A Revolution Reduced To A Distraction, By Amir Tahiri

In Persian tradition, you need only 30 years to make a century as opposed to 100 years in Western tradition. In that sense, Iran is marking the first century of its Islamic Revolution.

The sending of the first Iranian satellite into orbit and impressive displays of military muscle in the streets of Tehran have marked the occasion.

As expected, the occasion has also inspired a wide-ranging debate within families, at places of work, schools, and also in academia and the media. Iranians wonder whether the revolution was inevitable and necessary and whether or not time has come to move beyond it.

As in the case of other major revolutions, the balance sheet of the events that radically altered Iran's history 30 years ago is not easy to establish.

On the negative side, the revolution has claimed the lives of some two million Iranians through executions, the suppression of ethnic and political dissent, and the eight-year war against Iraq. A further five million people have left the country over the past 30 years and created distinct pockets of influence in more than 100 countries across the globe.

Also, during this period, at least five million Iranians have spent various lengths of time in prison.

Today, the average Iranian is at least 30 per cent poorer than on the eve of the revolution. At the same time, according to a Central Bank of Iran study, the gap between the rich and the poor has widened. The same study shows that some 25 per cent of Iran's population falls below poverty levels.

Iran's international image has also suffered. Today, it is regarded as a rogue state, sponsoring terrorism and seeking to destabilise its neighbours by developing a nuclear arsenal. Wherever they travel, Iranians are treated as suspects, a sharp contrast with the esteem they enjoyed before the revolution.

On the positive side, the revolution could be seen as a valuable experience that, if absorbed properly, may make Iran stronger. Since the middle of the 19th century, a good part of the Iranian intelligentsia had been obsessed with revolution. In 1979, it had the historic chance of seeing its dream realised.

Today, Iran is vaccinated against the virus of revolution. An idea that had preoccupied the minds of the elite for long is now shunned by almost everyone, including a majority of those who had fought for the Khomeinist Revolution.

Also on the positive side, the Khomeinist revolution has swept to power new strata of society that would never have had a chance to secure a share in power. People with obscure family names and backgrounds have risen to create a new ruling class, replacing the elite formed since the Safavid era some 400 years ago.

More importantly, perhaps, the revolution has brought the vital issue of the relationship between religion and politics to the forefront of the Iranian national debate.

The Constitutional Revolution of 1906 had failed to secularise the system because it had tried to fudge the issue. Today, however, a national consensus is emerging in support of secularisation. This does not mean de-Islamicisation, as some radicals suggest. All it means is a recognition that religion and politics are distinct, though inter-related, entities.

Before 1979, religion had a firm hold on the Iranian psyche. There were religious poets, writers, philosophers and artists. Today, however, Iranian cultural production is almost entirely secularised.

Also on the positive side, the revolution has politicised large segments of society that had not been interested in public affairs before 1979. Iran before the revolution was a largely apolitical society, a fact that enabled small elites of intellectuals and clerics to impose their agenda on the nation. Thirty years later, most Iranians have enough interest in politics not to give anyone a free ride.

Ebrahim Yazdi, who served as the country's foreign minister in the year after the revolution, is right in asserting that Iran today would not allow someone like Ayatollah Khomeini to come to power without due soul-searching. That, in itself, is a great achievement: Iranians today are not as naive as they were 30 years ago.

Today, the central question of Iranian politics is simple: how to close the chapter of the revolution and move on.

All nations that experienced revolutions in the classical sense of the word have had to find answers to this question. In France, Napoleon closed the chapter of the revolution and led the nation towards empire, war and ultimate restoration. In Soviet Russia, the revolution ended with Stalinist purges designed to revive the state structures. In China, the collapse of Mao's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution paved the way for Deng Xiaoping and his policy of restoring the state.

In Iran today, the camp, led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad still dreams of permanent revolution. Another camp, which includes former revolutionaries, urges constitutional amendments to transform Iran from a theocratic state into a normal, that is to say secular, republic.

At first glance, Ahmadinejad and his radical camp may appear to be in the ascendancy. In Iran, however, appearances are often misleading.

Today, all the talk in Iran may be about the past but everyone's mind is focused on the future. The Khomeinist seizure of power a "century" ago is already part of history. What Iranians are interested about is their lives in the coming "centuries".

Amir Taheri is an Iranian writer based in Europe

Published: February 10, 2009, 23:04