Prince of Persia, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise

June 20, 2009 Martha Thomases 1 Comment

A lot has been said about the recent election in Iran and, since it’s not over yet, there’s a lot more yet to say. Before the polls opened, the race, between four different candidates, appeared to be almost evenly split between incumbet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main rival, Mir Hussein Moussavi. For most of the week leading up to the election, each candidate attracted crowds of people – often hundreds of thousands of people – cheering him on.

It wasn’t like that for the whole campaign. At first, it was Moussavi who was the attention magnet. In fact, up until that point, this presidential campaign looked a lot like ours.

Now, I’m not going to say that Moussavi is like Obama and Ahmadinejad is like McCain. Both of them are supporters of the theocratic Iranian government, and both are committed to keeping Iran an Islamic republic. However, if we take the political philosophies out of the equation and only look at the way the candidates marketed themselves (or, more precisely, the way these campaigns were covered in the American media I saw), there were some striking parallels.

Consider:

• Moussavi was considered to be the “Change” candidate.

• Most of Ahmadinejad’s support came from people living in rural areas, people who were poor or in the lower middle class, older people, and people who were less educated. They considered themselves to be “real” Iranians.

• Most of Moussavi’s support came from urban areas, young people, and the college educated.

• Ahmadinejad’s leadership style was to do what he wanted to do, and the hell with what anyone else thought.

• Moussavi wanted to be more diplomatically engaged with other countries.

• Moussavi used the Internet to a much greater extent than Ahmadinejad. Perhaps because his supporters are younger and better educated, they were able to use social networking to keep enthusiasm high and prevent burn-out.

It’s interesting to me that politicians divide their people into the same kind of demographic groups all around the world. It’s amazing that, no matter what the foundation of a political system might be, candidates will shape themselves into predictable patterns. Maybe it’s something that’s innate to humans, and how our brains work. I hope not. I’d like to believe we can someday talk about politics without the stereotypes and name-calling.

As an old fogie, I was mesmerized by the way Twitter was used by pro-Moussavi Iranians to communicate with the rest of the world about what they consider to be irregularities in the vote-counting, and the government’s response to demonstrations. Up until now, I’d used Twitter mostly for laughs. The people I followed were either friends, friends of friends, or people I thought were hilarious (and I recommend this guy , this guy and this guy as especially funny lately). News? Doesn’t that require more words?

Clearly, I was wrong. The news requires only people willing to speak the truth to power as they see it, and provide perspective. It’s up to us, as citizens, to educate ourselves adequately so that we can understand what’s going on. We don’t need CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News to tell us what’s important.

As I write this, the ruling council, made up of the upper echelon of clerics, has agreed to recount 11 million votes. While I’m sure they are only trying to perform the will of Allah, and will not consider the opinions of us infidel foreigners, you might want to try this .

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Media Goddess Martha Thomases wishes a Happy Fathers Day because she adores both her own father and her son’s father.