2011 = 1979? Why Tunis is and is not Tehran
by Kristian Alexander*

You guessed it right: the Islamic Revolution of Iran. While it is tempting to look for similar patterns, we need to be cautious not to overstate certain underlying factors that Tunis and Tehran may have in common. Some liberal commentators confuse their personal biases, favoring a democratic transition and remaining a US ally, with those of a detached analyst who applies analytical skills and lessons from history to compare Tunisia and Iran.

What the two have in common has been their utter unpredictability. The 1979 Iranian Revolution was an event hardly predicted or foreseen by any of the regional experts and policymakers at the time in Washington or Europe. On the contrary: Just weeks before his downfall, the Persian Shah (King) Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was heralded as a stable, pro-American ally in the Middle East by none other than President Jimmy Carter who, while toasting his wine glass to the shah in a nationally televised event in Iran, declared Iran’s monarchy an “island of stability.”

The same can be said about the January 2011 events in Tunisia: None of the experts prior to the outbreak of street protests had pointed to President Ben Ali’s regime as unstable and Tunisia being at or on the cusp of a revolution. Hindsight is 20/20 and post facto analyses are relatively easy. But it is much harder to put things into perspective when turmoil and what turned out to be a revolution were transpiring before our eyes.

The 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran was a watershed event in MENA history: the first such revolution where religious ideology mobilized masses in a way that ultimately brought down a seemingly invincible dictator who had invested huge amounts of money in American military hardware and had employed its often brutal secret police, the SAVAK, to clamp down on dissidents. Soon after, the newly founded Islamic Republic was viewed as a model for popular uprising, an example of empowerment that could ignite and lead to other popular revolutions in the region. At the same time, the export of revolution was viewed as a serious threat, especially by the Sunni Muslim states with significant Shiite majorities (Iraq, Lebanon), Shiite minorities (Saudi Arabia, the then-Soviet Union) and Persian-speaking Muslims (Afghanistan and the Soviet Union’s Central Asia).

Shortcomings with the Shiite model of governance

While there are key historical events and political violence that can be attributed to the influence of the Iranian Revolution, it also became evident to the peoples of the region that the Shiite model of governance (at least the Ayatollah Khomeini version of it) failed to be fully inspirational and materialize in the Arab and Muslim-majority states of the region. This was in part due to the lack of appeal to the region’s opposition movements of the ensuing brutality of the Islamic regime in Iran, where thousands from a variety of political, ethnic and religious affiliations were either convicted as counter-revolutionaries or apostates and subsequently tortured, imprisoned or executed. Undoubtedly the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, where as many as a million people (many under-aged teenagers on the Iranian side) were killed also added to the lack of appeal of the Iranian model. The events in Tunisia as well are causing some immediate aftershocks in the region, including the revolt of the masses in Egypt and political demonstrations in Algeria, Yemen and Jordan.

Of course the Iranian Revolution occurred during the height of the Cold War, and Iran was seen by the US as one of the poles of the American “twin pillars” policy -- Saudi Arabia having been the other pole. Iran and Saudi had acted for a few decades as levies against a potential Soviet communist invasion and Soviet influence in the region. That policy came tumbling down, however, after the shah of was overthrown and an anti-American Islamic regime came to power. No such strategic importance can be ascribed to Tunisia in the current trajectory of US foreign policy in the region.

Many commentators have pointed to the importance that social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter, mobile phones, satellite TV and the Internet played in the Tunisian scenario in the way that protesters were mobilized and organized prior to and during street demonstrations. Al Jazeera’s live coverage of events is said to have incited further protests across the country. Of course such technologies did not exist in 1979, but the popular technologies of the day (cassette tapes, Xerox and fax machines) were being taken advantage of in order to promote and distribute Ayatollah Khomeini’s speeches and sermons throughout Iran. As the social media technology of today, cassettes and copy and fax machines acted as multipliers of information and thus a form of revolutionary catalyst. Such technologies, including Facebook and Twitter, should not be seen as the cause of the uprisings but as a useful tool in the creation of a certain type of momentum that can enhance the mobilizational process.

Iran revolution: a rainbow of coalition forces

Unlike the 1979 Iranian Revolution that featured a rainbow coalition of forces that spanned the ideological spectrum only to unite under the banner of Shiite Islam led by the charismatic figure of the ayatollah, there appears to be no such guiding force that is revered by all in the 2011 Tunisian case. The diversity of opposition cultures in Iran was reflected in the language of dissent and protest, which was largely anti-monarchy, anti-imperialist, Third-Worldist, nationalistic and religious, and while the Iranian Revolution exhibited religious undertones in its discourse of opposition -- possibly due to historical lessons learnt -- we see no signs of this in the case of Tunisia. In the case of Tunisia the main challenge has come from secular intellectuals, lawyers and trade unionists rather than Muslim high priests. There is a sheer absence of an Islamist current, given the fact that the previous regime under President Ben Ali and his predecessor, Habib Bourguiba, had sidelined the Islamic opposition (An Nahda) by imprisonment of its supporters and forcing its leaders into exile.

As many scholars have indicated, most revolutions are ignited by a triggering event that galvanizes revolutionary forces to another stage. In 1979 Iran, there were specific acts of violence perpetrated by government forces that further radicalized the opposition. A significant event is that of several hundred demonstrators that were killed during peaceful gatherings, later to be known as the “Black Friday” or “Jaleh Square massacre.” The deaths of many demonstrators was used as an instrument to set forth a cycle of further protests. In a 40-day rhythm, mourning processions were staged to commemorate the deaths of protestors as heroes and martyrs. One particular striking difference between Tunis and Tehran is its timing and trigger. In Tunisia, there was an act of self-immolation by Mohamed Bouazizi that sent shockwaves through the country and set the country “on fire.”

The public act of self-immolation was the linchpin that led to mass demonstrations and the ultimate escape of Ben Ali, while in Iran events transpired over many months in a back and forth between opposition groups and the shah.

Tunisia had been hailed for its growing economy that was based on tourism and the export of olive oil, but it seems that the economic downturn in 2008 created an increasing pool of highly educated and young men and women with mounting frustrations and lots of time on their hands. Unemployment, inflation and rising food and fuel prices as well as excessive corruption by Ben Ali’s wife, Leila Trabelsi, were, no doubt, economic factors that ultimately tipped the boat. The same argument has been made about Iran in the later half of the 1970s. There, too, economic dislocations such as unemployment, inflation and relative deprivation served as factors of grievance in the population. But the economic situation plaguing Iran at the time was no worse than many countries with similar development patterns. One might also want to keep in mind that Iran was and still is an oil-dependent economy, which did not save it in a time of need, while Tunisia has no significant resources that could have potentially cushioned its economic downturn.

According to sociologist Charles Kurzman, who a few years ago published “The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran,” in revolutionary times, people’s behavior is influenced by their assessment of the scope of the protest. Ordinary people get involved when they view a movement as viable, meaning when they perceive there to be a chance of success, they are more willing to join in and take certain risks. That was the case in Iran in 1979 and in Tunisia in 2011 where potential protesters’ subjective perceptions of regime weakness and concessions played a critical role in forging a critical mass movement. Still, analogizing about past events that are eerily similar is always tempting, but we ought to be cautious not to overstate certain factors.

*Kristian Alexander is an assistant professor at the College of Arts of Sciences of Zayed University, Abu Dhabi