Mahsa Amini Day: Iranian society seething again
Review by Caliber.Az

ANALYTICS  17 September 2023 - 11:11

On September 16, Mahsa Amini Day is celebrated in Iran. Exactly one year ago, a young girl came to Tehran to visit her relatives. While walking around the city, she was detained by the morality police for wearing the hijab incorrectly (from the viewpoint of the officers of these forces).  She was beaten at a police station and died in hospital a few days later.

The killing shocked Iranians. Many young people across the country came out to protest. Their main slogans were women's rights ("Woman, Life, Freedom!") and demands for the abolition of the Islamic republic. Some demonstrators were in favour of parliamentary representative democracy, others were in favour of constitutional monarchy, and there were a small number of supporters of socialism. However, the political slogans were not clearly articulated.

Clashes broke out with the police, killing some 500 people. Security forces loyal to the regime shot or beat people to death, some were arrested and later executed. However, young people fought back, resulting in the deaths of about 70 security forces. Perhaps most active during the protests were the young women who publicly removed their hijabs.

After a few months, the movement was suppressed or seriously weakened by repression in Tehran and several other major cities, but it continued in the Iranian provinces inhabited by ethnic minorities, especially Kurds and Baluchis. This was partly due to the fact that Mahsa Amini was Kurdish, but much more to other factors.

Iran's ethnic minorities (including Azerbaijanis) experience discrimination of all kinds. The regions lack schools, media and other institutions in local languages, lack strong local self-governance, and finally, ethnic regions receive less funding and suffer from poverty. The September 15 protests lasted longest in provincial Sistan and Baluchistan, perhaps the poorest region of the country, inhabited by an ethnic (Baluchi) and, at the same time, confessional (Sunni) minority. Eventually, the big protests stopped there as well. But periodically, other activist actions have been undertaken in Iran.

Perhaps the strike of several hundred thousand Iranian workers that has engulfed the country's oil industry was the most important event over the past year. Since trade unions are banned in Iran, the working class has found a more effective form of resistance - strikes organized by informal groups, as well as by assemblies of workers or their delegates via the Internet (on Telegram). These delegate workers' councils, which coordinate with each other, have been able to organize a series of strikes, demanding higher wages and the introduction of permanent employment instead of temporary employment.

Some observers believe that it is workers' voices that may play a key role in Iran's future transformation. A powerful general strike in November 1978 paralyzed the country's economy, with some factories taken over by workers and their elected councils; this event may have been decisive in overthrowing Shah's regime.

In modern Iran, a young woman named Sepideh Qolian has become a symbol of labour strikes. She was arrested as one of the leaders of a general strike in Khuzestan province in 2018. When she was released from prison in March 2023, five years later, she shouted directly into the cell - "Khamenei - you are Zahhak, we will bury you in the ground!" before being arrested again a few hours later.

Another form of rebellion in Iran during these events manifested itself in the form of attacks on security forces. Some attacks may have been coordinated with the opposition movement, People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, (Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), but most were probably the work of some new groups.

No sooner had the wave of attacks subsided than the protest movement of pensioners began to rise and expand. They are demanding an increase in their meager pensions and their protests have now intensified.

The main reason for the protests was the poor state of the economy. The regime cannot effectively develop Iran's economic complex. About 60 per cent of the population lives in poverty, inflation reaches 50 per cent according to official data, and according to unofficial data it is much higher. Corruption of monstrous proportions is eating away at the country. Most large enterprises belong to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or are privately owned by their relatives and friends. This is nothing but a feeder for plundering the state budget. As a result, the narrow ruling class of millionaires and billionaires who control Iran is filling their pockets against the background of the growing poverty of the working population.

Even the official media have been openly talking about what is happening lately, since it has become impossible to hide the nightmare. For example, the newspaper "Jomhuri" recently addressed the government with a sharp statement about the "starving army", warning it about the upcoming uprising.

It reminds the Supreme Leader Khamenei (under his personal control is a financial fund - baniad - of more than $ 100 billion): "The protocol of Islamic rule does not imply that those in power sit at luxurious feasts, and the people are told to be patient, eat less and gnaw raw onions... It is unfair that some people are experiencing serious economic problems, can hardly afford meat, chicken, dairy products and fruits, and the chosen ones, thanks to their proximity to power, receive billions of dollars in rewards, astronomical salaries and privileges under the guise of merit.

People cannot accept that in a country with untold wealth and resources, a few reach the pinnacle of prosperity while millions of families witness the spread of poverty. These are not the rights of people living in such a rich country."

Iranian MP Nouri Kazle says: "The claims that inflation is under control, and the statistics and figures provided by the government are all the fruit of the mind of the government and officials and do not correspond to reality. Inflation is 120 per cent, how can they say that it is only 40 per cent? Reality is what happens in practice, and playing with these numbers will not hide anything from people, because they face these problems every day when they go shopping."

Today, on the anniversary of the start of the uprising, many are expecting a repeat. There have already been clashes in some cities. But revolutions hardly happen by the hour, because they are largely spontaneous. Much more important is another matter. Iranian society today resembles a boiling cauldron. It has become incompatible with the regime. When certain social strata get tired of protesting and seem to go down, others rise up.  Women, youth and students, ethnic minorities, factory workers, pensioners succeed each other on the streets. In the course of protests and strikes, different social groups and classes accumulate experience of self-organization and resistance. This will undoubtedly influence Iran's future, whatever it may be.

As for regime change, perhaps it will come when the protests of different social groups coalesce into one decisive statement.

Caliber.Az