By Nasrin Alavi | Open Democracy

The Iranian ruling elite is pushing the message that Iran's own revolutionary experience inspires the popular revolts in the Arab world. In doing so, the elite's leading figures are tying themselves in knots.

Their observations on the new-media aspects of the protests are especially revealing, given that Iran is in so many ways the homeland of cyber-activism.

"The People Reloaded" explores Iran's Green Movement: this essay is included in the anthology ed. by Nader Hashemi & Danny PostelMohsen Rezaei, leading hardliner and former military commander of the Revolutionary Guards, compares the use of the internet to the "cassette-tape campaign" mounted before the 1979 revolution to disseminate in Iran the sermons of the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini. "The internet and texting", he says, "have filled the void of guerrilla organisations, helping people to take part in revolutionary action." The twist is that Rezaei is here talking not about Iranian internet users, but of how the "the Islamic revolution" is today being "exported to the Arab world."

On Wednesday, May 11, 2011, the editors of The People Reloaded will present their anthology at the Levantine Cultural Center in Los Angeles, with talks by contributors Reza Aslan, Muhammad Sahemi and Nader Hashimi. RSVPs to 310.657.5511

Ali Larijani, speaker of Iran's majlis (parliament), comments: "The young today are politically aware; the shutting down of the internet and networks will not cure anything." The twist is that Larijani is referring to the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, even as the state he serves has built a vast internet-police system whose rigorous censorship and surveillance of cyberspace has led to harassment, imprisonment and even executions.

The reaction of a single Iranian blogger represents many: "Mr Larijani, do you believe in what you say—or is freedom good only for foreigners, but not us?"

Indeed, the establishment's celebration of an "Iranian-style Islamic awakening" in the Arab world coupled with excoriation of domestic dissent brings a new meaning to the term double-standards. Persian-language cyber-critics are caustic about the sheer hypocrisy involved. "They say the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia were the consequence of the export of our revolution", said one. "In all honesty if you wanted to export the Damavand [mountains] they would reach their destination faster".

The new wave

the June 2009 demonstrations in Iran inspired world solidarity with the Iranian peopleThe events on 14 February 2011 in many parts of Iran are the most potent answer imaginable to the authorities' bad faith, as tens of thousands of protestors gathered in the streets of Tehran and other cities in response to calls by reformist opposition leaders Mehdi Karroubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi to rally in solidarity with the "freedom fighters of [Cairo's] Tahrir Square."

The state's repressive response inflicted two reported deaths and entailed hundreds of arrests. The next day, says  the Commitee of Human Rights Reporters, Tehran's revolutionary court posted the names and details of 1,500 detainees; student groups say that others taken from campuses in Tehran, Isfahan, Mashhad and Shiraz remain unaccounted for. The newly imprisoned will join the thousands still incarcerated from the months of demonstrations following the stolen presidential election of June 2009.