[Reasons many people think reformist sentiments are held by majority in Iran -- even if they might not triumph militarily]
Tom Dispatch
posted 2009-06-28 17:28:15
Tomgram: Dilip Hiro, The Weeks of Living Dangerously
<snip>
Khamanei has won the immediate battle, but the conflict between
hard-liners and reformists is far from over. Taking a long-term
view, Khamanei and his hard line cohorts face a superhuman task
of countering an inexorably rising trend. Quite simply, the
demographic make-up of Iran favors their reformist adversaries.
A glance at the republic's history bears this out.
Two Decades of Revolution
Between 1979, the year of the Islamic revolution, and 1999,
Iran's population doubled to 65 million, two-thirds of them under
25 years of age. Those young Iranians had no direct experience or
memory of the pre-Islamic regime of the Shah -- its inequities
and injustices, and its subservient relationship with Washington.
Therefore, their commitment to the Islamic regime was less than
total. Moreover, the post-revolutionary educational system had
proven inadequate when it came to socializing them the way the
republic's religious leaders wanted.
During those two decades, Iran's student body increased almost
threefold, to 19 million. The overall literacy rate jumped from
58% to 82%, with the figure for females -- 28% in 1979 --
tripling. There was a remarkable upsurge in the enrollment of
women in universities. Nationally, their share of university
student bodies shot up to 60%. At prestigious Tehran University,
they were a majority in all faculties, including science and law.
The total of university graduates, which stood at 430,000 in
1979, grew nine-fold in those years. As elsewhere in the world,
university students and graduates would become a vital engine for
change.
Much to the disappointment of the mullahs, a study of university
students in the late 1990s showed that whereas 83% of them
watched television, only 5% watched religious programs. Of the
58% who read extracurricular books, barely 6% showed interest in
religious literature.
In his book, A Study of Student Political Behavior in Today's
Iran, Professor Majid Muhammadi divided university students into
three categories: those born into largely Islamic working or
traditional middle-class households (traders and craftsmen);
those born to secular, or nominally Islamic, modern middle class
parents (teachers and doctors); and those raised in an
environment that mixed traditional Islam and secularism.
While the first category was loyal to the regime, and the second
kept a low profile, shunning politics, it was the students in the
last, and largest, category who felt deeply conflicted. While
linked to Islam through tradition, they were attracted to modern,
Westernized culture politically and socially. In attempting to
resolve the conflict, most of them became politically active, and
were transformed into a force for social and political change.
By and large, university students were interested in watching
foreign television programs, finding the national channels
unimaginative and propagandistic. A poorly enforced ban on
satellite dishes meant they could easily get access to the BBC,
CNN, and the Voice of America. In the post-1999 decade, the
arrival of the Internet, e-mail, blogging, YouTube, Facebook, and
most recently Twitter, opened up opportunities previously not
available to their older peers.
[BloodEarth.gif] Irrespective of their social backgrounds, what
indisputably impinges on the daily lives of university students
and other young Iranians are the restrictions the regime tries to
impose on their social and personal freedoms, including going to
mixed-sex parties, holding hands with someone other than a
marriage partner, drinking alcoholic beverages, listening to
modern Western music, watching foreign television channels via
satellite, and having extramarital sex. While reformists
recognize that restricting such activities is having the singular
effect of alienating the young from the Islamic Republic, their
conservative opponents consider these restrictions essential to
uphold Islamic morality and culture.
Not surprisingly, politically conscious university students have
been striving to enlarge the arena of personal freedoms as a
means of countering social repression and administrative
corruption, and making the Islamic system more transparent and
accountable.
Politics in Command
It was against this background that, in 1997, a presidential
election was conducted. Muhammad Khatami, a reformist outsider,
unblemished by corruption, proceeded to trounce his rival, Ali
Akbar Nateq Nouri -- the erstwhile Speaker of parliament favored
by the religious establishment and perceived to be corrupt -- by
a margin of almost three to one. In the next election, Khatami
trumped his nearest rival by a five-to-one margin.
Notwithstanding periodic setbacks due to a dispersion of power
among the office of president, the parliament, and the judiciary,
Khatami created an environment in which the area of social,
cultural, and political freedoms expanded.
