The Philippine Online Chronicles

What a difference a year makes.

In June 2009, when millions of Iranians took to the streets in Tehran in protest of alleged fraud in the polls that re-elected hardliner Mamoud Ahmadinejad, opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi told the protesters not to back down. But on Friday, Mousavi announced that he is calling off all planned protest activities to mark the first anniversary of the bloody elections today after his group's requests for rally permits received no reply from the government.

And so, despite calls by US President Barack Obama for the world to support the reformist movement in Iran, today's atmosphere in Tehran is likely to be a stark contrast to the atmosphere one year ago when the city looked poised to be an epicenter of another version of the fashionable 'color revolutions' that have been unseating dictatorships since 1986.

Seen from outside Iran, it would seem that the brute force with which the regime dealt with the protests has effectively neutralized the so-called Green Movement (the official color of Mousavi's campaign and that of the post-election protests). After the largely peaceful protests that followed the announcement of Ahmadinejad's re-election last year were violently dispersed by the regime's militias, the Islamic Republic has engaged in violent crackdowns that led to the arrests and executions of many of the leaders of and participants in the demonstrations and other reform-minded activists. No major demonstrations have occurred ever since, making some observers believe that the movement is effectively dead. 

Green Movement

Last year's protests actions occurred after the Interior Ministry announced that Ahmadinejad had won over sixty percent of the votes in the 2009 elections on June 13, thereby making the widely anticipated run-off between him and Mousavi unnecessary. Mousavi called the proclamation a "dangerous charade" and asked the Guardian Council, the supreme governing authority in Iran, to annul the results.

By June 15, hundreds of thousands of Mousavi's supporters had taken to the streets and held regular protest demonstrations, forcing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had earlier approved of poll results, to call for an investigation of the vote-rigging allegations. But by that time, Mousavi had claimed that 14 million of the ballots were already missing. Nevertheless, the investigation concluded that there had been no irregularities in the elections. What followed next was the crackdown that led to the death of many, including the nephew of Mousavi himself.

But although it got its name during the election protests last year, it can be said that the Green Movement actually predated the 2009 polls. That the protests were in fact just a manifestation of a gradual movement for social, cultural and political change in Iran that can be traced back to the advent of the so-called Third Generation that had grown up after the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.

In 1997, for example, little-known cleric Mohammad Khatami was elected on a reformist platform. Elected with the highest voter turn-out in the history of Iran, his presidency was marked by a series of democratic reforms that included an emphasis on civil society, the need to allow people to freely criticize their government and to establish a free press.

These reforms were, however, watered down by the ruling elite. "Dozens of newspapers opened during the Khatami period, only for many to be shut down on one pretext or another by the judiciary," said the Economist. "Even as political debate blossomed, Iran's security services cracked down on religious and ethnic minorities. A number of the regime's critics fell victim to murders traced later to the interior ministry." Eventually, the Khatami reforms were undone after the election of conservative Ahmadinejad in 2005.

But if the 2009 election itself was a barometer, it was easy to see that it was an indication of a changing political landscape in Iran. A glaring example was the role of women in the campaign. Among others, Mousavi's wife took a prominent role during the sorties, delivering speeches forwomen's rights, something seen as unthinkable in the early years of the Islamic Republic. Indeed, the fact that the candidacy of Mousavi, who had been trying to project a reformist image before the elections, was approved by the Guardian Party in itself signaled change.

Nipped In The Bud

When the Islamic Republic, itself a product of a product of an internationally-supported popular uprising, decided to risk global condemnation and face the green-clad protests through force, it has effectively nipped another velvet revolution in the bud. And although the protests last year showed the extent of public opposition to the ruling theocracy, the regime has so far managed to secure its hold on power.

One important factor in this is the fact that Mousavi, along with many other opposition leaders, have chosen to pursue the reform movement along the mechanisms of the undemocratic Islamic regime.

"Previously, he was a revolutionary, because everyone inside the system was a revolutionary. But now he's a reformer. Now he knows Ghandi,  before he knew only Che Guevarra. If we gain power through aggression we would have to keep it through aggression. That is why we're having a green revolution, defined by peace and democracy," explains Moshen Makhmalbaf, Mousavi's spokesman.

Up to what extent Mousavi wants to pursue is unknown. What is clear is that he does not intend to replace the theocratic system, with which he has long been identified, having served as prime minister of the Islamic Republic from 1981 to 1989.

"I could not hide my attachment to the Imam," posted Mousavi on his website, referring to the late Ayatollah Khomeni, the leader of the 1979 uprising that ousted the Shah and established the Islamic Republic.

As a result of his profession of loyalty to the theocratic system, Mousavi has escaped imprisonment. But he has also alienated a number of reformists who want Iran to democratize and do away with the theocracy, and diminished his standing among those who hold the present regime accountable for the deaths of many Iranians during last year's protests and the crackdown that followed. As a result, Mousavi has been unable to inspire the people and to organize a sustainable protest movement the way the late Ayotollah Khomeni did in 1979. And Mousavi's inability to rally the people rendered the movement leaderless.

Another important factor is, of course, intimidation. This year alone, the regime has executed 115 people in connection to last year's protests, according to a report by The Guardian last Wednesday . The same report cites stories of physical and sexual abuses inflicted on the 5,000 people that were arrested during the crackdown.

"Former detainees complain of brutal and degrading treatment, including alleged rape and sodomy. One man, who fled to Turkey, said he was dumped in the street and left for dead after sexual assault. The award-winning film-maker Jafar Panahi – detained in Evin prison for two months until his release on 25 May – described being made to strip naked and stand outside for an hour and a half in the middle of the night," said the report.

Rifts In The Regime