Together with friends across the world, I’m protesting Shane and Josh’s detention in Iran’s notorious jail for political prisoners, Evin.

Shane was captured in a cross-border raid by Iranian forces while in Kurdistan in Northern Iraq in 2009, along with another of my friends Sarah Shourd (since released) and their mate Josh Fattal.

Two years ago I was sitting in a cafe near Regents Park in London when I spotted a short paragraph in the Sunday Times about “three US hikers” captured crossing the Iraqi border into Iran.

My intial response was probably similar to that of most people who’ve spent time living and working in the region: they must be spies.

It was only when I got a call from Mazen – my friend and Arabic teacher in Damascus – that I realised what had happened.

I knew very well that Shane and Sarah had gone to Kurdistan – I’d wished them goodbye from Yarmouk, the Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus where they lived. I’d also turned down an invite to go with them, the BBC job I was working on meant I couldn’t leave Syria for long enough. But it still took a while for it to sink in that the very same mates I’d been playing backgammon and smoking shisha with were now part of a growing international news story.

My initial panic was relatively short lived. Pretty soon I relaxed, knowing that once the Iranian authorities knew who they were, they’d be out soon.

Besides, how could Iran justify holding Shane, a widely published independent journalist, openly critical of US policy in the Middle East? Not only had he just published the cover story in the Nation, on US-trained death squads, but he’d also just been to visit his close friend Tristan, who was recovering after being shot in the head by the IDF during a Palestinian-led protest against the Apartheid wall.

Shane could hardly have been more vocal about his opposition to the Israeli occupation, and – along with Sarah – had been an organiser of anti-war protests against the invasion of Iraq.

In short, I was confident that Iran would soon realise this wasn’t the kind of American it was hoping to catch.

Two years on, I now realise I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Unlike the UK navy sailors who were captured by Iranian forces and released after 13 days following pressure from the UK government, Shane and Josh are still in prison after 700 days.

Shane is a phenomenal journalist – fiercely independent, and refusing to swallow any country’s propaganda (he was an unembedded reporter in Iraq). He is a passionate defender of Human Rights. Anyone who shares these values and who cares about the course of justice should be outraged at the continued imprisonment of Shane and Josh.

That means that we must campaign for their release. By that ‘we’ I mean the ordinary people who don’t accept the binary world where the US is good and Iran is bad (or vice versa). The world is full of greys, good people and bad, who carry all colours of passports.

Shane and Sarah (and I’m sure Josh, though I’ve never had the fortune to meet him) are some of the good ones. They have dedicated a large part of their lives to fighting injustice wherever it pops its ugly head, whether in the US or elsewhere.

That’s why we have to support Shane and Josh. Because if we don’t do it, nobody will. And with them in prison, the world is being starved of two incredible activists who work tirelessly to make this little rock we inhabit a better place. We’re all poorer without them.

So happy 29th Shane – I hope you find some way in your cell to celebrate it.

PS I’m saving the birthday hug until you get out.

More info:

Sarah talking to Amnesty after her release
Sarah on BBC HardTalk
Free Our Friends (a website a few of us put together)
Free The Hikers (official campaign home)

Shane has done more for the people of the region than almost any Arab or Iranian I know.

He’s also a great guy.

We became good friends while living together in Yarmouk – a Palestinian refugee camp in the suburbs of Damascus, Syria. Many evenings we spent chatting over backgammon, shisha and lukewarm Barada beer.

At the time I’d been in the city for two years, working on a BBC documentary series. Shane was writing as a journalist for the Nation, traveling to Iraq to find out the truth hidden behind the military propaganda. Sarah – his partner – was teaching English to Iraqi refugees.

Nobody had any clue as to what might happen on their trip to Kurdistan. Supposedly a safe part of Iraq, I would have joined them at the drop of a hat if I hadn’t had filming commitments in Damascus.

Shane’s incredible reporting – unembedded and human – has helped show us what’s really going on in places like Iraq, Sudan and Palestine.

But Shane is also an activist.

He’s campaigned against the war in Iraq and the occupation in Palestine.

That’s why it’s ridiculous that Iran is holding him on suspicion of espionage.

And if you don’t believe me as to what kind of guy Shane is, have a read of Robert Fisk (probably the MIddle East’s most respected English-language journalist):

Robert Fisk: Is Shane Bauer really an enemy of Iran?

The journalist, a fearless defender of the Middle East’s dispossessed, is about to go on trial in Tehran for alleged espionage

Friday, 6 May 2011

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-is-shane-bauer-really-an-enemy-of-iran-2279810.html

Journalism is not an exact art, so the Americans who go on trial in Tehran for “espionage” next Wednesday are called the “hikers”, seized by Iranian border guards as they trekked close to the frontier in Iraqi Kurdistan almost two years ago. Shane Bauer and his fiancée Sarah Shourd, along with Shane’s friend Joshua Fattal, were on holiday, enjoying the beauties of the great Ahmed Awa waterfall in Iraq when their vacation turned into one of those macabre and frightening dramas that Iran often seems to present to the unwary.

