you will read about these events through the eyes of six or seven major activists. the activists are ever in lincoln, harriet beecher stowe, frederick douglass, mark twain, walt whitman, the german immigrant carl schurz, and alexander stephens. alexander stephens was one of these guys in the middle. he was one of the moderates. in know, when you are a moderate your for the status quo in this particular case. people like action. new york times had at searing editorial against abraham lincoln and the sons of crisis. he wanted to see what happens. no, you have to go in there and shoot these guys into this and that. you know, we are very impatient. we are impatient to get in to work and patient to get out of

it. that, of course, is a problem. in answer to your first point, why were they in such a hurry? the seven moderates. well, historians and the clinton administration over estimated the number. by this time there are very few. even he moved along. i think for the most part the southern fears of lincoln administration were well-founded. they had had four or five years of republican rhetoric on what they were going to do when they get into power. there were going to build the transcontinental railroad. they were going to bars southerners from taking their slaves into the territories. labor going to appoint republican postmasters in the south. they were going to the a point

republican officials in the south like customs house inspectors and the people who took the revenue. so, from the seven prospective they would be squeezed economically, and they were an increase in minority in the government because in the house of representatives it runs on population, and increasing minority. in the senate you had to from each state. the south was an increasing minority. this was the dilemma. you have heard this phrase before, majority rule. you know, the essence of democracy. it is much tougher to protect -- protect minority rights. how do we protect minority rights in a society that is governed by majority rule? that is really the big question. republicans felt -- excuse me, southerners felt that as a

minority their rights would not be respected. >> let me ask you about south carolina. a small state like south carolina had a disproportionate influence on the south. >> you're absolutely right. south carolina was a relatively small state, but it was also a developing state. it was kuwait, abu dhabi. the mid-19th century. you don't have to be big to be wealthy. they were influential in that respect. they energized younger political leaders in other states. certainly there were the most

extreme. they had the most to lose. they had a very large black population. a very large slave population. south carolina took the lead in the deep south states. we have time for tough -- one more question. >> some of the most bitter dealings and fiercest fighting took place in the west and the missouri keyneses area. i don't ever remember reading about religious factors being part of that conflict. have you learned anything new? >> you're absolutely right. i will repeat the question. the gentleman said that some of the fiercest fighting, the bloodiest fighting occurred in the trans mississippi west among those areas west of the mississippi like missouri and kansas. misery was in civil war itself. not much has been written about this, but to be blunt, as

important as it was to folks in kansas and particularly misery, it was really a side show to the greater conflict. we bring it in because we want people in missouri and kansas to buy books. we put that. okay. you have been a wonderful audience. thank you very much. [applause] [applause] >> for more information visit the office website. you are watching book tv on c-span2. here is our prime time lineup for tonight.

>> up next to the editors and three contributors to the book "the people reloaded" talk about the democracy movement in iran and its prospects for success. held at columbia university in new york city and is just under two hours. >> thank you so much for coming to this evening's panel discussion. but several of the contributors to the new anthology, "the people reloaded." the green movement and the struggle for the future of iran

which i had the honor of co editing with my friend and comrade. nader hashemi. first-ever like to thank the department of middle eastern, the asian and african studies here at columbia university for sponsoring this event tonight. i would also like to thank the middle east institute at columbia university and the columbia university graduate school of journalism. cosponsoring. the publisher of the book, melville house. in particular i would like to express my appreciation for my friend, hamid dabasi, who made all of the arrangements for this evening's discussion possible. when this book was published it seems like of long time ago.

actually published at the beginning of this month. this brother eventual and indeed one might say world historic month of february 2011. when the book was published at the outset of did you marry the world's eyes were, of course, what on egypt. and although iran figured in much of the discussion and analysis surrounding the a people with the iran 1979 revolution invoking something of a comparative specter. the green movement was by no means in the headlines. if it had been from the time of this explosive emergence in june 2009 through roughly december of that year, indeed, many had pronounced the movement dead. in fact, an odd assortment of actors took this view ranging from the islamic republic itself

to the likes of flint and hillary man levirate to some on the radical left. at the 13 and i assembled "the people reloaded" in no small part as a way of refuting this view, showing that although the movement could no longer be seen on the streets it very much continued to live and had, in fact, transformed the political, intellectual, indeed, its existential landscape in profound and even permanent waste. that was at the beginning of this month. yes, amazingly enough we are still in february, just two weeks to the day from the evacuation of mubarak from cairo and three days out from that pivotal of and the green movement once again made its presence felt on the streets of

iran staging a major demonstration on monday that during 14th in solidarity with the egyptian revolution, a demonstration that the iranian government denied permission for despite its own profession of support for the egyptian revolt. six days later on sunday the movement returned to the streets and has now announced as you may have heard today that it will be back on a weekly basis. what does the reappearance of the movement mean for the future of that is live republic? how does one of the contributors , the ridge resilient rebellion relate to the wave of uprising brailling the middle east and north africa. this is what we are here to discuss this evening with four

of the contributors to this volume, hamid dabasi, nader hashemi, ervand abrahamian, and golbarg bashi. a few words about each of them. hamid dabasi is a professor of iranian studies and comparative literature at columbia university and was for many months the host of the week in green which, in my view, not only amongst the very finest sources on the green movement available in their global digital commons but very much a contribution to the green movement. many books, far too many to mention, close-up, iranian cinema, past, present, future,

c-span2, people interrupted. iran, the green blue brick. the u.s. a, the fox and the paradox published last year and available for sale this evening. the burro is my home, a hamid dabasi reader and just out, she is them, a new religion protest. ervand abrahamian, a distinguished professor at baruch college, cuny. iran, between two revolutions published in 1982 and widely regarded as a magisterial reference point. the communism on the islamic republic is in published in 1993. tortured confessions, prisons and public presentations in modern peron published in 1999.

most recently a history of modern air ron. teaches the iranian and middle eastern studies at rutgers university and is a frequent contributor to a range of publications including tehran bureau. per current research interests include political art and music in tehran, women engender in fundamentalist religious communities in north america and women's rights movements in iran and that global comparative context. nader hashemi teaches middle east and islamic politics at the joseph cornell's school of international studies at the university of denver, the author of islam sector listen and liberal democracy toward a democratic theory for muslim societies published in 2009 and is, as mentioned, mike coeditor on "the people reloaded."

before we begin, i think it is appropriate that we open with a poem that opens this book. that poem is by the classical persian poet and how lovely that the caltrans ledgers of the palm are here this evening, my good friends. the palm is titled, those who stood up for tolerance. mayday's of love's reunions be remembered, made those days be remembered. may they always be remembered. my mouth is poisoned by the bitterness of a brief. made it toasts of those happy drinkers be remembered. although my comrades are free from lumbering me, i remember them all costly.

though i am captured and bound by this misery with the attempts of those who stood up for tolerance be remembered. even though 100 rivers constantly flow from my eyes irrigates for those who make gardens. may it be remembered. from now on the secret will remain unspoken. have pity on those who must keep secrets. may that be remembered. without any further ado, please join me in about coming hamid dabasi. [applause] [applause] >> thank you. good evening, everyone. before i start up like to apologize for having to-out

immediately after my short remarks because of some scheduling conflict. i have had to calm myself. i actually have to be in asia tonight where we are celebrating a cinema of to fantastic, it just sentenced to six years in jail for making films. we are both celebrating their cinema. hopefully it will be an occasion to shed light and other lesser-known political prisoners and labor yen activists and student activists, women's rights activists and so forth. so i do apologize. i am absolutely delighted my good friend and colleagues, comrade, danny postel, and ervand abrahamian, the coeditors of this brilliant and pioneering book in which i am honored to been included by their gracious

attention to my work. it is published. not only had died in to what has happened over the last year-and-a-half, but also as a historical document of people who are concerned with the mess in a run. participant observers have been writing about this. the so-called green movement which is a grass roots massive uprising decades if not centuries in the making in my judgment is a healthy, organic movement. it is a movement that is unfolding right in front of our eyes and is changing in various dimensions. many just asians and episodes of street demonstrations and episodes of transformative

writings and decorations and so forth that in my judgment have produced fantastic documents of modern history. also, debate and so forth. for those of us who are trying to keep our hand on the polls of the movement this historical document is a good springboard for further reflection. now, another significance of this book is it -- i have to be cautious not to praise it too much. it some of the best ratings that have been done on this subject will help you stay away from two sets of noises that are generally said. not only what has happened in iran, but equally and more importantly what happened in north africa over the last month and a half.

