Persian Awakening:
Using Collective Nonviolence for Achieving Reform in 2009 Post-election Iran
Nicholas Patler
Students of Iran: the destiny of the Persian people is in your hands. Indeed, you are the future of Iran. You have set in motion the beginning of a profound revolution, and if you persist with focus, determination and organization it will ultimately end with a transition to a true people’s democracy. And this democracy will be your democracy, which you can mold to best serve your own interests, rather than the interests of nationalistic elites and foreign powers.
As you set in motion your revolution, you are carrying forward the dreams of those that struggled for democratic reforms in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11, and fulfilling the hopes of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, who more than a half-century ago envisioned a democratic Iran, and who was committed to lessening the poverty and misery of his people. Sadly, his hopes, and the hopes of so many Iranians, were trampled when foreign powers worked to covertly oust Prime Minster Mossadegh from power.
However, this is a new day. This is your day, your era, the Persian Awakening. The eyes of Iranians are open to the abuses of power, whether domestic or foreign, historical or contemporary. And your voices are growing, and the world is listening, as you demand in the streets and proclaim from the rooftops, “We want change and we want it now!” and “Death to the dictator!”
With that in mind, I want to encourage you to consider adopting the most powerful weapon at your disposal for achieving your objectives in the post-election period: a mass campaign of organized, strategic nonviolence. The great Muslim nonviolent leader, Badshah Khan, told his people that “no power on earth could stand against” the power of nonviolence.1 And for his Muslim Pathans he proved this maxim correct when his nonviolent army ousted a heavily armed and oppressive British occupying force—then the greatest military power on the face of the earth—from their homeland in the 1930s. And Gandhi expressed a universal political truth when he wrote, “Even the most despotic government cannot stand except for the consent of the governed … Immediately (when) the subject ceases to fear the despotic force, the power is gone.” Years after writing this, Gandhi would go on to align the famous Indian nonviolent movement for freedom and self-determination in the interior of the country with Khan’s nonviolent struggle in the mountains located in what was then the Northwest Frontier of India (present-day Pakistan).2 And nonviolent movements in the twentieth century, worldwide, involved billions of people and creatively employed almost 200 different types of nonviolent actions, most of which were successful in accomplishing their objectives.3
Below are some ideas for creating and maintaining a cohesive and effective movement or organization, even in the face of oppressive state force, as well as examples of potential nonviolent actions and strategies that may help you. You have brilliantly utilized nonviolent tactics already, as well as impressively organized on a mass scale, such as with blitz demonstrations, boycotting goods advertised on state-controlled television, overloading the power grids daily just before the scheduled state-approved news, and creatively harassing the paramilitary Basij vigilantes linked to the violent crackdown of your protests. The suggestions in this paper are humbly presented in hopes of inspiring you to expand on those remarkable activities, hone in your focus and strengthen your organized efforts both for impact and continuity. But before we get to that, let us first consider what your objectives are at this point in your struggle.
After the swearing-in of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: nonviolently depose the president, or nonviolent pressure to force democratic reforms while strategizing for the next election?
Despite apparent fraud in the June election, and the courageous protests of students, leaders and clerics, Ahmadinejad has been sworn in as president. Tragically, the Iranian people never had any recourse for establishing an impartial recount of the votes cast in the 2009 election. And consequently there was no way to determine with certainty which candidate had won the election. Moreover, Ahmadinejad’s absolute control of state power, his violent tactics in using that power to squelch dissent and his refusal to take any action for insisting on transparency has cast him in a suspicious light, both in Iran and the international community. This has made allegations of fraud in the election appear that much more credible.
With that said, you, students and reformers, have the option of working to depose Ahmadinejad from power. If indeed he has stolen the election by fraud and force then you have a legitimate democratic as well as moral right to seek his removal from the presidency by non-political means, such as through grassroots nonviolence. “[I]f a government does a grave injustice,” stressed Gandhi, “the subject must withdraw cooperation wholly or partially, sufficient to wean the ruler from wickedness.”4
However, the problem is that while there is persuasive evidence that fraud has been committed, it has not been established beyond a shadow of a doubt that Ahmadinejad did not win the 2009 election. And making things even murkier, it is almost impossible at this point to determine if he personally directed the manipulation of the election results, to whatever extent they were manipulated, or if his supporters had acted on their own in committing fraud without his knowledge. Whatever the case, Ahmadinejad has unquestionably demonstrated that he could care less for upholding essential democratic rights such as dissent, transparency and justice since the election. But if by chance he was elected by popular vote—and as painful as this may be—perhaps the wisest course would be to accept his re-election until the next election.
