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On December 15 Iranians will cast their
ballots for municipal elections. Reformist candidates across
the country, particularly in Tehran, have a credible opportunity
to win, if their constituents emerge from their hibernation and
actively participate in these elections. The government has
hindered the domestic media's attempt to generate a celebratory
environment for the electorates to exercise their constitutional
right. Iranian media around the world need to realize that a
dampened down election will only perpetuate the status quo and
will reinforce a growing messianic belief that Iranians need
to be rescued.
The famous American sociologist
Harold Garfinkel observed that people become conscious of the
order of things around them only when that order is disrupted.
The taken-for-granted thus exists invisibly until its existence
is breached.
Since his election in 2005,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,'s administration has ceaselessly restricted
civil liberties and political rights. Numerous opposition parties
and personalities rightfully publicize these violations, and
emphasize the importance of legal and political protection of
civil liberties as the foundation for any future transformation
of the Iranian society. But many of these same groups have been
relentlessly denying the existence of these liberties in the
Islamic Republic in the first place. If the Ahmadinejad administration
has banned the publication and the reprint of numerous books,
if they have reinstituted secret prisons, if they refuse permits
for demonstrations, if they close newspapers indefinitely without
a court order, if government officials have refused to be accountable
for their actions to the Majlis, if all of these changes are
indeed happening don't they suggest that there had been a different
political configuration in place before they were effected?
Could it be that the Khatami presidency accomplished things that
are now being disrupted? We become more aware of the achievements
of Khatami when we witness their disappearance.
In his first interview after
leaving office, in response to a reporter who asked about his
best moment as president, Khatami referred to his address at
Tehran University on the occasion of Student Day in 2004. During
his speech, enraged students interrupted and denounced him for
yielding to the conservative judiciary in pursing his project
of strengthening the institutions of civil society. He listened
quietly with open displeasure and left after hearing out his
opponents. He told the reporters, that was his finest moment
in office! For the first time in the country's history a leader
faced shouting critics in an open forum and not a single person
was arrested afterwards. Before Khatami, this would have been
unimaginable in Iran, and is perhaps no longer possible even
in the United States today.
There is an expression in Farsi
that describes people who want contradictory things: those who
want both the donkey and the date. These are people who are never
mistaken, and see all situations in the context of their own
interests. Iranians and their Euro-American supporters, those
who advocate boycotting every election in the Islamic Republic,
cannot have it both ways. They cannot argue that the office
of the president (and all other elected offices) is politically
impotent, while also lamenting the repressive nature of the Ahmadinejad
presidency and how he is taking the country back to its early
postrevolutionary period. This poses a dilemma for these universal
boycotters. If elected officers make a difference, for worse
or better, in the Islamic Republic, then why shouldn't citizens
vote? There are many different positions on this question ranging
from single-minded abolitionists, whose agenda is regime change
in Iran, with or without the help of their neocon brethren, to
those who recognize the differences between different factions,
but argue that participating in elections legitimizes authoritarian
institutions such as the Guardian Council. Although the reasons
for boycotting elections may differ, the result is the same:
low voter participation has devastating consequences for reform
candidates.
The boycotters, the civilized
ones, believe that the only path to change in Iran is through
a general referendum on the constitution of the Islamic Republic.
When asked how this might be possible, regime-change advocates
outline a program of civil disobedience which, if massive, would
coerce the ruling coterie to relinquish its power and accept
the terms and results of the referendum. Unfortunately, tark-e
`adat mujeb-e maraz-ast, old habits die hard. One of the principal
shortcomings in Iranian political culture is the lack of enduring,
persistent, and patient mobilization from below. The old political
left (Islamic or secular) subscribed to a Jacobin form of politics,
passionately believing that social change could only be realized
top-down by decapitating the state's head. While many boycotters
don't endorse violence, they still hold out hope for the single
blow, the referendum, that would terminate the Islamic regime.
Piecemeal transformation does not exist in the political lexicon
of the Iranian left (or right). Politics Iranian style borrows
heavily from Bazaari culture: Herculean in the wholesale, horrendous
in the retail.
As for me, I oppose any party
that hopes to claim victory in a not-so-likely-referendum in
a not-so-possible-future. I know this because contrary to those
who believe that the chief problem in Iranian politics is that
the wrong people are in power (that might as well be true), the
real problem is structural: power corrupts its wielders. There
is only one way that this predicament can change: expanding the
formal and informal institutions in which citizens participate
actively and regularly. Politics does not begin and end with
voting. Nor is civic participation monumental or spectacular.
Citizens practice their economic, political, and social responsibilities
in countless ways: in their workplaces, professional associations,
neighborhoods, and schools. Along with the criticism one might
make of President Khatami's weakness, naivete, or passivity,
those citizens of the Islamic Republic who themselves failed
to institutionalize political reforms in myriad municipal and
professional organizations should also be held culpable for failing
to strengthen civil society.
Iranians have another chance
on December 15 to practice their rights and responsibilities
in municipal and city council elections around the country.
In order to defeat reformist candidates who have somehow survived
the disqualification procedures and still appear on the ballot,
the Judiciary, the ministries of Culture and Islamic Guidance,
Information, and Domestic Affairs, the state-controlled radio
and television, and the conservative newspapers have all been
mobilized to ensure low participation of the electorate. The
judiciary spokesperson has threatened the newspapers that run
front-page news of the election with closure and censure.
Iranian expatriates with access
to mass media should counter this strategy by turning the municipal
elections into a welcome political event. It is imperative for
Iranians at home and abroad to participate in these elections.
The more engaged people remain with these processes, the harder
it becomes for any institution in society to trample on their
wishes. An empowered reformist city council in Tehran, or any
other municipality in the country, could achieve modest, but
genuine changes in the way the city is managed and the way its
residents live. While most Iranian expatriates remain impervious
towards modest changes in daily life, we should realize that
what seems negligible to us often has remarkable consequences
for our fellow citizens inside the country. Incremental changes
are only irrelevant to those whose lives are untouched by those
changes.
Behrooz Ghamari is a professor of history and sociology
at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is the author
of the forthcoming book, Islam and Dissent in Postrevolutionary
Iran. He can be reached at bghamari@uiuc.edu
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