Fraudulent Elections, Popular Unrest, and Costume Parties in Iran By Andrew L. Jaffee, March 6, 2004	Home   Search   Forum   Terms

Things are going badly in Iran. The government just stole a parliamentary election. Iranians are tired of life without freedom. The government and its citizens are destined for a major clash -- they already are clashing -- and the result of this gulf between rulers and ruled is having strange results.

Reports of popular unrest have been trickling out of Iran since the fraudulent parliamentary elections held on February 20. Iran’s Islamist government rigged the elections so that only their hand-picked candidates could win, and thus secure the mullahcracy’s hegemony. When Iranian civilians have tried to protest the sham elections, the authorities have responded with violence.

On Tuesday of this week, thousands of Iranians protested in the streets of Tehran and other cities, accusing their government of tyrannical policies and for complicity in engineering the twin homicide bombings in Iraq that killed at least 180 people. Iranian authorities responded to the demonstrations with “clubs, chains and tear gas” and by arresting protestors. Demonstrators were actually killed on Tuesday in the towns of Baneh and Khaf . In the previous week, at least 8 people were killed by the authorities during similar anti-Islamist protests.

Even the European Union (EU), many times complicit in supporting the Iranian tyranny, came out with harsh criticism of the February 20 elections. A statement authored by the EU’s foreign ministers said,

The Council of EU foreign ministers expressed its deep regret and disappointment that large numbers of candidates were prevented from standing in this year's parliamentary elections... making a genuine democratic choice by the Iranian people impossible.

President Bush, no friend of the Iranian Islamists, but saddled with a State Department sympathetic to those same mullahs, condemned

…the Iranian regime's efforts to stifle freedom of speech -- including the closing of two leading reformist newspapers -- in the run-up to the election. Such measures undermine the rule of law and are clear attempts to deny the Iranian people's desire to freely choose their leaders.

I’m heartened that Bush and the EU are criticizing Iran’s terror-masters. I’m happy Iranians are standing up to their government, but deeply troubled that they’re being beaten up and killed simply because they yearn for freedom. I am sad and frustrated because the Iranian people have suffered for so long, and that it will take an awful conflagration to uproot Iran’s Islamist thugs. These ruffians won’t give up power easily, especially as many of them have gotten rich because political power has meant economic power.

While an estimated 40% of the country's populace lives below the poverty line, many of those either inside or related to Iran’s ruling class have become "millionaire mullahs." According to the BBC:

It's easy to spot the new rich. They're the ones dressed in designer clothes, driving BMWs through Tehran's congested streets. They frequent the city's exclusive boutiques and flashy shopping centres. They belong to private golf clubs in the countryside and they make frequent trips abroad, to London, Paris and Dubai.

It's all a very long way from the classless society promised by the Islamic revolution, and the famously modest way of life of its spiritual leader Ayatollah Khamenei. …

Despite the millions being made, it's striking that business in Iran remains in the hands of a relatively small elite. Almost all the people running the country and running the economy are related to each other either by blood or marriage.

Economic hegemony is the natural result of a closed society. Only with political freedoms will more Iranians be able to share in the nation’s great wealth potential. Iran’s upside-down tyranny has had some strange effects, not atypical of the usual dictatorship.

On a recent visit to Tehran, a young Iranian described a bizarre scene:

…I was invited to a birthday party. When I arrived I found the 70 or so guests wearing fancy dress and dancing to the latest Western pop music.

The party goers were all young and from well-to-do families. One was dressed as Tarzan, another as a pilot from the film "Top Gun".

Assorted "ayatollahs" and "mullahs" were whirling drunkenly under the strobe lights. A girl in a black chador, flung it off to reveal a skin-tight Cat Woman costume underneath. …

At that moment there was a knock on the door. It was the Revolutionary Guards, wanting to know why there were so many cars in the street.

I was terrified, but needn't have worried. One of the party guests, dressed as a mullah, told them it was a religious gathering and slipped them some money to leave us alone.

They did, but as the party continued I wondered what it said about the state of the revolution. Who was the more cynical - the Islamic vigilantes who took the money, or the fancy dress cleric who offered it?

I myself witnessed such analogous contradictions while visiting the Soviet Union. On four separate occasions during the ten years leading up to that empire’s collapse, I was privileged to travel there “on the inside” (without an official chaperone).

The black market had become rampant, as the state controlled economy couldn’t deliver. The communists, who professed economic egalitarianism, had become the wealthy, ruling elite. The people were terribly frustrated by their lack of political, religious, and economic freedoms. They were tired of being killed or beat up for being guilty of holding true, human convictions. The people didn’t buy into the superficial, sham “reform” process introduced by the USSR’s last premiere, Mikhail Gorbachev.

The USSR’s people revolted against their tyrants -- but they did so peaceably. Citizens shared information surreptitiously. They held non-violent protests and engaged in work slowdowns. Soldiers refused to attack demonstrators. I doubt it will be long before such events take place in Iran en masse.

I know in my heart that Iran is on the cusp of such massive changes. Iranians are a brilliant people. They will have democracy soon.