Radicalizing some of the protests?
Frustrating hopes for democracy by manipulating elections causes protests, but if the protests yield little, some dissidents become radicalized and lose hope that the system can respond to popular will. Similar hardening of positions can take place on the establishment side of things. See "Divine right to rule in Iran" from last Friday.Divisions test mettle of Iran’s opposition
Five months after a disputed presidential election spawned the largest antigovernment demonstrations in this country in three decades, Iran’s opposition movement appears rudderless and divided, with protesters increasingly at odds with their leaders’ insistence on preserving the country’s system of religious government...
Iranians involved in the movement say growing numbers of protesters are refusing to compromise with the ruling hierarchy, a system of Shi’ite religious and political rule ushered in by Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, which ended a 2,500-year-old monarchy...
During the most recent street protests, on Nov. 4, demonstrators reflected the harder line when they shouted slogans mainly against Iran’s top leaders, instead of their more usual calls in support of Mousavi.
Video clips captured on cellphones and posted on the Internet showed people tearing down posters of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader for the past 20 years. As the heir of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic republic, Khamenei wields ultimate religious and political authority in Iran and is highly revered.
In the government’s view, such protests confirm suspicions that the opposition wants to topple Iran’s political system...
Find out What You Need to Know
Labels: dissent, Iran, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 6:03 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home