Cultural Conflict and Violence
Conflict Resolution in Iran's Women Revolution 2022 and the Limitations to Peacemaking
By Ella Levien
Date: 22 May 2023
Overseas protests supporting the Iran’s Women Revolution.
Courtesy of Taymaz Valley (2022).
The Iran’s Women Revolution exemplifies a lot of current trends in the science of international conflict. Global conflicts have increasingly turned internal and it is a common crux for international actors on what to do if citizens are not protected by their own state and if the state itself becomes the enemy. Commonly, internal conflicts like these often have a high likelihood of overspilling to the international arena and henceforth have critical importance for monitoring purposes in the name of conflict prevention. How do we, in turn, implement peace when there is cultural violence within a system against a specific group? We are going to try to approach this question by looking at past successes and by a closer look at the culture specifics of Iran. This question touches upon debates of transitional justice, emancipatory and positive peace, and conflict transformation. I am going to conclude with a critical perspective on violence, highlighting the limits of peacemaking and conflict resolution.
Since September 2022, political riots in Iran have been ongoing. The reason for this is the murder of Mahsa Amini by the morality police on the 16th of September. The morality police is an established structure of state enforcement in order to check on citizens´ conformity with the shariah law that rules the country. Which refers to a set of rules and norms for the public, allegedly derived from a combination of the Quran, the holy book of Islam, and teachings from the prophet Muhammad and has been implemented since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 (Ahrari, 1996).
Women alongside allies are fighting for their human rights and call for an end of oppressive structures. In Iran, we have seen riots against the authoritarian regime a multitude of times, however, when analyzing intensity and endurance of the current protest for women’s rights, we can see the conflict’s strength precedes that of previous ones. Academia surrounding peacemaking have highlighted the gendered aspect in conflict and conflict resolution since a while now, stressing that the relationship with power has always been influenced by gender and gender roles (Angom, 2018).
The Milad Tower, Tehran City, capital of Iran.
Courtesy of Youngrobv (2008).
Analysis
So, what can peacemaking and conflict resolution do in this case? The first step is always negotiation, even though mediation is probably best suited as this conflict is not really of territorial nature and has deep rooted complex ideological components (Martin Díz, 2022). Conflict prevention, conflict transformation and activistic means of system change are key here. A power transfer that is violent has been historically not effective in achieving an enduring and stable peace but has often led to a next surge of conflict. This is, in turn, often the reason for international organizations to be weary of civil unrest and revolutions, but also might be a crucial means of understanding the conservative nature of so-called international “protectors of peace”. Therefore, it is of importance to consider, under the aegis of 3rd generation peacemaking principles and guidelines, how to achieve a sustainable peace for the country.
Negotiations between the two conflict parties could lead to a political agreement that could at least maybe stop current executions of people who participated in the riots. However, agreements like these have often proven to be temporary and hence conflicts are always subject to recurrence, as for instance the case with the Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement with the USA (Samore et al., 2015). The JCPOA example is part of peacemaking’s negotiation mechanism through the means of diplomacy which operates through the imposition of sanctions. Sanctions could be the first step of the international community to react if things continue to escalate, however, scholars point out the ramifications of these and warn of this approach. Fathollah-Nejad argues that meanwhile on the surface, the JCPOA (and it sanctions) has been a successful agreement to the outside, from an emic perspective in Iran it has hardened the opposing fronts and therefore prolonged the conflict between Iran and the West, and on the other, have cemented the domestic power structure in the Islamic Republic and weakened Iran’s civil society (2014).
The crucial limitation of international actors and international conflict resolution here, are the principles of non-interference and sovereignty, which makes Iran hold the legitimacy to design its national policies and laws as it may, and international intervention could bear unforeseeable costs. This is particularly true with regards to recent criticisms of the commonly employed phrase “for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing”, in the context of post justifications for states internal interests, it is important to highlight the inherent local dimension of this conflict, especially given Iran’s past with Western designed interventions and failed liberal blueprint solutions (Oliveira T. Santos, 2022; Walton, 2009).
