IRAN: Much ado about nothing in kerfuffle over Karroubi remarks

A brouhaha kicked up by journalists over comments by opposition figure Mehdi Karroubi may be put to rest after the cleric-politician today issued an unambiguous denunciation of the disputed June 12 elections and subsequent crackdown.

"The more we go ahead, the more I'm convinced the election was massively rigged," Karroubi said, according to his news website Sahamnews.org (in Persian). "I get new information every day, and it is regrettable to see certain officials tampered with people's votes in this way."

In the meeting with supporters, he later added: "I say it firmly that I'll never compromise on the nation's rights, notably the votes they cast in the ballot boxes. I'll stand by the nation up to the end and I'll try my best to remove the hurdles to a free and fair election."

Earlier this week a hard-line Iranian journalist quoted Karroubi as saying he had accepted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the leader of Iran's current government because Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had so ordained it.

Some news outlets (perhaps eager to get the Iran story back into the news cycle after the Haiti disaster) rushed to interpret the secondhand remarks as explosive proof that Karroubi had somehow changed his stance on Iran's current domestic political crisis.

"Karroubi had not budged at all," one Tehran analyst told the Times. "Karroubi said that the government is the government of the system. So it does not imply he has recognized it. Unfortunately, BBC Persian and Radio Farda, seeking hot news, sacrificed their critical faculties."

Still, zealous Iranian activists began denouncing him on blogs and social networking websites as a traitor, and parsing remarks attributed to him by his son for other meanings, yada, yada, yada. 

But today, the white-turbaned Karroubi delivered remarks that should clear up the ambiguity about where he stands.   

"Newspapers have been banned, websites blocked and many of our loved ones are in jail," he said. "My car was fired on and I'm threatened every day. They also insult me, [opposition leader Mir-Hossein] Mousavi and the great Iranian nation and even distort our words."

Karroubi talks a lot, often shooting from the hip, as Iranian men of a certain age and temperament tend to do. Astute observers of Iranian domestic politics take a lot of what the colorful Karroubi says with a grain of salt.

There are also behind-the-scenes shenanigans to which we're not privy. Another analyst in Tehran said any subtle indication that Karroubi was willing to compromise could be a tactical political wink to conservatives like Mohsen Rezai and Ali Larijani, who also despise Ahmadinejad.

"Even if Karroubi's remarks are interpreted as budging or backng down it is good at this juncture, especially if in return, the extremist hardliners such Ahmadinejad and [former Tehran prosecutor] Saeed Mortazvi and the like are brought down or marginalized at least," the Tehran-based analyst said. "Moderation is what we need urgently."

Some Iranian activists who hope to overturn the Islamic Republic may disagree, hoping Iran's opposition movement becomes more radical. 

But Karroubi, a former speaker of the Iranian parliament and one of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's deputies, has always been a staunch defender of the Islamic Republic. Far from calling for an abolition of the Islamic Republic, as some Iranian exiles demand, he argued in his comments today that the hardliners surrounding Ahmadinejad are the ones undermining the system he helped create. 

"Certain power holders are violating the nation's rights stipulated in the constitution," he said. "Those who made [small] contributions to the Islamic revolution and were even opposed to it are now at the helm and impose restrictions on the founders of the Islamic Republic and the people."

Though he didn't out-and-out call the current government illegitimate, he did accuse it of lying and violating people's basic rights. 

"What did the people who voluntarily protested want?" he said. "Should the authorities have responded with batons, tear gas and bullets? Violence, Kahrizak, and death in custody were the responses to people's votes. How do you expect people to believe your claims about the election result while you have been lying so clearly? You used to say shamelessly that the Kahrizak deaths were due to meningitis."

-- Borzou Daragahi in Beirut and Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran

Photo: Mehdi Karroubi. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Publicola]

syntactic correction - apologies !

....will be familiar with the difference between a public discourse under relatively unrestricted conditions and a public discourse characterized and informed by an autocratic or absolute ruler or monarch. ...

[Publicola]

LINGUISTICS AND PHRASEOLOGY IN IRAN
or
PUBLIC DISCOURSE UNDER CONDITIONS OF OPPRESSIVE RULE AND OPPRESSIVE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RESTRICTIONS

»Karroubi delivered remarks that should clear up the ambiguity about where he stands.«
»Karroubi talks a lot, often shooting from the hip, as Iranian men of a certain age and temperament tend to do. Astute observers of Iranian domestic politics take a lot of what the colorful Karroubi says with a grain of salt.«

What are the underlying basic reasons leading to the above-quoted (mis)interpretation of semi-official statements by oppositional politicians ?

Anybody who has read e.g. speeches (in Latin) delivered during Roman republican times and speeches in Latin given in times of imperial autocratic rule under various Roman Emperors will be familiar between a public discourse under relatively unrestricted conditions and a public discourse characterized and informed by an autocratic or absolute ruler or monarch.

As a non-Iranian and non-English-speaking (non-native-speaker) European my impression is that
in Iran - due to the decade-long restrictions of the liberty of opinion and the press (a restriction of various gradual gradations) each individual word of an official and in particular of a semi-official statement is to be submitted to a most painstaking analysis regarding the range of the semantic width of each expression and the various possible connotations of each word.

Public communication and public dialogue and discourse do not take place in a domination-free or oppression-free sphere in Iran !

