World Views: Iranians ''Don't Want to Go Down the Route of Civil War'' (Jan 18, 2013)

Venezuela's official gazette published a decree this week signed by ailing President Hugo Chavez. It's the first time the president's signature has appeared in the gazette since his latest cancer-related surgery, indicating he could be getting better.

The decree issued Tuesday and published Wednesday names former vice president Elias Jaua Milano as Venezuela's new foreign minister. Chavez has not made any public comments since his fourth operation in Cuba last month.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro says Chavez asked questions when he visited him. Maduro expressed gratitude to Chavez's medical team during a televised meeting in Caracas on Tuesday morning.

Maduro says that Chavez is, in his words, "climbing the hill, he's advancing." Chavez has been fighting an unspecified type of pelvic cancer.

University of Oklahoma comparative political scientist Charles Kenney is an expert on Latin American governments and democratization in the region. He says Chavez's silence has fed speculation about his condition.

"We have limited information," Kenney said. "We know he had surgery on December 11. He has not been seen since before then. The fact is that we have no idea whether he's alive, if he's in a coma, if he has a lung infection. We have no idea."

Shifting to Iran, on Wednesday President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the country must move away from dependence on oil revenue to overcome Western sanctions that have slowed the economy and disrupted foreign trade.

Political scientist Mehrzad Boroujerdi returns to World Views to discuss the domestic situation in Iran. He says even though those sanctions impoverish the middle class and create discontent, the regime isn't as effective as it once was.

"Because the government has been utilizing this discourse of anti-Americanism for the last 30 years, they have been getting a lot of mileage out of that," Boroujerdi said. "This type of discourse no longer resonates with the average Iranian citizen."

Boroujerdi founded and leads the Middle East Studies Program at Syracuse University, where he also co-founded their Religion, Media, and International Relations Program.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS

On whether or not Iran is ready for democracy

“They have been agitating, fighting for democracy really ever since the beginning of the 20th Century, with the 1906 Constitutional Revolution. That has been constantly a part of the demand and tension between the ruling elites and the citizenry in Iran. Keep in mind that the Iranian public has become accustomed to the notion of elections. Indeed, over the last 33 years, after the revolution, Iran has had almost 30 elections. So almost one election per year. This has become part and parcel of the citizenry's vocabulary of politics. Nobody is talking about doing away with elections. Were there rigging of elections before 2009? Sure, but nothing to the extent of what we witnessed in 2009, and the amazing style of vote-rigging that came about in 2009 was really perceived by the citizenry as an insult to their intelligence. Imagine you need to count 40 million votes by hand, not by computers, and you announce the results 6 or 9 hours after the polls close. The citizenry says come on, give me a break. This is not acceptable to us. So that sentiment of discontent is there.”

On his project compiling a database of information on more than 2,000 post-revolution Iranian figures

“In 1979 a whole new generation of politicians came to power. There is almost no leftover from the previous regime. And there is nothing that we know about who these new people are. What type of backgrounds do they come from, education-wise? In terms of gender? Level of their ethnicity? Ethnic ties? Nepotism? There is nothing that we know. So I undertook this project, which really should have been carried out by a major research center rather than one or two individuals, to collect over 100,000 fields of information about two dozen members of the political elite from Day One of the revolution to this day. Anyone who has occupied a position of importance or power in Iran - members of Parliament, Cabinet ministers, presidents, et cetera are all included in my database. Because, unfortunately, there is no reliable "Who is who." This is a truly formidable task.”

On other women and gender issues beyond the headscarf

“What I don't like about our discourse in this country is we've become so preoccupied with things such as the veiling issue that we basically miss all the other things appearing on our radar screen regarding women. Let me give you one simple example of what I have in mind. In Iran, because of the shortage of seats at universities, people have to go through a rigorous entrance examination to get into the university. The university has become a place for the cream of the crop. For the last few years, more than 60 percent of every entering class to Iranian universities is female. Now imagine when it comes to something such as marriage. In these types of societies, of course, marriage is often viewed as one venue for social mobility. But in Iran, a woman with a BA, MA, [or] PhD degree is not going to be willing to marry a guy with a high school diploma. So gender relations in Iran are changing, regardless of what the ayatollahs are preaching.”

FULL INTERVIEW

SUZETTE GRILLOT, HOST: Dr. Mehrzad Boroujerdi, welcome back to World Views.

MEHRZAD BOROUJERDI: Thank you.