But the world’s press somehow lost sight of the fact that Mr Bauer – far from being just a “hiker” – is also a fine and committed journalist, a writer of brilliant reports from Iraq, Ethiopia, Syria, even from the Native American Oglala Sioux reservation at Pine Tree, in America’s South Dakota. He has interviewed the Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and his long articles reflect enormous compassion for the poor and suffering of Iraq and for the Palestinians under siege in Gaza.

So why on earth is Iran holding Mr Bauer and Mr Fattal when they quite obviously sympathise with those whom the Islamic Republic of Iran constantly supports? There are, of course, wheels within wheels in Iran, but many of its officials have a keen sense of justice. In a world packed with violent men and war criminals, not a few of them in the West, the incarceration of these two men within the forbidding confines of Evin prison, let alone their trial next week, is an injustice.

Is this special pleading? Of course it is. Though I have never met Mr Bauer, I have spoken frequently to Ms Shourd, who became engaged to him in the prison and was later – correctly – freed by the Iranian authorities. Both men love the Middle East and clearly had nothing to do with espionage: had they really been spies, they could have asked for a legal visa to Tehran, not tramped through the mountains of Kurdistan.

So if the Iranian embassy in London, whose diplomats are all students of the British press, have the time and patience (which they do have) to translate this article and the extracts of Mr Bauer’s journalism printed here and send them to the Iranian Foreign Ministry, all to the good. They might also send a copy to Iranian ambassador Gadanfar Rokon Abadi in Beirut, whom I count as a friend.

Yes, I know the argument, that the Iranian judiciary and the Iranian government are separate. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has personally told me this. Yet Mr Ahmadinejad is not averse to giving his views on court cases. Without his intercession or that of Iran’s “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the mothers of all three Americans could not have visited their children a year ago, nor would Ms Shourd have been released on bail to return to America last September. Indeed, in the very same month, Mr Ahmadinejad himself promised that he would ask the Iranian judiciary to treat the case of Mr Bauer and Mr Fattal with maximum leniency and speed, even though the prisoners were initially denied access to consuls of the Swiss embassy which represents US interests in Iran.

Both men are 28; Mr Fattal should be back in America in his job as a teacher. Mr Bauer should be back in the Arab world, writing his fearless prose on the oppressed peoples of the region. Ms Shourd herself had been living in Damascus before her imprisonment, helping to care for refugees from the war in Iraq.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, the secretary general of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, has already said that it is “quite possible” that the Americans strayed into Iran by mistake. Interestingly, he is the brother of Ardashir Larijani, the Iranian parliament chairman and, more to the point, he is also the brother of Sadeq Larijani, the Chief Justice of Iran.

I was recently assured, with great courtesy, that I may travel to Iran whenever I wish; in fact, a visa was offered to me only a few weeks ago. So if Iran can allow a free-speaking journalist such as me into the country, it must be even easier to let Mr Bauer and Mr Fattal go home.

In the words of Shane Bauer…

Shane Bauer’s work has appeared in The Nation, Mother Jones and other liberal American magazines. In 2009, he was reporting on the brutality of the US-trained “dirty brigade” Special Forces in Iraq.

As Hassan tells it, it was a quiet night on 10 June, 2008, in Sadr City, Baghdad’s poor Shia Muslim district of more than 2 million people, when the helicopter appeared over his house and the front door exploded, nearly burning his sleeping youngest son. Before Hassan knew it, he was on the ground, hands bound and a bag over his head, with eight men pointing rifles at him, locked and loaded.

At first he couldn’t tell whether the men were Iraqis or Americans. He says he identified himself as a police sergeant, offering his ID before they took his pistol and knocked him to the ground.

The men didn’t move like any Iraqi forces he’d ever seen. They looked and spoke like his countrymen, but they were wearing American-style uniforms and carrying American weapons with night-vision scopes.

They accused him of being a commander in the local militia, the Mahdi Army, before they dragged him off, telling his wife he was “finished”. But before they left, they identified themselves. “We are the Special Forces. The dirty brigade,” Hassan recalls them saying.

The Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) is probably the largest special forces unit ever built by the United States, and it is free of many of the controls that most governments employ to rein in such lethal forces… Although the force is officially controlled by the Iraqi government, popular perception in Baghdad is that the ISOF… is a covert, all-Iraqi branch of the US military.

On the same night Hassan Mahsan’s house was raided, 26-year-old Haidar al-Aibi was killed with a bullet to the forehead. His family says there was no warning… Fathil al-Aibi says the family was awakened around midnight by a nearby explosion. His brother Haidar ran up to the roof to see what had happened and was immediately shot from a nearby rooftop. When Fathil, his brother Hussein and his father, Abbas, tried to bring Haidar downstairs, they were shot at too. For about two hours he lay lifeless on the roof while his family panicked as red laser beams from rifle scopes danced on their windows.

