Ahmadinejad whips crowd to frenzy as opposition muzzled
As the nation tried to digest the results of this momentous poll, Robert Fisk saw two sides to the controversial winner
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It was a surreal day, an ominous day in Tehran yesterday, of censored newspapers and of soft words and threats against Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's political opponent, Mirhossein Mousavi. We didn't even know where Mousavi was – in custody or house arrest – nor whether a hundred of his election campaign workers had been arrested. It was a day heavy with plain-clothes policemen, blocked roads and jeering supporters of the government. No, there will not be another revolution in Iran. But this is not quite the democracy that Ahmedinejad promised.
True, we met Ahmedinejad the Good yesterday, preaching to us at an elaborately-staged press conference, talking of the noble, compassionate, honourable, smart people of Iran. But we also met Ahmedinejad the Bad, swearing to thousands of baying supporters that he would name the "corrupt" men who had stood against him in Friday's election.
I'm still not at all sure we met President Ahmedinejad, always supposing we believe in the 63.62 per cent of the votes that he claims he picked up. For what do you make of a man who five times refers to the presidential poll as a football match and then utters – in front of us all – in the softest of voices and with the gentlest and most chilling of smiles, a terrible warning to the mysteriously absent Mousavi. "After a football match, sometimes people feel their side should have won and they get into their car outside and drive through a red light and they get a ticket from a policeman. He didn't wait for the red light to change. I am not at all happy that someone ignores the red light." We all drew in our breath.
Less than two hours later, before the sweating thousands of his supporters in Val-y-Asr Square, we saw Ahmedinejad the Bad. "They are branding us as liars and corrupt," he screamed. "But they are themselves corrupt. I am going to use my position as president to name these people..." The crowd roared its approval. Of course they did. They all held Iranian flags or pictures of their pious leader amid heavenly clouds.
The day started badly with another of those dangerous, frighteningly brief statements from Tehran's loquacious police commander, Bahram Radan. "We have identified houses which are bases for the political mobs." This was the only reference the authorities would make about the outrageous street battles in which Radan's black-clothed cops beat Mousavi's supporters insensible on the streets of Tehran.
Then there was the front page of "Etemade Melli" – "National Trust" in English – which belongs to another of Ahmedinejad's enemies, Mehdi Karoubi. After the election results at the top of the front page – Mousavi officially won only 33.75 per cent of the votes and Karoubi 0.85 per cent – there was a caption: "Regarding the election results," it read, "Mehdi Karoubi and Mirhossein Mousavi made statements which we cannot publish in our newspaper." Beneath was a vast acre of white space. You could doodle on it. You could construct a crossword on it. You could draw a red light on it. But you couldn't read those statements.
And just to rub home the message – which we heard in various forms all day – a postage-stamp size photograph of Tehran's cops running down a street appeared at the top of page two with two worrying sentences. "The Public Security Police have delivered a statement, stating that any kind of gatherings, demonstrations or celebrations without a licence are forbidden. Any kind of gathering would be unlawful and the consequences will lie on the shoulders of the candidates and their campaign offices." We all knew what that meant; indeed, we approached Ahmedinejad's press conference with the absolute conviction that there would be more threats; there were, but they couldn't have been made in a kinder, more sinister way.
He sat before a vast spray of red and white roses, his back to a poster of a snow-tipped mountain, an Iranian banner floating in front, his Humphrey Bogart jacket open, his special smile – the UN smile, the CNN smile, the humble worker smile, the sportsman smile, the wisdom smile, we all know it – amid his whiskered features. There were prayers. And then came Imam Ahmedinejad. The Iranian people won the elections. It was their role to rule. "In countries where there was liberal democracy, the people are pushed out of the system and the professionals take over but in Iran, a democracy rules which is based on ethics."
It went on like this for quite a while. Iran loved all peoples. It would help all peoples. Iranians loved each other. They were unified. They would always stand together. "We are a noble people, we are smart people and the Iranian people believe in right and righteousness. The Iranian people hate lies and are satisfied with their lot... but we stand up to bullies and arrogance... the Iranian people will never be afraid of threats," he continued.
