Highly Improbable Numbers

The numbers. Official figures claim Ahmadinejad won 63% of the vote or 24.5M ballots cast. An extra 7M people are supposed to have voted for him since the second round of the last election when there was only one other candidate, Rafsanjani, another conservative.

What has changed since the last election:

• In 2005, following two-terms of popular reformist president Khatami, Iranians had to choose a new president, but reformists fielded several candidates. Through a combination of disatisfaction over reformist achievements during Khatami's rule,  candidates disqualified from standing, and a split in the reformist candidates that were eventually allowed to run, many voters stayed away from the ballot
• In 2005, Ahmadinejad was running in the second round against Rafsanjani, a regime stalwart, who twice served as president of Iran (during the Iran-Iraq war). The choice between the two conservatives (albeit to varying degrees) led to a relatively low turnout, and many choosing Ahmadinejad as the unknown non-cleric, non-Rafsanjani candidate
• In 2009, voters were motivated (massive turnout) and reformists solidly backed one candidate, Mousavi

There is strong evidence linking turnout with reformist victories:

• In 1997, Khatami took 70% of the vote with a 88% turnout in a reformist vs conservative election
• In 2001, Khatami was re-elected with 78% of the vote with a similarly high turnout
• In 2005, in initial turnout of 63% (already relatively quite low) dropped to 48% when the second round run-off made it a conservative vs conservative election, resulting in Ahmadinejad's election
• In 2009, a huge turnout with voting extended by four hours results in a 63% win for the conservatives?

Conclusive?

While none of this is conclusive proof that the results of the elections were rigged at the final stage, we know the dice were loaded from the outset.

Personally, I like the analogy of democracy as pregnancy; you can't be half-pregnant and you can't be semi-democratic.

The screening of candidates by the guardian council and the absence of free domestic media means that there is no democracy in Iran and that is what people are in the streets protesting about.

When they shout 'death to the dictator', it's not directed against Ahmadinejad, it's against the ‘supreme leader‘ himself.

Let's hope the protesters are victorious.

Martyr poster of Samer in the Yarmouk camp, who died fighting for Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Will Smith in ‘I am Legend’

“Would you ever blow yourself up?” 24-year-old Ibrahim asked me over the bubbles of his water-pipe.

I had just stepped off the plane back to Damascus, having spent the flight watching Will Smith’s heroic role as suicide bomber in the Hollywood blockbuster ‘I am Legend’. At the end of the film, Smith hurls himself and a grenade at a wave of salivating zombies, enabling the other two humans to escape with the cure that will save humanity. A pretty noble act in my opinion; a view probably shared by the millions of Americans who helped it smash box-office records.

But this isn’t a deserted Los Angeles, this is a Palestinian refugee camp, and those zombies are Israeli, American and to a lesser extent, British soldiers. Ibrahim is not talking on my hypothetical level; he’s talking about Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I don’t think I’d do it,” said Muhammad, another English Literature student who had come to me for some help reading Wuthering Heights. “What good is it going to do? Put a dent in a Hummer?”

Muhammad’s cynicism is not shared by the powers that be. My free pullout from this month’s ‘Muslim Palestine’, the Hamas mouthpiece I receive as one of the many perks of my gym membership, is a picture of an AK-47, the gun covered in the kind of flower combination you only see in the Greenfields at Glastonbury. It now covers a rusty crack on my fridge.

“Our life is jihad, our martyrdom is victory”, runs the poster’s slogan, under the smaller title: “Week of the Martyrs 2008”.

The slogans at the gym are more poetic, albeit the accompanying scenes more graphic. Alongside the omnipresent faces of the assassinated Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and Abd-al-Aziz al-Rantisi are peeling posters extolling the gory glory of ‘martyrdom’. Next to the bench press is a picture of an imaginary battlefield, the bloodied heroes stepping over their dismembered foes.

However, despite the propaganda, few of the gym members pay much attention; they spend more time concentrating on the dog-eared photos above the free weights.

“He’s British like you. Incredible. Look at him”, says Ali, pointing at one of the orange bundles of muscle, bursting out of steroid-shrunken Speedos. Before I can comment, he’s off to the storeroom in the corner to inject himself towards his idea of a perfect body.

Although stories of ‘martyrdom’ don’t permeate gym-chat – at least not while I’m there – there are plenty of tales out there.

Ahmad, a 28-year-old perfume seller with a passion for Ingmar Bergman films, tells me about his neighbour and friend Samer who went to fight in Iraq.

“His parents thought he was on holiday in Saudi Arabia, and then the news came that the Americans had killed him. He was quite senior, you know, apparently he carried a holdall full of dollars and even had a sat phone”.

Samer had become more religious a few years previously, so much so that he moved out of his parent’s flat – he couldn’t live with a TV in the house. When you climb the stairs to his brother’s flat, there’s a fading poster of his face on every landing, accompanied by a fresh rose.

For most in the west, we think of people like Samer when we hear terms like ‘terrorist’ or ‘martyrdom operations’. A faceless, bearded Muslim, young and angry. It fits well with the idea of virgins in heaven as a reward for self-sacrifice. A frustrated male in a conservative society. A simple sexual urge, not a political act. I asked my friends what they thought.

“You think they do this to get laid?” asks Muhammad, laughing hard. “Why not pay $20 dollars and go to Jeramana [an Iraqi refugee district]?”

Hadi, a university student and member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is not smiling. He’s frustrated with the way Islamist groups try to monopolise the concept of martyrdom.

“Martyrdom is not Islamic, no matter what the Islamists will try and tell you,” he says, frustrated. “What about the operations of the PFLP? Do we not have our martyrs?”

During the Al-Aqsa Intifada in Israel and Palestine, the PFLP carried out a series of suicide bombings, despite being a secular organisation. The party’s founder and leader until 2000 was the late George Habash, a Palestinian Christian.

Posters following the death of George Habash; the first in the Christian quarter of Damascus, the second from Yarmouk.

“Hamas and others are taking advantage of the Muslim society, and using that to boost their support. This is not about religion, it’s about land.”

Muhammad disagreed. “It’s a religious issue because we live in the Muslim world. I accept that certain groups exploit that for their own propaganda, to get more recruits.”

Turning to me, he added: “but the political issues are real. The occupations in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan are not an illusion and of course we will resist. Sunni, Shia, Christian or Communist, we will continue to have our martyrs.”

“The people of Britain and America support the Iraq war. That’s why they re-elected Blair and Bush.” (near-daily comment I hear)

“Well not really. It’s just they prioritise their own issues. Like the domestic economy or opposing abortion. You can’t expect citizens of one country to care about those somewhere else. Everyone votes for self-interest. The war in Iraq affects Iraqis; they are the ones who need a vote.” (my tortured response)

So why not? And this is the plan: to give Iraqis a vote in the forthcoming US election.

Ok, so it’ll be a publicity stunt, but it will also be real.

The idea is to connect Iraqis with Americans who either don’t want their vote, or actively wish to give a voice to those in Iraq who will be directly affected by the election outcome.

One of the main issues of the Republican vs. Democrat battle will be whether US troops should stay in Iraq.

Don’t you think it’s time we asked Iraqis?

Realistically, I can only imagine a handful of people would participate, but I’m hoping that maybe some accompanying media coverage will make people think about how national democracies are not the answer to global problems.

If you know of anyone who might give some seed funding to a crazy idea like this, let me know