GRILLOT: So we're going to talk a little bit about the domestic situation in Iran. We have a president that is going to be leaving office in the spring - Spring 2013 - and previous concerns among the Iranian population about the regime, an uprising in 2009 after the last election. So what is the current situation in Iran among the Iranian citizenry regarding their attitudes toward the regime? Is there still some concern about them? Are they ready for a change in regime? And what is the likely response after that election?

BOROUJERDI: Right. So there are a number of things that we need to keep in mind. A) The lingering anger and disappointment about the 2009 uprising, and how it was put down is still with us. Because the government did not manage to win over the hearts and minds. It just suppressed that movement, and forced these sentiments underground. But any chance the citizenry gets, it uses that opportunity to manifest its grievances and complaints against a regime. Again, they can come out for all sorts of reasons that, at times, we do not even expect. Keep in mind that the 1999 student uprising, as well as 2009, was totally unexpected. Nobody was expecting that degree of popular mobilization in Iran. Does this mean that people's resentment and grievances against the regime necessarily is going to translate into yet another revolution? I think that might be pushing it too far. Let's keep the following fact in mind: As far as I know, Iran and Russia are the only two countries that in one century experienced two revolutions. And as we all know, revolutions are truly costly undertakings - in monetary terms, in human terms, et cetera. So I'm not sure that I see that sentiment among the Iranian public for rising up and yet again having another revolution. The chaos of cases next door like in Iraq and Afghanistan has also convinced many Iranians that you do not necessarily want to go down the route of a civil war, because this can be, of course, so destabilizing to the average citizen. But the regime is facing an uphill battle with the Iranian public. Why? Because this is a population that has become extremely young, educated, and urban. These three factors converging all at once have created a scenario, a revolution of rising expectations, if you wish. The government is simply incapable of handling - you cannot tell this younger generation not to be idealistic. Most of them do not even remember the '79 revolution. They have been living with the restrictions and limitations of the Islamic regime, and now, thanks to globalization, Internet, et cetera; they can see a better alternative to their lifestyle next door to them. Any Iranian citizen who travels to Turkey and comes back and says, "Why can't we be like Turkey?" So these are the type of problems the Iranian state has to deal with, it seems to me, in perpetuity.

JOSHUA LANDIS: Is Iran ready for democracy? I guess that's a two-part question. One is how democratic were elections before 2009? When Iranians were so disappointed because they felt their elections were rigged. Have they always been rigged? Or is this something new that Ahmadinejad had done? And secondly, what is the effect of sanctions on the prospect of democracy in Iran? Most Americans, and most political scientists, believe that having a strong middle class, a vibrant economy, people who are wealthy and happy leads to better chances for democracy enduring. Is America shooting itself in the foot in some ways, in terms of democracy promotion through sanctions? Or not?

BOROUJERDI: Right. So, in regard to the first question, yes, I think the public is ready for democracy. They have been agitating, fighting for democracy really ever since the beginning of the 20th Century, with the 1906 Constitutional Revolution. That has been constantly a part of the demand and tension between the ruling elites and the citizenry in Iran. Keep in mind that the Iranian public has become accustomed to the notion of elections. Indeed, over the last 33 years, after the revolution, Iran has had almost 30 elections. So almost one election per year. This has become part and parcel of the citizenry's vocabulary of politics. Nobody is talking about doing away with elections. Were there rigging of elections before 2009? Sure, but nothing to the extent of what we witnessed in 2009, and the amazing style of vote-rigging that came about in 2009 was really perceived by the citizenry as an insult to their intelligence. Imagine you need to count 40 million votes by hand, not by computers, and you announce the results 6 or 9 hours after the polls close. The citizenry says come on, give me a break. This is not acceptable to us. So that sentiment of discontent is there. In regard to the second question of sanctions and its effect, yes, the sanctions unfortunately I think [are] impoverishing the middle class. It is creating a lot of discontent. However, we have to again keep in mind the following fact: Because the government has been utilizing this discourse of anti-Americanism for the last 30 years. They have been getting a lot of mileage out of that. This type of discourse no longer resonates with the average Iranian citizen. So they also hold the regime partly accountable for their standard of living, for the economic hardships. A lot of people are asking the legitimate question of, "Is going nuclear really worth it?" What type of price tag have we paid so far by way of sanctions, political costs, the isolation destroying the reputation of Iran on the international scene? They're asking if this is really worth it. So the U.S. government I think is basing itself on the calculation that the Iranians are going to cry Uncle Sam earlier than expected, and that this thing will be all nice and dandy in a matter of a few months. Again, I have to remind myself that sanctions did not necessarily bring to its knees such states as Cuba. That was determined to go its way. So far sanctions seemed to have worked more against allies than against enemies. Sanctions worked well in the case of South Africa. Sanctions worked well in 1956 when the Israelis and the French and the British invaded Egypt, and the U.S. gave them an ultimatum by pulling out of Egypt. But sanctions have not worked against North Korea. Sanctions have not worked against Cuba. If you have an oil-rich state like Iran, with a revolution determination that we want to become a regional hegemon, then you have to wonder whether sanctions are going to produce the intended results.

