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SPEAKING
FREELY
Reform or revolution, Iran's hard
choice
By Tomaj Keyvani
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their say.
Please click here if you
are interested in contributing.
There's
great uncertainty about the future of the Islamic
Republic of Iran. Internal unrest and power struggles
combined with external threats from the United States
and a neighborhood in disorder make most experts believe
that some kind of change is coming. The only question
is, how?
The scenarios are many, from peaceful
reform to a violent revolution, or even the possibility
of a US invasion, although the latter is less likely as
the Americans are under constant attack in Iraq and in
search of a seemingly uncatchable enemy in Afghanistan.
The question is, then, reform or revolution?
To
answer this we can search for clues in the 1979 Islamic
revolution that threw out the monarchy, and even though
many things have changed in Iranian society and politics
since then, there exist some pre-revolutionary factors
that have remained quite static through history.
One of these is the importance of the economic
well-being of the nation and its people. The period
close to the 1979 revolution was characterized by
economic recession, high inflation and high (and rising)
unemployment after the economic boom in the 1960s and
early 1970s. Together with the extremely unequal
distribution of the wealth from oil, this was one of the
major reasons for the civil unrest that developed into a
revolution.
The Iranian economy is doing fine at
the moment, although I wouldn't call it a boom. The
economy has had significant growth since the late 1990s,
with an average gross domestic product (GDP) increase of
5.7 percent over the past three years, and a steady
diversification away from oil dependence.
But
the growth has been possible to a large degree because
of a relatively high oil price and increased domestic
consumption, something that probably will change as Iraq
gets its oil production up and the Iranian domestic
market is satisfied. The trade surplus that Iran has had
during the past years, with which the government has
succeeded in building up the oil stabilization fund
(enough for 10 months of imports), is predicted to
change to a deficit during 2004 as a result of the fall
in the price of oil. And similarly, the surplus of 2.1
percent for 2003's budget is estimated to shift to a 3
percent (of GDP) fall.
Summing up, one can see a
change in economic trends to the negative, and adding
the unemployment rate of 20-25 percent to this, with a
need for about 900,000 new jobs each year, (currently
450,000 new jobs are created each year), this points to
further discontent, especially among the youth. And
similar to the 1970s, economic gains are going to a
small elite and an extreme inequality exists between
rich and poor, with the clerics in power standing on top
of the ladder, something that is not unnoticed by common
people.
This split between the clerical leaders
and common people is becoming more and more visible, and
besides their economic position, the clerical elite gain
from several privileges in today's Iranian society. They
are alienated from ordinary people in the same way that
the Shah and the elite around him were during his last
years in power. The widened gap between social groups
was then maybe the most important reason for poor people
to join the revolutionary movement, and certainly this
can be shown to be true for 2003 as the differences are
becoming more visible on the streets of Tehran.
Something else that's becoming more visible is
the Western fashion worn by the youth and MTV music
played on their stereos. Although this is in complete
contrast to the 1970s youth, the struggle is basically
the same today, and teenagers born after the revolution
are fighting against a cultural dominance in the same
way that their parents or older brothers and sisters did
back then. In the 1970s it was the Shah's aggressive and
untactful introduction of Western ways of living, and
now it's against a maybe even more aggressive and
untactful conservative Islamic cultural dominance. Both
were and are disrespectful intrusions into ordinary
people's lives, and as the experience of the 1970s
showed us, the youth are likely to change their
situation. Whether they do that slowly through reform or
a fierce revolution is to be seen.
The trigger
point is whether the clerical leadership will allow the
people to have real political power or not. The student
uprising a few years ago was calmed down to a degree by
the belief that the more liberal President Mohammed
Khatami would reform the system, and as we know, he was,
to put it mildly, not too successful. Public discontent
was a direct result, with a sharp decline for the
reformists at the municipal elections this year. For
example, there was only a 12 percent voter turnout in
the capital Tehran. Besides criticizing Khatami's
failures, people blame hardcore right-wingers in the
government for refusing to allow changes in the system,
and a feeling that legal political activity is useless
is manifest throughout the populace.
This
situation existed in a similar manner during the Shah's
rule and was the main reason for otherwise peaceful
intellectuals to revert to violent forms of politics,
thus creating guerrilla militant actions that in turn
resulted in even more oppression from the Shah's side.
Even though the creation of guerrillas is unlikely in
the present situation, the feeling that political action
within the framework of the Islamic Republic is useless
will lead to a radicalized opposition.
After the
recent clashes between reformists and conservatives,
many people believe that political activity is useless
as they see their efforts in parliament (majlis)
being reduced to nothing by the spiritual leader and the
Guardian Council's veto rights, their leaders being
arrested by a right-wing judiciary and murdered by
conservative militias, their newspapers closed down with
the editors facing charges and their demonstrators being
beaten up and arrested. All these things have proved to
people that the conservative leadership is not ready to
give up supreme rule, and further desperation is likely.
These same things happened during the 1970s, and back
then the people responded by revolting and creating a
new order.
But there are as yet no real signs
that the same fate awaits the Islamic Republic. There
can be several reasons for this. One of the strongest
attributes of the Islamic Republic is that, unlike any
other ruler or government (with the exception of the
1906 constitutional rule) in Iran's history, it was
chosen by the people. In contrast, the Shah was
appointed to take over by the British and Russians after
his father's forced abdication by the very same. The
Islamic Republic was voted for by an enormous majority
of the people after the revolution in 1979, and this
gives it a certain legitimacy no other Iranian rulers
have had before.
Another difference between the
Islamic Republic and the Shah is that the Shah was
considered a puppet of the West who not only sold out
the country to the Americans but also ignored Iranian
traditions and culture. The Islamic Republic is not
considered to be selling out the country in the same
way, rather ruining it, and although people in general
despise the conservative form of Shi'ite doctrine the
elite stands for, no one can deny that Shi'ism has firm
roots in Iranian history.
The third reason a
revolution is unlikely, and maybe the most important
one, is that the opposition has no answers to what or
who will replace the Islamic Republic, and as long as
people don't have an alternative to fight for they will
have difficulty organizing themselves.
Whatever
happens, one can be certain that any US military
pressure on Iran will lead to less space for reformists
to act on the internal scene, as Iranians are likely to
forget internal problems and focus on the external
threat in the same way they did during the Iraqi
invasion of Iran. This would in turn lead to the
conservatives getting the time they need to consolidate
their power and purge the internal ranks in the same way
they did in the long war of 1980-88.
Tomaj
Keyvani is studying for a master's degree in Middle
East studies at Uppsala University, Sweden. He can be
contacted at tomajmotazed@hotmail.com.
(Copyright Tomaj
Keyvani.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here if you
are interested in contributing.
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