Inside Iran: The Principles of a New Movement
Walter Rhett
June 21, 2009
A movement knitted from political principles that hold the political process as sovereign connects an international flock of people in countries scattered widely around the world. This flock has declared bold and earnest objections to the policies and actions of their governments. Yet while pushing to challenge old hierachies, these citizen groups seek to bring national political decisions and policy making closer to local communities. They re-direct the political process.
The American media mainstream, by large, has missed the small and large meanings of this new, disparate, but rapidly expanding global movement. By viewing citizen's actions as protest, and logging them by country, the media obscures the commitment to new process.
This emphasis on new process unites distinct international citizen fronts.
Rather than directly confronting power, these fronts work toward their goals by linking principles to action at the community level and calling upon other communities around the globe to respond in their own kind. The fronts thwart the state's authority as illegitmate without the direct and express consent of the governed.
The movement's common focus is on destiny, creating security and prosperity that triumphs and exposes hidden or duplicitous political agendas.
Current fronts in two countries offer insights into the destiny movement.
Peru
Peru declared a state of emergency in June as large, nationwide demonstrations opposed two recent Presidential decrees. These decrees opened up Peru's Amazon region to resource development by private multi-national corporations outside of Peru, without approved plans, review, input, regulation, environmental safeguards, or oversight by the communities who have populated the Amazon region for centuries.
Peru's president is Alan Garcia, a former Marxist who, at age 35, was Peru's youngest president when elected for a single term in 1985. Back then, he defaulted Peru on private Wall Street loans and lead Peru to massive 4 digit hyperinflation--as high as 7,500 percent!
Elected again in 2006, Garcia issued the controversial decrees earlier this year under the aegis of a free trade agreement with the US.
A former busker (street musician, while in school in Paris) Garcia oversaw an inflation so high that what was once the price of a car brought only a pack of matches. After his first term, he left Peru, accused of mismanagement and embezzling millions.
Now, Garcia is reborn as an unabashed free-marketer. With his earlier zeal re-cloaked, he has thrown open Peru's natural resources to outside interests. By doing so, he says he hopes to tackle Peru's intransigent poverty and to use the Amazon region's resources to benefit all of Peru.
His decrees neatly suspended legislated land use laws and authorized his adminstration to grant concession directly to corporations. The decrees, along with his view the region's indigenous people (Garcia has called them a "bunch of confused savages" and "pawns" of an elite who want to block Peruvian development), has resulted in Peru's worst political violence in more than a decade.
photo: WN / Janice Sabnal, used under fair educational use
Over 25 citizens have been killed by government police and military forces, and the toll is rising.
Peru's Prime Minister, Yehude Simon, has pledged to resign immediately after the country's parliament repeals the two decrees that permit the development of 67 million hectarces of Amazon cloudforest, the centerpiece of Peru's natural resources.
Mr. Simon will be the second minister to resign. The first was Carmen Vildoso, minister of women and social development.
Indigenous people in small communities scattered throughout the region are coordinating their actions and sharing intelligence about government resistance and suppression. Along with local actions, these leaders of the people without portfolio successfully executed a nationwide general strike.
A confrontation in a city in the region, Tarapoto, between a community that historically resisted Inca domination and a heavily armed police force is being called Peru's Tiananmen Square.
But in Tarapoto, the government argues through its Washington ambassador, it was the police who were "irrefutably" tortured and killed. Their bodies have been shown on state TV, as evidence of an "international conspiracy" to stifle Peru's growth.
Alberto Pizango, the leader of the largest organization representing Peru's indigenous communities is now in Nicaragua's embassy in Lima, under a grant of asylum, to avoid arrest on charges of "sedition, conspiracy, and rebellion."
The New York Times quotes a student member of the Awajun indigenous community as saying, "the government is trying to clean the blood off its hands by hiding the truth." The government claims, "some are trying to exaggerate the losses of life for their own gain."
The approximately 300,000 people that live in the Amazon region's jungles and cloundforests are 1 percent of Peru's population. The region covers two thirds of Peru's land mass, and has large reserves of natural gas and oil, in addition to timber and minerals. The region has drawn keen interest from international mining and energy companies.
