CSAMES blog

2016-08-05T09:08:00.000-07:00

Partition and Empire

September 22 and 23, 2016

The imperial partitions of the twentieth century reverberate to the present, and inform contemporary insecurities of different regimes across the world. Present-day challenges to the postcolonial nationstate and its boundaries are often rooted in imperial partitions. Whether in Kashmir, Syria or Palestine, the legacies of partition form the everyday experiences of conflict and violence for millions of people. With these considerations in mind, this conference will explore the theme of partition and empire in global, comparative, and connective frames. Topics include but are not limited to violence; sovereignty; sexuality and the body; displacement and dispossession; memory and cultural production; territoriality and borders; identity and state formation; pedagogies and/or epistemologies of partition.

Keynote Speaker, Sept. 22:

Urvashi Butalia, Publisher and Co-Founder of Kali for Women and Founder of Zubaan Books

Time: 7:00 pm
Location: Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory, Urbana

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General Sessions, Sept. 23:

Time: 9:00 a.m. - 5 p.m. with lunch break 12:00 - 1 p.m.Location Illini Union General Lounge, Room 210Illini Union1401 West Green StreetUrbana, Illinois 61801Directions and Parking

Speakers:

Arie M. Dubnov, Senior Lecturer, University of Haifa;
Rajmohan Gandhi, CSAMES Emeritus Faculty;
Pranav Jani, Associate Professor of English at The Ohio State University;
Brian Kelly, Queen's University Belfast;
Aparna Kumar, UCLA;
Feargal MacIonnrachtaigh, Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities, Queen’s University Belfast;
Deepti Misri, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder;
Debali Mookerjea-Leonard, James Madison University,
Ibrahim Natil, Visiting Fellow Researcher, University College Dublin;
Penny Sinanoglou, Assistant Professor of History, Wake Forest University.

The imperial partitions of the twentieth century reverberate to the present, and inform contemporary insecurities of different regimes across the world. Present-day challenges to the postcolonial nationstate and its boundaries are often rooted in imperial partitions. Whether in Kashmir, Syria or Palestine, the legacies of partition form the everyday experiences of conflict and violence for millions of people. With these considerations in mind, this conference will explore the theme of partition and empire in global, comparative, and connective frames. Topics include but are not limited to violence; sovereignty; sexuality and the body; displacement and dispossession; memory and cultural production; territoriality and borders; identity and state formation; pedagogies and/or epistemologies of partition.

Urvashi Butalia is keynote speaker for Partition and Empire Conference, September 22

2016-05-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

Partition and Empire

September 22 and 23, 2016

The imperial partitions of the twentieth century reverberate to the present, and inform contemporary insecurities of different regimes across the world. Present-day challenges to the postcolonial nationstate and its boundaries are often rooted in imperial partitions. Whether in Kashmir, Syria or Palestine, the legacies of partition form the everyday experiences of conflict and violence for millions of people. With these considerations in mind, this conference will explore the theme of partition and empire in global, comparative, and connective frames. Topics include but are not limited to violence; sovereignty; sexuality and the body; displacement and dispossession; memory and cultural production; territoriality and borders; identity and state formation; pedagogies and/or epistemologies of partition.

Keynote Speaker, Sept. 22:

Urvashi Butalia, Publisher and Co-Founder of Kali for Women and Founder of Zubaan Books

Time: 7:00 pm

Location: Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory, Urbana

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

General Sessions, Sept. 23:

Time: 9:00 a.m. - 5 p.m. with lunch break 12:00 - 1 p.m.

Location Illini Union General Lounge, Room 210Illini Union1401 West Green StreetUrbana, Illinois 61801Directions and Parking

Speakers:

Arie M. Dubnov, Senior Lecturer, University of Haifa;
Rajmohan Gandhi, CSAMES Emeritus Faculty;
Pranav Jani, Associate Professor of English at The Ohio State University;
Brian Kelly, Queen's University Belfast;
Aparna Kumar, UCLA;
Feargal MacIonnrachtaigh, Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities, Queen’s University Belfast;
Deepti Misri, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder;
Debali Mookerjea-Leonard, James Madison University,
Ibrahim Natil, Visiting Fellow Researcher, University College Dublin;
Penny Sinanoglou, Assistant Professor of History, Wake Forest University.
The imperial partitions of the twentieth century reverberate to the present, and inform contemporary insecurities of different regimes across the world. Present-day challenges to the postcolonial nationstate and its boundaries are often rooted in imperial partitions. Whether in Kashmir, Syria or Palestine, the legacies of partition form the everyday experiences of conflict and violence for millions of people. With these considerations in mind, this conference will explore the theme of partition and empire in global, comparative, and connective frames. Topics include but are not limited to violence; sovereignty; sexuality and the body; displacement and dispossession; memory and cultural production; territoriality and borders; identity and state formation; pedagogies and/or epistemologies of partition.

Play Review: "9 Parts of Desire"

2013-11-06T11:46:00.001-08:00

"9 Parts of Desire" played at the Krannert Center for Performing Arts in October, 2013. Several students of Dr. Dina Khamis attended and wrote the following review.

Ameer Al-Khudari, Sarah Bakir, Jessica Sciubba and Zachary Parker

As a class (composed of Americans, Arab- Americans, Arabs and Europeans) studying Gender and Nationalism in Twentieth-Century Arabic Literature with Professor Dina Khamis, we found Heather Raffo’s play, “9 Parts of Desire,” to be an interesting and relevant extension of our course curriculum. We believe that the themes it explores, specifically the experience of Iraqis during wartime, are universal in their appeal.

But “9 Parts of Desire” can muddled and confusing. The play is not comprised of a singular and cohesive narrative – instead, it carves nine windows into the lives of Iraqi women living in and between the first and second Gulf wars. Raffo wants to show us that Iraqi women are far too complex to be represented in just one prototypical character with just one story. There is no monolithic Iraqi woman, no quintessential female Iraqi life journey, Raffo argues. The Iraqi female perspective can only be given justice through the buildup of as many perspectives as possible, if it can be adequately explained at all.

This disjointedness, then, is a necessary cost that Raffo pays in service of a larger purpose. In juxtaposing these disparate stories, she hopes to disabuse her Western target audience of myths that restrict what an Iraqi woman can be. These nine characters are pulled from all parts of the spectrum—or as much of it as the time constraints of the play allow—of Iraqi women. In place of these myths, Raffo aims to equip the audience with a more holistic conception of Iraqi women—one that expands significantly on the impoverished and claustrophobically narrow stereotypes that Westerners have historically imposed on them.

The Iraqi woman, the viewer learns through Raffo’s characters, is not always a shabbily dressed and ghoulish-looking maid, who, as a prisoner in her own home, is subservient to the whims of her husband. She can be a jumpsuit-wearing, gym-going American, or a whiskey-drinking, foul-mouthed Londoner. And the Iraqi woman’s spirit can also be manifested in the form of a fiercely independent, pugnacious Baghdad artist. The Iraqi woman, according to Raffo, can be anyone and anything. In Raffo’s world, Iraqi women have agency, regardless of their ethnic or religious background. In this respect, they are much like women everywhere else; they are veritable human beings, with all the attendant complexities, foibles and pathologies of peoplehood.

Contradictory to that commendable attempt at fleshing out the depth of the Iraqi female persona are the over-done accents that not only inhibit understanding, but also serve to reinforce stereotypes. The broken and stilted English of many of the Iraqi characters awkwardly contrasts with the perfect grammar of Heather, the play’s sole Iraqi-American. While these accents were likely used to give the play an authentic feel, the casting of actors did little to help—in short, the casting failed to portray the diversity of physical characteristics of Arabs.

However, Raffo’s ultimate goal of humanizing the Iraqi people and their experiences is not completely lost in translation. Audience members can still walk away from the play having recognized a familiar part of themselves in Raffo’s characters, and one step closer to realizing that just as there are no essential American women, the same is true of their Iraqi counterparts.

Islam and Women: Surveying the Academic Debate

2013-10-07T14:30:00.001-07:00

David A. Rahimi

On October 9, 2012, Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Taliban as she was returning home from school; three days later fifty Islamic clerics issued a fatwa (religious opinion) condemning the attack. On July 12, 2013, after a long, arduous recovery, Yousafzai spoke at the United Nations, calling for a worldwide increase in access to education. She accused the Taliban of “misusing the name of Islam . . . for their own personal benefit.”

Such episodes of violence and discrimination raise a perennial question for Islamic and Middle Eastern scholars: does Islam denigrate women?

This question has generated endless debate, and there is no unified answer. In this essay, I first examine the historical changes brought about by Islam, and then analyze the ways in which the Quran and hadith (the sayings and reported doings of Muhammad) can shed light on the role of women within Islam.

A polarized “yes-or-no” approach to studying Islam’s effect on women only serves to obscure the complexity of the issue, because it does not account for the intricate connections between accepted cultural mores and religion, which can contradict, reinforce, and transform each other. As Jennifer Bryson insists here on Public Discourse, it is often difficult to tell who or what speaks for Islam. In large part, this is because Islam does not have a definitive teaching authority that can objectively distinguish what is a core belief from what is merely cultural. As a result, Islam can be equally supportive of discrimination or of loving respect toward women depending on the cultural context.

One must consider Islam and the Quran holistically in order to comprehend the complex relationship between culture and Islam and to understand Islam’s impact on women. Thus, engaging the question of whether Islam denigrates women ought to begin with an historical examination of the jahilyya (pre-Islamic Arabia).

How did the rights and status of women in the jahilyya compare with the Muslim society and the Islamic faith that followed? Some Muslim scholars, such as Chiragh Ali and Mahjabeen Islam-Husain, have argued that women were treated as mere chattel and that polygamy and divorce were rampant. Leila Ahmed, however, argues that such a view of the jahilyya is simplistic and inaccurate. Though jahilyya wife-centered marriage practices did not necessarily give women much power, they do indicate that women enjoyed considerable sexual autonomy.

The life of Khadija, Muhammad’s first wife, exemplifies the positive aspects of pre-Islamic Arabian culture. Khadija was a wealthy widow, nearly twice the prophet’s age, who hired him as part of her caravan operations; her behavior and rights would have been dictated by the jahilyya rather than Islam. Khadija’s prominent social position demonstrates that women in the jahilyya participated actively in many communal activities, including warfare and religion. It is possible, then, that Islam’s establishment of patriarchal marriage may have curtailed women’s involvement in public life.

While it is true that Islam abolished infanticide and perverse divorce methods, cemented women’s inheritance and property rights, established spiritual equality between the sexes, and secured the wife’s sole right to the mahr (bride-price), its positive impact with respect to the jahilyya must not be exaggerated. As Ahmed indicates, Islam placed male-female relations on a new footing by transferring the rights to women’s sexuality and offspring from herself and her tribe to men, specifically her husband. Implicit in this new relationship was the male prerogative to control women’s relationships with other men. Later, the Abbasids would interpret Islam in ways that explicitly condoned men’s rule over women and the inferiority of the female sex.

What new relationship did Islam establish between men and women? And how do the Quran and the hadith depict it?

Start with marriage. In Islam, marriage is analogous to a business contract: the man pays the mahr and maintenance to the woman in exchange for complete obedience and exclusive sexual rights to her. This concept of obedience is borne out in the second part of Sura 4:34, in which a man is permitted to beat his wife for disobedience.

Unfortunately, when this contractual analogy is combined with other verses extolling God for putting love between men and women, one is left with an ambiguous conception of marriage. It seems that marriage involves a man keeping a favorite courtesan or mistress (albeit with deeper formal ties), not a relationship with an equal, beloved spouse. At best, the messages seem contradictory, leaving the reader unsure of how the verses fit together.

