Rouzbeh Parsi*

February 2011

REvolUtIonaRy twIStS and tURnS In thE MIddlE EaSt

Many are today both exhilarated and worried by the recent events in Egypt. They are haunted by memories of another promising revolution that many think went awry: the Iranian revolution of 1979. Banal as it may be it remains all too true that while the upheavals that succeed and are labelled as revolutions aspire to righting wrongs and creating something radically new and different; they have often tended to literally end up where they started, coming full circle and replacing one dictatorship with another. This is, however, not a pre-destined outcome and the differences between Iran in 1979 and Egypt in 2011 are significant. So until the Egyptian political earthquake has settled down, there are good reasons to remain concerned, but not reasons that should have worried observers in 1979.
HALABISAZ/CHINE NOUVELLE/SIPA

Iranian women attend a rally celebrating the 32nd anniversary of Islamic Revolution at the Azadi (liberty) Square in Tehran, capital of Iran, Feb. 11, 2011

Iran 1979
For 32 years, 11 February has been associated with the final demise of the Shah of Iran. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, this day is commemorated as the victory of the Islamic revolution. And already here at its very inception, the different narratives and memories for all involved and traumatised Iranians as well as foreigners begin. For many, then as well as now, the Iranian revolution sprang from genuine grievances. But Islamic radicals, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, hijacked its secular frame and intent. Once in power these reactionary radicals created a conflicted theocratic republic that today visits upon its unfortunate citizens some of the same kind of hardships and punishments it promised to end 32 years ago. Comforting in its simplicity and self-righteousness as this narrative may be, it is in many ways as skewed as the alternative reading held as absolute truth in Tehran. The revolution was neither unequivocally secular nor was it a genuinely Islamic endeavour by a population thirsting for a society and life permeated by religion. This misconception springs from the secular revolutionary groups vague and rigid (often Marxist) idea of what religion is and more importantly
* Rouzbeh Parsi is a Research Fellow at the EU Institute for Security Studies. 1

its irrelevance for the modern world. They could not conceive Khomeini as a political force beyond his stubborn (and very helpful) rejection of the Shah. In fact what made him radical was not merely this refusal to compromise with the imperial political system but his vision of bringing the clergy into the heart of power. Regardless of how at times, little of this was conceptually and concretely clear to him as a practical political programme, his younger associates compensated for this as they argued over what an Islamic government could entail. Their ambition was to rejuvenate the social and political influence of the clergy by both changing their approach to the world outside the seminar but also by changing that world and its rules so that the theologian would become relevant. Thus the revolution became Islamic in that this particular group won the struggle among the revolutionaries after the Shah was ousted. The unexpectedly long and painstaking process to write a new constitution brought this ideological and conceptual tension into the open and defined the legacy of the revolution in its institutional sense. The first draft of the new constitution was more republican and liberal but became increasingly theocratic as the Islamists around Khomeini weighed in on the process. It was

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the aftermath of the initial triumph of the battle against the Shah that defined the conqueror of state power. Once a new government was formed, the infighting between the different revolutionary groups began and in this violent struggle the Islamic radicals emerged triumphant. Republicanism played an important role in the revolution at a minimum as a concrete counterpoint and rejection of monarchism. Liberal democracy, the practice and framework, on the other hand was for the dominant leftist and Islamist groups not part of the greater plan for what was to come. Neither their shared belief in themselves channelling the aspirations of the multitude nor the feverish need to dispense revolutionary justice lent itself well to the deliberative structures proposed by secular and religious liberals. It became the Islamic Republic and not the Democratic Islamic Republic as popular legitimacy was acceptable to Ayatollah Khomeini but not the idea of unfettered popular sovereignty. The Islamic radicals of the 1979 revolution quickly split into different groups after their ascent to power. Ayatollah Khomeini insisted on national unity for all and Islamic unity among the factions of the new emerging elite, yet the drawing board dreams of Islamic rule and solutions to the issues and quandaries of governance quickly proved inadequate. More importantly it turned out that there was no such thing as a singular understanding of what Islam inspired or devised rule could mean. Thus while the polity and its guiding ideology were novelties, both domestically and in the international vocabulary of governance, the issues it had to deal with were to a large extent universal and its competing factions could very inadequately be pin-pointed along a traditional spectrum of left and right depending on the issue at hand.