This does not mean giving up. I am suggesting quite the opposite. This is the continuation of your struggle, your revolution. By making a conscious choice to collectively accept the election results, you would be employing a powerful nonviolent tactic, taking the moral high ground and empowering yourselves even though you have lost the election. You could make it clear, perhaps in a mass declaration submitted to newspapers globally and posted at internet blog sites, along with a summary version sent worldwide through Twitter that the opposition has reluctantly decided to give their consent to the election results, despite the apparent voting irregularities and fraud. In doing so you could explain that in abiding by the election results you are respecting and upholding the essential features of democracy in which you are committed, although, you could emphasize, that in practice the current regime and system of government in Iran falls far short of a real democracy. And you could further stress that the conscious decision to recognize the election of Ahmadinejad and the tenuous democratic mechanisms that currently exist in your country, is the first step for millions of Iranians committed to working untiringly for a more stable, open and free democratic government in Iran. In short, by creatively conceding the election with both visibility and perhaps publicity, you could underscore your dedication to democratic rights in front of the world, establish legitimacy and momentum to push immediately for the democratic reforms that you desire now, and lay the groundwork for a change in leadership and governance in the next election. Moreover, you could create the impression that Ahmadinejad will be allowed to stay in power only because you, students and other reformers, have decided not to press for his ouster. This could immeasurably strengthen your nonviolent campaign for democratic change, transforming an election defeat, through language and choice, into a symbolic victory for the voices of reform.
Empowering the people even more, along with providing a thrust to the forces for change, in your mass declaration you could also explain that while you accept the election results, you unequivocally refuse to accept the lack of democratic and human rights that presently exist in Iran. Here you could boldly announce that student and other reformers will be launching a nationwide nonviolent campaign to press the Ahmadinejad regime for democratic reforms. Perhaps your language could boldly reflect the intensity of your commitment, and even reveal some of the disruptive tactics that you will be using to engage the power structure. This will alert the regime to the reality that you are a mass cohesive force that is not going away while at the same time create a since of transparency in your actions as a form of inadvertent protest against the secrecy of the Ahmadinejad government. This could also underscore your dedication to the transparency in politics that you are ultimately seeking through democratic reforms.
Remember this: your goal should be to become and symbolize, both individually and collectively, the change you want to see in Iranian political and public life. As Gandhi believed, the means are really the ends in their earliest stages.5 And, of course, your mass declaration would be followed up with the beginning of your strategic nonviolent campaign, using whatever creative actions and tactics you choose, some examples of which we will be getting at shortly.
Once your nonviolent struggle is in full swing, you could then simultaneously begin the second part of what could be considered a two-part strategy. This part would be the conventionally political aspect of your campaign. Here you could strategize and work in an attempt to bring the three strongest opposition candidates—Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karoubi and Mohsen Rezaee (and/or whoever else might strongly emerge in the next four years)—and their supporters together into one party or coalition to win the next presidential election. I am not certain if political realities in Iran, such as the intensity of ideological differences, would hinder such a coalition. Mousavi and Karoubi are reformers while Rezaee is more conservative. However, if they could transcend their differences, perhaps by working them out face-to-face in meetings, and agree on one candidate with all opposition supporters committed to that one candidate, the defeat of an Ahmadinejad-type or endorsed candidate (since he cannot run for a third term) would in all likelihood be such a enormous landslide that all the manipulation in the world would not save it. Most importantly, such a powerful coalition could finally sweep away the authoritarian or non-democratic aspects of political rule that has been such an enduring part of Iranian life.
You, students and other reformers, can direct this process by your own organized efforts and leadership, needing no permission from the established political order. And in transforming your society, I want to encourage you to always put human beings before your ideas—indeed, to make sure that your ideas are in the service of human beings, even the opposition, and your transformation will be a desperately needed example and inspiration to the world. In the words of anthropologist Ashley Montagu: “Let us be certain that those who draw up the blueprints for the future can feel as well as plan, love as well as think.”6
A powerful precedent for creating such a regime/ideological-changing coalition can be seen in the presidential election that took place in Bosnia in 2000. The corrupt and brutal government of Slobodan Milosevic was forced to call early presidential elections after a student nonviolent movement called Otpor! (Serbian for “resistance”) attacked his regime with cell phone and Internet networking, public ridicule, rock music, dramatic public displays of behavior and dress, and organized meetings and protest. As Otpor! pressed in on Milosevic with its creative force and helped build a grassroots consensus against him, they also worked behind the scenes to unite Milosevic opposition candidates and parties together into one party under one candidate. After much work, they succeeded in uniting all opposition under one popular candidate, Vojislav Kostunica, who went on to run a visible democratic grassroots campaign that embraced every ethnic and religious group—some of whom had been the targets of Milosevic’s genocide—and win the election (although Milosevic refused to accept his defeat at the polls until hundreds of thousands of students and other opposition peacefully stormed the capitol at Belgrade).7
Keep in mind that this nonviolent grassroots regime change did the unthinkable by overthrowing a brutal dictator who controlled a battle-hardened army, a tough police force and most of the media. The unarmed power of the people and the unshakable optimism of the students, however, could not be resisted, not even for the entrenched Milosevic with every weapon at his disposal and who had unleashed one of the bloodiest genocides in history. And the same people power—organized, focused and determined—can undoubtedly transform the Iranian system of government and ultimately sweep the old regime forces from power as well.
