Iran: Leaders, Followers, and Global Revolution

Progressives around the world were transfixed by the brief cri de coeur in Iran. Nearly all coverage and analysis stayed safely within the nation-state box. But there was one aspect of the spontaneous movement that went virtually unreported: it had no real leader.

Initially, Mir-Hossein Mousavi seemed as bewildered and befuddled by his sudden symbolic status as anyone, and with good reason. Though an artist and architect, indicating a sensibility not compatible with the machinations of politics, he was the last Prime Minister of Iran, before the post was dissolved in 1989.

That means Mousavi was Prime Minister during the incomprehensible slaughter of the Iran-Iraq war, which lasted from 1981 to 1989. Some may recall that Iran sent tens of thousands of young men and boys to their deaths in human wave attacks, often without any weapons.

Half a million soldiers and civilians were killed on both sides of that pointless atrocity, many through the use of chemical weapons by Iraq that were provided by the United States.

At the time, the US government prevented the UN from condemning the attacks. Then, in a policy reversal that makes Machiavelli look like a putz, Iraq’s use of chemical weapons was used as casus belli for Gulf Wars I and II by Bush I and II.

Whether the aging revolutionary Mousavi has any real sympathies for the mostly young and passionate protesters of a rigged election is not clear. What is clear is that the uprising was a short-lived movement without a leader. The question is: Would it have made any difference if Mousavi were willing and able to play the role of traditional leader?

Absurdly, the Western media tried in vain to portray Mousavi as a Gandhi or Mandela. But as the expatriate Iranian writer Behnam Khatibi says, “Mousavi is not leading the call for greater democracy and liberty in Iran, he is merely following it.”

Though the desire of many Iranians for change was ruthlessly quashed, there is an upside to their mature expression of outrage. They have gone underground, but their passions are truly transnational. Their demand to be heard and counted resonated beyond Iranian politics because it’s source is beyond Iranian politics.

As Khatibi says, “the degeneration of the [Iranian] revolution has also produced an entire generation of Iranians that want a different mode of life altogether, one that is not permeated by religiosity.”

Because such transnational sentiments came from within the Iranian people themselves, and struck such a chord in people around the world, the theocrats believe that it came from outside, from America, or even more absurdly, Britain.

As for America, the constraints of history, entrenched US foreign policy, and the presidency itself have conspired to box Barack in where Iran, and the world, are concerned. The man who used a basketball expression some years back to proclaim his genius at playing the political game (“I got game!”) has no choice but to negotiate with a militarized theocracy (is there any other kind?) with regard to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In other words, as millions of Iranians and billions of ordinary people around the world hope that Obama will be their voice and “create the space where all people can engage,” as a friend put it to me recently, Barack must focus on how many uranium enrichment devices Iran can possess.

Though the outpouring of outrage in Iran was but a brief burst in Barack’s “long arc of history,” it demonstrated that it is and always was too late for Obama to step into the role that the hopes of billions of people had molded for him—that of avatar of a newfound comity of nations.

Contrary to conventional thinking, followers make leaders what they are much more than leaders affect the character of followers. Political leaders are much more constrained than putative followers. The follower can stop being one, and affect things in a more essential way; the leader’s raison d’etre is set at being a leader.

To lead (in the sense of going first or pointing the way) is a completely different thing than being or becoming a political leader. Rarely do political leaders lead. Gandhi and Mandela are exceptions that prove the rule, and Obama, sad to say, is not in their league.

A revolution without a leader is a revolution without followers. There is the necessity of leadership, and some must lead (that is, go first), but there is no need whatsoever for followers. Not in spiritual matters, nor in political matters.

All previous revolutions have been reactions to existing orders, to tyranny, or to oppression. But the existing international economic and political order is collapsing anyway, despite the Chosen One’s best efforts to prop it up, so an overthrow is not necessary.

Many people have pollyannaishly and prematurely argued that a revolution in consciousness is already taking place. But the short-lived revolution in Iran may be the first evidence that something is building across the world, and that it may, just may, reverse the spin of a dying globe.

Is the first non-violent global revolution imminent? It certainly won’t be a function of revolt against an existing order. It will be an overthrow of the entire mentality of nationalism and followership.

- Martin LeFevre is a contemplative, and non-academic religious and political philosopher. He has been publishing in North America, Latin America, Africa, and Europe (and now New Zealand) for 20 years. Email: martinlefevre@sbcglobal.net. The author welcomes comments.

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