Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements

Editors:
Stefan Berger (Institute for Social Movements, Ruhr-University Bochum)
Holger Nehring (University of Stirling)

Editorial board:
John Chalcraft (London School of Economics)
Andreas Eckert (Humboldt-University, Berlin)
Susan Eckstein (Boston University)
Felicia Kornbluh (University of Vermont)
Jie-Hyun Lim (Research Institute for Comparative History, Hanyang University,
Seoul)
Marcel van der Linden (International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam)
Rochona Majumdar (University of Chicago)
Sean Raymond Scalmer (University of Melbourne)

Around the world, social movements have become legitimate, yet contested,
actors in local, national and global politics and civil society, yet we still know
relatively little about their longer histories and the trajectories of their devel-
opment. This new series seeks to promote innovative historical research on the
history of social movements in the modern period since around 1750. We bring
together conceptually-informed studies that analyse labour movements, new
social movements and other forms of protest from early modernity to the present.
We conceive of ‘social movements’ in the broadest possible sense, encompass-
ing social formations that lie between formal organisations and mere protest
events. We also offer a home for studies that systematically explore the political,
social, economic and cultural conditions in which social movements can emerge.
We are especially interested in transnational and global perspectives on the his-
tory of social movements, and in studies that engage critically and creatively with
political, social and sociological theories in order to make historically grounded
arguments about social movements. This new series seeks to offer innovative his-
torical work on social movements, while also helping to historicise the concept of
‘social movement’. It hopes to revitalise the conversation between historians and
historical sociologists in analysing what Charles Tilly has called the ‘dynamics of
contention’.

Titles in the Series:

Helena Dawes
CATHOLIC WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS IN LIBERAL AND FASCIST ITALY
Tamar Groves
TEACHERS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY IN SPAIN, 1970–1985
Tara Povey
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN EGYPT AND IRAN
Inna Shtakser
THE MAKING OF JEWISH REVOLUTIONARIES IN THE PALE
Community and Identity in the Russian Revolution, 1905–1907
Forthcoming Titles:

Matthias Reiss
BLIND RADICALISM
The Visually Impaired and the Welfare State in the 20th Century

Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements

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Social Movements in Egypt
and Iran
Tara Povey
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK
© Tara Povey 2015
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I dedicate this book to those who fight for bread, freedom
and social justice in Egypt, Iran and the region
This page intentionally left blank
Contents

Acknowledgements viii

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations ix

Note on Transliteration x

1 Introduction 1

2 Theorising Movements 21

3 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern

Iran 40

4 The Rise of Social Movements in Iran since the 1990s 72

5 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern

Egypt 97

6 The Rise of Social Movements in Egypt since the 1990s 127

7 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 156

Conclusion 192

Notes 198

Select Bibliography 219

Index 235

vii
Acknowledgements

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the courage and strength of will

shown by participants in movements in Egypt and Iran and thank those
who contributed to the fieldwork for this study for sharing with me
their time, energy, advice and ideas. In particular, I thank academics at
the American University in Cairo and Tehran University for their help
in contacting interview participants and for their invaluable knowledge
and support.
I would also like to thank Ahmad Shboul and all those who have con-
tributed their time and energy towards reviewing, editing and improv-
ing this book. Particular thanks go to Jason Giltay for all of his support
and encouragement. I thank the staff of Fisher Library at the Univer-
sity of Sydney, as well as the State Library of NSW, Macquarie University
Library, the Library of the University of Technology, Sydney, the Library
of the School of Oriental and African Studies and Senate House Library
in London, the Library of Tehran University and the Library of the
American University in Cairo.
This book would not have been possible without the help of all the
people in both Cairo and Tehran who showed incredible generosity in
discussing politics with me, as well as often feeding me and putting
me up in their homes. They also became my unofficial interpreters and
researchers and contributed to this book enormously. Lastly, I would like
to thank my mother Elaheh Rostami-Povey for all her help, ideas and
encouragement as well as for being a continuing source of inspiration.

