Note: Discrimination; The Root Cause of the December 2017 Protests

Analyzing and explaining the December 2017 protests will be an endless task. This is because: a) new information leads to fresh analyses; b) as time passes, the emotional impact on analysis decreases; c) over time, the unintended consequences of the movement reveal themselves and lead to changes in analyses; d) viewing through different theoretical lenses leads to conflicting analyses. Scholars who intend to reduce this movement to the actions of Hassan Rouhani's government emphasize the impoverishing, elitist, and discriminatory policies of the executive branch. They argue that discrimination was the internal root cause of this movement. For instance, Mohammad Ali Al-Hashem, the representative of the Supreme Leader in East Azerbaijan and the Friday prayer leader of Tabriz - a new ally of Ayatollah Khamenei - stated on February 1, 2018, regarding the causes of the December protests: "Our people are not tired of the revolution, but they are fed up with poverty, discrimination, and bribery. Unfortunately, today in some offices, nothing gets done without a bribe... enemies have exploited their recent protests about the economic situation and have changed the course to chaos against the regime." We do not critique this theory and accept the hypothesis that "discrimination leads to political protest." However, the issue is that the discriminations of the Islamic Republic are not limited to the discriminations of the executive branch, nor did the executive branch create the discriminations of the Islamic Republic. It is better to look at the fundamental discriminations of the Islamic Republic: The government is a special right of the clerics. Ayatollah Khomeini claimed that "the theory of Velayat-e Faqih, its conception leads to its confirmation." However, the truth is that this theory - just as he explained in his book 'Islamic Government or Velayat-e Faqih' with analogies (such as guardianship over parentless children, guardianship over the insane, etc.) that he used to justify it - is refuted by its very conception. The superiority of the clerics is the basis of this theory. The claim is that the government is a "special right" of the clerics. Why? a) Based on the hadith of the Imam of the Time. Firstly, the eleventh Imam had no children. Secondly, these hadiths were fabricated by those who received religious dues. Thirdly, from these hadiths, one cannot infer the governance of clerics over the people. b) Governance means the implementation of law. The law is the same as jurisprudence. Jurisprudence must be implemented by a jurist. Firstly, governance cannot be reduced to the implementation of law. Secondly, the jurisprudential rulings are constructs of pre-Islamic Arabs for the very simple tribal societies of that time, not law in the modern sense of the word. Thirdly, the implementation of law in today's governments is not in the hands of jurists. Many world leaders are not and have never been jurists. Fourthly, even the laws of the Islamic Republic are dozens of times more than jurisprudential rulings, and they were not set by the clerics (traffic laws are one example. Membership in international conventions is another example). According to Article 5 of the Constitution, "In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the authority of the command and the leadership of the community is entrusted to a just and pious jurist, knowledgeable about the time, brave, managerial, and prudent." Beyond the epistemological critique of the false claim of Velayat-e Faqih, this claim is also morally unacceptable. Because it fundamentally contradicts justice as equality and non-discrimination. With what epistemological and moral reasons can all people be deprived of the right to govern and grant this privilege to a small class of clerics? This discrimination is the greatest discrimination and the basis of other discriminations in the Islamic Republic. Implementation of Ja'fari Sharia According to Article 4 of the Constitution, "All civil, criminal, financial, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based on jurisprudential rulings." The determination of this is also with the jurists of the Guardian Council appointed by the Supreme Leader. This is a significant discrimination. What is our argument? a) Why should the Sharia of other religions - Judaism, Christianity, Baha'i, Zoroastrians, etc. - not be implemented? They will likely respond that because the majority of the people are Muslim. b) According to Article 12 of the Constitution, "The official religion of Iran is Islam and the Twelver Ja'fari sect, and this principle is unchangeable forever." Why should the Sharia accepted by Sunnis - who lack Velayat-e Faqih and Khums, etc. - not be implemented while the Sharia of Shiites must be implemented? c) Why should modern laws not be implemented? What perspective gives the constructs of pre-Islamic Arabs superiority over modern laws? Why has this privilege been given to the constructs of simple tribal societies that we impose their rulings on modern societies? d) If human-made modern laws are rejected because they are foreign and Western, jurisprudential rulings are also constructs of foreigners. If human rights, democracy, and feminism are Western, jurisprudential rulings are Arabic. Discrimination between Muslims and non-Muslims is the foundation of jurisprudential rulings. With the implementation of jurisprudential rulings, all religious minorities have been deprived of many civil rights. A recent case is the Zoroastrian representative in Yazd City Council, who was deprived of this right by the Guardian Council. Iranians have