Iran: the winds of change?

WHILE NEWS coming out of Egypt, Syria and Turkey of late has been decidedly disturbing, the situation in Iran, putative member of the Axis of Evil, has been rosier. Predictions prior to the Iranian presidential election of June 14 were dire. Remembering what happened four years ago, where a disputed electoral result saw the political situation deteriorating, few held high hopes for this latest election.

Pre-electoral hijinks were at their usual level in Tehran, with the Guardian Council banning several significant candidates from running, theoretically paving the way for a hardliner to win, an outcome that pundits expected would tighten the conservative grip on the levers of power and further alienate the populace from the regime. In the event, Hassan Rouhani, running on a pro-reform ticket, won the election. His victory prompted widespread jubilation across Iran.

It remains to be seen if such a result is a sleight of hand from the regime, if it’s a sign of pragmatism on the part of those hardliners who wield. Or it may be that regime insiders wedged themselves.

Did the regime realise that it needed to concede some ground to a largely disengaged electorate and offer up a presidential candidate who, while remaining an insider, could address societal ills and salve the political frustrations of Iranians at large? Or did an attempt to eliminate pro-reform voices from the electoral rolls mean that the hardline vote was split amongst a range of conservative candidates thus leaving the way clear for all voters of a reformist inclination to vote for the single palatable candidate? Whatever the case, the punters opted for Rouhani, giving him a resounding majority.

While there has been some cynicism about the installation of Rouhani (could he just be a Khamenei stooge?), the fact is that suddenly the political situation in Iran and the geopolitical scene around it seem a whole lot less ominous. Rouhani appears to have the ear of the Supreme Leader and the support of the people, meaning that real change may be a possibility, perhaps. (Yes, that is a qualified observation!) There have been plenty of “springs” forecast in the region in recent years, most of which have been beset by squalls and which have failed to deliver real change, but could it be that an “Iranian spring” is in the offing?

As reported in The Guardian after the inauguration of the new president, Rouhani signalled his intention to engage with the West, and the US in particular, in order to redress the poisonous and combative atmosphere that has long persisted but which had reached a peak under the previous incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

It’s tempting to believe that Rouhani’s campaign promise to re-orient dealings with the West was a significant part of his appeal to the Iranian electorate. In my own experience, most Iranians-on-the-street harbour no ill feelings towards the West or Westerners (with some exceptions, no doubt). Generally they are eager to engage and many speak very good English. The welcome Western travellers receive in Iran is genuine and spontaneous, even more so than in Turkey, in my estimation. Indeed, some pundits say that of all Muslim nations it is the Iranians (hardline elements aside) who are most enamoured of the US and the West in general.

Another significant part of Rouhani’s appeal to Iranian voters was his pledge to focus on economic issues. The Iranian economy had gone seriously pear-shaped during Ahmadinejad’s tenure, despite windfall oil royalties that should have guaranteed a healthy economic outlook. Ahmadinejad’s bombast and sabre-rattling have clearly done Iran little good, in particular his intransigence on the nuclear issue, which, in providing the impetus for economic sanctions, has only worsened the impacts of his erratic, ill-judged and populist economic policies.

Newly incumbent Iranian presidents have made brave statements before; such bravado has led to their undoing, or at least their falling in the estimation of Iranian voters when said pledges, however basic, fundamentally sound or eminently sensible, prove undoable in the prevailing political climate. Such failure, or inability, to follow through results in the disillusionment of the Iranian electorate. (Think of Khatami’s brandishing of a copy the constitution on the campaign trail in 1997 and swearing that it was his intention, if elected to the presidency, to uphold the rule of law inherent within the constitution. Hardline stonewalling and general chicanery stymied his reform programme and saw him in the end derided as a “lame duck” president.)

Bringing a degree of accountability to the Iranian political arena, the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto has instituted the Rouhani-meter, a gauge to see how well Rouhani goes in pursuing and implementing his campaign promises. The meter is touted as a mechanism to “enhance the profile of democratic voices outside Iran, to connect them to Iranians inside Iran, and provide a space for public dialogue”. It certainly demonstrates that Rouhani ran on an ambitious platform, but let’s hope that in months and years to come it doesn’t serve to highlight the hopelessness of the reformist cause in Iran. Rouhani must pull of a delicate balancing act, in retaining the support of the electorate while (and more importantly) not incurring the wrath or invoking the resistance of the hardline conservative apparatus that determines the trajectory that the Islamic Republic is allowed to travel in.