viii
Acronyms and Abbreviations

AMCHAM American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt

DOC Dynamics of Contention
EFU Egyptian Feminist Union
EPCSI Egyptian Popular Committee in Solidarity with the
Intifada
FIS Islamic Salvation Front
IJMES International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
ILO International Labour Organization
IMF International Monetary Fund
IRP Islamic Republic Party
MERIP Middle East Research and Information Project
NDP National Democratic Party
NGO Non-Governmental Organisation
POS Political Opportunity Structure
PRA Participatory Research Approaches
RCC Revolutionary Command Council
RMT Resource Mobilisation Theory
SCAF Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
SMT Social Movement Theory
UN United Nations
WTO World Trade Organization

ix
Note on Transliteration

In this book I use the IJMES style of transliteration for all Arabic and Farsi
words, except when referring to the names of people, places, journals
and organisations where a different convention of transliteration exists
that is more commonly used.

x
1
Introduction

Since the 1990s large-scale social movements in the Middle East have
mobilised millions in opposition to authoritarian regimes often backed
by the West. In Egypt as in other dictatorships that were funded and
armed by Western governments, a variety of movements involving both
Islamic and secular activists opposed the regime of Mubarak and its
dependence on the US. In Iran, an Islamic reform movement challenged
the undemocratic and exclusivist nature of the Islamic state.
This book is about social movements in Egypt and Iran. It analyses
sectors of the reform movement in Iran and the groups and organisa-
tions that have formed the basis of the Egyptian opposition movement
since the early 1990s in their historical contexts. It argues that move-
ments seen on the streets of the region in the early 21st century have
not arisen out of a vacuum. Indeed they represent the culmination of
over twenty years of mobilisation by social movements. This mobilisa-
tion is itself part of a history of struggle in the region that dates back
over a century.
In the last few decades there has been intense interest both scholarly
and otherwise in the Middle East and Arab and Muslim societies. A large
amount of academic writing, fiction and non-fiction books and articles
have appeared on the subject of the Middle East and Islam, particularly
on the theme of Muslim women. Some, like Geraldine Brooks’ Nine Parts
of Desire or Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, owe their popularity to
their claim to give the Western reader a tantalising view of a foreign and
somehow ‘hidden’ society.1 This is stated explicitly in the sub-title of
Brooks’ work which refers to ‘the hidden world of Islamic women’. Inter-
est in the Arab and Muslim world and particularly in the position of Arab
and Muslim women is certainly not a new phenomenon. However, the
appearance and popularity of such works in Western countries comes at

1
2 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

a particular point in the historical development and political context of

countries in the West and in the Arab and Muslim world. Ideas about
Arab and Muslim societies are being produced and circulated at a time
when the West is playing a major role in these countries through mil-
itary and aid interventions. Specifically this is a period when Western
governments have conducted several wars in the region ostensibly in
the name of women’s rights and democracy.
Public interest in the region intensified after September 2001 with the
production of works which claimed to ‘explain’ the mind-set of terror-
ists or to provide explanations of the ongoing political crises in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Palestine. The rhetoric of ‘democratisation by force’
argued that the invasions and occupations of these countries were ‘just
wars’ in which the West would liberate the population from fundamen-
talism and dictatorship and teach them how to ‘do’ democracy. This
analysis was utilised to justify not only the continued occupation of
Palestinian land by Israel but the prosecution of two new wars in the
region in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The new publishing phenomenon of ‘Middle East Inc.’ was not lim-
ited to popular journalism or fiction but also took place in academia. For
example, Carrie Rosefsky Wickham’s important book, Mobilising Islam,
begins with this opening preface: ‘As Americans mourned for the victims
and their families, many also responded with a desire to understand
the mind-set of the young men who perpetrated the attacks . . . ’2 It
is significant that despite the fact that Wickham’s book deals neither
with al-Qaida nor the perpetrators of the attacks of 11 September, but
is a deeply researched study of the Muslim Brotherhood, a moderate
Islamic reformist movement in Egypt, it too needed to be placed within
the familiar context of explaining the mind-sets of ‘Middle Eastern
terrorists’.
Given that the analysis of the majority of commentators in the West
had been dominated by the rhetoric of ‘terrorism’ and ‘Islamic fun-
damentalism’, it was not surprising that the largest outbreak of social
struggle in the Middle East in over thirty years in 2011 – one involving
women, workers, Islamic and secular individuals from diverse political
and social backgrounds – was completely unexpected. In the majority
of cases analysts had explained that the Arab and Muslim world lacked
the fundamental prerequisites for democracy and that the mind-sets
of Arabs and Muslims were innately conservative, religious and anti-
democratic. In a rush to explain the uprisings of 2011 a plethora of
books and articles were produced which analysed their causes and con-
sequences for the future of the region. A number of dominant analyses
 Introduction 3

