It’s ironic that in Iran, a nation the vast majority of the West regards as undemocratic, the voters and citizens have a much deeper appreciation and devotion to what semblance of democracy they do have than their counterparts in the United States. Iranian state media has announced that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won reelection with 62.9% of the vote (he apparently won between 60-70% of the vote in EVERY district, even the home district of his opponent, Mir Houssain Mousavi).
However, Mr. Mousavi and his supporters have refused to accept this fraud. Mr. Mousavi claims that he is the victor, and his supporters are willing to put their lives and wellbeing on the line to fight for their votes, to speak out in the face of oppression, to grab hold of their right to self-governance. If only voters in America showed the same passion about their democracy. If only voters in America understood how high the stakes were. If only voters in America were willing to realize that THEY are the democracy of this country, and that they must cherish it, participate in it, and take it back when it is threatened. If only the voters in America had refused to accept the farce that was the Bush “victory” in Florida.
How different would this nation and world be, if Al Gore had refused to accept the flagrant cheating, and voter suppression that marred the 2000 Florida election process? What if Al Gore had had Mousavi’s courage, and had called on his supporters to show that same courage by taking to the streets and standing up to democracy? But he didn’t, and it takes no genius to recognize that we are much the worse for it.
In 1953 the United States overthrew Iran’s fledgling democratic government lead by Mohammad Mossadegh. Now, more than fifty years later, Iranian’s are still suffering the consequences, but they have shown a determination to have their voices for reform heard and not ignored. The Iranian people realize that they are the power of their country, and they are not afraid to take to the streets by the hundreds of thousands and shout it to their neighbors, to the police, to the Ayatollah. Americans would do well to take note.
9 comments:
You are very misguided. Your argument would be much more persuasive if you avoided comments that make you seem ignorant, such as claiming that there was "flagrant cheating and voter suppression" in the 200 election. While i dislike George Bush as much as you do, there is no such evidence of such claims and to advocate them diminishes your credability.
There's no comparison between the disputed election in Iran and any scenario in U.S. history. Iran is a repressive dictatorship with no tolerance for dissent and no allowances for freedom of speech or press, who thought nothing of shutting down cell phone service and virtually all of the Internet when protests escalated, and thought nothing of sending police forces to break into dorms and murder college students. Even when 7 states seceded upon the election of Lincoln in 1861, there wasn't a Constitutional crises abrogating basic freedoms.* Apropos of that election, Al Gore quoted Lincoln's opponent in his 2000 concession address:
"Almost a century and a half ago, Senator Stephen Douglas told Abraham Lincoln, who had just defeated him for the presidency, 'Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I'm with you, Mr. President, and God bless you.' Well, in that same spirit, I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside, and may God bless his stewardship of this country. Neither he nor I anticipated this long and difficult road. Certainly neither of us wanted it to happen. Yet it came, and now it has ended, resolved, as it must be resolved, through the honored institutions of our democracy.
"Over the library of one of our great law schools is inscribed the motto, 'Not under man but under God and law.' That's the ruling principle of American freedom, the source of our democratic liberties. I've tried to make it my guide throughout this contest, as it has guided America's deliberations of all the complex issues of the past five weeks.
"Now the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken. Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it."
If America were to go into revolution mode each time there was a close election, we'd probably be not much better off than the banana republics for which periodic strife is the way of life. Yes, much damage was done in 8 years of George W. Bush, but the proper democratic response is to keep standing up for the truth and win the next election. "Man over law", as we are seeing in Iran right now, should only apply when the "law" is actually a tyrannical man. The Bush regime and all the forces that put it into place were many things, but never tyrannical in the fashion of the Ayatollah.
*Lincoln did suspend habeas corpus, which became de rigeur in times of national emergency. It should be noted that there is a Consitutional provision for the suspension of habeas corpus, unlike with other Constitutionally-protected rights.
I have to disagree; there are numerous examples of "irregularities" from the Florida election. As far as voter suppression goes, Katherine Harris hired a firm with strong Republican ties to purge the voter rolls of convicted felons, however the firm went MUCH farther than that, and purged the names of tens of thousands of legitimate black voters, as well as those whose names even closely resembled the names of the felons. Salon has a good overview from right after the whole controversy: http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/04/voter_file/index.html
Also, I wasn't advocating that the US have a revolution at every close election. Iran isn't having any such revolution at the moment. I am merely speaking to their willingness to march and be heard, compared to the apparent apathy of the average American voter.
And as far as 2004 goes, those of us in Ohio know that there were serious issues of fraud, as partially detailed at CommonDreams: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0813-29.htm
By the way, can somebody tell me how to hyperlink in comments?
I think it's quite in question whether or not we are seeing a nascent Iranian revolution. Proscribed protests continue daily, and nightly there is calling from the rooftops. The next step for the government will be to unleash the Revolutionary Guard at a gathering of protesters, at which point either the movement will either be quelled or stirred. The government is hardly in a position either to admit to the populace that the election was a sham or to name the winner as Mousavi and risk his promising reforms that would chip away at clerical absolutism. That the insubordination has continued beyond a single day, strengthening with each protest, and has survived militant provocation indicates that it is not a flash-in-the-pan. However, we saw the same kind of movement in Tiananmen in 1989, 20 years later nothing remains of that movement in its country but murmured rumor.
I think you are confused. The premise of your entry is that it is ironic that we view Iran as undemocratic, yet they care more than us about democracy. You have confused the meaning of undemocratic: when US leaders say Iran is undemocratic, they are referring to the system of government, which remains undemocratic. As i am sure you know the elected president hardly matters in the Iranian system, as the real power rests with the Supreme Leader, who is unelected. This is what makes Iran undemocratic.
The basic idea of US foreign policy is that the people want democracy, which can be seen by these protests.
A democracy is a system of government, but one that at its core rests on the citizenry of a nation. No matter how democratic in principle a country is, if its citizens don't carry and participate in that democracy, its all for naught. That's the point I am making.
There's no reason why Americans could not have taken to the streets in mass numbers, or pressured just one Senator to co-sponsor the objections to certifying the results from Florida (20 Representatives objected), but they didn't. The Iranians see fraud, and even though their system is nowhere as democratic as our system purports to be, they have refused to accept that fraud lying down.
That's the point I am making, and the premise of my entry.
Yes, because a farcical campaign(4 handpicked candidates out of ~480) resulting in a comically rigged election in a theocratic dictatorship is the same -- and demonstrably as fraudulent -- as the legal proceedings used to settle a closely-contested contest in a Florida district. It was Karl Rove's master plan all along.
I understand the allure of being a polemicist, but, honestly, why bother when the basis of your thesis is a hilarious mockery?
cheers!
lulio
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