i was just telling my friend and colleague that when i was in my late 20's and early 30's were ever going to one revolution. now i get to be 60, and there are 15 revolutions happening at the same time. i don't feel like a kid in a candy store not knowing quite what to do with myself. what i say is equally and even more compellingly applicable but other revolutions happening in the region. and that is the concerted effort to simulate what is happening backwards and set our standard categories of concepts, understandings, whether or as we were witnessing but a story of magnitude. we are right in the middle of it. we simply don't know the proper metaphor and allegory.

david goldfield and square, falling of the berlin wall, the revolutionary movement of 1848. the our attempts, the proverbial blind and the dog with an elephant trying to figure out what exactly it is. it is of historical magnitude in my judgment. there is no question. events such as the obscenity of president obama vetoing the security council resolution draft tax of presenting the further armed robbery of palestine with the sending of two dilapidated, uses chips through the swiss islamic to public or taking advantage of the ministry of distraction. as soon as the events number

these are attempts to distract. specifically i would like to draw your attention to these sets of writings by people who are by no stretch of the imagination what has happened, but those who write cautiously and from the depth of historical knowledge and academic and scully commitment to judicious writing that is exemplary. now, two sets of identical ratings that i want to warn you against are those that i think our regime chambers, you know, those who are regime chambers. they also are called regime pictures. mr. and mrs. frequent-flier.

thousands of us to my friends and colleagues, can not set foot in my homeland. these couples are free gunfire's back-and-forth. absolute gibberish about what is happening. the single person or daikon other, the obscenity is just beyond comprehension. so, whether you are a regime changer or a regime fixer, what they are doing, they are distracting from a systematic and concerted effort to try to come to grips with the reality, and that is no easy task. the fundamental fact is that huge movements that predate the green movement, a labor union, labor movement, student movement, and the women's rights movement are at their barracks of economic malfunction, social

alienation, and cultural transformation. and our intent is to try to see what particular way free movement is a political mechanization of the. two other parallels the, the language of islamic republic. you saw it in the ministry of intelligence coming up with this cocoon of conspiratorial theories that they have created around themselves. ws 72 million human beings. also the use of expatriate opposition that they have generated does their own mirror image. in other words, islamic republic has been created enemies in the language in this course and aspiration and so forth whereas the health body of what has been

called the green movement is the harbinger of an entirely different phenomenon that is imperative for us to try to keep our eye on the ball and try to understand it. of course our understanding the changes because the movement changes. since february 14th it has absolutely nothing to do with pitiful days of valentine. preaching calendar. the third phase that in my judgment is a more radical face. it does not necessarily mean blind violence. radical stage means the demands have become more radical and perhaps we are witnessing the beginning of an interchange, necessary interaction between the green movement and those three social systems. so what i would like to say is that currently a year and a half

after the commencement of the movement and particular attention is being paid to something called the charter of the green movement. there are lots of debates about this charter because in effect it accepts the constitution, and there are many iranians you don't accept the totality of this constitution and certainly don't agree with the item of authority of the supreme ruler. nevertheless in my judgment in this document, the charter of the green movement, we are beginning to see that narratives base of conversation on a massive national scale about the future of iran is democratic, peaceful, non-violent transmission to a democracy that i think it is crucial for us.

so, the gist of what i'm trying to say is, there are lots of noise is whether from washington or tehran or paris about the green movement. but the body of the green movement itself has just started generating its own language, discourse, not only its own leaders, but also the modality of its leaders. under house arrest, but being under house arrest does not mean that you no wonder at the center of the social uprising. i mean, examples of mandela is really a many example. in fact, in my judgment the imprisonment, being under house arrest has given a necessary spin to a movement that, in some respects, has hit a plateau with the same when argument that had

not necessarily been our next president would have turned up to be somebody like obama, having generated huge expectations and look what has happened. so, his not having an office gave momentum to this social uprising. it went on for a year-and-a-half. the fact that he has been now put under house arrest, i believe, has placed the movement into a different category. debates are obviously taking place mostly in persian as it should be. and number of sections are expressed mostly in other languages, mostly english. to conclude what i started, the significance of a book like this for those of you who want to be up to speed, what has happened? what are their running debates?

as i said, everybody agrees as to what the nature of this woman is. this is an excellent place to start. they have all done a fantastic service by the job they have done to bring us up today and have a repository where our thinking is. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> thank you so much, hamid dabasi, for those generous words and for that food for thought. i noticed that some of you came in after my introduction. i am briefly going to be introduced for those of you just arrived our next speaker who teaches middle east and islamic politics at the joseph cornell's

school of international studies at the university of denver. in addition to being mike co-editor is the author of the book is long secularism and liberal democracy toward a democratic theory for muslim societies. nader hashemi. [applause] at bank. >> thank you all for coming tonight. our book that was praised was anchored around the contributions of three individuals. but several essays in the book, as does mohammed, one man institution that teaches out of the university of california, where some of the most penetrating and as in psychoanalysis.

the third person who had multiple essays is trying to meet. his characterization. the most insightful. particularly first and foremost a civil rights movement that seeks to transform perron the process of reform, not necessarily revolution, of those those are being blurred. he made one important observation in the summer of 2009 that when we first read it as strongly disagreed. at that it is wishful thinking the green movement is setting the standard for the region and transforming the politics of the broader arab and islamic world, completely shaping the world compass and orientation.

.. >> are the following sort of set of observations. the fact that these moo.s for democracy are fundamentally nonviolent, social protest movements, their emergence was unpredictable and unprecedented, unprecedented in theceps that it -- in the sense that it argues a new phase of politics in the region, characterized by the fact that they are nonideological. these divisions don't matter to

the people who are part of this movement. there are both secular religious and people who fall in between who are very much part of the movement. fundamentally, political grievances and objections that they have with respect to the authoritarian order in which they live in, and their call is, basically, for democracy, for civil and human rights. the demographic youth bubble, a new generation has come of age. they are more politicized than their parents' generation, they're highly educated and internet savvy, and there's no clear leadership structure in terms of how these movements are organized. one phenomenon is a representative sample, but there are hundreds and thousands of individuals who are part of this sort of, this movement. so while that's sort of the broad picture in terms of, i think, uniting iran we egypt and tunisia, i think there's also a significant and qualitative

differences that i think we these to acknowledge in order to understand what's taking place in iran today, and that's what i want to spend the bulk of my time talking about in a comparative fashion, iran in comparison and in contrast to egypt and tunisia. so i think it's important to acknowledge that every country has its own internal story and its own internal obstacles that democratic forces have to overcome in order to reach a democratic transition. so if you just sort of compare iran we egypt for a moment, the last 30 years, you you know, irs leaders come into power around the same time that mubarak comes to power, 1981. we have about 30 years since then, and while both countries have been characterized broadly as authoritarian political regimes, there are key differences between those regimes that need, i think, identification and have consequences for the struggle for democracy, particularly in iran today.