that insists on the Islamic Republic being salvageable. Working from within the parameters of political contestation allowed in the Islamic Republic had its advantages; accusations of being American stooges were met with incredulity, and a credible appeal to the many fence-sitters in the political system could be made. Furthermore the relatively understated criticism against the system levelled by the presumptive leaders of the opposition allowed them to keep together the motley coalition of the aggrieved that constituted their electoral base and underscored the legitimacy of their cause. Yet the nuances in the system that they insisted on highlighting also staid their hand when the various conservative factions effectively denied the legitimacy of their existence within the system. The reformists, well aware of their institutional weakness, tried to avoid a direct confrontation, both politically and literally on the street. While this was a prudent strategy it did not earn them any respect or gratitude whether from adversaries or supporters. It was thus primarily through the massive repression from the security forces that the opposition became increasingly radical and wide-ranging in its criticism and demands. The chants moved on from the actual election results to the underlying issue of just governance and the unfulfilled promises of the revolution of 1979. The mass protests of 2009 were as much an intra-elite affair as they were (or more accurately became) an increasingly systemic critique of the Islamic Republic. The revolution of 1979 loomed large not just because of its immediate ideological relevance but also because the conflict is about the history and track record of the Islamic Republic, which all parties on both sides of the barricade have been integral to. Today the opposition is still alive but a lot of its initial momentum as a street protest movement was lost as the lack of a coherent programme (difficult to devise under the circumstances) went from being a tactical advantage to becoming a structural flaw. The attempts to link up with nascent labour movements and thus tap into economic grievances (of which there are many and more to come) in order to expand the social base of the opposition have yet to produce tangible results.

Iran 2009
In 2009 the inherent tensions in this awkward system of governance came to the fore in an unprecedented way. The latest permutations of the factional elite groupings had now, thirty years later, very different readings of the past and what the revolution promised and had failed to deliver. All this created a surprising and electrifying electoral campaign for the office of the presidency. The announced election results came as a shock to many and sparked massive protests. Their initial demand was modest: where are our votes? The hard line taken by the Ahmadinejad administration and other state institutions only added fuel to the fire. The presidential candidates who felt cheated were both political insiders rooted in the reformist strand

The Middle East 2011

The events in Tunisia and Egypt are both unpredictable, yet not unexpected. Revolutions no matter how defined are difficult to foresee especially in societies where opposition and political discourse are so circumscribed like in the authoritarian states in the Middle East. The general fallacy in many comparisons is to believe in the similarities of cause and sequence of consequences.

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Islam
There have been many, more or less serious, attempts to compare the astounding developments in Egypt with Iran, be it 1979 or 2009. Various pundits and politicians, both in Iran and Western countries have linked Egypt in 2011 with Iran in 1979 for the same reasons but with very different feelings. The deep-seated fear of Islamism in any shape or form informs many who seem to yearn for a clear cut civilisation struggle or simply see and for once rightly democratic politics making Middle Eastern countries more unpredictable and less manageable. The trope one man, one vote, one time has not really ever been tested, let alone proven. Yet it persists as blanket cover for shying away from dealing with popular sentiment and social forces as they exist rather than as we wish them to be in the region. On the other side the conservatives in power in Tehran would like to link the two dates and countries in order to claim that the initial fervour of exporting the Iranian revolution and its values has become reality. The political Islam that is frayed and tattered in Iran would thus manage to bask in some of the glory from the recent formidable example of people power in Egypt. However, all political groups in Egypt, including the Muslim Brotherhood, have rejected this linkage, instead emphasising its inclusive and non-religious nature and ambition. It is too soon to tell how this new chapter in Egyptian history will end. It is not a given that it will end up in democratic rule, but it is highly unlikely at the present that the Muslim Brotherhood would come out of the, so far, orderly political struggle as the uncontested winner and want to let alone be able to monopolise political power.

and simple form in many Middle Eastern countries has past, and in Egypt this has happened without them first coming to power and having to learn the painful art of compromising and adapting to realities. The Muslim Brotherhood is now institutionally and ideologically integrated into the body politic of Egypt. With this comes expectations and responsibilities of a different kind. In addition the younger age group within the Brotherhood seems to have much more in common with their secular counterparts than the leadership of their own organisation. The US refrained from supporting the Green opposition in Iran too strongly in 2009. This was a correct assessment in the sense that the historic US entanglement with Iran does not make American support a political asset in Tehran. For the generations for whom the revolution in 1979 still resonates, Iranian independence is very much tied to international autonomy. The Wests vacillation when responding to the Egyptian pro-democracy movement sprang from the attempt to hedge its bets. In a classical revolutionary situation like Iran in 1979 the political groups that benefitted from the radical atmosphere were simply not interested in accommodation with the West. In any case the hedging seldom works as it erodes trust with the old guard without engendering any with the revolutionaries.