Iraq’s New Death Squad, published in The Nation, June 2009

A year later, Bauer was in the dangerous Sunni Muslim Iraqi city of Fallujah, reporting on the power of a militia leader and local businessman, Sheikh Eifan, who had received massive US payments to combat al-Qa’ida.

I am sipping tea with a roomful of men when the sheikh bursts in, sweeping a long stick across the room. “Nobody say a word!” he shouts. Four heavies march in behind him and throw a man on the floor, his feet, hands and eyes tightly bound with kaffiyehs. A man in green camo with an AK-47 blocks the doorway.

The captive’s chest heaves as Eifan stands over him, stick in hand. An hour earlier, the sheikh was shouting into his cellphone about a botched reconstruction project. Eifan stands to lose $50,000, and the compound has filled with murmurs about when and how he’ll explode. The crime of the man curled up on the floor isn’t related; in fact, no one is sure he’s committed a crime at all, but some goat herders have accused him of being involved in a kidnapping. Eifan fires questions at him while the room holds its collective breath. “Don’t stop to think of lies!” WHACK! The stick comes down against his thigh.

Fallujah’s police chief shows up, clearly deferring to Eifan’s authority. Finally, satisfied with the interrogation, Eifan orders his men to bring tea to the shaken detainee. “We have many levels of guests here,” he says, looking over at me. “This one is on a lower level.” The police carry the man away. I ask Eifan what will happen to him. “They will interrogate him in a different way,” he says flatly.

The Sheikh Down, Mother Jones, September 2009

Living temporarily in Damascus, Bauer took time off in November 2008 to visit the magnificent Crusader castle of Krak des Chevaliers in western Syria – with remarkable conclusions about the American occupation of Iraq, and an ending which – given his present predicament – ends on a note of fearful irony.

It’s strange how the crimes of history are softened with the passage of time. As I walk along its perimeter, enlivened by the crisp, early winter chill, I find it difficult to feel the distant pain of the thousands at Ma’arat al-Nu’uman, slaughtered on 12 December, 1098, some 60 miles to my north by the Crusader armies of Count Raymond of Toulouse, who after the orgy of killing, cooked and ate many of their victims… I suspect that the locals – who tend to see a clear continuity between the Crusades, European colonialism, and the subsequent American military conquest – don’t share the glee of us westerners when they tramp around this relic of foreign invaders.

With the exception of the Ottomans, the Romans probably left behind the heaviest footprint hitherto. The Americans, however, will certainly leave more bases in the Middle East than the Romans did. The 37 military bases the Romans commanded at the height of their empire in AD117 is paltry next to the 761 bases the Americans have outside the US, not including Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the British, at their peak, had only 36. That’s less than half of American bases in Iraq alone, which once numbered 110, now about 75.

But like the Romans, the Americans will leave more than military bases behind. They will leave cities. Their towns of cement may not measure up to the beauty of the stunning Roman city of Palmyra in Syria’s eastern desert, or the sheer number of the Byzantines’ settlements, whose dead cities total around 600 in Syria alone, but they will certainly be bigger. The new embassy complex in Baghdad is roughly the size of Vatican City, with a Marine barracks, 300 homes, 21 other buildings, and its own water, electricity and sewage systems… Like the castles of Burzei or Musyaf in Syria, most of the US fortresses spread across Turkey, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and other Middle Eastern countries… will probably get little attention from tourists (of the future) who tend only to visit the best-preserved. When the Americans are long gone, and visitors come to gaze at the decaying buildings, will the significance of each fortress be lost?

Before visiting hours ended, and the castle’s heavy wooden doors were locked, I sat in one of the empty prison chambers, pitch black except for a bit of light cast into the corner by a hole in the ceiling… I tried to imagine, for one minute, what the prisoners in that room might have heard and felt as the days passed.

From Bauer’s blog, November 2008

It is almost a year since Iran detained my friends Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd (and their friend Josh).

It demonstrates just how empty the Iranian government’s claim to defend Palestinian rights really is.

Shane and Sarah – who were living in Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp at the time – have done more for Palestinians and against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that pretty much every Arab and Iranian I know.

What is depressing is that the Iranians must know this, and yet still detain them.

Part of the blame must also lie with the official “Free The Hikers” campaign, that for whatever reasons has chosen not to highlight Sarah and Shane’s politics. Despite doing fantastic work in drumming up domestic US support, it has taken too long to start trickling in information about their work.

Portraying them as hikers lost in the wrong part of the Middle East does not help anyone understand who they are. When I first saw the story in The Times last year, I instantly assumed they were spies. Who wouldn’t?

However, that same afternoon I got a call from a friend in Syria who said it was Shane and Sarah. After my initial panic I thought that as soon as it became clear to the public who these guys were they would be released.

But nobody was talking about their work. I’m still not sure why, but their families wanted to take their politics out of the equation. Unfortunately when it comes to the Middle East that doesn’t work. Politics is paramount and people fall on either side of the line: pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli. Sure, there are more nuanced ways of saying it, but that’s the fundamental distinction. If you’re American and don’t have the evidence to prove it, the assumption is you’re of the latter category. Fair enough, I say, Americans (and Brits) have done enough to shaft the Middle East many times over to warrant immediate suspicion.

