Thirteen (13) months into the movement: An analysis

By: Afshin Nikouseresht

For the last 13 months now Iranians have been engaged in an ongoing courageous fight for democracy and human rights in the face of some of the worst repression imaginable. Ever since the fraudulent elections last June the so called Green Movement has seriously shaken the pillars of power in Iran and has brought under question the entire legitimacy of the ruling political system, including the role of the supreme leader, the military apparatus that props up the undemocratic power structures that dominate society along with the religious pretentions of the ruling clique that are used to justify the state’s barbaric and inhumane policies. This movement which to date has been the most significant and persistent show of opposition and protest movement in Iran since 1979, seemingly sprung out of nowhere on the morning after the elections and built its momentum on the back of a series of spontaneous street protests in which an unknown number of people were gunned down and killed and hundreds were beaten up or arrested. Armed with cheap camera phones and with the help of the global and foreign based Iranian media outlets and the internet, activists turned citizen journalists, succeeded in turning the Iranian uprising into the hottest news item in the world and for a short period, their stories along with all their gory details took over the front pages of the world’s most prominent newspapers. However I will argue that the movement has actually been the climax of years of discontent and smaller scale struggles by workers, women, students, journalists and minority groups and that it does not begin and end with the issue of the elections.

It is true that what we know as the Green Movement started out as a protest against the fraudulent elections with its main slogan being the rhetorical “where is my vote?”, but when it was revealed that the state’s entire machinery of repression had been mobilised prior to the elections to ensure the success of the coupe and when the supreme leader threw his support behind Ahmadinejad it gradually became clear that the regime was not going to concede to any of the democratic demands of the people and that instead they would embark on a mission to rid the Islamic Republic of all of the “moderate”, “liberal” and “reformist” political elements left within the establishment and to completely annihilate what was left of Iran’s battered civil society once and for all. So over the next few months the street protest movement gradually radicalised to the point where people’s slogans changed to directly attacking the supreme leader instead of just the president and tore up his photos and portraits in public and even chanted “down with the Islamic Republic” indicating that at least a section of the people no longer had any hopes of achieving any of their demands unless some fundamental structural changes took place. This ideological radicalisation was also reflected in how people protested; what started as silent protests in June, had by Ashura (In November) turned into pitched street battles between ordinary unarmed people and the state’s security forces and footage started pouring out of Iran of ordinary people capturing police outposts and the most famous of all, a group of protestors surrounding and disarming a squad of guards before escorting them to safety, illustrating that despite all the state’s propaganda the anger of the protestors was not directed at harming but instead merely disarming their oppressors.

So then the question needs to be asked, why has the movement lost the momentum and urgency that it had in 2009? To understand this we have to look at a combination of factors; severe state repression, a series of tactical mistakes made by the activists in the protests after Ashura, the shortcomings of the movement’s leadership and the movement’s orientation, or lack thereof, towards organising industrial action. The last one of which I will go over in a bit of detail further down and which will also give me an opportunity to deliberate a bit more in general about the conditions of labour and the difficulties of organising which workers in Iran face today.

First it must be said that we cannot underestimate the impact state repression has had on the movement. Unashamed slaughter of young people on the streets in front of hundreds of witnesses and cameras, widespread use of torture and rape in prisons as a weapon of terror and intimidation, well publicised Stalinist show trials and executions of political dissidents, attacks on university campuses and dormitories and widespread censorship over the last 13 months have all had the effect of demoralising people and creating a sense of helplessness.

Part of the answer to the question of why the state has been somewhat successful in squeezing some of the life out of the movement and at least reducing the potency and size of the street protests lies within the nature of the movement itself. After the initial few days of spontaneous protest which culminated in mass arrests of well known reformist figures and the assault on Tehran university, the main strategy of activists went from participating in spontaneous actions to using the regime’s own calendar to organise periodic mass rallies on national and religious holidays and other significant days. The implication of this was that the movement went from its initial stage of spontaneity and turned into a series of set piece actions that were at times 6-8 weeks apart with very little large scale visible actions to involve people in between them. Unfortunately for the movement the repressed political atmosphere in Iran is such that during these intervals ordinary people had very little chance of actually organising themselves into coherent and lasting groups and it was very difficult for activists to involve new layers of people in ongoing activities and instead just relied on instant forms of communication such as SMS, email and even foreign media to call on people to join the protests. While in the meantime the state was able to use all the means at its disposal to crackdown and intimidate people during the movement’s down times in between the set piece actions.

