Iran: Secularists, Reformists, and "Green Movement or Green Revolution?" (Mohammadi)

Majid Mohammadi writes for Gozaar:

The Green Movement has reshaped the Iranian political factions both inside and outside the country. After one year of ongoing protests by Green Movement activists, it is now clear that there are two different tendencies both inside the country and abroad. One section of the movement pursues its goals within the framework of the existing regime and its constitution, while the other does not believe the regime is capable of reform and aims to overthrow the regime through a series of non-violent actions. This duality does not have distinct and predefined sides such as reformist/revolutionaries (monarchists and Mujahedin-e Khalq), and religious/non-religious as it did in the 1990s. Both secularist and Islamist dissidents have supporters among different groups and political parties.

Disagreement on the substance of an alternative regime

Despite an agreement within the Green Movement on the method of political campaigns and struggles against the regime, secularists and Islamists dream of two very different future political regimes. This is the reason behind most existing disagreements about the slogans and approaches to current developments. For example, although they both deny the existing administration, one side believes in an Iranian republic while the other side still believes in the Islamic republic.

The reformists view slogans against the foundations of the regime and unconstructive ideas as deviations; they believe they hold the tape measures of right and wrong in their hands. They also believe that [Mir Hossein] Mousavi and [Mehdi] Karroubi are the only leaders of the movement, and do not deny the basis of the Islamists' rule. The section that is reformist in method and revolutionary in substance believes that "Mousavi and Karroubi are just two members of the movement," or in the extreme, "Mousavi and Karroubi are good excuses, the target is the whole regime."

The regime’s reaction to the protests was essential in revealing the revolutionary demands of the secularists. This harsh repression brought the oppositions’ desite to topple the state structure into the light, but when there was no repression (June 15, 2009), the protesters rallied in silence and shouted the minimum of their political beliefs.

Revolutionary in substance

Political groups who have turned their backs against Islamism as an authoritarian and totalitarian ideology have no common ground with the Islamic Republic regime. If the secularist groups were silent in some periods, it was not because of their satisfaction, but because they were living under a brutal dictatorship. These groups are looking for a democracy without any reservation or condition. The Rafsanjani and Khatami administrations, which came to power with many promises of reform, proved to be closed handed. Even unseating [President] Ahmadinejad or Khamenei [the Supreme Leader] is not enough for them --- the secularists want regime change.

There is not even one sign in all the protesters’ slogans that shows they want the continuation of the existing regime, but the opposite signs are numerous. The reformist leaders who were aware of this demand for fundamental change asked the protesters to be silent in rallies, not to provide an excuse for the police and plainclothes men to use violence against them.

To reform the existing regime

Islamists believe in “the presence of religion in the public sphere,” that is, enforcing religious ordinances such as hejab or prohibiting intimate relationships between individuals based on their choices. They believe that the government has to enforce shariah law and should not be neutral with respect to different ideologies and religions. Islamists who take the side of the Green Movement are completely against overthrowing the existing regime, not because it is not practically impossible but because they want to maintain an authority (such as the velayat-e faqih, the guardianship of the jurist, Iran’s theocratic head of state) to enforce Islamic laws.

What they are against is the jurist who is ruling now, not the guardianship of jurists in general (Mohsen Kadivar, Rah-e-sabz, October 26, 2009). Shi’i opposition Islamists have also criticized the notion of the guardianship of jurists in some periods (Kadivar, "Velayat-e-faqih and Democracy", on his personal website, July 10, 2010: he has changed his position with respect to this issue many times in the last twelve months).

They want the jurists to act according to the law and ask for the extension of checks and balances to the so-called Supreme Leader’s office through the Assembly of Experts (Atoullah Mohajerani, Alvatan al-Arabi, April 6, 2010). Islamists do not believe that the Islamic regime is responsible for the misery of the Iranian people. They consider Khamenei’s regime to be a deviation from the original idea of the Islamic republic.

From the Islamists’ point of view, the Green Movement’s agenda is to topple Ahmadinejad’s administration, and those who are against the Islamic Republic or the velayat-e faqih are not considered to be Green Movement activists: “From the outset of the victory of revolution, there were people who were against the revolution, the Islamic Republic, the late Imam Khomeini, [and] the clergy. There is no problem. They have opposed [the system] for thirty years. They can continue their opposition but cannot be a part of the Green Movement.” (Ataollah Mohajerani in a lecture in London, June 26, 2010)

The irreformable regime

Iranian secularists who are participating in the Green Movement have brought some questions to the attention of the Islamist section of the movement: 1) What else must this regime do to be disqualified or denied by the Shi`i Islamists, and not simply labeled as a deviation? 2) How is it possible to remove an Islamist party—democratically or non-democratically elected—from power and stop it from repressing others and enforcing shariah law by resorting to coercion? and 3) Iranian Islamists call all the Islamic regime’s crimes against humanity and repression mistakes (Kadivar’s letter to Seyed Hassan Khomeini, June 16, 2010). What are the theoretical foundations of these mistakes? Do they just stem from misinterpreting Islamic doctrines and ordinances or have the culprits been following Islamic rules?

Islamists claim movement’s leadership

Secularist activists want to know why the Islamists want religion to be active in individuals’ private and public lives, civil society, politics and the state. Is it because they want to enforce shariah law by resorting to the power of the state or do they want to monopolize wealth and social status in the hands of a few? If the religious rulers are to follow wisdom and expertise in leading society, and shariah law is not to be the main source of regulations and policies, why does a nation need to have Islamists in power?

Islamists not only want the government in Iran, but claim leading any social movement against the Islamist regime. From the Islamists’ perspective, the leadership of the Green Movement is in line with them. (Mosen Kadivar, Rah-e-sabz, October 26, 2009)

Iranian secularists demand real change in the substance of the regime. Their actions truly present this inclination. During the campaign of men in hejab (launched after the arrest of Majid Tavakoli, a university student activist, claimed to be in hejab when arrested), the Islamists’ opposition media outlets kept their silence while secularist men wore hejab to show solidarity with Tavakoli. The Islamists’ silence was in line with their other positions in support of the Islamic regime and its constitution, which obligates the government to enforce Islamic ordinances. This is a very clear sign of degrading women and totalitarian control of the state over women’s bodies. Islamism in this case is an obstacle for some of the regime’s opponents to speak out against denigrating a political prisoner.

In any Islamist regime, even different from Khamenei’s, Islamic ordinances are going to be enforced in the public sphere. Islamist websites located abroad still publish women’s photos in hejab although they publicly show their hair to others.

Reformist in method

In contrast to the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the Green Movement is not a violent one. Both Islamist and secularist members of the movement avoid violence even when confronted with the regime’s brutality. They have shown their self-control and self -preservation in different circumstances including at press fairs, university campuses, Friday prayers, labor protests, funerals, and other public gatherings while under attack by the regime’s militia and police.

The regime was not able to accuse any of the movement’s activists of armed protests or the killing of the police, but the regime has no shame in accusing its dissidents of baseless charges. The name of the basijis whom the regime claimed were killed by protestors have never disclosed.

Green Movement or Green Revolution?

From a non-Islamist point of view, this movement may lead to a Green revolution but Islamists insist on calling it simply a movement to strip it of the revolutionary aspect (Sabzineh webzine, no. 16).

It seems that the Islamist and secularist tendencies will remain active in the movement until the day that people in a referendum decide which they prefer. Another scenario would be the domination of one group over the other by force, similar to what happened in 1979. There is no way to predict the situation in the aftermath of the Islamic regime.