The difference was that in this case, there was – and still is – the evidence to demonstrate very clearly that these guys are not US/Israeli spies and have spent their lives campaigning for justice in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and many other places besides.

It has been a frustrating year for many of Sarah and Shane’s friends (well, at least the ones that I know) who have felt that they haven’t been able to talk about their politics for fear of jeopardising the official campaign. However, following a visit by the mothers of Sarah, Shane and Josh to Iran in May, Shane asked explicitly that we focus on their work for justice in the Middle East.

So that’s what we’re doing now. Along with a bunch of their friends, we’ve released a website with quotes and links to their work. Please visit it and pass it on.

Iran needs to realise that if it really cares about the rights of Palestinians it should release Shane, Sarah and Josh.

www.FreeOurFriends.eu

I’ve been in Syria for the past six weeks so haven’t been reading the Guardian (or writing on this blog).

However, I just came across a May 22nd copy of the Guardian on Indymedia, which to be frank, was shocking.

The headline of the article reads: Iran’s secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq.

At this point, you might think: interesting story. However, at the end of the first paragraph, Simon Tisdall reveals his sources, writing “US officials say”.

Wow. How terrible is that journalism? The headline is not even in quotation marks. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to understand the skewed interests of ‘US officials’ and the likelihood of media manipulation.

Imagine if the Guardian broke a ‘story’ on its front page about US plans to carpet bomb Damascus, only to find out further down that their source was Iranian officials.

I must say I’m quite disappointed because I generally read the Guardian, although the Independent does have better Middle East coverage.

***
ps went to the Iranian Cultural Institute in Damascus the other day and was invited to a recital of Khomeini’s poetry. Would have been comedy. Happy 100th birthday AK.

A student at Amir Kabir University in Tehran holds up a piece of paper during a visit by President Ahmadinejad that says: “Fascist president, the Polytechnic is not your place”

Fingerprinting my Taser

In November 2006, the Majles (parliament) passed a bill requiring all US visitors to Iran to be fingerprinted on entry.

It was a controversial bill, not likely to pass at all. Ahmadinejad and his government opposed it, as did many members of the Majles.

However, when footage taken on a mobile phone of an Iranian student being tasered by police at UCLA in California was released on the internet, it didn’t take long for Iranians to disseminate it to the community outside and inside Iran. The attack was denounced in the Iranian media and debated in parliament.

On November 19, over two-hundred Majles deputies condemned the beating of the Iranian student. On the same day they passed the US fingerprinting bill – despite the government’s objections.

The irony of the incident is that the student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, is Baha’i, a persecuted minority in the Islamic Republic.

Still, it does strike me as quite crazy that a mobile phone video in LA can affect parliamentary proceedings in Tehran.

See the film below:

“Death to the Dictator”

In December, Ahmadinejad addressed students at Amir Kabir University in Tehran, where he was confronted by angry protests.

Although the hall where he gave his televised speech was largely packed-out with the government’s Basij faithful, there was a group of students at the back of the hall who burned pictures of Ahmadinejad and chanted “death to the dictator”.

Pro-government media has tried to say that the dissenting group was a tiny minority of the student body. However, in a repressive state where the price of protest is high, such demonstrations are taken seriously by everyone.

I like the way Ahmadinejad’s response was similar to what Blair says every time he’s confronted with a protest:

“I am not surprised, because there is such a free atmosphere in the university environment that these incidents can happen.”

As the students later wrote in an open letter, December 12 2006 will be remembered as “a day in which the university loudly proclaimed that it was alive”

Official TV footage:

Mobile video from the back of the hall:

Demonstration outside the gates (chanting “death to the dictator”):

Dirty Dancing

Finally, on a more humorous note, a Vice-President of Iran, Rahim Moshai, has been busted for watching women sing and dance.

On a visit to Turkey to an Organisation of the Islamic Conference event, he was invited to watch a display of dancing which included women with their hair uncovered.

While this wouldn’t be a problem is most other parts of the world, Rahim Moshai’s government is responsible for forcing men and women to celebrate separately at events such as weddings, lest the men catch a racy glimpse of a dancing lady, or indeed hear her sing.

So when a video of the incident hit the internet it sparked outrage in parts of the Iranian media and even precipitated calls for Rahim Moshai’s resignation. The Iran News website, which originally posted the video, had its managing director detained and its site blocked.

Mr Vice-President, shame on your loose morals!

See extremely explicit video below:

Here’s him arriving at the conference

And here’s the “unislamic” dancing

The Assembly of Experts is important for one reason: it selects the Supreme Leader, for life, from among its members.

This election won’t be very interesting, since competition has been eliminated by the vetting of candidates by the Guardian Council (the un-elected 12-member supreme legislative body).

Public participation in the ballot has historically been very low – last time under 10%. With the decision to hold both this election and the local council elections concurrently, the government hopes to boost voter-turnout.

