Unrest in Syria, domestic and foreign conflicts, unstable economics, and ever increasing sanctions are some of many factors challenging Iranian’s regime. The question arises, whether the current circumstances can be taken advantage of by the working class, students, and generally the opposition and the green movement?

A national state requires its different components to be in accordance in order to function properly. After its allegedly rigged presidential elections, over two years ago, the Iranian government was faced a political crisis. While the opposition was heavily oppressed, the new government also had to cope with the burdens of the Islamic republic, ranging from economical deficits to foreign struggles. Removing subventions and establishing diplomatic relations with Latin American countries were just a few of newly introduced policies. However these efforts could not sufficiently stabilize the compromised integrity and legitimacy of the government. On the contrary the opposition is making an effort to reorganize, domestic conflicts are getting radicalized and the economy is on its downturn. Moreover the controversial nuclear program and the sanctions added on the pressure.

From a strategic point of view, the opposition can make best of the current regime’s dilemma to reach its own goals. At the moment the opposition has the opportunity to dispute the aforementioned matters and their consequences on the society. If the opposition succeeds to take a stand on these issues it may be able to reunite different groups and mobilize masses. The western interest on one hand and the conflicts inside the regime on the other hand made a momentum to be used by the opposition.

But how is any corner defined? There are boundaries, lines, fences and owners. Boundaries and fences to keep those inside safe from those outside. Let politics draw a vague, imaginary and unreasonable line around a group of people, of same language, same culture or whatsoever, then you have a nation, a government to take care of that nation and borders to save it from foreign harm. A flag to be proud of and a name to identify yourself with: A home.
If you are (un)lucky and born somewhere on this earth where we currently know as east, you are out luck: doors are locked and fences are high, thanks to the very idea of nation (in a political point of view). We know it, we learn it and we accept it.

Every war, every fight and every word which gives raise to the this idea is another brick in the wall, the isolating walls. Persian or Arabic Gulf, Turkish or Armenian: same idea, same consequences. Pushing those on the other side leads to being trapped inside. Borders are victims of history, insiders of today are outsiders of tomorrow. The sun may rise and erase this imaginary dotted lines away, to put a light on the faces of those inside and outside. We may recognize ourself, we may recognize the humanity and differences of language, religion, etc wouldn’t be obstacles to solidarity.

People of the fenced Land! the fence is not to protect, the fence is to protect others from you, from you sinners. The sin is being born. Being born on the wrong corner of this ever getting lonely planet.

Iran:

Hijab is not mandatory

A thirty years later people queued desperately at polling places (even outside Iran) to cast their votes with slightest glimmer of hope to elect a new president who made the promise of “Freedom”. The elections led to bloody clashes between people and security guards, police and Basidj paramilitary forces. A large number of opponents of the regime including many students had to leave the country and seek safety abroad. Those arrested faced harsh prison times, torture and even cases of sexual abuse were reported^[2].

United States:

2009: Barack H. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize and at his lecutre he stated:

America’s commitment to global security will never waver. But in a world in which threats are more diffuse, and missions more complex, America cannot act alone. America alone cannot secure the peace. This is true in Afghanistan

Short after that more troops were sent to Afghanistan to secure the region and in hope of putting an end to this 9 year old war. A while after civilians were “mistakenly” killed by NATO troops.

Hillary Clinton in his speech on “Internet Freedom” in Jan. 2010 commented:

We are reinvigorating the Global Internet Freedom Task Force as a forum for addressing threats to Internet freedom around the world, and urging U.S. media companies to take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments’ demands for censorship and surveillance.

Without considering that “Deep Packet Inspection” (a technology which is claimed to be sold by Nokia-Siemens Networks to Iranian government) is being also used in U.S.A. (for more see here)
Forgetting about the Yahoo! scandal which led to imprisoning and torturing a number of Chinese activists. Ignoring the fact that the website of a group of Iranian hackers known as “Iranian Cyber Army” -which hacked Twitter, Baidu, and some politically motivated Iranian websites- is being currently hosted on Yahoo! servers.

