General Question
Exactly how justifiable is the international reaction towards the Iranian elections?
Nowadays when anybody says anything about the Iranian elections, most people immediately think, “Vote fraud!” and “Tyranny!” but really… Is this really the case?
Mousavi believes that the elections were rigged, and that’s what he tells the world. And that’s what the young tech-savvy Iranians also tell the world. But why do we believe them so readily? Think about it… Ahmedinejad is very unpopular amongst the Western nations because he is very well-known for his Anti-Western views. Try to follow me here on this short theoretical journey here k?
He gets reelected. This leads to shock against the West because he is very much disliked by them. And we get mass global opinion against him. But wait, why should this be the case? Why should we have the world against Iran? Maybe because it’s the West which leads the world. And then we have Mousavi and his group of supporters who go and tell the world that the elections were rigged. And yet do you realise something? Everyone is contesting the election results, but nobody is contesting the allegations…
Furthermore, why do we find it so hard to believe that Ahmedinejad really won such a landslide victory? As was said a lot, Ahmedinejad still has a lot of support in Iran itself. Can’t these results simply be the representation of this support? And it seems like there’s a lot of dissent in Iran right? Well… 100000 supporters of Mousavi chanting and protesting in the streets of Tehran… Iran has a population of 70 million. That’s 0.14% of the population protesting visibly in Iran. Not very much when taken into the large context.
And we also have to look at who these supporters are. They are part of the 70% of the Iranian population under 30. They are tech-savvy and know how to use the internet. In fact, most of the news we have coming out of Iran would be that of the rioting uploaded by none other than the protesters themselves. And we are continuously bombarded by these images and videos. But what of the other millions of people? Remember, Ahmedinejad has a lot of support from other people, including those in the rural areas. They won’t be able to voice their support like these younger people are. Therefore, are the opinions we’re seeing really representative of the situation in Iran? I don’t think that there’s really enough evidence to prove so.
To be honest, I’m also finding myself doubting the results of the elections. But then after that I find myself doubting my doubts. After all, why are we so opposed to have another powerful player rising up who is anti-West? Why should everyone play their tune to that of the West? Doesn’t each individual nation have a right to their own foreign policy? Or even the right of developing nuclear weaponry (even though Iran is claiming that it’s for energy purposes)? The West has had its time in the sun, and as more and more countries rise in power, shouldn’t they get their time too? After all, what goes up must come down. People say that we need progressiveness in modern society. But when you take a step back, exactly how are we judging this social progress (there’s another fluther discussion taking place right now regarding that if you guys are interested in knowing)? Non-sharia rule? Yeah but… Isn’t that a Western idea of what progressiveness should be?
In my personal opinion, this whole subject is so loaded from all fronts that it’ll be impossible to really come up with a stance on all this. Especially when you consider the very foundations of what you believe in.
Of course, I would love to discuss this subject with anybody who is interested. Do you believe that the world should be acting the way it is towards the Iranian election results? Because to me there’s a lot of the story which isn’t told which makes taking sides slightly fallacious. I, for one, want to wait for more information before really passing judgment, although I realise that that may not be really possible given the current situation..
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