Iran Portests, A United Movement Without A Leader

Antigovernment protests in Iran are in their fourth week but the movement which many now refer to as a revolution has not yet found a leader the majority can trust.

Since the early days of the Islamic Republic, the clerical leadership has consistently eliminated political parties, free media, and anyone who could possibly be in a position to lead the opposition. This has manifested itself in the biggest characteristic of the current movement which is spontaneous and has no leader.

Some pundits warn that without a leadership the movement which has chosen “Women, Life, Liberty” as its motto may fail to achieve its goal of overthrowing the Islamic Republic, and to sustain its achievement if it succeeds. Others say lacking a known leader makes it much harder for the establishment to suppress the movement.

Unlike the politically driven protests in 2009, and economic protests between 2016 and 2019, the driving force of the current movement is the people’s determination to restore their social rights by getting rid of clerical rule.

“The center of gravity of the society’s immediate demands has changed from politics to citizen’s rights,” prominent reformist theoretician Saeed Hajjarian said in an analysis published Thursday while stressing that the movement should not ignore the political playground to be able to ensure long-term irrevocability of its gains.

What appears to be uniting the protesters is dislike and even hatred of the clerical regime.

A large and fierce protest in Tehran's Nazi Abad district Wednesday night.

Protests – on the streets, in universities, and schools -- are now taking place in nearly a hundred large and small cities and towns. Despite the growth of the movement, Islamic Republic’s ruler Ali Khamenei and his officials continue to deny the authenticity of the current movement and insist that foreign “enemies” including the United States, Britain, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, are fomenting the unrest.

Authorities also insist that protesters are only a small minority. The government mouthpiece, Iran newspaper, claimed Thursday that only 80,000 have taken part in the protests across the country.

The footage that finds its way to social media despite serious Internet disruption appears to confirm their claim as these usually show smaller groups of people protesting. However, this is because protesters’ flash-mob-style tactic that confuses security forces and reduces their vulnerability to attacks by government forces.

There have been exceptions too, when thousands have gathered in one area such as the protests Saturday and Wednesday in the working-class Nazi Abad neighborhood in Tehran, where overwhelmed by the sheer numbers, security forces largely remained on the side-lines.

In the past few years ultra-hardliners, whose sway on all forces and institutions of the state was completed with the ascension of Ebrahim Raisi to presidency, have intensified social restrictions.

More interference in people’s lifestyles and popular resentment of the political and religious establishment is so bluntly felt now that even some former and current officials find themselves incapable of defending it.

“The ruling system has clearly broken into two. You can see this in officials’ remarks and attitude,” a political analyst who asked not to be named said referring to remarks by two prominent establishment figures in the past couple of days.

“What should people do if they don’t want to be led to enjoining good?” the minister of cultural heritage and tourism, Ezzatollah Zarghami, said in a tweet Tuesday referring to the Islamic concept of promoting moral goodness and forbidding evil according to Sharia. For ultra-hardliners enforcing hijab is following that edict. Former speaker Ali Larijani in remarks Wednesday in also criticized hijab policing.

Zarghami and Larijani both hail from the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and both have served at the helm of the Islamic Republic’s biggest propaganda machine, the state broadcaster (IRIB) for many years.