Scholars interpret Sura 4:34 differently, which contributes to confusion about its true meaning. Amina Wadud-Muhsin, an Islamic feminist scholar, retranslates and neuters the formerly gendered words of the passage based on the assumption that all masculine plurals refer to both men and women, which would suggest that men and women alike have reciprocal rights in marriage. Ibn Warraq, on the other hand, sees the passage as inherently misogynistic.

The difficulty of interpreting this passage points to a more fundamental problem. As Muhsin admits, no Quranic exegesis can be fully objective. Since there is no final exegetical authority, only the members of a particular social context can interpret how the principles of the Quran should be applied. Even a renowned Islamic cleric, who favors an egalitarian, non-violent interpretation of Sura 4:34, admits that it “takes an expert in linguistics to understand all the meanings in a verse, both explicit and inferred.” This underscores the dire need for a dogmatic interpretive voice in Islam if all Muslim women’s rights are to be upheld.

Unfortunately, the Quran often provides two sets of principles that seem to conflict (e.g., Sura 4:34 and Sura 33:35). Moreover, each scholar can apply the principles to particulars according to his or her own best judgment. Although many Muslims may choose to follow the interpretations of a particular imam or scholar, the lack of a single interpretive authority allows for some cultural relativism within Islam.

To see how this ambiguity causes problems, take the controversial issue of concubinage. The practice of theoretically unlimited concubinage was long believed to be halal (permissible) according to the Quran in Sura 4:3 and Sura 23:5-6. Ambiguity, however, plagues the passage, since it can be read either as an injunction to marry concubines or as an indulgence granted to men by God. Some scholars simply ignore the passage; while others explain it as a temporary byproduct of the seventh century Arabian culture, or say it remains permissible but impractical and unnecessary in today’s world.

It is not clear who possesses the authority to resolve such controversies. The literature of Islamic jurisprudence, or fiqh, is extremely varied regarding women’s status. Some may argue that fiqh promoting concubinage as permanent was merely a product of cultural misogyny. Yet it could also be argued in reverse that anti-concubinage fiqh is nothing but a modern cultural reading that easily could be reversed if cultural consensus shifts.

Other controversial passages include Sura 24:4-13, which has implications for rape testimony, and Sura 2:228, which deals with divorce. Sura 24:4-13 is often considered good for women, since it demands that a man bring four witnesses (typically males) to confirm a case of adultery or pre-marital sex, a measure designed to protect the woman from wrongful accusations. However, these same stringent standards hurt women by making it nearly impossible for them to defend themselves in rape cases, since a woman must have witnesses to prove that a man sexually penetrated her. The problem is further compounded by the fact that the Quran only gives a woman’s testimony half the weight of a man’s.

To get a sense of the practical importance of this text, consider the modern example of Pakistan. There one woman is raped every three hours and one in two rape victims is a juvenile. Seventy-five percent of all women in jail in Pakistan are there under charges of zina (unlawful or extramarital sexual intercourse) and are subsequently sexually abused while in prison.

Sura 2:228 is even more controversial. Islam-Husain selectively quotes it to justify equal rights for men and women by leaving out the portion that grants men a higher status than women. Similarly, Muhsin attempts to negate an androcentric interpretation by explaining that the verse is situated in the context of a discussion on divorce and that the higher status men enjoy is only with respect to divorce. This contextual explanation, however, should invite skepticism, because Muhsin’s application of it seems somewhat arbitrary. For example, Muhsin, in another section, expands Sura 4:34 to encapsulate all of society instead of limiting it to the family, which is the context in which it is being discussed. Why one passage is interpreted contextually and another is not is never fully explained.

These excerpts from the Quran show that we cannot simply attribute any misogynistic tendencies within Islamic societies to cultural distortions and permutations of Islam, since sections of the Quran can explicitly justify denigrating women. The second source of religious guidance in Islam, the hadith, also confirms this.

According to most scholars, the hadith are more explicitly misogynistic than the Quran. Some hadith claim that women are the primary occupants of hell or that they are bad omens on par with horses. One hadith even condemns a people to failure if they are led by a woman.

Yet as Moroccan Islamic scholar Fatima Mernissi notes, it is hard to know which hadith are authentic statements or actions of Muhammad. Mernissi argues that many of the misogynistic hadith are inauthentic or are the product of outdated cultural norms. Yet Mernissi’s argument cannot answer why the most rigorously authenticated set of hadith by al-Bukhari contains the same hadith she claims are inauthentic. Nor does she try to deconstruct the hadith about women in hell, which comes from the highly aesthetic and spiritual ‘Abdallah ibn ‘Umar.

Even Mernissi, then, seems to concede that at least some authentic hadith are indeed misogynistic. This leaves the scholar in her original dilemma: trying to reconcile the androcentric hadith and ambiguous Quranic verses with belief in the equality of the sexes.

So where does this historical and textual overview leave us in regard to my opening question?

First, Islam did improve the lives of women to a measurable extent. Islam cemented women’s rights to inheritance and property; it recognized their spiritual equality with men; it abolished female infanticide; it enjoined modesty upon both men and women; and it set a basis for judging men and women morally as individuals.

Yet Islam does contain some endorsements of patriarchy or misogyny. Not every misogynistic or androcentric expression in Muslim societies is a direct result of Islam; cultural attitudes (e.g. honor, shame, patriarchy) often instigate actions that shari’a condemns, such as murderous honor crimes. Still, some of the fundamental androcentric attitudes that lie at the basis of multiple Muslim societies today are either explicitly endorsed or ambiguously addressed in the Quran and hadith, leaving the meaning of the text at the whim of scholars.

There is no clear consensus among Muslim scholars, partly because there is no single exegetical authority. The fact that Islamic texts do not send a clear message about women’s status helps to explain why women are treated so differently across Muslim countries. Until more Muslims and non-Muslims admit this, it will remain difficult to pursue meaningful and principled discussions on women in Islam.

David A. Rahimi is a senior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign pursuing a BA in history and political science. This essay is a revised and condensed version of a paper he wrote for RLST/ANTH/GLBL/GWS 403/HIST 434, “Women in Muslim Societies,” taught by Professor Valerie Hoffman. David is preparing his honors thesis on Iranian exiles and historical memory under the supervision of Professor Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi. This essay was originally published in Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, NJ (http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/09/10825/). It is reprinted with permission.

Experiencing the Intersections of Spain and Morocco

2013-10-07T14:15:00.000-07:00

Tariq Shihadah, Class of 2015

It is one thing to learn about a culture from the outside, and another thing entirely to be deeply immersed in a world different from your own. There is no textbook nor lecture that can compare to smelling the fragrance of a land, walking through its streets, and meeting the faces of its people. This past summer I had the chance to do just that, as I, along with four other students and Professor Mark Dressman of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, trekked through the lands of Andalusia and al-Maghreb.

After learning one evening of this unique opportunity to study the historic intersections of Spain and Morocco, I immediately completed my application and got in contact with the professor hosting the trip. When I applied for the study abroad trip that night, I didn’t necessarily have any intentions of pursuing it seriously; I only wanted to open the opportunity for myself for consideration in the future. However, as time passed and I was accepted to the program, I began to realize just how remarkable an option it was for me. As the day approached for me to make a decision, I nervously chose to join the trip -- a choice which afforded me one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life.

Our journey began the week after the Spring semester had ended, when we met in the Chicago O’Hare airport and flew overseas to the culturally rich city of Madrid, Spain. From this day on through the next two and a half weeks, we explored and immersed ourselves deeply in the cities, towns, and cultures of the Andalusian and Maghrebi regions, leaving no sound unheard and no dish untasted. In Spain we discovered the intricate beauty of the Al-Hambra in Grenada, visited the peculiar and fantastic cathedral within a mosque called the Mezquita, and even had the chance of visiting the British enclave of Gibraltar, named after the famed Muslim conqueror from the Maghreb region. In Morocco, we did everything from spending a night in an Amazigh camp in the Sahara Desert, to washing in a community bath house called a hammam, to wandering through the streets of historic cities such as Fez, Marrakesh and Rabat, intimately encountering exciting history and vivid culture.

As we travelled, we had the opportunity to meet and engage with several locals, who were able to teach us a great deal about the regions of Spain and Morocco, their histories, and their cultural intersections. We collected recordings and other media as we proceeded with our trip, and are now in the process of creating a curriculum supplement for teachers and students to learn about these topics through engaging and relatable materials. Collecting the media and information for this initiative has been a challenging yet exciting and very rewarding experience, and the chance to contribute to the world’s library of educational resources has been an honor and gift.

This spectacular trip was made possible in part for me by the CSAMES Undergraduate Scholarship for Study Abroad. I learned about this scholarship through the professor in charge of our study abroad program, and decided it was imperative that I apply for it to help make the trip a more financially feasible option for me. Shortly after completing a simple application on my computer, I was informed by the CSAMES department that I had been selected for the $1000 scholarship, which was to pay for more than 30% of the costs of the program.

This is only one example of how supportive the University of Illinois and its many departments of study are, as they help their students pursue cultural and academic enrichment. The opportunities for programs and trips similar to mine are everywhere, and the financial and advising support is accessible to all students. There are countless extraordinary and life-changing adventures out there, only waiting for students who are willing to take a step outside the normal and take a step into the breathtaking world around us.

Thoughts on the Political Significance of Election of Rouhani

2013-06-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

The following comment was sent to me by one of the blog readers.

Since it is too long to be posted on the comments' space, I am sharing it with you here:

June 15, 2013

“When there is a general change of condition of conditions, it is as if the entire creation had changed and the whole world been altered, as if it were a new and repeated creation, a world brought into existence anew.”

The Moquaddimah, Ibn Khaldun

Mir-Housein Mousavi, an Islamic revolutionary with left political sensibilities was the prime minster of Iran (1981-1989) during the Iran-Iraq war and was highly favored by the late leader of Iran Khomeini. He entered the political scene as a candidate of June 2009 presidential election against incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejat after two decades of absence starting with the end of the war and the death of the Revolutions’ late leader. During these years much had changed. The post-war “era of reconstruction” under the presidency of Hashemi Rafsanjani had sought to normalize the decade long revolutionary and war politics and economics. In the usual narrative, these years moved toward economic liberalization within the framework of rentier state and set the stage for the political demands of the Reform movement expressed by the 1997 election of Mohammad Khatami as the president. Khatami’s era marked a moment of political opening and emergence of a rich public discourse on the history of Islamic Republic, the ideals of the Revolution and diversion from its goals. Unlike Rafsanjani’s technocratic style of government, the newly elect reformist government and its powerful establishment conservative critics staged 8 years of antagonistic politics. Although these years have secured historical achievements that I will suggest below, Ahmadinejad’s 2005 election and the unification of conservatives and hardliners behind him demonstrated a certain fragility, if not defeat, of the reformist politics.

In 2009 Mousavi re-entered the political scene to restore aghlaniat, the rule of reason, to Iranian politics. He clamed that Ahmadinejad, a relatively recent addition to Iranian politics who was riding the wave of hardliner-conservative alliance against reformism, and more importantly the form of politics that he stood for, was the counterpoint to aghlaniat. He mobilized the history and the memory of the Revolution and the war and his personal association with these events against the dominant political voice within Iran during 2009. Unlike secular-liberal critics of the Iranian government, he challenged the very revolutionary and Islamic claims of the established power. Ahmadinejad’s main line against Mousavi was that he was the candidate of the old guard who similar to Khatami, was towing the line of Rafsanjani. Backed by the establishment himself – the supreme leader announced after the elections that his views were much closer to Ahmadinejad than the others - he was able to secure a second term in the disputed elections. His deceptive populism and international posturing which today proved short lived at best and hollow at worst proved triumphant. The state violently suppressed the ensuring protests and dismissed their demands as fitna – a theological-political formulation of secessionist politics. Four dark years where security quenched politics ensued. All the while the economy neoliberalized. These years were further darkened by sanctions and treat of military intervention in Iran. Today the world changed

Today, Hasan Rouhani, a mujtahed of the Qom seminaries who holds a PhD fromUniversity of Glasgow became the president elect of the 34 year old Islamic Republic. Rouhani has a thick resume of activism and occupation of highest ranks in the Revolution, the war and its aftermath, including the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council during Rafsanjani and Khatami presidency. He won the office of the president in the name of e’tedal and tadbir: moderation and wisdom. E’tedal can be captured closely by moderation, and in the context of Rouhani’s use, counters the extremism associated with hardliners and the conservatives. Indirectly, but very importantly, E’tedal is a response to a certain political Islamism of the hardliners within personal, social, and the international domain; a highly statist Islam that mobilizes the disciplinary and regulatory powers of the state in imposing its vision. Tadbir translates to wisdom, meditation, accounting for the consequences, long term evaluation and implies, specially in the context of Rouhani’s usage, aghlaniat: reason. Therefore, tadbir, like e-tedal, is formulation of a certain raison d'État, a certain statecraft that we can recognize, with Machiavelli or Foucault among others, as politics.

