I took notes a couple days ago on conversation with two people--the first a middle-aged very rich amateur intellectual male who splits his time between Tehran and Washington DC and the second a 21 yr female art student from a village near Shiraz. Some highlights:
In an interesting bit of historical revisionism, the first thing he did was explain the background of Iran's Constitutional Revolution as a struggle between the mokallah's (those with the [western-style] hats) and the mo'amam (those wearing the clerical turban), in the context that "Since the Constitutional revolution there has been a struggle between the fundamentalism Islamists and the liberal, Western-looking people."
NB My own understanding (I'm admittedly painfully ignorant about Iranian history) is that the Constitutional Rev started as a collaboration between the clerical and merchant classes again an incompetent Qajar monarch who kept selling off chunks of the country's economy to foreigners, with the liberal bourgeoisie marginalizing the mo'amam in the parliamentary order that emerged.
NB compare this to the characterization of Grand Ayatollah Musavi Shirazi, one of the architects of the Islamic revolution: "In reality, the Constitutional Revolution was only a game, and the foreign powers launched it to bring about the separation of the spiritual powers and government."
Yes, absolutely.
Then why is the opposition using Islamic symbolism and drawing on Khomeini for legitimacy?
"It is the difference between 100 and 100,000 people getting killed. This is the only reason. They are moving very deliberately."
The point being that donning the mantle of Islam is both insurance against an even bloodier response from hardliners/security forces and a way to start off with a big tent of support*. The comparison he drew was to the Islamic Revolution itself:
"(In 1979) They gradually accelerated their demands and put aside the mokallah... (Khomeini) knew that the first day you cannot say wear hijabs or they (the people) would turn on him... Today it's the exact reversal of that thing."
*I'm not sure this second point was actually implicit-- he claimed that (contrary to all the news reports and my own anecdotal experience of people of all demographics and degrees of social/religious conservatism joining the protests) that secularism was the ultimate goal of all the protesters: "The people who were on the streets.. they were progressive, none of them are religious... (however) They don't want to have a bloody change; they want to put this off as much as they can, as long as they can." He went on to cite how lots of the women protesting were wearing nail polish, meaning they couldn't perform namaz (apparently).
As for the leadership of the Green Movement, "Mousavi has 2 futures: he either starting upping his slogans to complete separation of church and state or he will be washed away."
The next point he made was about the quiet Sepah coup, which he said "happened 4 years ago. This (rigged 09 election) was only the completion of the coup d'etat." (though he later traced the origins of the Sepah takeover to the Khatami era, see below) It was as much as anything, he said, a question of the failure of the ruling clerical class to perpetual it's rule:
"The very first tenet of any hokumat-e akhond (clerical government) is to train the next generation to rule... But you can't name a single akhond of the second generation who has come in since the revolution, who's been groomed and introduced to society... As they're dying, there's no one to replace them."
*To editorialize a bit: it's not as if clerics have naturally been dying out and slowly replaced by ex-Sepah--members of the old elite have been being actively pushed aside, and the opposition is composed of revolutionary clerical figures who have moderated their views. Also, there are some younger guys from the same elite circles coming in to power, eg the newly announced head of the judiciary Sadeq Larijani, Ali's little brother.
The generational thing aside, his argument was that it can't even be called a hokumat-e akhond any more, especially what with Khatami and Karroubi, two of the akhonds who were of the very foundation of the form of govt saying that there was electoral fraud and the govt is illegitimate. "So what kind of hokumat-e akhond do you have?"
According to him, and he said he and acquaintances of his had actually done the math for something approaching a rough estimate, only about 10% of all clerics were pro-regime. He went on to talk about how even in the 80s few clerics supported vilayet-e faqih, and then how Khamenei's snap 'promotion' from the lowish rank of Hojat ul Islam to Ayatollah in 1989 so he could succeed Khomeini was a sham, that the leadership of the Islamic Republic had "destroyed the entire Canon and tenets of Shiism."
NB interestingly, despite his opposition to hokumat-e akhond as a whole and assertion that the Green Movement's use of Islamic symbolism/appeals was simply an instrumental and defensive measure to be cast aside, here he was making an argument to delegitimize the regime on grounds that it was NOT REALLY a hokumat-e akhond
Back to the Sepah coup concept, he said that the turning point came really under Khatami's first term (97-01). First, in privatizing the economy Khatami had just handed industries to individual members of the Sepah as a way of placating hardliners, which only increased their stake in hoarding/increasing their political power. According to him under Rafsanjani as Pres the Sepah in the post-war reconstruction period been given the profits of state industries, but individuals hadn't been given ownership and control had remained with the civilian government: "(Rafsanjani) kept them happy by giving them the profits, but he maintained the govt ownership... Khatami took away the middle road that Rafsanjani had taken."
The second turning point was the student protests in the 2nd (?) year of Khatami's presidency, when the hardliners found themselves isolated and "the only people who (Khamenei) had was the Sepah Pardaran and the (pre-Basiji vigilantes)... At that time (Khamenei) realized that he had no power and that he had to rely of the Sepah to protect him." The Sepah realized this too, and as a result became increasingly assertive, culminating in the fixing of the 2004 Majles elections in which--according to him--126 of 300 MPs were now ex-Sepah* and the 2005 pres election where Ahmedinejad first came in.
* He, as others, assumed that all ex-Sepah continue to have unfailing Sepah loyalties, which doesn't seem necessarily to be the case with prominent ex-Sepah politicians like Qalibaf and Rezai criticizing Ahmedinejad
My question, for which I still haven't gotten an answer (we'll speak again--I had to rush off to another meeting as he was making his meandering way towards answering me) was to the effect of:
Okay, so let's say you're right. From it's very inception the Islamic Republic has broken with Shiite clerical precedent and the religious accreditation of the Leader for the past 20 years has been a sham, yet the system has held up very well. For over a decade the Sepah has been taking over, but has been successful in maintaining the facade of hokumat-e akhond. So why should the events of this summer be a turning point and an absolute end to state legitimacy, anything other than another bump in the road?
**I haven't done any fact checking yet--take this as some guy's views/narrative rather than anything authoritative
It's fairly interesting I think that Mousavi supporters (interview 2 coming soon; it will be shorter) are willing to openly say (at least to me) that the movement is anti-theocratic/revolutionary, rather than just reformist as the leadership repeatedly stresses, which in a way vindicates the accusations (foreign meddling aside) of hardliners.
To balance these out, it would be great if I could find a Mousavi supporter who does believe in vilayet-e faqih etc and is actually looking just for reform not revolution. We'll see...
In other news:
I listened last night (full disclosure: between hits from a bong one of my Turks improvised) for chants of Allah-u Akbar and heard nothing--I guess it's been quietly called off across the board, though I've heard of no official statement by Mousavi or others calling for a cease to chanting.
I read on the news about Mousavi announcing his now "Green Hope" movement through his website mirhussein.com, but the site seems to be down now, not just blocked by the govt filter. Was it shut down just in the last couple days? I'd heard his website designer was arrested a week or so ago.
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