Is Syria Heading towards a Sunni Version of the Islamic Republic of Iran?

This image, which was originally posted to Flickr.com, was uploaded to Commons using Flickr upload bot on 07:55, 11 April 2011 (UTC) by Tonemgub2010

When the crowds of the Iranian revolution initially rose up against Muhammad Reza Shah’s regime in the late '70s, it wasn’t a social revolution aiming at changing the society, but rather a political one with legitimate demands similar to what Syrians once were looking forward to achieve in 2011. When all this started in Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the most central and inspirational figure in the Iranian revolution, was still in exile. Undoubtedly, we're now seeing the reproduction of those events through the current Syrian imbroglio.

In 1975 the regime of the Shah took further steps to consolidate its power over Iranian people. It abandoned the existing two-party system and introduced a single political organization – the Resurgence Party. While the sole party was gaining more control over territory and population, it threatened groups that previously enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy from the government, namely the bazaar merchants and religious clerics (Ulama). As in Syria, the Iranian one-party regime benefitted from its apparatus to keep people in check and to enforce its policies – while at the same time glorifying the monarchy at the expense of Islamic scholars, controlling bazaars and reducing Islam in daily life. These policies angered both the Ulama and bazaar merchants triggering an alliance between them against the regime.

The alliance between opposition forces and Ulama was to add pressure to liberalize and perhaps to topple the regime of the Shah. Westernized urban professionals, students from the new secular universities and theological seminaries, bazaar merchants and Ulama were protesting against the Shah. Many of them were driven by political, economic and social factors; only a few by religious motivations.

Introducing court reforms for trials of political dissidents and releasing political prisoners due to US pressure didn’t help the Shah much. The Iranian regime’s violations of human rights and its use of torture against political prisoners were staggering much like what we see in the Syrian regime’s torture chambers and prisons. The opposition factions became emboldened to speak out, organizing themselves into professional associations and student organizations, publishing pamphlets and distributing manifestos critical of the regime’s violation of human rights.  Dissidents demanded freedom of press and assembly and escalated their activities by resurrecting old political organizations and forming new ones, notably the National Front and the rightwing of the Ulama.

The religious clergy didn’t have an action plan against the Shah. Indeed, the majority of them thought that it was not their place to partake in political activities. While some opposition forces were reformist believing in restoring the constitution and establishing a constitutional monarchy under the Shah, like Mehdi Bazargan, a reformist politician and a representative of the forces of the secular National Front, some were more intransigent and militant, such as Khomeini, accepting no deal with the Shah and aiming at overthrowing him and installing a new system.

Khomeini’s proposal was to create an Islamic state modeled on the Quran and the community of the prophet, led by men of religion since their knowledge of Islamic law is, apparently, vital for managing the affairs of state. Although Khomeini’s proposal was declined by the majority of opposition forces, his words found resonance during the momentum of the revolution across Iran, attracting more people to his side.

Many urban workers were recent migrants from the countryside living in crowded shantytowns in and around Tehran. Marginalized in their rural areas and not yet fully incorporated into urban life, they were receptive to the calls for protest by the spokesmen of Islam. Working classes joined students, merchants and Ulama in streets against the Shah’s repression. Exactly as in Syria, Iranian demonstrators’ cries for reform, freedom and restoration of the constitution took a more radical tone demanding the death of the Shah and the return of Khomeini. More religious terms started to slip into protestors’ slogans replacing the older “non-religious” ones. The revolutionary protests reached a peek during the ten days of the month of Muharram, a period of ritual mourning for the death of Imam Husain important in the Shiite calendar. Framing anti-regime protests in this ceremonial period firmly put the whole revolutionary movement in a religious framework.

After the Shah had left Iran for his own good in January 1979, the triumphant Khomeini was welcomed by huge crowds as he returned in February to Iran. This was a decisive turning point in the Iranian trajectory towards the future. Should Iran now be dominated by the religious establishment or secular elites – or both? In an attempt to answer this question about Iran’s future orientation, thousands of lives were lost. Now we know the answer – the religious establishment won.

Khomeini appointed Bazargan as a prime minister to bring political order and economic stability, but the latter failed to do so effectively due to his limited powers compared with a ruling organization known as the Council of the Islamic Republic, which issued laws and decrees undermining the Bazargan government’s policies. Transformation into religious frameworks continued from schoolbooks to the highest forms of education, enforcing Islamic teachings in social life and creating a religiously colored rhetoric in media and political discourse. Universities closed for two years in an attempt to review all educational subjects so they comply with Islamic teachings. We see similar changes happening in Syria especially in rebel-held areas and refugee camps inside and outside the Syrian borders. Non-religious books have been replaced by religious or religiously colored ones.

As in Iran, opposition factions, religious and non-religious, are unwilling or unable to solve the division of what Syria should look like in the future or whether it should be dominated by a religious establishment or secular elites. Obviously so far, Islamic factions have the upper hand in changing events on the ground. The attempt to improve political, economic and social conditions for Syrians turned into a dominantly social revolution aiming at changing social structures. Islamic insurgent groups, most notably Al-Nusra Front, Jaish Al-Fatah and Jaish Al-Islam, are not only fighting against the Assad regime in an attempt to sieze power but also to keep enforcing specific ways of religious conduct in the areas they do hold, putting the whole upheaval in a religious framework – Sunnis against the rest. Syria is now more likely to move in the direction of a Sunni, although perhaps more fragmented, Iran in the Middle East.