During his campaign, Rouhani moved significantly towards the political goals that are largely associated with the reform movement and the discontented parties of the last presidential election. He spoke against the security state, closure of spaces for political speech and action, and government infringements on personal spaces within the domestic domain while articulating a strong diplomacy in foreign affairs. He explicitly countered the foreign policy advanced by the government of Ahmadinejad and articulated by the Iran chief nuclear negotiator and the presidential hopeful Jalili as pandering to Islamic revolutionary slogans while receiving severe blows and passing them on the population (sanctions). Mohammad-Reza Aref, the only reformist candidate who had been able to pass through the Guardian Council pulled out in his favor and Rohani received strong endorsements from both Rafsanjani and Khatami. In his first address as the president elect a few hours ago, he recounted the names of Rafsanjani and Khatami on the national TV, a significant political speech act in so far as these two figures have been systematically tarnished by the hardliners and on the national TV since the 2009 elections.

Despite this association between Rouhani and the reform movement, and despite his explicit promise to do all he can to release political prisoners, and to undo the house arrest imposed on Mousavi, his spouse Zahra Rahnavard and Mehdi Karoubi (the other discontented candidate of the last election), I want to draw a different relation between Rouhani’s election and the reform movement more generally. Rouhani election is not the continuation of reform, but sublation of reform and a certain strand of hardline conservatism that has combated the reform since its inception in 1997. His election signals fruits of the reform movement, the triumph of its social and political discourse. It also signals, counter intuitively, an important developments among conservatives: the failure of the experience of Ahmadinejad or the form which it expresses, their failure to unite and their extreme fragmentation as the elections exposed, and more importantly, their inability to articulate an art of politics, a viable vision of coexistence and a statecraft Aref and the conservative Mohsen Rezai’s diagnosis of the hardliners during their campaign speaks to these developments among the conservative camp.

Rouhani, then, is not the middle ground between hardliners or reformists - a spatial formulation as if time is secular and history, thin. His election does not signal a “moderate” choice by the electorate, but a significant one in so far as it channels and builds upon the historical experience of the reformism and conservatism in the Islamic republic - their common forms, their particular achievements and defeats. Most importantly perhaps it speaks to the limit of a form of politics that is reduced to seizing the state and exclusion of political opponents. Perhaps this sublation is most clear in that Rouhani’s positions are only conceivable between the sign posts of Mousavi and the short-lived Khamenei-Ahmadinejad alliance: if it wasn’t for the radical position of Mousavi, Karoubi and the many others who paid and continue to pay a high price for making visible the law preserving violence of the state on the one hand, and those want-to-be-sovereigns within the hardline conservative camp, Rouhani would not be able to articulate the politics of e’tedal and tadbir.

In a field fraught with domestic instability, systematic political and religious suppression, “most crippling sanctions,” treat of war, and monopolization of the Iranian historical and popular desires by international war criminals outside Iranian borders, moderation and wisdom – politics - is given a chance. It’s a moment of ashtiy-e meli, national reconciliation. It is significant that this opportunity comes about not by increasingly ineffective and subverted revolutions, as the “Arab Spring” model is demonstrating, but through the vote. It remains to be seen what comes of this chance.

Perhaps we can hope that under the sign of e’tedal and tadbir, the excessively violent domestic antagonism relaxes in favor of a different form of engagement, or if we fail as the reformism and conservatism of the last two decades did, we fail better, and we fail to secure as significant of achievements as they did. We hope too, in the spirit of hope expressed in the vote, that this fragile play of forces in Iran does not flatten by international pressure on Iran. As Rouhani said in relation to his victory:

“A new opportunity has come about in the international scene for those who speak in the name of democracy, pluralism, free speech and truth, to bear witness to this popular achievement, engage with the Islamic Republic with respect and justice, and accept the rights of the Islamic Republic in order to hear the appropriate response, and work together to expand international relations based on mutual interests, peace, security and development in the region and in the world.”

ROUHANI WINS!

2013-06-15T17:46:00.004-07:00

BEHROOZ GHAMARI

In my last blog I said that on a good day Rouhani might even win the absolute majority and become the president in the first round. Well, it was a good day and he did win in a landslide. Here are some numbers for those of us who don’t believed anything unless it is quantified:

Participation: 72% (36 million out of 50 million eligible voters)

Rouhani: 50.70%

Qalbaf: 16.5%

Jalili: 11.3%

Reza’ei: 10.5%

Velayati: 6.1%

Gharazi: 1.2%

Invalid votes (known in the US as “hanging chads”): 1.2 million

Participation was so unanticipated that the government had to extend the voting hours three times.

By all measures, this was a surprise election, both in terms of participation rate as well as the fact that it produced a winner in the first round in a 6-way race. I think more than the shock of winning, it is the shock of losing that defines the outcome of this election, the shock of losing so dismally, that is, for the Supreme Leader.

Four years ago, in his Friday sermon a week after the disputed 2009 election, Ayatollah Khamenei openly endorsed Ahmadinejad and admitted to the rift that existed between himself and Ayatollah Hashemi-Rafsanjani.

In his sermon, Rafsanjani defended the Green Movement and chastised the same government behind which the Supreme Leader threw his full support for suppression of dissent and mismanagement of the nation’s affairs. That was the last time Rafsanjani was permitted to address a Friday prayer.

When he was disqualified from running for presidency, Rafsanjani endorsed Hassan Rouhani, a moderate cleric with unimpeachable credentials as a loyal politician. Whereas Rafsanjani devised a clear strategic plan to restore his political authority, Khamenei and his conservative principlist allies struggled to put together a joint platform and a winning strategy to maintain their hold of the highest executive office.

First they formed the 2+1 in order to defend principlist conservatism from Ahmadinejad deviations and revisionism. The goal was to generate some momentum for a new alternative to the madness of Ahmadinejad without abandoning his populism and uncompromising, confrontational politics. Then Saeed Jalili entered the scene and every one thought that he will be the Supreme Leader’s “real Man.” But then, some others opined that Jalili might operate as Ahmadinjead’s Trojan Horse and must be stopped before getting inside the Supreme Leader’s quarters. The last minute effort to gather support for Velayati as the “establishment’s candidate,” also bore no fruits.

Many commentators repeated the tired rhetoric that the elections in Iran are meaningless and are merely performances to endow legitimacy to the wishes of the Supreme Leader. Despite the fact that the Supreme Leader himself could not identify whom he favored among the eight candidates, the hawkish Iranian opposition and their Western supporters believed peoples’ vote to be irrelevant.

There are two big losers in this election. First: The Supreme Leader, who made the grave mistake of endorsing the policies of Ahmadinejad, thus turning the election into a referendum on himself.

Velayati, the Supreme Leader's trusted adviser, ended his race with a meager 6% of the vote!

Second: Those who pursue a regime change in Iran and believe that “crippling sanctions” (in the best case scenario) or “military intervention” (the worst case scenario) will eventually force Iranian people to rise up against the Islamic Republic and topple the regime. Every time there is an election in Iran, they repeat the same mistake that people will not participate and thereby will delegitimize the regime.

What exactly people have voted for is generally clear. Rouhani’s campaign successfully linked the economic crisis in the country (high inflation rate, unemployment, devaluation of the Iranian currency) to the current administration’s incompetence both in terms of economic planning as well as their confrontational and provocative international policy (mostly on the nuclear negotiations). The United Nations and the United States sanctions against Iran have exacerbated already difficult economic conditions in the country. For years Ahmadinejad argued that his administration welcomes these sanctions because they will lead to more innovation and less dependence on foreign powers. Neither happened.

Next to an international détente, Rouhani also stroke a similar chord when during the debates he argued that the best assurance against economic corruption and mismanagement is a free press and the freedom of expression. Easing of social restrictions and the protection of civil liberties are going to be more challenging for the Rouhani administration as he also has the backing of many social conservatives whose political capital is going to be a major asset in delivering his campaign promises.

Next month, right after Rouhani officially begins his presidency, will also be the beginning of disillusionments. I remember when I was in Iran in 2005, only a few weeks after Ahmadinejad was elected, in every little corner people were complaining that he has not delivered his campaign promises! Although I had not voted for him, I found myself defending him asking those who voted for him to give the man a chance. Whenever I hear that people are disillusioned, my first reaction is to wonder what their illusions were. Those who expect Rouhani to change the system of governance or to fashion a fundamental change in Iran are up for a great disappointment. He will institute incremental, piecemeal changes, nothing major, but enough to show that there indeed is a noticeable difference between who sits in the office of the president in Iran.

Only minutes after the results were announced earlier today, hundreds of thousands of Rouhani supporters flooded the streets of Tehran and other large cities. I have included some pictures from Tabriz, too. Join the party:

SCENES FROM TABRIZ

IRAN 4 – LEBANON 0

2013-06-11T20:42:00.000-07:00

BEHROOZ GHAMARI

Football crazed Iranians watched their team thrashing Lebanon.

There was a great excitement in Blogistan about today’s game between Iran and Lebanon. Iran needed a big win in order to keep its hope alive to qualify for next year’s World Cup in Brazil. The excitement in social media was mostly about the possibility of close to 100,000 people congregating without police interference. The hope was that the event will turn into a protest platform and the cheering crowd will take political advantage of the soccer game.

Security is always tight in these kind of games. Often those who are there to enjoy the game outnumber those who look at these gathering as a political opportunity

It turned out, as expected, that the 100,000 strong crowd was mostly interested in seeing more goals in the field rather than redefining the goals of the election. Iran won and the election will go on as scheduled. Though there still three more days is left to the election day on June 14.

My experience with Iran is that the social media often create a twisted picture of the realities and potentials on the ground. But here I don’t want to get that much into my analysis of the fallacies of cyber politics.

The Dutch-Iranian striker Reza Ghoochannejhad is the new sensation in Iran. He scored a goal today.

The Iranian team Captain is Javad Nekounam, who has played for many years in the Spanish premier club Osasuna.

The Portuguese coach of the National Team, Carlos Queiroz, was literally pushing the players to score more goals. His job depends on whether Iran qualifies for the World Cup or not.

No, these are not the supporters of the famous Iranian Green Movement (though they might as well be). They are just celebrating the 4-0 victory over Lebanon with an Iranian flag the top part of which is green.

Women are not allowed in football stadiums in Iran, but that does not stop them from taking part in celebrations. If you have not seen Jafar Panahi's film "Offside," do check it out. It is a complex look at the gender politics of sport spectators.

The other big winner yesterday was Mohammad Reza Aref who ended his campaign in favor of Hassan Rohani. Aref has had indicated in the past that if the leader of the reform movement, former president Khatami, asks him to step aside in favor of another candidate, he will. Khatami finally asked, he consented. Now for all practical purposes, Rohani can rest assured that he will bag the votes of Aref in the first round. At this point Rohani, who is now endorsed by both Rafsanjani and Khatami, will most likely survive the first round, though some are overly optimistic thinking he might even win more than 50% and get elected directly with no need for a second round.