A countless number of such speeches and promises can be found throughout the history and they all share one common characteristic: being successful in uniting masses of people -even with various opinions and point of views- however based on empty words.

We are all familiar with this trick, we don’t even listen to what is being said by politicians! nevertheless they are our politicians, they got our vote of confidence (one way or another) and these are the ones in charge of decision making.

Iran and United States were chosen here as examples of two countries which on one hand have very different governmental structures and on the other hand both follow populism^[3].

Civil Society

Political structures are nowadays so complicated which makes it hard to follow and understand and as side effect unattractive for majority of people. A presidential election every four years (or similar, depending on country of residence) would be the most political activity one may be involved in and a decision based upon empty words and promises and what is being broadcast by mainstream media would not be a correct one.

One way to be involved and to get others involved in politics is to join grassroots, NGOs and to empower a civil society. One may underestimate the influential and success of such organizations and movements but at this point a brief look at the history of “Amnesty International” highlights the importance of such social bodies. The goal is to inform and take action.

Another way would be Civil Disobedience, which is defined,inter alia, by John Rawls as:

civil disobedience is a public, non-violent and conscientious breach of law undertaken with the aim of bringing about a change in laws or government policies^[4]

For example Ghandi’s movement in India can be categorized as civil disobedience, which had great success and contributed to independence of India.

According to political climate of one country, different approaches may be chosen in order to make political changes. It is just a matter of readiness of people to take part in different forms of action.

[1]: Adapted from Urban Dictionary. ^

[2]: more stories on: ^

• Human Rights Watch
• Guardian
• BBC News

[3]: The word “Populism” doesn’t have a generally accepted academic definition. The definition of “Cambridge Online Dictionary” as political ideas and activities that are intended to represent ordinary people’s needs and wishes can best represent of what is meant in this article. It is to consider that it is intended to represent wishes and it does not necessarily fulfill those needs and wishes. ^

[4] adapted from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ^

Political system:
The Iranian political system resembles nearly no other common political system, caused by existence of “Council of Guardians” and the “Supreme Leader” which have legal administrative and legislative rights mentioned directly in the constitution.

As an example, according to the Iranian constitution (revised on 1989):
Article 91:With a view to safeguard the Islamic ordinances and the Constitution, in order to examine the compatibility of the legislation passed by the Islamic Consultative Assembly with Islam, a council to be known as the Guardian Council is to be constituted.
Relatively, duties and powers of Leadership are also mentioned in article 110.
Leadership and Council of Guardians are known to be the most effective political powers, after which the president is the key decision maker and lastly the Parliament.
It is called the “Islamic Republic of Iran”, which implies that people have an impact (may it be direct or indirect) on the government but exactly in contrast to this, those above mentioned councils hinder the very basic democratic rights of individuals.
To get a better picture of this system this site would be helpful.

Candidates:
Each and every person is allowed to register himself for the presidency. A vague description of president’s qualifications is also to be found in the constitution:
Article115:The President must be elected from among religious and political personalities possessing the following qualifications: Iranian origin; Iranian nationality; administrative capacity and resourcefulness; a good past-record; trustworthiness and piety; convinced belief in the fundamental principles of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the official religion of the country.

After the registration, it is upon the Council of Guardians to decide who is eligible for presidency and who’s not. No woman has ever been approved as eligible.
It wouldn’t be irrelevant to mention that in the Persian version, the word “Rejal” (رجال), which is here translated as “personalities”, is used. It literally (in Arabic) means “Men”. Women rights activists have demanded revision on this article.

On the upcoming elections are four persons approved, two from Islamic lefts (also known as reformists) and two from Islamic rights (also known as conservatives), which means that actually there exists no different options to choose from, but one with different varieties. It’s like the difference between rain and snow: both are water.
To read more about candidates please visit here.