Examples of creative nonviolence for achieving democratic reforms in Iran
Let us now consider some ideas for creating and maintaining a cohesive and effective nonviolent organization, as well as some nonviolent actions and strategies that may help the student reform movement. By no means will these exhaust all of the possibilities for creative and innovative nonviolence. Moreover, this is not meant to be a detailed treatment of the dynamics of nonviolence as it has been applied in nonviolent campaigns. There are several excellent works that sensitively explore how nonviolent strategies and principles have worked or failed in previous campaigns.8 Here I am only highlighting a sampling of ideas that I have humbly and cautiously attempted to adapt to your political, cultural and religious realities, while building on the amazing nonviolent activities that you have used or are currently using. However, only you can best choose, adapt and mold nonviolent strategy and tactics that will best serve your collective interests, goals and realities. The suggestions presented here should be revised and expanded upon as need be. With that in mind, you will find at the end of this paper a listing of sources that offer a comprehensive treatment of nonviolent tactics, most of which have been used successfully in previous nonviolent campaigns and activities, as well as organizations that can help you obtain nonviolent literature and other assistance.
Symbolizing the struggle for identification, visibility and cohesion
Once nonviolence, particularly large scale nonviolence, has been chosen as the method of struggle by which to engage injustice, leadership and/or participants generally integrate and create some form of symbolism and slogans or other forms of human-public expression to represent the movement. This has proven important for people to rally around, to generate both a sense of belonging and inspiration, enabling participants to feel that the organized movement is something personally theirs. It has also served as a form of communication to the opposition or ruling regime that the movement is legitimate and organized and a power to be reckoned with.
Badshah Khan’s nonviolent army, the Khudai Khidmatgars, or Servants of God, for example, dressed in striking red military-style uniforms, which gave them the nickname “Red Shirts,” and sung patriotic-religious songs while marching and carrying a tricolor flag created for the movement.9 The student nonviolent movement Otpor! in Bosnia created a black clenched fist set against a white illuminated background to symbolize their nonviolent struggle. This symbolic fist became ubiquitous all over the country through pamphlets, graffiti and on t-shirts, and appears to have been very unsettling for the dictatorship. And yet another example can be seen in the American civil rights movement that was led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Here African Americans and other nonviolent participants essentially created a backdrop of traditional black Christian hymns that were both strategically and sporadically sung at mass meetings and during protest marches and rallies. This not only provided them with a sense of unity with each other and a feeling of divine support for their cause, but it also energized them mentally, emotionally, spiritually and even physically in the sense that these faith-based hymns infused participants with harmonious courage to nonviolently face potential violent opposition.
In the same way you can create symbolism and various forms of expression for the Iranian opposition to rally around. For example, Neda Agha-Soltan, whose shocking murder at the hands of the Basij militia during the June 20th protest in Tehran, which through amateur video was broadcast throughout the world, could become the symbolic martyr for the Iranian reform movement for which she gave her life. While I understand that her death is already being invoked as martyrdom, Neda’s face could become the ubiquitous symbol of the movement on posters, t-shirts, literature, Facebook and other forms of communication. This would be a way to honor her, provide a profound human symbol to rally around and at the same time serve as a powerful indictment of the Ahmadinejad regime.
Another example for creating a sense of cohesion and continuity within the reform movement could come from your religious faith. It appears that this is already being done to some extent—marchers-demonstrators carrying copies of the Koran and citing verses about peace (and being encouraged to do so through Twitter). I cannot stress enough the power of tapping into your faith for both divine and human support and the collective positive energy that this can manifest in a movement. Badshah Khan constantly drew on certain teachings of his Islamic faith, both from the Koran and the life of Muhammad in the Hadith, to emphasize to his nonviolent soldiers that Islam teaches patience and restraint, universal brotherhood, and the service of God through the service of others. It was his powerful conviction, which he stressed over and over to his countrymen, that Islam was amal, yakeen, muhabat—selfless service, faith and love.10 And Murbarak Awad, who has sometimes been called the Palestinian Gandhi, and whose teachings on nonviolence influenced the first intifada in Palestine, believed that “Mohammed’s message from God was for people to love each other and to understand each other.”11 Islam, in other words, helped provide the foundation and inspiration for Khan’s nonviolent campaign in the 1930s and the relatively nonviolent intifada in Palestine during the latter 1980s.
You, as well, could continue to emphasize Islamic verses and teachings that emphasize peace and justice. These verses and teachings could become the symbolic chants of your nonviolent movement. For example, imagine thousands of disciplined students confronting police and military forces while in unison reciting Islamic verses. This not only could serve as a form of uniting expression for the reform movement, it could also mitigate the potential aggression and violence of government forces, which may find it morally difficult, a dilemma of conscience, to attack students carrying the Koran and who are peacefully chanting religious values in which they also share.
