Why doesn’t a revolution happen?
Why doesn’t a revolution happen? Fars News Agency has released a video in which they interview people and ask if a revolution is happening. People laugh and say no. Is Fars News Agency fabricating lies? Are they, once again, following the familiar habit of conservative media close to the power structure by manipulating interviewees to convey their own perspective to the audience, or is it truly the case that no revolution is happening?
The idea of three and a half percent
Is protest and dissatisfaction a sufficient and necessary condition for a revolution to occur, or is it merely a necessary condition? Can the recent protests by the Iranian people lead to a phenomenon called revolution similar to what happened in 1979? Does a revolution happen, or is it made to happen? At the beginning of the people’s protests, the three and a half percent rule was mentioned, based on which the likelihood of success for non-violent protests is twice that of armed conflicts, and movements that have reached three and a half percent of the total population have never failed to bring about change.
Proponents of this theory refer to many successful examples in the contemporary history of the world, probably including the Iranian revolution of 1979. Regardless of whether all these protests reached three and a half percent of Iran’s total population, which seems they did not, and the diversity and dispersion of these protests outweighed the volume of participation, compared to similar examples of tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, it seems that the phenomenon of revolution should also be viewed from another perspective and position.
Dissatisfaction is not the reason for a revolution’s success
Mehdi Tadini, a political researcher and translator in the field of liberalism, who has translated several volumes of Hannah Arendt’s books, has an interesting idea. His talks, which are relevant to Iran’s current situation, contain important and overlooked points in the historiography of the Iranian revolution. He believes that the occurrence of a revolution is based more on positive reasons than negative ones.
According to him, theories that explain and describe dissatisfaction with a political structure or governance are often confused and equated with theories of revolution success, while revolution theories should explain the reasons for a revolution’s success, not the reasons for dissatisfaction leading to success. However, we have always been and still are subject to a misunderstanding in this area, placing reasons for dissatisfaction in place of reasons for success.
From the emergence of dissatisfaction, which are negative reasons, to the success of a revolution, which are positive reasons, there is a large gap that existing theories and reasons do not explain. People’s dissatisfaction and the political regime’s behaviors, such as corruption and repression, can create dissatisfaction, but not a revolution. So how does a revolution occur, or more precisely, how does a revolution come to fruition or succeed?
Negative reasons do not make a revolution
Tadini believes that contrary to some theories or common beliefs, a revolution is made, not happens. Those who believe that negative reasons and dissatisfaction are the cause of a revolution believe that a revolution happens, meaning that the level of dissatisfaction reaches a point where it spontaneously leads to a revolution. However, Tadini believes that this is not the case at all. The main factors of a revolution are the positive factors, and these positive factors are the revolutionaries themselves. A set of positive and negative factors, in a hierarchical and prioritized manner, leads to a revolution.
Tadini, in criticizing theories that consider only negative factors as the cause of a revolution, says that some believe one of the reasons for the revolution was the repression carried out by the Shah. But if we go back in history, we find that the revolution occurred when the political space had opened up and the intensity of repression had significantly decreased. In other words, the revolution owed its occurrence to the weakness of the repressive apparatus, not its strength. Or they say the revolution was a political project of foreign powers, or some economic theories attribute the cause of the revolution to economic disparities and uneven development.
However, according to Tadini, looking at the economic indicators before the revolution, such as inflation rates, gross national product, and national per capita income, shows that the situation was not such as to lead to misery that would result in rebellion and revolution. On the contrary, after the revolution, we have frequently experienced inflation above 30% and negative economic growth. He further explains that in the slogans of the revolutionaries, economic slogans were either absent or, if present, very marginal.
What were the positive foundations of the 1979 revolution?
Tadini believes that a revolution is a positive matter, so its main reason must also be positive. Tadini says that contrary to the view that people today say they knew what they did not want but did not know what they wanted, he says that in fact, people consciously knew what they wanted. Perhaps what they wanted was very idealistic and unattainable, but ultimately they wanted to achieve something. He says that in the hierarchy of revolutionary events, positive factors are primary, and negative reasons are marginal. But what were the positive reasons for the revolution?
Tadini says that cultural and religious factors and then three powerful ideologies—Marxism, republicanism, and Islamism—played a positive role in creating the Iranian revolution. These ideologies had programs and manifestos and clearly moved towards revolution, meaning they positively propelled the revolutionaries forward. Tadini believes that these factors had nothing to do with the performance of the former regime and did not affect these ideologies’ perspective on the Shah.
According to Tadini, if the 1979 revolution occurred, it was because three groups of revolutionary elites, diligent, dedicated, and capable, were in the field, without whom the revolution was not only impossible but also the ability to attract the masses would not have existed. According to Tadini, those who believe a revolution happens remove the history-making actor from the theory, and ultimately, from his perspective, negative economic and social reasons rank third, and negative political factors like repression and closing spaces rank fourth in the priority of a revolution.
The revolution wouldn’t have happened without love for the Imam
Tadini, however, sees the main explanation for the success of the 1979 revolution not in the resentment of the Shah but in the love for Khomeini, in Khomeini’s charisma, and the people’s devotion to him. He believes the explanation for the revolution should be seen in the very word of the Imam. According to him, without this ability and power of consensus in Khomeini, the political structure of the time, even in the absence of the Shah, could have quickly suppressed the existing forces. But this massive wave of enthusiasm and devotion was so great that other forces, like the remnants of the elite class of the previous regime and the army, saw themselves as losing the field and quickly vacated the arena.
He believes that the issue of love for the Imam and the culture of master-disciple has roots in Iran’s mystical religious culture. For this reason, cultural and religious reasons were very important in the occurrence of the Iranian revolution. According to him, the two ideologies of Marxism and republicanism could not have achieved a revolution without Khomeini’s presence because they did not have access to that massive populace.
Iranian society has transformed and changed significantly since 1979. Ironically, the protesters and reform seekers have a significant distance from the religious mass society, and if the Shia culture of that era was the source of the master-disciple relationship with charismatic leadership, today everything is moving in the opposite direction. Today’s protesters have completely distanced themselves from that religious identity and rely more on their own individual foundations than on the master-disciple relationship, which ironically has more power in dismantling existing leaders than in endearing them, let alone creating charisma. Can a revolution happen without a leader?