As Iran’s Summer of Outrage gives way to a sustained Winter of Discontent, those who predicted the protest movement would wither in the face of massive state repression are scrambling to re-evaluate. Brave Iranians have not backed down, despite rape, murder, torture, and, most recently, indications of targeted killings. On the contrary, the bravado of the protest movement has only escalated as we have seen images of crowds taunting and surrounding regime thugs, pulling their helmets off and parading them in the streets. A more subtle development and considerably more telling- the revolutionary ideology that propelled the mullahs to power in 1979 has been taken from them as increasingly the Green protest movement has appropriated the language and symbolism of political Islam to wage its civil disobedience campaign. This has divided the ruling elite and turned the guardians of the state against one another. Hard-liners on both sides of the divide have predictably asserted themselves, reducing any room for compromise. Are we witnessing the end of the Islamic Republic?
It is certainly clear that things will never be the same between the state and the people in Iran. As Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi affirms in a recent interview with Foreign Policy Magazine, its nonsense to think of the protest movement as a tiny group of educated elites in Tehran angry about a stolen election. The discontent has spread from city to hinterland, from students in universities to those studying in religious seminaries. It is no longer about an electoral debacle- this was only the spark that released pent up dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction with the fundamental nature of the regime itself.
It is no longer a fanciful dream for ordinary Iranians to begin to imagine a different Iran, one where simple freedoms and full acceptance by the global community of nations are a reality. But what will this new Iran look like? And how will it act? The answer is a bit more complicated than one might think.