um, and i want to argue that in the case of iran in contrast to egypt and tunisia that the islamic republic, until relatively recently, has been imbued with a much higher degree of internal legitimacy than mubarak and menally's regime ever had. so just consider the following set of markers. in iran since the revolution, there have been consistent and regular presidential, parliamentary and later, municipal elections that up until 2009 were never completely free, but they were fair in the sense that the announced results reflected what was taking place at the ballot box. there was a few moments in 2000, the 2000 parliamentary elections that were sort of fudged because of the rise of the reform movement, the 2005 presidential elections there's a lot of question, but broadly speaking, there were elections that

weren't free, but were basically fair. ben ali couldn't say that. there has been internal debates rooted around factional rivalry and seriously and intense sort of back and forth with different factions that have taken place in the public sphere. there's been moments when the debate was open in iran in ways that don't have parallels to mubarak and ben ali's regime. iran, at least, can make the claim that it's been politically independent from the control of external powers. its foreign policy is generally an independent player in the politics of the region. ben ali and mubarak, by contrast, have been part of the american foreign policy program for the region, they've been highly dependent on u.s. and western support. iran is qualitatively different, so at least the islamic republic

can claim they have been politically independent. and just to give an example of how, i think, the regime in iran up until 2009 it still had a certain degree of legitimacy, and that is reflect inside the fact that in 2009 we had this phenomenal event where about 80-85% of the iranian electorate actually shows up to the ballot pox to cast a -- box to cast a vote, hoping they could change the course of the islamic republic. not drastically, but perhaps change it from ahmadinejad back to the reformist days of hat tanny. but the fact that people were voting in such high numbers suggests they believe that if they showed up, there would be consequences, and that would shift the direction of the us islamic republic. no longer is this because the 2009 elections were largely viewed to be stolen. but up until at least 2009 for this good 30-year period, you

did have a certain degree of legitimacy as reflect inside the high voter turnout. these have never been in evidence anywhere in mubarak's egypt or ben ali's tunisia to the extent we've seen in iran. so the key point that i'm trying to make, all things considered that the islamic republic of iran still has a certain base of support within the country that is not very wide, but it is deep. and what i mean by that is that, um, there is a core base of support that is deeply ideological and committed to the regime for a variety of reasons. some of it sort of religious, theological, some of it due to a sense of self-interest, people feel that their livelihood and careers are tied to the existence of the established order. and i'll put that percentage of support approximately between 15-25%. if you ask me during the q&a, i'll tell you how i came up with that figure.

on top of this, that 15-20% support is reinforced by virtue of the e regime's ability to cynically manipulate two key themes, um, in order to preserve its hegemony and preserve itself in power and immunize itself from criticism. and these two things the islamic republic does successfully are the theme of authenticity and i mean the following. the islamic republic of iran claims to be the embodiment of islam on earth. it claims to rule in the name of god, the supreme leader is considered to be the representative of the 12th imam who's the representative of god on earth. and it constantly reinforces that theme. there's a quote by up with of the leading clerical hawks in august 2009 just to give you an example where he said, quote, that obeying the president -- in this case ahmadinejad -- obeying

the president is the same as to baying god. and his logic is because the supreme leader is a representative of god on earth and he's given legitimacy to the recent elections, therefore -- and he's improved ahmadinejad's candidacy and obeying him is equivalent to obeying god. most educated people in iran don't buy into that, but segments of iranian society that are deeply poor, that are religious, that don't have access to the internet and satellite tv are affected by that. it makes sense. it's a small percentage, but they buy into that particular argument. and that's particularly why the regime is very, very, um, determined in preventing alternative interpretations of islam, silencing dissent clerics who provide an alternative narrative. in the book we have translated the very famous fatwa by the man known as the moral conscious of

the green movement. that's why he was, you know, under house arrest for so long and silenced. but this theme of islamic awe authenticity the regime uses to consolidate it. claims to be the vanguard against western intervention in the region. the theme of rejecting western intervention in the region is one of the organizing themes of the middle east in the 20th century. it's a deeply emotional topic. iran's very troubled relationship with the west over the last 200 years, i think, is a reflection of that, and people rally to this theme of rejecting external intervention in the politics of their own country. the regime constantly uses this theme, constantly invokes it, and they get some internal support for it. islamic authenticity and anti-imperialism are theming that mubarak and ben ali could not utilize in order to maintain public support. for obvious reasons.

mubarak and ben ali were military generals. they weren't religious figures. they were deeply secular in their political ideology. and with respect to anti-imperialism, of course, that doesn't apply either because both of them were deeply dependent on western and particularly u.s. aid. so i think in that respect, um, if you put it all together, the regime in iran is able to draw upon a certain base of support that, i said, is not very wide, but it is, it is deep. flsh and i think those are qualitative differences, and they pose huge challenges in terms of the way forward for the green movement. you can't ignore, um, that reality that's this. that's there. and i think in many ways, but in particular the ways i've just articulated, this is how iran is distinct in terms of its internal politics. and to sort of ignore that and pretend that simply, you know, if enough people in iran can get

to the equivalent of tahrir square, freedom square and occupy it, then there will be a momentum that will follow that happened over in egypt is, i think, wishful thinking. and that brings me to my last point, and that's sort of the lessons we should be learning here from libya. reports today from the u.n. human rights commission suggest that there have been mass i have atrocities -- massive atrocities, gadhafi's last stand will likely be in tripoli and likely be massive. reports today that, you know, libyas has a chemical weapons stockpile. does anyone think for a moment that gadhafi will not use those chemical weapons if needed? and all of this has sort of forced me to think about the parallels with iran. inside iran we have people who are gadhafi-like in the sense that there's no option for them. they're not going to get on a plane and go to southern france if they feel that they've lost, that they've lost or they're losing power. if you follow and if you listen to the rhetoric and if you just

saw events in iran about, i think, the ten days ago, recall the scene that i think is very instructive of about 120 members of iran's parliament rallying around the podium bag for the blood of the opposition leaders, calling for their execution. there are people in iran who are willing to kill thousands to not conduct one tee yen man square, but multiple if needed in order to stay in power. so i think looking at events in libya, looking at how dictatorial leaders and regimes are willing to use massive amounts of state-sanctioned violence to remain in power poses, i think -- requires at a minimum a moment of pause for those of us who support the green movement in terms of how you overcome that particular obstacle. i don't have any answers in the how, in how one sort of responds or meets that challenge, but to simply ignore it, to say by street demonstrations we can bring about a democratic

transition, i think, is wishful thinking. um, the green movement is sort of, i think, at a critical moment. it's been inspired by these movements in egypt and tunisia. i personally am very optimistic about the future, but more the longer-term future than the near-term future. and i hope that some of my remarks have been able to shed some light on the internal sort of politics of iran and the obstacles, um, that lay in the way of a democratic transition in the coming, in the coming months and years. thanks. [applause] >> thank you, nader. next we will hear from professor ervand abrahamian. >> i want to address the question, what can we do to help the green movement.

by we, i mean either iranians or non-iranians living in the the united states. the conventional answer to this question is, we can help the green movement by getting our president obama to be forthright, speak directly on the issue of suppression in iran, that every time heads are broken in iran, he should be at the podium helping and speaking on behalf of the protesters. in addition to this, the argument is often made that the best way to help the reform movement in iran is to have economic sanctions to put pressure on the regime. this will weaken their regime, and this by weakening the regime, we will be helping the protest movement to bring either change, internal change or

regime change. these have become, actually, pretty much conventional wisdom since the crisis of june, 2009. and i think most mainstream newspapers like new york times, washington post subscribe to this notion. i would like to argue that, actually, this two-pronged strategy helps the regime and undermines the reform movement. i don't think it can be fine-tuned or modified to help it. i think structurally, basically, this prong regime -- strategy is actually diametrically wrong. let's take the first one about helping, speaking out -- especially the president or american officials -- speaking out on behalf of the reform movement. it's, okay, sort of natural if

people's heads are being smashed or people being executed to expect protests, especially high-ranking people in america, to speak out and protest. it's sort of like a knee-jerk reaction. i think most people in america would have that knee-jerk reaction, especially among liberals and people on the left. ever since woodrow wilson there has been this idea in the liberal perspective in united states that there is a, united states has a mission to spread humanitarianism and liberalism. and it's a sort of almost a duty in american mainstream psychic that u.s. is a good light that helps other people to have freedom. as clements or the president of

france said at ha time, the good lord had only ten commandments, and woodrow wilson came along with 14 of them. [laughter] and these, of course, even after woodrow wilson's time taken somewhat cynically abroad and were seen, often, as weapons in u.s. foreign policy rather than the spreading of humanitarianism elsewhere. and i think in iran especially because of obvious reasons. the average iranian is very suspicious of united states for sponsoring notions of democracy or reform in iran. every time any u.s. president speaks on this issue, it doesn't really get resonate because people have the memory of 1953 and a long period of the oppression of the shah supported by united states.

