Arab countries watch Iran from afar
CAIRO - Footage of burning cars, masked boys, and bloodied protesters in Iran is playing across the Middle East, captivating Arab countries where repressive regimes for years have been arresting political bloggers and cyberspace dissidents.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other Sunni nations have tense relations with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Shi’ite-led theocracy ruling Iran. But they do not want protests in Tehran to inspire similar democratic fervor in their countries - especially the merging of Facebook and Twitter with a potent opposition leader like Iran’s presidential challenger, Mir-Hossein Mousavi.
So far, that has yet to happen. Egyptian activists, for example, over the past year have called for rallies and strikes on the Internet’s social networks, but they have no galvanizing personality and are not organized enough to pose a threat to a police state controlled by President Hosni Mubarak.
“I don’t think similar events could even take place in Egypt or other Arab countries,’’ said the editor of the Cairo independent Al Dustour, Ibrahim Issa, who has been arrested a number of times for criticizing the Mubarak government. “We hope and we always keep faith that what’s happening in Iran could push Arabs to try to do the same against their oppressive regimes. But reality tells us that this is not applicable. We are comparing 30 years of what I can call Iranian democracy to 30 years of Egyptian tyranny.’’
The Middle East is witnessing Iran slip into a guerrilla-style Internet and Twitter game of strategies and slogans pecked out by protesters attempting to outflank a government that has largely crimped communication outlets, leaving the nation breathless on snippets of text and stealthily uploaded pictures.
It is a battle on the streets and across the airways, in a realm where technology is both churning out and smothering polarizing messages and images. Iranian authorities have blocked opposition websites, jammed satellite TV channels, and cut off text messaging.
Still, word is trickling beyond the censors, linking, however sparsely, protesters from Tehran to those elsewhere in the country.
Iran is offering an intriguing glimpse into how years of disillusionment can leap from cafes and university campuses to a national revolt in which dueling political voices and agendas square off with banners, rhetoric, and allegations of election fraud. It is a mix of political activism, democratic expression, and shorthand typed in tight grids of letters and numbers onto screens large and small.
Activists and bloggers watching developments in Iran from afar say the protests show the promise and limits of technology in orchestrating the kind of social unrest seen in Tehran.
There is also the sentiment that Iranian activists rising up against an anti-Western regime can enjoy more international support than their counterparts in Arab countries where anti-democratic governments are close US allies.
“A cyber war and its bloggers [can’t] carry out a revolution or overthrow a certain regime on its own,’’ said Wael Abbas, a blogger and human-rights activist in Egypt. “Full revolution has to come from the masses in the streets.’’
