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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 November 1999 Issue No. 455 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 November 1999 Issue No. 455
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Flagging enthusiasm
By Azadeh Moaveni
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Thermidor, consolidation, eater of its own young? Defining the phase or present character of Iran's Islamic Revolution has become something of a parlour game for Iran analysts. The twentieth anniversary of the November 4, 1979 American embassy hostage-taking -- when 52 Americans were held for 444 days -- provided another occasion to take the revolution's pulse. And if enthusiasm for the usual state-sponsored theatrics is any measure, the strident anti-Americanism of the revolution's early days is on the wane.
Iranians taking part in anti-US demonstrations and burning the American flag to mark the 20th anniversary of the occupation of the US embassy in Tehran
(photos: AP, AFP)Though the US embassy was once again the scene of demonstrations featuring the ritual burning of flags and chants of "death to America," the more open political culture encouraged by President Muhammad Khatami allowed for tangible demonstrations of what has for years been taboo -- open support for a more temperate public discourse and a new relationship with the US. Flag burning, argued moderate government officials, damns a nation rather than its government, and it was eschewed by the country's largest student group, which gathered at Tehran University rather than the US embassy.
Conservatives and reformists differ nowhere more sharply than on relations with the US, and unlike such issues as freedom of the press, on which Khatami has managed modest steps toward liberalisation, there seems to be little room for compromise. Most Iranians acknowledge privately that the Islamic Revolution has not considerably improved their lot from what it was under the Shah, leaving them instead with an aggressive state presence in private affairs and a stagnating economy that forces most people to take on second or third jobs. In the absence of perceptible socio-economic gains, conservative custodians of the revolution fear that abandoning their ritual antipathy for the US will strip them of their strongest claim to greater political legitimacy than the reformists.
Never equivocal, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei branded those who seek reconciliation with the US as either "traitors or simpletons," and characterised the pro-reform press as "vile, mercenary pen holders" who think the country's economic problems can be solved through US ties.
Abdollah Nouri, the beleaguered figurehead of the pro-reform movement now on trial for insulting Islam, told the Special Clergy Court that relations with the US need not entail dependence, and that American influence over institutions positioned to help the Iranian economy -- like the IMF -- could no longer be ignored. Though conservatives refuse to entertain the notion, reformists are quick to point out that the Iranian economy inevitably suffers from its relative isolation. Lack of American competition allows European firms to bid lower on oil and gas deals -- if not discouraging them altogether, given the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. Furthermore, American political pressure threatens loans from the World Bank.
Khatami, who discourages flag burning and has publicly expressed regret over the hostage affair, seems to be taking a cue from the silent majority of Iranians, many of whom equate American culture with modernity and the fruits of Western capitalism, i.e., economic growth and relaxed social relations. Fast-food style restaurants assume a specifically American aesthetic, donning the logos of obscure regional chains that most Americans do not even have in common. Doctors, artists, and the business community agree that real competition, rather than difficult-to-manage patronage systems, would allow them do their jobs more effectively. These frustrations are inevitably coupled with a belief, despite Khamenei's admonition, in the restorative power of a US reconciliation.
It's a stance that's easier to take when even the fieriest of 1979's political leaders -- the organiser of the embassy takeover, Mousavi Khoeinihah, for example -- have turned moderate, liberally espousing freedom of thought. Most Iranians now wonder for whose sake and for what reasons the rhetoric of the late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, has become a timeless blueprint for the future. That there is no clear, popularly recognised heir to Khomeini's legacy further complicates matters. Ayatollah Khamenei has inspired little public sympathy with his will and preferences alone, given his second-rate clerical credentials and manifest lack of charisma. Efforts of other Khomeini contemporaries, like dissident cleric Ayatollah Montazeri or Mousavi Khoeinihah, to publicly debate the contemporary relevance of the late leader's legacy have been silenced.
Indeed, the aggressively public display of anger that annually characterises 4 November was there again with a singular sincerity -- the students' denunciation of hard-line attempts to imprison Nouri, who spent his 4 November in court defending his right to advocate ties with the US.
