Iran's Occupy

I try to keep my eye on Thomas Erdbrink' s dispatches from Tehran because they're generally free of the "official enemy" deceit that taints New York Times reporting from Russia and Venezuela. Erdbrink's explanation (see "Deadly Iran Protests Prompt Warning of Harsher Response") of the protests roiling Iran makes it sound like Iran is experiencing its own version of the Occupy Wall Street protests that frightened neoliberal leaders in 2011. Activists in the U.S. figured out that Obama was not going to deliver "Change We Can Believe In"; Iranians who voted (twice) for Hassan Rouhani are now coming to the same conclusion. The body count in Iran leads one to conclude that Iranian protesters are more committed than their American counterparts:

The death toll from the clashes was up to at least 21, and in the central province of Esfahan, one police officer was reported killed and three wounded in a gunfight. “An agitator exploited the current situation, and using a hunting rifle, opened fire on police forces,” state television reported.

[snip]

In all, about 450 people have been arrested in Tehran alone since the protests began on Saturday, the semiofficial news agency ILNA reported, citing Ali Asghar Naserbakht, the political security deputy for the Tehran governor’s office. There were also arrests in provincial towns.

Mr. Rouhani has urged demonstrators to avoid violence but defended their right to protest. He did so again on Monday on Twitter.

“People want to talk about economic problems, corruption and lack of transparency in the function of some of the organs and want the atmosphere to be more open,” he wrote. “The requests and demands of the people should be taken note of.”

The protests are not just the largest in Iran since 2009. They also suggest a rejiggering of some traditional divisions.

People who live in rural provinces, long viewed as supporters of the authorities, are now leading most of the demonstrations. And while people in Tehran have also taken to the street, the capital is not the center of the protests, as it was during the so-called Green Movement in 2009. In Tehran, many middle-class Iranians share the discontent but also fear insecurity.

The frustrations that led to the protests also appear different from the sentiments in 2009.

That year, a wave of demonstrations broke out after the contested election of a hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and then turned into a wider protest movement against Iran’s leaders.

This time, it is the failure of President Rouhani, a moderate, to deliver greater political changes and economic opportunity, despite the lifting of some of the sanctions against Iran as part of the nuclear deal. Young people are especially angry. The average age of those arrested is under 25, one official said.

The poor economy especially affects Iran’s young people — more than 50 percent of the population is under 30, according to official statistics. Officially, youth unemployment is near 20 percent, but experts say it is really closer to 40 percent.

When the protests started last Thursday in the city of Mashhad, demonstrators chanted slogans about the weak economy.

But as the protests spread, they have taken on a far more political cast. Increasingly, they are being directed at Iran’s entire political establishment. Some demonstrators have even called for the death of Mr. Rouhani and of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The strength and volatility of the protests have caught Iranian politicians by surprise. Some have denounced them as “riots,” while others have acknowledged that the widespread frustrations at their root can no longer be ignored.

What we know is that Obama was able to co-opt the protest message of the 99% for his campaign against Mitt Romney. But in the end it was a police crackdown on the main encampment at Zuccotti Park that ended Occupy Wall Street. The same thing will happen in Iran, sooner rather than later.

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My mantra has been to make it to year-end. That accomplished, my new mantra is make it to February 3. During the holidays there was a brief lull in workplace demands. With the New Year here, it's back to weekend work. So activity on this page is going to continue to be sporadic. Hopefully sometime in February I can return to "Hippies vs. Punks."