Since 1979, the militant meddling of the Islamic Republic of Iran has thrown the Middle East off balance. Now, after nearly two weeks of mass protests across most of the country, the people of Iran might have unbalanced the regime – although not yet in any material way.
The number of protesters on the streets since Dec. 28 is not as large as protests in 2009 and 2022-23. And this time, the triggering issue is steep inflation and a devalued currency, not a rigged election or the killing of a young woman for showing her hair.
But today’s protesters have shown high admiration for a few heroes who exemplify a dignity eagerly asserted by Iranians – and which highlights how much the people have eroded the regime’s claim to moral supremacy.
Just before the protests began, Iranians were glued to a BBC documentary, “Taraneh,” about acclaimed film actress Taraneh Alidoosti. Jailed briefly for her resistance to the regime and then banned from working in movies, her calm and selfless demeanor – especially in wearing no headscarf – ignited a social media storm. Her story, the BBC stated, is “emblematic of broader aspirations for a freer Iran grounded in dignity.”
“Alidoosti reminds us that the struggle over Iran’s future is fought not only on the negotiating table and on the battlefield but also in the quiet, costly decision to speak and to remain standing,” wrote Negar Karamati, a former U.S.-based Persian-language news editor, in The Jerusalem Post.
Then, as the protests revved up, a video went viral of a lone, hooded man sitting on a street in Tehran trying to block police officers on motorcycles. While questions remain about whether the video was altered, it nonetheless triggered memories of the iconic image of “Tank Man” on China’s Tiananmen Square in 1989. And it inspired artists to depict the man’s composed bravery.
Another inspiration was an Instagram video by a man who, after being shot during a protest, appealed to the riot police by saying “I am just like you, by God.” He also, bravely, gave his real name.
All of this fits into what Menahem Merhavy, a historian of modern Iran, described as Iranians quietly constructing “an alternative moral order rooted … in dignity, bodily autonomy, and truth-telling.”
“This bottom-up civil religion now challenges the core of the Islamic republic’s political theology more effectively than any party or organized opposition,” he wrote in Foreign Policy last month.
The new moral framework relies on a Persian meaning for dignity, or keramat (divine grace), which protesters describe as the core of ethical life, or giving without expecting anything in return.
The regime’s lost moral authority cannot be reversed through repression alone, Dr. Merhavy stated.
“A political system can endure material crises, but enduring a crisis of meaning.”
