So this is one of those situations where, if you've never been in analogous circumstances, it's hard to know how one feels. How do you construe your attachment? How, you know, viscerally do you feel it?
I second slolernr's question. Sorry to hear this, really. It sounds like unpleasantness is going to down no matter what. Sigh.
Also, can someone please explain why people boycott elections. I just don't get it.
I know of no "liberal" who boycotted the elections. I know of plenty of Monarchists who did not vote... but then again, Monarchists had never had the interest of Iran in mind. They are just looking forward to making it easier for the US to have an excuse to tighten the noose around the Iranians' neck... so perhaps sometime in the future they can go back and re-create their lost life. :(
You might have better information than I do, NBT, and what you say about the monarchists is absolutely true. If you check out the republican blogs, they're already saying that the election was "illegitimate" because people didn't vote. I was under the impression that, at least in the first round, a lot of liberals vote. Are you in Iran?
Trying to come up with a bright side, and working from a basis of almost perfect ignorance: Is it possible that Ahmadinejad's election will cement the legitimacy of the electoral process in the eyes of Iranian conservatives, so the next time a moderate gets elected, it has a better chance of sticking?
Is it really true that a Hashemi-Rafsanjani victory would have been better? Rafsanjani is one of the most powerful men in Iran's theocracy. As chairman of the Expediency Council he already has more power than the president, so why was he even running in the first place?
And another thing, if Rafsanjani really supports reformism why did he capitulate to Khamenei instead of backing up Khatami and the reformist Majlis? Khatami could have succeeded in many of his efforts if Rafsanjani had sided with him, but he chose not to do so. Rafsanjani definitely was not an innocent bystander in the reformist collapse (In fact, I've heard plausible conspiracy theories that Rafsanjani purposefully undermined Khatami so that he could become president again).
Also, didn't Rafsanjani have a private meeting with Ayatollah Khamenei on election day? Not even Ahmedinejad did that. Rafsanjani is the very definition of a corrupt mullah, and he is not as independent as some claim. So how is it that he is the champion of the liberal spirit?
Ahmedinejad might turn out better than expected, actually. For all his religious fervor, he is not a cleric. This may actually lead to more reforms in Iran (although maybe not in terms of sexual liberation). For example, being the official choice of the Revolutionary Guard, he may bring the military and police under the control of the presidency and the elected offices.
For some reason, though, Ahmedinejad reminds me of Benyamin Netanyahu. Although his rhetoric made him a far-right candidate, in practice his premiership in Israel was surprisingly dovish and he almost left the Golan and made peace with Syria. This happened largely because Netanyahu was the first Israeli prime minister who had not been in the military high command, and he oversaw a lessening of the basic militarism that was ingrained in many of Israel's governmental institutions. As an ordinary soldier he simply had a different way of operating than the men that came before him.
Rabin and Barak were both generals the same as Sharon, and while their politics are different, their mentalities are actually quite similar. They all ran their governments just like it was an army. Look at how Sharon steamrolled opposition to disengagement plan. I'm not an outspoken opponent of the idea, but he shirked democratic controls on his power to put it on the agenda. He saw a problem, decided to fix it, and didn't let anyone stop him for either good or bad reasons. Sharon gave a command instead of setting a policy, and there is an important difference. Rabin was no different in that respect.
Netanyahu was not the devil he was made out to be. Perhaps the same is true of Ahmedinejad. The most striking thing about the Iranian election, in my mind, was that the conservatives did not run any clerics in the race at all. The two turbaned men (Rafsanjani and Karroubi) were both pretending to be reformists. Perhaps it is time for someone who is not an Ayatollah or Hojatoleslam to be President of Iran. I mean, that is a good thing, right?
I can think of a couple reasons to boycott a vote.
First, if there is only one candidate.
Second, if you are convinced the vote is 'fixed' and you don't want to take part in a sham election.
On a more positive note, the Iranian election fits nicely into the Bush geopolitical game plan, and will justify an escalation of the rather mild McCarthyism we've seen over the past week or so.
Yuri Guri, I didn't mean to make a better/worse judgement. Like I say, Ahmadinejad just might be the person who brings things to a head and ends up making the mullahs much less powerful. All I meant is that if that happens, it's very likely going to be bloody. That makes me, personally, apprehensive.
Someone has got to mention the fact that the guy is talking about redistributing wealth -- you've got radical Islam and classic left-wing sentiment, in the very same guy. I'll bet Horowitz was so excited that he defecated on himself and rolled around in it.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but my impression was that everyone felt this election was massively rigged.
Clearly by "everyone", I don't mean everyone. But lots of people.
Well, they're always rigged in the sense that only approved candidates get to run. Reports I've heard about traditional vote fraud indicate that it wasn't a serious problem, but, of course, I'm not sure about that.
Or rigged as in the high clerics or the supreme court or whomever will thwart thewill of the people. Before Florida 2000 these things were a lot clearer to me.
Ogged. Thanks for posting about this. It is something I know all too little about and am quite interested in. Would it be possible to do a post that gives an Internet rundown of where to look for information on these developments?
Huh. A few sources would be good, wouldn't they? I hear this stuff from relatives. My mom is a news hound, but I think she reads mostly Farsi sites. I'll ask her though.
Thanks - the response time is even better then when Jimmy Stewart fired that gun out the window to attract the police.
And what do you mean Grace Kelly is a dog?
That was a joke, following up on my Penelope Cruz is ugly bit.
Oh. She got a lot uglier when I realized that she had good things to say about scientology.
Indeed. Funny stuff about scientology here today.
I saw Cruise dooing an interview some months back about the center he'd built for 911 victims and rescue worker/victims with respiratory ailments and had been briefly conned by it. Its Scientology in action. I don't know if he is just completely misguided or evil. Or if one is a subset of the other. As a New Yorker, this just makes me irate. More people capitalizing on suffering.
Of course, its possible the stuff would actually help someone. But I kind of doubt it.
Its much nicer thinking about Grace Kelly.