So what have scholars previously suggested to solve issues surrounding Iran´s authoritarian regime? Considering the Iranian distaste of a liberal peace strategy, an alternative that is often suggested is strategic traditionalism, which focuses especially on designing peacemaking operations primarily not by humanitarian principles but according to the national interest of the state (Walton, 2009). However, this begs the question of who determines what the national interest is? Even if 3rd generation peacemaking empathizes working with local organizations which could be instrumentalized for this question, a national interest most likely consists of multiple interests (Walton, 2009).
Protest in Melbourne against police brutality and dictatorship in Iran.
Courtesy of Matt Hrkac (2022).
Another important method is transitional justice. Useful here could be the usage of precise assessments of communities’ needs and perceptions of and attitudes from a variety of ethnic, religious and political backgrounds towards peace and justice to design peacemaking (Nagy, 2008). However, its mechanisms such as trials, truth commissions, reparations and methods to redress inequalities and distributive injustices rarely work within the context of the Iranian regime. The scholar Mani is particularly attuned to the transitional justice feature of drawing on local knowledge and culture for sustainable peace (2002). An example of this could be the potential of epistemic communities in the role of policymaking in the area of conflict transformation.
Recognising the agency of the clergy is crucial in countries especially like Iran and an ´epistemic communities’ framework could place religious ‘agents’ into context in contemporary politics (Ahu Sandal, 2011). Considering the influence some cleric leaders exhibit, individual religious leaders come up with innovative interpretations of a text, challenge dominant, violent and local theologies, and get support from the international community of Islamic scholars, similar to the way we have seen in the South African and Northern Irish cases (Ahu Sandal, 2011). The advantage to this approach is that it increases the sensitivity to local and cultural factors as well as identity construction and perpetuation, leading to a greater understanding of the evolution of a new international political order.
In addition, it draws critical attention to the impact of sacred texts, practices and interpretation on national and international practices, most notably to the effect of theological interpretations on conflict resolution. These epistemic communities can consist of experts in theology who are confident in using theological knowledge to change the understandings that created the conflict and who meet regularly, share theoretical and practical ideas. Ahu-Sandal illustrates that changes in the dominant public theologies of the mainstream religious institutions can contribute to stabilizing political arrangements (2011).
But what is to be done if the elites in a state are simply unwilling to sit down for any of such transformations? In these cases, I argue, the international arena should be encouraged to apply pressure to coerce conversation between two parties. However, contrary to peacemaking paradigms, recalling Fanon, I claim that violence might be a preliminary necessity, in cases of an elite remaining unwilling to give up their privileges despite international pressures. Peacemaking here can assist with peacebuilding and peacekeeping after a violent revolution to prevent recurrent authoritarianism or similar threats to justice and wellbeing.
Iran law enforcement officers standing next to women in hijab.
Courtesy of Ebrahim Noroozi (2007).
Conclusion
As this conflict is fairly new, it is difficult to assess its effects and interventions attempts, which the international community so far has avoided. For this reason, I can only provide estimated recommendations for conflict resolution strategies in the future based on past analysis. So far, international interventions seem unlikely as the regime seems to successfully suppress Iranian voices through its stringent state control majorly in the form of the death penalty, which subsequently automatically regulates the unrest.
Peacemaking, traditionally, has its purposes of preventing, reducing and limiting violence, however, concerning structural oppression, the violence of non-violence (the process by which deliberate non-action amounts to more violence for certain groups) needs to be recognized, as this is an aspect in which peacemaking falls short. The oppression of women restimulates the thought of what we ought to define as a violent conflict and calls for a discussion about the future role of the peacemaking operations and entity as a whole.
I have laid out possible strategic mediation and negotiation methods customized to Iran´s context and culture that could prove theoretically ideal. However, for this to happen, the parties involved in the conflict need to showcase a willingness for conflict resolution, something of which there is no observable evidence. Of course, the point to be made here and the problem to grasp is way bigger than to possibly be adequately represented in this short report but can provide some leading points as to how peacemaking in Iran could look like.
Iranian women looks outside of her house as US soldiers passes by
Courtesy of US Army (2008).
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