About Campaigning:
Election campaign is allowed in a period of less than a month (for upcoming elections is 20 days), and is done in rather a traditional way: printing all sorts of posters and banners. I can remember about 12 years ago, as I was just a kid, it was all like a big colorful fest and for us mainly a playground.
In the last decade a lot has been changed, candidates do their best to contact and meet different groups of people directly by holding meetings, debates and etc. and indirect by making use of various media including public television channels, newspapers and so on.
Both candidates of reformists have made best use of independent media such as YouTube and Facebook to facilitate a more liberal communication primarily with youth.

Point of View
As someone who lives abroad, or let me put it this way, made to leave homeland for a better education and future, (as I was personally not satisfied with the education system of Iran) I got involved with politics, in hope of building a better future.
I’m following presidential campaigns from start up to now, and have tried to analyze it as a third person watching from outside of the country, explained in following:

• All of candidates promise freedom, women rights, free press and a lot of other great things without even clarifying their own understanding of these terms as they lack objectivity.
• People are convinced that it’s the one and only alternative to choose between bad and worse.
• We lack oppositions and political theorists to introduce new alternatives and options.
• Candidates target people’s emotions.

I feel as I’m being abused and manipulated by a very smart group of administrating people whose goal is only to stay in power, whatever the price may be. Propaganda is sickening the people.

What I wrote was just a brief introduction to Tehran -Capital city of Iran- you may find it shocking or rather interesting! I will not discuss about what causes these issues, but feel free to ask more about each and everyone of them.

1 ) Many people still believe Shah (the King) was better, and people were living more happily at that time. (so why they started the revolution in the first place?)
2 ) Many actors were forbidden to act or perform for good.
3 ) Many people, went to U.S. and still believe in Shah, and firmly believe some day he’ll be back. (a lot of them have their own shows on satellite TVs)
4 ) Some people are so desperate that they are ready to believe anything that they hear on satellite TVs, and wish to do anything as they say so, and firmly believe that one day U.S.A will come over to help us!
5 ) There were a lot of people involved in the revolution but some were not necessarily on “Imam Khomeini’s” side. It was a huge wave that directed everyone to Imam Khomeini’s side.
6 ) It’s our government’s policy to fed people stories about harsh conditions of prisoners and … before the revolution.
7 ) An annual walking is held on the day of revolution success, to show “the world” people still believe in the Revolution and it’s afterwards consequences. But the truth is, many of them are forced to join the walking because of different reasons (i.e. not to lose their job).
8 ) Some type of security organization was established after the revolution called “Basij” which has somehow unlimited and unofficial powers (By unofficial I mean it’s not mentioned in the law). Everyone literally everyone can join “Basij”, and if you’re an active member you’ll be given the authority to search cars, people, … and even high rank members are given a stun-gun, pepper spray, or even a gun.
9 ) Our car industry started its work at the same time as Koreans started. And now Koreans are selling their cars in the whole world, and we just can export them to some near countries -which don’t have their own auto-industry – for a really cheap price. With all these mentioned conditions “Iran Khodro” -our main car manufacturing company- is said to be the greatest auto factory in the middle east! WHY? because they manufacture thousands of cars monthly and sell it for an expensive price (even 8x more than the real price), and people “Have” to buy them, theres no other option.
It’s also good to know that car import is only possible if you pay a 80% tax (it used to be 300% then it reduced to 120% and then to 80%). But anyhow there are people who can afford to buy even 500,000$ cars here (after paying the taxes: 900,000$)
10 ) Many historical sites were destroyed and robbed because of not paying enough attention, and not securing them.
11 )Less than 30 years ago, Dubai was known as just a desert to Iranians, and in a short time they managed to turn it into a touristic and attracting city, considering there are no historical places, no Natural wonders (except of the desert), … and just shopping malls, Disco Bars, Night Clubs, and stuff like that. (No offense to U.A.E people)
12 ) Many war victims and fighters are left by their own and nothing extra is dedicated as an advantage to them, to make life easier. They fought for 8 years and now they have to continue this war to the end of their lives.
13 ) There’ll be no other revolution in near future, because we’ve turned into obedient people. may God help us himself.

what I wrote above is not necessarily consequences of the Revolution, but it’s what happened afterwards.

And there are countless other things that you won’t even imagine.