Pathology of the Iranian Change: How the Global Community Can Help

This article originally appeared on Iranian Progressive Youth (IPY) website. 

Pathology of the Iranian Change:

How the Global Community Can Help

Written by: Hooman Askary

April 10, 2011

IRANIAN PEOPLE’S post-presidential-election demonstrations of 2009 were by no means a new phenomenon in Iran. They had precedence and they proved to be ongoing. They were a link in the long chain of events that constitute the story of change in the contemporary history of Iran. The main difference between this time and past events was the role of social networking and citizen journalism which had both become available thanks to the internet. This time the world stopped to see, even partly, what happened within the borderlines of the Islamic Republic. Foreign governments and international personalities condemned the brutal attacks of the Basij militia and members of the Islamic Republic Guards Corps (IRGC) on the defenseless people who were leading some of the most peaceful movements of modern times. They sought no vengeance, they bore no grudge and their aspirations were Earthly and “achievable”; that is, had they been backed by the international community. This article addresses one simple question: what can the international community do to help the Iranian people’s cause?

History of Change in Contemporary Iran

To address the aforementioned question, we need to know that the systematic process of introducing change in contemporary history of Iran started not in 2009 but in the 19^thcentury. During the Qajar dynasty, an Iranian minority emerged who reached a corollary similar to the following by Sparks: they, too believed that “if the problem of under-development was primarily a consequence of the static ways in which people thought about the world, and the traditional knowledge that they brought to their contemporary problems, then […] the road to development [lead] through changing those beliefs and making scientific knowledge available to [people].” So the logical pattern to be incorporated was “The formal education system” which is one of the ways in which people can be encouraged to adopt new ideas and beliefs. (2007:23) hence, the educational campaign to bring Iran out of the “static ways” began and the first contemporary attempt to introduce development and modernity in Iran started. Chancellor Amir Kabir granted Iranian students state scholarships to pursue higher education in European countries and employed professors to teach in a Western-style-college called “Dar-ol-Fonoon”; Ahmad Kasravi mentions Amir’s role in introducing development and points to the political and administrative developments in his era ([1946] 2003: 7) but the initial stage in the process of introducing change and modernizing the country did not last long. Amir’s assassination and removal of later pro-development figures, such as Chancellor Sepahsalar, all turned into constructing bits within the same context. Change was not easy in the fragmented Iranian society then.

The demand for change survived the final stages of the Qajar dynasty giving rise to the constitutional revolution. This democratic movement turned out as a sign for the first trace of a grass-roots-participatory-model for development and transparency while starting to eschew the old traditions intertwined with superstitions. For a period of almost quarter of a century, Iran saw 3 monarchs and the termination of a dynasty before it reached the height of her classic quest for change. It finally materialized during King Reza Pahlavi’s reign over Iran (1925-1941). This was an era of simultaneous pro-development movements by the intelligentsias in the region pioneered by the first Pahlavi Shah and Ataturk of the neighboring Turkey. The intelligentsias, however, had a distinctive characteristic which influenced their preferred approach and the ensuing developments that affected both countries; that common point of convergence was “their search for a rather swift remedy to solve their countries’ escalating problems.” (Atabaki and Zurcher 2004: 3). Both countries had a troubling past with the Tsarist Russia and both groups pushed the swift process with military might in their respective countries. In Iran, Reza Shah introduced industrial and infrastructural reforms that were aimed at catapulting Iran to a modern era and, in line with that, all aspects were to undergo a transformation process: the language had to undergo a major maintenance process and the ministry of war (later named ministry of defense) was appointed to supervise the implementation of the royal decree. Even a new dress code was introduced based on which men had to wear Western style clothes and women were banned from observing the traditional Islamic dress code of Hijab; every opposition would be crushed by the central state’s iron fist. Iran looked like a different country overnight.

Despite Reza Shah’s clout-push, the effect of the forced change was reversal once the King was deposed: the clerics came back to power and women started to observe hijab once again especially in the rural areas. During the next Pahlavi King, Muhammad Reza Shah, which accounts for the last 37 years until the 1979 revolution, a similar approach was taken in different arenas. The flourishing oil revenue enabled the Shah to initiate extensive economic-industrial reforms in the country –with socio-political reforms still far behind in pace and size. Within a span of 53 years of the Pahlavi dynasty Iran was to be transformed from an agrarian country to a modern one in the heart of the Middle East.