Readers will decode this as they wish. Clearly Ahmedinejad had read through Barack Obama's Cairo speech very carefully – indeed, he sometimes sounded grotesquely like the American president – and some of his "change" motifs fit rather well with the new US administration.
Bullying was in the past. We needed dialogue with all issues on the table. Post-World War Two political systems had proved anti-humanitarian. "The time when a handful of countries came together to decide the fate of a smaller country was over. It is finished."
It seemed endless. Democracy, ethics, human values, welfare, confidence, mutual respect, justice, fair play... From time to time it sounded like an updated version of Plato's Republic with the unwilling philosopher king behind the red and white roses.
But there was that infuriating refusal to deal with physical realities. When I asked Ahmedinejad the Good if he remembered the young Iranian woman dragged screaming to the gallows a few weeks ago, pleading with her mother by mobile phone to save her life seconds before her neck was broken by the rope, and whether he would guarantee that such a terrible event would never be repeated in the Islamic Republic, he set forth on an exegesis of the Iranian legal system. "I am myself against capital punishment," he replied. "I do not want to kill even an ant. But the Iranian judiciary is independent." And then he promised to talk to the judiciary about softening punishments and thought Iranian judges would benefit from "dialogue" with their opposite numbers in Europe and America. But the young woman so cruelly executed – for a murder she may not have committed – had disappeared from his response. She wasn't an ant. She had been in the hands of Ahmedinejad's noble, caring, compassionate, just Iran.
Nor was Mousavi an ant when CNN's Christiane Amanpour demanded Ahmedinejad the Good's guarantee for his life and those of his supporters. That's when we got the bit about the red light and all that it represented. Amanpour repeated the question. "Perhaps I missed something in the translation of your reply," she said sarcastically. "Perhaps you missed the translation that you didn't ask for a second question," Ahmedinejad snapped back. "No," said the imperishable Amanpour," this isn't a second question. I'm repeating the first one!"
Useless, of course, especially when the Iranian and Arab journalists arrived with their fawning questions, always preceded by congratulations for Ahmedinejad's real or imagined victory. In fact, the most frustrating thing about this performance was that he kept praising the massive turnout on Friday – perhaps more than 80 per cent – as his personal victory. But it wasn't the enthusiasm to vote that proved his presidency. It was the nature of how the result was calculated that enraged so many of Ahmedinejad the Good's noble Iranians.
But then, as they say, the mask slipped. Down amid the hot crowds on Val-y-Asr square – the scene of a huge 1979 Revolution massacre – Ahmedinejad the Bad was with us, screaming of his victory in confronting America.
"The enemy is furious because the Iranian nation is firm in its ideology... I will do my best to make the imperial powers and governments bow before you and bow before the nation of Iran."
His hand went up and down like a see-saw and the men and chadored women – some brought into Tehran by bus from the countryside, I noted from the registration plates – shouted "Ahmadi-, Ahmadi-, we are supporting you." And back came the vaunted boast: "America and other countries, you threaten Iran and you'll get your answer!" That's when he said he'd name his enemies.
So is it peace or war? It rather depends whether it's Ahmedinejad the Good or Ahmedinejad the Bad, I suppose.
For Mousavi's fate, watch this space.
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Comments
USA has a long record of carrying out covert operations in Central and South America with the objective of destabilising legitimate governments. The USA have funded and encouraged dissidents. It is standard practice for the CIA to feed propaganda to the media and create fake news agencies to disseminate propaganda.
A high proportion of news reports and interviews are with educated, pro-west, English speaking middle class Iranians. What we are seeing in news reports from Iran seems to be typical examples of US interference.
I am not trying to give support for Ahmedinejad, the point that I am trying to make is that the opinions being formed by people outside of Iran are probably primarily determined by American covert operations rather than the reality of the situation in Iran.
And the Americans wonder why the world doesn't love them!
There exist such fraud-proof voting systems, but the West and China are terribly afraid of such systems, since they would eliminate pro-western dictators as well as anti-western dictators. Of the many many dictators globally (including the anti-western Ahmadinejad), 95% are pro-western dictators.
The west has resorted even to political assassination to keep such voting systems from seeing the light of day. But eventually justice, freedom, democracy and development will win out. Maybe Obama will have a hand in this, if he can cast off the very strong influence of the CIA, MI6, and Deuxieme Bureau.
