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Freydoon Khoie

‘All men recognise the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny, its corruption, and its inefficiency are great and unendurable.’ When American author and political activist Henry David Thoreau wrote these prescient words in his 1849 ‘Resistance to Civil Government’ little did he know their resonant quality. Yet anti-government protest takes many shapes and forms; from the avowedly pacific and non-violent mass mobilisation movements, through armed insurrection or carefully orchestrated coups d’etat.

Power itself is not derived through violence but the desire of the masses to be ruled by an democratically elected body and a legitimate government. Tyrannical regimes’ power is often maintained through violent repression and forceful and tacit compliance of the majority of the governed. Any significant withdrawal of that compliance either peacefully or forcefully will restrict or dissolve governmental control. Struggle and conflict are often necessary to redress and correct injustice.

Perhaps the best-known peaceful civil rights movement was that which convulsed the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. Led by the charismatic preacher Dr Martin Luther King and his mass protest against the discriminatory ‘Jim Crow’ laws that marginalised and humiliated the country’s African-American population.

Dr King gained worldwide attention to the struggle for racial equality in the U.S. using the highly-effective and visible boycott and sit-in to embarrass discriminatory premises and force their temporary or permanent closure. It can be argued that the Civil Rights Movement did cast a shadow over the United States’ image at a sensitive moment in its global campaign against communism as manifested in the Vietnam War.

Dr King’s successful, non-violence protest led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Though the movement did not - and was never intended to - overthrow the United States government, the U.S. civil rights movement demonstrates how solid political gains can be made through nonviolent civil disobedience within the framework of genuine democratic systems. This was possible only, because of the well-established democratic institutions and fundamental safeties enshrined in the American Constitutional and the freedoms guaranteed for all citizens to protest to any violation of the said constitution and its creed: “ We hold these truth to be self-evident that all men are created equal” said Dr King in his famous ‘I have a Dream’ speech in Washington DC assembly of million African Americans. While there were some arrests, some beatings, and few went to jail, they were not killed, uprooted, raped, murdered and chased into exile, shutting down their newspapers and websites, and private properties confiscated. Events that are happening in Iran, daily.

Another best-known non-violent political activist was, perhaps, Mahatma Gandhi. Years before his campaign to oust the British Raj from India in 1947, Gandhi had conducted highly-effective peaceful protest movements in South Africa to gain rights for Indian migrant workers. When asked whether nonviolence was active or passive, Gandhi replied, “It is the greatest activist force in the world…a force which is more positive than electricity and more powerful than bullet.” And he could say this because he was confronted with the civilized British oppressor who will never stoop so low to arrest, torture, mutilate, rape, murder, and loot the protestors, the way mullahs are doing in Iran, daily.

South Africa’s nonviolence campaign demonstrated the power of individual groups possess when they come together as one against a repressive regime. South Africa’s black population was successfully mobilised and the ANC used protests, strikes and boycotts to undermine the economy. When the economy collapsed, so did the regime that had profited from the corrupt handling of economic affairs. South African protestors were also able to draw worldwide support when they convinced other nations that apartheid was immoral. But then again, Gandhi and his comrades were dealing with a reasonably civilized Dutch, Anglo Americans rulers who were racist at heart, but still they felt accountable to their own conscience as well as their Anglo American partners to maintain a degree of civility and composure in their dealings with pro-democracy forces.

The successful overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos is yet another example that can be attributed to the same components of nonviolent civil disobedience. Like South Africa, several individual groups came together to protest the Marcos regime when Marcos declared martial law to avoid defeat in a democratic election, Philippine protestors used boycotts and strikes to tear apart the economy. When the military realized that Marcos no longer had control of the population, the Chief of Staff disavowed the regime. Once the military capitulated, Marcos’ power disintegrated. Again here, Marcos was under direct pressure from the United States and European democracies to behave and respect the popular sentiment and give up dictatorship and allow democracy to flourish.

In each case, popular opposition was mobilized based on an ethical appeal to concepts of genuine democracy, rule of law, equality, transparency, accountability and socio economic justice. The strategy in each case involved obstructing the economy which in turn undermined the regime and its outside supporters in the body of special interest groups.