political movements can’t keep people aroused indefinitely, there either needs to be a sense that the movement is marching forward towards victory, that it is achieving something or the willingness of people to take risks dissipates, this is specially so in countries like Iran where state repression is bloody and relentless. The strategy of organising mass central actions intermittently has had exactly this demoralising effect where after the first 6 months people started to ask themselves if it was actually possible to achieve anything in this way. This is one thing that has had an impact on the participation of workers in the movement. For example one member of the Iranian Free Workers Association by the name of Jaffar Azimzadeh, in addressing the question of why workers aren’t taking the lead in this movement argues that “workers are more likely to participate in political strikes in Iran if these are general strikes”. Azimzadeh here is alluding to the fact that isolated workers strikes have been so far brutally suppressed and that for workers to want to come out on the streets and protest it literally needs to be an all out or nothing scenario where the activists are committed to organising an ongoing general strike and ongoing protests that are harder to suppress. And so far there hasn’t been any real orientation towards this goal. sporadic protests that give the state time to react and round up individuals are specially dangerous for striking workers in a way that they’re not for random people or students, because striking workers are easier to track down as individuals considering that the their managers often know who they are and where they live and often have links with the security apparatus of the state.

This Approach in Iran It has also meant that people have an overinflated perception of how powerful the state’s security forces are. In an interview with The Guardian recently, a former high ranking Revolutionary Guard officer who has defected and now resides in Turkey, revealed that during the early days of the uprising “just in case the regime were to collapse, Kahmenei’s Airbus 330 was waiting”, indicating the real anxieties of the regime about the uprising and its lack of faith in its own stability and security. If the protest marches were intensifying in frequency then the cost and logistical nightmare of organising a security response would have rendered these security measures less and less effective, but as it stands the state has only had to organise the occasional show of force, concentrate it in one or two areas and has thus successfully managed to keep the crowds at bay on the days when protests have broken out only to then go back on the offensive in the aftermath arresting, intimidating and killing more people.

This was clear on 22 of Bahman (12^th February) where a strategic misjudgement by activists led them to organise the central protest on that day at the very location that the government had mobilised its own supporters and security forces. Once people had shown up to the protest they were too intimidated by the presence of security forces and regime supporters, who had been bussed in from every corner of the country and concentrated in that one location in Tehran, and the mass central rally envisioned by the organisers of the opposition never materialised and instead a few smaller local ones took place which were less visible and effective and the day became a real political victory for the regime who then again immediately went on the offensive in the following period arresting and trying more activists and following up with a series of horrific executions, the most high profile of which was the execution of Kurdish trade unionist, human rights activist and teacher Farzad Kamangar.

The significance of defeat on this day went far beyond the events of that day alone, the fact that such a mistake had been made exposed some fundamental general weaknesses in the movement and some of the difficulties of organising an opposition movement inside Iran. The direction to gather at Azadi Square, where the government’s forces were gathered, was given by Mousavi and it had been taken up by the activists who promoted his ideas. Mousavi’s motivation here was purely ideological and not at all pragmatic, he wanted people to gather at the government organised event in order to “reclaim it” and with it “reclaim” the Islamic Revolution from the hardliners. And this strategy needs to be seen in the context of his main slogan which is return to the “core values of the Islamic Republic” which incidentally has always been Ahmadinejad’s main slogan. Leaving aside the fact that the “core values” of the IRI are hardly worth fighting for in the first place the application of this ideology on the day meant the inability of the opposition to actually organise a show of force.

One feature of this movement so far has been that it has failed to organise the masses of people and involve them in local and central decision making processes. When you contrast the Iranian movement with some of the campaigns which have broken out here in Australia such as the Refugee campaign, the S11 posters, various union campaigns and anti war protests the thing that strikes you is that, one significant feature is lacking in the Iranian case and that is the presence of mass public meetings and gatherings where debates are had and decisions are made about the strategic direction and tactics of the movement. The Iranian political climate has made it so that it is possible to gather millions of people across the country in coordinated street protests while making it impossible for smaller numbers to hold open and public meetings where people can actually voice their opinions about the questions that the movement throws up such as where people would gather, how often they should organise protests, how they can achieve their goals and so on. Some public meetings were held in Tehran University last year but these soon dissipated after revolutionary guards occupied the university for a short period.

In contrast if we go back to the time before the elections we can see that, under enormous social pressure and in an effort to portray the Iranian system as a democratic one, the state granted limited freedoms to activist groups who were organising Mousavi’s campaign election. These networks that were already in existence at the time of the coupe became the de facto organising units for the post election movement and given that they maintained their ties with the reformist figures they were able to some extent project the political and organisational influence of the reformists onto the movement while virtually facing no organised challenges to their authority from more radical people in the movement who were not organised to the same extent. So in this way the reformists who had their own newspapers and networks and legitimising figureheads were easily able to dictate the official political line of the movement unchallenged. To understand this we also need to not forget the complete annihilation of the left in Iran after the Iranian revolution.

