Without the virality of protest images in Iran via the internet and social networks, the protests that have been taking place since mid-September and the death of the young Mahsa Amini would not have met with such an international echo. A popular pressure which, in spite of an intense repression, seems to act on the mode: the authorities announced Saturday, December 3 the abolition of the police of morals, at the origin of the death of Mahsa Amini.
The numerical agility they demonstrate in this movement is not new to Iranians. From the end of the 1990s, young and old, in Tehran but also in the rest of the country, positioned themselves strongly on the Internet, taking a step ahead of the censorship of the mullahs. A pioneer of blogs in Persian, Hossein Derakhshan, journalist and media specialist, embodies for a whole generation of Iranians the father of “blogging” at a time when the Internet was in its infancy in this country. Nicknamed “Hoder”, like his blogger handle, which is still active in English and Persianhe spent six years in Iranian jails for having advocated rapprochement with the United States and Israel, where he had gone when it is strictly forbidden for Iranians.
Now exiled in Europe, the Iranian-Canadian takes a concerned look at the events that are shaking up his country of origin. In 2018-2020 he invented, on Twitter and in Persian, a political fiction imagining a peaceful revolution in Iran. Unlike many opponents, he still calls himself a “reformer”, considering that the majority of Iranians do not want a radical change of regime. For L’Express, he recounts the early passion of Iranians for the internet, and delivers his analysis of current events.
L’Express: You are often referred to as the “father” of the blog generation. What do you remember of that time and how do you explain that the internet had such a rapid expansion in the country?
Hossein Derakhshan: Iranians are the most curious, but also the most narcissistic and paranoid in the Middle East! Blogs embodied a form of perfect response to these character traits. However, their instant success amazed me, even as a “prophet” of this quasi-religion. At the time of the emergence of this phenomenon, I spent several months helping people to set up their blog, to promote this medium to journalists, to create “templates” (models) to be able to write in Persian on the Internet, to answer questions from Internet users… Before discovering blogs, I was a journalist in an extremely popular reformist newspaper in the 90s, and I wrote the first section of the Iranian press devoted to the Internet. and digital culture, where I explained to readers the ongoing digital revolution. I was the first journalist to print his email address with his real name in the newspaper, and I managed to convince other columnists to do so in 1998. I felt that I was promoting the strongest force democratization in Iran during those years. I had to leave Iran after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered the closure of all these reformist newspapers. This is where I discovered blogging, a few months after September 11, 2001, when I immigrated to Toronto. Blogs have democratized writing in Iran and I am very proud to have had a major role in their emergence.
Hossein Derakhshan, Iranian-Canadian journalist
Hossein Derakhshan
How is it that at the time the Iranians were already very connected?
The reformist government of Mohammad Khatami [1997-2004] had an important role in promoting blogs, encouraging private companies in Iran to create their native platforms. Millions of people then created a blog in Persian. Later, this allowed for an easy transition to social media. The moderate government of Hassan Rouhani [au pouvoir de 2013 à 2021] has also done a lot in spreading high speed internet to smaller villages in Iran. They also kept Instagram and Telegram messaging accessible against the advice of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his de facto political party, the Revolutionary Guards. [milice du régime]. These revolts would be unimaginable without smartphones, their cameras and the mobile internet, which reformist and moderate politicians in Iran have defended against all odds. It’s not very fashionable to be a reformer these days for many reasons, but it cannot be denied that many cultural and social changes today in the country are a direct result of the people’s vote for the reformist and moderate governments that paved the way.
Iranians still seem very connected despite the cuts. How do they access the internet? Do you think this movement can be called a “revolution via social networks”?
I think all of life these days is lived in part through the media. This also includes demonstrations and revolts. But the technology that changes everything here is smartphones and their cameras. Because even without mobile internet or without social networks, these images could be sent to television stations abroad to be broadcast. In truth, I think a lot of people are unable to afford VPNs [réseau virtuel privé qui permet de se connecter au réseau public de manière anonyme, NDLR] to circumvent cuts, or pay for international bandwidth, which is more expensive than internal bandwidth [les sites locaux qui n’ont pas besoin d’un trafic international]. The regime has tried to make international bandwidth more and more expensive, and this is one of the methods they use to prevent people from using western network platforms. Recent Instagram and WhatsApp filters have greatly affected people’s ability to use them. According to the authorities, these measures have halved the use of international bandwidth. However, no one trusts national platforms, which are mostly state-made or tied to it.
A few years ago, the authorities announced a “national” internet plan, cut off from the rest of the world, where is this project going?
There was a massive and extremely expensive project pushed personally by Khamenei, despite resistance from Rouhani’s moderate government. This would mean that the global internet only becomes accessible through the use of VPNs that only an elite can use, and that the others must content themselves with sites authorized in Iran. But the implementation of this infrastructure has been confronted with technical and financial blockages, in particular because of international sanctions. It will still take years to get this up and running and this must have resulted in significant frustration for Ali Khamenei.
What is your general feeling about the current movement? Do you think it will lead to regime change?
If by regime change you mean the regime falls without outside intervention, I don’t think a majority of Iranians want that at this point. The middle class does not currently have a better alternative, which can guarantee that there will not be the same bloodbath of the 1979 revolution. Even the workers are not convinced and we do not yet see them in large number. However, all of this may change if the regime continues to deny the need for change at the head of state.
You are a supporter of the reformers: there was a time when Iranians also wanted reform from within, but this position is today much criticized by opponents abroad and demonstrators on the spot.
Reform is always possible in any system. I know that’s not a very fashionable thought. But being considered an intellectual, I must tell the truth, not follow trends. I think the reformers have lost the ability to push reforms because they have abandoned their strategy of the 90s, which was a combination of “pressure from the street, negotiation at the top”. We have seen in recent years that elections are ineffective if they are not accompanied by massive street protests, and we are now seeing that protests are not very effective if there are not elected moderates or reformists in various positions in parliament or government.
I think we now need to organize a big massive protest in Tehran around the Parliament, even besiege the Parliament in a peaceful way, and stay there until the demands for free and independent elections under international control are accepted. Then the new Parliament and the government can change the constitution and set up the Third Republic of Iran, without a supreme religious leader. This will abolish what is in effect a religious monarchy. By using this hybrid strategy, namely the pressure of the street and the role of elected officials, it will be possible to force Khamenei to sign the end of his absolute monarchy, just as Ahmad Shah, king of the Qajar dynasty, had signed the constitution in 1911 in Iran.