The repressive state

The revolution in Iran in 1979 came after protracted and at times armed struggle. The Iranian military could, however, not sustain a repressive stance against the population in 1979. Its leadership was in disarray, especially after the departure of the Shah, and they declared themselves neutral in the stand off between the Shahs last government and the revolutionaries led by Ayatollah Khomeini. In 2009 the Iranian government showed that it had learned that lesson and instead used paramilitary forces, who are more materially and ideologically vested in the system, to assist the police forces in attacking protestors. At the tip of this spear are the Revolutionary Guards, whose leadership is part of the inner circle of the ruling elite in Tehran. They have been instrumental in the ejection of reformists from the political scene, the effective narrowing down of the ideological spectrum tolerated in the Islamic Republic. They are thus part and parcel of the political struggle and not just a tool of repression. The Egyptian security apparatus has despite its reputation and potential been less severe. The relative freedom of movement of Egyptians in combination with the presence and coverage of international media, primarily Al Jazeera, sustained and energised the narrative as well as the physical reality of the protests. Crucial for the survival of the movement was also the militarys unwillingness to give Mubarak
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The West as an ally of the old order

In both Iran and Egypt the power-that-be was a steadfast Western ally with a panoply of privileges ranging from military cooperation to ignored human rights records. The primary mistake in 1979 made by the Shahs allies was their ignorance of the forces at play in Iranian society and negligent attention paid to the opposition. Everyone bought into the invincibility of the ruler. The difference between Egypt and Iran in this regard is only that the US was then part of a Manichean ideological universe which most Iranian oppositional groups inhabited. The Shah was a foreign stooge opposed by those who saw themselves as authentically Iranian. In Egypt this binary configuration does not exist to the same degree, partly because the political experience is more nuanced in terms of what the opposition should offer (rather than just reject). Thus the very experience of the Iranian revolution and bitter Egyptian memories of violent Islamist opposition has helped shape what seems to be a much more politically mature opposition conglomerate. The zenith of Islamist politics in its pure
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their unconditional support. What remains to be seen is to what extent the military intends to influence the process of writing a new constitution and under what conditions it will relinquish its present executive power to civilian politicians once this process comes to an end.

In this regard the events in Iran 2009 are the starting point for the political spring in the Middle East and Egypt showed in early 2011 that it can be sustained all the way to the previously inconceivable conclusion: the ousting of the dictator. Yesterday on 14 February the Iranian opposition decided to take the laudatory words of the Iranian government with regard to the Egyptian revolution at face value and gather in support of the Egyptian pro-democracy movement. Predictably their request to hold a demonstration was denied and the tens of thousands that gathered across the country were attacked and some arrested. The Egyptian dynamic is thus being reflected back to Iran though not in the way the government wished for. Regardless of the outcome of the recent demonstrations in Iran, it has given the opposition an opportunity to show that the discontent is still there and so is the will to protest, be it against the Ahmadinejad government or the system as such. The opposition has to a large degree tried to walk the fine line between protesting injustice within the parameters of the system and questioning it wholesale. It remains to be seen if this balancing act can keep the street protestors and the reformist politicians on the same page. The Iranian government, in turn, has important choices of its own to make at this juncture. Obviously the Iranian state has greater means, in terms of incentives and repression, at its disposal than the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Yet if it does not develop a more accommodating response to the indisputable opposition and dissent in Iranian society it will radicalise these groups further, increasing the likelihood of continued confrontation and aggravate the political situation even more.

After a long winter of discontent

The battle of ousting Hosni Mubarak has been won, but it remains to be seen how the longer struggle of defining and creating a more democratic political system for Egyptians will end. In this longer struggle the opposition must prove their ability to organise themselves and, as they coalesce into different entities with individual political programmes, learn the art of compromise. Besides this internal challenge they must also contend with the external challenge of the Egyptian military. For while there is an air of mystique and romance about the peoples army with no vested interests, the fact is that like their counterparts in Iran and Turkey the Egyptian military has also, over the last decade or so, developed into a business conglomerate. These privileges cannot remain untouched, yet without the guarantee of acquiescence of the same military, the political reforms have no chance of success. In short, the medium of revolt has changed. Social media allows for connection and associations that would have been difficult or more time consuming if done by traditional means. The lack of political depth and structure can be compensated for if the communication medium is combined with an effective message that mobilises actual human beings and inspires them to risk their lives for a political cause.

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