Your war questions answered: What can Americans do to help Iran’s democracy movement?
June 26th, 2009 by Andisheh Nouraee in News
Ed. note: This piece, by Andisheh Nouraee, will appear in next week’s issue of Creative Loafing.
What can Americans do to help Iran’s democracy movement?
Even though I’m an Iranian-American and think you’re kind of a bigot for asking me, I’m going to answer you anyway:
1. Green your life
Prior to Iran’s June 11 presidential election, green was the color of leading opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s campaign. Green evokes spring and new life. It also symbolizes Islam, Iran’s dominant religion. The national flags of most predominantly Muslim countries contain at least some green.
When Iranian authorities began their violent crackdown against the opposition immediately after the election, the meaning of green changed. It no longer symbolizes support for Mousavi. It symbolizes support for the right of Iranians to have their votes counted.
Within a few days of the election, World Wide Websters began greening their pages and profiles as a gesture of solidarity with Iran’s courageous pro-democracy demonstrators. I have not yet been able to communicate directly with anyone in Iran, but I suspect once pro-democracy Iranians who are aware of the world’s supportive green-ness are at least a little bit gratified by the symbolic support. Who doesn’t like to be appreciated?
So if you wanna brighten a pro-democracy Iranian’s day, go ahead and make your Facebook profile picture and Twitter icons green. Don’t bother with your MySpace page. Nobody looks at that anyway.
Be green offline, too. Wear a green shirt. Wear a green armband. Eat split pea soup. Garnish liberally with parsley. Eat big salads in public. Grow some plants. Be green with envy. Be green with nausea. Date former Beverly Hills, 90210 star Brian Austin Green. I hear Megan Fox just dumped him.
2. Green your country
Tinting your life green in support of Iranian democracy is all well and good, but there’s another kind of greening that, over the long term, will do a lot more to help Iranian democrats.
During World War II, there was a U.S. propaganda poster depicting a man driving a car. He was alone in the car except for a ghostly outline of Adolf Hitler in the passenger seat. Emblazoned above the car were the words “When you ride ALONE, you ride with Hitler.” Translation: Wasting gasoline is unpatriotic because it diverts precious resources away from the war effort.
In 2002, comedian Bill Maher updated the concept with his book When You Ride Alone You Ride with Bin Laden: What the Government Should Be Telling Us to Help Fight the War on Terrorism. Al-Qaeda was funded in large part by oil money. By wasting fuel, Maher argues, Americans subsidize Bin Laden’s terrorism.
The same idea applies to Iran. When you ride alone, you ride with Ahmadinejad. The Iranian government’s lurch towards fascism is funded by the developed world’s addiction to fossil fuels.
Oil, natural gas and their chemical derivatives account for 85 percent of Iran’s export earnings. When the price of those commodities are high, Iran’s thugocrats can arms themselves against their own people, fill their Swiss bank accounts and still have enough left over to buy off Iranians with economic and social development.
High fuel prices allow the Iranian regime to wallpaper over their corruption and economic incompetence with petro-cash. When fossil fuel prices, plummet, there’s less cash for wallpapering. Cheap oil weakens the hardliners who control Iran by strengthening regime moderates who want to normalize relations diplomatic and economic relations with the West.
Any action or policy reducing U.S. dependence on fossil fuels supports democracy in Iran. Ride a bike. Carpool. And write a letter to Congress voicing your support for higher fuel taxes and fuel economy standards for cars.
3. Mock people who say Obama should be more vocal in his criticism of Iran’s government.
Obama isn’t perfect, but he’s playing this one correctly. Iran’s hardliners want more than anything to tar the protestors in Iran as agents or dupes of Western powers.
As satisfying as it might be to some here to have the president speak out in support of Iranian protestors, it can only do harm to the protestors.
June 26th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
This idiot for “our” president just does not get it, does he? (answer) No! The only thing that will help out this economy is to relax high restrictions on “big business’, but no, the human tater-tot in the white house has decided to go the other direction and promote the Green Bill, Health Care. Which yes all those need to be addressed, but only when this country is working again making money… He is a socialist and for all of you who voted, you were wrong!
June 26th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
What in the heck does any of that have to do with Iran, Rob?
June 26th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Go Iran! Add Mousavi to your Facebook and Twitter. He is a courageous and honorable man.
Rob, as an entrepreneur, I can assure you our great nation’s laws overwhelmingly favor corporations averaging greater than $1 million in annual revenues. Your belief in the existence of so-called “high restrictions” is blatantly ignorant. Think practically Rob, real entrepreneurs are only bound by abstracts, largely norms and mores. Why? Because we have unlimited legal counsel. Moreover, real large-cap businesses destroy innovation. Economic prosperity is best facilitated by industries with no barriers to entry fostering small-and-medium-sized businesses subject to natural selection. Only the most crooked politicians would enable self-aggrandizing large-cap endeavors.
If you really want to help bolster our economy, go start a green-business with a 7(a) term-loan furnished by President Obama’s Administration. Otherwise, quit hacking away at conservatives’ ethos. Some of them are my friends.