The local council election is different. Those elected have access to real money, and in the case of the Tehran City Council, significant amounts of it.

It should be remembered that Ahmadinejad and friends emerged onto the political scene in 2003 after winning the Tehran municipal elections. It was from that influential position that Ahmadinejad launched his successful bid for the presidency in 2005.

The Political Landscape

Political parties and groups abound in Iran, and trying to understand them can be a real headache.

It’s easier to think of politics in Iran in terms of movements and personalities. Parties have very little grassroots support and therefore tell us little .

The two main movements or political camps in Iran are the Conservatives (part of who now refer to themselves as Principlists) and the Reformists.

The divide, ultimately, is about democratic representation in Iranian politics. The Reformists want more – through greater parliamentary power and a freer press, while the Conservatives fear that these things will lead to greater foreign influence in Iran and the dissolution of the ideals of the Revolution.

Politicians may also have other priorities, such as an inclination towards free-market economic models or support for social conservatism. However, there is no doubt that this overriding division – between Reformists and Conservatives – has shaped Iranian politics for the past decade.

1997 and the Reformists

Mohammad Khatami, Iran’s only Reformist president, was elected by a landslide in 1997. Despite short-term successes by the Reformists in liberalising the media and attempting to engage internationally, the Conservative elements in the regime, in particular the Supreme Leader Khamanei and the Guardian Council, blocked many of the reforms.

As the popular frustration at the lack of progress on reform combined with a perceived weakness in Khatami to really push for change, Reformists and the voters who supported them became disaffected with the political process.

July 1999 saw the largest public unrest since the Revolution, as thousands of students demonstrated for democratic reform. Following days of instability and tension, Khatami was under pressure from both the students pushing for democratisation and the regime’s Conservatives who threatened radical counter-measures to crush the dissent. Khatami’s ultimate decision to appeal for calm and stand against the students – who had been among his strongest supporters – was seen by many as a betrayal.

Khatami was re-elected in 2001 with a diminished mandate. The Reformists continued to shed supporters, as voters blamed them for their inability to push for real change. Khatami claimed that his hands were tied by the Conservative establishment; his critics charged that he could have done more, using his unique position as President.

Either way, the Reform movement was on its last legs in 2003 when many voters didn’t bother to turn up to the local elections and Ahmadinejad and his ideological allies were voted into the Tehran City Council. These Conservatives went on to make large gains in the parliamentary election a year later, and win the presidential election a year after that.

Ahmadinejad and the Principlists

The 2005 Presidential election marked the formal end to the Reformist administration.

Iran today is under the administration of a new political grouping. This branch of the Conservative movement, which count Ahmadinejad among their number, are young, radical and pious.

Referring to themselves as “Principlists”, in reference to their adherence to the ideals of both Islam and the Revolution, they see many problems in today’s Iran. However, their prescription for these ailments is a return to Revolutionary principles, not a reform away from them, as Khatami and the Reformists were advocating.

Ahmadinejad and his allies comprise what could be referred to as the ‘foot soldiers’ of the Revolution. Veterans of the Basij (the government’s youth militia) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (the elite ideological wing of the military), these Principlists spent much of their adult life fighting in the Iran-Iraq war. They have invested a great deal in the “success” of the Revolution.

What makes these Principlists fundamentally different to other Conservatives is the class dimension of their discourse. Principlists in general are not members of the clerical establishment – Ahmadinejad was the first non-cleric to become President – rather they hail from the religious working class.

Although foreign media emphasise the elements of Ahmadinejad’s speeches that refer to Israel or the Iranian nuclear programme, it is his economic agenda that makes him popular among certain parts of Iranian society.

Ahmadinejad’s electoral pledge to “bring the oil revenue to the people’s tables” is not only a promise to the rural poor that they have not been forgotten; it is a promise to address the corruption responsible for Iran’s squandered natural resources. The Principlists are well aware that this corruption extends to parts of the traditional Conservative establishment.

So while the Principlists’ adherence to the ideals of the Revolution and the absolute rule of the Supreme Leader puts them at odds with the Reformists, it is their revulsion of economic corruption that pits them against members of their own Conservative movement.

Rafsanjani: a dangerous enemy to have

Nowhere is this loathing stronger than towards Rafsanjani, whom Principlists see as the epitome of clerical excess and corruption.

Rafsanjani’s wealth is a source of much political discussion in Iran, and in many shared taxis or bread queues you can hear people talking about his dubious wealth.

Whether any of it is true is hard to say in the opaque Iranian economic system; however, it is hard to find any Iranian who is not convinced of Rafsanjani’s shady millions (or indeed billions).

A former president of Iran (1989-1997), Rafsanjani is the current deputy chairman of the Assembly of Experts and the head of the powerful Expediency Council, a body that both mediates between the Guardian Council and Parliament and also advises the Supreme Leader. He is close to the current Supreme Leader Khamanei and was a trusted aide to Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, who appointed him commander-in-chief of the armed forces in the last year of the Iran-Iraq war. Many observers believe he is a strong candidate to succeed Khamanei as the Supreme Leader.

