The
Islamic regime in
The
regime that rose out of the revolution of 1979, after the bloody suppression of
any democratic content, was essentially a government by a particular section of
the shia clergy. These who believed in the concept of velayate faghih – put simply: the absolute rule of a supreme leader
who is a “just and knowledgeable religious jurist”. The mullahs who refused to
accept this interpretation of Islam were marginalized and excluded from the
corridors of power. The constitution of the Islamic regime gave the faqih supreme, and absolute power over
every decision making apparatus of the state. The mantel of this all-powerful
supreme leader was naturally taken up by Khomeini. But it must be remembered
that this was a regime that rose out of a revolution that indisputably
incorporated virtually the entire population of the country. Hence a parallel
structure was created where the executive president, the Majles (parliament)
and later the municipal councils were chosen by elections.
But
the elected organs could not make any decisions that were not acceptable to the
leadership. A body, the Council of Guardians appointed by the supreme leader,
was set above them to vet all candidates for elective office, and all the laws
passed by the Majles. The prime role of elections was to provide legitimacy for
the non-elected power structures. Hence the frantic efforts at every election
to get the people out to vote. Thus elections in
The
shia clergy is by their very essence a fragmented entity. This arises from the
concept of taqlid (emulation) – which
simply put means that any shia believer can follow whichever mullah that takes
his or her fancy. In essence the shia clerical establishment is not
hierarchical but multifocal. It has multiple, and potentially infinite, centers
of taqlid, each with its own unique
collection of followers. Add to this the complexity of adapting the laws of a
religion laid down over a millennium ago to a modern industrial state, and you
can see the setting for the constant splitting of the ruling ayatollahs into
factions, almost at every major decision-making juncture.
Elections
allowed the different factions of the clergy believing in the rule of the faqih to test out the legitimacy of
their solutions, and by inference their position in the ruling hierarchy, by
reverting to the popular vote. Thus the factions would fight over the popular
vote and would use this to manoeuvre in the corridors of power. Hence the
regime that Khomeini bestowed on the country was in no way democratic for the
population of
Interestingly
the people of
That
it was a well planned coup and not something concocted up at the spur of the
moment can be seen from two observations. Firstly the chorus of revolutionary
guard commanders who congratulated him on his certain victory and gave their
support for it in the weeks before the election. And second, by the fact that
the official Fars News web site declared victory for Ahmadinejad two hours
before the polls closed, with the same percentage of votes which remained
unchanged until the final count. Ahmadinejad orchestrated his previous victory
four years ago like a military operation. [2]
This time he announced it like a victorious Caesar, even before the results of
the battle could possibly be known. That was no coincidence. He was declaring
to the world, and to the Iranian people that the rule of ayatollahs is
over. The rule of the military-security
machinery has begun.
What
Ahmadinejad engineered, in alliance with a large section of the security
apparatus and a handful of mullahs, was to essentially deprive the clergy of
their ability to use elections to increase the power base of their particular
factions inside the regime. This was not a flash in the pan. The election coup
had been systematically organised over the last 12-15 years. It began with
mobilizing and the methodical winning of all electable and non electable organs
– starting with mayorship of major cities (Ahmadinejad is an ex-mayor of
The
regime that took power last week showed its fangs early. Not only did it
unleash thugs to beat up protestors, but to enter the homes of people who had
given sanctuary to protestors and beat them up and smashed-up their homes. They
crashed into university dormitories across the country to smash up everything
in sight and beat up the students indiscriminately. Mass arrest of politicians,
journalists and students and demonstrators take place daily. Finally they
physically repressed protestors in multiple pools of blood.
The
overall aim of the osulgaran faction,
to which Ahmadinejad belongs, is to do away with the factional nature of the
Iranian regime and have a top-down unified military style government with a
population which supports it unequivocally and by acclamation without being
allowed to organise in any form. This is to be a united country, under an
undivided, single and monolithic regime, preparing for war, with an economy
that reflects those aims. The unorganized “people” are to be mobilized when and
if necessary to act as fodder for that war. You can glimpse this structure in
the victory speech made by Ahmadinejad a few days after the election. There he
dismissed and derided political parties and appealed to the people to stay on
the scene to protect the country. The coup on June 12 was the logical next, and
last, step in a long process by which the osulgaran
have been catapaulted to undisputed power.