While Iranians are no doubt expecting Rouhani to follow through on his campaign platform any optimism is tempered by bitter experience following both the Khatami era false dawn and the forceful suppression of the Green movement after the elections of 2009. The prospect of real change in the Iranian political sphere remains difficult to gauge.

On other fronts, there have been some positives since Rouhani’s inauguration in August. The appointment of Mohammad Javad Zarif as Foreign Minister was generally well received. US-educated and with a track record of pragmatic and even-handed diplomacy, Zarif marked a different course for Iranian international relations when he conveyed his best wishes for the Jewish New Year.

The Supreme Leader, Khamenei has since given hints that Iranian positions may not be so forcefully held, remarking that in diplomacy “heroic flexibility” was sometimes desirable. Such a position led to speculation that there may have been an opening for a one-on-one meeting between Barack Obama and Rouhani last week at the UN general assembly. This idea was eventually scotched, presumably because hardliners both in US and Iranian camps would have kicked up too much of a fuss. In the end, contact was made by phone, a conversation that by all accounts proceeded smoothly. It was a small but significant step, and hopefully a prelude to further engagement.

In an indication of the struggle that Rouhani faces to maintain a balance between engaging with the West and incurring the wrath of hardline regime loyalists in Iran, he was met by a significant crowd in Tehran upon his return from talking at the UN. Some threw eggs and shoes at him, others welcomed him warmly. However it appears that the majority of Iranians are excited at the prospect of a thaw in Iran-US relations.

Is a thaw a harbinger of a spring? Let’s hope so.

Twilight in Kashgar

A shortened version of this feature first appeared in the Travel & Indulgence pages of The Weekend Australian on September 7-8. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/another-time-and-pace/story-e6frg8rf-1226712070378 

Evening is a drawn out affair in Kashgar, the great Silk Road entrepôt in China’s northwestern Xinjiang province. Official time is in sync with Beijing, so in this city four hours’ flying time west of the capital the working day effectively ends in the mid-afternoon and darkness doesn’t descend until 9:00pm. I learn quickly that when making arrangements it’s vital to specify whether a rendezvous is at “Beijing time” or “Kashgar time”.

In October, as summer has faded and the clear skies of autumn hover, sticking to “Beijing time” lends an unhurried  quality to the gloaming. In and around Kashgar’s Old Town this just gives the locals longer to congregate outdoors.

As elsewhere in Asia, life is lived on the streets here. Walking along Seman Lu I encounter a lively poker game on the broad pavement. Women congregate to chat. Market gardeners sell grapes, weighed out on balancing scales. Passers-by gather for snacks at roadside stalls.

It’s my first time in China but I can’t overcome a sense of familiarity. It feels uncannily like Turkey, where I have travelled many times before. The card players on Seman Lu wear embroidered Islamic prayer caps, the gossiping mothers sport unruly headscarfs and flowing dresses, the snacks are sunflower seeds shared from newspaper cones. All of this echoes streetlife in Turkey. But of course, the local population are Uyghurs, a Muslim people who are culturally and linguistically related to the Turks.

In fact the Uyghurs are the ones who stayed behind when the nomadic Turkic peoples started their long westward migration across Eurasia in the tenth century. Yet while 1000 years may separate the residents of modern Turkey and the Uyghurs who mill around me, the similarities between the two peoples are overwhelming.

The conviviality of life in the street, the tendency to clutch the forearm of the person being spoken to, even the way pedestrians blithely step across major roads unconcerned at oncoming mopeds and taxis are so familiar it’s as if I’ve found myself in a Turkish outpost squeezed into a corner of China. The language, too, is similar. When I enter a shop and use my halting traveller’s Turkish to buy bottled water I am gifted an array of smiles.

A favourite spot for both tourists and locals is the venerable Uyghur Teahouse.  On the edge of the Old Town, the teahouse, reached via rickety stairs, offers a view of the comings and goings on Handicrafts Street. Here Uyghur elders congregate at length over pots of tea – another penchant they share with the Turks – stroking their beards, flicking prayer beads and discussing the affairs of the day.