and i think this is a very important sort of cultural difference between the average american and average iranian on u.s -- what u.s. is. often i've been to concernses where they say, well -- conferences was able to help eastern europe, why can't it do the same in iran? the fact is in eastern europe the bad guy were the russians. so united states had a good image because of it historical experience. in iran it's u.s. that has the bad image. the u.s. is the former soviet union of iran having, basically, been implicit in a long period of dictatorship. so these parallels which are used are actually displaced because they really distort how iranians look at united states. also in united states we have a tendency to think that each administration comes with a

clean slate. so, you know, tricky dick might have been a nasty guy, but a new president like obama comes with a clean slate, and he's going to completely change policy. people outside united states have a more of a historical notion. they put presidents in a lineage of presidents. they don't see huge breaks in policy. and i think in many cases foreigners are much more in tune with reality than the u.s. perception that each administration is very different from the previous ones and can drastically change policy. so what we've seen, in fact, actually, since june of 2009 is that presidents and, of course, the secretary of state clinton has been almost eager to jump on

this issue, this bandwagon almost every time there's a demonstration. they're out there in favor supporting the demonstrators which is somewhat obscene when you compare it to what was happening in tunisia and egypt where for a long period of everyday demonstrations, mass demonstrations, and they were dragging their feet about supporting them. but in iran they quickly jump on it. and this is, obviously, taken for what it is in iran, that this is a issue that's being exploited by the imperial power to undermine the regime. so even if they don't like the regime, it fits into what nader was talking about, the anti-imperialist regime. it reinforces the notion that the reform movement is actually being used by united states. and the best thing united states actually can do is shut up and

don't talk about it. human rights is actually a very important issue, too important to have united states government involved. human rights issues in iran should be really dealt with by human rights organizations and, also, countries that have a better record. especially countries in europe, scandinavia have a much better, basically, track record on issue of human rights. and when they actually intervene in iranian issues, they have, they're taken much more seriously. and iranians who have got families in, in jail nowadays actually find it more advisable to go to sweden or denmark and get those governments to intercede rather than to come to washington because they know washington is not really going to help their case if they intervene.

so i would argue that the best thing for u.s. administration is actually to not get involved in the issues of helping the reform movement, of talking about it and each, you know, trying -- and even, you know, trying to encourage use of cell phones or twitter or whatever. these things are, basically, used by the ahmadinejad government to undermine the reform movement. the second issue about sanctions and a nuclear issue. the obama administration came in with great hopes of change. he had, actually, before coming to the white house had talked about changing the course of the bush administration towards or iran. towards iran. he had implicitly accepted

iran's right to enrich uranium. he had spoken respectfully both to the iranian government and the iranian people. he had offered an olive branch. he had gone, he had not demanded that iran should stop enrichment before negotiations. these were all seen as major changes from the previous administration. it was, in fact, these demands of the bush administration that had stalled any type of negotiations. um, now, obama's policy of engagement from the very beginning had a great deal of opposition in the state department and in israel. because both in be israel and the state department iran was not to have any enrichment whatsoever because any enrichment was too dangerous, would provide existential threat

to israel. so i think here there was a distinct difference between obama and hillary clinton on this issue. but for what it is we don't know, and we won't know until documents come out from the state department/white house. there was this gradual shift in obama's position. he really in the next few months, especially after 2009, subtly but you can tell the reading between the lines. the policy shifted back to what it was before obama came in during the bush administration. it really continued the bush administration. how can you tell this? well, he has stopped saying that iran had the right to have enrichment. he, they started talking about iran as a big hegemonic power, the old rhetoric that somehow

iran had this aspiration to rebuild the old empire blowing up of the iranian military power. in fact, iran spends less money on the military than any of its neighbors including turkey, of course, israel, pakistan, even, i think now iraq spends more on the military than iran does. so it has sort of a large militia, almost no navy, no air force to speak of. yet the propaganda is encouraged by the administration that somehow iran is a major military threat. another subtle, i think, indication of change is the one major person in the administration who was interested in engagement after a few months found personal reasons to retire and leave. and you don't have to be a

criminologist to know when there's personnel changes like that occur, they're indicating, actually, policy changes. the obama administration now claims that it's following really dual policy, that it is on one hand pressuring, doing the sanctions, pretty drastic sanctions through the u.n. but at the same time it's offering an olive branch and incentive for negotiations. so this has become the public persona of the administration. in fact, i think, one looks not what they say, but what is revealed and what is in negotiations is that they only offer, actually, the sanctions and pressure. there is no offer of negotiations. the policy's changed back to the

bush administration that iran has to really stop enrichment, give up it nuclear program -- give up its nuclear program and basically submit to u.s. dictates on this, something neither the reformers, nor conservatives, whatever, in iran are going to accept. so it's, basically, forcing iran to submit. and if you then ask administration people what -- if they don't, iran doesn't submit, they really have no answer. the end line, implicit answer is they will have economic pressures until the regime collapses. and, of course, with oil at $100 a barrel it's unlikely the regime is going to because colle because of economic pressures. the fact that there is no

serious attempt to engagement can also be seen in the wikileaks leaks. it's often said, well, these leaks don't reveal anything new. actually, on iran they reveal a great deal that's new. they revealed that when the turkish and the brazilian government put together a package well bare day to go to iran, get a compromise where iran would continue enrichment, but they wouldn't be able to enrich to the point they could actually build nuclear weapons, this would have been something that, i think, the old obama would accept it. when the turks and the brazilians put this together, this package, the u.s. told them unceremoniously to mind their own business. that they had no business dealing with this iranian issue.

they were not interested in that negotiations. this is, of course, very reminiscent of what happened in 2003 when at that time the swiss ambassador came to washington with a grand bargain from iran to settle the issues, and he got the same response. he was told to mind his own business, that this was not something that the bush administration was really interested in. and i think what has happened you can see sort of contingency in policy here s that the bush administration once it settled down, it really continued the -- the obama administration continued the bush policy of putting pressure, as much pressure on iran because they want to actually disband the whole nuclear program. not refine it, not to limit it. it's much more drastic than

that. other things that, actually, you can see in wikileaks that are very revealing is negotiations between high u.s. officials and mossat. and in these documents what the u.s. is told that under no condition is iran going to have a nuclear program. mossat also tells united states that it will resort to assassination, sabotage and, interesting, most insidious of all using, quote, minorities and tensions of minorities to bring about regime change. this is exact quote. use minorities and tensions among minorities to bring about regime change. and the mos, at constantly harps on this notion that iran is

formed of different ethnic groups and that you can inflame these ethnic groups and bring down the regime through, basically, ethnic rivalries. sort of reminiscent of iraq and, of course, the old imperial policy of divide and rule. so what in recent months we've seen such as assassination of iranian nuclear scientists, the sabotage of the nuclear plant, bombings, shootings in beluge stand and kurdistan, one doesn't have to be paranoid to think that those incidents are all actually linked to this policy of israelis about how to deal with iran. so with this two-pronged policies, what does it do? it -- if u.s. government is seen

as, actually, supporting of the reform movement, the reform movement is, therefore, seen as a fifth column working through, with the ethnic divisions, with even saboteurs in order to pursue israeli/u.s. goals. so the last thing, basically, a reform movement wants to be associated with, it was united states. even with a united states that claims to be supporting the reform movement. now, some people in the expatriots' community feel that if there is rapprochement between iran and united states, if there is a nuclear agreement, this will strengthen the regime. and the regime will then survive another 30 years. there's always this notion that somehow united states coming in

and actually making as grand bargain with iran will stabilize the regime for the foreseeable future. this is, actually, unwarranted because if you look at what's happening throughout the region, the countries that are most stable are, actually, the ones who are most friendly with unite. united states. friendship with united states doesn't stabilize any regime. on the contrary, it seems to destabilize them. who is most friendly with united states. in the past, of course, mubarak, ben ali of yemen, bahrain. what countries could you find more in cahoots with united states? but there, of course, they're the ones that are most vulnerable at the time. we often think of gadhafi as anti-american, anti-imperialist. but, in fact, since 2003 he made his peace with united states.

