what does revolot occur? what ensured it success
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OPINION /TUNISIA
What makes a revolution succeed?
While the aspirations are different, Egyptians could take five lessons from Iran's 1979 revolt.
Roxane Farmanfarmaianby Roxane Farmanfarmaian
14 Feb 2011 GMT+3
While Egypt's army is popular, trusting military forces is not always the best plan for revolutionaries [GALLO/GETTY]
On February 12, 32 years this week, Iran proclaimed its revolution a success: the Shah was gone, the military had been decimated, and a new era could dawn.
Although what followed turned out very differently than what the Egyptians are hoping for, Iran's was one of the great revolutions of the 20th century, and Egyptians might well look to it for inspiration in their effort to oust an entrenched regime and gain new rights.
Today, the Egyptian military has assumed command, with promises of free and fair elections. Does this mean the demonstrators can go home and trust their army? Egypt and Iran are very different, their aspirations and media eons apart, and, one hopes, the future the Egyptians construct will be more democratic and safe for those reaching for popular victory.
Nonetheless, for those along the Nile facing quickly changing events, the Iranian revolution offers some useful lessons.
Lesson one: Revolutions take time
From the day when the Iranian revolution is generally thought to have begun, sparked by the death of 400 people in a theatre fire in Abadan, Iran's main oil city, to the pronouncement of victory on February 12, 1979, a year and a month had elapsed.
Demonstrations took place both in winter snow and searing summer heat, people were shot, the uprisings after their initial newsworthiness was no longer featured by the international media. But the rallies continued and grew, the people hung on, the sacrifices they had already made driving them to over-turning a military regime.
In Egypt, we are seeing the demands shift as the true purpose of the uprising becomes clear – to remove the regime, not just its many Gorgan-like heads. Mubarak's resignation, and the shift into military hands, may mean little. Changing a regime is a lengthy process, requiring vision and organisation, and, as the Iranian demonstrators discovered, tenacity.
Lesson two: Entrenched regimes don't leave quietly
After three weeks of upheaval, Mubarak may, or may not, be truly gone. Significantly, he is still in Egypt; ousted presidents, such as Tunisia's Ben Ali, are usually not really 'gone' until they are in exile. The Shah hung on for a year despite the continuous chants of "Death to the Shah". In his last days, like Mubarak, the Shah attempted to create a transitional government drawn from the existing regime, replacing his prime minister with a new though trusted face.
The Shah, in fact, went through three prime ministers – first one with a democratic reputation, then a general, finally a member of one of Iran's great tribes and leader of the main opposition party – the National Front (though by then, it was but a shell).
The people in the streets accepted none of them. Like Egypt's vice president Omar Suleiman, the Shah's hand-picked leaders made small concessions accompanied by threats: the people had to go home, the military was in control and running out of patience, democracy Western-style was not appropriate for Middle Easterners.
For Iranians, like Egyptians, the important point was to rid themselves of an elitist, corrupt regime, whoever was at its helm. And so the demonstrations continued even after the Shah fled, ensuring the existing edifice in its entirety was at last swept away.
Lesson three: The army is not reliable
Unlike in Egypt so far, the Iranian military - at the time considered the fifth most powerful in the world - did not refrain from turning on its people.
The Friday Massacre in October 1978 was only one of many instances when the army shot live ammunition into the crowds. And, although to date, the Egyptian military has refrained from such outright attacks, the risk of it turning violent hangs perpetually over the people in the streets.
The army, which now commands the government, has made strong calls for stability, indicating the risk is chaos if rallies continue. Yet, despite similar statements from the army in Iran, the demonstrators continued. Though there had been bloodshed, demonstrators there refused to turn their ire on the army, and eventually, they wore the soldiers down.
Flowers were hung from the barrels of their guns. Families, friends and neighbours hugged and chatted with the soldiers as they marched by them in the streets, draping banners across the tanks parked on the sidewalks, spraying slogans on their metal sides, and festooning them with posters.