Peru is the world's top producer of silver, number 2 in copper and zinc, and ranks sixth in gold output.
A Garcia official has declared the indigenous lands of the Amazon region "untouchable," but in 25 years of requesting land titles, one community, the Inti, have received registered titles to only 2 square kilometers.
The movement's rallying cry is simple: "the jungle isn't for sale."
Support for the indigenous communities is widespread among citizens in other regions, members of all classes, and even the workers of the miner's federation, who stand to gain more jobs.
The American organization, Amazon Watch, is among several groups rising money for medical relief and legal defense in Peru.
Iran
The most widely publicized uprising of citizens seeking to challenge state power and redirect their destiny is being played out in Iran. The announced results of the Iranian national election set off a movement that relies heavily on the internet to broadcast its message and to document government repression of their actions.
Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and facebook are web portals that have become major windows of information, images, and discussion about the Iranian people's resistance to the processing of the national election results. The extensive use of these global, satilite-transmitted web forms are the base of the world's first high-tech directed coup.
Electronic spin, by all forces, is a major weapon, along with bodies, literally, in the street. At least seven citizens have been killed, and the Iranian government has strongly protested the British government's broadcast of video showing an Iranian shot and killed during a demonstration in Teheran. The European Union called the deaths of civilians "deplorable." In the US, President Obama's response was more measured, saying "the world is watching" the events in Iran.
Iran's state TV reported that the "main agents" leading the push for honest elections, and a review and inquiry of last week's Presidential vote have been arrested. Other reports say as many as 24 people have been killed by state security forces.
All international press are restricted from covering events and rallies in the field.
The Iranian government has also shut down web acess to social networking portals. However, many Iranians are actively engaged in digital smuggling and are actively breaking the government's net.
The Royal Guard, a miltia controlled by government leaders, seems to be using widespread violence to supress citizen outcry.
An Italian journalist recorded by cameraphone, police on motorcyles riding directly in to assembled crowds. Gangs are also attacking and beating opponents who are labeled as traitors.
Yet the millions of citizens are supporting the integrity of the principles that define democratic process. The principles are for many more important than the actual election outcome.
To this end, many citizens have wondered how the ballot results of a national election could be announced only two hours after the polls closed. Many wonder how an election expected to be closely contested ended up as a landslide.
One commentator drew an analogy to Obama's election, saying it was as if Obama had lost the votes of all of the African-American neighborhoods.
One student said, "all we want is to stop the killing and for the government to tell the truth about the numbers."
Over one million gathered across the nation to mourn and honor the dead.
Marchers carried placards that read "We have not had people killed to compromise and accept a doctored ballot box" and "Silent, keep calm."
The Destiny Movement's American Parallels
The destiny movement, guided by the strength of human will, might well have taken its organizing political axiom from a 1871 speech made before the US Congress. The English-born, Navy sailor and Eton-trained lawyer, African-American Robert Brown Elliott, South Carolina's representative from its 3rd district, said: "It is a sound maxim of law that where a power is given the necessary means for its execution are implied."
He was speaking in support of a federal bill for protection and relief from Klan violence and to thwart the Klan's takeover of political control of South Carolina (and other states) by force.
Elliot offered this maxim in a climate in which the Charleston paper (01/31/1871) declared, in an editoral (with subsituted changes, easily applied to Peru's indigenous populations or reform-minded Iranians) that:
"We understand and accept the solid black vote cast against the nominees of the Reform party as a declaration of war by the negro race against the white race, by ignorance against intelligence, by poverty against actual or potential wealth. This issue we have striven to avoid, but the negroes will have nothing else. They will not allow us to work with them. We must, if necessary, work against them. Conciliation, argument, persuasion, all have been worse than useless. The white people stand alone. And they must organize themselves, and arm themselves, not as 'a white man's party,' but because the past and present prove that decency, purity, and political freedom, as well as the preservation of society, are identical with the interests of the white people of the State."
The destiny movement is focused on in whose hands lie the means of execution and whose voice determines the reality of actions and political purpose. The destiny movement is enlarging the duties of citizens, embracing the integrity and importance of process, and challenging the idea of the citizen as a passive observer.
And, if one listens carefully, the destiny movement also remembers even those it opposed.
