Why Tunisia can but Iran can't
By Ali Reza Eshraghi
The surprising rapidity with which Tunisians unseated President Zine el-Abidine
Ben Ali has been watched keenly in Iran, not least by the political opposition
known as the Green Movement.
As Iranian blogs and Facebook messages abound with the punning phrase, "Tounes
tounes, Iran na-tounes" - meaning "Tunisia could, Iran couldn't" -
there has also been sober reflection on why this was the case; why the massive
protests that followed the disputed presidential election of June 2009 came to
nothing in the end.
At the same time, as economic hardship sparked riots in Tunisia, Iran remained
almost eerily calm in the wake of increases in the cost of fuel, bread, water,
gas and other essentials, as the
Mahmud Ahmadinejad administration launched a program of cuts to Iran's large
and costly system of subsidies.
The Bolivian government began a similar subsidy-elimination program at around
at the same time as Iran, but was rapidly forced to retreat in the face of
wide-scale protests.
The lack of protests surprised even the Iranian government, which had stationed
police on the streets in anticipation of trouble. In Tehran, the hub of the
2009 demonstrations, people simple began economizing. The only visible public
reaction took the form of long queues at ATM machines as people rushed to
withdraw the money the government had placed in their accounts as partial
compensation for the subsidy cuts.
Aspects of the Tunisian uprising are strongly reminiscent of the 1979 Iranian
revolution. Both countries had secular, Western-backed governments at the time,
and both revolutions occurred when the United States had a Democrat president
who was concerned about human-rights issues.
Tunisia's revolution also resembles the Iranian Constitutional Revolution which
began in 1905 and was the first of its kind in the Middle East.
The Constitutional Revolution was sparked by the public flogging of bazaar
merchants accused of hiking sugar prices. In Tunisia, the protests took off
after Mohamed Bouazizi, a college graduate who had turned to street vending
because he could not find other work, set himself on fire in protest when
police confiscated his cart.
There are many valid comparisons to be drawn between the economic situations in
Iran and Tunisia as motors for protest.
In Iran, the situation is arguably worse on all fronts. For a start, economic
sanctions have made life harder for both ordinary citizens and the private
sector.
The economic growth rate is close to zero, compared with Tunisia's, estimated
at over 3% for 2010. If Tunisian inflation stood at about 3.5%, consumer prices
in Iran have been rising at double-digit rates for the past several years. The
central bank in Tehran claims a rate of just under 10% for 2010, although
parliamentary researchers disagree; and in any case, inflation is likely to
rise even faster as price subsidies come to an end this year.
Official figures from Tehran suggest that the unemployment rate, at about 15%
of the working-age population, is roughly similar to conditions in Tunisia,
although unofficial Iranian sources say the figure is much higher.
Finally, the percentage of Iranians living under the poverty line is between
18% and 25%, compared with 7.4% of Tunisians, and there are plenty of
university graduates like Bouazizi doing any work they can find - in the
Iranian context, typically driving taxis.
Another important difference is that unlike the unpopular Ben Ali, President
Ahmadinejad draws significant voter support from the poorer sections of
society. At the very least, his administration can count on the backing of five
million people who are Basiji volunteers and their family members. Even Green
Movement leaders who insist the 2009 poll was rigged accept that Ahmadinejad
won between 30% and 40% of the vote.
During the 2009 election campaign, all of Ahmadinejad's rivals attacked him on
the economic front. Opposition candidate Mehdi Karroubi accused him of
distorting economic statistics so much and of having a poorer grasp of
inflation than his, Karroubi's, own mother.
Yet Green Movement leaders were unable to translate their concerns into the
kind of language that persuade ordinary voters to back them in large numbers.
The truth is that many of the mothers Karroubi joked about actually voted for
Ahmadinejad. This was not because they were misled; they simply looked at the
way things were and decided their best interests lay in government cash
handouts rather than in promises of structural change.
In the 30-year history of the Islamic Republic, there have been only a handful
of localized urban protests over economic matters, and they have never spread.
Every once in a while, there is news of a strike over unpaid wages at some
plant, but not once - even at the height of the 2009 post-election protests -
did industrial unrest escalate into nationwide strikes.