he went even overboard in many ways. he, gadhafi had been one of the first countries to nationalize his oil industry. he was actually one of the first to denationalize it quietly in the last few years he handed over the oil industry to foreign companies. he also was, in fact, came out from the cold, so much so that he was literally embraced by senator lieberman and condoleezza rice as a good friend of united states. so his problem is, in some ways, not due to being opposed to united states, but being friends with united states. i hope to live long enough to see ahmadinejad being embraced by the likes of senator lieberman. [laughter] because i think that will be a good sign, that'll be a demise of that type of regime.

so i'll stop there. [applause] >> thank you, professor abrahamian. last but not least, golbarg bashi. are you going to come up here? okay, very good. golbarg, and then we'll have a q&a. >> well, first of all, i would like to thank danny and nader for including me in this wonderful panel. i really don't feel worthy. i only have a teeny-weeny article in this wonderful collection of -- that you have put together, so i am grateful. but nonetheless, i am happy to be included even though it is a little embarrassing. because i do think that women's issues need to be discussed. so i will take the opportunity here to talk mainly about

women's issues and questions pertaining to women's rights in iran. the rights of the revolutionary movements across the arab world have, obviously, galvanized iran's civil rights movement, the green movement. for a while we thought the world had forgotten about iran, and sometimes when you read al-jazeera, that still seems to be the case. but we're trying hard to remember and, certainly, in iran the youth have tried to learn, they've been inspired by their arab counterparts. so we know, most of you know that the civil rights movement, the green movement that began in the aftermath of the electoral crisis was in june 2009, almost, almost two year ago. now, so this has been a mainly nonviolent uprising, and the principle feature of it has been this nonviolence which has been

maintained mostly by women. we saw this clearly in tunisia, we saw this clearly in egypt. i think all of you must have seen that picture of the egyptian elderly woman kissing riot police. we didn't see pictures like that from iran, in fact. but, so the nonviolents aspects of these movements have been maintained by women. in iran as well. last week al-jazeera intervieweddal saadawi, great iconic feminist from egypt, novelist, medical reformer. and al have sierra which, obviously, doesn't have a sort of feminist agenda like any other major news organization chose to call her the mother of the revolution. and this made me very happy for my egyptian and my arab sisters and brothers, but at the same

time it made me a little wary and sad. because i remember in last year, well, in 2009 when the ayatollah died, immediately many, many within the green movement -- even our nobel laureate -- called him the spiritual father of the green movement. now, this was a little scary for me because i had the privilege of meeting with the ayatollah myself in his residence, and i sat with him. often when i see the pictures of young people in his office, i remember myself there too. and i asked him very clearly, you know, what he thought about women's rights. and he said, you know, when it really comes to the letter of the koran, we cannot, we cannot change laws. and just because the rest of the world thinks something about women's rights, if it pertains to the very letter of the koran, we're not going to change it.

so in this, for me, was very alarming that right in the middle at the height of the green moment when the ayatollah died, even our nobel laureate called him the spiritual father of the movement. whereas in egypt despite the fact that egyptian women have suffered from public sexual harassment, something that we don't quite have in iran, not at least that openly, we have women's participation in the public in a far larger scale than egypt. egyptians manage to have a lot more women out in the streets and, also, they have a mother of the revolution and we don't. so this makes me a little worried from the iranian things. i'll quote the ayatollah for you. in an interview that i did with him in 2003. he clearly and very boldly told

me that women's rights remain under the maine of islamic -- mesne of islamic law. you see, i'm quoting here, if people around the world want to say certain things about women, for example, being equal to men in matters of inheritance or legal testimony because these issues pertain to the very letter of the koran, we cannot accept them. of course, in iran we cannot accept these laws that are against our religion. on certain occasions when these laws contradict the very clear text of the koran, we cannot cooperate. men in general, all things considered, are productively more active in both intellectual activities and practical activities. those aspects of islamic law that are based on the very letter of the koran, the answer is, no. you can read my interview with him online. so this is, obviously, worrying that if father of our green

movement is the ayatollah, despite the fact that he is, he was, you know, a courageous cleric, he sacrificed greatly for his beliefs and exposed some of the most horrific human rights abuses in iran, his idea of human rights were sort of public rights mainly to do with political activism, legal things and not really women's issues. so this makeses me a little wary -- makes me a little wary of both the islamists, and also the masculine aspect of the green movement. so women in iran, despite the fact that like most women in the region have had a very long history of political and social participation going back to the middle of the 19th century with the persona of the tobacco

revolt which really women maintained, the constitutional revolution, literary movements, leftist movements, the ousting of the shah and even in the islamic republic despite all the very blatant gender discriminations, women have managed to be part of the social and public and political high and contribute to it. and, initially, in the pre-election campaigns and in the post-election uprisings women were in great numbers. but we saw those numbers decreasing. this was exactly the opposite in egypt. so these are some of the things that worry me. so i think we need to look at the region and learn that, um, sometimes we get a little ahead of ourselves. that, well, you know, we have a peace laureate, and we have, you know, this history that predates, for example, i don't know, tunisian women's rights

and things like that. well, not so fast. there are tons of things that we still need to learn from the region. the other thing that, um -- which is promising, i think -- is the fact that the demography in iran is similar to egypt and tunisia and elsewhere, very young, 80% of the population is under the age of 40. and just that in itself means that the green movement as a movement, as a revolutionary movement, hopefully, will succeed. now, how much women will gain from this, we don't know. because right now tunisian women in particular are very wary that some of the reforms that were made under president ben ali, for whatever reason they were made, they're not going to be revoked. like the iranian case when the revolution happened and khomeini regressed on some of the, some of the sort of positive aspects

of the constitution and the laws pertaining to women especially. egyptian women, too, are looking out. there are many mini-mubaraks out there, and they have to. they have to make sure that all of the sacrifices are not going to go to waste. so i think -- i don't think this is a domino effect. i think it's a revolutionary fire that has caught on. now, i don't want to say iran began first and then tunisia was second. i don't think that is quite the case. there are many revolutions that predate the green movement, of course, even though for us it is a very special moment for us. many of us, this is the first revolution that we, that we remember. the most astonishing thing is the anti-berlusconi demonstrations we saw recently in italy were inspired by, by the uprisings in north africa.