emerged, several of which tried to fit the uprisings into old familiar

models. One strand, which contended that the protests were under-
taken by a new generation of ‘Facebook inspired’, middle-class, secular
and pro-Western youth, was criticised by writers and activists within the
region.3 Those who lauded this seemingly ‘new phenomenon’ of home-
grown Middle Eastern democracy then went on to denounce the role
of Islamic movements and organisations, bemoaning the inevitability
of the Islamic ‘take-over’4 and the resilience of authoritarianism in the
region.
The uprisings of 2011 have challenged dominant views of politics
in the Middle East – a fact that is confirmed by the invention of new
Orientalist schema to account for them. Arguing against such out-dated
views are those who have contended that the uprisings heralded a
new era for the region and the birth of a new form of contentious
politics. Some argued that the uprisings signified the end of post-
colonialism in the region,5 a way out for generations caught in the
double bind between local autocrats and the neo-imperialist interven-
tions of Washington and the IMF. Others contend that the nature of
these revolts heralded a new era of post-ideological and post-Islamist
movements, and challenged traditional conceptualisations of revolu-
tion. Theorists have set about identifying and inventing new languages
of struggle and revolution to describe what they suggest is a new form
of struggle from below.6
It is somewhat ironic that the Middle East, traditionally seen as so
‘resistant’ to change, has become the focal point for debates about the
nature of social change, revolution and democracy. However, a brief
glance at the history of the region demonstrates that movements for
democracy and against authoritarianism are not a new phenomenon.
Indeed for over a hundred years, diverse social movements in two of the
most important countries in the region, Egypt and Iran, have fought for
reform, and against dictatorship and foreign domination.
This book seeks to challenge a number of major assumptions about
the nature of contentious politics and the waves of protest which have
swept the region. Much of the literature on the ‘Arab Spring’ has been
geared towards identifying one major causal factor underlying the upris-
ings. This approach is problematic as it is based on the assumption
that these uprisings constitute a break in history and a new and dis-
tinct phenomenon in the region. In contrast, this book views these
uprisings as part of a history of struggle in the region and analyses
how this history can illuminate the current trajectories of 21st century
movements. My research builds upon a number of important studies
4 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

which have explored the organisational structures and evolving political

strategies of social movements in Muslim majority countries.7 These
works have been immensely significant in attempting to go beyond
mainstream Western views of movements in the region as equated
with ‘terrorism’ and ‘fundamentalism’. Their approaches have also chal-
lenged Orientalist and culturalist views of Muslim majority societies as
inherently static and conservative.
Despite these achievements, studies of social movements and con-
tentious politics in the region have neglected a number of key areas.
There has been a neglect of the historic and contemporary role of labour
movements in social movements and social struggle. Contemporary
approaches to movements also tend to ignore the changing role of the
state. Although arguments for ‘putting the state back in’ were raised by
scholars in the 1980s,8 recent developments in social movement the-
ory and the social sciences generally have seen scholars predicting the
end of the state as a factor in political events. For example, one the-
orist of European new social movements, Alberto Melucci, argues that
‘as a unitary agent of intervention and action, the state has dissolved’.9
In contrast, this book will show how the changing nature of the state
continues to be a vital factor in the development of movements. This
book will also demonstrate that the international political environment,
which I argue is dominated by contemporary imperialism, also plays a
major role in shaping the political context in which movements oper-
ate, influencing their strategies, relationships with the state and other
political actors.
The central argument of this book is that neo-liberal economic poli-
cies and the nature of contemporary imperialism have shaped the
development of states, elites and movements in the region. This does
not mean that historically or in the contemporary era, movements
in the region have opposed all aspects of the state, the international
economic system or imperialism. Political strategies and alliances have
fluctuated and popular social and political movements have not been
homogeneous in terms of their politics or their membership. For this
reason it is important to contextualise the strategies of contemporary
movements in terms of their specific histories.
Despite this diversity, it is possible to analyse differing strategies
adopted by movements in a political context which shares some
broad similarities. In the past thirty years the welfarist policies of
post-independence states in the region have been abandoned and all
governments whether from the right or left, Islamist or secular have
enacted neo-liberal economic policies. The Arab world and specifically
 Introduction 5