Now a wide varieties of endorsements have been generated for Mr. Rohani. Aref emphasized that "based on the request of the leader of reform [Khatami], I step aside."

I am sure that now the other side will try to reach an agreement to rally around one or two candidates, perhaps Qalibaf and Velayati.

At this point, the rule of the thumb is that if a candidate cannot pack a stadium, he won’t have any chances of winning the election. In that front, Rohani is far ahead of his opponents.

Rohani supporters in a sports arena in Shiraz. Now Rohani easily packs these arenas and in most places an overflow of enthusiasts have to stay outside.

I also want to mention here how disappointing the coverage of the campaign in the American media has been (shocking, no?). Often stories about the candidates emphasize that there is not much difference between them. That is not true. It is true that all candidates believe in the constitution of the Islamic Republic and none has any plans to change the system. But in terms of their understanding of the constitution and how the existing system must operate domestically and internationally, they differ quite significantly. I can say with a high degree of certainty that the different between the positions of Mr. Rohani and Mr. Jalili is much greater than that of President Obama and Mitt Romney, for example.

The New York Times basically frames the election in terms of Iran’s nuclear policy. What determines the candidates’ politics is their position on the enrichment program and Iran’s right to nuclear proliferation. This is quite shortsighted and wrong. One thing that became clearer during the campaign was that no candidate could afford not to be critical of the current conditions, not to defend the basic principles of civil liberty, and not to advocate less government intervention in peoples’ every day lives. This was quite an achievement. The fact that people can openly speak about these issues (such as release of political prisoners, gender equality, freedom of the press, etc.) shows that overall the election season has moved the center toward the “Left” (this is a complicated issue, what is Left and what is Right in Iran). The Times journalists need to understand that what is good for Iran might not necessarily be good for the United States. There are places that the interests of the two countries coincide, that is fine and that needs to be highlighted. But Iranians are electing a president for their own country, they are not voting for someone who will safeguard American interests in the region and in Iran.

I wonder what counts for the Times reporters and columnists as a "hard line on nuclear might!"

The Washington Post’s coverage is more nuanced and sophisticated. However, they rely too much on the expert knowledge of think tanks who follow particular political agenda.

I have been following the polls in Iran very closely. Even the most conservative pollsters do not claim that Qalibaf is the "runaway favorite." In a great majority of polls Rohani is the frontrunner followed by either Aref or Qalibaf.

Let me finish by congratulating the Iranian national team for offering an exhilarating evening to 100,000 people in Azadi Football Stadium.

THE SPARK!

2013-06-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

Behrooz Ghamari

Highlights from the last debate on the front page of a Tehran newspaper: Velayati: The result of Mr. Jalili's nuclear negotiations is more sanctions and more pressure on the people. Aref: The almighty gave me the strength to hold my meaningful silence against the events of the last presidential election. We must never use a stick against each other. Rezaei: Mr. Haddad speaks in the language of slogans, he can resist as much as he wants, but people are hungry.

After three debates and much publicity on the radio and television (every candidate gets exactly the same length of airtime of close to 5 hours from the state-run radio and television, they are not allowed to purchase additional time) the campaign feels quite real and heated.

The third and last live TV debate finally spread the election fever across the country. Focused mostly on foreign relations, the debate generated heated discussions on a number of issues, most importantly on the negotiations with Western powers over nuclear proliferation. The most shocking moment of the debate was Ali Akbar Velayati’s biting criticism of Mr. Jalili’s failure as the chief negotiator to close the file on nuclear negotiations. We need to remember that Velayati is a two-time minister of foreign affairs and a trusted adviser and a close ally of the Supreme Leader. Jalili prides himself as the only negotiator who has carried out the wishes of the Supreme Leader to the fullest. Jalili campaigns on the strength of his uncompromising position under the slogan of “resistance with teachings of Islam.”

In a brilliant passage, Velayati reminded Jalili that “a negotiation table is not a philosophy class. You should not pat yourself on the back because your logic was superior to theirs. People want to know what you have actually achieved.”

Velayati, a physician with specialization in infectious diseases from Johns Hopkins University, is clearly separating himself from the 2+1 coalition and from the neo-conservatism of Jalili and Ahmadinejad.

Now we can see that three distinct lines has emerged.

First, and so far the most successful, is the reformist line represented by Aref and Rohani. As the campaign progresses, both candidates are becoming more candid and assertive in their critique of Ahmadinejad’s two-term administration and his supporters in the principlist/neo-conservative camp. The main themes in their critique are: the suppression of freedom of expression, erratic and failed economic policies, confrontational and provocative foreign policy, which relates back to the pressing economic concerns of most Iranians.

Aref: “They wanted to bring the oil money to people’s table, instead they took their bread away!” Rohani: “They wanted to ensure that the wheels of enrichment of uranium continued to turn, but they broke the wheels of our economy by encouraging sanctions and creating a hostile environment.”

Second, are the traditional conservatives who appear to be more accommodationist and do not intend to eliminate the reformists from the polity. This line was mostly absent after the Guardian Council vetted the candidates. But now, Velayati, Tehran Mayor Qalibaf, and Mohsen Rezaei, the former chief of the revolutionary guards, are trying to situate themselves as the representatives of this line. Qalibaf, an original member of the 2+1 coalition, has now tried to distance himself from the neo-conservatives, although to me, he remains a wildcard. The traditional conservatives’ criticism of the reformists is that they are elitist, and that during Khatami administration they monopolized power by putting their own operatives in charge of every single office in the entire state bureaucracy (“The only people who kept their jobs were the janitors”).

Third, are the principlist or neo-conservatives represented by Jalili and Haddad. Both of these have performed poorly in the debates and keep losing support. Haddad was never a serious contender. But Jalili operates with an organized campaign and has the endorsement of influential principlist ayatollahs. They call themselves principlists because they believe that they are the only true followers of the Supreme Leader and that they never retreat from the basic principles of resistance and revolutionary Islam. It is interesting that Jalili and Hadda borrow their rhetoric from Khomeini’s revolutionary discourse, but their support in the clerical establishment comes from those who opposed Khomeini and his revolutionary zeal.

But what is important is that the last debate has now generated a nationwide enthusiasm about the election. Although the police has banned late night carnivals, Tehran and other major cities around the country is a scene of campaign festivities. People of all walks of life, young and old, rich and poor, educated and otherwise pour into the street defending their favorite candidate. The newspapers and blogs report that these gatherings have been peaceful and without police interference.

Photos show outside the television station during and after the third debate.

The two reformist candidates, Aref and Rohani, were supposed to announce the formation of a coalition yesterday. But it seems like both insist on continuing their campaign.

Yesterday, after they failed to reach an agreement, former president Khatami told a group of reporters that rather than their own ambitions the candidates should think about the interests of the nation.

The key that symbolizes Rohani's campaign is becoming more and more ornamented!

Under the watchful eyes of Ayatollah Khomeini, Rohani promises a government of "thoughtfulness and hope!"

Both Aref and Rohani are now easily able to pack small stadiums!

A woman holding a Jalili photo on the bus. Now every little opening any where in the city is considered to be a campaign opportunity

Jalili poster working as a burqa!

Campaigning while waiting for the green light.

Blue is the color of Rezaei. Although he has proven to be a good debater, he has been having a hard time to improve his standing in the polls.

As if getting into the major metro stations were easy before. Try it now!

Strolling in the park on behalf of the Mayor Qalibaf!

Qalibaf also knows the significance of women's vote quite well.

Doctors do not recommend participating in any campaign rally after a nose job!

The thinker is totally blurred in this scene!

Rohani enthusiasts.

Late for work, early in the morning, Tehran metro station!

The increasing popularity of Qalibaf.

Jalili supporters usually need to shout louder to compensate for smaller numbers!

Apparently Jalili's call for resistance still resonates with many youth in Iran.

The reformists now hope that they can win the election in the first round! Wishful thinking?

Many in Iran wish that they could live under perpetual election season where every one is friendly, even the police and drivers on busy streets.

Zahra Eshraqi, Khomeini's grand daughter, is the head of the National Organization of Reformist Youth. She announced yesterday that the reformist candidates for Tehran City Council election agreed on a single list and have a great chance of retaking the majority in the Council.

SOMETHING IS BREWING!

2013-06-03T18:35:00.001-07:00

Frontpage of Tehran newspaper E'temād, "Longing for a Debate: The television turned an important political even into an entertainment program." "A half debate, half standardized test."

Two nights ago, the first (of the three scheduled presidential debates orchestrated by the state television) aired. The four-and-a-half hour debate between 8 candidates was simply put a disaster. The candidates were surprised to learn that everything from the set of the debate to its format was designed like a game show (It was actually directed by a famous game-show host!). There were four different stages to this game show. First, each candidate was given three minutes to respond to a variety of questions, then they were all shown a random picture and asked to comment what they see in the picture (is this a therapy session?!), after that each was given a set of multiple choice questions (“is this a standardized test?” one of the candidates asked), and if that were not enough the program ended with a series of true or false series of questions!

Everyone scored a point by attacking Ahmadinejad. Here is a cartoon from the front page of Qanun. The captions read: "Hunting Mahmoud (Ahmadinejad)! Quarter finals of the presidential race: This guy doesn't have a tribune, go for his eye!"

By the last segment, Mohammad Reza Aref, one of the two broadly-defined reformist candidates, had had enough. He refused to answer multiple choice and true-false questions arguing that “this is not a high school exam!” After the debate, a wave of letters and editorials in the newspapers of competing factions chastised the debates as a cheap show that tried to de-politicize the election by avoiding serious conversations. A number of parliamentarians also called for the Head of the Radio and Television to apologize for making a mockery of the nation’s electoral process.

Meanwhile, the conservative 2+1 coalition (Velayati-Haddad-Qalibaf) announced yesterday that they have officially abandoned efforts to agree on one candidate. All three candidates of the former coalition are now running solo.

Jalili continues to operate as a mystery candidate for those conservatives who once supported Ahmadinejad and then became disillusioned with him, as well as those who defend Ahmadinejad and would like to see the extension of his populist and confrontational policies. Many in Tehran still wonder whether Mr. Jalili is Ahmadinejad’s Trojan horse or not. The influential Tehran university political science professor, Sadeq Ziba-Kalam, called Mr. Jalili “at best, a good associate dean of education for his alma mater Imam Sadeq University” (established by the Revolutionary Guards for the education of its own cadres).

Jalili is representing himself as the candidate of "resistance!" "We are already behind the enemies tents," he said recently in a campaign speech.

But the more exciting news comes from the reformists campaign. Both candidates, Aref and Rohani, have upped the rhetoric and now speak more freely and assertively about their reformist credentials. Last night at Jamaran Mosque, Rohani, the only cleric running, sounded openly defiant and called himself a candidate who will continue the political and economic reforms initiated under Rafsanjani and Khatami administrations. He also told a young and rowdy audience that he will not allow a repeat of the 2009 election. “I will protect,” he told his cheering audience, “your votes.” He also declared that he will not allow Mr. Mousavi and Karrubi, the two 2009 presidential election contenders, to remain under house arrest. After his talk, people continue to shout slogans in defense of Mousavi and Karrubi. The police arrested 13 people. One report indicates that they were all released after a few hours. Some bloggers reported that the arrested were members of the youth campaign for Rohani and they were all transferred to Evin prison.

Rohani entering Jamaran Mosque

OK, they won't win the contest for the best fashion show, but Rohani is mobilizing a committed group of young people to generate some excitement on behalf of his campaign.

"A Key" also symbolizes Rohani's campaign. He is offering a key to resolving the economic problems, as well as a key to open the prison doors. He openly talks about ending the house arrest of Mousavi and Karrubi, the 2009 presidential candidates who have been under house arrest for more than two years now.