Mr Alex Weir, Harare and Gaborone
Cant see what the fuss is about. Iran is not the richest country in the world. The majority are not rich. Ahmedinejad's energy revenues were helping the working class, so they voted for him. So the rich and upper middle class lost the elections -why make such a fuss when they have been out voted.
What is happening to his otherwise clear and well-written articles? What's wrong with Rober Fisk?
Has he become so-self centred that he has lost all the principles that a balanced journalist should exercise?
Why so many adjectives to describe the iranian president? Can't he name him without adjectives and make his points anyhow?
Really I am disappointed with Rober Fisk!
Tayeb - PORTUGAL
This fisk rant has given me cause to review my opinion of him.
It is not his style
It reads like he is being manipulated in some way
Unfortunately part of this statement is true. There is no model of a democracy that can be readily transferred to smaller, poorer (but resource rich), countries outside of the in-group of partner states that participate and benefit from the pseudo-democratic neo-capitalized system as it exists in practice.
If the recent wars in the Mid-east are not the best examples of this then one needn't look further than 19th and 20th century history to see it played out over and over again as a descendent of unreconstructed and only slightly "remodeled" colonialism. It is a system that sells its unrealistic growth paradigm to its own inhabitants through clever and manipulative capitalized mass media and an unhealthy, ecologically unwise, over-abundance of use of resources, goods and services that other, smaller, poorer, resource rich and geopolitically strategic states cannot realistically afford to even hope to attain.
These states certainly cannot even hope for more than a veneer of the kinds of democratic institutions that the partner states say are the cornerstone identifiers of these democratic partner states, and largely because the level of consumption inside the partner states, especially by the ruling oligarchies and the entertainment class (entertainment as the industry opiate of the masses?), demands a level of subservience from the second and third tier "supplier" nations that would not tolerate true autonomy and/or self reliance and control over the dwindling levels of natural resources (including manpower and capitalized war fodder)and geopolitical locations.
Hence, any states that hope for true autonomy and control over their own resources are bound to develop in ways that are antipathic to the stated foundations and philosophies of the capital and growth theocracy, aka "democracy", of the partner states.
This is very true! N' its sad that people don't seem to get that things aren't just white n' black, even Fisk himself!
The more he spoke about Israel the more he was becoming agitating and his face was getting redder. I apologize I have to say that , but the people who attack Israel on a daily basis look like very unhappy people with some inner problems... whenever they're talking about Israel, they nearly start shaking - Claire Short, Alistaire Crooke, Robert Fisk, a female reporter on Al-Jazeera, can't remember her name. They all look like clinical cases, they're so full of hatred, it's amazing!
I can't understand rally why a country of 6 mln people with a tiny patch of land brings up such strong emotions, is it because it's populated with Jews?
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
Senator Fullbright, Chair of Senate Foreign Relations Committee: 10/07/1973 on CBS' "Face the Nation".
"I am aware how almost impossible it is in this country to carry out a foreign policy [in the Middle East] not approved by the Jews..... terrific control the Jews have over the news media and the barrage the Jews have built up on congressmen .... I am very much concerned over the fact that the Jewish influence here is completely dominating the scene and making it almost impossible to get congress to do anything they don't approve of. The Israeli embassy is practically dictating to the congress through influential Jewish people in the country"
And in the UK do the three major parliamentary parties have 'Friends of Oz' or 'Friends of NZ' or 'Friends of Canada' in their ranks? After all those countries sacrificed their blood in fighting wars alongside Britain. Not bloody likely. But they are infested with 'Friends of Israel' a country which was founded on terrorism and political blackmail.
Does that answer your question, jerusalem 1??????
If you think that your country or US are ruled by the Jews - then you insult the intelligence of your own countrymen and US citizens. You can't be that primitive and stupid to be ruled by other people, who make less than 1 % of UK population? Really, one Jew per 200 Britishers - are you what a herd of cows? Amercians are bleating lambs?
Arenj't you ashamed of such statement? Next thing you have to say then is that MPs paid their expenses from state coffers because Jews corrupted them or Friends of Israel, correct?