In short, Rafsanjani is an extremely powerful man.

As such, these hostile Principlist sentiments would have meant little to Rafsanjani before August 2005. However, when Ahmadinejad defeated him in a head-to-head runoff to become president, the animosity could no longer be ignored. The humiliation of losing to the little-known Tehran Mayor in his shabby coat must have shaken this political behemoth.

Over the past year, signs of this rivalry between the Principlists and Rafsanjani have become increasingly apparent. Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazi, the arch-fundamentalist cleric who is seen as the ideological mentor to Ahmadinejad and his allies, has been making his hostility known to Rafsanjani.

In June, at a major speech in Qom, the heartland of the country’s clergy, Rafsanjani was heckled by Mesbah-Yazdi’s students, who accused him of being an “appeaser” and a “counter-revolutionary”. Rafsanjani, visibly shocked by this public affront by protesters in clerical robes, ended his televised speech early and cancelled subsequent appearances and interviews.

This animosity towards Rafsanjani was further confirmed when an electoral list for the Assembly of Experts was released under the name of “the friends of Mesbah-Yazdi” which did not include Rafsanjani or his powerful ally Rohani among their candidates. Both these personalities are on the Conservative and Reformist lists, which is more evidence of the Principlists separating themselves from the main Conservative bloc.

Finally, and most relevant to the upcoming election this Friday, Principlists stand divided in the Tehran City Council elections, once again because of Rafsanjani.

The current Tehran Mayor Ghalibaf, who considers himself a Principlist, has been shunned by the more extreme elements of the group who criticise him, among other things, for appointing Rafsanjani’s son as Manager of the Tehran Metro. This division among the Principlists leaves them vulnerable ahead of the local elections and has dominated the Iranian media in the run-up to Friday’s ballot.

Reformists court their new friend?

Ever since Rafsanjani’s public humiliation in Qom, Reformists have been adapting to the possibility of adopting this new enemy of the Principlists, or the extreme Conservatives, as one of their own.

Seen until very recently as a regime stalwart and a Conservative, Rafsanjani has been an awkward ally for some Reformists.

However, Reformists are using defence of Rafsanjani as a means to attack their Principlist enemies. By criticising Rafsanjani’s critics, Reformists are able to vent their frustration with the current administration while hiding behind Rafsanjani’s position.

The pro-government press finds it harder to attack the Reformists if it means criticising Rafsanjani in the process. It is still a dangerous game for anyone to attack the powerful man publicly.

Rafsanjani’s conversion to a Reformist figure is still very much in process. However, his endorsement of the Reformist coalition in the local elections is a major step in that direction.

What this means for Iranian politics is still hard to say; however, this rift between the Principlists and traditional Conservatives, including Rafsanjani, could shape Iranian politics for years to come.

Unity, Disunity and Friday’s Election

The Reformists, unlike the Principlists, have achieved unity for the first time in years, with all the Reformist groups running a joint list. The minor exception is Karrubi, the former parliamentary speaker, who while technically running a separate list for his National Trust Party, has been persuaded by Khatami to list identical candidates to the official Reformist Coalition.

Faced with this unprecedented Reformist unity, the Principlist bickering could damage both their – and Ahmadinejad’s – standing in government. A significant defeat in Friday’s election would dent the popular support that Ahmadinejad has been claiming since the 2005 presidential election.

However, this prediction relies on one unpredictable variable: voter turnout.

If Iranians choose to boycott the ballot-box, something they have been doing increasingly since Khatami’s first election in 1997, then the Principlists can expect to win again.

If Iranians decide that these elections do provide a worthwhile opportunity for change, however slight, then they may vote in larger numbers, almost certainly for the Reformists.

So, in summary, what to look out for (in order of interest):

• Who wins the Tehran City Council?
• What is the voter turnout?
• What are the relative Reformist/Principlist gains?
• What the various individuals and groups say in the heat of the election, and
• What is the position of the various groups on the results?

While the Western media seems preoccupied with Tehran’s “Holocaust Conference” – which garners little interest among people in Iran – if you want to know what’s happening in the generally opaque world of Iranian politics, Friday will provide a rare opportunity to find out.

**

I appreciate this article is going to be a oversimplification for some, since Iranian politics is not exactly straightforward. However, I was trying to explain to those with little knowledge of Iranian politics that there is movement beneath Iran’s authoritarian veneer. There are forces for change, even if all the actors look disturbingly similar to the foreign eye. Go ahead and ask any questions and I’ll try and answer them. I’m no expert, but with the depressingly low level of public knowledge about the politics of such a “high priority” country, I think that anything can help.

In the past week, Mohammad Khatami and Jack Straw have both called for British citizens to prioritise their ‘Britishness’. Halfiranian asks why.

Last Wednesday night, I went to hear the ex-president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, give a talk entitled ‘Tolerance, Moderation and the Dialogue of Civilizations’.

