Beyond the Umma, rebirth of the Iranian nation

Weekly Comment
By: Shervin Nekuee

A week ago on the18th of September, massive participation by the Green Movement in major cities of Iran turned Qods day demonstrations into an expression of civil rights. The combination of a demand for civil rights and a sense of patriotism brewing for years in the collective Iranian consciousness came fully to the surface. The message, “Not Gaza, not Lebanon: I will only sacrifice my life for Iran” was chanted in the streets of Tehran, Mashhad, Gorgan, Esfehan, Tabriz, Ahwaz, and many other places in Iran. Even in places where people didn’t dare to say it, the chant was surely in their minds. So how did a day meant to show solidarity with the Palestinian resistance and Lebanon’s Hezbollah turn into an expression of patriotism? To understand this, we need to take quick look back in history.

This video, posted on youTube, shows demonstrators chanting, “Not Gaza, not Lebanon: I will only sacrifice my life for Iran”

Ayatollah Khomeini, the charismatic, late (and first) supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, established Qods day in the early days of the revolution. It was meant as a day of worldwide solidarity with Muslim resistance against injustice and tyranny, symbolized by the resistance against Israel and the struggle to liberate Palestine. The establishment of Qods day was a masterful move, both ideologically and strategically. Ideologically, it was a definitive shift from nation to Ummah; from the limits of geography and politics to the unlimited borders of a community of believers, linked together by faith. This was a revolutionary change indeed. Up until then, the discourse of all opposition groups criticizing the dictatorship of the Shah was inspired by the modern nation building ideals of Iran’s 1906 constitutional revolution, which had framed Iran as an autonomous nation and not as a sub-set of a larger and more abstract community. The constitution defined its members as citizens of a geographically defined nation, not believers, equal before the law, with equal access to political rights (however woman were not included in the definition of citizen).

This paradigm shift had a double benefit for the Islamic state. First, it was this myth of solidarity with all Muslims that was used to inspire Iranians to take on the costs of challenging American power and its allies in the region and worldwide. Second, its potential allies in Lebanon, Palestine, and elsewhere could be part of this worldwide revolutionary Islamic framework that would provide liberation movements and opposition groups with the legitimacy to cooperate with Iran against non-Muslim occupier armies (Israel’s army in Lebanon and the Russian army in Afghanistan) or against their own governments (in Iraq and Saudi Arabia).

Strategically this paradigm shift gave the Islamic Republic a strong regional position. Iran became the master of proxy actions in the post-cold war Greater Middle east. It created Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Badr Brigade comprised of Shia Iraqis opposing Saddam Hussein. It nurtured Shia communities in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf with financial and military support, and gave refuge and military support to Shia and Dari (a Persian dialect) speaking fighters in the war against the Taliban. Last but not least, the Islamic Republic bought influence and respect among some of the fractions within the Palestinian resistance. After the fall of Soviets in Afghanistan and the crushing of Saddam by the Americans, Iran became the only state in the region that could disturb the American New World Order and threaten Israel, Saudi Arabia, or the other regional players of the Pax Americana.

Within Iran the Ummah paradigm had its own harvest. At first, in pre-revolutionary Iran and in the early days of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini managed to attract massive popular support by framing the political and social frustrations and dissatisfaction as the result of being Muslims suppressed by the unethical and unIslamic regime of the Shah. He promised that the Islamic Republic would honor the will of Ummah and bring justice and prosperity. Later on the shift of political thought in Iran, from nation to Ummah, gave the government a stick to use against any kind of dissent. This stick has been used against intellectuals, activists, the women’s rights movement, and labor unions. The permanent struggle and resistance against enemy number one of the Islamic Ummah worldwide, “The Great Satan” US and its regional representative Israel, was the highest priority of the state. This put Iran into a permanent revolutionary state, that left only a tiny space for citizens to create genuine social diversity, make economic demands, and compete politically.

Today’s image of the Islamic Republic within Iran, and in particular among its growing better educated young middle class, is as a deeply “corrupt regime”. The billions spent by Iranian governmental and military bodies in Lebanon, Palestine, and other Muslim countries, is increasingly seen by Iranians as a corrupt way to buy alliances. After the events of 9/11, the tendency of Iranian people to identify with a worldwide Ummah – a notion also put forward by Al Qaeda – has declined dramatically. In addition, the Presidency of Barack Obama and his outreach to the Iranian people (his Nowruz greeting) and the Muslim world (his Cairo speech) has been undermining the ethical foundations of the much used “Ummah under attack” rhetoric of the Iranian government.

Even more importantly is the failure of the Ummah paradigm to bring justice and prosperity to Iranians. The gap between rich and poor has been growing much faster during this regime than ever before. Government institutions have an immensely negative image of being blatantly discriminatory and corrupt. The Umma paradigm failed to deliver its promises and the “corrupt presidential” election of last June became the trigger for people to openly express frustrations (social, economical, and political) that had been brewing for a much longer time.
“Not Gaza, not Lebanon: I will only sacrifice my life for Iran.” It is in the context of shifting paradigms that we should read and understand the most dominant chant from this year’s Qods day. Today, the Iranian people seem to have made a definite turn towards the original constitutional framework of 1906 when their quest for equal citizenship and a rule of law began. They are getting back to the framework of modern nationhood and moving beyond the revolutionary myth of the Ummah. The good news is that their idea of nation it is much more tolerant, refined, inclusive, and egalitarian than that of their forefathers. In this sense the new nation paradigm can be more sustainable than the original.