Egypt and Iran:
Different looks at people power
No sooner had the announcement come than the streets of Cairo
exploded in joyful celebration. The hated autocrat was gone. A new era
was ushered in with cheers, tears and the cacophony of car horns.
And so it was in Tehran - 32 years before to the day.
On February 11, 1979, the commander of the Iranian air force
announced on national radio that the armed forces were withdrawing from
the fight to save the American-backed regime of Shah Mohammed Reza
Pahlavi, who had already fled the country three weeks before in the face
of burgeoning street protests against his autocratic rule.
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In this December 10, 1978 file
picture, thousands crowd the streets during demonstrations
against the shah in Tehran. The popular revolt against the
shah raised alarm bells in the West, which saw the shah as a
trusted ally and counterweight to hard-line Arab regimes and
Palestinian radicals. The face of the revolution was
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whose demeanor, vehemently
anti-American rhetoric and stern interpretation of Islam
challenged not only Western interests but also Western
values. AP Photo |
With the military gone, the Iranian monarchy collapsed and with it
any chance that the shah would return from what had been spun as a
vacation - ironically to Anwar Sadat’s Egypt.
As the troops returned to barracks, Tehran erupted into wild
celebrations - punctuated by the deafening din of thousands of horns.
The popular revolt against the shah raised alarm bells in the West,
which saw the prickly monarch as a trusted ally and counterweight to
hard-line Arab regimes and Palestinian radicals. The face of the
revolution was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whose demeanor, vehemently
anti-American rhetoric and stern interpretation of Islam challenged not
only Western interests but also Western values.
Egypt’s revolutionaries of today appear far less threatening,
representing a broad spectrum of Internet-savvy youth, mainstream
politicians and Islamists bound together by hatred of President Hosni
Mubarak and a desire for a more open, democratic system. The closest
thing to a symbol of Egypt’s uprising was a 30-year-old Google
executive, whose passionate, tearful remarks made on a private
television station after his release from detention drove many
modern-thinking, middle-class Egyptians into the streets.
Nevertheless, the images from Tehran a generation ago and from Cairo
on Friday’s “Night of Liberation” were uncannily familiar. The palpable
sense of relief the euphoria among the government’s opponents the
carnival-like atmosphere he explosion of national pride and the blind
faith that the new regime would be more just, more equitable and more
democratic than the old.
Iran’s masses were no less hungry for democracy than the Egyptians
who crowded into Cairo’s central Tahrir Square to demand an end to
Mubarak’s rule. Where the Iranians put their trust in Muslim clerics to
bring about a just and equitable society, the Egyptians turned to the
secular-minded army to give the Mubarak regime a final push.
Egypt’s young revolutionaries used the tools of the 21st century -
the Internet, Facebook and Twitter - to organize the first protests in
late January. After the Government unplugged the Internet and shut down
mobile phones, Egyptians turned to Arabic language television stations -
Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya and Alhurra - for word of what was happening on
the streets.
No such technological wonders were available to the Iranian
opposition. Messages and sermons from Ayatollah Khomeini, who was in
exile in Paris until the final days of the uprising, were spread by
cassette tapes that were smuggled into the country, copied and
distributed to mosques throughout the country.
From the mosques, information spread by word of mouth through a
nationwide network of clerics and intellectuals who grew ever bolder as
the shah’s security services began to disintegrate.
Instead of turning to the likes of Al-Jazeera for news, Iranians
relied on crackling shortwave broadcasts by the British Broadcasting
Corp.’s Persian language service, which the shah’s government tried
repeatedly to jam. At one time or another, nearly every Western
journalist in Iran pretended to be from the BBC when confronted by
protesters who were sometimes hostile to Americans. Every Khomeini
supporter seemed to know how to say in English: “Ah, you BBC? BBC very
good.”
Tehran University was transformed into a giant speaker’s corner,
where people could come every day to listen to anti-regime cleric rail
against the shah and his American backers.
It took Egypt’s demonstrators only 18 days to force out Mubarak, who
had ruled the country for nearly three decades. Although arson and
looting broke out briefly in late January - presumably instigated by
state security to frighten the public and discredit the protests - the
anti-Mubarak movement was remarkably peaceful and disciplined. Most of
the violence appeared instigated by the police and thugs believed paid
by the ruling party, who ran wild for a few days until the army reined
them in.
Banks closed and ATMs ran out of cash. Groceries began running short
on supplies. By and large, however, life in much of the capital
continued as it had before - even as crowds in Tahrir Square grew ever
larger.
Not so the Iranian uprising. It began in January 1978 with street
demonstrations against the shah. By the end of the year, the country was
paralyzed by strikes and demonstrations. Government ministries all but
ceased functioning. Airlines stopped flying to Tehran. With a daily 9 pm
curfew, which was brutally enforced in the capital, Iranians huddled in
their dark, unheated homes, listening to the periodic bursts of gunfire
that punctuated the night.
Protesters grew ever more violent. The shah’s Imperial Guard did not
hesitate to fire on unarmed demonstrators, some of whom were willing -
sometimes even eager - for martyrdom. Comrades would cheer and shout
“martyr” as their fellow protesters fell to gunfire.
Violence was not limited to government forces. Young demonstrators
hurled firebombs - gasoline poured into soft drink bottles and lit with
a rag - at the Guardsmen. A police colonel was dragged from his car and
beaten into a fatal coma as protesters ripped off parts of his uniform
and threw them into the trees.
Food supplies, electricity and cooking gas were scarce.
As chaos engulfed Tehran, the shah left on January 16, 1979, leaving
the Government in the hands of his appointed prime minister. Khomeini
returned two weeks later to a massive reception by millions of people.
Less than two weeks after Khomeini returned, air force technicians at
a base in Tehran mutinied, setting off a day and night of street
fighting. A monarchial system that had lasted for more than 2,000 years
crumbled.
Egypt’s revolt achieved its main goal - Mubarak’s ouster - before the
conflict had torn apart the fabric of Egyptian society.
After Mubarak resigned Friday, Egyptians partied in the streets,
waved huge flags, set off fireworks and sang patriotic songs until dawn.
Three decades before, the collapse of the shah’s regime triggered
three terrifying days of looting, arson and street fighting.
Pro-Khomeini groups stormed prisons and police stations, looting weapons
and hunting down Imperial Guardsmen and other members of the old regime.
The yearlong revolution had polarized society and built up tensions that
exploded as the Khomeini loyalists struggled to restore order.
A fanatical mullah broadcasts a call on state radio to hunt down and
punish foreigners, prompting Khomeini’s staff to issue a counter order
to protect non-Iranians. Rival militias seized the Intercontinental
Hotel, home to most foreign journalists, until Khomeini loyalists
arrived and ran them off.
The shah’s regime resisted the demands of the street and collapsed,
setting in motion social and political forces that still trouble the
country and the region a generation later. Mubarak stepped down, and the
world now waits to see if the fallout will be different.
AP
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