It was 1401 in the Solar Hijri calendar; it covers the majority of the Gregorian year 2022. "This is the year of blood, Seyyed Ali [Khamenei] will be overthrown", one of the slogans state. A year has passed since a Kurdish girl named Mahsa Amini was killed after the "Guidance Patrol", Iran's "morality police", beat her. It was another moment that pushed Iranians to the streets again after having done so since 1395 (2017). Numerous events have happened: workers' strikes, increase in oil prices, the assassination of Qassem Soleimani and the downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, the authorities' COVID-19 epidemic mismanagement, the execution of wrestler Navid Afkari, elections with low turnout, dry Iranian rivers, and so on.
The Velayat-e-Faqih movement's popularity has vanished; anger that the dictatorship of the Shah received is now directed to the "Islamic Republic", yet even after years of protests that analysts find as not organised and that opposition figures fight over influence, the system is able to survive the demonstrations that made it cower. I will not be focusing on outside forces who refuse to interfere in this affair; even if the international community still tries to negotiate with the mullahs' regime, no top oppositor called for foreign intervention, let alone a military one.
There would also be no sense in calling for all factions with diverging thoughts to unite. The Crown Prince of the exiled dictatorial monarchy, Reza Pahlavi (read more here), convened with seven fellow opposition figures to form a united front against the Regime, but he only consolidated a part of the opposition, rivalling the largest force which is the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the political wing of the militant People's Mojahedin (Mojahedin-e Khalq; PMOI/MEK) (Pahlavi's coalition only broke down later due to his vested interests that disturbed his partners). But my concern is not about either force, as both work outside Iran-- the monarchists only have Persian-language media to reach out to the Iranian masses, while it is the MEK and not the NCRI that operates clandestinely inside the country.
Rather, it is inside that I will talk about, forces that are directly involved in the protest movement. We can discuss coordinated ones like MEK, which brags its "resistance units" that get involved more than in demonstrations but also direct clashes with security forces. Activities the militant group publishes include burning of regime posters, display of its leaders, and destruction of stations of security forces like the Basij. There is however something lacking: had the units considered invading the headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)? Its local stations may have been razed down, but it stays afloat.
Nor did the "resistance units" storm the Majlis (parliament). Sri Lankans had a moment to invade the office of the Prime Minister last year after government mismanagement of the economy. Mongolians also stormed the building of the Great Khural (parliament), demanding to be released the names of people in government who helped steal billions of dollars from the state-owned coal company. The first event occurred before the death of Amini, and the action did not come into the demonstrators' minds, nor the second one compelled them to follow suit.
One of the major landmarks of the capital Tehran is Azadi Square, with Azadi Tower in the middle. It was at the backdrop of the 1979 revolution, and protesters during the Green Movement protests were able to show their anger at the square towards the Regime. Since 2017, there were and still are no large anti-Regime gatherings at the place; people might have wished, but they remained as dreams. There were only single pickets or small acts of defiance like removal of scarves, kissing and dancing; nothing more.
This means one thing: demonstrators should directly confront core establishments; it would take courage to do so. Foreign intervention will not solve the situation, opposition figures from the diaspora would not withstand a firm regime on their own, and the system has made itself complex, making itself a part of the Iranian economy in order to fund itself. A bigger and more defiant movement is needed. For their own slogans state: "do not fear, do not fear, we are all together", and "when one is killed, a thousand people will stand behind".
Article posted on 15 September 2023, 17:51 (UTC +08:00).
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