Iran: More than an Election Outcome

Last week, as I accompanied President Nasheed out of the Royal Palace in Stockholm, we heard loud chants coming from a crowd of people with placards just at the foot of the castle. We could read some of the placards in English saying, “Where is my vote?”, and instantly knew that this was about the vote in Iran. It is said that politicians are drawn to crowds like bees to honey -- we made our way towards the crowd.
Dressed in formal wear in a warm Stockholm mid-summer evening, the crowd instantly surmised that there was a VIP amongst us, someone who could broadcast their plea. As a small section of the crowd tore away and approached us, we introduced ourselves, and we gave them a “three-in-one” “instant mix” of the political struggles in the Maldives on democracy, free elections and people power.
The crowd were in fact protesting against Ericsson, pleading them not to provide the means with which the Iranian authorities were jamming the communication abilities of the Iranian people – we had just had chit-chats with the CEO of Ericsson up in the Kings Garden at the Reception for the participants of Volvo Ocean Race, which the Ericsson team had just won.
I feel for the Iranian people—quite apart from who won or lost the elections. It is a nation of great potential, but on the knife-edge of a number of tipping points. And when I heard about the election results and the responses in Iran to those announcements, I recalled an Iranian I had shared an office with for three years in Brisbane, in the early 1990s.
His name was Hossein, and, like me, he was doing a PhD at the University of Queensland. His thesis was a bomb: “How and Why One Party State Regimes Fall?” Of course, in the frenzy of the post-Cold War world, his comparative study was focussed on the dictators that were falling like ten-pins those days. And he also included in his study the fall of the Shah.
I agreed to proof-read his work. Over the three years, I got to read and re-read the chapters that he was writing, and I attended the seminars that he was required to hold on his research. His work was good.
But I did not realise just how good his research and hypotheses were until I had to put them to test in the Maldives from 2004 to 2008, to contribute to managing a disintegrating political order and then to tip over: to repair Humpty Dumpty long enough for a peaceful transition, and then to secure that transition.
Hossein’s thesis held its ground in the “soft power” showdown with the Gene Sharps and the Ot Pors, who could not match Hossein’s work for its intensity, clarity, and objectivity. I am not saying that there is a direct contradiction amongst them, but that whereas Sharp and Ot Por were focussed on advocacy of their point of view, Hossein’s was a dispassionate research which examined the topic from competing perspectives. I dare say that insights from Hossein’s research accounted for the confidence and conviction with which I took on the old guard, pushing for change from within to create space for people power, and then moving on to join the people in that space. To Hossein and his research I owe a great debt.
I have not kept in touch with Hossein for a number of years now. Whatever happened to his thesis, the events unfolding in Iran now are going to judge his thesis. What is unfolding in Iran right now is not about who won or lost the election; but about what will prevail – people power or state power? Do state institutions have enough credibility to exert sufficient authority? Or will any attempts to exert such authority only strengthen those who oppose the regime? Or would the failure to exert such authority not result in conceding more ground to the protestors? Or would not the assertion of control just become the tipping point?
Will the regime not crack under the pressure of widespread protests? Are not dissenting opinions among senior clerics the first signs of this? The question then is: does the regime have enough authority to exercise sufficient power AND enough power to exercise the necessary authority? Will soft power draw enough credibility to defeat hard power? Or could there be a role for what is today called smart power?
Judging by Hossein’s thesis, as of Saturday, Iran has not yet reached the tipping point. Things can still go either way. And things are moving very fast—and at this moment, it looks like they can take a life of their own, tipping the balance in favour of people power.
And of course, whichever way the events go, what is at stake is not Hossein’s thesis. What is at stake is something of great strategic significance, which could bring about a historic triumph or calamitous tragedy to the Muslim Ummah.
And at the end of the day, what drew President Nasheed and me to that crowd protesting outside the Royal Castle in Stockholm was that recognition—that either a great tragedy or historic triumph was in the making. Where human life is at risk, doing nothing is never an option for a politician who just picked up the Anna Lindh Prize for Human Rights, or for any human being who believes in the sanctity of life and people power.

Submitted by Ahmed Shaheed for the OSA
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