Egypt was one of the first areas to have the experiment of neo-liberal
‘development’ policies imposed on it. In 1974 Sadat’s infitah began the
process of dismantling the statist policies of his predecessor Nasser and
further economic reform measures were taken in the 1990s. In Iran,
economic reform measures were also put in place in the 1990s and car-
ried out by two politically ‘reformist’ presidents, Hashemi Rafsanjani
and Mohammed Khatami. Economic reforms were thus implemented in
different ways in both countries in specific political contexts. A major
difference between the two countries has been the nature of the state
through which neo-liberal reforms were implemented. Due to Egypt’s
status as a ‘dependent’ client of the US,10 following Camp David, corpo-
rate globalisation was perceived by many as part of a continuing process
of neo-colonialism in that country. Galal Amin, for example, famously
used this analogy in arguing that neo-liberal reforms of the 1990s resem-
bled the extraction of wealth from Egypt during the colonial period
in which ‘powerful economic interests stood to gain from both Egypt’s
economic liberalisation and the growth of its external debt’.11
In Iran, however, the state implemented economic reforms in the con-
text of both international isolation following the revolution of 1979
and its attempts to preserve its status as a revolutionary and socially just
Islamic republic. However, during President Khatami’s term of office,
the effect of economic reforms undertaken by him and his predecessor
helped foster the view that his government was enriching a small elite
at the expense of the majority of the population. Khatami’s overtures to
the US in the form of his call for a ‘dialogue of civilisations’ after the
events of 11 September 2001 were soon countered by George W. Bush’s
‘axis of evil’ speech in 2002 and Khatami’s perceived weakness on both
economic and foreign policy issues allowed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to
mobilise support around these issues in 2005.
This book argues that as a result of neo-liberal economic reforms of
the 1990s onwards, states have become more coercive and authoritar-
ian in order to quell any resistance to policies which benefit only a tiny
minority. They are also increasingly securitised states in which demo-
cratic freedoms have been eroded.12 This phenomenon is not restricted
to states in the Middle East but is part of a broader pattern of global
capitalist development.
The classic ‘liberal’ ideas of individual choice, laissez-faire economics
and the dominance of the free-market have had a long history in
Western economic and political thought but were rejuvenated in
the political and economic discourses of the 1980s and 1990s. Neo-
liberalism incorporated some of these ideas into an attack on what it
6 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

deemed inefficient and outdated Keynesian economic models of the

welfare state in which the market was subject to regulation and the state
intervened to provide services for the population. Neo-liberal theorists
argued that global economic ills could be cured by the adoption of an
economic system that was unregulated by the state. In practice, neo-
liberal reforms consisted of mass privatisation and a substantial fall in
public-sector spending, which in most cases resulted in the withdrawal
of the state from the provision of public services such as health, educa-
tion and welfare. David Harvey argues, however, that from the outset the
revitalisation of ‘liberalism’ in its new form was, not a ‘utopian project
to realise a theoretical design for the reorganisation of international
capitalism’ but a ‘political project to restore the power of economic
elites’.13
Trapped in a cycle of poverty, corruption and foreign debt, many
developing countries undertook structural adjustment programmes in
the early 1990s. International lending institutions such as the IMF and
the World Bank demanded economic reforms, presenting them as a
‘cure-all’ for developing countries which, by suspending trade tariffs
and subsidies would open up their markets to foreign multinationals,
see increasing investment and experience economic regeneration and
development. Neo-liberal reforms were also imagined to lead to increas-
ing freedoms in the political arena as authoritarian and inefficient states
were replaced by a burgeoning civil society. In 2005, journalist and com-
mentator Thomas Friedman described the advent of a ‘flat world’ of
globalisation where social inequalities and divisions between nations
would be removed and a ‘level playing field’ instituted for all.14 How-
ever, a decade later a number of analysts pointed out that, despite such
predictions, indicators of global inequality and increasing global stratifi-
cation rose in the 1990s and 2000s. For example, David Harvey, quoting
the UNDP report for 1999 found that OECD countries ‘registered big
increases in inequality after the 1980s’, while the income gap between
people living in the world’s richest and poorest countries more than
doubled between 1960 and 1997.15
Analysts’ hopes that countries which undertook neo-liberal economic
reforms would see political liberalisation and democratisation as a result
were also unfulfilled despite predictions that ‘deregulation of trade and
investment, as well as the introduction of parliamentarianism, multi-
party systems and voting rights’ would be ‘promoted by global agencies’
in the ‘best interests of all’.16 After the fall of the Asian financial giants
in 1997 some analysts argued that lack of political reform and eco-
nomic stagnation in non-Western countries which adopted neo-liberal
 Introduction 7