I wasn’t that interested in the subject of his talk, I was more excited to see what kind of man Khatami really is. Unlike the demonstrators outside Chatham House, who see him as just another mullah in a theocracy with blood and torture on its hands, I left the discussion with a positive impression of the guy.

Sure, I think he’s a spineless bureaucrat for never once putting his career – let alone life – on the line for the reformist movement while in power. But at the same time, after seeing him talk, at least now I’m convinced he stands in the right place. He does believe in genuine peaceful reform, even if he doesn’t have the balls to really push for it.

I’m babbling slightly though. What really struck me about his talk was his statement about British identity. In a reply to a question from a World Service reporter about the veil (yawn) in the UK, Khatami addressed Muslims in Britain, saying: “don’t think you are Muslim; you are British first of all”.

I must say, it did surprise me to hear that from a representative of the Islamic Republic. However, perhaps it was naive of me to expect any state leader (past or present) to promote the primacy of anything other than a state identity.

The next day, Thursday, Jack Straw made similar statements about identity at an “inter-faith conference” at UCL. Straw was concerned that people had come to see themselves “more in terms of their cultural, ethnic, national, gender or religious affiliations”, the BBC quoted him as saying.

He went on to say that “Britishness” could provide “common values”, such as liberty, tolerance and the rule of law, adding that a “stronger sense of shared British identity” was needed.

But why?

Why do Khatami and Straw say that we need to be more British? Straw implies that it’s to compensate for the “erosion of [a] collective sense of community”, resulting from our diminished “sense of class” over the past 50 years (is that not a good thing?).

But is promoting “Britishness” really the best we can do? Surely, we have to think about what our common identities are first, and then create political institutions to accommodate them – not the other way round.

What is it – if anything – that unifies British citizens under one identity? Was this identity changed by the inclusion of Northern Ireland into the mix a couple of hundred years ago? What if we chopped off Wales (only joking), or added Brittany?

Next time someone talks about “Britishness”, think really hard about what they’re talking about. Better still, ask them to define it. See if they can do better than the hopeless job by the Telegraph.

Tell me if I’m being excessively cynical, but to me “Britishness” is nothing more than a political identity (same as Iranian-ness). Straw himself admits that it’s not a national identity, saying “there are Scottish, English and Welsh nations” (in the same way as there are Kurdish, Baluch and Persian nations – to name but a few – in Iran).

By trying to define (and enforce) Britishness, we are desperately seeking to explain a system where “we” as Britons are treated differently to foreigners. We need to define our differences from non-British citizens, otherwise the justification for preferential treatment disappears.

If we didn’t do that – i.e. consider ourselves different to foreigners – things would start to go awry. We might start caring as much about the Iraqi victims of violence as we do about the July 7th bombing victims in “our own” London. We might start being concerned as much for children with HIV in Africa as we do for those in the North-East of England.

Neglecting a state identity risks exposing a huge lie about the way we all live our comfortable lives.

Without Britishness, we wouldn’t be talking about “turkey twizzlers” in UK schools, but about the 100 million children who don’t go to school.

Without Britishness, we wouldn’t be moaning about NHS waiting-lists, but doing something about the 10 million children who die of preventable diseases every year.

Without Britishness, we wouldn’t be questioning Romania’s right to join the EU, but questioning our ‘right’ to a veto in the Security Council.

Without Britishness, we would have no reason to have passports which provide us access to places where others cannot go.

Without Britishness, we wouldn’t tolerate locking people up and deporting them simply because they want to share our opportunities.

Without Britishness, if a foreigner could do your job better than you, what argument would you use to stop her?

Without Britishness, we are forced to see our country for what it is. A racist club designed to maintain our arbitrary privileges.

That is why we need Britishness. Because without it, we are reduced to humans. And nobody seems to want that.

Karimi,

I am sorry, but I boycott anything that comes from any nation that fosters terrorism, contempt for human life and freedom, and lack of courtesy to your men and women. Why? If you really want to know, read on:

My country is culturally Christian (mainly), yours is namely [sic] Muslim. This doesn’t bother me- Why does it bother Iran? Or Iraq?? Or whoever?!? Why is this a problem?

Also; Why develop nuclear weapons? We are in the process of disarming, whereas your country, along with Korea and others, is doing the opposite. This means we will be re-arming. And strengthening our military- and improving on ways to defend (this means “kill people”); your government (and others) are inevitably forcing our hand. The “people” of America, and Britain, and others, DO NOT want a war- not because we are afraid we may not win it, but because we do not want it. We would rather live with men than kill them.

You (and your people) need to get involved and tell your government about the message of peace. Use you festival forum for that message! Otherwise, you can forget Animation festivals, as well as the whole Muslim/Christian – Jihad/Crusade struggle: we will be a dead planet. And that is not what Christ or Muhammad, or God himself commanded. Not even close.

Salaam alekum

What an ungrateful idiot.

