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Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Nationalists and Double Standards

Iranian state media coverage of the Egyptian demonstrations has been both ubiquitous and remarkably candid, if a bit oblivious to its connotations. Iran’s government-employed news commentators have been quite critical of the use of force by pro-Mubarak supporters against unarmed protesters on the streets of Cairo, apparently totally unaware of the irony of their criticism. […]

Iranian state media coverage of the Egyptian demonstrations has been both ubiquitous and remarkably candid, if a bit oblivious to its connotations. Iran’s government-employed news commentators have been quite critical of the use of force by pro-Mubarak supporters against unarmed protesters on the streets of Cairo, apparently totally unaware of the irony of their criticism. Meanwhile, both leaders of the Green Movement and supporters of the Iranian regime have taken turns claiming the mantle of the young Egyptian protesters for themselves and comparing each other to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime. ~Reza Aslan

State-run media or not, this would hardly be the first time that media outlets have valorized the opponents of an officially vilified regime and professed outrage that the regime would use force against them. The same outlets then become curiously silent and indifferent when their own government or allies engage in similarly outrageous behavior. Applying this sort of double standard is depressingly common.

I doubt that Iranian state media employees are unaware of some of the similarities between the Egyptian protests and the protests in their country in recent years. They are reflecting the views of Iranian government leaders, who may very well believe that the two sets of protests are very different. Nationalists anywhere in the world are likely to see opposition to their own government very differently than they see the opposition to governments elsewhere.

For many nationalists, dissent and protest against the government or an allied government are signs of disloyalty and possible sympathy with the enemies of the nation and its allies, and people who are protesting against an enemy government are naturally perceived as courageous allies that deserve sympathy and support. This is what some conservative critics of the administration have been doing when they denounce Obama for being too hard on Mubarak and too indifferent to the Green movement. They accept that democratic protests are effectively a form of subversion, and they want that subversion directed only at governments they oppose. This line of criticism is hard to take seriously, since Obama seems to be doing all that he can to slow down the political transition in Egypt, and there was nothing that he could have done for the Green movement even if he had thought it was a good idea, but it fits the pattern described above very nicely.

When the other government is a recognized rival and opponent, that makes the application of the double standard that much easier: the enemy regime is cruelly mistreating its people, while our government (or our ally’s government) is merely restoring order and keeping the country safe from foreign subversion. Indeed, the more poisonous the relationship between two states the easier it is to attribute any dissent to the activities of the agents of the other state. The Egyptian regime has been claiming just this sort of outside agitation by its enemies, just as the Iranian government insisted on seeing the election protests in 2009-10 as a foreign-backed “color” revolution. This is not only a reliable propaganda device to convince undecided people to think twice before sympathizing with the protesters, but it is also an expression of the (delusional?) confidence in the regime that it still retains the support of most of the people.

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