Nasrin Alavi on Mahmood Ahmadi’nejad

It’s only fitting that Nasrin Alavi, the author of We Are Iran, has been making the rounds of bookblogs like MoorishGirl and The Elegant Variation, since her book is a compendium of what’s been said by members of the Iranian blogosphere, where online publishing has created a workaround against political repression and enabled expats to keep in closer contact with their native communities. (There’s about 75,000 blogs being written in Farsi these days; only three other languages command higher writership. Is writership a word? It should be.) In this essay, she explains some of the political situation to which “Blogistani” writers are reacting so vocally.

Since 9/11, when so much of the attention directed at the Islamic world is focused on violence and terrorism, it has become increasingly difficult to see beyond the sabre rattling of fanatics, especially when a representative of an Islamic nation openly calls for the destruction of another country. In a remark that has reverberated around the world, Iran’s new president, Mahmood Ahmadi’nejad, had recently called that Israel should be “wiped out from the map”.

During the 2005 presidential elections, Ahmadi’nejad was promoted as the man of the people. Corruption and cronyism were the vein of popular anger into which Ahmadinejad tapped and he appealed to the minds and hearts of jobless youth and underpaid workers promising food and housing subsidies for the poor. According to Behzad Nabavi, acting chairman of the parliament during President Khatami’s era, the modest looking mayor of Tehran backed by the establishment “was promoted as an anti-establishment figure.” At one stage during his campaign Ahmadi’nejad even falsely complained that the “establishment” had cut off the electricity supplies of large areas of Iran so that his campaign speeches promising a fight against corruption could not be heard by the ordinary people.

Even so, the election result was announced amid accusations of vote rigging by some observers, including three of the candidates. These were not members of the opposition calling foul play, but Mehdi Kahroubi (onetime parliament speaker), Mostafa Moin (ex-education minister), and Ayatollah Rafsanjani (ex-president).

Nearly five months after his election victory, the president’s campaign pledge of social justice and distribution of oil money to the poor seems increasingly unrealistic. Ahmadi’nejad is also proving to be just as controversial at home as he has in the international arena—so much so that the hardline Kayhan daily recently complained of the unreasonable “torrent of criticism and protest against the government and President.” Iran is also under pressure as the IAEA meets to consider the Iranian nuclear programme.

Khomeini came to power promising independence and a classless Islamic society. Iran’s average annual oil income has more than doubled since the revolution, but most indicators of economic welfare show that it has steadily declined and the Iranian economy has been described as akin to the crony capitalism that grew from the ruins of the Soviet Union, controlled by a few state clerics who have amassed enormous wealth since 1979. Yet there is a painful irony in the fact that Ahmadi’nejad comes from and is endorsed by the hardline core of the regime that has ultimately controlled power in Iran since the revolution. Ahmadi’nejad’s possible inability to keep his campaign promises in the next four years will be a critical challenge to the heart of Iran’s revolutionary elite.

9 December 2005 | guest authors |