The road ahead for the Iranian peoples’ freedom movement

Civil disobedience is the way out for reforms bogged down in the legality quagmire

In trying to define the political character of Iran today, perhaps one trait stands out: the freeze, or at least stagnation, in the opening up of the political atmosphere since last year’s elections to the Majles (parliament). The conservatives who hold all the keys of real power have increased their efforts to close down the political space of the country, and to take back all those domains they had lost control of. They have redoubled their assault on the press and on the independent or semi-independent circles and associations. Every repressive instrument has been brought to bear on this task. They have put such efforts into this task that one can safely say that some of the achievements of the last few years are in danger.

Why? How can we explain this stagnation? If we define the opening of the political atmosphere under a totalitarian and all-inclusive regime as the spread of independent movements and spheres of activity (in all social, political and cultural fields), this is only made possible when that regime is under constant, unrelenting and intense pressure forcing it to retreat just to maintain its balance. The corollary of this is that opening up of the political atmosphere is not a gift, but an achievement that erupts out of specific conditions and the appropriate balance of political power between the people and the rulers. It follows that when a regime retreats in front of popular pressure and submits to opening up the political sphere this is not necessarily the same as reform in the governing system. That is it does not signify that the owners of power have accepted to redistribute power in the ruling system in favour of the people and accede to its institutionalisation. The whole process can by turned on its head as soon as the balance of power between these two variables shifts against the people and the movement for freedom.

Cause of the stand still

One might ask whether the current stagnation is because the rulers are stronger or the people confronting it weaker. Evidence points to the latter.

More than ever the conservatives have lost their following among the people. They are isolated and have no influence and credibility among them. Even more they have been turned into objects of universal hatred and loathing. Their rejection is such that they no longer dare put themselves up for popular vote and, for instance, field their official candidate in this year’s presidential elections.

They lost their last base in the elected organs of the state when they suffered outright defeat in the 6th Majles elections. With this they lost the most important lever for reproducing their "legal legitimacy". Their position in the structure of power has reached an all time low. Moreover, splits and crisis among them is more blatant by the day.

Their power and capabilities can in no way be said to have grown. It is clear that their weakness and incapacity has reached such a low that they have had to shift their base form the mosques and schools to the prisons, courts and barracks.

Wilting reformists

What has tilted the balance of power in the conservatives’ favour is the weakness and impotence of the peoples’ anti-despotic movement of the people. The fact that this movement has been unable to adapt itself to the changing circumstances, to materialise all its potentials and abilities and act as a unremitting and growing pressure on the ruling faction. Religious despotism has taken advantage of these limitations and weaknesses by making a twin ideological and tactical somersault to take away the edge off the popular protest movement.

At the ideological front they have put an end to the existing duality legitimising the source of their power. They have scratched out the popular vote as a source of legitimacy and power. A naked and absolute religious despotism – what can be termed a pure caliphate – has taken its place. Popular acceptability is no longer deemed necessary to legitimise the religious rulership. After twenty years they have taken back their claims to the republican nature of the system [1]. With this about-turn they have moved the battle to those arenas where their power of control has come under challenge.

On the tactical side, the conservative faction had halted its previous efforts to totally monopolise power and exclude its reformist rivals from governing. This faction has utilised the deep contradictions in the platform and policy of those seeking political reforms to turn the reformers themselves into an obstacle against the independent movement of the people, and to put a break on the anti-despotic movement.

What made this manoeuvre possible was the reformers’ insistence on "legality". To limit reforms to within the framework of law and the system of power on which that law is based, before all else could place a barrier on the road for any fundamental political change. It would lead the popular struggles up sterile by-ways and squander their energy.

Change of direction

These about turns, alongside other developments over the last year, have transformed the whole course of the anti-despotic movement of the people. Stagnated, it has come to a virtual standstill. Without itself undergoing serious transformation the popular movement cannot have a role as an agent of social change under present conditions. The movement has entered a phase where it can no longer continue its advance while adhering to the structural qualities of yesterday. If we understand the anti-despotic movement of the Iranian people to be the sum of protests against the absolute rule of the clergy over them [2] and against their policies its antecedents go back to the beginning of 1990’s. That was the period of escalating urban revolts.

The anti-despotic movement then entered a new phase in June 1997, in the run up to the presidential elections, characterised by new opportunities that became available for permissible action and political intervention at the mass level. Unlike previous years the ballot box gave the people in their millions the opportunity to intervene in the political developments of the country to further their own interests. This was to stir up the splits and crises within the government. To challenge the real pillars and institutions of religious despotism. To revolt against the real power holders utilising means and forms that were permissible. And finally to construct their anti-despotic and anti-government identity.