italians thinking to themselves well, you know, if egyptians and tunisians can topple their dictators that are backed by billion dollar funding by the unite, why can't wesome -- by the united states, why can't we, you know, get rid of this guy, berlusconi, which is a huge embarrassment on every front. so that's why i don't think this is a domino effect. it's more of a global, really, phenomenon, and it's wonderful to watch this. this is sort of our woodstock, and we participate through our online and so forth. now, the other thing that i am a little wary of and which i think is the critique applies to both secular, feminist and any other kind of people who are involved in the green movement is this sort of ultranationalism of a kind that i witness even among

progressive feminists. and we've seen this among our egyptian and tunisian and algerian and other arab sisters and brothers who were very ceeb to call their -- keen to call their uprisings pan-americanism. and so i saw that during the green movement, especially at the height of the green movement when iranians felt they were the only people in the region that could possibly state something like that. now, pan-iranism, pan-arabism, all of these pan-nationalisms are racist, they're no good, and especially for women because they're very masculine in their nature. so it's all hunky dory if you're in be tahrir sway and you get very passionate and you're waving the flags, but within that discourse women's rights don't really play a role. so this is some of the things that, i think, both green activists whether they're

feminist or not have to be wary of as well as our arab brothers and sisters should be aware of this a, that, you know, these sort of pan-nationalisms are really outdated, and they don't do any justice to, really, the spirit of these revolutions. so a couple of things that i want to end with is that, um, many people have, are trying to down play the revolutions in the region because, you know, the threat of islamism, i think at an audience like this which is informed, i don't need to repeat the fact that i think one of the best things, perhaps, of the islamic republic has been a good warning to the rest of the region and other parts of the world that three i don't care rassi doesn't work, and a nativist i lammist ideology is pretty horrific. so i'm not very worried about islamism and so forth even though we see commentators bring

that up and, oh, what about women's rights? the i think if there is going to be regressions on women's rights, i hope not, it will be by nationalist, not by islamists, i think. so this whole nationalist thing, i'd be very wary of. and, also, the masculine, the masculinist aspect of these, of these movements especially the green movement. i mean, if you watch bbc persian, i mean, it's not a platform for the green movement, but it does discuss these events. rarely do they have a single female commentator, never mind, you know, activists. whereas the presenters are all very attractive laid dis. so, you know, there's things like that and also the changing of the language. i still hear, you know, using language like -- [speaking in native tongue] >> and, you know, these sorts of

things. i think it's time to change the vocabulary and make it more inclusive. so it would be now i have colleague here who are far more learned than i am to translate something like that. courage, basically. but in the context of being a young, able man. so these sorts of words are used even by women. so i think it's time, really, to shed these ultranationalistic terms, these masculine terms in the language. and for leaders of the women's rights movement in iran to, in a more bold sense, align themselves with the leaders of the green movement. because right now we're not really seeing that. we're seeing student movement is far more involved, but the women's movement is still on the sidesteps even though body number wise we have had lots and

lots of women participate anything these, in these -- participating in these protests ask so forth. so these are some of the things that i've thought about, and i hope they're useful, and i'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, golbarg. and all of our panelists. i want to mention as well, i'm sorry i forgot to do this as well. the book is available for sale outside this auditorium thanks to book culture and to melville house, our publisher for arranging that. the book is available for sale, and i know that the editors and contributors assembled here this evening would be happy to sign copies for you, inscribe them. let's take some questions. questions. see, aha.

mademoiselle leyla, so mice to see you. >> nice to see you too. >> why don't you take the microphone, leyla. >> thank you. yeah, nice to see you after many years. thank you very much, that was really good. i have one question, i think professor abrahamian mentioned that united states should end any comments about b what's going on in iran, especially about the green movement because that would be not helpful for the greens. i agree with that. but this is my daily dilemma: what should we do? we see that there is every day there is a lot of killings, abuses of human rights in iran, tortures, everything. in the streets, in the jails, everywhere. but at the same time we don't want to be the voice of the united states. so what should we do? to support the movement but, at the same time, not to make it

difficult for those who are in iran. >> well, i think one can support the movement either directly by supporting the movement or through human rights organizations. somehow there's the notion that the u.s. government is so powerful that if we can get the u.s. government to do something, that will actually be productive. my argument was that's unproductive. the human rights organizations and foreign countries, i mean, if we have any influence through scandinavia, maybe austria, countries like that have, actually, much more credibility on this issue than united states. >> i would just want to add to that and perhaps nader or golbarg would like to chime in as well. because we've talked about this

many times, leyla, and this question comes up. she draws a very sharp distinction between kinds of support for the democratic movement in iran. she says, we in the democratic movement in iran do not seek the support of foreign governments or the cia or neoconservative think tanks. however, we do seek the support of global civil society; human rights organizations, trade unions, women's rights organizations, people of conscious, writers, intellectuals, artists. and i think that's a very important distinction. you can see iranian trade unions, such as they are because we all know it's illegal to have an independent labor union in if iran, but there are labor associations and trade unionists in iran who are, you know, beleaguered. many be of their leaders behind

bars languishing. mansour just celebrated yet another birthday, the leader of the bus drivers' union in iran, celebrated yet another birthday behind pars and in tremendous -- behind bars and in tremendous medical duress. but the trade union reaches out actively to trade unions in many other countries. there's a very active solidarity movement in that respect. so i think that's an important distinction. i'd also like to make a particular plug for an organization, a global organization that's based here in new york city called the campaign for peace and democracy which has done, really, i think, an outstanding job of taking a principled and nuanced position against what the philosopher -- another cribber to this book -- contributor to this book, has called the double blackmail. in other words, the campaign for peace and democracy has taken a

very forceful position against both u.s. imperialism and militarism on the one hand and three i don't care rassi and oppression on the other. and we happen to have joanne landty, the co-founder on the campaign for peace and democracy here this evening. i don't know if you want to say any words, but today is quite a mow momentous day for the work on iran particularly. nader and i were privileged to be part of a delegation that joanne led to both the u.s -- exactly in the spirit of this, against the double blackmail and consistency of principle. we went to both the u.s. and the iranian missions of the united nations today to deliver these statements and, in both cases, actually engage in dialogue with representatives of both offices. if you want to talk to joanne, i

would encourage people to go to the web site of the campaign for peace and democracy, sign their petitions not only on iran, but on many, many issues; egypt, libya, palestine, nuclear disarmament, many, many issues. and also to talk to joanne here before you leave tonight because that's a really fantastic organization. when we talk about global civil society, i think the campaign for peace and democracy is really a shining example thereof. joanne, did you want to say something, and should we, perhaps, let joanne have the microphone for a moment so that everyone can hear her? there you go. >> microphone comes to me. well, thank you for that. we did have 12 peace and human rights activists go today to the two missions. we had someone from code pink,

we had nader and danny, steve who many of you may have known. who were some of the other people? my -- i had only three hours of sleep last night. >> we had an immigration rights lawyer near new york and very active with -- and kathy kelly of voices for creative nonviolence. >> right. right. so it was a really important confrontation with this very funny u.s. guy in the u.s. mission to the u.n. who kept, who told us he had unitarian parents, and he really thought that so much of what we said was right and how much he really agreed with us. so we kept, you know, thanking him for his solidarity but pointed out the terrible things that the u.s. government is doing, threatening war against iran and sanks and so forth. anyway, i think that this is really when we organize these statements, i have some copies

here, and the war threats and sanks program against iran -- sanctions program against iran, support the struggle for democracy inside iran, when we do this kind of thing, we really are aiming at a lot of different audiences at the same time. so, first of all, we want to change our own government's policy from the kind of warlike imperial policy that it has. second of all, we want to change the iranian government's policy, and thirdly, we want to change our own peace movement. bring out the natural sympathy that people in the peace movement have for people who are really their counterparts around the world but who feel afraid if they speak up they're somehow helping the u.s. government. we want to say, wait, no. we're really helping the peace movement and helping our iranian counterparts by standing up in an independent withdraw -- way and differentiating ourself. i've actually been in the peace

movement since i was 12 years old, and, you know, t my movement. but i've always felt like this is something we have to work on and never stop. >> thanks, joanne. anyone else want to contribute any comment toss that before we move on to the next question? there was a hand up right here, i believe. yes. >> [inaudible] >> let's get the microphone. yes, one second, please. >> thank you. thanks to the panel for the great presentation. this is mainly for professor abrahamian based on your work in the priest social movements. previous social movements. what keeps me thinking about the difference between what is happening today and the iranian revolution in 1979 and then before that the constitution, revolution and the back revolt is thatting the pseudo leaderlessness of this movement, although they've kind of risen

up to a certain level of leadership of the movement, but they never got to a point that the general population would consider them the leaders of the movement. are there parallels of this type of social movement forming around not a clear-cut leadership? and in either case, if yes or no, do you think that would have any effect in terms of the success of this movement? or in other terms, do you think the population would have to wait until a leader actually comes out who can be recognized, identified as the leader for the movement to be able to move further up? thank you. >> nader is probably better at answering this, but my attempt would be to -- it's special situations where you get a charismatic figure appearing.

