Milking Iranian Corpses for Fun and Propaganda
Summary of progressive bloggers’ coverage of Iranian post-election dissent:
The West watches the surge and decline of dissent in Iraq with hope and sorrow, despairing that few political forces in the world can muster the brutal, thuggish power of a fascist theocracy. Recent events raise many troubling questions about the role and responsibility of the global community in supporting nascent domestic democratic movements in the face of oppression; the challenge becomes, how can we more successfully leverage transformation?
Summary of Blogging Tory coverage of Iranian post-election dissent:
Yuck, Obama’s AWFUL!! Don’t you just hate Obama? I sure hate him! He’s so, like, AWFUL! I just HATE him!! He’s HORRIBLE. Oh, too bad about the dead chick. But don’t you just hate Muslims too? AND Obama?
Jeez Balbulican, “dissent” is a pretty strong term to be using here, I thought it was a “debate”.
Oh, I KNOW, unclemeat. Don’t you just totally HATE Obama? I think he’s just the worst president ever, like, in all history? Don’t you?
Phew. This serious political debate is tiring.
I never said that, you are trying to have both sides of the debate all by yourself. Kind of like masturbation. Those are just President Obama’s words from his press conference. I don’t hate him, just pointing out what he said.
The Iranian unrest challenges our assumptions about our capacity to support emergent democracies
Truth. And raises difficult questions about whether we should or under what conditions we should. Not that I get invited to any progressive bbq’s
Iran is an example of the limitations of political transformation. Now its pretty murky but I don’t think your calling for foreign intervention into the public protests in Iran. Western states have condemned the Iranian government for violent oppression of protesters, what else would you prescribe?
Hand-picking a pro-western leader then financially supporting grass-root support and dissent against the acting government, creating enough frenzy that the protesters violently overthrow the government and Iran becomes a pro-west dictatorship, perhaps. This was tried and it lead to the religious theocracy that now oppresses it’s own people. The problem with intervention is its never directed by the needs of the public that strives for democracy. It is hinged on what is best for the west, always. This is how geo-politics works, this is how hegemony works.
Summary of Blogging Tory coverage[...]
My post didn’t mention the 44th President once. Do I get a prize?
“My post didn’t mention the 44th President once. Do I get a prize?”
Depends. Here’s a skill testing question.
An attractive young Muslim travel agency employee, described by her friends as “apolitical”, gets stuck in a demonstration in her Peugot, and the air conditioning breaks down. She steps out of her car, and while watching the protest, is shot by plainclothes paramilitaries, and dies.
This is indisputably a tragedy. Explain why it’s a “martyrdom”.
It isn’t a martyrdom. But the death of a person often has greater significance for the symbolism perceived by those with a struggle. The perception of a death can often have political symbolism, even for one as senselessly brutal as the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Her death preceded the penetration of the Taliban into Pakistan’s heartland, and yet when she was killed she was called a martyr for the moderate and progressive voices of the Islamic democracy.
Perhaps it makes it all the more relevant that she was apolitical, since she typifies your average Iranian woman. Apolitical, but nevertheless curious, and interested, perhaps naively, of seeing the demonstration firsthand. There have been many apolitical victims of the Iranian Revolution, some who just didn’t want to learn religion in math class [Prisoner of Tehran - Marina Nemat].
Certainly there are willing martyrs and incidental ones. The young woman may become the latter.
“It isn’t a martyrdom.”
Correct. Nice picture on your website, though.
“This is indisputably a tragedy. Explain why it’s a “martyrdom”. ”
It’s martyrdom because the Iranian demonstrators/debaters/protesters have deemed her a martyr. I don’t think martyrs necessarily choose to become one, it just kinda happens. And from what I’ve been reading, the branch (for lack of a better word) of Islam followed in Iran considers martyrdom pretty important.
In essence, martyrdom appears to be in the eye of the beholder. You may not see her as a martyr. I tend to think of her as “that poor woman that got shot and died for no good reason, just because she was standing there.” Neither of us, however, are Iranian (or Persian, for those who left prior to the revolution) or followers of Islam.
You’re overthinking this one, my young friend. It’s really about the inherent right of every human being not to be shat upon.
I resent Obama not because he is a liberal or a “progressive”, but for the unforgiveable sin of not being a marked improvement on his decidely unimpressive predecessor. These truly are the end days when an empty suit is sent to save the world from the missteps of a mediocrity.
@Occam’s Carbuncle – You might want to consider the history of US involvement (i.e. meddling) in Iran going back to post WWII. Last thing the ‘world’ (i.e. Iran and the rest of the Middle East) needs is more knee-jerk, overt meddling in their internal politics.
Sucks, I know. So does “bomb, bomb, bomb. Bomb, bomb Iran”
btw – I don’t necessarily disagree that Obama is “not being a marked improvement on his decidedly unimpressive predecessor” or an ‘empty suit”. But it wouldn’t be for the caution in relation to Iran.
“but for the unforgiveable sin of not being a marked improvement on his decidely unimpressive predecessor.”
I am surprised, my normally temperate friend, to find you among those who are dismayed because Obama hasn’t repaired in six months what his predecessor took eight years to destroy.
Candace: I guess I think that some linguistic currency can be devalued by inflation. The word “hero”, for example is now almost meaningless.
I am surprised, my normally temperate friend, to find you among those who are dismayed because Obama hasn’t repaired in six months what his predecessor took eight years to destroy.
[makes notes for future Afghanistan discussion ;]