You can see a common trend in all the news outlet to discredit the election process that has just taken place. This will set the tone for the next set of accussations against Iran as part of the ultimate agenda to commit unprovoked aggression against her. Just note how the word dictatorship is creeping into the commentary. Scary stuff.
Why the obsession with Iran. Could it be because the west do not currently have absolute control over its natural resources?.
It is clear that nothing has changed. The only thing that has prevented Iran from being attacked so far, is a perceived degree of ability to defend herself. That ability is the only thing that will prevent mass killing of Iranians as is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Iranians should beware of what they wish for.
Fisk, of course, would not be given this sort of oppertunity to grill the US President in any press conference. Only in Iran do reporters have this freedom to directly put the leader on the spot. Fisk should have thanked Iran leader for this freedom. Also, Iran system is more humane than frying the brain for 30 mins on an electric chair.
As Edward Gibbon pointed out in the 'Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire', Empires crumble from within, nor can you hold back a people, an idea, or spirit with an undercover policeman's baton.........the British tried it in Ireland but eventually they too got on their little boats and rowed out to their battleships never to return..............and so it will come to pass with all the current 'Empires', they will come and go like the setting of the run and flow of the river...........until one day the people's of the earth unite under a common banner of friendship, respect and equality either that or we will destroy ourselves as a species - the choice, as they say, is ours. I pray for the former.
The Iranian Government under Ayatolla Khomeini killed about 150,000 people.
This is more than the number of all people killed in all the Arab/Israeli wars combined.
Many of them incidentally were leftists who actually helped Khomeni into power.
Khomeni also made marriageable age of girls in Iran 9 and personally married a ten year old in imitation of Mohammed?s marriage to Aisha.
As well as turning Iran into a theocratic torture chamber he legalised paedophilia.
Change now seems unlikely since, of 4000 people who applied to stand in the election, only 4 were approved by the Council of Guardians and 5 million people were disenfranchised by the Ministry of Interior.
See Amir Taheri in today?s Times for further details.
Incidentally, I found much of Robert Fisk?s approval for Obama?s speech at Al-Azhar University in Cairo excessive. I found the Obama speech quite disappointing. It was as notable for the issues it failed to address and for the issues it did address.For instance, he painted a rosy picture of Islam by quoting the Koran 5:32
whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind
He failed to quote the next verse of the Koran. 5:33.
The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement,
His omission fails to address the role of Islam in creating theocratic tyrannies.
He seems to regard the Palestinians as the only oppressed people in the world.
He failed to mention the plight of the Copts in Egypt of Assyrian Chaldean Christians, often treated as second class citizens.
There was a good critique of his speech in the National Review Magazine.
For instance, Joshua Muravchik?s piece reports that Copts are barred from attending Al-Azhar University even though they make up 10% of the population of Egypt and pay more than 10% of the nation?s taxes to fund the running of the University.
Western academics who are constantly demanding a boycott of Israeli academic institution should be on this right?
We can look forward to a boycott of Egyptian academic institutions ?
There may well be some lack of truth to Muravchik's article, of course. That you support it seems a good indication of that...
teacherseven. Ironically enough I don't really know what you mean, but I refer you to my reply above regarding being pedantic. Intersestingly enough, in my experience, students learing English as a second language are very pedantic indeed. It can be a problem. Although I wonder if that is a part of the reason why so many speakers of English as a second language speak it so much better than a great many native speakers. Just a thought.
what is happening in iran despite all the bad press,were getting before and after the elections ,by regional standards very healthy.look around the region mr fisk ,this is no by election in norwich ,which despite all its significance to the opposing parties ,will hardly change our lives .in iran ,in the gulf,in many nations in the region ,the outcome of an election could change everything ,from a job ,to a way of life ,to the death of a revolution.
iran is not ready for that ,ahmadnajat might have won the election ,but the birth of a new movement
from the loss of mussawi's reform movement will one day lead to a just iran or atleast a more pragmatic iran that is to the benefit to all the region.
so dont push mussawi ,or hijack his movement ,let the evolution of irans revolution manifest
was christian amanpour ,or your self able to ask questions as such to the king of saudi arabia ,about beheading ,or safety guarantees to opposition members.
bias bias