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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Jul-2009
Tens of thousands protest in Tehran after Rafsanjani says Iran is "in crisis "

Web Log - July, 2009

Tens of thousands protest in Tehran after Rafsanjani says Iran is "in crisis "

It was just yesterday that I heard that the protests were all finished.

In fact, the BBC was reporting this all day on Thursday. But they should have waited a day.

The thought that the protests and demonstrations had been completely crushed was widely believed among journalists, commentators, analysts and pundits. Many of them used as a historical comparison the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, where the Chinese army slaughtered hundreds or thousands of unarmed students, crushing the demonstrations and protests.

But as I've been writing all along, Tiananmen Square is the wrong historical analogy, because it occurred at the wrong time in the generational timeline.

The best and most familiar historical analogy is America's 1967 Summer of Love and the following events, including the violence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

(For information about generational eras, see "Basics of Generational Dynamics." For information about America's Awakening era in the 1960s, see "Boomers commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love.")

Friday's demonstrations were timed to coincide with a major speech by Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful cleric and former president, who supported the opposition candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi in the recent election won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In his speech, Rafsanjani urged the release of prisoners who had been detained for protesting, and warned that the government was in crisis:

"Today is a bitter day. People have lost their faith in the regime and their trust is damaged. It's necessary to regain people's consent and restore their trust in the regime. Everyone has lost. ...

Doubt has been created [about the election results]. There is a large portion of wise people who say they have doubts. We need to take action to remove this doubt. Where people are not present or their vote is not considered, that government is not Islamic."

This was a thinly veiled attack on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.

Those inside and outside of Iran who have been expecting or hoping for an end to the demonstrations are going to end soon will be disappointed. Even if Khamenei and Ahmadinejad step down, and were replaced by Rafsanjani and Moussavi, the protests wouldn't stop.

On the other hand, those who expect a violent revolution to overthrow the regime will also be disappointed. These confrontation will be political, with only minor violence.

In fact, I would expect the demonstrations to become even more chaotic in the fall, when the students return to college.

Generational Dynamics predicts that these protests and demonstrations become even more chaotic, and will continue for years, through Iran's generational Awakening era.

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the Iran thread of the Generational Dynamics forum.) (18-Jul-2009) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Jul-2009 Tens of thousands protest in Tehran after Rafsanjani says Iran is "in crisis "

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Jul-2009
Tens of thousands protest in Tehran after Rafsanjani says Iran is "in crisis "