None of these are original thoughts, but I wanted to share what is on my mind…
The Iranian government seems well on the way to prevailing in the current crisis. Their brutal crackdown has — in an immediate sense — worked: the crowds of protestors are down from hundred of thousands to hundreds of people. At the moment, the crowds are looking for leadership before they act, but Mousavi and all the other famous names are under house arrest, (their immediate staff have been arrested long since) and the few statements they issue are growing more and more timid. Soon things will quiet down, and soon after that every identifiable leader of this uprising will likely vanish and never be heard from again. Without leadership, crowds will be small and easily dispersed, and the proposed strikes will, perhaps, not congeal.
It looks to me that in a month or two, Iran will return back to “normal”.
But we in the west have caught a glimpse of our brothers and sisters fighting for democracy. They are not evil, in fact, they look very much like ordinary westerners that you might see walking to the market on any city street. If this uprising is ultimately supressed, the people in Iran might have lost a battle — but they have not been vanquished. They destroyed the myth.
In watching this unfold, I have been thinking of the Prague spring. In every tactical and political sense, the Societ Union crushed the uprising in Prague: they sent in tanks, arrested protestors and destroyed their careers, and that was the end. Short term. But in a longer, historical sense its impact was deep.
I recently read someone I respect (I forget who) write “The Prague spring destroyed the Soviet Union.” In an immediate sense, that appears ridiculous: the Soviet Union endured for 20 years after Prague. The Prague spring’s effect was moral and psychological. It destroyed the foundation myth of Soviet Communism — that it was the best, fairest, most modern and humane system of government possible. Soviet Communism by definition, created the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people and therefore it was simply inconceivable that any people, given a real choice between Soviet Communism and any other form of government, would choose something different. After Prague, when it was clear that the only way to keep people under Soviet rule was violent force, the Soviet foundation myth was in shreds. It was nothing more than thuggish dictatorship.
If the current uprising in Iran does not succeed, then perhaps it will act on the Iranian Regime like the Prague Spring did on the Soviet Union. The Iranian foundation myth was that Iran’s theocracy was the best possible government on earth: God’s chosen benevolent Supreme Leader controlled all the government, his wisdom was unquestionable, and he always wanted what was truly best for Iran and its people. His word was God’s will. But now… now Khameini is just another brutal dictator holding on to power with his own private armies of brutal thugs. And his son is waiting in the wings to succeed him. This uprising has cut the heart out of the Iranian theocracy myth.
What the west do to make sure that this happens? We can remember and honor our democratic brothers and sisters in Iran who shattered the myth. Regardless of the outcome of the current uprising, they have begun the end of de facto Iranian theocracy.
But we cannot forget.
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Here.