Observations on an Insurrectionary Saturday

1. It was not an embarrassment to see the low level of Iran support activity in the United States July 25, compared to huge demonstrations throughout Europe, Canada, and the Middle East. In fact, it was a wise political strategy. The government and people of the United States are both the Great Satan, so anything we say is discredited. Instead, people closer to Iran are uniting to say down with the clerical leadership.

2. The broad internationalization of the struggle creates an interesting, but potentially dangerous dynamic in Iran. When nations surround a nation telling it its government is not acceptable, the people have a greater chance to rise up - but the nation can adopt the 1990s Serb game of saying "Us against the world." The balance can tip either way right now.

3. It is time to stop making posters equating Ahmadinejad with Hitler. The Populist Podunk was always a simple tool of the clerico-military junta. And Khamenei's action July 24 to force Ahmadinejad to fire Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei indicates that the Iranian president is almost as much a victim of the Council of Guardians as the people of Iran. Our demands should not involve a particular political leader, we should demand the ouster from the nation of the Shia religious leadership of Iran. (Personal wish list - could someone please assassinate Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami - quickly, por favor?)

4. The obvious difficulty of the next steps cannot be underestimated. Urban reformers represent large numbers, but the rural and suburban devout of Iran probably constitute a majority. How much will they listen to either an outsider or insider telling them their most sacred leaders represent the biggest threat to their survival? Think of what would happen if far-right evangelicals attained a huge majority in the United States, and they took over a vetting role to oversee government functions. What if the other nations of the UN told the people of the U.S. they had to arrest or kill all their preachers before things would get better? The authors of the Left Behind series would no doubt charge the entire UN with being a creature of Satan, and would probably get millions to believe it. What the hell? Maybe we should wear buttons proclaiming "We are all the Great Satan."

I know one thing. I had no problem wearing a button in 1979 saying "Hang the Ayatollah," and I would have no problem wearing one in 2009 saying "Hang All Ayatollahs." Maybe no one in Iran would listen. But the Iranian revolutionary road has been a long, long one since 1979, and the road ahead is probably longer still. Buckle your seat belts.

Beyond the Gun?

The biggest story in Honduras July 5 may not have been the numbers of people that surrounded the Tegucigalpa Airport, but the fact that so many of them left their guns at home. The situation in Urumqi, Xinjiang province in China may have been more violent, but the Uighur protesters were not idolizing their terrorist comrades who were recently sent to Bermuda from Guantanamo.

For several decades now, followers of Gandhi have been hoping and wishing for a turn from revolutionary armed struggle to nonviolent mass movements. The global shift in favor of immovable bodies over guns was masked somewhat by the rise of catastrophist terrorists, beginning with Tamil suicide bombers and leading inevitably to September 11. But meanwhile, in the background, people on all continents seemed to be rejecting the effectiveness of armed struggle against an oppressive state. Part of the shift may have little to do with people seeing nonviolent methods as being effective, but with realizing that armed struggle in conditions of modern "asymmetric" warfare is as close to hopeless as one could imagine. And there seems to be fewer radicals outside the catastrophists who "celebrate the bullet."

I am not suggesting that this movement operates in all times at all places, nor am I saying that mass nonviolent struggle is always a romantic unconditional good. We will still see plenty of rebel movements arise in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, though many more in the 21st century seem to be financed by an opposing state, rather than rising indigenously from a group in the mountains espousing some kind of radical ideology. And if we look at Thailand, where two sides both employ relatively nonviolent mass-movement methods, each side is guilty of corruption and using the language of Thomas Paine to enrich themselves. Half the folks hollering "Power to the People!" may be hoping for a payoff or a date with Flo from Progressive Insurance.

But the fact that a movement in the heart of Central America, defined by its armed-struggle rebel groups in the 1980s, chose to operate in a way that emphasized nonviolent mass movements, is a positive sign that we are slowly moving beyond the gun in populist movements worldwide. This kind of trend was far more interesting in Iran (and probably will continue to be) than counting the number of protesters using Twitter or SMS. Now comes the hard part: sticking to the nonviolent principles while trying to disarm the people in power.