Initially, for instance, the authorities were very strict about
enforcing the wearing of the hijab (a head-covering scarf) and
banning the use of make-up for women, nor did they allow young
men and women to sit in the same classrooms in colleges and
universities. By the time of Khatami's reelection in 2005,
however, the authorities were tolerating young women who flouted
the strict Islamic dress code of covering themselves fully,
except for face and hands. They even allowed an occasional rock
concert and they were giving more leeway to non-governmental
organizations.
During the first year of Khatami's presidency, the country
experienced an explosion of new publications. Following a
landslide victory by the reformists in the first round of
parliamentary elections in February 2000, a newly bullish
pro-reform press even began publishing stories of corruption in
the pre-Khatami period. These proved immensely popular.
Khatami's supporters viewed this as a sign of the growing
maturity of the Islamic system and the evolution of democratic
governance. Before the second round of the elections could take
place in May, however, a conservative-minded parliament reacted
speedily. Encouraged by Khamanei, it stiffened the Press Law in
April, leading to the closure of dozens of publications by the
judiciary.
In the 2005 presidential contest, leading reformists were barred
from the race by the Guardian Council. Deprived of real choice,
most reformist voters boycotted the election. This enabled the
hard-line mayor of Tehran, Ahmadinejad -- a Khamanei favorite --
to trounce Rafsanjani, an affluent, pragmatic conservative
blemished by a reputation for corruption.
During Ahmadinejad's presidency, university classes were
re-segregated by gender. The law banning satellite dishes was
enforced vigorously. The morality police resorted to patrolling
the streets to ensure that women wore proper Islamic dress and
unmarried couples refrained from holding hands. This was but a
part of Ahmadinejad's drive to return society to the early years
of the Islamic revolution.
Little wonder then that, in the run-up to the 2009 presidential
election, young voters rallied behind Mir Hussein Mousavi, whose
academic wife, the artist Zahra Rahnavard, spoke of the hijab
becoming optional for women. Mousavi promised to disband the
morality police and appoint women to important government jobs.
The Nature of the Iranian Revolution
In trying to recreate the environment of the early days of the
Iranian revolution in the absence of the conditions that brought
about the collapse of the old order of the Shah, the country's
hard line leaders are defying both human nature and history.
They are ignoring the fact that most people tend to strive only
to the extent that is necessary to survive, procreate, and lead a
comfortable life. More important, human beings simply cannot
continue functioning at a heightened level for decades on end.
Revolutions are born out of periods of acute crisis and
extraordinary fervor combined with high idealism. With time, red
hot zeal cools, and so does a revolution. Idealism gives way to
pragmatism -- and, of course, corruption.
No less than the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, bowed to inescapable reality when he accepted
a United Nations-brokered ceasefire with Iraq in 1988, after
endlessly exhorting Iranians to fight on for 20 years -- until
victory.
Such softening is common to all revolutions.
Yet in the regional context, what happened in Iran in the late
1970s had been unique. Every previous post-World War II dramatic
regime change in the Middle East had come about thanks to
overnight military coups. The overthrow of the seemingly
unassailable Shah of Iran in February 1979, on the other hand,
was the culmination of a relentless two-year-long revolutionary
movement.
Globally, too, the Iranian revolution stood apart. All the
revolutions of the last century, starting with the Mexican
revolution of 1910, were secular and focused on changing property
and class relations. Not the one in Iran.
Its leader, Khomeini, made adroit use of Shiite history and
Iranian nationalism to attract ever-increasing support. He
managed to unite the disparate anti-Shah forces, both religious
and secular -- including Marxists of various shades -- by his
most radical demand: the deposition of Muhammad Reza Shah
Pahlavi. Although his revolutionary movement included
secularists, only the religious segment was capable, via the
mosque, of providing a national organizational network down to
the village level.
Both as an institution and a place of congregation, the mosque
proved critical. Since the state could not suppress the mosque in
a country that was 98% Muslim, it offered a sanctuary to the
revolutionary movement. That was why Khomeini instructed the
clergy to base the Revolutionary Komitehs (Committees)
coordinating the anti-Shah movement in those mosques.