This state of affairs has lead many people to conclude that people like Mousavi remain the undisputed leader of the movement and that his ideas are taken up uncritically by people who participate in the actions. This is only true in the sense that there are no other organised alternatives and so the voice of Mousavi and the followers of his line carries furthest both inside Iran and outside Iran through organisations that actively, consciously and aggressively promote their politics and who do everything they can to undermine alternative and more radical voices and to claim that they are the true representatives of the people. One example of this is the United for Iran campaign groups that have popped up around the world including one branch right here in Melbourne that go around and claim that groups like Iran Solidarity Melbourne are paid agents of terrorists and try to stop us from marching in solidarity rallies. And similar tactics are used inside Iran with at least one group that I know of called Students for Equality and Freedom, an independent activist group founded in Tehran University during Ahmadinejad’s first term, who are routinely harassed by organisers of the movement and told to not bring their own materials such as placards to the central protests. But the reality is that increasing layers of people are no longer ideologically committed to the politics of Mousavi or even believe the IRI is reformable. What percentage of the people are or are not ideologically committed is impossible for us to estimate but there is enough evidence in the radical slogans of the people which go far beyond what Mousavi endorses to their radical and militant and at times violent actions which almost reached insurrectionary proportions on Ashura to suggest that a significant proportion of people are not under the direct influence of Mousavi.

So what alternatives are there? And this is where I want to go back to my earlier point about the movement having its roots in the struggles that preceded it. Mousavi’s impressive election campaign itself was made up of dozens of different campaign groups who came together for the purpose of promoting his candidacy. This included the state’s official workers organisation The House of Workers. After the defeat of the previous reform government, Iranian civil society during the period of Ahmadinejad’s rule no longer had a single charismatic leader in power to look up to and in some ways this had removed some of the political constraints on the different groups and some had clearly radicalised and attempted to form alternative centres of resistance with their own philosophies in opposition to the centralist and statist approaches associated with Khatami’s philosophy.

For Example the main national student representative body, Daftare Tahkim, split in the wake of Khatami’s failures to reform the Islamic Republic with one splinter completely abandoning the statist approach to change, embracing a more grassroots approach. Other campaign groups that popped up during the Ahmadinejad Presidency were the 1 million signature campaign whose aim was the collection of a million signatures on a petition demanding an end to systematic discrimination against women and of course we had various workers organisations such as the Iranian Free Worker’s Association which formed in 2008, The Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company which I believe formed in 2005 and the Syndicate of Workers of Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Company. None of these workers organisations ever endorsed a particular presidential candidate and instead adopted an approach of pushing for their demands through industrial actions regardless of who is in power.

Ahmadinejad’s first term also saw an increase in the number of strikes which included strikes by teachers, pipe makers, bakers, coal miners, finance sector workers, health workers, auto plant workers, and other manufacturing sector workers that took place across the country.

So as we can see in contrast to the reformist period, Iran under Ahmadinejad’s rule witnessed the emergence of some truly independent political groups since the start of the revolution whose main objectives were not of an ideological nature but were instead focused on single issues and demanded concrete changes regardless of who was in power.

The other side of the picture however was that these new organisations with no coherent or unifying ideologies and isolated from one another were also less secure and more prone to repression. For example the 1 million signature campaign was met with brutal state violence from the outset with its first congregation being attacked by security forces and 70 or so of its activists being arrested. Trade union activities have likewise been the target of extreme repression. A strike in Kerman in 2004 lead to the death of 4 workers at the hands of security forces. Several leading trade unionists are languishing in prisons such as Ibrahim Maddadi, Ali Nejati, Ali Reza Sanfi and perhaps the most well known case being Mansour Osanloo, the founder of the Bus Drivers’ syndicate who has been in and out of prison several times and is currently serving a 5 year prison term for his activities. In fact repressing the just demands of workers for the recognition of their internationally recognised rights such as the right to receiving wages, forming independent organisations and abolishment of child labour is official state policy. According to workers organisations mentioned above the security forces have announced that “The Islamic Republic does not currently recognise the need to adhere to international standards of industrial relations and does not recognise the formation of independent workers organisation as a fundamental human right and anyone who is found to be taking steps towards the realisation of this objective will be seen as being against the regime of the Islamic Republic and will be accordingly punished.”

So while the seeds were planted in this period for a new a non statist, activist and grass roots approach to change that was oriented towards achieving specific goals such as gender equality, the right to organise, increase in wages and so on, severe repression meant that none of these groups were able to establish roots in society and by the time the elections had come around conditions had significantly worsened, the unemployment rate hovers around the 25% mark and domestic industrial output is around 40% of capacity with the government’s main strategy of combating inflation being the importation of foreign goods at the expense of local industry which has the effect of further lay-offs and increases in unemployment. One economist has summed up Iran’s economic management in one sentence arguing that Iran seems to be the only country that entirely prefers imports over exports in managing its economy.

