The 2022 Rebellion of the Rejected
The 2022 Rebellion of the Rejected: What has been the trajectory of civil protests in Iran over the past two decades, and how has each instance differed from the previous ones? Were these protests fundamentally different from each other, or did each experience build upon the previous ones, gradually accumulating? Are the 2000s generation, as some say, braver than the 1980s generation, or is the current model and style of protests the result of accumulated practical and theoretical experience from protests one or two decades ago?
If the protests of the late 1990s and 2000s were mostly and primarily political in nature, focusing on the right to freedom of action and expression and largely belonged to the middle class, the protests of the 2010s focused on economic demands and involved more of the outskirts and smaller towns. However, it seems that the protests of the past month are an accumulation of the demands of previous protests, encompassing not just one class but all classes.
Although the 2000s generation is at the forefront of street protests, they are not the only ones. The protests are not exclusive to one class and have become neighborhood and region-focused, turning into a collection of political, economic, social, cultural, and generational demands.
Beyond women, beyond everything
The current protest movement does not speak of ‘Where is my vote?’ nor of the overdue rights of workers or the dire and inhumane conditions of retirees. In this movement, they do not shout for bread, nor do they chant for homeless children and the suffering grave dwellers. They do not talk about one or two years of unpaid workers’ wages, nor do they lament the destruction of the environment and cultural heritage. Yet, at the same time, in a broader demand and with its slogans, it seems to be shouting all of these.
According to Youssef Abazari, a sociology professor at the University of Tehran, this uprising, even though it appears to be female-oriented, is by no means limited to women’s issues. It is much larger than that. No women’s issue is solely female. This uprising encompasses all aspects of Iranian life, a life currently at risk of destruction. If we consider Iran as a home, we must admit that this home is on the verge of ruin.
The demand to recognize differences
It can perhaps be said that the recent widespread protests are due to the activation of gender, generational, religious, ethnic, and class fault lines, particularly in Kurdistan and Baluchistan. Of course, all these fault lines rest on the foundation of an ineffective governance structure, which, in a coincidental turning point, the murder of Mahsa, a young Kurdish Sunni girl, has caused most of these fault lines to activate simultaneously.
Some believe that this simultaneous activation of fault lines has enabled the formation of a widespread negative protest, and this emphasis on the negative aspect has led us to think that all these protests are a common and interconnected phenomenon. However, it seems that this is not the case.
For example, perhaps the protests in Kurdistan and Baluchistan are more rooted in ethnic, racial, and religious discrimination, while the root of the protests in Tehran or other central cities is more generational, religious, and class-based. On this basis, these protests have a goal beyond that: to negate a discriminatory and institutionalized structure.
According to some, it is true that the protesters agree that the current governance is a tangible symbol of a structure that has fueled all these discriminations. However, this consensus should be focused on the intertwined structure of these discriminations and not just the power structure that has formed, grown, and buckled under the pressure of these discriminations.
For this reason, some suggested that a constructive demand that could turn these widespread negative protests into a constructive and sustainable movement begins by recognizing differences, by rejecting all sexual, gender, generational, religious, ethnic, and racial discriminations.
Priority on individual freedom
Youssef Abazari believes that the ruling body of Iran also turned every social action into a cultural tension to prevent people from addressing the real issues of their lives. Among these, women’s issues, especially the issue of hijab, were pushed to the forefront of cultural issues, and any difference from the official culture was branded as corruption.
On the other hand, market culture was promoted in big theatrical productions, home shows, and government cinema, and expanded by influencers with loose hijabs favored by the Ministry of Sports. Economic contradictions threw teachers, workers, retirees, and ethnic groups into dire straits, but the government continued to beat the drum of hijab corruption and attack women’s individual freedoms.
According to him, the result of that economic inequality and this cultural dichotomy has thrown Iran into the pit of social, political, and economic contradictions that we are witnessing now. The solution to escape these contradictions is not to be captivated by the stories of Naser al-Din Shah’s marriage to one of his wives as narrated by home cinema, nor to be enamored with the stories of subsequent kings’ relationships with their wives as told by Saudi Arabian media.
What changes the fate of the people of Iran is to detach from these cultural industry models and adopt a democratic policy that safeguards their individual freedom from any imposed model.
The central demand of the protests
But aside from these, it seems that if one were to choose a title for the core and central demand of the recent protests, it would be nothing but the demand for a lifestyle, or as Abazari puts it, the same individual freedom that is the main demand of a generation of 27 million people born between 1991 and 2008.
A generation that makes up one-third of Iran’s population and will live on average for at least another 60 years, but not only do their demands have no place in the country’s policymaking, but these two are completely swimming in opposite directions. The recent protests are the result of this divergence.
The recent protests are the roar and cry of a generation, a generation whose gap with previous generations is incomparable to any period in history, a generation that is more influenced not by parents, the education system, or state media, but by certain singers or music groups, YouTube, Instagram, and foreign writers and podcasters.
If we assume that the generational gap is the root of the protests, which most officials have also acknowledged, it can no longer be silenced with previous methods, meaning not recognizing the protest and suppressing it.
Emad Afroogh, a sociologist, in a recent interview with Shargh newspaper, said, ‘This generation is the abandoned or rejected generation. This is the rebellion of the rejected.’