Iran Protests and the Exaggeration About Generation Z
The Iranian protests and the exaggeration about Generation Z. Those born in the 1920s to 1940s constituted a major part of the revolutionary population in 1979. This was the same generation that went to the war fronts. Those born in the 1950s and 1960s were the main carriers of political reforms from 1997 onwards. After that, everyone was waiting to see what those born in the 1970s and 1980s would do, a wait that didn’t last long.
Now, the recent protest movement in Iran has been registered in the name of this generation, known as the ’80s generation in Persian and Generation Z worldwide. But were the ’80s generation really the main drivers of these protests? Has there been an exaggeration about them? How much do the claims align with reality?
Saeed Razavi Faghih, a political activist with a background in reformism, had previously warned about the potential dangers ahead in an analysis of Iran’s socio-political situation, saying that soon the ’80s generation would find the ability to influence and create changes, overturning everything.
The result of a study conducted following the December 2017 protests indicated that in addition to political, economic, and social dissatisfaction, for the first time, a new factor was added to the causes of dissatisfaction: the deep generational gap in Iran.
The then Minister of Interior, Rahmani Fazli, had said that the generation that has now reached the age of political activism and has unlimited access to the world and its surroundings through the internet will act differently. The question was whether this generation is really different from the previous highly political generations or if it practices politics in a different way.
It wasn’t just the ’80s generation on the streets.
Sociologist Ahmad Bokharaei, referring to his observations from the streets in the past month, writes: ‘In my observations on the streets during this period, it was evident that the presence of people in the streets knows no age or gender, and all segments, including men and women, are present. Part of this presence is attributed to the ’80s generation, and indeed they stood out more, but this does not mean that the ’80s generation had a greater number in the protests compared to other age groups.’
He writes that there is a relatively more or less normal distribution in terms of age groups, but because this age group had not come to the streets in previous periods and has now entered the streets, and given their age, they are at the forefront, they stand out more. It is natural that the ’80s generation, because it is their first time on the streets, is less conservative, and therefore more boldness is seen in them.
Is Generation Z the only one against charisma?
It is said that this generation is anti-charisma. Amanollah Qaraei Moghadam, a sociologist, has said about Generation Z and its impact on Iran’s political and social space: ‘The new generation does not accept the sacred, charismatic atmosphere in politics, and as the Scottish poet John Davidson says, young people shout that there is no action, thought, custom, or sanctity that cannot be defied. The new generation is more radical than the youth of previous generations, and now that the virtual space has also exacerbated the generational gap, the pace of changes is in no way comparable to the past.’
It is said that this generation, as Max Weber put it, has moved beyond charismatic figures and reached a kind of rationalism in the realm of politics. The recent protests proved this: moving beyond charismatic figures and more importantly, the formation of an aversion to creating any model of charisma. Any figure has the potential to be distanced from becoming a charisma due to a mistake or the creation of a wave against them for any reason in the virtual space.
But was this anti-charisma action characteristic only related to Generation Z, or are we witnessing a convergence and implicit intergenerational agreement on this matter? Observations from the virtual space indicate that the second proposition is correct.
The Ever-Student Movement
Isn’t it true that a large part of the recent protests was carried by the student movement in universities, and a large number of the recently detained were these active and inactive university students who protested and went on strike? Can we necessarily say that these student protests are specific to Generation Z students?
Certainly not, and it cannot be labeled as a specific generational movement. Each generation has witnessed its own period of student movement with characteristics, coordinates, and demands aligned with its time. If the student movement of the 1940s was nationalist, the 1950s was intensely leftist, the 1960s took on a religious hue, and in the 1970s it became liberal, influenced by the spirit of its time. More importantly, if the ’80s generation was arrested on the streets,
all those arrested at home and work through intelligence and security surveillance were related to the political and social activists of the 1960s generation, among whom figures from the student movements of the 1970s and 1980s can also be seen.
That is, although the ’80s generation is recognized as the brave operational force on the streets, the previous generation has been present as the theoretical arm or theorist and analyst in the virtual space, or at least from the security structure’s perspective, it has been this way, emphasizing that there is no systematic organized connection based on the idea of leadership between these two generations. This is while in a recent BBC interview with several ’80s youths, one of them believed that for them, not the reformist political activists, but Saeed Sokui plays the role of intellectual or leader and reference.
The protests in Iran began due to the death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s morality police. Iran Gate has covered this topic extensively from the start. You can access these articles by searching for Mahsa Amini.
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