It is not farfetched to say that the country of Iran has a long history of protests which lead to revolution, the second of which, in 1979 brought the present religious Islamic rule into being1. However, in the present Iranian protests we may be seeing, for the first time in history, that it is women who have been both the spark and engine for a movement that has as its aim the change of government of a country. The trigger was ignited by the torture and death (continually denied by the authorities) of a young woman, Mahsa Amini. She was the twenty-two-year-old Kurdish woman who, after her arrest by the regime’s morality police, was sent to a re-education center for “inappropriate attire” - too much hair showing from a head scarf - in Tehran. It was quickly known that she ended up in a coma and died three days later, on September 16, 2022. Very soon protests began with participants voicing anger at her death. In rather short order they evolved into calls to oust the regime: “Death to the Dictator,” and “Our disgrace is our incompetent leader,” and “We don’t want the Islamic Republic.” The slogan - and hashtag - of the protests became #WomanLifeFreedom. (Wright, 2022). Pundits suggest that the actions on the streets all over Iran have been posing a serious security and political challenge to the men who run the Islamic Republic. This is placing regime leaders in a situation that is obviously perplexing to them. Interestingly, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has commented only recently on the obvious disorder, lambasting the people in the streets and setting the brutal Revolutionary Guard on them.
Since the Shaw was ousted there has been a history of Iranian protests, some quite large, though they have dissolved over time. The historic Green Movement, that protested the fraudulent Presidential election of 2009, had huge turnouts in all the provinces to condemn the results. The protests dissipated after seven months though as the crack down on the movement’s leaders, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karrubi (Mousavi is still under house arrest to this day) were effective. Hundreds were convicted in show trials. At present the regime appears to have sufficient means - the Revolutionary Guard, the religious police that were responsible for the death of Mahsa Amini, and the courts - to contain the protests. At the same time this government has a damaged legitimacy; the majority of Iranians didn’t bother to vote in the 2021 Presidential election that delivered power to Raisi. Also, along with U.S. sanctions which have reduced currency and oil exports, Iran was an early victim of the pandemic. All have built frustration and anger against this autocratic administration. And now women (backed by many men, too) have reclaimed their voices - and are using them. The movement’s nature, organization style, leadership, and core ideals differ significantly from previous political protests. The most recent round of widespread protests took place in 2019, after the government’s sudden decision to raise gasoline prices. At the time, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and police forces killed more than 1,500 people, a shocking record even by the regime’s brutal standards. Khalan (2022) suggests that the present effort is singular by a number of features:
First, this movement’s major focus of discontent is not an economic one. The protesters’ main slogan is “Women, Life, Freedom,” indicating a more generalized and fundamental opposition to the whole system’s attempts to engineer all aspects of citizens’ lives in both the public and
private spheres. Women in particular have been the victims of these violations of human rights. Thus, human dignity is at the centre of the demands which are a direct challenge to the moral pretences of the regime. It is now expanding its focus to the specific ruling, religious class as evidenced by slogans such as. “Death to the Dictator, Be it Shah or Ayatollah”.
Second, the movement, while angry at the religious rulers does not appear to be anti-religious. However, it does not have clerical ties either. In the past, all influential movements in Iran, from the early twentieth century Constitutional Revolution to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, have included high-level participation by clerics. Even the 2009 Green Movement had a cleric, Karrubi Ane, one of two main leaders. In theory then, we could be seeing a gradual, probably very gradual, delegitimising of the Shia clerics central place in the county’s life.
Third, one of the more surprising elements about the current movement is that it is overwhelmingly composed of Iranians under age twenty-five who identify themselves as more than just opponents of Islamist ideology - they are also avowedly against the mindset of their elders, particularly those who have been holding tight to the reins of power for so long now. This suggests the possibility that there is an organic change process emerging, different from former groups which have attempted to defy the religious autocracy. It also raises the question of who is directing the movement, and whether it will be able to establish an organic leadership before becoming exhausted under violent suppression. Of course, this raises the concern that the movement may lack the organization necessary for long-term effort (Lee, 2011). While the men in power are clearly facing a novel and genuine threat, there is the question of the movement's long-term ability to survive.
At this moment we have no idea how long this amazing movement, pitting itself against such a ruthless and despotic regime, can last or what the odds are that it will succeed. The regime has stated that it is reviewing the religious police though this is likely to result in remodeling rather than disbanding the institution. They are beginning to hang those who are judged to have committed “Offences Against God”. Two men have been executed recently but the young people are showing no signs of backing down (Fassihi, 2022). Personally, I have hopes that justice will triumph, but no one can be sure, particularly in the short run. What is obvious however, is that these protests (they seem to pop up in all parts of the country) are organic, i.e., rising from the roots of the Iranian people; that it is full of extremely brave women, and men; that they are very clever at managing to keep the vile oppressors off balance; that its people are extremely thoughtful and aware of the injustices of the regime; and finally, that it is worth supporting these people in whatever way we can.
Resources Fassihi, F. (2022). “Iran Turns to Public Executions, Enraging an Already Protesting Public”. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/12/world/middleeast/iran-protests-execution.html. Dec. 12.
Khalan, M. (2022). “How Iran’s Protest Differ from Past Movements” The Washington Institute for Near East Studies. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/how-irans-protests-differ-past-movements. Sept 28.
Lee, B. (2011). Pragmatics of Community Organization. Toronto: CommonAct Press.
Wright R. (2022). “Iran’s Protests Are the First Counter-Revolution Led by Women”. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/irans-protests-are-the-first-counterrevolution-led-by-women. Oct. 9. 1 The first of course was the one manufactured, in 1953, to make sure the West, specifically the US and Great Britain, would control the oil in Iran and which brought the Shaw to power.
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