https://arab.news/va5jn
- Belief grows that the unpopular system of clerical rule since 1979 revolution may be coming to an end
- Participants in leaderless uprising have demanded freedom, democracy, and separation of religion and state
LONDON: Following a month of nationwide protests, sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of Iran鈥檚 notorious morality police, there is growing belief that the militant clerical regime, in place since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, is living on borrowed time.
Amini鈥檚 death on Sept. 16 ignited a tinderbox of pent-up frustrations in Iran over falling living standards and discrimination against women and ethnic minorities, leading to the biggest wave of mass protests since the Green Movement of 2009.
A month on, the unrest has persisted, spreading to at least 80 cities despite a 鈥渞uthless鈥� crackdown that has left more than 200 dead.
This image grab from a UGC video made available on October 15, 2022, shows Iranian students protesting at Tehran's University of Science and Culture. (AFP)
Such is the scale, fury and determination of the protests there are now many Iran watchers and scholars of social movements beginning to talk openly about the possibility of regime change.
It certainly would not be unprecedented for a nonviolent protest movement of this scale to succeed. According to research by Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard University, nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed in this vein as armed conflicts.
Looking at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, including in the Philippines in 1986, Georgia in 2003, and Sudan and Algeria in 2019, Chenoweth found it takes around 3.5 percent of the population actively participating in such protests to ensure serious political change.
Such is the influence of Chenoweth鈥檚 work that the phenomenon has been dubbed 鈥渢he 3.5 percent rule.鈥�
Roham Alvandi, associate professor of international history at the London School of Economics, believes 鈥渟omething fundamental鈥� has changed in the wake of the protests, which may constitute 鈥渢he beginning of the end of the Islamic Republic.鈥�
Iranian students protest at the Art University in the central city of Isfahan in this image grab from a UGC video made available on October 15, 2022. (AFP)
In the immediate aftermath of Amini鈥檚 death, the protests primarily focused on the morality police and their strict dress code for women. Videos of these early demonstrations shared on social media showed women removing and burning their headscarves in acts of defiance.
Soon, however, the focus of the protests grew to include a whole range of other grievances, from tumbling living standards as a result of crippling Western sanctions, to the denial of basic rights for ethnic minorities.
However, it was the decision by workers at the Abadan and Kangan oil refineries and the Bushehr petrochemical plant to join the protests that galvanized the belief that the regime could be on its last legs.
An image grab from a UGC video made available on Twitter on Oct. 10, 2022 shows
employees of the Asaluyeh Petrochemical Refinery in Bushehr province protesting Mahsa Amini's death. (AFP)
Strike action played a critical role in Iran鈥檚 1906 and 1979 revolutions, Alvandi told Arab News, arguing that it could now serve to 鈥減aralyze the Islamic Republic and show the powerlessness of the state in the face of this movement.鈥�
Sanam Vakil, deputy director and senior research fellow for the Middle East North Africa program at Chatham House, concurs with this assessment, telling Arab News a series of strikes comparable to those experienced in 1979 could be a 鈥渒ey ingredient, crippling the economy and showcasing a broader base of support.鈥�
However, Vakil says there are several factors that could determine the success of the movement. Chief among them is leadership.
鈥淭he strength and weakness of the movement is its lack of clear leadership,鈥� Vakil tld Arab News. 鈥淚t is a strength because without a clear structural organization and leader it will be hard to stamp it out completely, but those components are also very necessary if this movement is going to be a real challenge to the regime.鈥�
And although the protests of 2009 and 2019 may have been bigger in terms of numbers taking to the streets, analysts have pointed to the cross-generational character of the movement and the sheer number of cities and regions that are taking part.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not often you have schoolchildren telling the Iranian president to get lost,鈥� said Vakil.
Yassamine Mather, an expert in Iranian politics at Oxford University and the editor of the academic journal 鈥淐ritique,鈥� believes this wide base of support spanning many segments of Iranian society is a key strength which raises the possibility of regime change.