At street level , plumes of tangy smoke rise from the grills of the kebab makers. Decorated rounds of nun  bread are on sale outside the baker’s tandir. When I visit in the afternoon, I spy several barber shops that also offer dental services, a vocational coupling that doesn’t strike me as the most obvious.

On Handicrafts Street, Uyghur artisans hammer at copper tea pots or sharpen knives while maintaining conversations with passing friends. At the Uyghur Musical Instrument Factory, a shop reeking of resin and wood shavings, collected traditional instruments are on sale. After buying a souvenir  tambourine I am treated to the plaintive vocals and shimmering dutar (long-necked lute) performance of local muqam musicians. Outside sassy Uyghur teenagers check their mobile phones while scooting around on mopeds adorned with woven saddle bags.

This oasis city on the fringe of the Taklamakan Desert has seen the comings and goings of peoples over millennia. Through here came Silk Road traffic moving both ways between China and the Mediterranean.  Different faiths and all manner of trade goods passed through Kashgar, a plethora of cargoes on the backs of mightily laden camels.

Marco Polo once passed through making dismissive comments about the local “Turkis”. During the height of the Great Game in the 19^th century the city was prone to “international melodrama” as the spies of the British and Russian empires sort to outpoint each other. And at intervals came Chinese dynastic armies expanding out of the east, seeking to subdue and envelope a vast frontier territory of which Kashgar was the focal point.

Most recently, in 1949, the People’s Republican Army marched in. The Chinese claim Xinjiang as an integral part of China, citing Han Dynasty control in the 1^st century BC and episodes of central rule since. The Uyghurs largely see it otherwise, pointing to long intervals when Turkic sultans and khans or local warlords held sway. Some draw parallels to the situation in Tibet and maintain demands for autonomy or independence.

For now, Beijing is firmly in control, marshalling the Xinjiang region (fully one-sixth of the Chinese landmass) for redevelopment and modernisation. Redevelopment in Kashgar centres on the Old Town, much of which is being demolished to allow ranks of apartment buildings to be constructed. Winding alleys, shaded courtyards and centuries-old stucco houses adorned with carved wooden embellishments are being bulldozed in the name of progress.

Authorities claim that the Old Town is an earthquake risk and new housing is necessary. Local opinion is divided. One local, Khadija, tells me it is “good and bad”. She likes the idea of modern conveniences but fears the dispersal of her neighbourhood community. Another, Mustafa, tells me, “Some Uyghurs say that [existing] buildings are old and small. But mostly they say ‘no, no, no…’”

Parts of the Old Town are being preserved, however, as a “living museum”. I buy an entrance ticket and wander several streets. Here, life is lived at close quarters. Little girls play on doorsteps. Boys kick footballs in alleyways that have coded paving stones, hexagonal for throughways, rectangular for dead ends. There are no cars, just the odd pedlar arriving on a three-wheeled motorbike to deliver vegetables. Conversations echo in enclosed spaces. Hearing the Turkic lilt of Uyghur voices, I could be in old Istanbul.

Some see the pulling down of the Old Town as a move towards smothering Uyghur identity. Others claim the Chinese government’s action, whether done with good intentions or otherwise, will ultimately lead to the assimilation of the Uyghurs. The Uyghurs and the Han Chinese already share many characteristics: a flare for communal storytelling, gregariousness, a predilection for round-the-clock cups of tea, eating breakfast with chopsticks. Will Uyghur distinctiveness eventually be lost?

I prefer to think that a culture and lifestyle as vibrant and boisterous as that of the Uyghurs will not be so easily overcome. I think of the sassy moped pilots, the noisy pavement poker players. At the Sunday livestock market I watch burly Uyghur farmers wrestling yaks onto trucks, man-handling sheep and taking donkeys for “test drives”. These dignified men, with calloused hands and buttoned waistcoats, are no push-overs.

This region has long been a melting pot. Cultures and creeds have intermingled and overlapped here since time immemorial. Chinese and Uyghur cohabitation need not be a zero sum game. My last meal in Kashgar is evidence of this. Surrounded by Chinese and Uyghur chatter, I eat chilli-encrusted lamb with pulled noodles and braised cabbage.

Leaving the restaurant, I pause at the kerb. Twilight again. A brooding sky. Swallows zip overhead. The street lights suddenly ripple on. I abandon myself to the traffic and step out amongst the racing mopeds.