In our present generation we are witnessing the Arab Spring of 2011 as an interesting case when examining the power of peaceful, compared with, violent protest. Whereas repressive police states and coercive regimes in Tunisia and Egypt were toppled via mass street protests that were, by and large, peaceful, and both nations are on track for transforming their political system from dictatorship to democracy, step by step. Yet, we have witnessed that the regimes like Kaddafi in Libya and Assad in Syria, Khamnei in Iran are not the type of civilized parties who care for international public opinion, or feel any obligation to be accountable to the United Nations Human Rights Charter, or even the Arab League of whom they are a member and they simply massacre and continue to massacre innocent civilians who dare to protest and as a result of this blatant violations the opposition forces in Libya took up arms and violently removed Kaddafi from power, people of Syria are faced with no other alternative but to pick up arms to defend themselves and their freedom and the state of civil war will continue until Assad’s regime is defeated and the democratization process gets underway, and the people of Iran are now finding themselves in the same position of people of Syria.

Guerrilla movements - aided and abetted by external military, logistical and financial support - have a very successful track record when the people’s intention is to remove the illegitimate regime and establish genuine democracy, not just change its policies. Mao Zedong ushered communism into China in 1949 by countering the organised Chinese military using guerilla warfare tactics. He described his insurgent movement as consisting of three stages: develop the movement, spread the movement’s influence, and attack for victory of the movement. Whereas nonviolent civil disobedience seeks to accomplish what German historian Hans Delbrück’s defines as a strategy of exhaustion by quite literally wearing the government down, militant movements seeks to directly attack those who wield national power with a view to their complete destruction and over throw. In fact, combined with vigorous diplomacy and economic sanctions, internal war is a strategy that has successfully coerced rogue regimes to capitulate.

In Iran today, I can safely say that 95% of our people are opposed to the repressive, corrupt, and violent and outright terrorising radical mullahs and the opposition groups outside and inside the country whom are seeking democracy, possess the resources and capabilities to build the infrastructure needed to support a militant uprising and a violent overthrow of the mullah’s repressive regime. The regime’s complete failure to deliver the promises made by Khomeini back in 1979 namely, freedom, justice, economic prosperity etc., have proven to be fraud, i.e., no intention to deliver, and after 33 years people are totally convinced that the entire so called ‘Islamic revolution’ was engineered and executed by shadow organizations funded by the major oil companies and secret services of several beneficiary governments. The overthrow of the progressive and benevolent monarchy who was not bending to the oil companies’ demands and was on his way to transform Iran from a poor and under developed country into an industrialized and modern and developed economy was part of this ‘engineered’ Islamic revolution. Despite the guarantees in the Islamic Republic constitution, they have absolutely no regards for the people and their welfare, basic human rights, health and education and ultimate prosperity and since they have taken over the power, they are only interested to remain in power at all costs, even if they have to massacre thousands of innocent civilians, imprison, torture, rape and loot.

So the question before the people of Iran is the old “what must be done now?” The regime have clearly demonstrated that they have no appetite for dialogue or negotiations with the civil opposition leaders, nor have they allowed even gradual reform of any sort. Their attitude is “come and get me if you can”. They have deliberately and consciously recruited some 500,000 poor, misguided, orphan and illiterate boys and have systematically trained them as terrorising forces with wide spread powers to beat up, crush skulls and legs, and cut throat, kill if necessary, loot, and rape those who oppose the regime, and behave as though they are a Nazi occupation forces in Poland. The regime’s behaviour is a classic brutal dictatorship that justify the central tenet of all freedom fighters in human history who were forced to consider the last option of taking up arms and bringing to an end a regime that has gone completely mad. A living example of this is being broadcasted live on our TVs showing how the Mullahs and Assad regime together are blatantly bombarding a vast residential areas and civilian targets in their own cities in Syria, and how the regime’s 500,0000 thugs in Iran, known as Baseej, were unleashed upon the peaceful demonstrators in 2009 who were simply demanding a honest account of their votes and as a result of this peaceful and civilized demonstrations, hundreds were killed, thousands were arrested and are still in horrible dungeons, tens of thousands peaceful activists were forced to flee the country and live in horrible conditions around the world in political asylum status, and the rest of the population live under constant fear and terror and therefore the people of Iran are left with no other alternative but to seriously consider a militant uprising as a final solution.