In history, too, this pecuilar remembrance has a parallel. A trimphant French general noted on the occasion of Napoleon's fall: "nothing is wanting but the presence of the brave men (and women) who died to prevent it."
The American media mainstream, by large, has missed the small and large meanings of this new, disparate, but rapidly expanding global movement. By viewing citizen's actions as protest, and logging them by country, the media obscures the commitment to new process.
This emphasis on new process unites distinct international citizen fronts.
Rather than directly confronting power, these fronts work toward their goals by linking principles to action at the community level and calling upon other communities around the globe to respond in their own kind. The fronts thwart the state's authority as illegitmate without the direct and express consent of the governed.
The movement's common focus is on destiny, creating security and prosperity that triumphs and exposes hidden or duplicitous political agendas.
Current fronts in two countries offer insights into the destiny movement.
Peru
Peru declared a state of emergency in June as large, nationwide demonstrations opposed two recent Presidential decrees. These decrees opened up Peru's Amazon region to resource development by private multi-national corporations outside of Peru, without approved plans, review, input, regulation, environmental safeguards, or oversight by the communities who have populated the Amazon region for centuries.
Peru's president is Alan Garcia, a former Marxist who, at age 35, was Peru's youngest president when elected for a single term in 1985. Back then, he defaulted Peru on private Wall Street loans and lead Peru to massive 4 digit hyperinflation--as high as 7,500 percent!
Elected again in 2006, Garcia issued the controversial decrees earlier this year under the aegis of a free trade agreement with the US.
A former busker (street musician, while in school in Paris) Garcia oversaw an inflation so high that what was once the price of a car brought only a pack of matches. After his first term, he left Peru, accused of mismanagement and embezzling millions.
Now, Garcia is reborn as an unabashed free-marketer. With his earlier zeal re-cloaked, he has thrown open Peru's natural resources to outside interests. By doing so, he says he hopes to tackle Peru's intransigent poverty and to use the Amazon region's resources to benefit all of Peru.
His decrees neatly suspended legislated land use laws and authorized his adminstration to grant concession directly to corporations. The decrees, along with his view the region's indigenous people (Garcia has called them a "bunch of confused savages" and "pawns" of an elite who want to block Peruvian development), has resulted in Peru's worst political violence in more than a decade.
photo: WN / Janice Sabnal, used under fair educational use
Over 25 citizens have been killed by government police and military forces, and the toll is rising.
Peru's Prime Minister, Yehude Simon, has pledged to resign immediately after the country's parliament repeals the two decrees that permit the development of 67 million hectarces of Amazon cloudforest, the centerpiece of Peru's natural resources.
Mr. Simon will be the second minister to resign. The first was Carmen Vildoso, minister of women and social development.
Indigenous people in small communities scattered throughout the region are coordinating their actions and sharing intelligence about government resistance and suppression. Along with local actions, these leaders of the people without portfolio successfully executed a nationwide general strike.
A confrontation in a city in the region, Tarapoto, between a community that historically resisted Inca domination and a heavily armed police force is being called Peru's Tiananmen Square.
But in Tarapoto, the government argues through its Washington ambassador, it was the police who were "irrefutably" tortured and killed. Their bodies have been shown on state TV, as evidence of an "international conspiracy" to stifle Peru's growth.
Alberto Pizango, the leader of the largest organization representing Peru's indigenous communities is now in Nicaragua's embassy in Lima, under a grant of asylum, to avoid arrest on charges of "sedition, conspiracy, and rebellion."
The New York Times quotes a student member of the Awajun indigenous community as saying, "the government is trying to clean the blood off its hands by hiding the truth." The government claims, "some are trying to exaggerate the losses of life for their own gain."
The approximately 300,000 people that live in the Amazon region's jungles and cloundforests are 1 percent of Peru's population. The region covers two thirds of Peru's land mass, and has large reserves of natural gas and oil, in addition to timber and minerals. The region has drawn keen interest from international mining and energy companies.
Peru is the world's top producer of silver, number 2 in copper and zinc, and ranks sixth in gold output.
A Garcia official has declared the indigenous lands of the Amazon region "untouchable," but in 25 years of requesting land titles, one community, the Inti, have received registered titles to only 2 square kilometers.