In addition, customary and semantic differences arising from the differences in traditions of forumulation, phrasing and wording between European countries, USA and Iran are to be taken into account and into consideration.

[homylafayette]

A video of the so-called Fars News interview with Karroubi has surfaced on the Internet. It took place, as you know, after Karroubi made a speech at the Mardom Salari party conference and as he was leaving with a coterie of journalists in tow.

I've posted the clip on http://homylafayette.blogspot.com/2010/01/karroubi-softens-stance-desperate.html

In response to the Fars journalists question, do you recognize the popularly-elected president, Karroubi first laughs and kisses the journalist on the forehead. Later, when the reporter again asks, But do you recognize him?, Karroubi nods as he walks away.

Much ado about nothing, as you say...

[Arjang]

What do the writers mean by this: "Karroubi talks a lot, often shooting from the hip, as Iranian men of a certain age and temperament tend to do."

Do the writers mean that Iranians reaching a certain age lose their judgement? Imagine if one replaced "Iranian" by say "Chinese"?

The low quality of the article apart, IMO, this is a highly unprofessional comment. It smacks of 19th century colonial journalism, where it was okay to generalize attributes to races.

[Publicola]

@ ALandofnorain

Highly intriguing and extremely plausible analytical statement !

[ALandofnorain]

He Kiumars, your country is, or better be, the US, not Iran. We welcome immigrants, my own family is such, but my father refused to even let me speak his native tongue, telling me "you're American, you speak English". When war came (WWII) he was sent to fight the nation of his parent's birth. There was never the slightest question where his loyalties lay. How about you? I certainly have my doubts.
What all of you fail to realize is that the days of the mullahs are short. In a year or less there will be dramatic change in Iran. Most Iranians in Iran know this is so. The mullah's little militia won't even fight. We see images of them being beaten bloody by demostrators. They are not defending the mullahs because they know where this will all end, and soon. Ahmadinejad and Mousavi are almost superflous to this dynamic, it is bigger than either now. The opposition grows continuously stronger and the authorities weaker.
When the mullahs fall, however, the entire dynamic of the Muslim world will change. Fundamentalist Islam derived it's populatity, and thus it's power, from the utter failure of the earlier generation of Arab nationalists such as Nassar, Kadafi and the elder Assad to successfully confront Israel. Their armies were destroyed in the process. They were replaced in the hearts of Islam with the perceived fighters, the PLO, Hizbollah, Hamas and to a far lesser degree now the Muslim Brotherhood. They were seen at least as being able to strike at Israel with some occasional success. The rise of an Islamic government in Iran gave them greater presige and moral support, a seeming example of the success of Islamic rule. When this same Islamic government falls, as it soon will, and especially if an open society in Iran is the outcome, which I fully expect, militant Islam will be exposed as the fraud it is. Absent Iranian support, Hisbollah and Hamas will be friendless as there is little support for them in the Arab world. The junior Assad will loose his only regional ally as an open society in Iran will find it very difficult to continue to support a dictator in Syria.
When the mullahs fall in Iran, the entire Muslim world will be a very different place indeed. It will be a far better place for everyone too.

[Jacob T]

It will be centuries if not 1000's of years when you people start to realize the logic and mentality of Iranian politics and Iranians as a whole.

You just are making a fool of yourselves when you jump like this and allegedly try and interpret what and opposition leader[so called] says.

Question to Mr Obama and company, are you ever going to learn?

[Kiumars]

Will I sell my country to the Americans and British and Jews?
No!
This is a war, may the best man wins! What have I got to lose?

[hass]

So far no one has presented any ACTUAL evidence of vote-rigging in Iran. All the claims are shown to be ridiculous on more careful examination. Karroubi admitted during a live debate with Ahmadinejad that he took a $300,000 payment from a sinister figure involved in many financial scandals in Iran. So why should anyone simply assume that people voted for Karroubi anyway?

[Mohsen]

My question is why so much attention and emphasis on Ahmadinejad? In Iran we do not any longer care about Ahmadinejad, we do not want a theocratic regime and our goal is nothing but demise of Velaayat Faghyh and trial of it’s leaders, specifically Ali Khamnei who has been behind all the crimes which occurred during the past 20 years.

[Farzan]

This one of the most political articles I've seen by Borzou Daragahi and it seriously undermines his credibility as a journalist. Its essentially apologizing for the Reformists and trying to cover up the compromise Reformists are trying to make behind the people's back.

Ahmadinejad and Saeed Mortazavi are only the face of the problem. Even if they're gone the IRGC will continue consolidating its massive economic power and dictatorial hold over Iranian society. Iran's fundamental issues will be left unresolved.

[James the Hype]

I agree that these comments were over-hyped, and that the more significant comment was made by Karroubi yesterday when he condemned the government of Iran: http://bit.ly/6UdAQy

However, the point that may have been lost is that for many on the ground in Iran, the opposition movement is quickly moving away from Karroubi and Mousavi. It is fundamentally a secular movement, which leaves little room for reform.

A fantastic discussion was held on my blog, where one comment defined the leadership of the Green Movement as fluid; small groups of people working together in a larger network, where decisions are made in living room A, then spread to living room B, and the product is thousands of seemingly unified folk.

Read more about it at: http://jamesthehype.blogspot.com/2010/01/war-over-words-in-iran.html