Iran is witnessing another round of protests. These protests are not a novelty. They keep happening periodically. Imposing harsh lifestyle choices on the masses is a futile exercise. Sooner or later, the masses will simply move on. They move on peacefully or they may choose violence but the general masses will stop listening to the zealotry imposed through banality like dress code or food habits. In the case of Iran, it is enforced head-covering. The liberal Iranians are proud people. The pride comes from being an ancient civilization, from being an ancient land. Ironically, this pride and identity infect the Islamic fundamentalists of Ayatollahs as well. Though they consider themselves the vanguard of Shia Muslims, their confidence comes from the belief that they are an ancient civilization.
In short, the two factions at loggerheads are deriving their 'strength' from the same source. What's more interesting is, this is the reason these two factions are confused with their objectives and tactics.
The Hijab protests or any sort of anti-establishment protests are not new to modern Iran. This is the third one in the last 15-odd years. The protest of 2009 was quite big, quite international, and quite bloody. It was a student-led protest. Then the one five years ago was also very big. The rising petrol prices and subsequent inflation led people to respond with fury. And now, another protest is ongoing, started because the Islamist police brutally beat a woman in her 20s for not covering her hair correctly. The woman died shortly afterward from that beating sparking the uprising.Young people are throwing everything they have at the establishment and as much as I appreciate the bravery, it's simply impossible for them to break the wheel here. Revolutions do not succeed. Even with medium success i.e., it manages to overthrow the current establishment, revolutions usually unleash violence. And usually, the strongmen take over who are far from the ideals the original revolutionaries espoused. However, by then society is battered, bruised, and tired. It can no longer fight with the new entrant and the whole cycle begins again. This is what transpired during the 1979 Iranian Islamic revolution
The revolution was a mixture of religious fervor, foreign-backed actors, young people drinking too much of democracy cool-aid, and foreign powers meddling in Iranian matters. Not all revolutionaries thought they overthrowing a system far more liberal than what is about to come. Not all revolutionaries thought they are overthrowing a stable monarch system that did not answer to the people with an opaque ruling class that will not answer to the people. The liberals wanted freedom, democracy, and modernity. As the struggle went on, these liberals who weren't necessarily atheists, tolerated fundamentalist theocrats around them. As Shah increasingly found himself in a precarious situation, the Islamic theocracy sensed the blood and pounced to grab the power. The western powers, always ready to meddle in Iran, immediately helped Khomeini to reach Tehran in style to complete the takeover. And the rest is history.
Religious heads are not known to run good government or governance. Khomeini was certainly not the exception to this rule. The hijabs, the veils, the Islamic fundamentalism, the rabid theocracy, the out-of-date economic policy, overdependence on oil, taking up Islamic causes that do not help the country's self-interests, meddling in affairs of neighboring countries that, again, do not help the country in any sensible way, the list goes on. You have mullahs whose key objective is to ensure the religious supremacy of their faith. And if that is to be achieved at the expense of the welfare of people or the betterment of the state, then so be it.
The liberals are completely lost at this point. They do not have any leader, no critical objective nor do they have any means to achieve anything strategically. Violence is probably not feasible against the state machinary when even a peaceful protest is met with state violence. Their only hope is that the so-called hawks in the US ruling class will lead to a war on Iranian Mullahs. Suffice it to say, it's foolish to believe the US ruling class is anybody's friend. This brings us to these widespread protests that bubble up every few years. These protests follow a pattern. The protests achieve a great success in the beginning, the international press gets more excited and with the rise of social media, every bozo with zero knowledge of ground reality starts hashtagging. Everyone talks abou thow the demise of Khomenis is just around the corner. Every analyst lists out reasons on how this protest is different than the one before. But protests need to achieve its objective in short period of time otherwise it fizzles equally quickly. Protests is not a natural state of any society. All previous Iranian protests fizzled out in a similar fashion. The Mullahs and the police state only has to wait it out. I believe the current protest is nearing its natural demise as well. It's almost time to get back to status quo. The liberals will be beaten down again.
It's not that Khomeini-inspired revolutionaries are clear in their vision. They are clear about their identity - a religious dogma upholding Shia fundamentalism. Unsurprisingly they think their religious fervor has any value in world affairs. No one cares about their religious beliefs. In this age of capitalism, these Mullahs hold very little capital to matter anything worth the salt in the world affairs. So the Iranian Mullahs resort to counter-productive statecraft such as supporting and funding the violent organizations in Palestine. They consider themselves children of the elite Persian past with illustrious long history and culture that ought to be spread across the world. When the reality is their geopolitical ambition is checked right at their border by Pakistan, Saudis, and Turks. The Sunnis, within the Islamic world, do not particularly like them. No one beyond the Shia world cares about the Iranian past or history. In a perverse way, their prized possession and a potential power of strength - larger reserve of oil and gas, actually attracts all sorts of wrong attention from western capitalist vultures. All this makes their situation precarious at best. Yet they soldier on.
The benefit of being a religious zealot is the ability to persevere one own's stupidity.
Where does this leave Iran and Iranians? For now, nowhere. The status quo will be maintained. World affairs and world powers do not have any appetite for another wild card change in the middle-east. The Ukraine conflict already has impacted the global economy. So, concerns for Iranian stability cannot be afforded. If the protests are to continue and gain further momentum, international forces will help the regime to crush the dissent. The strait of Hormuz has to stay calm and quiet at any cost.
Unfortunately, innocent young lives are already lost in this protest. And more deaths are likely to happen in near future. Let's hope in the long run these deaths help Iranians to free themselves from the clutches of ruling Mullahs.
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