The movement's rallying cry is simple: "the jungle isn't for sale."
Support for the indigenous communities is widespread among citizens in other regions, members of all classes, and even the workers of the miner's federation, who stand to gain more jobs.
The American organization, Amazon Watch, is among several groups rising money for medical relief and legal defense in Peru.
Iran
The most widely publicized uprising of citizens seeking to challenge state power and redirect their destiny is being played out in Iran. The announced results of the Iranian national election set off a movement that relies heavily on the internet to broadcast its message and to document government repression of their actions.
Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and facebook are web portals that have become major windows of information, images, and discussion about the Iranian people's resistance to the processing of the national election results. The extensive use of these global, satilite-transmitted web forms are the base of the world's first high-tech directed coup.
Electronic spin, by all forces, is a major weapon, along with bodies, literally, in the street. At least seven citizens have been killed, and the Iranian government has strongly protested the British government's broadcast of video showing an Iranian shot and killed during a demonstration in Teheran. The European Union called the deaths of civilians "deplorable." In the US, President Obama's response was more measured, saying "the world is watching" the events in Iran.
Iran's state TV reported that the "main agents" leading the push for honest elections, and a review and inquiry of last week's Presidential vote have been arrested. Other reports say as many as 24 people have been killed by state security forces.
All international press are restricted from covering events and rallies in the field.
The Iranian government has also shut down web acess to social networking portals. However, many Iranians are actively engaged in digital smuggling and are actively breaking the government's net.
The Royal Guard, a miltia controlled by government leaders, seems to be using widespread violence to supress citizen outcry.
An Italian journalist recorded by cameraphone, police on motorcyles riding directly in to assembled crowds. Gangs are also attacking and beating opponents who are labeled as traitors.
Yet the millions of citizens are supporting the integrity of the principles that define democratic process. The principles are for many more important than the actual election outcome.
To this end, many citizens have wondered how the ballot results of a national election could be announced only two hours after the polls closed. Many wonder how an election expected to be closely contested ended up as a landslide.
One commentator drew an analogy to Obama's election, saying it was as if Obama had lost the votes of all of the African-American neighborhoods.
One student said, "all we want is to stop the killing and for the government to tell the truth about the numbers."
Over one million gathered across the nation to mourn and honor the dead.
Marchers carried placards that read "We have not had people killed to compromise and accept a doctored ballot box" and "Silent, keep calm."
The Destiny Movement's American Parallels
The destiny movement, guided by the strength of human will, might well have taken its organizing political axiom from a 1871 speech made before the US Congress. The English-born, Navy sailor and Eton-trained lawyer, African-American Robert Brown Elliott, South Carolina's representative from its 3rd district, said: "It is a sound maxim of law that where a power is given the necessary means for its execution are implied."
He was speaking in support of a federal bill for protection and relief from Klan violence and to thwart the Klan's takeover of political control of South Carolina (and other states) by force.
Elliot offered this maxim in a climate in which the Charleston paper (01/31/1871) declared, in an editoral (with subsituted changes, easily applied to Peru's indigenous populations or reform-minded Iranians) that:
"We understand and accept the solid black vote cast against the nominees of the Reform party as a declaration of war by the negro race against the white race, by ignorance against intelligence, by poverty against actual or potential wealth. This issue we have striven to avoid, but the negroes will have nothing else. They will not allow us to work with them. We must, if necessary, work against them. Conciliation, argument, persuasion, all have been worse than useless. The white people stand alone. And they must organize themselves, and arm themselves, not as 'a white man's party,' but because the past and present prove that decency, purity, and political freedom, as well as the preservation of society, are identical with the interests of the white people of the State."
The destiny movement is focused on in whose hands lie the means of execution and whose voice determines the reality of actions and political purpose. The destiny movement is enlarging the duties of citizens, embracing the integrity and importance of process, and challenging the idea of the citizen as a passive observer.
And, if one listens carefully, the destiny movement also remembers even those it opposed.
In history, too, this pecuilar remembrance has a parallel. A trimphant French general noted on the occasion of Napoleon's fall: "nothing is wanting but the presence of the brave men (and women) who died to prevent it."
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