Failure of a Model

The abrupt and forced push toward development proved to be too much on the burden of the society. McPhail sees the mentioned pressure as a cut across major life-style practices, and counts those practices as, among others, habits, religion and language. He infers that when indigenous ways are dismissed or marginalized a push-back emerges entailing a wave of criticism.(2009:8-9) This wave of criticism in the Iranian scenario came from the traditional pillars within the country’s old political power system trinity consisting of 1) the mosque, 2) the bazaar and 3) the crown. (Milani 2004: 84) Abbas Milani suggests that the connection between the pillars was so resilient that it is even reflected in the Iranian architecture within Naghsh-e-Jahan square of Isfahan, the Iranian capital of the Safavid Era, where Shah Abbas Saffavid had Isfahan’s mosque, court and bazaar all constructed within a huge square as elements in a single complex (2004: 84).

During the contemporary dialogue between the old agrarian Iran and change; however, especially during the modernizing efforts of the Pahlavi era, the nature of the Crown was so alienated from the other two entities that Milani’s suggested trinity could not function any longer the way it did, traditionally. Perhaps the missing link in contemporary affairs between Iran and change was merely communication between the social elements involved in the process. Whatever the answer to that question may be, a glance at the current situation of the country proves that, the change “forced” unto the fabric of Iran has failed in many respects. This fact is acknowledged by high ranking personalities and players in the pre-revolutionary power arena. Mahnaz Afkhami, Pahlavi era’s minister of Women’s affairs, one of the two female ministers of the pre-revolutionary era, acknowledges that:

It seems to me that our main mistake was not that we did not do other things which we should have done. Our main mistake was that we created conditions in which the contradictions related to modernity, progress, equality, and human rights, especially women’s rights, increased and the reaction to our work put perhaps too much pressure on the country’s social fabric. (2008)

Afkhami’s intended social fabric of a country was still dependent on the afore-stated trinity of power. As the changes were being forced unto the social fabric, the relative marginalization of the Mosque and the Bazaar strengthened a coalition between them against the dominant stratum who, almost half a century into Reza Shah’s imperialistic model of change, was still run by an intelligentsia in the second Pahlavi era. In 1979 the society pushed back. The Mosque-Bazaar coalition successfully mobilized almost all dissident fractions behind the same banner against a common target: The Shah. He had erroneously been equated with everything that stood for deviation from tradition — all development and modernity; thus, by removing the symbol and through the slogan of “Down with the King”, a whole system collapsed and change process was once again averted.

The Reversal in Post-Revolution Iran

What happened afterwards was a caricature of a pro-tradition discourse. This time all signs of modernity had to be eschewed so frantically that wearing shabby rags was translated into a virtue; women lost many of their rights and had to hide under hijab once again and, in short, sharia law was in place once again. Despite all that, there is a legacy of change that has outlived the post-1979 ordeal until today: the literacy corps that was drafted from among the Iranian youth in 1963 has left Iran with one of the highest literacy rates in the region at 85 percent. The program of reform which included extension of the franchise to women according to a Foundation of Iranian Studies (FIS) time-line (Nooshiravani 2009) reared a generation of women who have been the main source of trouble for the Islamic Republic’s hegemony ever since its commencement. The direct relationship between women participation in society and change is not exclusive to Iran; as more than half of the total 8 criteria for development are directly concerning women; issues such as improving maternal health, reducing child mortality, combating HIV, AIDS and other diseases and etc. (2009: 52) are all resolved through improving women’s awareness. Today, the Iranian women — who experienced partial freedoms of the pre-revolution Iran —have, in turn, reared a new generation of Iranians who later called themselves the Burnt Generation and have been the driving force of the Green Movement. Neda and Sohrab are two examples of millions of their living peers.

A Flawed System

A) Free Media and Participatory Infra-structure: When a system fails to yield in the desired results it is flawed in one way or another. In the case of Iran it is the absence of free media and a real participatory infra-structure that has been a big hindrance against the full and efficient implementation of the sustainable development and change. That change could have survived the upheavals of the late 70s and prevented the achievements from eradication by the Islamist fundamentalists. McPhail outlines the prerequisites for that objective as a case when people have sufficient power and tools to step up and speak out against the rulers; he further explains that the grounds for such an outcome needs to be democratic in itself as well; since “unless policy making and the social process are themselves participatory, it is unlikely that the result will be a democratic pattern of communication.” (2009: 31) evidently, the Iranian change pattern has neither been participatory nor communicative — EVER in the nation’s history.

