of toning down Ahmedinejad’s toothless anti-Israeli, anti-western rhetoric. Khamenei wants to retain his hold on power and stop the wholesale diversion of Iran’s oil revenues into Rafsanjani’s Swiss accounts, so he does not want Rafsanjani to achieve political power again.

That’s it. I can’t see any other difference between the factions. No “cries for freedom” or “democracy” from either side, they both openly believe in Islamic theocratic supremacy above all representative government.

The students and demonstrators are puppets, exploited for their natural tendency to raise hell. Whoever wins, they lose.

What Iran needs is a third faction. Don’t hold your breath, you might turn blue.
Anonymous

We support Iranian people to fight for freedom!
a friend from China
Rindan

I really don’t see this as a “Berlin” moment because I think that the government of Iran is willing to do the horrific things it takes to put down a democratic movement. Democratic revolutions against a state that is willing to go “all the way” are extremely rare. In fact, I can’t think of a single one off of the top of my head. Where we have seen democratic revolutions work there are generally one of two conditions. Either the state balks at sending in the army (or a militia) to kill protesters, or the revolution was really a nationalist revolution against either a colonial power or ruling ethnic class.

The post Soviet democracies all won their freedom after their respective states balked at using the full power of the state to mow down protesters. The Americans and various colonies around the world that achieved democracy against colonial power were all victorious not on the strength of their desire for democracy, but on nationalistic fever burning to kick out a ‘foreign’ colonial or ethnic government.

Democracy can be nice, but people just generally are not willing to wage civil war over it. It takes either a government that backs down in the face of popular protest or some other nationalistic motivation to kick the people into violent revolution mode. I just don’t see the type of nationalistic drive in the protesters that might make them resist even if the Iranian state stops restraining itself and moves in to crush them.

I hope I am wrong. I hope the government of Iran either isn’t willing to go all of the way or that the protesters are large enough and strong enough to resist a full on government crack down, but I just don’t see it. I think the Iranian government is going to send the various religious militias, the army is going to stand aside, and a few hundred or a few thousand people are going to be mowed down or disappeared, and the protests will come to an end.
- BrianF
  
  The only revolution I can think of that didn’t involve kicking out a colonial power or an ethnic group is the French Revolution, 1789. A large part of the cause of the revolution was a bankrupt government. Oops, isn’t that almost the situation in the US now.
  - noahz
    
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Revolution_of_1989
Anonymous

Nadrek,

You say the Persians are “truly great” and then predict their government would use nukes on their own people.

The Iranian government is composed of Persians. Think about that. They are not some alien species superimposed on the nation.

And Brian F, crack open a history book. You’ll find many, many revolutions that weren’t against colonial governments, or ethnic groups. Russia, Great Britain, Argentina, Mexico, Argentina, Turkey, Spain, Argentina, Honduras, China…
Willie McBride

A Berlin Wall moment? More likely a Berlin 1953 moment.

It’s going to end like two years ago in Myanmar, the government will decide that it’s enough and it will crack down on the protesters.

The revolution is not a dinner party, unless a significant portion of the army or of the security forces will decide soon to back the protesters, in a year the current government will still be in power and our western media will be full of tearjerkers on the heroic victims of the repression.
Anonymous

our old dinosaur media covered this for about 5 minutes after constant sites covering the sham, and are again not covering this at all.

I wish the US was significantly more supportive of democracy but hey, why do something when a bunch of corrupt politicians can act like it never existed? I don’t blame Obama, I blame the US political system as a whole.

/sarcasm.
Anonymous

The Iranian regime appears to have all the power, but the Iranian people have won such victories before (as well as losing some, e.g., Mossadegh). Khomenei did not “defeat” the Shah – the Shah’s political and military support melted away.

I wonder what Iranian soldiers are thinking about today?

I wish the leaders of Iran’s Intifada well, just as I wish those fighting for Palestinian freedom well.

If the people in the street do win, we will of course still have a proud Iran to deal with. Iran will still want the ability to defend itself against nuclear Israel. Iran will still want to be treated with respect and to play an increasingly prominent role in the Mideast, which will require certain US adjustments that will go down hard in Washington. But perhaps both sides will prove willing to bend a little and avoid regional disaster.
toyg

Ito Kagehisa, aren’t you a bit a stuck on the analysis of the original post-election demos ?

Rafsanjani and Mousavi might have started the fire for their own motives, but it’s now bigger than that. It’s slowly degenerating in full-on civil war. The more time passes, the less likely it is that they will be the final beneficiaries of any “positive” (i.e. revolutionary) outcome, if anything because of their ties with the previous regime. After all this, should “reformers” prevail, they probably won’t be satisfied by replacing Khamenei’s puppet with Rafsanjani’s puppet, they’ll ask for deeper changes. Iran may or may not remain a theocracy, either in practice or just nominally, but all bets would be off anyway.

Besides, most revolutions are started by people with big economic interests at stake, and that does not invalidate their advancements in terms of democratic rights.
wispsmoke

…and the world takes a deep breath, and…
jungletek

…wishes the youth good luck?
jaytkay

Andrew Sullivan was a giggling cheerleader for the Iraq war, squealing “We won! We won!” in April 2003.

Thanks, Andy! Shiite fundamentalists and their Iranian backers dominate Iraq now! Whheeeee! Tens of thousands of dead Iraqis are free!

I wouldn’t trust Sullivan’s pick in one-horse race.
mdh

Iran is a nation with a long and proud history. I wish them well and hope they find a system that allows people to be happier.

And, as if anyone asked me, I’m not impressed by theatlantic.com. Between Sullivan and McArdle there might be enough hot air to explain anthropgenic climate change.
Anonymous

Phrase I learned from some documentary about Iran, attributed as a core Shite belief and a cause of the 1979 revolution: Don’t be a tyrant, don’t tolerate a tyrant.
W. James Au

“I wouldn’t trust Sullivan’s pick in one-horse race.”

You mean like Barack Obama, who he advocated as the most prominent and probably influential “Obama-con”?
W. James Au

Also, Sullivan years ago repudiated his support for invading Iraq, at least the way the Bush admin. executed and (mis)-managed it. Get updated, dude.
- jaytkay
  
  Also, Sullivan years ago repudiated his support for invading Iraq
  
  I’m sure the maimed and killed people are thrilled.
- mdh
  
  please leave that and other distractions for another time.