Iran’s ruling elite appears to be gaining the upper hand and consolidating its rule, although small-scale, often spontaneous demonstrations continue and Mir-Housein Mousavi still refuses to drop his demands of en election re-run.
The crackdown has led to a tactical shift within the opposition, from mass rallies to civil disobedience, including strikes within strategically vital sectors, notes analyst Karim Sadjadpour. But, he concedes, “so far, these strikes have seemingly failed to pick up steam, given that much of the opposition is either in prison, under house arrest, or unable to communicate.”
Contrary to the regime’s claims that the U.S. and U.K. have instigated the current protests, a failure to engage civil society is one reason Western governments have been taken aback by the unrest.
“I think it is fair to say senior administration officials are busily trying to understand how the opposition is generated and where it came from,” a senior official told Eli Lake. Organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy have funded Iranian democracy programs, notes Lake, but the U.S. has not been the most consistent or the most assertive funder, activists contend.
“The Dutch were the pioneers in this field, allocating money for Iranian civil society in 2004,” says Andrew Apostolou, senior program manager at Freedom House. “The U.S. only committed large amounts as of 2006, and most of that was for broadcast media. Civil society is a long-term investment.”
Why are the experts consistently blindsided by mass democratic movements? Natan Sharansky believes it is because they neglect the extent to which apparently isolated dissidents reflect and embody the hopes and aspirations of voiceless citizens.
“Every totalitarian society consists of three groups: true believers, double-thinkers and dissidents,” he argues, and democratic upsurges amount to “the spectacle of a nation of double-thinkers slowly or rapidly approaching a condition of open dissent.”
Former Soviet citizens returning from Iran told him how much the society reminded them of the final phase of Soviet communism: “Iran was extraordinary for the speed with which, in the span of a single generation, a citizenry had made the transition from true belief in the revolutionary promise into disaffection and double-thinking.”
Failure to engage Iran’s civil society and dissidents?
The most important failure of the West about Iran is to see this country (like Iraq under Saddam) toward the Soviet Union glasses.
Iran is not the Soviet Union. Iran is Iran. The Iranian regime and society are not totalitarian. The Iranian regime, even it is not a democratic regime, is among the other Middle Eastern authoritarian regimes the one which is the nearer to a democratic transition because some indicators it has (dynamic civil society, diverse background…).
Then if the West really does want to help this country to take the democratic path, it should first turn its ears from some false experts to hear real experts of Iran. (It is a rare good in these times). These people could help the public and the decisionmakers to see Iran like it’s, not like some Sovietists see it (or want us to see it).
When we want to see this country as it’s, we could easily see that what is going on in Iran has nothing to do with “the final phase of Soviet communism.”
Also, the West should avoid the rhetoric of regime change. If not the authocratic regime would be happy to use it to enhance its legitimacy as a nationalist regime.
Aziz Enhaili