Why have democratic reforms stalled in Iran ? Why do the youth and students seem unwilling to protest anymore ? Did the reforms die ? Did the reformers hit a stone wall or they never cared about reform enough ?
I have been following what in the past seemed a promising tendency in Iran of a peaceful political reform towards more democracy... and in the last couple of years its been dead in the water. I haven't seen many opinions on why its stopped... or how things are in Iran.
The sad part is feeling that the students and youth are giving up on the reformist movement...
Any Iranians in SMDB ?
The Iranian government pretty much rigged the elections last February by disqualifying most reformers. Dissent was repressed.
This report by Human Right’s Watch, entitled as it is, “Like the Dead in Their Coffins: Torture, Detention, and the Crushing of Dissent in Iran” is not particularly encouraging.
The “Council of Guardians” (or whatever they’re called) have pretty much demonstrated that reforms will simply not happen thru the ballot box. They can arbitrarily take anyone they want off the ballot, and they are NOT elected officials themselves. I think the people have assumed, probably correctly, that nothing short of another (violent) revolution will produce real change.
And I doubt here is or will be much traction for another violent revolution in Iran, at least not in the near future. Remember, they’d be revolting THIS time against their religion…perhaps against Allah himself. When Clerics control the government, no matter how repressive they are, it takes a lot longer for revolution to stir. One has only to look at European history for examples of this.
BTW, if you want an opinion, I think eventually there WILL be reforms in Iran…they just won’t happen any time soon. Give it a few more decades and you will see several aborted ‘reform’ movements…and eventually some real reforms. Just my opinion though. That is, if Iran doesn’t fuck up and draw the wrath of the US or some other country or coalitian because they are caught red handed supporting various external terrorist organizations (which I think they do)…or do something rash with one of their nukes. If so, all bets are off.
I have to wonder how much the growing chaos in Iraq has to do with it. Has it emboldened the hardliners to take repressive measures out of fear that the mess will spread across the border, either from militant Sunnis or an extension of the US invasion? Or have the pro-democratization forces backed off out of fear that the hardliners would do that? Or some of both?
There was a nicely growing, nonviolent, gradual-democracy movement in Iran a few years ago, or there seemed to have been. There’s just no way to think these developments, to the extent they’re real, can be discussed in isolation of the regional situation. It may be that restoration of the reform movement depends at least on US withdrawal from Iraq.
I had the same impression… especially since most iranian youths were acquiring a taste for americana. US “culture” was becoming more popular. The “Axis of Evil” was especially bad.
I agree with xtisme that maybe the feeling is that peaceful reforms won’t work and that they will have to be violent… but the youth wouldn’t simply give up like they did. Its like their “baloon” deflated suddenly… 9/11 and the War on Terror might have given the hard liners to much political ammunition.
Something else could be the reason… high oil prices might have given the Iranian government quite a lot of free cash. That could strenghten their position or allow them to use cash more freely to reduce discontentment.
Thanks for the articles… really nice to know more details about Iran compared to their neighbors. I’ve always had the impression they are a step above Arabs in cultural and political terms.
JM is right…I DON’T think there will be another violent revolution. This is based on my own reading of the situation, as well as the fact that I was actually in Terhan about 5 years ago, and the population didn’t strike me as particularly violent against the theocracy…more like apathetic. Even then you could see that the ‘change’ was pretty well controlled by the Clerics…and they weren’t going to go beyond certain limits. In fact, I think that they were just paying lip service to changing things at any fundamental level. Maybe we’ll get lucky and Tamerlane will come in and go into some depth abut this.
I think change, if and when it comes, will be a long slow process more akin to water eroding a rock. Violent change in Iran, if it happens will happen, IMHO, from an outside agency, not internally.
I think I’m just more likable than you John…thats why RM agreed with ‘me’ even though it was your points he was really agreeing with.
This is a very relevant post in relation to current events. Nobody to my knowledge has ever asked Bush Senior why he didn’t back the revolt in Iraq after the 1st Gulf War. I’ve always suspected that it would have resulted in another religious coup with someone like Sadr in place of Saddam Hussein. That would have made the Shiite empire much larger (and deadlier to the region).
IMO a lot of the resistence in Iraq is directly tied to Shite fundamentalism which draws a straight line to Tehran. A democratic Muslim state is the greatest threat to Iran’s current political leaders.
My understanding (no cite) is that Bush I didn’t continue into Iraq and ‘finish the job’ because our allies, especially SA didn’t support the US doing that…and Bush didn’t want to go against the coalition he had spent so much time and effort building. The Saudi’s didn’t want Saddam defeated and Iraq conquered because they feared the majority Shi’ite’s would gain power and perhaps allie with Iran, or form another Shi’ite theocracy. Saddam, for all his faults, acted as a SECULAR buffer between Shi’ite Iran and Sunni SA…a buffer they very much wanted to keep in place (especially since Saddam was seen as a defanged snake at the time). So Bush didn’t support the rebellions because SA didn’t want them to succeed.
I’m sure many will dispute the above, but thats my reading of the situation. Take it with a grain of salt.
Shi’ites don’t need Tehran in order to resist US occupation… it might help them of course… but its not a pre condition.
Secondly even if Iraq does become democratic, a far off possibility, its not the greatest threat to Iran. In fact a democratic Iraq dominated by Shi’ites would be neat for Iran. In fact US troops next door are the real threat… so naturally keeping those troops busy with insurgents makes a lot of sense for Iran.