Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is busy doing the work the people, well, didn’t elect him to do:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered government and cultural bodies to use modified Persian words to replace foreign words that have crept into the language, such as “pizzas” which will now be known as “elastic loaves,” state media reported Saturday.
The presidential decree, issued earlier this week, orders all governmental agencies, newspapers and publications to use words deemed more appropriate by the official language watchdog, the Farhangestan Zaban e Farsi, or Persian Academy, the Irna official news agency reported.
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Among other changes, a “chat” will become a “short talk” and a “cabin” will be renamed a “small room,” according to official Web site of the academy.
While such a decree on language purification is supposed to show the overwhelming strength of the Iranian state, in reality it is indicitive of its weakness. Mahmoud Ahmdinejad was elected by Iranians to deal directly with the conservative forces in government, of which he is obviously a part of, to bring about the economic revival that mullah opposition to the moderates during President Mohammed Khatami’s eight year term hamstrung. He was not elected primarily due to his extreme views on Persian cultural identity, even if his actions while in office are less than surprising. The Iranian public is becoming increasingly impatient with the lack of movement on economic reform, which has pushed Ahmadinejad’s drive to shore up divided pblic opinion by appealing to topics on which he actually receives majority support despite failed domestic policies: nuclear energy and Israel. The decree on language, while in no way representing a new trend in governmental policy toward Farsi, does suggests that Ahmadinejad has fallen back on utilizing wedge politics to appeal to his conservative base — a sign of weakness, not strength. The failure to bring about palpable and sustainable change to the every day lives of Iranians is weakening Ahmadinejad on the domestic front, and he is not blind to that. In order to combat his eroding domestic approval despite receiving support in kind on nuclear capability and in principal on Israel, Ahmadinejad is attempting to pander to his conservative supporters at the expense of his much larger base of Iranian poor. It’s typical wedge politics, the same sort that brings about innane American congressional debates on gay marriage and flag burning during an election year where issues of actual importance, such as war, budgetary concerns, and health care, should be on the table instead.
The Iranian leadership, meaning the ultra conservative Guardian Council that vets all legislation, is not interested in aiding Ahmadinejad attain his campaign-promised economic goals. However, Ahmadinejad’s closest allies, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), is not interested in supporting an Ahmadinejad-led economic reformation, either. The IRGC, the subversive, militant governmental faction that Ahmadinejad once was a commander in, controls vast swaths of the Iranian economy through charitable fronts known as “foundations.” The Imam Reza Shrine Foundation is one of the largest of these charities, and utilizes full control over the highly important Iman Rezza Shrine to collect funds from domestic and foreign visitors and funnel the money to the IRGC and its leaders. But it’s not just religious sites the foundations control and utilize to accumulate wealth — the IRGC also controls large real estate, industrial, and hospitality firms throughout Iran that receive no governmental oversight centered on reducing corruption and guaranteeing acceptable working conditions. Obviously, Ahmadinejad would face staunch opposition to any attempts taken at instilling economic accountability and reform from those he has received the most support from within the conservative establishment. Perhaps he was never serious about increasing economic prosperity throughout Iran, but the probable reality is that Ahmadinejad believed he could bring about change without directly confronting his closest allies, an impossible goal that has led to his most outrageous domestic overtures.
However, ignoring domestic concerns cannot go on indefinitely. Even the war in Lebanon and Iran’s financial support for Hizbollah, which is in the hundreds-of-millions per month range, is not being treated as a winner by a number of Iranians. And when Ahmadinejad cannot dodge domestic political realities by playing the Israel card, he knows he’s in trouble.
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on October 4th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
[…] Iran has decided that a coordinated PR campaign is a way to garner public support and undermine the authority of those opposing him. In the face of continuing domestic problems, he not only needs to focus on generating external threats (see Chavez, Hugo), but to get help from outside to do it. […]