Iran: What if the insurrection doesn’t end?

From Insurrection in Iran:
"Years of student strikes, militant street battles, workplace struggles, constant repression―and then a spark. One spark to unleash the tidal wave of rage and despair that was once confined to barely audible whispers behind closed doors. Now the fury is here and everyone is in the streets, young and old, men and women,militant and pacifist. No one is waiting any longer: Iran has exploded and not even the Islamic regime is surprised."



The Insurrection in Iran continues. Thousands upon thousands of Iranians continue to take to the street, putting their rage into practice. As politicians on all ends of the political spectrum scramble to take advantage of or control these events the insurrection at this point shows little signs of stopping nor of being recuperated into a specific political demand.

For updates and info on the insurrection please see Insurrection in Iran.


Timeline of events:
On Saturday June 13, after election results announced that Ahmadinejad had won, supporters of Mousavi took to the streets to protest. The next day, protests grew, as did violence. On the night of June 14, the pro-Ahmadinejad Basij paramilitary group raided Tehran University, injuring many.

On June 16, protests continued, and the Guardian Council announced a partial recount would be conducted; however, the vote was not annulled.

On Thursday, June 18, more than 100,000 protesters held a candle-light vigil in Tehran following Mousavi's call for a day of mourning for those killed in protests.
* It is interesting to note that Mousavi was one of the high ranking officials of the regime during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. He was involved in the death of a million Iranian youth in the war and played a key role in the execution of political prisoners including the massacre of 30,000 prisoners in summer of 1988.

On Friday, June 19, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini spoke during religious services, saying the election was legitimate and protests would no longer be tolerated. Protests occurred on a smaller scale. The next day, June 20, fewer protesters took to streets. At the protests that did occur, said to number in the tens of thousands of people, much violence occurred, causing many would-be protesters to stay in their homes the next day, Sunday, June 21.

On June 20 a young Iranian woman, identified as Neda Agha-Soltan, was shot by the Basij and died in front of cameras on Kargar Avenue in Tehran.





"They have no future to offer us; the democratic lie can’t hide this.
The children of the metropolis are everywhere bound by common conditions, by lived experience;no more so in the West than in Iran. It takes the uproar and rage of an entire generation born outside of the democratic process to expose its illusions and false hopes.

There could be so much more than a regime change. What if the insurrection doesn’t end? What if the fires keep burning, and spread to the whole of society? This is the real threat, the potential for revolution: that the return to the university, the workplace, and the home might not ever take place. That the paralysis becomes total, that finally there is no going back…

Fundamentally, we must reach this point of no return."