Debate: The Green Movement or Moving Beyond the Green Movement?

On Sunday, June 20, it marks the seventh anniversary of the day when the image of Neda Agha-Soltan being shot in a street in Tehran, bleeding to death in front of mobile cameras, and its dissemination on Facebook and other social networks became a symbol of the beginning of violence and repression of street protests following the June 2009 elections. The day before also marked the seventh anniversary of a statement by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, during the Friday prayer sermon in Tehran, forbidding the continuation of street protests against the announced results of the presidential election of June 12, 2009, and the escalation of street confrontations and bloodshed that followed. The protests were led by prominent figures such as Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, two candidates who contested the 2009 elections, and Zahra Rahnavard, a political activist and the wife of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and these protests became known as the Green Movement. This year, like the past six years, discussions about the 2009 protest movement have resurfaced on websites and social networks as the end of June approaches. Although the Iranian government does not tolerate discussions about this movement in domestic media, Parvin Fahimi, the mother of Sohrab Ebrahimi, one of the victims of the 2009 protests, mentioned in a note on the Kalemeh website, a news outlet supporting Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the demonstrations of June 25, 2009, known as the Silent Protest, with the demand 'Where is my vote?' and the Green Movement's promise to continue demands such as lifting the house arrest of the leaders of this movement, lifting the media ban on Mohammad Khatami, the former president of Iran, and broader demands such as establishing fair courts and forming a fact-finding committee to address complaints and cases of the killed and injured. Simultaneously, seventy professors from universities in the United States and Canada wrote a letter to Hassan Rouhani, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, requesting him to take urgent and effective action to lift the house arrest of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Zahra Rahnavard. In recent days, the status of the Green Movement, which the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran and his supporters labeled as a sedition, has been discussed on social networks. What was the Green Movement, and what happened to it? I discussed this key question with two guests on this week's Views program: Bijan Hakmat, a Republican political activist and supporter of the Green Movement in Paris, and Ali Haj Qasemi, a supporter of criticism and moving beyond the Green Movement and the head of the Political Science and Social Policy Department at Södertörn University in Stockholm. I asked Mr. Hakmat what happened to the protests that followed the 2009 presidential election, which was named the Green Movement. Has the movement become a memory and ended, or has it subsided and turned into a smoldering fire or another phenomenon separate from these two? Bijan Hakmat: Social movements usually leave some effects in the mindset of society, even if they subside, which I think the Green social movement is in such a state. Some analysts of social movements also talk about suspended movements, but in any case, these movements leave traces in the community's mentality that can help the return of the same movement or similar movements at any given opportunity and clarify their goals. Mr. Haj Qasemi, what has happened to the 2009 protest movement? What is your opinion on this? Ali Haj Qasemi: I believe that since the Green Movement was formed from various factions with different demands, these various factions have each reached their demands to some extent, while others have not yet. Regarding the broad spectrum that has reached its demands, for example, in elections without fraud, at least until now, that spectrum seems satisfied in that area, and the part of the Green Movement that has been the broadest and has lower and more fundamental demands for more fundamental changes in the socio-political structure still has the ground for continuing work. However, since the Green Movement encompassed various factions and the prevailing strategy and methods did not suit all factions, fragmentation has occurred, and in the future, it can be said that the broad factions of the Green Movement will pursue their own paths, which we will witness in the future. Mr. Hakmat, from the perspective of political activists like you who consider the Green Movement a positive transformation in Iran's history, what were and are the distinguishing features, goals, programs, and organization of this movement? Bijan Hakmat: If you allow me, I need to elaborate on this. The slogan of reformists and the slogan of reform, in general, has long been rule of law. This means that the rule of law in the Islamic Republic was possible, and competition for different factions supporting the regime existed, which would certainly ease the transition to democracy. The struggle for rule of law continues today. Let's see what the Green Movement showed in this process. Firstly, it showed that the institution that hinders the rule of law is the institution of the Supreme Leader. Secondly, without standing against the Supreme Leader and its affiliated institutions, no serious step can be taken towards rule of law. Most importantly, the Green Movement demonstrated that there is the capacity and potential in society to stand as a movement against the Supreme Leader. All of this transformed and expanded the field of experience and expectation in the political landscape. Finally, the last point is that, in addition to all these, a significant social capital has accumulated in the figures of Mousavi, Karroubi, and Rahnavard, which can serve as a foundation for unity and political openness in the face of future threats to society. These, in my opinion, are significant achievements of the Green Movement. Regarding what Mr. Haj Qasemi mentioned about the various factions, it is certain that the Green Movement had various factions. However, there was a general emergence that the movement had, which was reflected in the statements of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the speeches of Mr. Karroubi, and later in various charters of the Green Movement. This created a kind of convergence among the various factions that had different political and even strategic interpretations, which I believe is still sustainable and can serve as a unifying axis among these factions. Mr. Haj Qasemi, what distinguishes the goals, programs, and organization of those political activists and analysts like you who believe in moving beyond the Green Movement from that movement? Ali Haj Qasemi: I believe that we must speak clearly and transparently about the outcomes or experiences gained from the Green Movement, and I do not think that the Iranian opposition and social and political analysts speak clearly about this. We need to discuss several specific results that have been achieved. One is that the spontaneous nature of protest movements in Iran and the negative and undesirable consequences that such movements can have for the process of democracy have become clear to many. Secondly, different factions in such a political movement