1979 Redux?

Posted on June 18th, 2009 Austan Mogharabi 1 comment  Print This Post

There is an interesting, ongoing conversation online between bloggers, academics and policy wonks over who will “win.”  There are two camps in this argument: 

The first believe that the experiences of the current regime (Ahmadineja, Khamenei, etc) during the 1979 Revolution prepare them for what is happening now.  These experiences, proponents argue, suggest that the regime will survive because they know EXACTLY how revolutions occur.  The signs of an upcoming crackdown to prevent such a revolution are increasing (see here, here and here) and the regime has all the guns.  These facts (experience, weaponry and willingness to use it) make the chance of an opposition victory small.

The second camp argues that, while the regime has experience with revolutions, so too do the demonstrators and opposition leaders (Mousavi, Karroubi, Rafsanjani, Larijani, etc).  In fact, these individuals were integral in bringing down the Shah in 1979, making them more able to successfully pull off another revolution against the current government (see here and here).  In addition, the method of pursuing the demonstrations, including silent marches, days of mourning, and shouts of “Allah o Akbar” from rooftops, makes it hard for the regime to mobilize its armed forces and security apparatus against the people.

I hope the protesters win out but I am afraid they won’t.  Sorry that’s not very useful, but it’s the truth. 

What tilts me towards thinking they have a chance (of at least getting rid of Ahmadinejad), is the fact that current Iranian culture glorifies victimization.  As a result, beating or killing people rarely succeeds in quieting the crowds (see my earlier post for a similar point or Juan Cole’s analysis here).  Rather, making the protesters the victim of government oppression simply reinforces their belief that they must stand up against the government. 

It’s a terrifying way to think about the situation, but I don’t think it’s wrong.  Reza Aslan points out  how martyrdom, and the mourning of those martyrs in a culture such as Iran’s, affects a revolution (and how it worked in 1979):

….you have these massive mourning rallies, where you mourn the deaths of those who were martyred in the cause of freedom. And these things tend to get a little bit out of control, they often result in even more violence by the security forces and even more deaths, which then requires another mourning rally which is even larger, which then requires more violence from the government, and this just becomes an ongoing snowball that can’t be stopped.

The Guardian reported that today’s marches were bigger than the last.