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CounterPunch
November
26, 2002
Long Live the Republic!
The Grassroots Challenge to Iran's Theocracy
by BEHZAD YAGHMAIAN
Iran is in turmoil: a threat of resignation by
the president and his supporters in the Parliament; factional
battle within the state about the constitutional power of the
president; the student protest in Tehran and other cities; and
physical clashes between the pro-reform students and the basij-the
devotees of the state. The world is watching these developments
with keen interest. Iran's future has significant regional and
global ramifications.
The current turmoil is embedded in Iran's
constitutional crisis: the coexistence of the concept of the
republic and velayat-e faghih-the supreme religious leader. The
faghih enjoys veto power over the republic. Iran's constitution
is a contradictory document. It is a collage of two distinct
and non-reconcilable worldviews and types of state. The document
is a reflection of a historic battle between tradition and modernity,
the past and the future, and religion and secularism in Iran.
The collage is unstable, tenuous, and transient by nature. It
cannot be sustained.
The conflict between the two pillars
of the constitution remained dormant in the first decade of the
Islamic Republic. It came to the open with the death of Ayatollah
Khomeini, the charismatic leader of the new state. The 1997 presidential
victory of Mohammad Khatami heightened the constitutional crisis.
A battle between two fractions of the state emerged: one steadfastly
defending the faghih, the other promoting the republic-albeit
timidly and with vacillation. The past six years have been the
years of cat and mouth fight between these two tendencies-two
pillars of the constitution.
Outside the state, in the embattled civil
society, a pro-republic grassroots movement emerged; it became
emboldened; and challenged the Islamic Republic and its constitution
through unorganized ruptures of collective action, everyday practice,
and acts of cultural defiance. It is that movement that brought
Mohammad Khatami to power, created the 1999 student uprising
in Tehran and 22 other cities, and opposed the recent death sentence
for Hashem Aghajari for his criticism of the clergy's monopoly
of power. The verdict against Aghajari was used as a pretext
to challenge the Islamic Republic, to demand the freedom of all
political prisoners, to press for freedom of expression, and
to exhibit to the Islamic state the hatred of the youth-the children
of the Islamic Republic. The student protest was an open outcry
for the republic.
The recent student protests were the
reincarnation of an outburst that occurred in July 1999. The
student action began in response to the closure of Salam, a pro-reform
newspaper published by an influential member of the state. But,
similar to the support for Aghajari, many of the students that
joined the nation-wide protest in 1999 had never read Salam and
had no affinity towards the paper and its publisher. The closure
of Salam and its consequent developments were events that unleashed
the fury of the youths, and gave them the opportunity, for the
first time in the history of the Islamic Republic, to publicly
demand the ouster of the faghih-Ayatollah Khamenei.
The recent protests at Tehran University
echoed the same feelings and sentiments. In some sense, the recent
protests, though smaller in scale, were more radical in content.
The freedom of Aghajari was one component in the young people's
long list of political grievances and demands. Some challenged
the foundation of the Islamic Republic by demanding the separation
of the mosque-religion-from the state.
In 1999, the state responded to the spreading
student protest with violence. It temporarily crushed the movement.
Two thousand youths were arrested. Ten were sentenced to death.
But, fearful of its repercussions, the Islamic Republic did not
carry out the executions. This was a turning pint in Iran. It
reflected the emergence of a new balance of power: a divided
and broken state, and a defiant public.
The Islamic Republic is divided and weakened.
The republican movement is grassroots and includes most Iranians-men
and women, young and old. Not limited to street protest and political
action, it includes the schoolgirls challenging and ridiculing
their religious teachers; teenagers wearing loud lipsticks and
makeup under the watchful eyes of the moral police; and older
women demanding respect and recognition from men in the streets,
shops, and the workplace.
Whatever the results of this stage of
the student protest, one fact remains unchanged: the Islamic
state in Iran is most seriously challenged by its own creation-the
children of the Islamic Republic. They are the gravediggers of
the Islamic Republic.
Twenty-three years ago, the victory of
the Islamic Republic made Iran a role model for millions of marginalized
Moslems around the world. Today, the victory of the republicans
will be a testament to the failure of political Islam in a relatively
modern society in the age of global communication.
Behzad Yaghmaian
is the author of Social Change in Iran: An Eyewitness Account
of Dissent, Defiance, and New Movements for Rights (SUNY Press,
2002).
He can be reached at: behzad_yaghmaian@hotmail.com.
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November 23,
2002
Susan Davis
Now About
That Big Stick
Caoimhe Butterly
I Was
Shot While Escorting Jenin's School Children
Kurt Nimmo
Bush &
the Canadians
Chris Floyd
Rough Beast
Slouching
Francis Boyle
On Behalf
of Iraq's 4.5 Million Children
Dave Marsh
Spirit
in the Light
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Rebirth
of Student Protest in Iran
Mark Hand
Dr. Alterman,
I Presume
Ralph Nader
Back Alley
Loan Sharks
Elaine Cassel
The Shameful
Treatment of John Malvo
Adam Engel
& Ian Harvey
Poets'
Basement
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