War Over Words in Iran:

From manydrums @ twitter #iranelection #greensafeIt is a mistake to believe that the Green movement is leaderless. It merely does not conform to preconceived — and unexamined — notions about leadership.Incognizant of different kinds of leadership, writers look around with bloodshot eyes to find someone in the Green movement who is comparable to a Martin Luther King, a Mandela, a Ghandi. Someone they can write a journalistic benchmark about; publish a cool photo of (the sun limning the worry lines on a heroic face, eyes ablaze, chin tilted in defiance).Yes, there are high-profile players: Karroubi, Montazeri, Sanei. And people whose status has never really been clear: Rafsanjani, Mousavi, and so on and on and on. But none of these high-profile players fully meet the criteria of 'leader'. Are they in charge? No. But someone is. Or, more accurately, many are. For the Green movement uses what is known as Fluid Leadership.What is fluid leadership? Let's start with a simple concept: "Be not afraid of greatness: some are born to greatness, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them." (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II:5) Being born to greatness means you inherit leadership from your ancestors — you are a king. Achieving greatness means you have the means to attend ivy league universities, mingle among the influential, be groomed into leadership. Having greatness thrust upon you: well that is for the great unwashed masses such as ourselves. That is about rising to the occasion, finding substance where you thought there was nothing, going the extra mile, That is what grassroots movements are made of.Each of the three kinds of leadership use different methodologies. In grassroots movements, whoever has the clearest, most accurate view on the situation leads. When the situation changes, the leadership changes.In Iran, fluid leadership obviously has advantages. Planning and implementation are fast. There is no bureaucracy. Teams are formed from natural communities; they are not forced upon people. Team members know each other's ways intimately, have adjusted already to differences; their group performance has 'normed.'Also, no one leader is vulnerable to pressure from the regime. The regime cannot shut down the movement merely because they assassinate a cleric or an ex prime minister's nephew. Or throw courtesans into prison. Every time they take an unknown down, another unknown ten step into his/her shoes. And the unknown become known, stepping softly but irrevocably into the annals of history.How do we know there is any kind of leadership at all in the green movement? Look at the youtube videos. This is not a chaotic mob. You can see that people are using group tactics to lure security forces into traps, destroy regime property. You can see planned traffic jams, street blockades, sand on the streets to make Basij bikes skid. You can see planned hydroelectric brownouts, blackouts. You can see small groups of protesters move against the security forces and then back into the masses.Let's stop being groupies looking for the next Great Hero, folks. We have only to look at who is already in place — and be grateful that ordinary people, hopeful people, determined people, principled people are in charge. Let's come home: let's take our humanness back!

Thank you Reverend Magdalen, Fantastic point. Of course I agree with you that it is the right of the Iranians to choose their own government. In my called any potential insurrection "illegal," I was implying that such actions would be breaking the laws of the land. In international terms, I don't think anything I've seen so far from the Iranians is illegal. They have started all of their protests peacefully, and have only turned to violence AFTER being attacked, in which case their actions have been out of self defense. I also agree that Shahryar has made some points that refocus what we are doing abroad to help the situation. The responsibility of the bloggers, journalists, and activists should be moving information in and out of Iran. The secondary responsibility, in my eye, is to teach the world about Iran and to teach Iran about the outside world. We should fight for the ability to do this, to dialogue and to teach. If we say that the people in Iran deserve a voice and freeom to make their own choices about what government they have or religion they follow, then this directive can guide our own methadology. We need to be restricted to helping the Iranians do just that, speak and choose for themselves. When their own government limits their ability to do that, we need to help them. We also need to analyze and explain the situation. But if those outside Iran are fighting the revolution, then perhaps those people have crossed the line.Dear anonymous,I simply don't know enough about Fakhravar's self-promoting activities, so I must defer to those less ignorant than I, but from what I've seen Fakhravar has done SOME good by raising awareness of the situation inside Iran long before June 12, 2009. However, perhaps he is beginning to cross the line I described up above.Thank you both for your comments! Reverend, I will read your blog.

We can argue the finer points of language and reform vs. revolution, but Shahryar's real service in calling out Fakhravar was an understated reference to his self-promoting Chalabi-like agenda.

Thank you for these great thoughts! My only disagreement is your statement that insurrection is illegal. America's Founders believed that people have an inalienable right to choose their government, and they wrote that belief into the US Constitution in Article V, which gives us the ability to call a new Convention to overhaul our Constitution whenever we wish, and if 3/4 of states adopt the new one, it becomes the law of the land. So for United States citizens, like those now loudly proclaiming "This is 1776!" and carrying "Don't Tread On Me" flags because they're upset about tax policy, yes, it would be illegal for them to rise up in armed insurrection, since the mechanism of legal constitutional change is available to them. They don't need approval from anyone, just collect enough votes in enough states, and they can get whatever they want. They are free to demonstrate in any way they like in order to convince their fellow citizens to go along with this plan. They can buy time on any network and broadcast whatever political message they like. Iran is not like that. It has no true legal means of changing its constitution because the gatekeepers to that power are appointed by the unelected Supreme Leader, so it is not in fact possible for Iranians to really use any constitutional provisions they might have promising them the ability to write their own law of the land.In a case like that, of taxation without representation and autocratic rule with no popular legitimacy, insurrection is the method of last resort that people can use to free themselves from tyrants. This has come up in history before, and western thought has always sided with those who manage to throw off their oppressors and install true democracy; we consider it a right to do that. Whether or not the Greens in Iran do choose to revolt is not for us to say. We can speculate as to what we think the outcome would be, based on our historical knowledge of similar situations, and we can point out the terrible risks and consequences of such a monumental decision that can never be taken back and is sure to be drenched in tears, but we can't say that if they chose that they would be violating any legal principle, since the current government doesn't even pretend to be "of the people" but claims its legitimacy through religion, a principle we reject as unfair on its face.