GRILLOT: Could you tell us a little bit about your recent project where you're compiling information about more than 2,000 post-revolutionaries in Iran? What are you hoping to do with this information, and how difficult is it, really, to study people in Iran? Or issues in Iran, given the difficulties in getting information about Iran?

BOROUJERDI: Yeah. The reason why I started this project was because I really became so dissatisfied with our state of knowledge and discourse about Iran. Where Iranian politics gets reduced to a few key personalities. So everything becomes Ahmadinejad, Khamenei, Khomeini. I started questioning that assumption by saying, "Wait a minute." In 1979 a whole new generation of politicians came to power. There is almost no leftover from the previous regime. And there is nothing that we know about who these new people are. What type of backgrounds do they come from, education-wise? In terms of gender? Level of their ethnicity? Ethnic ties? Nepotism? There is nothing that we know. So I undertook this project, which really should have been carried out by a major research center rather than one or two individuals, to collect over 100,000 fields of information about two dozen members of the political elite from Day One of the revolution to this day. Anyone who has occupied a position of importance or power in Iran - members of Parliament, Cabinet ministers, presidents, et cetera are all included in my database. Because, unfortunately, there is no reliable "Who is who." This is a truly formidable task. I have spent at least 2 hours a day doing Google searches...

GRILLOT: I was going to say, what are your sources of this information?

BOROUJERDI: Well, some information is available in the sense that the Iranian Parliament for example, puts out summary biographies of these individuals. But a lot of it is really investigative journalism. As I delved into the background of these individuals, for example, come election season when these people put out their bios to run for elections, I print things like a madman and then collect these things and go back and put this into my database, and write queries where I'm able to. Really, I think once this study is finished, this will be the only large-scale, empirical study of the Iranian elite that we have. To my knowledge, there is nothing like it for the rest of the Middle East either. I don't know if the U.S. government has a database of its own, but in the public domain there is nothing of the like that I have undertaken. So there is a lot of difficulty in obtaining information. Of course, you cannot send a questionnaire to people and say, "Fill it for me, and fax it overseas."

LANDIS: Speaking of group biographies, let me ask you about women as a whole. In the last 30 years, what has been the impact of the Islamic Republic on the status of women? Their legal rights? What they can obtain? How they can dream about their futures in Iran?

BOROUJERDI: Yeah, it's fascinating. I think the first group in post-revolutionary Iran that really rose up against the state and protested were women. Because when the issue about imposition of the veil became mandatory. However, I think again, what I don't like about our discourse in this country is we've become so preoccupied with things such as the veiling issue that we basically miss all the other things appearing on our radar screen regarding women. Let me give you one simple example of what I have in mind. In Iran, because of the shortage of seats at universities, people have to go through a rigorous entrance examination to get into the university. The university has become a place for the cream of the crop. For the last few years, more than 60 percent of every entering class to Iranian universities is female. Now imagine when it comes to something such as marriage. In these types of societies, of course, marriage is often viewed as one venue for social mobility. But in Iran, a woman with a BA, MA, [or] PhD degree is not going to be willing to marry a guy with a high school diploma. So gender relations in Iran are changing, regardless of what the ayatollahs are preaching. Iran used to have a birth rate of 3.2 percent in the 1980's. Today, that birth rate is 1.7 percent, which is below what demographers say is needed at the rate of 2.1 percent for a population to replenish itself. So the average marriage age has gone up. People are having fewer children. Viewpoints about what women can attain in society have changed. So when I say Iran is a polarized society, I don't mean just on the political domain. This cleavage between the more traditional-minded segment of the population and the more modern segment of the population really has intensified over the last 30 years in regard to issues such as gender norms.

GRILLOT: Well, it's interesting. It points out just how much more we have in common with Iran than perhaps we don't. Well, Dr. Boroujerdi, thank you so much, once again, for joining us on World Views.

BOROUJERDI: Thanks for having me, it was a pleasure.

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