A
capitalist regime, using extreme nationalist populist slogans, ruling the
country through thugs and being acclaimed by a public not permitted to organise
in any form other than what is dictated from above, and with militaristic
adventurist ambitions! Have we not seen this before?
The
second consequence of the election coup is to free the Iranian people once and for
all of any illusions as to the ability of the regime to reform. The final
explosive demise of the election escape valve releases the people of
Khamene’i’s
strident call for suppression of the demonstrators, the warning that any
bloodshed would be written in the books of the reformists and the subsequent
savage attacks on street protests will further push the reformist leaders into
the margin. The road is now open for the entire structure to be challenged from
below.
This
will be a difficult road. The reasons are not hard to discern. The regime has
shown that it has no difficulty in mounting a savage repression. This is an
ideological regime, organised on fascist lines and fighting for its life. It
has an organised, and financially well endowed revolutionary guards and its
voluntary basij force to do its
deeds. While both of these will undoubtedly have within them large sections who
are sympathetic to the popular movement, it is unwise to underestimate the
power of ideology and even more the hierarchical structure of these
organisations making the basiji
foot-soldier far more likely to obey the orders to shoot than the conscript
army of the Shah. Moreover the leadership of the regime are children of a
revolution, an eight year war with
On
the other side the people are leaderless. They have been denied the right to
organise in any meaningful way for over half a century, with only brief interludes
of real freedom. The systematic bloody repression of the left and all
progressive forces has left its marks. Many of the exiled organisations are
atrophied and totally divourced from the country. Within Iran a new left has
undoubtedly emerged but has yet to organise in any effective form, or even to
polish its ideological understanding of the dynamics of Iranian society and the
world. The working class has been in a life and death struggle with daily
survival in an economy that has been in a spiral of decline. This is not the
setting to favour development of working class organisations that can
politically challenge the regime. Yet there are tactics that the opposition to
the regime can adapt which will allow it to overcome its weakness.
In the
face of certain savage oppression, and in the process of finding organisation,
the struggle has to utilise tactics that take its weaknesses into account and
play on its strength. Any tactic that paralyses the regime yet puts the people
out of reach of the security apparatus is more likely to succeed. Already the
young have been using these tactics in street battles using motorcycles to get
news to different parts, by drawing the security forces into side alleys where
their forces are fragmented, to disappear into peoples’ homes when under
attack, to use darkness and night to chant “death to the dictator” from roof
tops, intelligent use of SMS, email, twitter, facebook etc to get their
messages to each other and abroad and so on.
Among
other tactics that can be used are mass strikes – or to be more accurate
stay-at-homes, ie unofficial strikes. This removes the protestors away from the
repressive organs but paralyses the regime by depriving it of its workforce. As
we go to press this has indeed been called for June 23 and three days of
mourning between June 23-5. Despite all that has been written about the Iranian
revolution it was this tactic, and not massive street demonstrations, that
broke the back of the shah’s regime. Moreover any act of mass civil disobedience
is difficult to suppress.
The
organisational deficit of the protestors can be turned into an advantage by
concentrating on local neighbourhood organisations that will be much less easy
to destroy than a central leadership. This form of organisation has the added
advantage of being excellent teaching grounds for the experience of direct
democracy. The highly creative use of the youth in
The
battle will be long and bloody. Yassamine Mather has already highlighted some
of the difficulties that lie ahead. [5]
But we are on the slow but upward spiral to an
Mehdi
Kia
June 2009
This article will appear in Weekly
Worker June 25 2009
[1] See iran-bulletin http://www.iran-bulletin.org/IBMEF_1_word%206%20files/Election%20to%207th%20majles_with%20pict.htm
[2] See Ardeshir Mehrdad and Mehdi Kia: Regime crisis and the new conservatives, Weekly Worker September 8, 2005 and www.iran-buletin.org. http://www.iran-bulletin.org/IB-MEF-3/presidentialelections_edited.htm
[3] Ardeshir Mehrdad and Mehdi Kia, ibid, for a detailed discussion of the rise of the neo-conservatives
[4] The majma johaniune mobarez (association of Combatant Clerics) was one of the first organs to protest at the coup. On June 22 they published an announcement that outright challenged the supreme leader – a totally unprecedented phenomenon.
[5] Yassamine Mather: Death to the Islamic republic, Weekly Worker June 18 2009 and also on www.iran-bulletin.org