Some other prospective symbols and forms of expression for student reformers include the adoption of movement color or colors, such as the color green, which is being used by many to identify them with opposition candidate Mousavi’s 2009 campaign color; a title or slogan, such as those already being used like Green Revolution and Persian Awakening; and perhaps a leader, his/her ubiquitous image, voice and person, if one is chosen or arises, such as one of the opposition presidential candidates as well as the face of martyr Neda Agha-Soltan.
Nonviolent organization, actions and tactics
I am amazed by how you have creatively used nonviolent public demonstrations in Tehran to protest the 2009 election. In addition to your well-time blitzed demonstrations, I wish to compliment you on your mass public prayers prior to protest or as a form of protest, such as those that occurred on July17 outside Tehran University in which men and women, religious and nonreligious were allowed to participate. And I deeply admire your courage in facing down armed military and police forces outside the parliament building during Ahmadinejad’s swearing in ceremony on August 5. Watching your spirit from afar, one veteran of the 1978-79 Iranian Revolution told a reporter, “I thought my generation had courage to take up arms against tyranny. Now I tremble with shame in the face of their bravery.”12 Gandhi’s maxim quoted earlier is worth repeating here: “Immediately (when) the subject ceases to fear the despotic force, the power is gone.”
I want to stress to you here the importance of creating a cohesive organization for your nonviolent campaign. It appears that you have already been organizing by means of Twitter, cell phones and the Internet, using these to notify students and other reformers as to when, where and what time protests-demonstrations will be held and informing the world through video about government restrictions and violence. Using these forms of technology is crucial to your struggle, and we will talk more about them shortly.
However, a highly organized, strategically focused nonviolent movement would help you make the most of these organizing tools and efforts by strengthening the impact of your tactics and actions and enhancing success. This could be accomplished through focused nonviolent training carried out anywhere or anyplace—rural areas, cities, homes, backrooms of offices, dorm rooms at colleges and universities, in mosques—as long as it is out of view of the eyes and ears of the power structure. Badshah Khan, for example, established military-style camps all over the Frontier Province where his people received nonviolent training. This included not only instruction in strategy and tactics, but also moral teaching to help transform and inspire these fiercely independent and legendary fighters into an organized army of committed and disciplined nonviolent soldiers that believed in nonviolence, as many Pathans told a reporter during that time, “with all our hearts.”13
Another example of extraordinary nonviolent organization that immeasurably contributed to success can be seen in the American civil rights movement during the first half of the 1960s. Here students, men and women, received training in nonviolent workshops, large, medium and small, all over the country, particularly in the north and south. These workshops were held at high schools, colleges, universities and churches. Other nonviolent training was held within more established nonviolent or justice-oriented organizations, such as the Highlander Folk School, tucked away in the mountains of Tennessee, where nonviolent participants, including many of the leaders of the movement such as Rosa Parks, received training in nonviolent tactics and strategies. Highlander and the other makeshift workshops also included mock training—dramatized scenarios—on how to maintain a disciplined nonviolent posture when encountering physical aggression during, for example, sit-ins and demonstrations. These workshops prepared students and others to maintain calm and control without striking back as police swung batons, and as whites spit, slapped, threatened and used other forms of physical aggression to intimidate protestors.14
You could certainly do the same thing, training Iranians to courageously engage the regime while maintaining a nonviolent posture. And after you have established centers and meeting places for nonviolent training you could use Twitter and cell phones to inform students and other participants as to the times and places. If these lines of communication happen to be closely monitored by the regime, you could even develop a coded language that only participants would understand, which could also be utilized for notifying protestors as to the times and places of demonstrations, mass protests and rallies. And if authorities block these communications lines, as they did in the aftermath of the 2009 election, you could create effective lines of communication to network by word of mouth. For example, relay runners could carry information by automobile, bicycle or on foot from group to group, town to town, city to city.15 And, really, footwork networking on a large scale may be unnecessary, even if the regime is attempting to monitor or censor the Internet, since it appears that Internet experts are fast working to develop programs to get around blocks and escape detection. Some of these companies and programs are listed in this footnote.16 However, perhaps you could create a back-up system-plan in which if need be you could shift back and forth from the Internet and mass communications to more conventional means of exchanging information, which would allow the movement to continue without any major interruptions.
As the organized nonviolent movement is being created and solidified, as inter communication is adapted to needs and realities, and with mass nonviolent training underway, perhaps you should find creative ways to prevent government forces from impacting or disrupting your operations on a large scale. This may be an indispensable necessity for you since the Ahmadinejad regime has control of both overt and covert mechanisms of power in Iran, and has demonstrated that it is willing to abuse that power to squelch dissent.