Rohani holds the key, does he?

One way we can gauge the changes is the rapidly increasing involvement of women in the campaign. Rohani has chosen the color purple for his campaign and one can see suddenly many purple ornaments hanging from people’s attire on the streets, especially women.

Women at a Rohani campaign speech. Rohani, the only cleric running for presidency, has been able to mobilize women groups better that his opponents.

Purple is the color! Is there going to be a purple movement?

As much as Rohani believes he holds the key to solving numerous political and economic problems in the country, he should also be conscious of the fact that women hold the key to any possibility of his success in the election.

Women know that who the president is makes a distinct difference in the way they are allowed to appear in public.

Qalibaf also tries to appeal specifically to women. In all his campaign stops, there are significant number of women cheering for him.

Women students welcoming Qalibaf at Amol University campus. The poster reads: "With you one can enter the sea!" (an expression in Farsi meaning that we will stand by you in your efforts). It would be interesting to see how would these women do this on the segregated beaches of Caspian Sea!

Qalibaf campaign poster. "We believe that a society is successful when it is able to pay attention to its human capital and allow women to enter all dimensions of social life. To be woman or a man must not create a limitation for any one. We must see which member of society is better and more effective."

Mr. Aref also rode the metro to Tehran’s old Bazaar. He was cheered by fellow passengers and welcomed by hundreds of Bazaar merchants, who traditionally support more conservative factions in the government. A number of merchants were also arrested after Aref’s visit, but released after a few hours.

Aref entering the metro station. You can see that he has paid his fair. Metro in Tehran is heavily subsidized. A single ride costs only a quarter.

Metro rides in Tehran are not for the faint-hearted, especially if you are running for the presidency and eager citizens question you on your ride!

With god's grace, the new metro cars in Tehran are air conditioned!

Yes, women can ride with men on the same car, but there are also women only cars for those who prefer the segregated space. Metro now is also a bustling space for women's businesses. Women vendors sell all kinds of things particularly in women only cars.

The public transportation etiquette in Iran is that younger people should offer their seats to the elderly. Aref is trying to persuade the young man that he is not that old despite his silver hair!

No, this is not a rally. People just exiting the metro station at Tehran Bazaar.

How many kisses on the cheek a presidential candidate can take?

Suddenly, from being thrown out of the race by Rafsanjani’s disqualification, the reformists see the possibility of an opening. If they are successful in forming a coalition with one candidate, then they might as well be able to take the election into a second round and a possible upset victory. That is hopeful thinking, but now that kind of hope does not seem totally baseless.

WHO IS THE SUPREME LEADER’S MAN?

2013-06-01T20:47:00.000-07:00

Saeed Jalili entered the race at the last minute and has emerged as a viable candidate. Yesterday he received the endorsement of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi the ideological and religious father of the conservative principlists. Yazdi was an uncompromising supporter of Ahmadinejad and on numerous occasions had called his presidency "the will of the absent Imam," the Shi‘a Messiah.

The guessing game continues in Tehran as the three competing conservative factions try to represent their candidate as the one favored by the Supreme Leader. Last week, it appeared that Ayatollah Khamenei was priming the nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili to become the next president. This week, however, the conservative papers as well as the reformists began to suspect that Jalili was acting as Ahmadinejad’s sleeper cell. While all eyes were on Masha’ei as Ahmadinejad’s Medvedev, a number of editorials suggested that Ahmadinejad successfully got the Guardian Council to qualify Jalili to run. If that is the case, the Supreme Leader will have a difficult time to throw his support behind a man who is also supported by Ahmadinejad, given that the outgoing president is now officially the black sheep of the principlist conservatives. Almost no one among the conservative elites trusts Ahmadinejad any more. What ever he touches turns to dust.

The 2+1 coalition from right to left: Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, Tehran's mayor, Ali-Akbar Velayati, former foreign minister and a trusted adviser of Ayatollah Khamenei, Haddad Adel, former speaker of the majles, and a close ally of Ayatollah Khamenei.

And then there is still the conservative coalition known as the 2+1. Originally, the plan was that from the three candidates of this coalition, two would step aside and endorse the third one at the end of the qualification process. Now that all three are qualified, none is willing to endorse the other. All three want to become the president. Yesterday, after a three-hour meeting all three reiterated that none is stepping aside in favor of the others.

2+1 was supposed to represent the Supreme Leader’s wish, but now with friction appearing within the coalition and each candidate considering himself the best option, no one knows which one the Supreme Leader will eventually bring under his robe!

Qalibaf presents himself as a candidate of all classes. He tries particularly to appear appealing to Tehran's large middle class with a significant electoral weight.

In every single poll conducted by the conservative think tanks, the charismatic member of 2+1, Tehran’s mayor Mohammad Qalibaf, is substantially ahead of his other conservative rivals. But Qalibaf also is a wild card. He has ambitions of his own and is unlikely to become the “yes-man” of the Supreme Leader.

The Supreme Leader has already learned from his experience of the last Tehran mayor to become president (Ahmadinejad), that he must empty the office of presidency from an institution of independent thinking. In effect, he wants to turn the office of the president officially into the executive wing of the Supreme Leader. After the last election in 2009, Ayatollah Khamenei made it clear that he will no longer tolerate a reformist president. Now his predicament is how to make his wishes a reality in an electoral process that remains unpredictable and difficult to manipulate.

THE UNITED STATES AND THE IRANIAN ELECTION

2013-05-27T17:03:00.000-07:00

To whose voice is Kerry listening?

In a poorly chosen moment, standing next to the Israeli President in Tel Aviv, John Kerry criticized the Iranian presidential election as undemocratic and unfair. “I can't think of anybody in the world looking at Iran's election who wouldn't be amazed by a process by which an unelected guardian council which is unaccountable to the Iranian people has actually disqualified hundreds of candidates, potential candidates, according to very vague criteria which the Iranian people are not privileged to know or judge by,” he said. “The Council narrowed a list of almost seven hundred potential candidates down to...officials of their choice, based solely on who represents the regime’s interests,” Kerry said shortly before he left Israel.

Ayatollah Beheshti was one of the most influential postrevolutionary leaders. He was killed in a bomb blast at the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party in the summer of 1981. The blast killed more than 75 people including 15 members of the parliament. The Organization of Mojahedin Khalq claimed responsibility for the attack. The terrorist organization now represents the main hope for many American hawks to bring "democracy" to Iran!

In 1979, when the Constitutional Assembly was busy drafting a new constitution for the postrevolutionary Iran, the framers of the new constitution tried hard to define how the newly born Islamic republic is distinct from communist countries and liberal democracies. In a scathing rejection of liberal democratic regimes, the influential Vice Chair of the Assembly, Ayatollah Beheshti, called electoral politics in the United States a sham. “In reality,” he remarked in a Chomskyite fashion of Manufacturing Consent, “people think they are free, but they are ruled by the capitalist class which controls all the bureaucratic instruments of the state and all the mass media. The ruling classes formally respect the electorate, but through the monopoly of mass media, they direct voting patterns of the public and shape public opinion. They respect the public only so long as it does not contradict the basic interests of the ruling class.”

Both Kerry and Beheshti have a point. There is no doubt that corporations have hijacked the American electoral politics. It is true that there are no political or legal institutions that determine who can and who cannot run for the presidency in the United States (except in the cases of constitutional requirements). But it is an open secret that without the consent of major corporations no candidate will be considered to be viable in the two-party American political theater. People in corporate high offices are a different kind of “unelected” officials who steer elections toward the interests of ruling classes. Although this has been a general characteristic of the capitalist state, in recent decades, with unregulated mergers of industrial, military, entertainment, and news media, the boundaries between the political elite and corporate executives have increasingly been muddied.

Who is being represented in a "representative government?"

There are two major problems with statements such as Kerry’s latest declaration about the lack of democracy in Iran.

1. The US is unashamedly hypocritical in its policy of promotion of democracy and human rights. Just a cursory look at the US allies in the region, from the Saudi family to the autocratic Persian Gulf Sheikhdoms, shows that for the United States the real problem in Iran is not democracy but competing regional interests. In the last 60 years or so, the US has shown that it can easily live with and defend brutal dictatorships so long as they preserve and promote American interests. In other words, the United States lacks moral authority vis-à-vis Iran to play the role of its democracy guardian angel.

2. Americans know all too well that behind whatever faction in Iran they throw their support, it will destroy them. When are we going to appreciate the fact that the American intervention in Iranian factional undermines the reformists and strengthens the hardliners. These mistakes have been repeated so many times that some conspiracy theorists might conclude that the US intentionally wants to keep hardliners in power in Iran. You could never underestimate the benefits of sustaining a good, barbaric, and irrational enemy.

The Iranian experience has also been far from ideal.
On all the ballot boxes in Iran there is a reminder of Ayatollah Khomeini's declaration that:
"The final arbiter is the nation's ballot!"

مصطفی تاج‌زاده: ميزان رأی رهبر است

In a statement from his cell in Evin prison in Tehran, Mostafa Tajzadeh,
one of the most influential political strategists of the reformists,
lambasted the recent Guardian Council decisions. The title of his letter is:
"The final arbiter is the Supreme Leader's ballot!"
He has been a vocal critic of the Supreme Leader and
his unlimited authority over the nation's affairs.

The Guardian Council limits the scope and the possibilities of Iranian elections.

Wall Street and Corporate Executives limit the scope and the possibilities of American elections.

There are those in the US who intend to use any pretext for an all out war against Iran. A day before Kerry’s comment, the Senate passed Resolution 65, conveying the U.S. support for potential Israeli military strikes on Iran. I am not an alarmist. But one should take American interest in democracy in Iran with a grain of Persian Gulf salt.

WHITHER THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC?

2013-05-25T20:58:00.001-07:00

مطهری: آیت‌الله خمینی هم اگر ثبت‌نام می‌کرد، رد صلاحیت می‌شد

Ali Motahhari, a conservative member of the majlis, was one of the supporters of Rafsanjani's candidacy. After the Guardian Council disqualified Rafsanjani, in a scathing open letter, he accused the Council of playing politics with their constitutional power. In the letter he stated: "Had Ayatollah Khomeini registered for the presidency, he would have been disqualified!"

One of the key elements that has sustained the Islamic Republic since its establishment in 1979 has been the diversity of its political elite. In the short history of the republic, presidential elections have always manifested this diversity and turned the election into an arena of political struggle between factions with deep disagreements about the future direction of the country. For that very reason, it has always been difficult to speak of the Islamic Republic as “a regime” with a uniform and unified polity. The very “regimehood” (if there is such a word) of the Islamic Republic has always been contested from within.

Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, also wrote an open letter expressing
his disbelief regarding the Guardian Council's rejection of Rafsanjani's candidacy.
By and large, Ayatollah Khomeini's descendants ally themselves with the reformists.

Although there always existed a hegemonic conception of what the Islamic Republic was all about, that hegemony was never absolute or as dominant as it might appear from the outside. From the very meaning of the Guardianship of the Jurist (velāyat-e faqih) to the relation between Islam and governance, from the scope and function of democratic institutions to their relationship with the power of religious authorities, from the significance of constitutional law to the authority of Islamic shari’a, all were topics of heated debates and contestations rather than foundations of governance in Iran.

That is why the Iranian revolution has never seemed settled and has taken a meandering path toward institutionalization. Now it seems like a major turning point is in the making. Under the leadership of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, by eliminating the reformist elements, the Islamic Republic is taking the first steps toward uniformity.

خواهشمند است دخالت فرمایید و نشان دهید

ولایت فقیه می خواهد جلوی دیکتاتوری را بگیرد

Dr. Zahra Mostafavi, Ayatollah Khomeini's daughter, also wrote an open letter to the Supreme Leader:
"Please intervene and show that the velāyat-e fagih intends to stop dictatorship!"
She further claimed in the same letter that Khomeini believed that Rafsanjani
was the most qualified to become the Supreme Leader.