It was in this way that the unprecedented upheaval, claiming an
estimated 10,000 to 40,000 lives (largely unarmed Iranians killed
by military gunfire), turned into the successful "Islamic
revolution." It became a preamble to the founding of the Islamic
Republic of Iran. That term "republic" -- not "state" or
"emirate" (as in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan under the
Taliban) -- in the official title was, and remains, highly
significant. Thirty years on, the partisans of Mousavi are now
arguing that the recent electoral fraud undermines the founding
principle of the post-Shah regime: that power lies with the
public.
Overthrowing an established order is a hard, bloody affair, but
making a revolution stick is even more demanding. In the case of
Iran, the revolutionary regime became a target of aggression when
Iraq's Saddam Hussein launched his invasion in September 1980.
The subsequent eight-year war helped merge Iranian nationalism
into the post-Shah regime, and stabilized it.
Following Khomeini's death in 1989, the transition to his
successor Khamanei as the Supreme Leader, assisted by the
popularly elected president Rafsanjani, was smooth. Initially,
Khamanei took his cues from Rafsanjani, a wily politician. As he
consolidated his hold over the military, the Revolutionary Guard
Corps, and its auxiliary, the Basij militia, however, he began
operating independently and drifted away from Rafsanjani.
Now, both hard-liners and reformists are competing to show their
loyalty to Shiite Islam. Its founder, Imam Hussein, the Great
Martyr, leading a band of 72 retainers, died in 680 AD while
battling a force of 4,000 to stake his rightful claim to the
caliphate usurped by his rival. The moral of this episode, which
lies at the heart of Shiite Islam, is that the true believer must
not shirk from challenging the established order if it has become
unjust and oppressive.
Competing Loyalties to Shiite Islam
In today's Shiite Iran, the partisans of Mousavi have adopted
green, the color of Islam, as their brand. They shout "Allah-u
Akbar" (God is Great) and "We want [Imam] Hussein" in the streets
and from the rooftops, while their leader invokes the Quran to
demand justice. They are not demanding regime change, only an
overdue change in the regime.
For his part, Supreme Leader Khamanei sees the hand of God in the
overwhelming victory of Ahmadinejad. The riot police and Basij
militia regard him as their spiritual guide and consider any
challenge to his word or deed as a challenge to Islam. Ignoring
massive evidence to the contrary, Khamanei has ruled out an
electoral fraud on the grounds that such a possibility is
inconceivable in Iran's Islamic system.
While locked in a struggle, both sides claim to be pursuing the
ideal of a just Islamic state. Each remains aware of the value of
martyrdom.
The Iranian security forces' beatings, baton charges, and tear
gassing of unarmed, peaceful protestors, as well as mass arrests,
are deplorable. It is worth noting that most of the firing of
live ammunition by the security personnel seems to have been in
the air. That explains why the fatalities in the massive and
repeated street protests in Tehran have remained relatively low,
totaling 15, according to official sources, which also claim that
eight Basij militiamen have been killed. Media reports generally
have cited 17 deaths of protestors so far, though rumors of
higher death tolls abound.
What matters most to the government, as well as its opponents, is
the number of people killed, or "martyred."
The speed with which the authorities have tried to hijack the
killing of 26-year-old Neda Aghan Soltan in Tehran by a bullet
almost certainly fired by a uniformed member of the security
forces is illustrative. They have declared her to be a Basiji
martyr, allegedly killed by pro-Mousavi protestors, who, in
response, rushed to circulate worldwide the shocking image of her
dying in the street.
Given its Shiite underpinning, the government remains conscious
that resorting to excessive violence could turn opponents into
that most dangerous of symbols: martyrs.
Until the June 12th election -- despite evidence of modest
tinkering with the first round of the 2005 presidential vote --
post-Shah Iran seemed to indicate that Islam and democracy could
work in harmony. The upheaval since then has demonstrated that
when strains between the two concepts develop, it is democracy
that gets short shrift.
That is bad news for Muslims -- and non-Muslims -- worldwide.
Dilip Hiro is the author of five books on Iran, the latest being
The Iranian Labyrinth: Journeys Through Theocratic Iran and its
Furies (Nation Books), as well as most recently Blood of the
Earth: The Battle for the World's Vanishing Oil Resources. His
upcoming book After Empire: The Rise of a Multipolar World will
be published by Nation Books later this year.
Copyright 2009 Dilip Hiro