The really unsettling fact, however, is how much this American has clearly lapped-up all of Bush’s propaganda on Iran and reproduced it faithfully and unquestioningly. Evidently, he thinks that the country is populated by 70 million christian-and-jew-hating-suicidal-jihadists.

He genuinely believes that Iran’s nuclear programme is “forcing [America's] hand” in re-arming. Wait a minute, when did the US (or Britain for that matter) even start disarming? They didn’t. And this sentence: “We would rather live with men than kill them” – how magnanimous!

What worries me even more is the opening section where he asks why “Iran, Iraq, or whoever” has a problem with the US being predominantly Christian. When has this been an issue for any of these countries? When has this been a problem?

Clearly, this guy thinks that any resistance to US policy in the Middle East is simply because Americans are Christians, nothing to do with illegal wars or prolongued occupations. How many Americans agree with this guy? I have no idea, but probably enough to make me very uncomfortable.

Once I’d stopped yelling at my monitor, I realised that this American’s email made me very sad. Being an artist in Iran is tough. Not only is the money bad – as it is everywhere – but there’s a constant struggle with the authorities for freedom-of-expression. I would have thought that any genuine foreign artist would stand alongside their Iranian counterparts, not send them abusive responses to their invitations.

**

PS. This isn’t really to do with this letter particularly, but just need to vent this little gripe. That phrase, “contempt for human life”, gets banded about by Bush and Blair (and the nob who wrote this letter) whenever they talk about “terrorism”. If Osama bin-Laden or Zarqawi or Zawahiri or any of these other nutters had “contempt for human life” then they would have killed themselves. It would be much more accurate to say they have “contempt for your life”, but that may prompt you to shift uncomfortably in your seat and begin to ask why. And we wouldn’t want that.

“These haircuts can get you imprisoned”, Amin boasted. “The authorities forced me to cut my hair before when it was getting too long”, he added. Maybe the regime is not all bad, i thought to myself before getting serious again.

Where the government’s lines can be pushed, they are, and although it may sound trivial to some, haircuts are one of the many frontiers in the social reforms taking place in iran.

‘Bad hejab’, the celebrated sliding-headscarf, is talked about all over the Western media as the ultimate barometer of Iranian social freedoms. However, it really is only one of a dozen areas where people are pushing the boundaries.

Foreign music, raunchy manteaus (!), satellite TV, playing cards (yep, they’re still illegal), booze, illicit dating .. it all goes on, seemingly more intensively because it’s not allowed.

Don’t be fooled by the image propagated by the government that Iranians are all dour pious types. Iranians love to have fun. Ask any Iranian who’s moved to the West and they’ll tell you that you’ve never seen crazier parties than those in Tehran.

Why do Iranians flout the rules so? Because the country is like one big school. There’s a ‘principal’ who sets the rules and lots of lesser ‘teachers’ who enforce the discipline. There are even student ‘prefects’, the ones who get preferential treatment from the teachers for selling out their classmates. There’s even a uniform.

So, it’s not surprising that people want to rebel. And what makes it worse is that this ‘education’ doesn’t seem to be leading anywhere. It’s like being told to be obedient in R.E. (religious education) because it’ll enhance your career prospects. Not likely.

It’s also no coincidence that Pink Floyd is still ridiculously popular in Iran, as Mohammad’s mobile phone will testify. We don’t need no education. Well not religious education, anyway.

Mohammad’s passion for Western music doesn’t stop with Roger Waters. He asked me if I liked the “eegels”. I told him that I didn’t know who they were, but then he started singing Hotel California and I cottoned on.

“Oh, the Eagles“, I replied. “Of course”, I lied, unconvincingly. We moved swiftly on to what music I listened to.

“Erm, have you heard of Jeff Buckley? The Arctic Monkeys?” I suggested, trying to find common ground without sacrificing all taste. Mohammad’s blank look suggested a no but Amin seemed to be searching for some sort of response.

“Espice Girls?” shot-back Amin, with a knowledgeable raise of the (possibly plucked?) eyebrow.

“Not at all. No they’re definitely not cool”, I replied, getting worried.

“Oh, my sister likes them”, justified Amin, “too girly for me”.

“What’s ‘cool’?”, Mohammad asked, still slightly hurt by my evident lack-of-love for the Eagles. Wow, with the all the craving for Western style, I’d have thought that ‘cool’ would have been a word they’d have understood. Surely ‘cool’ was international?

“Umm, it’s when something is really good”, I said, instantly realising that explaining ‘cool’ is not an easy thing to do. Especially not in my less-than-perfect Farsi.

“Err, if you are comfortable doing what you want, that’s cool”, I added.

“So my hair, ‘fashion’, it’s cool?” pleaded Mohammed.

“Definitely”, I said, trying to wrap-up our brief encounter.

**

“Oh, before you go, can you tell me what this says on my t-shirt?”, asked Amin, pointing to a badge above a picture of an eagle on his shoulder [see pic above].

I read it to him: “US Air Force”, before explaining what that meant in Farsi.

“Cool”, Mohammed and Amin agreed, and then headed off home.