Iran Feature: The Power of a Green Non-Movement? (Rejaee)

Arya Rejaee writes for Tehran Bureau:

....Despite [recent] pessimism, the Green Movement is not moribund. It is, instead, transitioning back to its pre-election contours: a nonmovement embodying the ideals and convictions that were publicly expressed by Iranians last summer. The term nonmovement, as employed by Iranian-born sociologist Asef Bayat, refers to the shared everyday practices of individuals acting without structure, where those practices subtly confront social controls imposed by authorities.

In one effort to expound this concept, Bayat examines female participation in Iran's higher education system and its subsequent sociopolitical impact. He notes that in recent years, the number of Iranian women pursuing and attaining university degrees has surpassed the comparable number of men. Due to their education, females are increasingly employed in positions superior to less-skilled men, thus introducing the traditionally taboo issue of workplace gender relations as a "safe" practical question separated from its reformist origins.

Bayat's point is not to suggest that a glass ceiling has been broken -- as he concedes, that is far from the case. Rather, he aims to demonstrate that the decision of many women to seek a university degree and the results of their individual decisions has produced a dialogue on a topic anathema to the government. While collective challenges to patriarchy, such as the One Million Signatures campaign, are more visible, their organization and outwardly adversarial platform renders them easy targets for government suppression. Conversely, to use a coinage of Bayat's, the "quiet encroachment" by women on traditionally male domains has not drawn the ire of the government.

Broadly put, nonmovements expose and challenge contradictions between the state's politics and its policies, forcing the state to accommodate new, unforeseen realities. Often, the state's process of adjustment is gradual and hence fails to sate the desires of those seeking expeditious systemic change. Taken alone, nonmovements are, by their nature, a vehicle of evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, change. It is shortsighted, though, to view nonmovements as inconsequential to spontaneous displays of political dissatisfaction as seen in Iran last June. By operating in a space permitted (or tolerated in some degree) by the state, nonmovements can safely lay the foundation for wider social acceptance of reformist politics.

Like all social movements, the Green Movement is dynamic, ebbing and flowing as the political climate allows. With the election results as a catalyst, the people'S quotidian subversion erupted into a collective display of discontent. Now, with the repressive organs of the state cracking down on dissenters, the demonstrators have dispersed into a landscape of everyday resistance. The Iranian government has battered and bruised the Green Movement, but there is no indication that it has corrupted the ideals of its participants. Today, the Green Movement resides in soosool boys' decadent hair styles, daughters' rejection of domesticity for education and employment, flirtations between youths, and other indirect -- but not insignificant -- forms of resistance. In today's Iran, collective opposition has not been crushed. It waits to be awakened from hibernation.

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