The Guardian Council’s disqualification of Ayatollah Rafsanjani, the man whose current responsibility as the Head of the Expediency Council is to determine what is right and what is wrong for the existing Islamic order, is an interesting paradox. Many commentators in Tehran and abroad have highlighted the fact that the Council’s daring move in effect questions the legitimacy of the system. Despite its autocratic system of governance, the Islamic Republic has also relied and depended on its legitimacy as a sovereign state. Its leaders always emphasized the high participation in electoral process as the evidence of its popularity. They always boasted that they have found the solution to what the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas calls “motivational deficit” and the ambivalence of the electorate in liberal democracies. That there is a cultural and ideological connection between the masses and the state.

Now we have to wait and see this time how the Iranian electorate will respond to a presidential election in which for the first time since the revolution the big absent is a genuine competition.

PICTORIAL HISTORY

2013-05-22T13:05:00.000-07:00

In an editorial during the anniversary of the revolution last February,
a columnist of a Tehran newspaper lamented that "with the disappearance of people in
these photographs, we might assume that in 1979, a French officer brought Imam Khomeini back to Iran.

The story of the disappearance of Nikolai Yezhov,
the Director of NKVD under Stalin.

The case of missing Commissars!

On the right Khomeini and his missing companions: Qotbzadeh (Foreign Minister, executed in 1982),
Bani Sadr (the first president, in exile), Ayatollah Mahallati (joined the opposition early on after the revolution).
On the left: Khomeini, his son Ahmad, and his disciple Ayatollah Motahhari (assassinated by the opposition three months after the revolution).

How long before this opening closes?

Rafsanjani's exit!

THE FEMININE CAPACITY OF "REJĀL"

2013-05-21T22:03:00.000-07:00

The following is the translation of an oped that Masumeh Ebtekar wrote today
in Bahar newspaper. Ebtekar is a member of Tehran's City Council in charge of the city's
environmental affairs. She was also disqualified from running for a second term.
(see my earlier blog on the municipal elections).

When the time comes for the presidential election, the issue of qualifications of the candidates becomes the center of attention. The possibility of a woman president is also one of those topics that once every four years is seriously debated. Particularly this year, this issue became more controversial with comments of Mr. Mohammad Yazdi, a member of the Guardian Council, who belittled women by comparing their nomination to “a stranger who was not allowed into the village but was asking for the direction to the village elder’s home.” That of course gave his critics a good excuse to highlight the significance of the topic.

The possibility of women’s presidency is now hinges on the interpretation of the term “rejāl,” which is the word used in Article 115 of the constitution as one of the conditions of presidency. The dual meaning of the word (in Arabic, meaning “men,” and in Farsi meaning “known personalities.”) has allowed this game to be played for more than three decades now.

Ms. Monireh Gorji who was a member of the Constitutional Assembly of Experts recalls: “In the Assembly we discussed this issue at length. At the end we chose the word ‘rejāl,’ which is a general term, meaning the one who has the experience and wisdom to run for the office. Otherwise, we could have chosen the word ‘mardān,’ which would have left no ambiguity in the masculine reference to presidency.” Ayatollah Beheshti specifically emphasized that during the meetings of the Assembly that “we should not deny our society from the contributions of women.”

So far, the Guardian Council has refused to prohibit women from running for the office of presidency explicitly. Last February, the Council’s spokesperson clearly stated: “there is not constitutional obstacle for women’s nomination for presidency.” But now Mr. Yazdi argues that “the law does not allow women to be the president of the country … now everybody fancies to become the president, should we trust our country’s fate to those incapable hands?”

The fact is that Imam Khomeini spoke categorically against those who opposed women’s membership in the parliament and running for any office. He insisted that, “women should participate in managing the affairs of the country.” In another occasion, he stated: “Iranian women have a greater role than men in our movement.” The Imam believed that the principle of honesty, consideration of the Divine justice, and service must be the only criteria for running for elected offices.

We should ask the jurists of the Council based on which Qur’anic reference they believe women cannot run for presidency? Have they not heard of the Qur’anic story of Sheba? Do they not know that the Qur’an calls Queen Sheba the symbol of resistance to oppression and the spread of justice on behalf of Prophet Solomon? Do they ever ask themselves for what reason the Qur’an highlights the wisdom and courage of a woman in the establishment of justice and peace? The examples of women leaders are plenty in the Qur’an, women who led in economic affairs, like Khadija (the Prophet’s wife), women who led resistance to oppression, like Zahra, and Zeinab, women who exemplified cultural leadership and the promotion of different schools of thinking, like Ma’sumah. It was because of her learnedness and her high intellectual caliber that we have the city of Qom and its seminary as the center of Shi‘i thought.

How could our men in the high offices ignore that they come from a lineage of strong women leaders? Our Prophet says: “Those who respect women are honorable, and those who belittle them are detestable.” Could the Guardian Council interpret the law in the same way if women leaders such as Saint Ma’sumah were alive today?

RAFSANJANI AND MASHA’EI DISQUALIFIED

2013-05-21T12:29:00.000-07:00

The Guardian Council announced that it will not provide reasons for its decision!

I was getting ready to write a post saying that the security and police movements in Tehran and other cities indicate that the Guardian Council is ready to disqualify Masha’ei and Rafsanjani. I was too late. The Council released the names of 8 qualified candidates at 10:30 pm local time. The rising star among these candidates is Said Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator. I will say more about these candidates next time.

It seems like there are some general consensus that Said Jalili will emerge
as the front runner in the upcoming campaign.

Since yesterday, the security was tightened in Tehran and other big cities. Many of Ahmadinejad and Masha’ei supporters were arrested in small towns. The police closed the offices of the Organization of Reformist Youth first in Tehran and later in other cities across the country. Anti-riot police force was deployed in major squares in Tehran.

These anti-riot police bike riders became the most effective force in containing the
protests after the 2009 election.

The police is concerned about possible spontaneous rallies, similar to what happened after the last election in 2009, which gave rise to what became known as the Green Movement. It is unlikely that something similar to those massive protests will materialize now, but this time the security forces and prepared.

The Reformist Youth Organization was in the process of mobilizing people
for a massive participation in the election on behalf of Rafsanjani.

Khatami's meeting with the Reformist Youth at their headquarters in Tehran
The calligraphy on the wall: "I have not heard a more pleasant sound than the voice of Love."

Strategy meeting with the former president Khatami.

This is not over, yet. The Supreme Leader might intervene in the process of vetting, but that also is unlikely. Now we need to wait and see which candidates would step aside in favor of others.

Rafsanjani is perhaps the most important living figure of the Iranian revolution. He has been the Speaker of the parliament, two times president, Chief of the Assembly of Experts, and is the Head of Expediency Council, the highest arbitration body in the Iranian political system. His disqualification in so many different ways questions the legitimacy of the regime’s past deeds. It is the end of an era: the revolution has finally devoured its last standing child.

We shall wait and see how Ahmadinejad and his supporters react to Masha’ei’s disqualification. We know for sure that a new president will take the office soon. We do not know where Ahmadinejad will be heading to after his term ends, exile, house arrest, private citizen, prison, opposition leader…?

Front page of the government-sponosred paper Iran.
Ahmadinejad positioned himself as the main advocate of anti-corruption campaign
during his presidency. Here we see a lead story from 7 years ago about the head of a
smuggling and embezzlement ring. Now his opponents have distributed documents that
Mr. Masha'ei himself was supporting this man's operation.

Would Putin stick his neck out for Medvedev?

ESFANDIYAR

2013-05-17T22:40:00.000-07:00

Esfandiyar Rahim-Masha'ei standing next to a portrait of the poet Ferdowsi.
Does he think he is the embodiment of Esfandiyar, Ferdowsi's legendary hero?

Mr. Masha’ei, Ahmadinejad’s Medvedev, poses a grave dilemma for the Guardian Council. The Supreme Leader has openly spoken against him in the past, as an untrustworthy politician with dangerous ideas. He called on Ahmadinejad to strip him from all his official positions (he held many) particularly as his chief of staff. The President held his ground and refused to turn his back on his old friend. Esfandiyar Rahim-Masha’ei, he confided in his friends, is not a “willow that would tremble with a simple breeze.” But if they disqualify him from running in the next presidential election, they risk an unpredictable reaction from Ahmadinejad who seems determined to champion Masha’ei as his successor.

Ayatollah Jannati, the Head of the Guardian council
trying to make sense of the Supreme Leader's advice!

In his Shahnameh, the epic book of kings, composed between 977-1010 AD, the Persian poet Ferdowsi invests much of the power of his heroic poetry to describe the resilience and invincibility of Esfandiyar. In the Shahnameh, Esfandiyar signifies hope, loyalty, determination, and submission. He devotes his entire life to the King, his father, and despite his own suspicions about the King’s cunning and devious intentions remains faithful to the throne until his death.

A miniature depicting the battle of Rostam and Esfandiyar.
Here you can see the double-headed arrow in his eyes!

Statue of Esfandiyar in Ramsar, a Caspian Sea region town.

Esfandiyar wins seven battles and at the behest of his father spreads the message of Zarathustra in the land of Persia. Before every mission, the King promises the throne to Esfandiyar upon his successful return. But every time, he hedges and refuses to abdicate in favor of his own son. Although the court’s foretellers have warned the King that Esfandiyar will eventually be killed by Rostam, he decides to send his son to bring the Persian national hero to him in chains. Esfandiyar accepts the mission only reluctantly for the admiration he had for Rostam whose legend gave meaning to the unity of the nation. Rostam is old and vulnerable, Esfandiyar is young and unconquerable. Rostam is wounded in the battle but learns that Esfandiyar’s eyes are his Achilles Hill, so to speak. He makes a double-headed arrow from the wood of tamarisk tree. Esfandiyar is slain by Rostam’s shot through the eyes.

May 16 was the national day of Ferdowsi (yes in Iran there are national days for poets).
Ahmadinejad invited people to join him at the Azadi arena for a celebration of Ferdowsi's poetry.
Only a few hundred attended, even the orchestra was absent.
Ahmadinejad saved face and did not appear!

Masha’ei is keen to present himself as a modern day Esfandiyar, minus the shot through the eyes. Although his eyes, Ahmadinejad, remain vulnerable, he wants to change the ending of the story, make the King content, capture Rostam, and spoil his dream of becoming the national hero, an the savior of the nation. This week the foretellers of the court, the Guardian Council, need to make a prediction. Should they allow Esfandiyar to run for the battle of election? Should they ask the King to strike a deal with him? Should they allow Rostam to rise from his old age and remind the King and the nation of his political touch of Midas?

Scene from a recent musical adaptation of "Rostam and Esfandiyar" in Tehran.

DEMYSTIFYING THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN IRAN

2013-05-15T17:25:00.000-07:00

686 people nominated themselves as candidates for the next presidential election in Iran. The obvious question is how could an election be organized with hundreds of candidates running for a single office? The answer is that there won’t be an election with more than 600 candidates. In a day or two, the Guardian Council will announce the names of a few, perhaps 5 or 6, final candidates who are qualified to run for the office of the president.

The role of the Guardian Council is one of the most controversial topics in the Iranian electoral politics. For the most part, the constitution envisioned a role very similar to the Supreme Court for the Guardian Council: To ensure the constitutionality of the laws and regulations and the compatibility of those laws with the teachings of Islam. On both fronts, the Council had a troubled beginning. Its members proved that they could hardly agree on any issues. Neither could they agree on what counts as being “Islamic,” nor could they show their competence in interpreting the constitution.

During Ayatollah Khomeini’s tenure as the Supreme Leader, in most cases, he disagreed with the Council’s interpretations and sided with the Parliament (majils) on legislative issues.

