Page 42 - Shahrvand BC No.1247

‹ English Section
and in the context of Rouhani’s use, counters
the extremism associated with hardliners
and the conservatives. Indirectly, but very
importantly, e’tedal is also a response to the
political Islamism of the hardliners within the
personal, social, and the international domains;
a highly state-centric Islam that mobilizes the
disciplinary and regulatory powers of the state
in order to impose its vision. Tadbir translates
to “wisdom”, “meditation”, “accounting for
the consequences”, “long term evaluation” and
implies, especially in the context of Rouhani’s
usage, aghlaniat: “reason”. Therefore, tadbir,
like e’tedal, is the formulation of a certain
statecraft that aims at relaxing domestic
and international antagonism and decrease
exclusion and hostility for the sake of
coexistence.
During his campaign, Rouhani moved
significantly towards political goals largely
associated with the reform movement and the
discontented parties of the last presidential
election. He spoke up against the security state,
as well as the evacuation of political speech
and action from public spaces. His foreign
policy had a strong emphasis on diplomacy.
He explicitly counteracted the foreign policy
advanced by Ahmadinejad’s government,
and articulated by the country’s chief nuclear
negotiator, and presidential hopeful, Saeed Jalili. In to ease the present domestic and international
a view that he shared with conservative candidates,
such as Ali Akbar Velayati and Mohsen Rezaee,
the current style of Iranian foreign policy is
largely ineffective. It is suffering incessant blows
from international sanctions, which trickle down
to the population, while using the language of
independence and anti-imperialism. His reformist
policies were a refreshing break from politics as
usual such that Mohamed-Reza Aref – the only
reformist to avoid disqualification by the Guardian
Council – pulled out of the elections in his favor.
Rouhani also won the consequential endorsements
of Rasfanjani and Khatami. In his nationally
televised victory statement, he recounted their
names, a significant political speech act in light of
the hardliner derision of both figures in the media
following the 2009 crisis.
Notwithstanding Rouhani’s association with the
reformists, his promise to work towards releasing
political prisoners, and undo the house arrests
imposed on Mousavi, Rahnavard and Karoubi, I
would like to suggest a different way of thinking
the relationship between Rouhani’s election and the
reform movement in general. Rouhani's election
is not the continuation of reform, or a retreat to a
middle ground. Instead, his election transcends
both the reform movement and a certain strand of
hardline conservatism that has countered the reform
movement since its inception in 1997. By this I mean
that the elections signal a certain back-grounding
of both reformism and conservatism, while it
brings forward the triumph of the reformist's socio-
political discourse, and counter-intuitively, the
failure of conservatives to offer a viable counter-
political platform to holds together the present
heterogeneous political desires and demands.
Moreover, the experience of Ahmadinejad and the
fragmentation of the conservatives in the elections
demonstrate the conservatives’ inability to unite
and have a monopoly over politics.
Rouhani, then, is not the middle ground between
reformists and hardliners. He is not the focal point
of polar coordinates: reformist and conservative.
Such a spatial formulation ignores the historical
experience of reformism and conservatism over
the last two decades, their particular struggles,
achievements and failures. Instead Rouhani’s
election builds upon the historical experience of
both reformism and conservatism for a politics of
coexistence. Domestically, it addresses the limit of
a form of politics that merely seizes the state and
mobilizes its capacities for the exclusion of political threat of war against Iran, this reading of the
opponents. Internationally, too, it points to an
uncomfortable awareness that “the enemy” cannot
be eliminated and must be engaged with differently.
The election of Rouhani, then, expresses the desire
antagonism, in favor of a more generative and less
hostile politics of coexistence. For these reasons,
the election is not a “moderate” choice by the
electorate, but a strategic historical act.
Rouhani’s election and the public discourse
surrounding it – the televised debates, the individual
campaigns, and the celebrations—demonstrate
the fruitful back-grounding of reformism and
conservatism that I have tried to elaborate. The
election discourse and Rouhani’s political platform
in particular, are only conceivable between
the signposts of Mousavi and the short-lived
conservative-hardliner alliance. These positions
became what we now understand to be reformism
and conservatism in their most antagonistic form.
In the aftermath of the 2009 presidential elections,
and in relation to each other, one came to signify
revolt while the other spoke in the name of the
established order. While Mousavi and some other
experienced partisans of the Islamic Revolution
claimed ethical positions in refraining to engage
with the existing political order, conservative-
hardliners pointed to the danger of civil war and the
need to preserve order at all costs. Over the course
of the last four years Rouhani strategically refused
both positions. During his election campaign he
spoke of the legitimacy of both dissent and the need
to preserve the order of the Islamic Republic. In
reference to these positions he articulated politics
of e‘tedal and tadbir, a vision for coexistence and a
statecraft that moves towards minimizing exclusion
while avoiding domestic and international disorder.
My point is that his politics is both enabled by and
departs from reformism and conservatism of the
last two decades.
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42
These same reasons suggest the fragility of In touch with Iranian diversity
Rouhani’s politics. In light of the deep-seeded
domestic exclusions and antagonisms, the pressure Vol. 20 / No. 1247 - Friday, July 12, 2013
of international sanctions, as well as the co-optation
of the desires of Iranians by an international
imbalance of power that thrives on war and the
election might strike some as naively optimistic.
If it is hopeful, it reflects the hope of the Iranian
voters who chose to participate in the elections, and
to give the politics of coexistence a fighting chance.
For Iran, this is a moment of ashtiy-e meli, “national
reconciliation”. It is significant, but not surprising
that this moment has comes about through the vote
and within the structure of the Islamic Republic.
Iran has experienced revolution and war. Iranians
know all too well – and are still struggling with -
the challenges of a post-revolutionary state, foreign
intervention and domestic disorder that their
neighbors are experiencing today.
Addressing the international community in his
victory speech, President Rouhani stated:
"A new opportunity has come about in the
international scene for those who speak in the name
of democracy, pluralism, free speech and truth, to
bear witness to this popular achievement, engage
with the Islamic Republic with respect and justice,
and accept the rights of the Islamic Republic in
order to hear the appropriate response, and work
together to expand international relations based on
mutual interests, peace, security and development
in the region and in the world."
It remains to be seen what comes of this opportunity.
Perhaps we can hope that the excessively violent
domestic antagonism of the last few decades
transforms into a politics of coexistence. We can
hope, too, that if this opportunity fails, it fails while
securing significant achievements. We hope too, in
the spirit of the hope that is expressed in the vote,
that this fragile play of forces in Iran is not flattened
by the international pressure on Iran.
Source:
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/12688/on-
%E2%80%98the-moderate-choice%E2%80%99_
thoughts-on-the-political