End of legal road

With the elections to the 6th Majles last year this phase, and the march on the ballot paper, came to an end. Every elected organ had been captured and became clear that their conquest has not smoothed the way for reforming the system. The road to reform within the system is closed. The system of power must itself become the object of change and not a framework for change. The ruling faction is completely surrounded and an overwhelming majority of the people had rejected its legitimacy through a negative and protesting vote. Yet they did give up their power and are prepared to pay any price for this.

What they had gained was not even enough to save, and what they needed to gain was not achievable through permissible channels. The popular movement for freedom could not stop the regime from organising a series of counter-attacks unless it consented to a fundamental transformation. In order to confront the rulers’ recourse to repression it was no longer adequate to challenge their legitimacy. The popular movement had to go on to challenge their power to control; to move from encircling them into moving to break them; to evolve from isolating them into bringing them down. None of these are possible without abandoning those avenues that are permissible and those opportunities that are within the law.

In short the anti-despotic movement has to be transformed into a direct confrontation in the shape of a collective mass action. This in turn would not be possible without a complete break with the reformist movement, particularly its intensely conservative form that the reformist elites inside the government advocate.

It means turning to civil disobedience, strikes and street protests; and these nation wide and with direct political demands and not the scattered and individual actions which are daily happenings these days. These are wedded to a total independence of the anti-despotic movement from a thinking that presents the reform of the ruling system conditional to preserving that system.

Already disobedient

The structural transformations in the popular movement for liberation not only has foundations, but is in the process of being realised. A strategic split became apparent among the people, at least since the events of June 1999 [3]. In those events the issue of moving to overthrowing the regime, as opposed to pressuring and isolating it, was openly expressed. Challenge its legitimacy gave way for some of the activists to challenging the rulers’ power to control. Society took the first essential step on the road to becoming ungovernable.

 

 

The blind alley of reformist thinking and the defeat of the strategy of political reforms within the framework of the existing system has left no other choice for a people who cannot tolerate the continuation of Islamic government but to join the camp of those working for overthrow and to take steps in this direction.

The grounds for this route to be acceptable at the poplar level today is fertile. The rulers’ power to control, more than ever, is conditional on their ability to internalise repression – that is to create an atmosphere of oppression and terror. Yet the rulers are more than ever incapable of creating these condition. These days repression not only does not result in oppression, but causes the voices of protest to rise even louder, the encounters and breaking of taboos more bold.

From the tactical point of view also, the anti-despotic movements did not follow a uniform path. In all the years following May 1997, alongside permissible moves, people did not lose any opportunity to have a go at direct action, especially at the local level.

Workers clocked on average of one illegal act per day: strike, factory occupation, barricading roads, hostage taking, or protest march [4]. The marginalised destitute in on the city outskirts embarked on an average of one protest revolt a month. Women have expanded defiance to the rules and laws of the regime in ways that make control impossible. In particular the battle against enforced veiling and other manifestations of the officially enforced culture have been raised to heights never witnessed before. Millions of citizens have used national and historic or political and social Iranian (as opposed to Islamic) traditions and fetes for direct action. This year the spring festivals of Chahar Shanbeh Suri and Sizdah Bedar [5] were celebrated with passion and enthusiasm, even though the regime was determined to stop them. It would not be an exaggeration to claim that such enthusiasm for these festivities has not been seen in living memory.

Finally the turning away from, and break with, the reformist leadership is itself not without precedence. The popular movement has shown both its potential and its determination to create an independent leadership. This has certainly happened at the local level. A new generation of organic leaders are today taking over the job of leading the day to day affairs of popular movements and single issue struggles. There are also signs of contacts between these with network links forming between them.

This process is contemporaneous with the formation of alliances among the democratic and left opposition. These are not alliances for bargaining and making deals with those at the top but to create an umbrella that can tie the dispersed moves of the people, co-ordinate them and direct them towards similar goals.

Obviously the success of these alliances depend on:

Gaining the confidence of the people and especially their grass-root leaders and organisers depends on their ability to come up with a platform that can assure the solidarity between the various sections of the anti-despotic struggle through accepting, and allowing for, their differences.

Translating religious despotism to the language of workers, women, youth, nationalities, and religious minorities.

Overcoming the existing limitations in nation-wide organisation and by moving from the "natural" network (blood, job and neighbourhood ties) to create societies and organisational links.

Mobilise the more passive and marginalised sections of the people towards the overthrow of the regime under such slogans as a referendum on the Islamic Republic.

Transform the existing movements which are predominantly negative as well being individual and local, into movements which are positive, collective and nation-wide.

The realisation of these conditions, although possible, are not inevitable. The left and democratic forces today face another historic test.

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3 pages