So far nobody has any answers to the question of how any of these groups could force the government to even consider their demands. On the eve of the elections with the new independent trade unions not having made any grounds in their sporadic fight with the government and with the ever deteriorating conditions which have plunged 22 million people under the official line of poverty, once again many of the activist groups lobbied the reformist candidates in exchange for pledges to address their concerns once elected. These already established networks then used the relatively open atmosphere of the elections to campaign for the reformist candidates.

But the workers organisations have hesitated to openly back one candidate over the other stressing that whoever is in power their demands must be met. One activist from the Sugar Cane workers syndicate demanded that the future president of Iran adhere to article 44 of the constitution and grant the right to freedom of association to workers. And the Coordination Committee to form Independent Workers Organisation refused to back either presidential candidate. This position stems from the fact that the workers own experience has shown them that even a reformist government does not necessarily guarantee that the workers economic and political demands are met and they are not convinced that a Mousavi presidency is necessarily going to be any different to the previous reformist presidency. While strikes over unpaid wages, conditions and social justice issues continue, such as the strikes in Kurdistan earlier in the year in response to Kamangar’s execution and while 10 different workers organisations at the start of the year announced that in addition to the economic demands of workers they demanded the freedom of political prisoners, and end to political repression and women’s oppression, all of which are slogans of the green movement, the workers movement has not been involved in organising actions as part of the massive street protests which were associated with the green movement.

And the main reason for this I believe has to do with what I referred to earlier about the groups that not numerically but politically dominate the green movement. So while the aftermath of the elections provided the activist groups with an unprecedented opportunity to build their forces and campaigns and to relate to the workers campaigns, they have had no orientation towards fusing the inspiring workers movement with the courageous street based green movement. But traditionally the whole philosophy of these groups has to this day emphasized placing demands on existing governments instead of relying on the actual power of people to change things and this is only recently starting to change. While this approach may have been justifiable at a time when there was little visible political activity in society it could only hold the movement back in the post election period. After the elections these groups were confronted with the reality of the energised masses on the streets who were hungry for change and willing to risk their lives to achieve it, we have even seen workers burning themselves in protest to non payment of wages indicating the desperation and willingness to do anything for change. A political approach that emphasized the power of the people and workers to actually change society themselves could have capitalised on the political atmosphere and oriented itself towards organising ongoing and prolonged industrial actions among workers to cripple and overthrow the regime. But never having proposed any alternatives to a reformist presidency these groups were not in a place to offer any coherent political direction to a movement that is much in need of one. Nor were they able to capture the imagination of the masses by offering them political alternatives to the theocratic state. These groups were caught in a vicious and disabling cycle where their orientation towards electing the reformist president dictated their slogans and approaches to organising and their methods of organising and slogans in turn meant that they were unable to offer any political alternatives to electing a reformist president and when it became clear that there was no way the state was going to allow another reformist presidency this political approach could not offer anything other than the slogans which still continued to place emphasis on the election of Mousavi 12 months into the life of the movement, while at the same time we actually see less and less of these slogans at public gatherings indicating the increasing irrelevance of this approach. In addition this approach had no chance of appealing to some of the most radicalised elements in society. If we take the example of the Kurds who have suffered under a war waged on them by the Islamic Republic from its very outset which continued under Mousavi’s Prime Ministership we can see that these people were never going to be involved in a movement whose main objective was promoted as being the election of Mousavi. The experience of the Kurds during the last reformist presidency was specially bitter when they actually did endorse Khatami, the then reformist president, and still suffered a brutal crackdown for their activities in 1999 under the same president they endorsed. These factors combined has meant that while the Kurds have definitely been politically active and Kurdish workers have staged some of the most impressive strikes they have not been officially taking part in the so called Green Movement. For things to go forward this situation clearly needs to change and the green movement needs to go beyond its current sectarianism and have a more inclusive approach to social change which incorporates the industrial actions of workers and encourages them to participate in political actions as well.

Earlier I referred to some of the trade union and working class campaigns that have taken place in the last decade. If we just refer back to the revolution against the Shah, one of the features of that revolution specially in Tehran was the role that students played in organising and coordinating working class actions such as strikes. Given the lack of legalised trade unions it was up to the students to go around to different work places to coordinate strike actions. A similar approach could be very useful here as we have shown there is no lack of working class discontent and definitely a will to fight. Organised groups of political activists could definitely act as the force to bring cohesion to these actions and to make them a part of the Green Movement and a part of the general fight for a democratic society.