Last year, the influential merchant class of the Tehran bazaar stopped work in
protest at taxation changes, but once again there were no public expressions of
sympathy from other groups.
Even a recent "political" suicide in Iran, that of a man who set himself on
fire outside parliament in 2008 in protest at his inability to find work,
passed largely unnoticed - in stark contrast to Bouzizi's death. The talk in
the Iranian media centered on whether the man really was a veteran of the war
with Iraq as he claimed, or a drug addict.
The nature of leadership and the complexity of the state system differ sharply
from Tunisia to Iran.
The initial violent crackdown on protests in Tunisia mirrored the Iranian
authorities' actions after the 2009 election; and the figure of 70 deaths is
roughly comparable with the number the Green Movement claimed then. But while
Iranian leaders showed (and still show) that they have the resolve to crush
their opponents, Ben Ali began retreating step by step, dismissing Interior
Minister Rafik Belhaj Kacem, then apologizing for the bloodshed. Before fleeing
the country, he told protesters, "I understand you!" - words that recall the
Shah's words prior to fleeing Iran in 1979, "I have heard the sound of your
revolution."
At least Ben Ali - who has gone to Saudi Arabia - and the late Shah found
states willing to take them in. Iran's present leaders would have less chance
of finding a welcoming host if they had to leave in a hurry.
The Tunisians had a single leader to obey, and then to rebel against. Power in
Iran is much more diffuse. As long as he was in office, Ben Ali could at least
be the one man who was happy with the way things were going. In Iran, by
contrast, no one is satisfied with the status quo - not even Ahmadinejad or
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, both of whom express unhappiness with
policies pursued over the past 20 years, and are probably discontented with one
another.
Like everyone else, the Supreme Leader bemoans the prevalence of corruption,
while Ahmadinejad's chief vice president is currently the subject of a
corruption case.
In the seat of Shi'ite learning, Qom, the ayatollahs accuse the government of
ignoring their advice and failing to curb inflation and unemployment, but they
also grumble that ordinary Iranians are disregarding religious traditions.
Government, parliament and judiciary all criticize the others. The Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps must defend the regime at times of crisis even at
the cost of its own reputation, but in private, its leading members are
orificial of the government and what they see as its rash actions. Officers in
the regular army cannot stand the Guards, and vice versa.
Workers are mad at both the government and their own employers; employers are
unhappy with government and with the workforce, and the government has little
patience with either of the other two. The traditional merchants do not care
for the current government, but are also suspicious of the modern lifestyle and
values of the emerging middle class; farmers do not like townspeople; and
working-class people may be suffering under the government's economic policies
but would not align themselves politically with the middle classes.
Paradoxically, it is the widespread and divergent nature of dissatisfaction
that allows the regime to carry on.
And despite the apparent clamor of voices in the elite, the Iranian regime
knows how to deliver its message via state broadcasters. It can appeal to both
nationalist and Islamic sentiment, and accuse its opponents of falling under
the pernicious influence of hostile states. Ben Ali was unable to appeal to
popular feelings on such matters.
The Tunisian protest movement had an identifiable foe - a single authoritarian
leader and his corrupted entourage, rather like the Shah of the 1970s.
Opposition in Iran operates in the context of a complex constitutional setup,
and an even more complex reality.
The 2009 unrest was as spontaneous and unplanned as recent events in Tunis. But
Green Movement leaders proved unprepared to take control of the protest mood or
to direct the crowds in the streets. Crucially, they had no interest in turning
a movement protesting about electoral fraud into a revolution that might have
had uncertain consequences for them and the country. After all, the Green
Movement leaders themselves had previously served in various official posts in
the Islamic Republic.
On balance, it is perhaps more surprising that Ben Ali's 23-year rule came to
such an abrupt end than it is to observe the Iranian regime's resilience a year
and a half on from the protests.
Inside Iran, many educated people would have concerns about a Tunisian-style
overnight revolution. For all its faults, the current state at least provides
some kind of framework, whereas violent upheaval might bring short-term joy
followed by highly unpredictable consequences.
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