With that understood, the 2000 Serbian nonviolent movement in Bosnia provides a powerful example of diffusing power so as to keep government authorities confused, preventing them from doing any real damage. Keenly aware that Milosevic would use an iron fist to smash their struggle, Serbian students created multiple layers within their organized movement with no offices or central leadership in the traditional sense. Instead, a vast array of networks was created with large numbers of student directors stationed throughout Bosnia. These directors communicated to students by cell phones, the Internet and by meeting in cafes to exchange information in regards to times and places of protest. With power so diffused, it became impossible for the regime to make any significant arrests that would negatively impact the movement. As one student activist explained, “There were too many leaders to arrest them all.” This, of course, would be most suitable for you since you are already experts at using Internet and cell phone technology to communicate with each other in regards to protests and demonstrations—tools (weapons in this case) which most students have access to or own. While perhaps not highly organized, it appears that you have amazingly accomplished this without any central leadership. All you would have to do now is to incorporate these efforts and activities into a cohesive nonviolent organization.
As mentioned earlier, you have magnificently utilized the tactic of nonviolent mass demonstrations to protest alleged fraud in the June election: praying in the streets before protests, carrying copies of the Koran, reciting verses that emphasize peace, and women making the conscious choice to dress modestly during public protests. These indeed help to communicate to the police and military forces that while you oppose the election results and demand reforms you also respect their humanity as well as traditions in which you all share. You are establishing here what Mubarak Awad calls “important points of contact between the citizens and authorities.” Awad explains that this is “[o]ne of the most important aims of nonviolent conflict” because it “highlights the evil and oppression on the one hand … and leads to a useful and meaningful confrontation on the other hand.”17
This form of peaceful demonstration could further be tweaked both for impact and for assuring regime forces that you mean them no physical harm while making it clear at the same time that you demand change. For example, imagine thousands of demonstrators kneeling in prayer while waiting silently for police and military forces to arrive. Once they arrive, half of the demonstrators, preferably the back half, would then quietly rise, begin chanting Islamic verses, poetry, or the inspiring call, “God is great,” and leave the scene in an orderly manner. The remaining demonstrators would then stand and offer small gifts to the armed forces, such as flowers or sweets, and then they too would turn and retreat. This tactic could also be used in front of the homes of the Basij paramilitary members: along with pictures of imprisoned or murdered protest victims, you could include a small gift.
This may on the surface sound trivial and inconsequential. But realize that nonviolence at its best turns traditional concepts of power based on fear and force on its head. While this form of demonstration can be followed by more intense forms of demonstrations, the above is intended to help transform the police and military forces by enabling them to see the humanity of the protestors, who have gone out of their way to show them respect and assure their safety while expressing their discontent. It could also inspire some within the Revolutionary Guard, divisions of which appear to be teetering in their loyalty to the regime,18 to throw their support to the student reform movement.
The Druze of the Syrian Golan Heights used a similar technique to protest an enforced curfew set by Israel in 1981. Forbidden to go any further than their property or fence lines, the Druze set out tea and cookies for the patrolling Israeli soldiers and engaged them in conversation, thus creating a sense of humanity on both sides. Indeed, an Israeli military commander grew so flustered that he had allegedly complained, “Those Druze are ruining my soldiers!”19 Remember, the Ahmadinejad regime forces, even the dreaded Basij, are caught in the same system of oppression and fear as you.20 One Serbian student leader understood this well when he explained that the goal of the movement was not to make enemies out of the police, because they too were victims of Milosevic’s vicious regime. And Dr. King challenged our rigid notions of judgment and condemnation, inspiring us to new heights of empathy for oppressors, when he wrote, “An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemy … We recognize that his hate grows out of fear, pride, ignorance, prejudice, and misunderstanding, but in spite of this we know God’s image is ineffably etched in his being.”21
Taking this understanding a little further—as difficult as this may be—Ahmadinejad himself is also victim of the regime or the worldview that supports it. He assumed power in a relatively closed system of government, which was that way before he became president, although he has certainly perpetuated it. He has also been pushed up against the wall, so to speak, by a U.S. that has only been willing to deal with his regime through demands and threats while pressing against Iran’s borders with the deadliest military might in the world.22 Due to such a consistent and overt lack of respect and threat diplomacy on the part of the U.S., Ahmadinejad, I believe, has understandably become more defensive and secret in his relations with his people and the international community (another example is North Korea).
Understanding his position within a more empathetic framework, and, if you so choose, in light of your commitment to nonviolence, perhaps it would be better to reconsider what has become a popular chant of student reformers: “Death to the dictator!” My advice is to refrain from rhetoric that could be construed to encourage or support violence against the regime. While it is true that the Serbian students frequently chanted, “Slobodan, go kill yourself,” their historical experience is quite different from yours. The Serbian nonviolent movement emerged from the ashes of one of the most brutal and unimaginably horrific wars and genocides in history.23 While their exhaustion with suffering and violence was a factor for inspiring their choice of nonviolence, it was understandable that Serbian students would employ a little violent rhetoric in their nonviolent struggle, particularly considering Milosevic’s atrocious crimes against humanity, of which they were consciously and painfully aware. As dictatorial as Ahmadinejad may be, restricting freedoms and imprisoning dissenters, he is not in the same league of horrors with Milosevic, Pol Pot or Hitler (although his cruel mistreatment of them, including alleged torture and murder, puts him on the same path). And neither do you have the same brutal history as those unfortunate souls caught in the intense violence of these regimes. In general, it is best to keep the rhetoric of a nonviolent movement consistent with the nonviolent principles you uphold as well as the actions that you employ.
Getting back to the power of mass demonstrations—a creative form of protest here could also include holding mock funerals or protests of mourning for reformers jailed since the June election and who have been on trial since August 1. With each reformer convicted and imprisoned (and, of course, sentenced to death), students could hold public mock funerals, perhaps with large groups assigned to each detainee and carrying picture(s) of the tried or convicted. Imagine one group of public demonstrators being relieved by another group of demonstrators and this continuing throughout the day, on each day of mourning. Students could dramatize these mock funerals with uniformity in dress and behavior, such as wearing all black, and for the men, perhaps shaving their heads. These mock funerals or mourning demonstrations could even be used to disrupt traffic and other daily functioning in cities such as Tehran. Students and other reformers could also demonstrate in front of the prisons/jails where detainees are incarcerated, and in front of courthouses where they are being tried. Here they could display pictures of the detainees, reinforcing their solidarity, and even use bolder tactics such as addressing the police-regime through a loudspeaker, which the Serbian students used to rattle prison authorities in Bosnian towns and cities. Martyrdom, (or even mock martyrdom), points out one scholar of the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79, fueled the spirit among student protestors for engaging the power structure and resisting the violence of the Shah regime.24
Another form of student demonstration could be held at concert rallies. The Serbian students, for example, held concerts to attract other students, demonstrate solidarity and protest the ruling regime. After providing entertainment through rock music, which included protest songs, they then held a vigil for those who had lost their lives at the hands of the Milosevic regime, displaying their photographs on a large movie screen and announcing their names one by one. Iranian students could possibly do something similar, but instead of rock music, which was popular in Bosnia, you could attract students at rally-concerts through techo music that appears to be more popular in Iran.
As impactful as demonstrations can be, and as creative as they can get, demonstrations alone are probably not enough. In addition, you could obstruct or disrupt the functioning of the regime, along with those services and institutions that support the regime or do its bidding. These include forms of civil disobedience such obstructing the flow of traffic and blocking or severing communication lines, such as those in the capitol of Tehran (ie: block entrances to government buildings through sit-ins or lay-ins), boycotts, strikes and mass refusal to comply with unjust laws. Some of these you have already been employing brilliantly, such as the mass boycott of products advertised on state-controlled television and switching on every electrical appliance to overload the power grids daily just before the scheduled state-approved news.
These actions, in addition to other forms of nonviolence, can help bring a regime to its knees. Workers in Bosnia, for example, went on a mass strike to express solidarity with the student movement, bringing to a halt services and industry throughout the country, which was one of the final straws that broke the back of the Milosevic regime. During the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79—a largely nonviolent revolution—employees, including oil workers, participated in a nationwide general strike and/or staged slowdowns in solidarity with the opposition movement against the authoritarian and violent Shah regime, which finally ended with victory when the Shah was deposed and fled the country.25 You can also work to encourage industry, teachers, service workers, shopkeepers and others to strike in support of your reform movement.
The power of focused meditation for nonviolent political transformation
There is one more potentially powerful technique for incorporating into a nonviolent revolution that I want to point out here, which is generally not considered within a framework of nonviolence—at least not consciously. “For decades now,” writes futurist Kay Massengale, “Transcendental Meditation” (founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi) has been used to test “the capacity of group meditation to reduce violent crime, drug abuse, traffic accidents and even war.” Massengale explains further that “it is thought that through the regular practice of TM one connects with all of life and so can positively affect the external world.”26 This is not all that different from the traditional Sufi concept of what we may today refer to as visualization, mentioned in footnote 11 of this paper.
Collective TM works through groups of trained men and women who together empty themselves of negative thoughts and feelings and hone in their collective positive focus-energy to influence a specific event or events, visualizing the outcome that they desire. Incredibly, this technique was used in Tehran in the early days of the 1978-79 revolution to “add vibrations of peace and positive social change into the mayhem of war and street fighting.”27 According to the study, The Maharishi Effect: A Revolution Through Meditation, “it was conclusively demonstrated that there was less fighting and fewer casualties in the immediate vicinity around where the groups meditated than either before or after.”28
TM was also used in several monitored experiments to reduce violence in the Lebanese War of 1983-84. Each experiment, carried out under controlled conditions and subjected to peer review, showed an enormous reduction in war intensity and decrease in war deaths (the latter ranging from 55 to 76%), along with an increase in cooperation among antagonists, for the exact period that the focused meditation had taken place.29
This undoubtedly holds tremendous potential for the student reform movement in Iran. You could utilize strategic meditation-visualization before each demonstration or protest campaign. For example, groups of students could collectively focus on reducing the anxiety and fear of police, military and other opposition, and even visualize their cooperation and assistance. On a larger scale, these meditating groups could be increased, and even joined by international meditative groups to focus and visualize the Ahmadinejad regime conceding democratic reforms and ultimately for achieving the peaceful, democratic transformation of the Iranian political system.
Conclusion
In addition to the nonviolence presented in this paper, along with your own remarkable innovations and activities, there are many more possibilities for creative nonviolence that you can adapt to your struggle for democratic reforms in Iran. I have listed several sources at the end of this paper that give a comprehensive listing and treatment of nonviolent actions and tactics. If you do not have access to these sources, or if they are not available in Farsi, please feel free to contact me, and I will do whatever I can to get these materials in your hands. You can contact me at nickpatler@hotmail.com.
Also, if you decide to seek funding-assistance for your reform movement, I want to strongly encourage you to avoid financial or any other assistance from the U.S. government (or any western government), or any organization or agency affiliated with the U.S. government. While Serbian students sought and accepted financial assistance from the U.S., their historical relationship with the U.S. has been vastly different than yours. Bosnia has not endured more than a half-century of efforts to infringe on its sovereignty and overthrow its leaders, as has been the case in Iran. Looking to the U.S. and the West for help will simply give fire to Ahmadinejad regime forces, which are already accusing the U.S. of provoking student discontent and protest. Perhaps you could seek assistance from other Muslim countries and organizations that may be sympathetic to your reform movement. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have adapted democratic mechanisms to some extent and may offer guidance. And I have listed below other Muslim or international organizations that may help, some or all of which you may already be consulting,
Now, it is time to create the future you desire. I hope you will decide to tap into and use the power of mass nonviolence, both strategically and morally. And perhaps you can aspire to tell your children and grandchildren, in the words of Bono, lead singer (and human rights activist) from the rock band U2: “When the story of these times gets written, we want it to say that we did all we could, and it was more than anyone could have imagined.” Also, maybe you will be able to boast, along with Serbian student leader Srdja Popovic, that, “We won because we loved life more … We were a group of fans of life, and that is why we succeeded.” And that, my friends, encapsulates the power of nonviolence and the reason why, if you commit your hearts and minds to this higher form of struggle, you will persist to victory.
A sample of recommended books-literature and Internet sites on nonviolence
(some of these sources are also listed in the footnotes of this paper. Most can be
found at Amazon.com)
Gene Sharp, The Dynamics of Nonviolence (This is a comprehensive treatment of nonviolence, and was used by the Serbian student nonviolent movement in 2000).
—The Politics of Nonviolent Action
—From Dictatorship to Democracy (This book is available in Farsi at the Albert Einstein Institution, http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations892f.html. There are many other great sources on nonviolence at the Einstein Institution, including the documentary, which is available in Farsi, A Force More Powerful. “This film is the story of millions who chose to battle the forces of brutality with nonviolent weapons—and won.” Also included here in PDF file is 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action.
Steve York, director, Bringing Down a Dictator.
Peter Ackerman and Christopher Kruegler, Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The Dynamics of People Power in the Twentieth Century.
Ralph E. Crow, Philip Grant and Saad E. Ibrahim, Arab Nonviolent Political Struggle in the Middle East.
Eknath Easwaran, Nonviolent Soldier of Islam: Badshah Khan, A Man to Match His Mountains.
Walter Wink, Peace is the Way.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love.
Mohandas K. Gandhi, Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth.
Michael N. Nagler, Is There No Other Way? The Search for a Nonviolent Future.
G. Simon Harak, ed., Nonviolence for the Third Millennium.
Elise Boulding, Nonviolence of the Brave.
More Internet sites and email addresses for help and support with nonviolent education/nonviolent struggles
Muslim Peace Fellowship, http://mpf21.wordpress.com/about-2/.
Islam-Peace-Nonviolence: A Selected Bibliography, http://nonviolenceinternational.net/isalmbib_001.htm.
Nonviolence International (This organization was set up by the Palestinian Gandhi, Mubarak Awad. They can be contacted by email at nonviolence@igc.org).
METTA (This organization is run by nonviolent scholar Michael Nagler, and specializes in education on nonviolence. Their website can be accessed at http://www.mettacenter.org).
Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence, James Madison University. Their website can be accessed at http://www.jmu.edu/gandhicenter, and they can be contacted at GandhiCenter@jmu.edu.
Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR has been teaching and training people in nonviolence for decades. Their website is www.foruse.org).
Assistance in learning Transcendental Meditation for collective change
http://www.maharishitm.org/index.htm
1 Eknath Easwaran, Nonviolent Soldier of Islam (Tomales: Nilgiri Press, 1999), 117.
2 Louis Fischer, The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work and Ideas (New York: Vintage Books, 1984), 154.
3 Nicholas Patler, “From Pathan to Palestine,” Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 15, 4 (December) 2004: 494. I wrote this brief piece to consider the potential of collective nonviolence for Palestinian empowerment and self-determination.
4 Fischer, 154-55.
5 Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 54.
6Ashley Montagu, The Practice of Love (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1975), 2.
7 Steve York, dir., Bringing Down a Dictator (Washington, DC: York Zimmerman Inc., 2001). From here forward, all references to the 2000 Serbian student nonviolent movement, including quotes and descriptions used in this paper, will be taken from this documentary.
8 For example, see Peter Ackerman & Christopher Kruegler, Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The Dynamics of People Power in the Twentieth Century (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1994).
9 Patler, 493-94.
10 Ibid., 492; Mukulika Banerjee, The Pathan Unarmed: Opposition and Memory in the North West Frontier (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), 80; Easwaran, 12-13.
11 Catherine Ingram, In The Footsteps of Gandhi: Conversations With Spiritual Social Activists (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1989), 39. Another religious tradition in your country that can assist you in transforming your political and societal life is the Sufi faith, which is considered the mystical tradition of Islam. In addition to emphasizing universal love and the unity of life, Sufism teaches transformation through what we may refer today as visualization, which today people all over the world use to create personal and societal change. “In ancient Persia (now Iran),” writes futurist Kay Massengale, “the Sufis considered their thoughts to be energy … they ‘stressed the importance of visualization in altering and reshaping one’s destiny’ as the subtle energy of their thoughts was believed to form a blueprint or template that ‘eventually determined the course of one’s life.’” From forthcoming book, Mind, Matter, Money, Magic and Meaning: Using Your Mind to Change Your World.
12“Behind the Protests: Social Upheaval in Iran, New York Times, June 23, 2009.
13 Patler, 492, Easwaran, 138.
14 Aldon D. Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing For Change (New York: The Free Press, 1986), 139-57.
15Early leader for black equality in America, William Monroe Trotter, managed in just a few short months in 1913 to circulate a petition throughout thirty-six states, gathering an astonishing 20,000 signatures protesting racial discrimination in the U.S. Government. This was accomplished before most households had a telephone, and before any form of mass communication such as the radio, television and, of course, the Internet. Trotter accomplished this by having his protest petition printed in sympathetic newspapers across the country, and by circulating it among churches and organizations, which networked with each other through word of mouth at group and mass meetings. See Nicholas Patler, Jim Crow and the Wilson Administration: Protesting Federal Segregation in the Early Twentieth Century (Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2007), 134-35.
16 “Iran Activists Work To Elude Crackdown On Internet,” Associated Press, Cairo, Egypt, July 24, 2009. Some of these companies include The Tor Project Inc., based in Boston, Massachusetts (USA; NedaNet; and Freegate, which, according to the above report, you are using.
17 Mubarak Awad, “Nonviolent Resistance: A Strategy for the Occupied Territories,” Journal of Palestinian Studies 52, 4 (Summer) 1984: 26-27.
18 “Iran’s Upheaval: Drawing the Line,” Associated Foreign Press, Economist.com, June 19, 2009 (http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=13888193) .
19 Patler, 494; R. Scott Kennedy, “The Golani Druze: A Case of Nonviolent Resistance,” Journal of Palestinian Studies, 13, 2 (1984): 49-64.
20 Nicholas Patler, “The PKK and Revolutionary Nonviolence: Transforming Struggle for Kurdish Freedom in Turkey,” Gandhi Center Working Papers Series, Number 5: 2008, Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia (USA), 9. In paraphrasing Gandhi, I wrote: “…the oppressed and oppressor are both caught in the same vicious system, and it is that system that needs to be eradicated, not human beings…”
21 Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (New York: Walker and Company, 1984), 75-76.
22Nicholas Patler, “Modern Iran: a monster of our own making.” Note: the offensive title to this opinion-editorial piece was chosen by a newspaper editor without my permission. (http://www.network54.com/Forum/238025/thread/1181859359/last-1182018554/THE+ROLE+OF+AMERICA+IN+DESTROYING+DEMOCRACY+IN+THE+MIDDLE+EAST).
23 See Samantha Power, “A Problem From Hell:” America in the Age of Genocide (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 247-327, and Neil J. Kressel, Mass Hate: The Global Rise of Genocide and Terror (New York: Westview Press, 2002), 11-40.
24 Ralph E. Crow, Philip Grant and Saad E. Ibrahim, ed., Arab Nonviolent Political Struggle in the Middle East (Boulder, Co: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1990), 50.
25 Crow, Grant and Ibrahim, ed., 48-50.
26Massengale, forthcoming book.
27Ibid.
28Elaine and Arthur Aron, The Maharishi Effect: A Revolution Through Meditation (Walpole, NH: Stillpoint Publishing, 1986), quoted in Chet B. Snow, Mass Dreams of the Future (Crest Park, CA: Deep Forest Press, 1994), 217.
29John Hagelin, Manual For a Perfect Government: How to Harness the Laws of Nature to Bring Maximum Success to Governmental Administration (Fairfield, Iowa: Maharishi University of Management Press, 1998), 85-92.