B) Oil Revenue and its Repercussions: There is a mistake usually observed in less-developed-but-rich-in-natural-resources-countries that are privileged to lucrative revenues. It is the incorporation of Western technologies and emulation of their patterns in hope of producing similar results and conditions akin to those of the developed countries. However, the processes through which those models were achieved usually include the necessary provisions for the implementation of the means involved. In other words, just as an affluent individual is not able to obtain culture and education even though he has sufficient funds to purchase the whole British Royal Library, change can neither be imported nor, indeed, exported or forced unto a people.

C) Inter-connectedness of Change Elements: Another aspect that needs to be noted here is the link between the various elements in a sustainable development model. Sparks believes that the communication project needs other substantial social changes as well to function desirably without which, it will likely prove ineffective. McPhail states that “The process of change can rarely be restricted simply to technical change.” (2007: 195) Some hold that transparent communication and information broadcasting might be needed for nations to abandon their old traditional ways of doing things and the hallmark for such a transformation would be national literacy and “the use of technologies and media platforms of all types” (2009: 7)

How the Global Community Can Help

In his book “The Location of Culture”, Homi Bhabha quotes Goethe that: “Nations could not return to their settled and independent life again without noticing that they had learned many foreign ideas and ways, which they had unconsciously adopted, and come to feel here and there previously unrecognized spiritual and intellectual needs.” (1994: 2) This rule applies to the Iranian nation, too. They might not have experienced a full-fledged democracy but they have had historical periods of partial socio-political freedoms. That alone explains a lot of what is going on now in Iran.

In addition to the areas of interest within the context of change in Iran, it must be reminded that Iranians have one of the best (if not the best) democratic potentials among the countries of the region; what they need is a platform to get through to each other and comprehend that they are not alone in their cause.

One of the ways the international community has to support the change process in Iran is to recognize and endorse small communities and groups and defend their members against harassments of the Islamic theocracy. Once the organizations and individuals are granted the publicity and recognition — akin to what Nobel laureates enjoy for instance — the stakes for suppressing them increase almost indefinitely for governments.

Another aspect the global community can help Iranian people with, is the media. A nation with access to free media will reach a peaceful culture as an outcome and Iranians are no exception. The problem is that the Islamic state is also aware of this rule. That is why they have invested heavily in purchasing internet filtering, surveillance and satellite signal jamming equipment. To counter balance, the international community can:

a) Refrain from providing such technologies to the Islamic regime —Nokia and Siemens allegedly sold surveillance equipment to the IRI in the past. The world must make sure they make it very costly for such entities in Europe, China and even Russia to do so again in the future.

b) Help Iranian people with technologies to access the internet and satellite channels freely, with minimum equipment required and in a nationwide scale. Iranian diaspora has far higher potentials than the present number of television and radio programs and publications. Once they receive the funds they usually find their own way to make a connection with the Iranians inside the country. The Iranian diaspora all around the world can work as a mediator between the Iranian nation inside the country and the global community. Here is what the world has to do: use them.

Conclusion

From what was presented, this article tried to have a pathological observation of the history of change and its current enigma within the Iranian society. It highlighted the following aspects as areas of interest for the international community:

1) Education of the people with a cultural priority

2) Free and easy to access communication platform and media

3) Women as the most important social element

4) Small progressive groups and communities

The change process in Iran can be (and should have been) assisted by the global community if they can help Iranians form the necessary networking platform and create the needed media using the potentials with the Iranian diaspora. Equally important, as history shows, change can never be forced unto Iranians or any nation and must commence as a grassroots development. Mahatma Gandhi once said: “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” Having seen the outcomes of the recent wars in our world should leave little doubt for us as to the authenticity of those words and Iran is definitely the most pertinent case here.

References:

1. Afkhami, Mahnaz (2008) the Second Woman Minister in Iran Reform and regression:The fate of the family protection law by Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani Washington DC, (2008) [WWW] http://www.mahnazafkhami.net/2008/the-fate-of-the-family-protection-law-noushin-ahmadi-khorasani%E2%80%99s-interview-with-mahnaz-afkhami-the-second-woman-minister-in-iran/ (Dec.25.2010)

2. Atabaki, Touraj; Zurcher, Erik (2004) Men of order: Authoritarian modernization under Ataturk and Reza Shah London, New York: I.B. Tauris

3. Bhabha, Homi (1994) Location of Culture New York: Routledge

4. McPhail, Thomas (2009). Development Communication. Reframing the Role of the Media Malden,MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

5. Milani, Abbas (2004) Lost Wisdom Rethinking Modernity in Iran Washington DC: Mage Publishers

6. Sparks, Colin (2007) Globalization, Development and the Media London: Sage