Why Iranians Are Protesting? Yet Again

The ongoing round of protests in Iran began last week on Thursday in the north-eastern city of Mashhad, the burial place of the eighth Shiite Imam Reza and the most prominent Shiite pilgrimage centre in Iran. The city is a conservative bastion and stronghold of Ebrahim Raesi, the head of Asthan Quds Rezavi, the country’s wealthiest and most powerful of religious foundations. He had unsuccessfully rivalled President Hassan Rouhani in last year’s presidential election.

The initial protests in Mashhad involved those who had lost their savings to unlicensed credit and financial institutions before drawing the members of disgruntled working class, which continues to suffer as a result of the long-standing economic malaise afflicting the country. When the protests spread to other parts of country including smaller towns and President Trump began to vociferously praise the protesting ‘brave Iranians,’ it seemed like a repeat of the 2009 protests, when many in the West hoped that Islamic regime was nearing its end. But the sobering truth is that mass mobilisation, both pro-government as well as anti-government is a regular feature of Iranian political culture.

Mannocher Dorraj, a political science professor at the University of Texas points out that the Islamic Republic is a populist authoritarian theocracy that has used mass mobilisation to intimidate its political opponents and assert its authority;therefore, it is vulnerable to the demands of its constituency expressed through mass political action. It is one of the reasonswhy despite the pervasive security services and frequent show of coercive force to curb political dissent, the people of Iran have regularly resorted to protests to register their demands and needs to the holders of political power, and mass mobilisation has become embedded in the political culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Secondly, mass mobilisation in modern Iran can’t be separated from the culture of revolution and the Shi‘ite notion of justice, fairness, and resistance against oppression, ideals, which paradoxically constitute the revolutionary worldview of the Islamic Republic and also impel people to take collective social action against perceived failures of the same regime.

Thirdly, the spread of internet has provided a new and effective instrument for mass mobilisation by the youth; as a result, protests, once triggered in one city, quickly snowball in numbers. According to statistics by Iran’s Ministry of Communications, there were 47 million Iranians using mobile internet, making the internet penetration rate of about 58 per cent. Internet has surely opened the public space beyond the control of authoritarian regimes and it is for this reason that government blocks internet and social media in its attempt to shut down protests.

In Iran, mass mobilisations are also instrumentalised in its complex factional struggle for power. The current round of protests has been supported by conservatives, leaving President Rouhani appealing for unity and urging Iran’s political and military forces to speak in ‘one voice’ to ensure the “[survival of ] the political system, national interest and stability of our country and the region.”

Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, founder of the Europe-Iran Forum – a platform for business diplomacy between Iran and Europe – observes “it seems that country’s forgotten men and women may be mobilising to ensure that their voices are heard in Iran and around the world. There is a growing consensus that the protests are comprised primarily of members of working class, who are most vulnerable to chronic unemployment and a rise in the cost of living.”

The increase in food and fuel prices and slashing of state subsidies under the austerity measures undertaken by the Rouhani administration when coupled with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world and especially high youth unemployment of 29 per cent has swelled the numbers of those falling in the vulnerable class. If the urban and the highly educated upper and middle classes have brought moderates to power and have constituted the constituency of the reform movement and civil society, the underclass has often thrown its lot with the conservatives and hardliners, such as Ahmadinejad, who remains a popular figure among this section. It only makes sense that the protests were triggered in the conservative bastion of Mashhad and not in hyper-urban Tehran. Iranians know that theirs is a resource-rich county and therefore they can’t be resigned to a life of economic misery, especially when they see that their country is engaged in a costly geopolitical rivalry with Saudi Kingdom.

In times of economic downturn, low oil-export revenue and dampening prospects of economic revival in light of the US about-turn on thenuclear deal and spectre of re-imposition of sanctions, Iranian people are increasingly unwilling to bailout expensive geopolitical games that the Iranian state is playing in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere.“Na Gaza, na Lebnaan, Jaanam fedaaye Iran” (Neither Gaza, nor Lebanon, will sacrifice my life for Iran) and “Death to the Dictator”, the popular slogans of the Green Movement of 2009 have made a return.

Slogans such as these squarely question the pan-Islamist narrative of resistance exploited by the regime to produce legitimacy at the expense of the needs of the national citizenry. It is the perpetuation of authoritarian populist theocracy and the overriding powers of the ‘religious jurist’ that fuel the undying popular desire for democracy and freedom. The Iranian youth born after the Islamic revolution and the turmoil of Iran-Iraq war are not enthralled with the ideological revolutionary worldview of the regime and instead want an end to the economic duress inflicted by decades of sanctions and American hostility towards Iran.

Even if it were economic woes of the marginalised that triggered the protests, they have quickly snowballed into political protests drawing students and youth including large number of women. The fact that protests are leaderless and the cities reporting protest causalities – Najafabad and Shahin Shar in Isfahan province and the town of Tuyserkan in Hamadan province are small towns with populations less than two lakhs clearly indicate that the protests are spontaneous and not manipulated by external forces which have resorted to bandwagoning with certain oppositional figures to further their agenda of regime change. However, one thing is certain that the American exuberance over Iranian protests would be used by the government to suppress protests while urging unityand warning against falling prey to enemy plots.

Deepika Saraswat

7/1/2018