The Council is composed of 12 members, six experts of Islamic jurisprudence are appointed by the Supreme Leader and the majlis selects the remaining six from a list of jurists that is prepared by the Head of the Judiciary.
Historically, the Council has represented the conservative elements of the polity with a more dogmatic/literal readings of Islamic jurisprudence.

In 1992, and here is the controversy, the Council introduced a broad interpretation of its supervisory role in the elections of the majlis, the Assembly of the Experts, and the president. While the constitution does charge the Council with supervising the elections, the meaning of this supervision has been a point of serious contention between different political factions. The Council claims that its supervisory role is “approbatory,” (نظارت استصوابی) meaning that it will decide whether a candidate is qualified to run for an office or not. In most cases, the Council has tried to use its authority to disqualify candidates with whose political views it disagrees. In this case, these were mostly reformist candidates for the majlis or presidency. Others, generally from the reformist tendencies, argue that the constitution has given the Council the authority only for “evidentiary”(نظارت استنادی) or “notification” (نظارت استطلاعی) supervision. That means that the Council may not disqualify any candidate based on his (or her) political views.

The 87-year old Ayatollah Jannati is the Head of the Council
and the most vociferous advocate of the approbation supervision.

Yesterday, Akbar A’lami, a presidential candidate, said that the Council should not insist on its wisdom on vetting the presidential candidates. They cannot stand behind their own record. Bani Sadr, the first president of the republic, was impeached and is now in exile in Paris. They chair of the Council, Ayatollah Janati, calls Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the third president, one of the leaders of the sedition. The Council believes that Mohammad Khatami, the former president, was a disgrace to the republic. Ahmadinejad now is considered to be the head of deviant faction in power. Not particularly a record to be proud of.

This week, the Guardian Council will announce who will be allowed to run for the election. In Tehran a contentious guessing game is under way. We try to stay clear of speculation here.

Next time, I will try to lay out the complex landscape of political factions in Iran.

The Boisterous Presidential VS. The Quiet Municipal Elections

2013-05-14T09:10:00.000-07:00

Most newspapers in Tehran dedicated their main headlines to Ahmadinejad's violation of the election law. That was predictable, since he does not have many supporters in the Iranian mass media these days. 150 members of the majlis signed a petition asking for a vote of no confidence against the president for his repeated violations of the law.

Front page of Bahar (Spring) newspaper in Tehran: a pictorial conviction!

But today I would like to talk about another important electoral event that might not get much press during the next few weeks. The 4^th elections for town and country municipal councils will be held on the same day as the presidential elections. While all the cameras were focused on the colorful presidential candidates and the elaborate fanfare at the Ministry of Interior, hundreds of nominees for the municipal councils were disqualified throughout the country. Most of those whose disqualification was announced yesterday belong to the reformist camps. These include sitting council members, former council members and state officials and ministers. In almost all cases the disqualifications were justified by a reference to section “J” and “D” of article 26 of the election law that requires the candidates to be “committed to the constitution of the Islamic Republic.” As one of the disqualified candidates put it in an interview with Sharq newspaper yesterday, “quietly, they want to eliminate competition from the Councils election.”

The Councils were the brainchild of Ayatollah Taleqani. With his insistence, it was included in the Republic’s constitution as a way of decentralization of state power. He interpreted the famous Qur’anic verse (42:38): amruhum shura baynahum (run your affairs based on consultation) as the Islamic decree for democratic decision-making and a foundation for decentralization of state power. He believed that powerful councils will strengthen civil society and will contain state power. Taleqani died soon after the revolution and with him was buried the implementation of municipal councils power. Until, in 1998, after his first year in the office, as part of his reform agenda, President Khatami realized Taleqani’s dream.

Following the phenomenal 80% participation in the presidential election, the first municipal elections drew close to 70% of the electorates to the polls for 3,300 councils throughout the country. The reformists won the absolute majority in almost all the councils throughout the country.

The second Councils’ election drew a telling picture of its failure. With an overall participation of 45%, only 11% of Tehran residents and 15% of other big cities cast their ballots. The important distinctions defined the second council elections in 2003. It attracted the lowest number of the electorates to the polls, but paradoxically, it was the only postrevolutionary elections in which not a single candidate was disqualified from the running. It constituted the freest election with the lowest rate of participation.

The winner of the second council elections was a new breed of conservatives. They won the majority of the seats in major cities, including in Tehran, with only 5% of the total electorates’ vote. They believed, in order to steer away the instruments of power from the reformists, they needed to mobilize a bottom-up campaign, running on a distributive justice agenda. The Tehran City Council elected an obscure character, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Mayor. Two years later he won the presidential election in a landslide against the politician par excellence of the Republic, Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The third election of the councils offered another surprise. While this time, the candidates were massively disqualified, the participation jumped from a nationwide of 45 to 60%, with major cities still lagging far behind of small towns and rural areas. The final tally indicated (233,000 candidates ran) that the reformists capture 40%, the independents and all shades of the conservatives each took 30% of all seats.

Two points are noteworthy in the Councils’ elections: first the high percentage of participation in small towns and rural areas, and second, the impressive success of women in running and being elected. More than 5,000 women were elected to the municipal councils. In Shiraz, Arak, Hamedan, Zanjan, and Ardebil a woman candidate received the highest number of votes. In Urumiyeh, women candidates won the first, second, and third seats, in Qazvin first, second, third, and fifth seats.

A beauty products saleswoman, Arezu Babadi, an independent in Ahvaz,
came in second after a reformist candidate. As you can see, without any ambiguity,
her posters showed that she was determined to bring another color to the Council politics.

While the majority of women ran on reformist tickets, a significant number also ran independently. Speaking to the reporters after her victory, Mehrnoush Najafi of Hamedan attributed her success to her work in mosques to gain peoples’ trust and to know their pressing concerns. Sadly, a few months ago she had to resign after her hijab-less facebook pictures were posted on many website. The conservative members of the Hamedan Council asked for her resignation because her "nude" pictures had brought disgrace to the city!

More than 300,000 have nominated themselves for the 4^th Councils’ election. Although only 12,000 of these candidates are women, an increase of more than 70% from the last elections, given their previous records, they are in good position to win a good number of seats, particularly in small towns. This time also there seems to be a significant consciousness about the contribution of women to a civil politics.

E'temad newspaper ran a full page analysis of the sharp increase in women's participation.
No, this is not the line for Macy's latest White Flower sale, women in Isfahan waiting to
register their candidacy for the city's council.

Dr. Shahla Kazemipour is a demographer, specializing in women's mobility. She argues that
the surge in women's political participation is directly linked to their increasing rate of higher education.
60% of university students in Iran are women.

As I said earlier, there is a distinction this time that women are speaking more and more explicitly about their participation as women. They emphasize that women could introduce a different kind of politics at least at the municipal level.

Halimeh Aali, a physician who represents Zabol district of Sistan and Baluchistan in the Parliament.
She is the first woman elected from the region in the legislative branch.
Many people in Iran talk about the "Halimeh effect".

In an editorial yesterday, she declares that: "Wherever there are women, there is peace and tranquility!"

Sakineh Omrani, representative of the small town of Samirom in central Iran, also is a vocal proponent of
women's political participation. In another op-ed yesterday, she insisted that:
"We need to institutionalize women's successful experience in political participation!"

Here are numbers of women candidates in the 4th Council's election.
The astonishing fact is the high numbers of participation in regional states.
In Kerman 1095 women have registeered, Fars 921, Gilan 777, Isfahan 713, Khorasan 592,
Sistan and Baluchistan 584, Khuzestan 550.

I also want to show you how enthusiastic small remote districts are about the Council's election.

Click on Shushtar and see how the candidates publicize their campaign.

You can monitor the election in Evaz, a town with 22000 population in central Iran.

Here is the website for the village of Fashkour near the city of Chalous in Caspian Sea region.
You will enjoy some nice music there, too. Make sure that you will cast your vote
if you happen to be in Fashkour next month.

And last but not least, my American friends who would remember Sister Mary during the hostage crisis of 1979 should know that she was disqualified from running for her second term in Tehran City Council.

The young Masumeh Ebtekar (Mary for Americans). She was the spokeswoman for the students
who took over the American Embassy in Tehran.

She went on to become a vocal environmentalist and served under President Khatami as his
environmental advisor. Here she is sitting next to Ahmadinejad's sister in a city council meeting in Tehran.

In Tehran the number of candidates reached 1950. As of yesterday, 203 of them were disqualified.

Next time, I will explain the role of the Guardian Council in the election and why many in Iran believe that they act unconstitutionally in the process of vetting the candidates.

behrooz ghamari

The Stormy Beginning!

2013-05-12T09:21:00.000-07:00

Hours after photos of Ahmadinejad and Masha’ei appeared in the media, the jurists of the Guardian Council filed an official charge against the President for the violation of the election regulations. According to the law, a sitting President may not use state resources to promote candidates for any elected office. The Council argues that by introducing Masha’ei and accompanying him at the registration desk of the Ministry of Interior, Ahmadinejad has misused and exploited government resources. In effect, he is trying to appoint his successor. As I wrote earlier, this comes as no surprise, because Ahmadinejad/Masha’ei ticket is already dubbed in Iran as the Putin/Medvedev strategy. A number of the members of the Parliament were quick to call for a vote of no confidence against Ahmadinejad. That is highly unlikely that such vote would ever materialize on the floor of the majlis, given that his term is going to be terminated in only a month, no matter how long this month turns out to be.

In his own defense, in a press release, Ahmadinejad argued that he was in no violation of the campaign regulations because on the day that he accompanied Masha'ei for registration he had taken a day off. So, since he was not acting in the capacity of the President, he was only there as a private citizen and therefore no violation has been committed! Something that I would call the "Ahmadilogic," which kept his office going for 8 years.

Here are some pictures that caused the outrage of the Guardian Council. A number of websites, which are operated by former supporters of Ahmadinejad, called him an “outdated King-maker.” The caption on one website read, “Monarchy is gone, we are a Republic.”

Judge for your selves. How should one read these pictures?

Masha'ei on the Left, Ahmadinejad on the Right

Not quite clear which one in registering!

And the winner is....?

Don't push, I know what to do...

Let me turn off the enemies microphones!

In the other major news, four major reformist newspapers in Tehran called Rafsanjani’s entrance to the race as the “Big Shock” of the election. In no uncertain terms, they threw their support behind his candidacy. The front pages of these papers need no explanation. There are more than 15 newspapers published in Tehran. In the absence of a clear party organizations, newspapers in Iran operate as the voices of different political tendencies. In addition to newspapers in Tehran, there are regional daily papers which represent different political trends. In future posts, I will explain more about these different lines in Iranian politics.

Front page of E'temad (Trust) the most popular reformist newspaper in Iran.
"Shocking Start!"

Front Page of Bahar (Spring)
"A Day that Will Remain in History:
Creating a Legend with Hashemi"

Sharq (The East) is one of the most popular reformist newspapers which
has struggled in recent years to keep its door open. The paper is under constant
scrutiny of the Press Court and has gone through periods of suspension and reopening so many times.
"At the End, Hashemi Came ..."

Aftab (The Sun) one of the oldest reformist papers.
"That Man Comes for the Rain" (a reference for a fresh start)

In my last post, I mentioned the incredible diversity of the candidates and how the Iranian election law makes it possible for people of all walks of life register, but not necessarily enter the race. Here are some interesting statistics of the presidential nominees:

Number of nominees: 686.

Number of women: 30.

Education: 89 PhDs, 152 MA degree, 212 Bachelors, 52 Associate Degree, and the rest high school diploma and under.

Occupation: 198 businessman, 171 state employees, 94 retired pensioners, 91 university professors, 48 in arts-culture-education, 25 physicians, 2 judges, 17 retired military personnel, 14 clerics, 3 members of the parliament.

