Iran is using cartoons to fight decline in anti-Americanism - 24-Mar-07 - Generational Dynamics

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 24-Mar-07

Iran is using cartoons to fight decline in anti-Americanism

Anti-Americanism has been declining in Iran for ten years, according to Sadegh Zibakalam, a professor at the University of Tehran, in an interview broadcast by CNN on Saturday.

Professor Sadegh Zibakalam of the University of Tehran. <font size=-2>(Source: CNN)</font>

Professor Sadegh Zibakalam of the University of Tehran. (Source: CNN)

To combat this decline in anti-Americanism, Iran's government has been resorting to televised cartoons that "poke fun at the U.S." Other cartoons are anti-Israeli and very anti-Semitic.

According to Professor Zibakalam:

"There are [fewer] anti-Americans amongst average Iranians than there were 5 years ago, or certainly a decade ago.

So maybe the government has realized that the anti-American feeling is on the decline, and they've started to make these cartoons to sort of sustain anti-American feeling."

Here's an example of one of the cartoons:

Iranian cartoon "poking fun at the U.S." <font size=-2>(Source: CNN)</font>

Iranian cartoon "poking fun at the U.S." (Source: CNN)

The CNN announcer describes what's happening as follows:

"President Bush also often gets a grilling. Here, he's talking to the world about Iran's nuclear program, alleging Iran wants nuclear weapons, all while his nose grows longer like Pinnochio, in front of a laughing globe.

The cartoons appeal to many here, which is why some moderates are concerned that the average Iranian will confuse American policy and the American people. But for the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it is just a new campaign against an old enemy."

What's going on here is completely generational, as I described in my recent lengthy analysis of Iran's strategy.

In brief: The Iranians' last crisis war was the Islamic revolution of 1979 followed by the Iran/Iraq war. The generation of people who survived that war blame Iran's difficulties on the U.S. and on America's previous alliance with the Shah of Iran.

However, as the postwar generation comes of age, Iran is in a generational Awakening era, and the Shah of Iran is just a random old fossil that the leaders are using to impose Islamic law on citizens. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is particularly despised for this, especially by women, who always become infuriated with leaders during generational Awakening eras. The women of Tehran are considered among the most stylish in the world, and Ahmadinejad's rules, restricting the wearing of Western apparel and limiting public contact with males, are not going down very well.

The Iranian leadership doesn't understand this (just as few leaders anywhere understand generational issues). They think that this is a problem in education or something, and that by showing a few cartoons about the "evil" George Bush, they'll somehow convince the women to go back to their burkas again -- and anyone who knows anything about women also knows that this will never happen until pigs fly.

Iran is much in the news today for several different reasons:

On Friday, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, a vestige of the 1979 Islamic revolution, took 15 British marines and sailors hostage at gunpoint in the Persian Gulf. Today, the hostages "admitted" on Iranian television that they were caught in an act of "blatant aggression." We've seen all this before, with the Iranian hostage crisis of the 1980s, and with a smaller hostage situation in 2004.

Later today, the U.N. Security Council will be voting on sanctions against Iran for failure to abandon its nuclear development. The sanctions have been considerably watered down from what the U.S. wanted, but the result is that the vote is expected to be unanimously in favor, and a major humiliation to Iran.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had demanded the right to visit the Security Council meeting and to speak, but he canceled on Friday evening. He blamed the cancellation on U.S. visa issues, but that reason isn't credible. In my opinion, the most likely reason is that his "bosses" in the Iranian leadership told him to cancel, rather than make another loony speech that the world will condemn Iran for.

(24-Mar-07) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 24-Mar-07 Iran is using cartoons to fight decline in anti-Americanism

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 24-Mar-07
Iran is using cartoons to fight decline in anti-Americanism