cannot stand together because it will be difficult for them to reach a common denominator satisfactory to all. The radical faction becomes more radical, while the moderate faction reaches agreements and understandings through certain methods. Thirdly, street protests and the special emphasis on them, especially in conditions where we have witnessed conflicts between various political institutions in the Middle East, led many to conclude after the Green Movement that resolving political issues solely through protest movements and street actions does not yield results, and alternative ways must be found to solve issues. One of the most important of these is agreement and dialogue and institutionalizing this with the power structures. This was very weak in the political movement in Iran and during the Green Movement; we did not witness any signs that serious action for dialogue and negotiation as a strong institution to solve issues was taken by the leaders of this movement. In my opinion, these four fundamental outcomes can be drawn from the Green Movement. Mr. Hakmat, according to some, a characteristic of the Green Movement is the demand for free elections. Some factions of the Green Movement supporters did not support Hassan Rouhani in the 2013 presidential election. However, on the other hand, in the recent elections for the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Assembly of Experts, they implicitly supported the Hope List. How can one highlight the demand for free elections while opposing participation in the 2013 elections and supporting it in 2016? Of course, this does not apply to those defenders of the Green Movement who opposed participation in both the 2013 and 2016 elections. Bijan Hakmat: First, I should point out that many of those who did not want to participate in the 2013 elections or considered participating in them fruitless did so because they did not believe in the integrity of the elections. They may have thought that Rouhani's election would be better than others, especially since the issue of changing foreign policy was at stake, but they did not believe in the outcome of the elections and that the leadership had retreated in the face of a movement that condemned the election fraud and wanted to hold a fair election. After that, many of those who did not participate in the elections either implicitly or explicitly supported some of Rouhani's policies, especially regarding the JCPOA. This, in my opinion, eliminates the contradiction. However, an important event has occurred, and that is that the political game has changed somewhat. It is true that free elections remain a priority. However, the main issue now is the opening of the political space and the issue of rights and elections and possible changes in the structure of the Islamic Republic, but the main issue is the normalization of the Islamic Republic's foreign relations with the outside world, especially the United States, and the normalization of relations with foreign governments and the entry into the international community, which can have significant impacts domestically. One is in the economic aspect, which has now become predominant, and the other is in the aspect of good governance in the government. By good governance, I mean that there should be some transparency in the hierarchy, some coherence should be established, and this lawlessness and the various institutions that have different powers should be somewhat alleviated. This is the maximum conflict that currently exists, and elections usually revolve around these issues, aside from the perspective of changing the Supreme Leader, which is also influential in all these current struggles. We will address the issue of the Supreme Leader in another question, but I will ask Mr. Haj Qasemi a parallel question to the one I asked you.... Mr. Haj Qasemi, a question from defenders of moving beyond the Green Movement and supporters of the purple government and the broad coalition and supporters of the moderate reformists and principlists is what the fate of the broader demands of the 2009 protest movement is, which you mentioned at the beginning? The demands that, for example, a few days ago, on the seventh anniversary of the June 25 protests, Parvin Fahimi, the mother of Sohrab Ebrahimi, one of the victims of the 2009 protests, listed as follows: the freedom of political prisoners and the lifting of the house arrest of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Zahra Rahnavard, the leaders of the Green Movement, lifting the media ban on Mohammad Khatami, establishing fair courts, and forming a fact-finding committee to address the complaints of the killed and injured supporters of the Green Movement. Ali Haj Qasemi: These demands and other demands that exist in the political arena among reformists must be raised, and plans must be made to achieve them. However, we should not condition the continuation of the path on the immediate realization of these demands. After all, we cannot look at issues in a non-historical way. There are power structures in Iran, and there is a historical background of conflict between various social groups, various political groups both in power and outside of power, and the balance of power determines how much we can raise and advance these demands. If raising these demands today leads to the conclusion that the failure to implement them or the failure of the Rouhani government to achieve them means, for example, that reforms are futile, or that the government is ineffective, and thus we should seek another path, this is a mistake. Rather, at any time, including the current time, the major and essential demands are acute, and in society and the social base of reformism and transformation in Iran, a broad gathering occurs around them, which Mr. Hakmat also rightly pointed out, the issue of the JCPOA and economic issues are major and determining, and around these fundamental demands, a broad agreement should be reached, and a new mechanism should enter the political culture of Iran, which has been very weak until now, and that is negotiation and reaching an agreement and eliminating the stigma of negotiating with power structures. This is something that neither the leaders of reformism... nor those outside have a significant distance from this culture, but inside, this mechanism must be put into action. In the recent election experience, reformists and moderates somewhat applied this, and we saw that they achieved successful results, which was that they engaged in serious dialogue with a spectrum of principlists and placed their reformist lists in high positions. The desire to solve issues one by one and to move from a security atmosphere to a space of national agreement and understanding is something we have been experiencing in established democracies in the West for a hundred years, but when it comes to Iran, we do not know... it becomes a discussion of jinn and Bismillah. If this issue becomes prominent and the most important demands of today are raised, and political forces and activists do not think that to be raised, they must present all demands, the likelihood of our success will be high. Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi must be freed soon, and the condition for their freedom is reaching this agreement. We know that power structures will not allow the freedom of these leaders unless they are assured that their release will not disrupt the political order.