The Leaderless Revolution

Today, many political analysis’s and Middle East experts agree that one of the most defining characteristics and manifestations of the green movement is the fact that it has no official leader. A movement that started as a skirmish over a flawed and fraudulent election between Ahmadinejad and Mir Hossein Mousavi as the two main rivals has now rapidly turned into a coalition movement against a common foe, the regime itself. And, while the green movement started as a protest demanding its citizens votes be counted it soon evolved into something bigger. Today, it represents a battle between Iranians on the one hand who demand nothing less than their inalienable human rights, the right to economic opportunity, and the right to a representative government elected by the people and not appointed on behalf of the people, verses a political system that is clearly incapable of delivering on such rights due to its inherent, and now as we have seen, violent nature.

And so unlike the revolution of 1979 lead by the iconic Ayatollah Khomeini this movement has a different aura and identity advantage of its own, and in my view, with three distinctive characteristics.

First, is that the movement is by no means ideological and unlike 1979 where political factions such as the toodeh party (communist party), the jebhe melli (the national front party), the mojahedin khalg (MKO) and the religious groups played a zero-sum game in trying to outmaneuver one another over ideological lines, today’s movement revolves around a common theme and a common ideology that is universal, Democracy, economic opportunity and human rights are at the top of the agenda. These demands reflect the wishes of a generation with a new outlook on life and of the world. But what stands in their way is a political system that views any and all forms of openness and freedom as a threat to its stability and ultimately existence without an iota of consideration for its people. This political self-righteousness has therefore created a collective frustration amongst and across various segments of society whom today have taken their demands to the streets.

The second unique characteristic of this movement is that it is homegrown and spreading like brushfire into more rural areas across Iran. What is also of significance is that the green movement is building traction with every tragic story of torture, rape, beating and dead bodies being broadcast over YouTube. These acts of violence further infuriate the movement and allow it to multiply across social layers from students to teachers to doctors and nurses, to diplomats, to political figures, all the way to the bazaar (the merchant groups). So no matter how hard the clampdown on protesters and no matter how many people the anti-Iranian regime imprisons, a network of distributed leadership is always ready to further the cause be it in the form of writing “death to Khamenei” slogans on the walls, printing protest messages on money, sending out twitters, blogging on facebook, and or organizing protests at every opportunity presented, as was the case during Ashura.

And the third characteristic of what makes the green movement uniquely different from thirty years ago is the role of the exiled opposition groups that while still in disarray are starting to come together and rally behind the people of Iran and their aspirations for civil liberties. This allegiance comes in the form of a two step process. The first is in their support for Iranians greater civil liberties which by design will illustrate the regimes incapacity and unwillingness for reform. Once this is established which we are almost at the end of this stage now 6 months into the protests the second step will then be to push for a national referendum on the legitimacy of the regime. This tactical support will allow Iranians to move closer together as a united front with a united voice calling for a secular democratic political system much like other democracies around the world e.g. India, Turkey, Austria , Germany, Czech, South Korea, Poland and many others.

The advantages of this leaderless revolution at this stage has served the movement well but I do believe that at some point this frustration will need to be harnessed and channeled before it either loses momentum and is defused or alternatively turns into anarchy and civil war.