“25 years since Foucault died and ……… The idea of moral relativism is still dominant among many people. ”

No. Some of us occaisionally hear of it being denounced, otherwise, it isn’t noticeable.

I’ll just pick a few and add some of my own thoughts about random but related stuff.

In relation to this being a ‘middle class revolt,’ I would ask those who assert this pejoratively to define what they mean by middle class; do they refer to wealth or do they refer to education or do they refer to both? Personally, I think the fact that the majority of people on the protests are educated and therefore are likely to be more open minded, curious and questioning is not an indictment of the protests but an indication of their importance in creating a more enlightened society in Iran. There are trade unionists at the protests, and, due to the difficulties of organising inside Iran, the people who are active in the trade union movement in Iran today are very likely to be deeply thougthful, courageous people, who are also enlightnened in their attitude to rights.

Further, surely no-one wuold argue that education is not a tool of emancipation? Surely no-one would argue that the global efforts by NGOs, Trade Unions, (some) international governments and academic institutions to bring education to children denied it by either a lack of resources or by anti-education forces such as the Taliban is the right thing to do? Surely people realise that education frees the mind and that therefore those who are privileged enough to have received an education are more likely to be more open minded?

For those who argue that Ahmadinejad did win the election (although admitting that it was not by as much as was stated) and that we should therefore accept this as the outcome of a democratic process, I would simply point out the following: four hundred and seventy five candidates put themselves forward to stand in this election and only four were cleared to stand by the Council of Guardians. This was a democratic process so squeezed that it is barely democratic at all. The importance of these protests is not the fight between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad, but the fight for greater openness, greater democracy, greater personal freedom and greater equality in Iran in the future.

The Rose Revolution was in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. And it goes downhill from there, I’m afraid.

Great post, Nora. And yes, Seumas Milne has always been objectionable.

His blog’s fantastic – both in the sense of being brilliant and being a work of fantasy. Yesterday’s highlight was:

I sometimes get angry emails from the right sorts of addresses, blaming my very persistent comments on things like Coffee House, Conservative Home, the Telegraph blog and Iain Dale’s Diary for eventually forcing David Cameron to say that he would campaign for a No vote in any referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

If you can navigate through the waffle, he’s claiming credit for changing Conservative Party policy on the Lisbon Treaty.

They would like to be against the Ayatollahs, but they can’t, because the Ayatollahs are useful against the “Zionists”. And if anybody in the left were to argue that Zionists aren’t as bad as the Ayatollahs, they would be forcefully silenced and considered traitors.

Disturbing to see how many of the usual leftist suspects (including Milne and some of the posters here) belittle or even abuse the protesters on the grounds that they may be middle class or urban dwellers, and lack the supposed authenticity (or god knows what) of the rural wirkers. I live in Cambodia, where everyone knows all too well what’s at the bottom of that slippery slope. For too many of these people, the idea of “equality” in fact means “inequality but on my terms” or, worse, the target of some kind of retribution for perceived wrongs.

And words fail me in relation to those who seem to think that the war in Iraq precludes anyone in the West supporting the right of the Iranian populace to self-determination, equality and greater freedom.

With regard to Seamus Milne’s sneering despicable tripe in the gaga Guardian, I can only echo what one person posted in response at the Guardian’s website: does anyone at the Guardian actually check the horseshite he writes before they publish it? For example, the leader of the Guardian’s Guardian Council, Michael White.