Green v Saffron

[bust]

George Packer. The New Yorker

 

June 17, 2009

Green and Saffron

 

Last night, before dinner with Iranian friends, the subject of the most recent example of people power came upâ??Burma and its failed â??Saffron Revolutionâ? of September 2007. What were the differences between Burma and Iran? Are there conditions at work in the massive demonstrations in Iranian cities that give this movement a better chance of success than the peaceful marches of monks and ordinary civilians that were tragically and bloodily put down in Rangoon? No one can be sure that the Iranian nonviolent uprising wonâ??t be snuffed out or manipulated into losing its energy, but we concluded that there are at least these differences working in its favor:

 

1. The leader of the Burmese democracy movement, Aung San Suu Kyi, was in her fourth year of house arrest when the demonstrations began (sheâ??s now undergoing an absurd show trial), and the younger organizers of the first marches in August 2007 were hauled off to prison before the protests could become large and national enough to threaten the regime. Burmese activists later described their leaderless, decentralized movement to me as â??post-modern,â? suggesting that this would make it more difficult to be killed off or bought offâ??but thereâ??s a severe limit to what a movement without organization and leadership can achieve. In Iran, Mir Hussein Mousavi remains at large and able to guide and focus the gigantic energies of the Iranians in the streets. He has proven to be the reform movementâ??s first strong, capable leader.

 

2. For a few days, Burmese citizens with cell-phones (rare and expensive in Burma), modems (agonizingly slow), and cameras were able to send reports, still pictures, and video to the exile media, such as Democratic Voice of Burma in Oslo, which in turn posted them on Web sites that people inside Burma could read. This was how the protesters got the word out to the world and in turn stayed informed of what was happening inside the country (in these situations people on the inside almost always have less information than those outside). It became a prototype of how new media could become a powerful tool in the hands of otherwise defenseless civilians. But far fewer Burmese than Iranians have access to these things, and after a few days the regime narrowed the Internet bandwidth so tightly that almost nothing could get in or out. Iran, a much more technologically developed country, canâ??t afford to shut down communications across the board. Information technology is too integrated into the life of the country and the government for a complete news blackout. So the demonstrators continue to figure out ways to organize themselves, and the whole world continues to watch.

 

3. The regime in Burma can safely be called totalitarian, while in Iran there has been some democratic spaceâ??expanding in the late nineteen-nineties, severely contracting more recentlyâ??and an intellectually vibrant civil society. Journalists get locked up all the time in Iran, but they have been able to find ways to criticize political players within the limits of the theocratic structure. In Burma, a large bureaucracy is dedicated to censoring any line or image that could conceivably be taken as criticism of the government. Iranian activists who challenge the regime are imprisoned for a few years; Burmese activists who organize relief supplies for cyclone victims are locked away for two decades. Iran has been isolated and isolated itself since 1979; in Burma, a far more severe isolation has endured since 1962.

 

4. Related to 3: incredible as it sounds, given the viciousness of the riot police and basij militiamen, the Burmese authorities are willing to be more brutal than the Iranians. In 2007, dozens of Burmese monks and civilians were shot down (and, unlike their Iranian counterparts, they never resorted to rock-throwing or burning). In 1988, during the biggest uprising in Burmaâ??s modern history, thousands were killed. In 2007, there were no scenes of Burmese soldiers exchanging friendly words with demonstrators, as there have been in Iran. The Burmese military brought in units to Rangoon from distant parts of the country, where they had become battle-hardened in the longstanding fight against ethnic insurgencies; there were reports that some soldiers had been given drugs before being sent into the streets of the capital. When the moment come, few of them hesitated to shoot down monks in cold bloodâ??an unthinkable sin for a believing Buddhist. At some point, the success or failure of a nonviolent uprising depends on the willingness or unwillingness of security forces to kill their countrymen. There have been tragic deaths in Iran, but there are also reasons to think that state violence will be more limited there than in Burma, including reports of divisions within the hierarchy of the Revolutionary Guards.

 

None of this means that the clerical-military establishment in Iran wonâ??t find a way, through wiles, patience, and blood, to stay in power and crush the movement for reform, let alone an overthrow of the Islamic Republic. But it does mean that the outcome of these moments is determined above all by the internal nature of regimes and societies, which are different everywhere. People in Burma live in a perpetual nightmare that never changes: every ten years or so they try to wake up from it, only to find they canâ??t. Their Iranian counterparts are not doomed to the same existence.

 

[Flashermac]

When I was a university undergrad, nearly half of the foreign students were from Iran. Most did their best to stay in the States. I've sometimes wondered what happened to those that went back. They were generally pretty good guys.

 

 

[cavanami]

>They were generally pretty good guys.

 

...from what they show you on the outside. Spend some time in the ME and see how they *** really *** are! not to my liking!!! YMMV