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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 June - 5 July 2000 Issue No. 488 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 June - 5 July 2000 Issue No. 488
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The reformist within
By Azadeh MoaveniIranians frequently cite their fledgling democracy as what most distinguishes their country from their neighbours. Elections and the liberal press are symbols of openness, a virtue which Iranians claim to hold dear.
But when asked how they feel about the reform movement, Iranians from all walks of life turn their heads with a dismissive sniff. As one Tehran taxi driver puts it: "As long as the mullahs are in power, in the end we won't get anywhere."
The world, it seems, senses something new is afoot in Iran, and because the most prominent symbols of change are moderate President Mohamed Khatami and his reformist supporters, international opinion immediately credits them as its source.
But as many Iranians know, and as many outside observers are beginning to realise, this is not the whole story. "When people voted for Khatami, a social movement that had already existed showed itself," explains Ibrahim Yazdi, leader of the Freedom Movement of Iran.
Religious intellectuals like Yazdi do not, as many Iranian activists in exile do, reduce the reform movement to a faction of heavy-weights within the establishment. But they do describe the essence of the reform movement in terms of the Islamic revolution, speaking of it as a final attempt to realise its most lofty goals; namely, the achievement of a harmonious relationship between piety and tolerance and between popular sovereignty and Islamic democracy. "People have, without revolution and violence, learned to use their right to vote, to voice their opinions," Yazdi says.
But while Iranians broadly throw their support behind the reformist camp, they are also acutely aware that the types of reform sought are severely limited and many find this deeply unsatisfying.
Key activists in Iran, student groups and individuals alike, are now distancing themselves from the reform movement. Not only do they want faster, more comprehensive reforms than the cautious president and his equally cautious supporters in the new parliament can offer, they want an Iranian polity that is truly liberal-democratic: a political scene that welcomes secular nationalists and socialists as easily as it does populist Islamists.
Khatami, on a tour of Beijing's Forbidden City as part of a five-day visit to China
(photo: AP)But the consequences of making such proclamations are high: feminist lawyer Mehrangiz Kar was recently imprisoned for nearly two months for complaining at a conference in Berlin about the difficulties encountered by secular intellectuals for the past 20 years.
Religious reformists know they may be people's second or third choice, but they also know they are uniquely positioned to do the dirty work of rehabilitating an authoritarian regime whose legitimacy is in tatters. "We are people who come from the heart of this system, this revolution. They can't call us opponents, or spies, or foreigners," says reformist journalist Immaddin Baghi, now in prison for his work. "We have relied on this [their origin from within the system], putting it at the service of the people, doing something perhaps others could not."
But popular support for the reformists is not so much due to their grassroots organising, than it is a result of the situation where the movement is the only legal means through which people can oppose the regime.
A Western eye senses that there is some authentic feeling behind people's attitudes toward the reform movement, a feeling that goes beyond a simple vote of "no confidence" for the establishment. And some reformists offer a hip image by such standards: they read Michel Foucault and use palm-size electronic organisers, presenting a picture of savvy, modern, Islamic democrats.
But the source of sincere public affection is Khatami himself, a smiling figure who has plucked at the heartstrings of a severely depressed population that craves a leader they can be proud of. "We love Khatami of course," says Afegh, a Tehran University math student, in the same breath that she expresses utter disillusionment with the religious government.
This seeming paradox, a deep affection for a man who leads a movement many Iranians view with cynicism, lies beneath the complex layers of passive popular opposition and reform from the top that constitute the "new Iran." This dynamic of a push from the bottom and manipulation at the top was first articulated by reform strategist Saeed Hajjarian, who survived a March attempt on his life. The push may be a passive sort of opposition, lacking leadership or ideology, but it is irrepressible, and the reform movement, most Iranian analysts believe, could not exist without it.
The public suffers from an obvious "mullah fatigue," taxi drivers refuse to pick up clerics, schools are dealing with their failed Islamisation projects, and many Iranians say they see no potential for a transformed Iran under clerical rule, whether this is by the regime's hard-liners or the new generation of reform-minded revolutionaries.
Iranians tirelessly contest the regime in whatever possible small ways. When hard-liners left no pro-reform dailies on the newsstand, people refused to buy even moderate newspapers. The zeal with which ordinary Iranians gather information, in spite of such obstacles, exemplifies how this quiet resistance to authoritarianism has become ordinary. If they are unable to obtain information from television, they get it from the papers or from the radio. When this means is obstructed, they get their information from abroad and by word of mouth.
The student movement, a disorganised but momentous force that is dissatisfied with the reform movement, may, according to some analysts, become the biggest opposition force. "If Khatami is going to stop here," said one politically active student from Amir Kabir University, "then we are prepared to go forward without him."
If the reformists are to follow through with their rhetoric, then they must be prepared to see politicians from across the political spectrum participate in the open space they are struggling to create. "Maybe people want Islam, maybe they don't, I don't know," says Abbas Abdi of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, the party closest to the president, "But if they don't, I won't agree with them but it's not my business," he added.
History has shown that revolution from above is at best a temporary solution. Reform from above seems equally without destiny, unless Iran's reformists can win people's regard.