鈥淚t is also a strength that they have gone beyond the hijab and are addressing other issues 鈥� repression, political prisoners, the high price of basic foods, unemployment or lack of secure employment, and corruption,鈥� Mather told Arab News.
鈥淎nd then there is support from oil workers in specific areas, such as Assalouyeh, as well as support by Hafttapeh sugarcane workers, a syndicate of Iran鈥檚 teachers, and sections of the legal profession. In Tehran, lawyers have been demonstrating this week.
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Mahsa Amini, an ethnic Kurd, died on Sept. 16 after being arrested for allegedly violating the regime鈥檚 strict hijab rules.
Iranian officials claimed she had suffered a heart attack, but reports indicated she died as a result of a severe beating on the day of her arrest.
鈥淣ot to mention that many of the protesters are young. In some cases they are schoolchildren, so they are not easily scared. It helps that the regime has failed to launch either sustained or successful pro-government counter demonstrations.鈥�
Mather also pointed to an apparent sense of mounting disunity at the top following the decision by former parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani to publicly deviate from the regime鈥檚 line that US and Israeli intelligence efforts had manufactured the protests.
A bin burns in the middle of an intersection during a protest for Mahsa Amini in Tehran on September 20, 2022. (AFP)
Speaking to an Iranian news site, Larijani said an 鈥渆xtremist鈥� government policy on the hijab had engendered an extremist counterreaction among the Iranian public, and called for greater tolerance.
鈥淩eformists within the regime trying to distance themselves from hardliners, some calling on security forces to side with the 鈥榩eople who are protesting,鈥� have probably come a little too late,鈥� said Mather.
鈥淭he fact is, protesters are distancing themselves from the regime itself and the slogan 鈥榙eath to the dictator, be it Khamenei or the Shah鈥� is now very prominent.鈥�
Iranian opposition groups in the diaspora are watching closely as events unfold in Iran, but fear the regime is unlikely to collapse without putting up a fight.
Elham Zanjani, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran Women鈥檚 Committee, told Arab News it was 鈥渃ertainly possible鈥� that the protests could lead to regime change, but far from inevitable.
鈥淭he vast majority of the Iranian people are against the regime, they are chanting 鈥榙own with Khamenei,鈥� 鈥榃e don鈥檛 want the mullahs nor the Shah,鈥� and they have little doubt that what they are looking for, freedom and democracy, separation of religion and state etc., won鈥檛 see the light with this regime in power,鈥� said Zanjani.
Sympathizers of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) demonstrate near the Iranian Embassy in Vienna, Austria, on Sept. 26, 2022. (AFP)
鈥淏ut one cannot underestimate the regime鈥檚 dreadful potential of repression, as they showed in November 2019, killing over 1,500 protesters in five days.鈥�
Indeed, sheer brute force could well be enough to ultimately stifle the movement.
鈥淭here is also the issue that there is neither an obvious alternative nor a strategy about who or what would replace the current regime,鈥� said Mather. 鈥淢ixed with this you have the ability of the security forces to kill, injure and arrest protesters.鈥�
Help from external powers is also likely to taint the movement and lend weight to the regime鈥檚 claims of a foreign conspiracy.
Demonstrators chant slogans in front of the US Capitol during the "March of Solidarity for Iran" in Washington, DC, on Oct.15, 2022. (AFP)
鈥淪upport by Western governments 鈥� this is also a potential weakness as it invokes ideas of 鈥榗olor revolutions,鈥� and notions of foreign interventions with the aim of dividing Iran into small regional states,鈥� said Mather, referring to the fragmentation of the former Soviet Union in the 1990s along predominantly ethnolinguistic lines.
For Zanjani, however, international support remains an important factor for the ultimate overthrow of the regime. Such support ought to include punitive measures to prevent the regime employing further oppressive measures against peaceful protesters.
鈥淲e must overcome, one way or another, this evil repressive power,鈥� Zanjani told Arab News.