you really needal -- need a breakdown and so on. we've had enough carriers, basically, since the 20th century. so i think one good thing about, of course, egypt was there was no one. and here, of course, the press was saying how can you have a movement without a leader? who should we go and talk to? the and it's movements -- the movement's, i think, stronger when it's like that. and the between movement, i think,s has that advantage. so if something happens to mow savvy, it's not the end of the movement. the only rare time you get a charismatic leader that comes out looking good in history is someone like -- [inaudible] that's because he's overflown. overthrown. but usually charismatic leaders end up ruin ago lot of things. >> nader, i agree that you would

be an excellent -- >> not really. i don't want to bore the audience but i have been thinking about this question of leadership and the benefits and the negatives of it. and i think if iran actually does get to a point where it's a democratic transition, because it does have, as you said, sort of a quasileadership structure, it will find itself in a better position than where egypt and tunisia is now where there is this sense, for example, in the egypt because the opposition is not really united, there's no clear leadership, they can't really challenge the military council. but if iran does get to a point where the regime collapses or there's a transition, it's pretty clear that musavi would be the interim leader who would have massive, popular support who would lead a movement where there would be a rewriting of the constitution and elections and then a movement toward full democracy. and so i think in that sense iran's -- you know, the fact that there is a sort of leadership does help the

struggle for democracy, but only in that phase of the struggle when you get to the post-transition period. but, you know, if you talk to them, it's interesting, they claim they're not the leaders, right? they're very humble about it. it's good in the sense that they're showing their humility, i think it's an acknowledgment of the problem of charismatic power as happened in 1979, but it's also bad in the sense, you know, pause there's no clear -- because there's no clear leadership structure, a lot of these to -- protests don't have the organization you'd like to see. there was a piece recently in "time" magazine about why haven't the green movement work with the the labor union. i think the problem, really s a structural one. because the green movement is somewhat of an amorphous structure.

there is this leadership, but they're not coordinating these demonstrations. it's really grassroots activists who are sort of organizing the timing and the place of it. so, you know, broadly, you know, thinking about the issue of leadership, it has both its benefits and it negatives. i would ideally hope that the leadership structure would solidify itself. and one of, you know, the recent develops there has been in the last few weeks, you know, this emergence of this coordinating council of the green movement which is really based both abroad and inside iran that is starting to organize and coordinate itself. they just announced two days ago that on the last three tuesdays of the iranian calendar year, they're going to have strikes and than straights and protests. that's really important because if you want to push the movement forward, you have to have someone rallying the maases. that's how you exert your pressure in relationship to the regime that, you know, dominates the politics of the region by

virtue of its military might. those are my thoughts on military leadership. >> golbarg, did you want to talk about that? >> i had a conversation with a colleague of mine from rutgers, and she was emphasizing the fact that really it's the labor unions, it's the trade unions that were at the very heart of really salvaging these eastern european revolutions in the late 1990s -- 1980s, and poland in particular. and what i wanted to ask you was when it comes to sort of third world, muslim world, people ask who's the leader, whereas when we're talking about, say, the anti-war movement in the united states, nobody asks who's the leader of the movement. these are spontaneous movements, and they, they feed off each other and, you know, they spread. do you think there is sort of a racist, orientalist element in

the question of who's the leader? >> um, it really depends on who's asking the question, the individual, right? no, i don't think in and of it it's a racist question. one of the differences that in the united states with respect to the anti-war movement, it's manifesting in a broadly democratic society.

>> what some people would call horizontallism, right? a term that comes out of the argentinean experience and social movement. socialologys are starting to study these phenomenon more and more internationally. in tunisia and egypt, i mean, for example, mark engler had a piece on the arguing the world blog a couple weeks ago talking about how a rot lot of western media commentary, accuses them of a certain kind of fetishism about this uprising in egypt came out of nowhere? he says, actually, just because a movement doesn't have identifiable leaders or a leader doesn't mean there aren't organizers. there's a lot of organizing that went into the egyptian uprising. it didn't just happen all of a sudden. a lot of, like, weeks and months, actually years. you can look back at the labor movement was laying the seed for this, or at least strong

elements of it, for years. the same thing in iran. i would just like to quote -- actually, it's too bad gary couldn't be with us tonight, he's also on the faculty here at columbia, he, actually, there are so many metaphors and images of what is the green movement, is it a movement, is it a network, what kind of structure is it? he actually uses the image of the gangly on. he says rather than a hierarchy flowing down from one or more individuals at the top or even the classic cell structure of a clandestine organization, the iranian opposition most resembles a ganglion, a tangled bundle of nerve cells where each part of the system is constantly and instantly in touch with all other parts. i thought that was an evocative image. we'll take one -- let's take one more question. i think there was something -- yes, yes. please. >> is reform possible within the

system? the it seems like there's so many elements working gwen it, the guardian council. it seems like you have to dissolve these elements before real reform can happen. and if you do that, it seems like it's open revolt. so what would you recommend for reform to take place within the system? >> the question is how do you dissolve those institutions of control. one way would be to just go for sort of a tunisian and an egyptian sort of model where there's a call for comprehensive regime change right from the beginning. i mean, those are the demands of the protesters. i think to do that in iran, and i think this is the calculus of the green movement leadership, would result in a section of iranian society withering away and not supporting the green movement. the green movement has layers of support. i think the strategy that the green movement of reform as

opposed to open revolution is, in the many ways, you know, one that's open to debate whether that's the best strategy or not. i fall back on the question, that's a position of people within iran to make. i could issue some directive, but those people who are on the front line have to make that decision. and the decision that they've made is they want a policy of reform and a gradual sort of transformation. >> request but the most recent slogans from february 14th and february 20th, the two most recent manifestations of the green movement in the streets, one of the most prominent was down with the dictator. that is not reformist. >> no, you're right. >> bringing the dictator down is not reforming -- >> no, but the leadership of the green movement. i mean, there's a tension between what the leadership is advocating at a strategy and what elements on the street -- particularly the youth -- want.

obviously, they want more radical reform, but the leadership's position and strategy is one of still working within the framework of the existing islamic republican constitution with all of its flaws and it problems and trying to really highlight the inconsistencies and the hypocrisy of the regime who claims that this is the founding document that they are governing, but they're only implementing certain segments of it. so calling for implementing those elements of the constitution that deal with the rights of the people, that deal with the question of the right to protest, article 2. that deal with the right of having, you know, free -- having political parties, having freedom for political activity and trying to highlight the hypocrisy of the regime and pointing out inconsistencies. that's the strategy the regime is using. whether that will, you know, bring down the guardian council or the revolutionary guards in the near future, it's an open question. at least that's the strategy they've determined to be the best to push this movement forward.

and it's up to iranians to decide whether they feel that's a useful strategy or not. >> [inaudible] >> can you talk into the microphone? >> there seems to be a problem between what people are saying on the streets. none of the leaders have denounced the revolutionary guard or the guardian council, yet the youth are out this calling for downfall. >> to do that would effectively result in a shift in strategy, right? >> because part of the constitution incorporates the institution of the supreme leader. so the downfall effectively means you'd have a shift in strategy calling for regime change. i think that eventually, my sense is that eventually is going to have to happen at some point given the repression of the regime, given the sense that, i think, eventually there's going to be a critical mass where people are going to be frustrated. i think it's difficult for the actual existing green leadership

movement to do that, let's not forget the leader is, in many ways, an accidental hero here. i don't think he anticipated this position that he's in. he's been caught up by the events that transpired after the 2009 election. and ideologically, all of the leaders of the green movement were part of the system. that radical break we'd like to see them adopt as a way of pushing for democracy is, i think, an unrealistic expectation because they are still very much, i mean, they still pay rip service to the -- lip service to the ideas of khomeini. these democratic statements and ignoring the others. so, you know, i tend to come down on the fact that there are people in iran who still buy into, there are people in iran who are not radical revolutionaries. they're reformists, but they're moderate reformists. they steel feel elements of the islamic republic worthy of salvaging, particularly this

idea for all of the failings of the iranian revolution and its ideals in 1979, the revolution did at least manifest one element of the call for revolution in 1979, and that was the call for, you know, independence from foreign control. that's -- and so, that gives, you know, that sort of, you know, gives the system some credibility in the eyes of people. my own reading that there's not a critical maas of people who are -- mass of people who are willing to call for a mubarak or ben ali-style type of regime change at this moment in iran. young people, yes, increasingly as we move forward, but not on february 25, 2011. so that has to be taken into consideration in terms of planning strategy. that's my reading of it. >> professor abrahamian? >> yeah, i mean, this question is it reform or revolution regime change, it's a valid

question. but in the political context it's a divisive question because it automatically says it's one or the other, and who benefits out of this one or the other? it's actually the regime. because if you're trying to get a mass movement, bring in a lot of working class people who are still not in the reform movement, if you have ultra radical slogans, it's more likely to put them off rather than draw them in. so people on the outside said, well, this is good sign. it's more radicalized. the regime likes those focus because this will point out a lot of people there is alternative. they want to overthrow the regime. they don't want to open it up or reform it. and it works into their thing. and i'm a bit suspicious of some of these slogans.

