IRAN: Unravelling of a revolution

The very system of an unelected Supreme Leader ruling the country with the help of an elected president of his choice is being challenged. It may take weeks or months or even years, but one thing is certain: the unravelling of Iran's Islamic revolution has begun: there will be no return to the status quo. Both the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stand diminished and their capacity to deal with the world as much as with their own people inexorably weakened. What began as a protest over suspected rigging of the elections that are supposed to have re-elected Ahmadinejad as president for another term has now metastasized into a challenge to the very system of an unelected Vilayet-i-Faqih (supreme jurist or leader) ruling the country with the help of a president elected by people from among the choices approved by the Supreme Leader himself. .... Despite all these claims and counter-claims, however, it cannot be denied that a large percentage of Iranian population, including significant portions of the clerical establishment itself, is now fed up with the tyrannical ways of the Iranian mullahs. The educated youth and professionals are far ahead of the general society and thus have particular reasons to be disenchanted with their life under the revolutionary regime. They want much more freedom than is on offer even by the likes of Mousavi or Montazeri. One example could illustrate this. Iran's state-run body for youth affairs said recently that rising numbers of Iranians are spurning marriage and having sex illegally outside wedlock. (See interesting details of an official survey below) So it's not just democracy that Iran's youth are fighting for. They want drastic changes in societal mores. Similarly, with the growth in unemployment and general worsening of economic conditions, despite the oil wealth, a lot of people in the working class are disillusioned. With limited trading opportunities because of bad relations with the West and sanctions on account of the continuing fracas over the nuclear issue, the bazaris (business community) too are angry and disappointed, desperately wanting a change. Clearly, even if the protests are suppressed now Iran will continue to boil, probably creating new and unforeseeable problems for the region and the world for some time to come. Revolutions don't let go of power easily. But since Iranian clerics are not willing to share power even with other clerics with slightly different views and want to run the country as an autocracy, the revolution appears bound to unravel sooner or later. The process may have just begun. ---- Sultan Shahin
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