Though successful militant campaigns are often fought against an external aggressor that has invaded their country, due to the nature and conduct of the repressive regimes, the government itself is perceived as an ‘outsider’ and ‘invader’. A glance at the history of militant campaigns that achieved victory over the adversaries demonstrates as many were fought against the internal repressive regimes.

Below are few examples of Successful guerrilla campaigns:

	American Revolutionary War (1775–1783)
	French Revolution 1789
	Kosovo Liberation Army (1992–1999)
	Turkish Revolutionaries against partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by the Allies1914-1918
	Independence Wars in Latin America
	Indonesia’s Democratic Movements
	Philippines' during the Japanese occupation of World War II
	The Wars of Scottish Independence; notably, actions led by Robert the Bruce (13th century-14th century)
	Irish War of Independence (1919–1921); campaign organised by Michael Collins
	First Indochina War (1946–1954)
	The Partisans of Yugoslavia

The lesson to be learnt from past struggles against violent and repressive regimes is that, though civil disobedience and peaceful protest can be an effective means of reform and even changing policies, such tactics are only possible when people are dealing with a reasonable level of civility and fairness on the part of the ruling powers, and such peaceful and civil oppositions are ineffectual when the objective is the total removal of an illegitimate, violent, corrupt and iniquitous regime like the Mullah’s regime in Iran today. An entrenched tyranny like the radical mullahs in Tehran can only be toppled using organised combat in association with mass protests.

کسروی؛ حلاج تاریخ

این نوشته کوتاه نخست در سایت فارسی بی بی سی به مناسبت شصت و ششمین سال قتل کسروی به چاپ رسید.

روحانیان نه تنها کسروی، روشنفکران همدل او و نیز پیروان آن‌ها را لشکریان بازمانده‌ی فرهنگ عصر رضاشاه می‌دانستند که هم‌چنین نقد آنان از مذهب و روحانیت را اثرپذیرفته از اندیشه‌ی وهابی و بهائی می‌پنداشتند. وهابیت و بهائیت هر دو در آغاز جنبشی برای اصلاح دین بودند؛ یکی در جزیرة العربِ سنی پرورش و از آن‌جا گسترش

یافت و دیگری نیز در ایران شیعی زاده و سپس به اقصای عالم گسترده شد. روشن‌فکران و روحانیان شهری از آغاز جنبش مشروطه به این سو به مطالعه‌ی آثار نوگرایانه‌ی عربی اشتیاق داشتند و کتاب‌ها و مجله‌های چاپ مصر و شام را به دست می‌آوردند و می‌خواندند. اندیشه‌ی وهابی از این راه وارد ایران شد. روحانیان برای از میدان به در کردن منتقدان سرسخت خود آن‌ها را به بهائیت و وهابیت، بدعت و فرنگی‌مآبی متهم می‌کردند. محمد حسن شریعت سنگلجی، حکمی‌زاده و کسروی و مانند آن‌ها نیز از این برچسب‌ها در امان نماندند. روحانیان در این دوره خود را در محاصره‌ی منتقدان می‌دیدند: مارکسیست‌ها، بهائی‌ها، روشنفکرانِ علم‌گرا، دولتیانِ فقه‌ستیز و دیگران. اما حساب کسروی و هم‌پیمانان او جدا بود. اینان از دل حوزه‌های علمیه برآمده بودند و بر تاریخ و سنت شیعی چیرگی داشتند. خطری که اینان برای اقتدار روحانیان می‌آفریدند بسی بیشتر بود، زیرا امکان اثرگذاری‌شان بر طیف مذهبی و نسل جوان شیعیانِ معتقد اما حقیقت‌طلب بدیل نداشت.