Iran - Andrew Burke [21]
* * *
Shortly after the 1989 publication in Iran of Women Without Men, the author, Shahrnush Parsipur, was arrested and jailed. Banned in Iran, the novel is an allegory of women’s lives, following five women who come to live around a garden.
* * *
Return to beginning of chapter
IRAN TODAY
In May 2005 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president. The former Republican Guard member and Tehran mayor was seen as a lightweight compared with the seven alternative candidates and his populist campaign had been ignored by most ‘experts’. Which is exactly why he won.
Despite his religious conservatism, Ahmadinejad’s man-of-the-people image appealed to a population frustrated and angry with the clique of clerics, military and their cronies that had become Iran’s new elite. His message was summed up in an advertisement showing Ahmadinejad sitting in his sparsely furnished 750-square-foot south Tehran apartment while a narrator asked: ‘Where’s the swimming pool?’ The contrast with his opponent in the run-off, ex-president Rafsanjani, was stark: everyman versus the wealthiest man in Iran. Sure, Ahmadinejad would be a gamble, but what did the poor have to lose?
From the outset Ahmadinejad’s presidency has been unconventional, even by Iranian standards. Regular promises to ‘put petroleum income on people’s tables’, stimulate the economy and create jobs went down well initially (for more details on Iran’s economy, Click here). But within months, Ahmadinejad replaced many experienced bureaucrats with his own ex-Revolutionary Guard cronies, and the impossible promises were being seen for what they were. Employment wasn’t rising but inflation was. Social crackdowns were more frequent and strict. Ahmadinejad might be honest and have good intentions, Iranians were saying, but he’s incompetent.
* * *
On 26 December 2003, the oasis city of Bam was devastated by an earthquake that killed more than 31,000 people and destroyed the ancient Arg-e Bam. Click here for details.
* * *
The only issue on which he had wide-ranging support was the nuclear energy program (not bombs). Also see the Nuclear Issue and Snapshot. In a region where the USA is widely perceived as arrogant and overbearing, Ahmadinejad’s high-profile refusals to be pushed around (or negotiate) brought him and his stone-white ‘Ahmadinejad jacket’ celebrity status. His statements about Israel were more controversial, but the international spotlight rarely wavered.
The majority of Iranians were less than impressed, if not outright cynical. What was their president doing gallivanting across the world stage, provoking sanctions and perpetuating the perception that Iranians were all crazy, when things at home were not good at all? And, thanks to the growing isolation, getting worse. Petrol prices rose and quotas were introduced. Getting a visa to travel had become even harder and dissent was punished. Where was the promised oil money on the table?
* * *
WHY IS IRAN SO UNPOPULAR?
From the moment the Islamic Republic was formed Iran has been a pariah state. The reasons seem simple enough. Three decades of outrageously provocative statements and, less often, actions dominate Iran’s media image and the response of foreign governments to it. Think of Iran and most people think burning flags, chador-clad women and bearded men demanding ‘Death to America, Down With Israel’, support for ‘terrorist’ organisations in Lebanon and Palestine, and American hostage diplomats. More recently, President Ahmadinejad and his pronouncements on nuclear power and Israel, in particular, have dominated coverage.
Unfortunately for the rest of Iran, it is rarely reported that many of the president’s views are out of step with average Iranians.