Age: 76 under 30, 66 between 30-35, 86 between 36-40, 125 between 41-45, 101 between 46-50, 87 between 51-55, 83 between 56-60, 32 between 61-65, 10 between 65-70, 14 over 74.

The youngest candidate is 19 and the oldest 78.

behrooz ghamari

IRAN’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

2013-05-11T23:14:00.000-07:00

Just a few minutes before the offices of the Ministry of Interior close on May 11, Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani registered as a candidate for the upcoming presidential elections in Iran. This is the fourth time that Rafsanjani runs for presidency, twice he has won (1989 and 1993) and once lost the to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005. In a show of massive support, within minutes after the news about Rafsanjani’s decision to enter the race was publicized, his supporters flooded the streets around the Ministry of Interior.

Esfandiar Rahim-Masha’ei was the other significant personality who appeared in person at the Ministry of Interior just before the end of the 5-day registration period. Masha’ei is Ahmadinejad’s handpicked candidate and many analysts refer to them as the Putin-Medvedev duo. Like Russia, in Iran there is a two consecutive term limits for presidency. Theoretically, Ahmadinejad can run again in four years and reoccupy the office at the end of his proxy’s term.

The other major figure in this race is Tehran’s mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf. The former police chief and a vocal critic of President Ahmadinejad, Qalibaf appears to be the main hope for the “conservative” coalition known as 2+1, a coalition which has the closest ties to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.

These of course are only three candidates among 686 men and women who have announced their candidacy for the next Iranian President. The election is scheduled for Friday, June 14. The constitution has considered a broad series of qualification for the President:

1. To be a known religious or political personality.

2. Born citizen of Iran.

3. Proven record of administrative competence.

4. Proven record of piety and trusteeship.

5. Believe in the constitution of the Islamic Republic and the official religion of the nation.

With the exception of line 2 of the qualifications, the rest of the articles are rather subjective and open to interpretation. Every 4 years condition number 1 becomes an item of controversy along gender lines. The constitution states that the candidate must be of “rijal-e mazhabi va siyasi.” The word “rijal” in Arabic means “men.” In Farsi, however, the word rijal is only used as a signifier of the importance of a person, a known personality, a celebrity, without gender attribution. But since the first presidential elections, the Guardian Council, which is responsible for vetting the candidates and determining their qualifications, has interpreted the word in its original masculine Arabic usage, and thereby disqualified women from running for presidency.

Although the Iranian political system is nothing like a Western democracy, its presidential elections, remains as one of the world’s most unpredictable and highly contested forms of electoral politics. This might raise some eyebrows, particularly among those who see Iran simply as a totalitarian theocracy. For the next few weeks, I will try to keep you posted on the development in the Iranian presidential race as a way to demonstrate that Iran is neither a totalitarian state nor a theocracy in its restricted sense. It is rather an amalgam of competing interests, actors with diverse political visions, and genuine differences in the politics and policies.

As we get closer to the election-day, I will try to show the main differences between the candidates’ platforms, those who will be qualified by the Guardian Council. Chances are that out of those 686 people, only a handful, perhaps 4 or 5, will be qualified to run. But I thought it would be interesting to see some of the faces of the nominees and the carnivalesque atmosphere of the registration office during these past 5 days.

Here are some pictures of those you might not see on the campaign trail:

Four Years or Double "V"?

The youngest candidate!

The first woman who nominated herself this year told the reporters: "Do not ask me any political questions!"

Elvis?

A Luti !

Ready to make Iran independent from imported agrarian "strategic" goods!

The book is a copy of the constitution, the documents in the plastic bag, unknown!

Women came with all possible variations of Islamic hijab.

Perhaps being shy is not going to work in his favor!

He shares a name with Behrouz Vosouqi, the great Iranian actor who made the character
of "Qeisar" a hallmark of the Iranian cinema of the 1970s. Mr. Vosouqi, the candidate,
is a "Qeisar" impersonator.

With his shroud, he is ready for martyrdom on the campaign trail.

He has already introduced the members of his cabinet.

I think she knows that she will not be qualified to run!

Needs to work on the "V" sign!

He does not look too hopeful, either!

LONG LINES!

Already thinking about his victory speech!

Shoes are not required!

Too late for having second thoughts!

Forgot his ID and documents!

Ready with his ad campaign!

With a picture of young Ahmadinejad!

Hope is what keeps man alive!

I like the confidence in the way she walks!

SHE IS IN!

Happy Cleric!

Happier Cleric!

behrooz ghamari

Reflecting on Jerry and Me

2013-05-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

Professor Mehrnaz Saeedvafa of Columbia College, Chicago, discusses her film Jerry and Me

CSAMES hosted the first Middle East Film Festival this spring, featuring seven documentaries and six feature films on the Arab world and Iran. All films were free and open to the pubic.

The Film Festival was funded in part by a grant from the Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language program, International Studies Division of the U.S. Department of Education.

Students of the ARAB/SAME 150 Arab Spring course share their reflections on three of the films below.

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By Sarah Elnawasrah

Jerry Lewis, an iconic comedian in Hollywood, left a profound impression on Mehrnaz Saeedvafa as a young Iranian girl. Saeedvafa grows up in a tumultuous family, however she has fond memories of watching the movies every Saturday with her father and grew to love Lewis and his comedic role in all of his movies. In Jerry and Me, Saeedvafa explores her intimate relationship with Hollywood cinema and specifically Jerry Lewis. She interweaves political happenings of Iran as well as her move to the U.S. with clips from Jerry Lewis’ movies. The film comes to light when Saeedvafa sees Lewis in person and she feels a sort of dissonance between what she felt Lewis represented and how he really conducted himself. Ironically, some of his comedic scenes represent deep and personal moments of her life. This overlap of Lewis and Saeedvafa’s voice create a sort of dual-symbolism whereby her current troubles and obstacles are represented through an old Hollywood scene.

Interestingly, The Circle’s director, Jafar Panahi, was one of Saeedvafa’s students in Iran. Panahi creates a powerful image of what it is like to be a woman in modern-day Iran. While the characters he uses are ex-convicts who have just escaped from prison, their problems and obstacles are all too common. As the movie goes on, the narrative switches and the audience observes the different circumstances and life decisions each woman has made. The Circle touches on controversial issues such as pregnancy and abortion, prostitution, and ostracism. The movie comes full circle when we see the pregnant woman from the first scene in the closing scene.

The Circle and Jerry and Me shed light on personal stories that could happen in Iran or related to Iranian life. Specifically, both films highlight women’s roles and issues in Iran. Saeedvafa touches on her mother’s struggles with her abusive father and her role as a foreign mother with a son in America. In addition, she highlights the U.S.’s political role while living in Iran as well as Iran’s role while living in the U.S. The Circle on the other hand uncovers uncomfortable truths and realities women in Iran face. The film provides foreign audiences with real life issues that could be applicable in any other nation. All in all, The Circle and Jerry and Me are unique in their honesty and relatability.

Sarah Elnawasrah is a junior double majoring in Psychology and Global Studies with minors in Arabic and French.

Women's fight against sexual harassment similar to Arab Spring struggle for dignity

2013-05-06T10:09:00.001-07:00

Egyptian actress Bushra in a scene from Cairo 678

By Jasmine Kirby

Cairo 678 is an award winning Egyptian film that tells the story of three women from different parts of Egyptian society and their struggles against sexual harassment. Although the film “678” is not directly about the Egyptian Revolution it discusses many issues in Egyptian society through the framework of different women’s experiences with sexual harassment.

The biggest issue dealt with by the film is obviously the mistreatment of women in Egypt; specifically the pervasiveness of sexual harassment in daily life. Despite the fact that the three main characters came from different socioeconomic backgrounds all three experienced sexual harassment. This demonstrates that this is a problem that can be faced by any woman in Egypt. Similarly, this harassment occurred without much fanfare in locations pivotal to daily life in Egypt such as public transportation and sporting events. It is clear that sexual harassment is not taken as seriously as other crimes in Egypt. Moreover, the commonness of sexual harassment illustrates that change to improving the daily lives of women has always been slow. This demonstrates the Egyptian government's slow response to the injustices felt by its citizens.

Adding to this, another important issue dealt with by the film is the idea of the poor suffering for the transgressions of the rich. This is specifically addressed in the poorer character's complaint that she suffers sexual harassment because men believe she is as “promiscuous” as the richer more Westernized characters. The woman is clearly upset by the rich women's wealth, Westernization and most importantly pushing the limits of traditional gender roles. The divide between the lives of Egypt's richest and poorest played an important role in the cause of the revolution. Moreover, this scene highlights the conservatism of the poor and foreshadows the rise of political Islam in Egypt after the fall of Mubarak.

Overall, through examining sexual harassment in Egypt this film deals with one of the most important causes of the revolution, dignity. After facing harassment, women especially felt the loss of dignity experienced to some extent by all living under a dictatorship. And much like the revolutionaries, the women felt that they had to resort to extreme actions in order to regain their dignity.

Jasmine Kirby is a first year student majoring in History.

Lily Afshar in Concert

2013-04-04T14:05:00.002-07:00

We were extremely fortunate to have a talented artist come to perform on campus last week. Lily Afshar, one of the world's foremost classical guitarists, and the first woman in the world to gain a Doctorate of Music in guitar performance, played for a full audience of campus and community members on Friday, March 29. She performed a collection of pieces, including four Persian and Azerbaijani ballads adapted for guitar. The concert was funded in part by the U.S. Department of Education Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program, the School of Music, and the Iranian Cultural Association. Special thanks to Professor Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi and ICA members for all their help organizing this event.

Peer Pressure to Act Against Their Beliefs

2013-03-19T11:17:00.002-07:00

Professor Shabana Mir

By Michael Nelson, MA Candidate in European Union Studies

After having attended many scholarly lectures, it was a unique experience to attend a CSAMES Brown Bag Lecture that included a professor discussing college drinking norms and students “hooking up” and so on. The comments were part of a larger dialogue in Professor Shabana Mir’s lecture, “Muslim American Undergraduates in College Leisure Culture: Conformity, Resistance and Self-Essentialism” on March 12. Dr. Mir interviewed 26 Muslim American women in college at George Washington University and Georgetown University during the 2002-2003 academic year about their leisure activities.

A big focus of the presentation was the power of American undergraduate culture in terms of drinking alcohol and dating. Most college students feel a pressure to “become an adult” by experiencing the freedom to binge drink and date. However, many Muslim students do not believe that drinking should be a part of one’s everyday life, and dating should be platonic at most. Many students interviewed by Dr. Mir indicated that their non-Muslim friends found it “weird” that the Muslim students didn’t drink and date.

In an effort to not stick out so much, many Muslim undergrads felt obliged to give half-answers to questions about drinking and dating, as well as sometimes do things they didn’t want to do. For example, when asked if she had ever dated someone, one student said something along the lines of “not yet.” This answer implies that the student could be interested in dating but just hadn’t at that point. Another student signed a petition to allow alcohol at one special event on a dry college campus, leaving her with a feeling of guilt later.

During the Q&A, I asked the speaker about how academic expectations at these two universities played a role in the overall leisure culture. Since George Washington and Georgetown are both top-tier competitive schools, I thought that students might be too busy with their studies to party as much as students at slightly less competitive colleges. Dr. Mir brought up a good point that there is a feeling of “work hard, play hard” at almost all colleges in the United States. Dr. Mir shared the funny anecdote that most students she has spoken with always think that their college is the number one party school in the country.

As someone who didn’t drink as an undergraduate student myself, I can attest to the fact that the University of Illinois offers students many other activities to do besides party. For incoming students, there is a dorm that is for people who commit to being drug and alcohol free, and that dorm plans many fun activities to do instead. There are also reasonably priced concerts and theater performances, as well as over 1,000 registered student organizations and campus recreation facilities. UIUC has a very active Muslim Student Association. While U of I definitely has a party culture, especially with the annual Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day, I believe that there is also a general acceptance of those who do not wish to party.