this is where external influences come in the. if voice of america, other things outside are having these type of slogans it can be easily picked up there rather than something genuine. slogans last year had much more appeal than, you know, down with the dictator. they don't like the dictator, but there are plenty of people in be iran who still feel that the dictator is god's representative, so why lose that support by doing that? why not have a slogan that appeals to many people? >> and yet i would just add to that that the ground shifted, right? the first few weeks after the june 12, 2009, election the main slogan was, indeed, where is my votesome. >> yeah. >> that poetic one sentence that captured the world's attention. and yet that peaceful, poetic,

simple question was met with a violent repression, with hundreds, thousands of protesters, peaceful, nonviolent protesters jailed, tortured, raped. you have a police state in iran that has noticed that that slogan has disappeared as a result, also because the results of the election itself are no longer on the immediate agenda of the green movement. so i think that the ground has shifted. it's true that the leaders are very much creatures of the system, of the islamic republic, and yet they themselves have been somewhat if not radicalized, at least pushed by the experience of the crackdowns that ensued the immediate post-electoral aftermath. i would just add that this reform versus revolution thing, it's a bit of an outdated paradigm. there are timmy forward ten ash

had the clever phase, rest volution which tries to speak to the ways, you know, in which these two things kind of bleed into one another. and one of the contributors to this book gave a presentation last year in which he tried to capture some of those nuances. um, let's take one more. yes. >> [inaudible] >> oh, wait, can we have -- the microphone? >> just going back to a lead ore the movement, would it not be even easier for a regime to get rid of it if there were one or two people that they could lose? [laughter] as opposed to just a movement that's going from the crowd -- >> or even more effectively brainwashing -- >> exactly. yeah. >> there was another hand up.

let's see, yes. this gentleman and then over there. yes. >> one question for each professor. i'd like to know how did you get to the 15-20% number for the support of the regime. and for professor abrahamian, you had a very in-depth analysis of the political opposition involved and the social movement before the 1939 revolution -- 979 revolution. these days we have two lines of debate around the social classes of the green movement.

one is around this claim that most of the people involved in the green movement are from the middle class, upper middle class. and i would like to know your take on that. and secondly, people say even if that's true, even if that's the case still those people are the soft leaders, driving the engine of the society or that probably they would be enough to make a social change happen. so i'd like to know your take on both of those. thank you. >> very quickly, the free set of elections that existed in the islamic republic of iran were between about 1997 and about 2001. when the reform movement sort of surged. and if you look at sort of the results of those elections, they were, they sort of demonstrated consistently that the conservatives sort of hard-core ideological supporter of the

regime hovered around 20%. i mean, 70/30 the first time, but in the 2000 elections the reformists did quite well. if you look at all of those elections, there was always this solid base of support that the regime could draw upon. of course, this is not an exact science. and, of course, you know, depending on what moment in time we're talking about. but just my general reading of iranian politics is, you know, based on those opinion surveys, those elections, there was a solid base of support that the regime could always count on. they would come up to the polls loyally, and it would hover around 20%. sometimes it was higher, into the 30s, sometimes it was lower. but i would put it if i had to put a rough sort of estimate, it would be around the 20% figure. so that's what it's based on. >> i would like to quote ervand abrahamian although he would certainly be in a better position to quote himself. i have his exact words in front

of me about the class comp composition of the green movement in his essay in this book which was originally published in the london review of books and which carries the title, "i am not a speck of dirt; i'm a retired teacher." >> i'm not retired, by the way. [laughter] >> he's not retired, he was quoting a teacher, an older gentleman in the streets of tehran who was engaging, participating in one of the demonstrations, the largest demonstration. and as many may recall, ahmadinejad had refer today the protesters -- referred to the protesters after the elections as garbage or specks of dirt. one of the signs that this, this sign that this particular gentleman was carrying with him had the poetic expression, i am not a speck of dirt, i am a retired teacher. and that became the title of professor abrahamian's essay in the book. but in this essay, the professor

describes this particular demonstration that took place on june 15th, three days after the contested election, to be held -- which was held at freedom square in tehran. around a million people heeded the call. the conservative mayor of tehran put the number at three million. the conservative mayor. the scene was reminiscent of the rallies held in the same square during the 1979 revolution. as in 1979, the security forces were kept away to prevent clashes. the rally -- here's the key point -- the rally drew all kinds of protesters; old and young, professionals and workers, students, women wearing sunglasses and head scarves as well as those in full-length garb. from the better-off northern districts as well as from the

working class southern ones. and just one more quote on that point. in another wonderful essay in the book called, "this magic green bracelet." a simple glance at the background of iran's prominent student leaders tells you that by and large they are not the children of the affluent citizens of north tehran, but instead come from provincial working class families or are the children of rural school teachers and clerks. the western media cliche of an opposition limit today the upper middle class belies reality. these future leaders of iran commonly hail from the heartland of ahmadinejad's purported support base. so i would simply say that the class composition -- and

interestingly enough, in egypt and tunisia as well -- you have every social class represented. and you also have, importantly in the iran, the strong support of trade unions. those organized laborers in iran who see their interests interlocked with organized labor. >> [inaudible] >> if i could actually answer that. i think the big demonstration is a moment of enthusiasm when you do get an upsurge, overwhelming support, and that's very cross-class. but once things settle down, sort of when you're looking at the core, where is the real opposition, then i think class interpretation, class dimension is more important than cross-cultural. and it's interesting that we're

using the term class because for the last 50 years american social scientists have said there is no such thing. we're wasting your time. but now it seems that it's back. but it's a way of analysis. here i would agree. i think the core of, or the van vanguard of the movement is the university-educated class, upper middle class. and can that's where the report comes from. during the election i think you got a lot of support from the poorer sections of town. you could see this with the journalists who were there. you just didn't get it, it was much more passive. the enthusiasm was in the north, but down in the south you didn't actually get much support. and i since 2009 what we do see

is, of course, the consistency of the middle class, educated demonstrators and so on. of course, you get some people from the south. but what is actually you can see limitation is there hasn't flowed baa saris. they might sympathize, but they don't seem to go on strike or join. in fact, someone last week was saying he went and observed the beg demonstrations -- big demonstrations where the people went to the bazaar to gather support. they stood there and watched. they weren't unsympathetic, but they were not joining which is very different from '79. and in the working class you also find the more organized people, bus drivers are, obviously, very

anti-ahmadinejad. but you haven't had major strikes. clearly, it's not like '79 where you're going to get enough antagonism against the regime there that they're willing to go on strike. so the class analysis does apply, but it is still very much the core of it is will. that doesn't mean then what the regime claims. well, the regime has the support of everyone else. it's much more you can say apathy, passivity, but not enthusiastic support for the regime. so the core of the regime, as nader says, is about 20%. and you can go back to the first election where they got to 20%. i would call that