We don’t do protests

Yesterday saw another huge overreaction on the part of the Jordanian security forces to a demonstration calling for an end to Israeli agricultural imports. The demonstration was staged by Jordan’s pro-active professional associations – who became political active during the long years of martial law and to the government’s annoyance have remained so - despite many attempts by the authorities to convince them otherwise.

This time the associations were protesting against the import of Israeli fruit and vegetables, which they claim are grown in illegal West Bank settlements. The government denies these claims. Anyway, instead of letting the 300 or so protestors have their peaceful get together in front of the Agriculture Ministry and blow off a little steam, the government decided to send in the riot police who swiftly set about cracking a few heads on the grounds that the associations did not have the required permission to stage their protest.

And here is the rub of the matter: to stage any kind of gathering in Jordan you must have written permission from the authorities three days in advance. The problem, of course, is that such permission is really ever granted. When it is granted the protests are usually so staged that no self respecting activist would have anything to do with them.

A recent exception to this rule, of course, was during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza when the government bent the rules in order to allow the citizens to let off steam. However, as the Gaza protests snowballed, the authorities quickly stepped in to crush the demonstrations and deployed tanks on the streets around the Israeli embassy.

I remember as a journalist covering the al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day protest in downtown Amman and being surprised by the general lack of interest. Only a few hundred people had bothered to turn up. So I asked local shopkeepers how big this protest had been in the past and why people had lost interest.

The general conversation with several local shopkeepers went something like this:

Me: So how long have you had this shop?

Abu Ahmad: It’s been in the family for more than 30 years.

Me: How big were these marches in the past then?

Abu Ahmad: really big, lots of people.

Me: So what happened?

Abu Ahmad: They’re not free and haven’t been for a long time.

Me: How’s that? People are marching now and some even have their faces covered yet the security forces are not intervening. Don’t people care about Palestine anymore?

Abu Ahmad: Of course we do (angry). If these protests were free you would see hundreds of thousands marching all the way from here to al-Quds. Those you see taking part here are in league with the Mukhabarat. If normal citizens were to take part we would be dragged in for questioning.

I am not sure about the truth of these claims and people did seem to be taking part without any recriminations. Nevertheless, exaggerated or not, the claims of most of the shopkeepers I spoke do highlight the sense of fear held by citizens in Jordan with regards to taking part in demonstrations of any sort.

I also remember the reaction of the security forces towards Iraqis merely celebrating their football teams success in winning the Asian Cup final, mainly because I was interviewing an Iraqi girl among a crowd of jubilant fans (who hadn’t had much to cheer about for a long time) when a riot van pulled up and the police proceeded to beat the crap out of anyone within striking distance. The pretext this time was that the Iraqis had been firing guns in celebration. This, of course, was untrue and the real reason was more to do with the government not wanting such a large and visible Iraqi presence on the streets.

And also because in Jordan, the authorities just don’t like protests of any sort. Maybe a lot like Iran but probably even less tolerant.

Media, lies and Joe Biden

Getty images

Iran has not scored any global PR victories in recent weeks as opposition protests have been brutally quashed, activists arrested en mass and media and SMS networks closed down. Yesterday, Tehran announced that the clampdown would be extended to satellite TV and internet networks (even though satellite TV is already banned but many Iranians have access anyway). Although these measures against the media appear draconian through Western eyes, they nevertheless highlight the mindset of a regime locked into the past and which views recent events through the prism the British/CIA-sponsored coup of 1953 that toppled the popularly elected Mosaddaq government.

A key element in the toppling of Mosaddaq, following his sin of nationalizing Iran’s oil industry, was the CIA’s support for a black media campaign to oust the elected leader. Iranian journalists and editors were paid directly by the CIA to publish disinformation to discredit the leader – everything from portraying him as a closet communist to being in cahoots with Israel. Many of the news articles were written in the US, translated, and passed on to Iranian editors on the CIA payroll to publish. Viewed within this context, the regime’s reaction and paranoia to the protests becomes slightly more understandable, though far from defensible. It also highlights the level of mistrust that needs to be overcome if any meaningful dialogue is to take place between Tehran and Washington (a good start would be for Obama to scrap the $400 million that Bush allocated to destabilize Iran).

However, unlike the foreign-engineered coup of the 1950s, the protests following the recent election results were domestically driven and were not aimed at toppling the regime, but rather an outpouring of dissatisfaction with the status quo. Iranians, much like people all over the world, are seeking greater personal and political freedoms and an environment in which they can raise their families in peace and security. They are also seeking an end to the regime’s confrontational approach with the US which defined the Bush-Ahmadinejad era, particularly in light of Obama’s Cairo speech and America’s desire to pursue dialogue to resolve the nuclear issue. However, unlike the popularly elected Mosaddaq government of the 1950s, they find themselves saddled with an ideologically bankrupt regime that defines itself solely through its opposition to the US and Israel. To their dismay, Iranians found that although Bush has faded into history, Ahmadinejad is still very much a part of the present.

And so too is the threat of military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Ahmadinejad may have held on to the presidency but it has come at a huge cost to the regime, which has lost much legitimacy among large swathes of the population. The election fallout has also exposed the deep divisions within the ruling elites, making foreign interference more, not less likely. Perhaps more crucially, the regime crackdown has severely tarnished Iran’s international image. Relations with the EU, a long time advocate of a peaceful resolution to the nuclear issue, have frayed and those advocating a military solution have been strengthened. Israeli officials argue that Iran’s suspected rigged election and the brutal suppression of the demonstrations that followed indicate the pointlessness of engaging in dialogue with Tehran and that stiffer sanctions and the threat of military action are far more likely to bring about the desired results.

This makes US vice president Joe Biden’s comments during an interview with ABC this morning all the more ominous. During the interview Biden appeared to give the green light for an Israeli military strike against Iran. “If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do so,” he said. Let’s hope the US vice president was just ratcheting up the pressure to push Iran into engaging in constructive dialogue. And let’s also hope that Biden let Israel know privately that a military attack is not a viable option.