Feb. 03, 2010 - Issue #746: Spine
Iranian Revolution
Iran's democratic evolutions
It's been 31 years since the Iranian revolution, and Iranians are on the
streets once again. There are similarities between what happened in 1979 and
what's happening in Iran these days. But there are also important
differences. The Green Movement isn't history repeating itself; it's what
Iran's new history is going to look like.
In the winter of '79 the main chant on the streets of Tehran and other cities
across Iran was, "Esteqlal, azadi, jomhoori-e Eslami" (independence, liberty,
Islamic republic). In 2009, in the days after June's fraudulent presidential
election, "Ray-e man kojast?" (where is my vote?) became the slogan of choice
for Iran's green protesters. It became the rallying point for Iranians
in the country and around the world, and for the first time since the
revolution it moved the diaspora community into spontaneous acts of
solidarity and unity.
But this wasn't the first time that votes had been rigged in an Iranian
election. In 1928, after the election results for the Seventh National
Assembly were announced, Seyyed Hassan Modarress, a member of the last two
assemblies and a staunch opponent of Reza Shah Pahlavi, learned that not a
single vote had been read in his name. Modarress, who was a highly popular
and respected cleric, is reported to have said: "Even if all of those
20 000 people who voted for me in the last election are now dead or have
decided not to vote this time, then where is the vote that I cast for
myself?"
Demand for political rights and rule of law is not exactly a new thing in
Iran. The country's first parliament was established in 1906 as a result of
the Mashrutiyyat Movement. The constitutional laws of 1906 – '07
supported freedom of press and equal rights for religious minorities.
But there was another social movement that started even before Mashrutiyyat.
The anti-colonial Tobacco Movement of 1890 was against a deal that the Shah
made giving monopoly over the production, sale and export of Iranian tobacco
to Great Britain. These anti-colonial sentiments played a major role in the
movement that led to nationalization of Iranian oil in the 1950s, and later
in the 1979 revolution. And they were certainly reinforced after the 1953
coup.
The nationalization of Iranian oil was in direct conflict with American and
British interests. There was a fear it could set an example for other
countries around the world. So, in 1953, with funding and planning from CIA
and support from the British, Mohammad Mosaddeq's democratically elected
government was brought down. The coup allowed Mohammad Reza Shah to rule over
the country as an absolute monarch for the next two decades. Perhaps there
was a lesson in this: without a sufficient level of independence, the
accomplishments of social movements can easily be jeopardized.
For about 150 years, in most of the popular social movements in Iran,
anti-colonial and anti-imperial tendencies have been more pronounced than
demands for civil and political rights. But in the years since the 1979
revolution, especially beginning in the 1990s and now with the Green
Movement, the main demand has become recognition of civil and political
rights of all Iranians. As one analyst put it, after a long history of
anti-colonial struggles, Iranians can now "afford to express an entirely
future-oriented vision."
It's true that one of the chants in last summer's protests was "Death to
Russia," an indication of the opposition against foreign intervention. But at
the very heart of the Green Movement is a demand for recognition of basic
civil and political rights. In viewing the current events in Iran from the
narrow and fictitious lens of Ahmadinejad versus Mousavi, or the lower
classes versus the upper and middle classes, or the Islamic and pro-regime
rural population versus the Western-oriented urban population this reality is
lost.
A few weeks before the June 12 election the "Iranian Women's Movement
Coalition" was formed to make particular demands from all the presidential
candidates. The coalition included representatives from a diverse range of
groups including women's organizations in Tehran and other cities,
professional women's associations, secular feminists and Muslim
feminists—including the head of Muslim Revolutionary Women's Society,
Azam Taleghani, who was also the first woman to register as a presidential
candidate, once in 1997 and again in 2009, both times disqualified by the
Guardian Council. The coalition also included Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi,
and Iran's first female publisher, Shahla Lahiji.
What the coalition called for in its public statement still captures the
essence of the demands made by Iran's civil rights movement: "Women have
always, alongside men, struggled to achieve democracy, individual and social
freedoms and civil rights. Thus, today like any other day we, in solidarity
with other social groups, demand the recognition and fulfilment of our
constitutionally asserted public freedoms, such as freedom of expression,
freedom of assembly, etc. We also demand the halt of various pressures on
women, students, workers, teachers and ethnic and religious groups." The
statement then adds: "We know very well that gender equality is the
prerequisite for the fulfilment of democracy, sustainable development and
reaching a healthy, humane and violence-free society—one without
poverty and injustice."
The fact is that some non-Iranian observers and opposition groups outside of
the country simply don't get this civil rights nature of the Green Movement.
In a context where Iran's nuclear program seems to be the only issue that
matters to the Iranian government as well as to many Western governments, and
where the US remains the hegemonic global power undertaking and supporting
violent occupations, military interventions, coups and colour revolutions
around the world, it might be easy to miss the most important issue of all:
the voices of the Iranian people. For that you can hardly rely on New York
Times, BBC or the Angry Arab News Service; and you definitely can't depend on
the political rhetoric of Brown, Sarkozy or David Kilgour, or that of
Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei. Your best bet is to pay attention to the
voices of the Iranian people like Shadi Sadr and her colleagues from the One
Million Signatures Campaign, or Emad Baghi and other human rights activists,
or people like Shahin Najafi, Fatemeh Sadeghi, Mehdi Saharkhiz and Hamid
Dabashi (like Dabashi says, "Google them").
The 1979 revolution still remains a defining moment in the trajectory of
social movements in Iran. Nevertheless, in its third decade, a popular,
indigenous and peaceful movement to gain civil and political rights is
writing a new page in the social and cultural history of Iran and the Middle
East. V
More stories in front »
New comments for this entry have been turned off and any existing ones are hidden. We apologize for any inconvenience.