God is great
With a few hours of sleep I'm off to Denton after all.
Today I watched the coverage of the Iran protests. I have to admit as much as I don't want to, the government crackdown on saturday really succeeded in scaring everyday people back into their houses and it now basically the more fanatical people risking their lives on the street. The protest size went from a little over a million in the beginning of the week to a few hundred today.
The only really good thing that I saw is that the clerics are starting to march with the protestors. If the religious base of Iran turns against the leadership it will be the last string holding this thing together. However I don't foresee Mousavi being able capitalize on the protests anymore without the people in full revolt.
I'm a bit worried about the general population feeling defeated and being able to be pushed into a personality cult like North Korea, but usually those sorts of things don't spawn from defeats as much as they do common enemies.
I do think though on the bright side the leadership is now very much unstable. The fact is that the little credibility that Achmedinijad had is absolutely gone, and the Ayatollah has been criticized for the first time ever. This is a major step. How the people can use these things to unseat the power I do not know. However if the current trends continue I believe that politicians and clerics of Iran will be increasingly critical of the Ayatollah and Achmedinijad and this will create somewhat of a destabilizing force to their actual powers. In other words, lack of support could lead to the supreme leader and president being of more ceremonial roles than anything else, and perhaps this will allow for more personal freedoms. However I am still concerned.
Well I'm off to Denton, I'm quite sleepy but I think I'll make it alright.
Today I watched the coverage of the Iran protests. I have to admit as much as I don't want to, the government crackdown on saturday really succeeded in scaring everyday people back into their houses and it now basically the more fanatical people risking their lives on the street. The protest size went from a little over a million in the beginning of the week to a few hundred today.
The only really good thing that I saw is that the clerics are starting to march with the protestors. If the religious base of Iran turns against the leadership it will be the last string holding this thing together. However I don't foresee Mousavi being able capitalize on the protests anymore without the people in full revolt.
I'm a bit worried about the general population feeling defeated and being able to be pushed into a personality cult like North Korea, but usually those sorts of things don't spawn from defeats as much as they do common enemies.
I do think though on the bright side the leadership is now very much unstable. The fact is that the little credibility that Achmedinijad had is absolutely gone, and the Ayatollah has been criticized for the first time ever. This is a major step. How the people can use these things to unseat the power I do not know. However if the current trends continue I believe that politicians and clerics of Iran will be increasingly critical of the Ayatollah and Achmedinijad and this will create somewhat of a destabilizing force to their actual powers. In other words, lack of support could lead to the supreme leader and president being of more ceremonial roles than anything else, and perhaps this will allow for more personal freedoms. However I am still concerned.
Well I'm off to Denton, I'm quite sleepy but I think I'll make it alright.