o hai.

It’s been a little while. Reasons are several; most recently I’ve been fairly preoccupied with lesson planning for my summer school course which begins on Tuesday. Probably the most troubling moment this week was on Wednesday afternoon in the library, when my laptop suddenly started to go up in flames. Not good! But a replacement charger just arrived here this afternoon, so I hope that things will continue on an upswing from here. In terms of the lesson plans, it feels like every day things are more under control than the day before, so I should be good to go by Tuesday.

So, Iran. I hate to write about the news of the day that everyone and their uncle has already picked apart; but on this one I’m feeling so much “someone on the internet is WRONG!” frustration at liberal and leftwing discussions that I’ve seen online about the situation, that I would like to put in my oar.

Unfortunately, in this case my oar isn’t worth that much, since I can’t claim any special knowledge about the subject.? So I’ll do the next best thing and point to some resources and discussions that I found useful for knocking down myths and figuring out what questions to ask about what’s going on in the Islamic Republic.

Current news:

The best place for photos and videos and important updates is Saeed Valadbaygi’s “Revolutionary Road” blog. Saeed is a leftwing student in Iran and he’s been posting non-stop. People on facebook should also friend Saeed to get running updates there.

One of the biggest questions for me is whether the Iranian working class is going to get active in support of the protest movement. Some signs that they might: a work slowdown at Iran’s major automobile company, and a statement of support for the protests from the Vahed Bus Company Trade Union.

On the election results:

Did Mahmoud Ahmadinejad win the election fair and square? Short answer: yes. Slightly longer answer: we don’t know, but the official results are very plausible and consistent with polls and there hasn’t been any evidence of fraud produced so far.

For a typical statement of the case for fraud, see this Christian Science Monitor story. Note the total lack of real evidence of fraud; the claims basically boil down to “this seems unlikely…” or “this was not what analysts expected”.

For an argument that the results seem pretty reasonable, here’s one piece. For discussion of various anti-Ahmadinejad rumors and hoaxes, see here.

One must also mention Louis Proyect’s beautiful piece laying out the hypocrisy of Western media and mainstream politics when it comes to Iran vs. US-aligned countries in the Middle East. Those Americans who would go green to support the opposition in Iran, when did their hearts bleed for the people of Saudi Arabia and Egypt?

On the execrable idea of a “twitter revolution” in Iran:

http://openanthropology.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/americas-iranian-twitter-revolution/

http://www.gauravonomics.com/blog/the-irony-of-irans-twitter-revolution/

Some background on the Iranian revoluton:

A basic rundown here. I’m not familiar with the site so I can’t vouch for its accuracy, but it’s a quick and easy to read summary that seems to lay things out plausibly at least.

There’s a gallery of the Iranian left here. What’s striking is how few old people you see in these pictures. Being a leftwing revolutionary in Iran seems to have never been the kind of job that many people get to retire from.

How the first-world left should understand and relate to what’s happening now:

The best discussion I have seen anywhere has been taking place at Lenin’s Tomb, the Hausblog of the British SWP. You can see their posts on Iran here. The discussion there has been shaped by the differing positions of two of the site authors; one is arguing for the left to support Iran as an anti-imperialist stronghold and the Iranian regime as more or less legitimate as confirmed through the most democratic political system in the middle east.

The other position sees the election contest in Iran as a clash between members of the ruling class, which the left should not be involved with; but also looks for the potential in the protest movement to develop into a more profound revolutionary socialist upsurge. Though I have a strong predisposition toward the latter position, I think the discussion here is still useful, especially as it unfolds together with the rapidly moving events.

Much more tepidly, I would point out this article. Though it’s rife with irritating internet jocularity* and some very problematic ethnic stereotyping, it does draw on some regional and local history to make a serious point about the difficulty of understanding and analyzing events that have some specificity to another culture and history. Officially disrecommended — see comments.

Obviously I am not in favor of abandoning such analysis (though I dunno about the author of this article); but the importance of taking imperialist ideology and the effacement of the specific culture and history of third world peoples is important.

And I have to admit I did like some of the turns of phrase in that article, like describing Ahmadinejad’s look as “hungover Soviet janitor” or Ayatollah Khomeini as “Dracula’s mean uncle.”

Anyway. Blah blah blah politics, let’s end with a photo from the garden!

If you’re asking yourself, “Is that a frog inside a squash flower inside Jesse’s garden?” — then let me tell you, hell yes it is.

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* This from the guy who began this post with lolcat jargon? Honestly.

June 20th, 2009 | Category: photos, politics | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL