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Iran Human Rights: Events of the last few years have made the future of the Islamic Republic more uncertain than ever. The economic crisis has pulled a large sector of society into poverty and exposed systematic corruption and the authorities’ incompetence in solving people’s daily problems. Faced with discontent, the Islamic Republic’s only recourse has been to violently repress popular protests. The question is no longer "when” but "how" Iran will transition from authoritarian rule. An unaddressed question that requires an exploration of the alternative models that may fill the power vacuum following the collapse of the Islamic Republic.
Iran Human Rights has invited experts and academics to start the discussion on "Iran in Transition" from their respective specialist fields.
Read more about the aims of "Iran in Transition"
In this essay, Roger Griffin discusses “Exploding the Continuum of History” Democratically: Reflections on the Prospects for Iran’s Transition to a Stable Democratic State." You can watch Roger presenting his paper at the end of the essay at the "Iran in Transition" online conference held on 31 January-1 February 2022.
Roger Griffin, British Emeritus Professor of Modern History and political theorist at Oxford Brookes University, England. His principal interest is the socio-historical and ideological dynamics of fascism, as well as various forms of political or religious fanaticism and has written several books and articles on these themes.
“Exploding the Continuum of History” Democratically: Reflections on the Prospects for Iran’s Transition to a Stable Democratic State
The goal of this contribution
In his famous Theses on the Philosophy of History, written while trying to find a safe refuge from the Third Reich, Walter Benjamin (as a Jewish Marxist a double enemy of Nazism) attacked conventional preconceptions about ‘progress’ and historical change by exploring some of the more neglected ideological, spiritual and temporal dynamics of revolution. He presented attempts to bring about radical change as bids to ‘explode the continuum of history’. Such disruptions, the harbingers of the transition to a new order, come about when shards of ‘Messianic’ time charged with apocalyptic hopes and fears enter the chronological, linear, ‘dead’ time of the status quo and generate sufficient collective mythic power to radically transform the present and eventually create a new continuum and status quo. A precondition of this regenerative event occurs when a marginalized, utopian image of a new order suddenly moves centre-stage to create a new normality and a new chronology (symbolized in the way some regimes renew calendrical time).[1] As Benjamin sees it, in any revolution this initial stage in the process of change is a ‘moment of danger’ with plural possible outcomes. But the sense of crisis triggers in the minds of those committed to a new order ‘an image of the past’ that ‘flashes up’ to illuminate the present and guide the transition to the future.[2]
The aim of the present IHRNGO collection of essays on Iran in transition, is to help conceptualize the goals and preconditions for a benign transition to a more socially just, humane, and culturally, economically, and ecologically sustainable Iranian society based on humanist principles.[3] I am a (retired) political scientist and contemporary historian with no expertise on Iran, the Middle East or the Islamic world. However, I can claim some expertise concerning the conditions in which fascist movements, which also aspire to save their country from collapse and bring about a better society on their own very different ethical and ideological terms, fail or ‘succeed’. I hope to use this knowledge to offer an overview of the fate of attempted transitions to democracy (conceived in deeply conflicting ways) and on the basis of their different outcomes offer some observations about the desired transition in Iran. Though they represent an outsider perspective, some may hopefully be of relevance to those closer to the project.
My aim in proceeding in this way is to clarify and enrich (though perhaps also complicate) the understanding of some key factors which condition and delimit the prospects of a benign outcome to any intended democratic transitional process. There is of course a caveat to the use of the word ‘democratic’ since in the modern age the vast majority of spontaneous or imposed regime changes, even the most overtly totalitarian, imperialist, terroristic or religious fundamentalist ones, have been legitimized with the claim by the revolutionaries or intervening state powers to be protecting or promoting the interests of ‘the people’. In what follows I have particularly drawn on a number of examples where revolutions in the name of the ‘demos’ either failed to win state power, or their outcomes fell radically short of the utopian promises and benign expectations that they were supposed to fulfil.
As a preamble to my reflections, I first identify a group of somewhat speculative premises to conceptualizing such transitions. For the sake of brevity, they have been expanded in an appendix for those who are interested in probing further in the version to be uploaded on the IHRNGO website. I will then in what is called in German ‘telegram style’ summarize the outcomes of some major historical attempts to transition to a liberal democracy from an authoritarian regime. On this basis I will attempt to draw some tentative practical inferences for those activists seeking to nudge Iran in a democratic direction as the outcome of the predicted crisis of the existing regime. There will be particular focus on some of the many things that can ‘go wrong’ with an attempted revolution, however benign and well-intentioned in the ‘movement’/utopian stage. However, I will also try to articulate some more optimistic reflections based on broadly ‘successful’ past transitions which achieved a broadly satisfactory outcome in humanistic terms. I hope those involved in IHRNGO can draw something useful from this exercise.
Some premises to what follows:
Premise 1: There is no historical inevitability, no benign progressive or ‘teleological’ force at work in history, to guarantee the positive outcome of any attempt to intervene in a status quo in order to bring about a ‘better society’ or ensure that any particular desired scenario will succeed. Because of the irreducible complexity of the dynamics of history, the future is irreducibly open-ended and shaped partly by contingent forces beyond the control of particular movements for change.
Premise 2: Revolutions and democratic transitions from authoritarianism are partly memory-driven and mythic events in which ideologies blending rational and irrational analysis of the status quo pursue the realization of a preconceived vision of a new, better order, sometimes based on an idealized version of a society that once existed historically or on an ideologically constructed utopia. The processes involved are thus overwhelmingly subjective, value-laden, and mythically driven. The presence of pacifists and humanists notwithstanding, the clashes of competing visions of the ideal society and state apparatus needed to run it often lead to fanatical violence and collateral damage following ‘the law of unintended consequences’ as moderates are marginalized by extremists.
Premise 3: The pre-revolutionary situation and the general sense of a being on the eve of a new society rising from the breakdown of the old generates a widely diffused longing for rebirth, for ‘palingenesis’, often amidst powerful intimations of imminent catastrophe.[4] Unrestrained by a pushback of democratic tolerance such ‘palingenetic’ longings can lead to mass violence against targeted ‘others’ excluded from the vision of rebirth and seen as enemies of the ideal society, or held to be responsible for the current decadence/crisis. It is a scenario in which humanists may find it difficult to intervene without becoming victims of the fanatical utopianism of other factions or having to resort pragmatically to violence themselves to achieve their end.
Premise 4: All revolutions and transitions are pursued by protagonists trying to re-enact the mythicized memory of an idealized past or to realize visions of the future expressed in the utopian thinking of past visionaries. Given the complex nature of contemporary Iran, which has been extensively secularized in the last decades,[5] the historical legacy of humanism on which IHRNGO proposes to institute in a new Iranian state should reflect the plural and global nature of humanist creeds implicit in many of the world’s traditions, in this case both Islamic and ‘Western’. In other words, the ‘humanism’ that underpins Iran Human Rights should draw on universal ideals of tolerance and compassion rooted in both religious and secular traditions (which I have termed ‘transcultural humanism’)[6] rather than seeking to realize essentially ‘Western’ and often aggressively secular and atheistic values, alien to traditional Muslims.
Premise 5: Drawing on a number of modern case studies of radical societal change, it is possible to outline what I would suggest is a healthy (if somewhat idealized and utopian) evolution of the IHR as a vector of change in the Iranian situation. This would see it moving from a ‘think tank’ to inspiring members of the new government or its institutions, and eventually providing some members or leaders of the new administration. A more detailed scenario of how this evolution might ideally take place is given towards the end of this article.
A historical overview of attempted democratic transitions
In this section I would like to offer a drone-eye survey of some contrasting historical outcomes of attempted ‘democratic’ transitions. Inevitably what follows has more in common with more of a hastily drawn sketch than with a classical oil painting.
1 Fascist: The many fascist movements and rare examples of fascist regimes need not detain members of IHRNGO since their ethnocentric/racist goals and worldview preclude any substantive democracy from which inferences can usefully be drawn for the realization of its vision of a democratic Iran. In all its many permutations, fascism attempts to channel populist palingenetic energies into the creation of a new order based on the cohesive and mobilizing power of ‘the nation’ conceived in narrow, racist terms that axiomatically reject humanist assumptions about social equality and individual freedoms. As a Manichaean ideology, fascism systematically dehumanizes perceived internal or external enemies of the ‘people’ (Volk), nation, race. Even the fascism of the ‘Integral Brazilian Action’ which attributed the power of Brazilianness to the country’s unique blend of races rather than alleged racial purity, still celebrated the historical destiny of Brazil as a distinctive historical, cultural, and ethnic people.
The one major lesson to be drawn from the fascist era is that even in the rare instances (three in all) when a fascist movement seized power or ‘conquered the state’ autonomously, the ensuing reality fell far short of the palingenetic hopes for a new dynamic, creative ‘national community’. Each revolution ended in war and defeat leaving only a legacy of millions of destroyed or shattered lives and the Nazi project for a New European Order ended in catastrophe. Any democratic transition in Iran must thus beware of trying to turn its population into a homogeneous, hyperpatriotic national community, whether religious or secular.
2 Communist: Historical attempts to realize Marxist, anarchist and communist ideals of a new order are more instructive since they are all, at least in part, rooted in the Western Enlightenment humanist tradition.
In every case of attempted socialist revolutions - with the partial exception for a time of Cuba and Yugoslavia the forces of autocracy, ultranationalism, corruption, state paranoia and the official apparatus of bureaucracy, militarism and the law and order have crushed genuine democracy and socialism. As a result, many tens of millions have died, been killed, or been left to die in the pursuit of this dream and many hundreds of millions of lives have been blighted by living under modern tyrannies whether in the form of personal dictatorships of police states. In each case palingenetic utopianism has produced an enforced dystopia. One lesson perhaps to be drawn is that the more radical the utopia initially pursued the more nightmarish the resulting dystopia, and that humanistic politics avoids this trap.
These all belong arguably to the pre-democratic age of societies ruled by a blend of white male oligarchies, feudal (landed and often dynastic elites) and ‘ruling classes’ based on inherited wealth, power and privilege. Nevertheless, their systematic failure to deliver substantive democracy in the modern sense is at least worth noting as a palliative to nostalgia for any ‘good old days’ of empire and ‘strong rule’. Their inbuilt tendency to middle class conservatism, male white oligarchy and anti-populist reaction means that modestly centrist democrats of today would have been seen by them as subversively radical. It was late in the day that the ideal of a ‘liberal democracy’ based on universal (including female) suffrage emerged and for most 19th century Liberals reformist socialism was still identified with anarchy and mob rule.
2. Failed democratic transitions in the 20th Century
i) The communist world: botched attempts to move from ‘totalitarian’/authoritarian democracy to liberal democracy.
These examples, the most relevant to the present democratic task in Iran, are so fresh in the collective memory that only a brief reminder is necessary.
ii) Initially promising but unsustained transitions from authoritarianism to substantive democracy:
3. Partially successful democratic transitions from authoritarianism
Some tentative lessons for humanists promoting democratic change in Iran
The IHRNGO initiative is presumably based on the implicit premise that the crisis of the status quo in Iran may lead the existing socio-political system officially based on a theocratic concept of power to break down to a point where it creates the ‘political space’ needed to allow a new order to emerge. Furthermore, it is committed to the hope that this new order can be ‘democratic’. However, the variegated history of democratic ‘regime change’ just reviewed, highlights the fact that attempting to intervene in the process of transition, however sound the theoretical rationale or honourable the moral intentions behind it, remains a hazardous, largely utopian undertaking. There is no guarantee of success, especially where ruthlessly antidemocratic powers are involved. Moreover, statistically and historically it is clear that nearly all revolutions fail in their own terms and that in general the higher their utopian objectives the harder they fail their objectives.[8] The structural reasons for the failure of the Egyptian revolution are possibly the most revealing example for IHRNGO to study.[9] In addition, there is the very real danger that deliberately instigating or promoting change may unintentionally fuel negative processes and energize violent anti-democratic forces of reaction or open up space for new forms of authoritarianism in a counterproductive way.
This gloomy assessment is underlined by the fact that, as we have seen, many attempts to transition to democracy in the past have been defeated or eventually hijacked by anti-democratic forces, or else have become victims of the law of ‘unintended consequences’ to produce a travesty of genuine democracy. Also, even when a stable constitutional democracy seems initially to have emerged from a period of tyranny it can be corrupted from within at a later date by new anti-democratic forces (populism, illiberal democracy, oligarchy, religious fundamentalism, religious conservatism, ultranationalism, racism).
The inference from this pessimistic standpoint is that considerable thought has to be invested by a democratic NGO or movement based on humanist principles into the way it conceives ‘the Iranian people’ and the ideal state of society in which it is to live. There has to be significant legal work invested in ensuring that democratic values rigorously shape the drafting of any new constitution to make the resurgence of reactionary, counter-democratic forces less likely. It must also ensure that ‘positive’ rights in the areas of economics, society, education and especially the rights of women, children, physical disability and ethnic and religious minorities. It would be a grave error to assume that ‘history’ is on the side of democratic, progressive forces, which it is palpably not.
Above all, such a transition must be informed by a deep knowledge of the unique history, culture, language, religious traditions, social structures, instincts, myths, temperament, and mood of Iranians as well as the constellation of dynamically interacting forces that condition its domestic and international politics. No benign revolution (which of course includes non-violent, ‘velvet’, bloodless transitions) can be imposed by preponderately outside, foreign political or military intervention (as demonstrated in Iraq and Afghanistan) forces, even from within the same religion and culture. Instead, it must ultimately result from a creative synergy of the best of national and international humanistic currents activated within the country (even if catalysed from outside) if it is to tailor democracy to Iran and Iran to democracy, and if it is to root itself in the national political culture and identity.
Some more specific but tentative conclusions that might be drawn from this exercise are that (but here I obviously defer to expertise based on actual knowledge of Iran):
A utopian scenario for the evolution of IHRNGO
If IHRNGO, inspired by a global humanistic agenda, can gain momentum as an increasingly influential part of an alliance of pro-democratic forces operating both within and outside Iran, then I suggest the following ideal scenario for its evolution:
A concluding thought: Walter Benjamin believed that benign revolutionary transitions do not succeed without the catalyst of shards of ‘Messianic’ time. One of the earliest religious myths to become elaborated and ritualized in ancient Persia was the Zoroastrian cult of light in the struggle against the forces of darkness. Zoroaster received his revelation in the form of a Shining Being who revealed himself as Vohu Manah (Good Mind) who in turn led him to the five Holy Immortals. Embedded in the concept of Good Mind is the recognition that everything created by the ‘Wise Lord (Ahura Mazda) is pure and that rivers, land and air should not be polluted by human beings.
A synthesis of rational understanding of the international political context and deep knowledge of modern Iran with ancient Iranian proto-ecological consciousness, is the sort of fusion of modern science and native mythology that could fuel a healthy and sustainable populist democratic order in Iran able to resonate with the majority of its people. I propose something of the kind as needed to give IHRNGO the visionary dynamism to act as the catalyst to a healthy national palingenesis based not on destruction and hate but on creativity, solidarity and peace.
I hope at least a few shards of knowledge and insight from this ‘essay’ can illuminate and further IHRNGO’s magnificent cause.
[1] New calendars or the introduction of new symbolic ‘Holy Days’ ritualizing the temporal revolution of the new order have been a feature of the French, Bolshevik, Fascist, Nazism, and Maoist regimes.
[2] See Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History https://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/CONCEPT2.html
[3] For an approach to the compatibility of liberal humanist politics with a religious society see Kevin Vallier, Liberal Politics and Public Faith: Beyond Separation (London, New York: Routledge, 2014).
[4] For an example of the ‘palingenetic’ mindset characteristic of pre-revolutionary eras, torn between apocalyptic foreboding and wild hope, I cite a passage in the first editorial of the artistic journal Die Moderne (Modernity), founded by its founder, the Austrian poet Hermann Bahr, which reflects the deeply ambivalent sense of crisis in late 19th century/early 20th century Vienna which is reflected in the work of Klimt, Freud, Wittgenstein, and Hitler:
“It may be that we are at the end, at the death of exhausted mankind,
and that we are experiencing mankind's last spasms.
It may be that we are at the beginning, at the birth of a new humanity
and that we are experiencing only the avalanches of spring.
We are rising to the divine or plunging, plunging into night and destruction –
but there is no standing still.
The creed of Die Moderne is that salvation will arise from pain and grace from despair,
that a dawn will come after this horrific darkness and
that art will hold communion with man,
that there will be a glorious, blessed resurrection.”
[5] The rapid secularization of Iran is documented in the Gamaan report ‘Iranians’Attitudes Toward Religion: A 2020 Survey Report’ https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GAMAAN-Iran-Religion-Survey-2020-English.pdf
in Iranians’ attitudes toward religion: a 2020 survey report: source
[6] I have explored this concept in Roger Griffin, ‘Homo Humanistus? Towards an inventory of transcultural humanism’ in Joern Ruesen (ed.) Exploring Humanity (V&R Unipress, 2012)
[7] Under Putin Russia seems to operate its own ‘domino theory’ of the need to use military force to prevent internal democracy and Western (US/EU) influence spreading in border nations and the Middle East.
[8] See Robert Wilkes and Joe Schuman, ‘Why Revolutions Fail’, Divided we Fall, January 6, 2021 https://dividedwefall.com/why-revolutions-fail/
[9] See for example Cherif Bassiouni, Chronicles of the Egyptian Revolution and its Aftermath 2011-2016 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021); https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2016/1/25/the-egyptian-revolution-what-went-wrong; https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/02/egypts-failed-revolution; https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/25/the-guardian-view-on-the-egyptian-revolution-five-years-on-its-too-early-to-say; https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/16/future-egypt-revolution-tahrir-square-jack-shenker
[10] The persistent misreading of pre-revolutionary situations is a recurrent flaw of palingenetic thinking shaped by crisis situations here all seems possible. For an example read the ‘manic’ manifestos about the central role of the artist/architect in creating a beautiful new world published by Kandinsky and Gropius in the aftermath of World War One.
[11] On the importance of alliances in successful revolution see an old article which still has lots to offer: Robert Dix, ‘Why Revolutions Succeed & Fail’, Polity Vol. 16, No. 3 (Spring, 1984), pp. 423-446.
[12] See G. M. Platt, ‘Thoughts on a Theory of Collective Action: Language, Affect, and Ideology in Revolution’ in Albin, M. (ed.) New Directions in Psychohistory, (Lexington, Massachusetts, Lexington, 1980).