created two religions: Zoroastrianism and Baha'ism. Localism dictates that we should not deprive Iranians of civil rights based on the constructs of pre-Islamic Arabs. In this context, the clerics have taken discrimination against Baha'is to the extreme, and no minority has been deprived of all rights like them. Even the situation of communists and atheists in the Islamic Republic is dozens of times better than that of Baha'is. Women and Men Patriarchy has been part of Iranian culture and cannot necessarily be reduced to Islam. However, clerics have institutionalized discrimination against women based on jurisprudential rulings. Women are considered second-class citizens in political, social, cultural, economic rights, etc. According to jurisprudential rulings, women also face many discriminations in criminal rights. Clerics have gone beyond jurisprudential rulings and have deprived women of participating in certain gatherings. For example, women are not allowed to attend stadiums as spectators of games. This discrimination arises from their view of women as sexual commodities that provoke and excite men. The Quran did not impose hijab on women. However, clerics made hijab mandatory after the revolution and imposed it on all women (the truth is that a group of revolutionary youth responsible at the radio in Tehran made this decision and brought it overnight for approval to Ayatollah Khomeini's office in Qom and broadcast it as a decree from the radio. It is better for them to recount the story themselves, as Ayatollah Montazeri, Ayatollah Motahhari, and Mohammad Reza Hakimi opposed this matter). Ayatollah Khamenei has repeatedly referred to the chador as "the superior hijab" and "Iranian hijab." Women have been deprived of the right to choose their clothing, and this discrimination is also unacceptable to them. Economic Inequalities The economic gap in Iran is a given. According to the Central Bank's report in 2016, the Gini coefficient rose above 0.40, and the ratio of the tenth decile to the first decile has become 13 times. Some experts have claimed that if the Gini coefficient in an economy reaches 0.40 and the ratio of the rich decile to the poor exceeds 20, society will enter the threshold of social protests. The largest economy in the world - the United States - has followed neoliberal policies and has privatized all matters. The Gini coefficient in the U.S. increased from 43 in 1990-1992 to 48 in 2011-2017. The Occupy Wall Street movement emerged during Obama's era - after the 2008 economic crisis - protesting these inequalities, claiming to represent 99% of society against the 1%. According to Joseph Stiglitz - Nobel Prize-winning economist in his book 'The Price of Inequality' - inequality and discrimination are the result of "market fundamentalism." Scandinavian countries, which have the most intervention in the economy compared to the U.S., have the highest levels of equality and the lowest Gini coefficients. In Iran, although 80% of the economy is state-owned and all governments have followed populist and subsidy policies, the level of inequality is unjustifiable. a) The entire banking system serves the wealthy and has created mega-debtors who either fled the country - with people's money - or are unwilling to repay their debts to banks. The banking system has replaced investment in the production sector with banking profits. The lower deciles of society cannot obtain a loan from this system. b) Iran's tax system is not only ineffective and has significant tax evasion, but it also favors the wealthy, and the regime lacks a fair tax system on total income, wealth, and profits. c) The number of vacant houses has increased to 2.6 million in 2016. The Islamic Republic could have helped the lower deciles by taxing vacant houses. d) Subsidies are paid to the entire population of the country, whereas to eliminate discrimination and poverty, subsidies should only be paid to the lower deciles of society. e) Loan companies named after Imams, established by individuals with beards and prayer beads, have embezzled people's money. The government had to pay creditors from national revenues that should have been spent on production, unemployment, economic growth, and poverty alleviation. Hassan Rouhani stated on January 1, 2018: "The government has so far put 11 trillion tomans to solve these issues... We have paid the money of over three million people who were in trouble with a fair profit; even a fair profit has been given to them. Of the depositors, 98% of their issues have been resolved, and 2% remain; now, the amount of their money may be high, but the number of depositors is 2%, and we are working to resolve that." f) The extensive economic activities of institutions under the Supreme Leader (IRGC, Basij, Astan Quds Razavi, Foundation of the Oppressed, etc.) and their tax evasion have also been detrimental to the poor classes of society. g) Privatization has not occurred in the true sense of the word. Institutionalized discrimination has led to large state companies being sold at bargain prices to institutions controlled by the leadership or "insiders." Undoubtedly, discrimination played a role in the emergence of the December 2017 protests. However, the non-economic discriminations of the Islamic Republic likely played a more prominent role in this movement. Therefore, firstly: reducing discrimination to economic discrimination is an ideological and incorrect approach. Secondly: if economic discrimination leads to the protest of the poor, non-economic discrimination leads to the protest of all classes. The middle class and the wealthy have also been strongly protesting non-economic discriminations.