Political change may be inevitable, but it’s not imminent.
Following weeks of widespread protests, many speculate that the Iranian regime is facing imminent collapse. But this isn’t new; since 1979, foreign observers and domestic opponents of the regime have anticipated its fall every time mass protests have erupted. For example, during the protests in 2018, the head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran expressed optimism about an imminent demise.
They soon discovered that the government had not only survived but had grown stronger, becoming a permanent reality projecting power throughout the Middle East. The current spate of unrest started in September after a 22-year-old woman died while in custody of the morality police. Women also played a pivotal role in the unrest in 2017-18, when similar demands were made to what Iranians are calling for today.
In the current demonstrations, however, the protesters are demanding not just social and political reforms but the regime’s complete ouster. According to one young activist, the protests are no longer a reform movement but a revolutionary avant-garde giving birth to a new nation.
Having endured many financial, social and cultural upheavals, especially affecting women and ethnic minorities, the Iranian people are saying enough is enough. Youth from all walks of life have nothing to lose and seem intent on keeping the protests going.
Predicting Change
Political change in Iran may be inevitable, but it’s not imminent. After 10 weeks of demonstrations, the regime seems no closer to making concessions. Rather, it seems confident that the protests will eventually die out, just as previous waves of unrest have. Protest movements of the past attracted millions of people from across the country representing diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds.
The current protests, however, are limited to thousands of mostly young demonstrators organized in small groups and have not managed to draw the middle class into the fray.
The unrest isn’t surprising. Iran’s existing political makeup is untenable, and its religious ideology is outdated. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps recognizes the need to streamline state machinery, eliminate political competitors, monopolize power and strike a delicate balance between secularism and Shiite Islam.
It sees preserving Iran’s complex national identity that cuts across ethnicity as a matter of overriding importance. But with the forces that previously ushered in political change no longer present, it doesn’t believe a successful uprising is possible.
One of those forces is the Iranian bazaar, a large marketplace that grew over centuries to become an economic institution, representing Iran’s tradition of capitalism. The bazaar was one of three pillars of Iran’s political system, the other two being the clergy and the political elite.
Over the years, it has lost its role as a vehicle for political transformation, but decades ago, capitalist relations resulting from European imports brought changes that shook the pillars of traditional society, leading to alliances between the bazaar and the clergy as they worked against the monarchy.
These coalitions led to widespread protest movements against the autocratic rule of the Qajar kings and later the last shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
These uprisings included the tobacco concession protests in 1891, the constitutional revolution in 1906, the movement to nationalize the oil industry in 1950, the June 1963 uprising and the Islamic revolution in 1979. The tobacco protests, carried out by shopkeepers and merchants, emanated mainly from the bazaar in Tehran. They formed the backbone of the constitutional movement, which involved clerics and other social groups against the Qajar shah, Nasser al-Din Shah.
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