measures were due to political-cultural factors such as the lack of a

‘reform-minded’ entrepreneurial business class or that developing coun-
tries had undertaken either not enough reforms or did so too slowly in
a piecemeal fashion. In contrast, critics of neo-liberalism and corporate
globalisation such as Waldon Bello and Martin Khor pointed out that
the failure of economic reform measures to produce economic devel-
opment or political liberalisation stemmed from the fact that despite
the rhetoric of development and democratisation, global agencies and
Western governments had no real strategic interest in either.17 Moreover,
despite the claims of neo-liberalism to adhere to the ‘liberal ideas’ of
freedom of choice and individual rights, its effect in Western countries
where such ‘cultural’ impediments were presumably not present was
also to weaken and limit democracies and to increase repression. David
Harvey presents an analysis of neo-liberalism which seeks to explain
the rise of contemporary neo-conservatism in the West. He argues that
this ideology represents an attempt to curb the instability of neo-liberal
states through increasing securitisation and the curtailing of political
freedoms.18 Similarly Iris Marion Young argues that in the West, states
have become ‘security states’ in which the population is subjected to
unprecedented surveillance, search and detention powers by the police
and security organisations in the name of ‘national security’.19
A focus on the similarities in neo-liberal states across the globe allows
us to question the assumed exceptionalism of the persistence of author-
itarian regimes in the Middle East and the view commonly held in the
West that democratisation has not been successful in the region due to
factors such as culture or religion. Indeed Laura Guazzone and Daniela
Pioppi make the vitally important point that far from representing an
exceptional case of resistance to change, the ‘Arab world is fully in line
with trends of change engendered by neo-liberal globalisation elsewhere
in the world and may even, in some respects, be seen as typifying the
effects of such change’.20
In Egypt the effect of neo-liberalism was not a smaller, less interven-
tionist state but a more securitised, more authoritarian state particularly
after 2005. This was due in part to what analysts have referred to as the
collusion of ‘guns and money’: the alliance of security services, the mil-
itary and elite businessmen who benefited from the billions of dollars of
state assets that were sold by the regime. Giacomo Luciani, for example,
writes that economic reform in Egypt gave rise to ‘a collusion between
the military and the new private entrepreneurs with a view to keeping
the lid on the impoverished majority’.21 Abdelbaki Hermassi agrees that
Arab states have sought to liberalise the economy but keep control of the
8 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

political system leading to an ‘authoritarian liberalism’ based on a ‘collu-

sion between political elites on the one hand and entrepreneurs on the
other’.22 The social and economic effects of structural adjustment and
neo-liberal economic reform programmes have also led to what Farsoun
and Zacharia describe as ‘mass political alienation’ among the popula-
tion of Egypt.23 In order to stifle resistance to economic reforms from
the middle and working classes, the state became more coercive lead-
ing to the advent of contemporary free-market dictatorships and the
phenomenon of neo-liberal authoritarianism.24
Securitisation entails both a fundamental change in the way that a
regime and the ruling elites connected to it argue for their legitimacy –
the project of securing political hegemony – as well as the increasingly
important role played by military and security services in the economy
and polity. The discourse legitimising state power has shifted from a
focus on the social contract in which post-independence and in the
case of Iran, post-revolutionary states provided services to the public,
to one of national security in which the job of the state is to protect
its citizens from various ill-defined threats. Most crucially these exis-
tential threats stem not from an external enemy but from within the
domestic population.25 Hence the need for larger security services, mass
surveillance, prisons and detention camps. Privatisation of state assets
and nationalised companies has also enriched and empowered both
new and existing networks of business and military elites. Military and
security companies play a major role in the economies of neo-liberal
states. Again these features of the ‘new authoritarianism’ are not con-
fined to developing countries or the Middle East. In the US and other
Western countries, private companies have made enormous profits from
outsourcing the construction and running of prisons and detention cen-
tres as well as engaging in overseas wars. A parallel process has occurred
in countries such as Iran where the enacting of neo-liberal reforms since
the 1990s has empowered groups of military-political elites connected to
the regime. Among these groups is the Revolutionary Guard which runs
and controls most important economic enterprises in the country.26
Contrary to much Western anti-Iranian propaganda, it is not the reli-
gious nature of the Islamic state that has led to the increased power of
the military. Rather the characteristics of the contemporary Iranian state
are the outcome of the policies of international agencies such as the IMF
and World Bank.
This analysis highlights the continuing importance of the role of
the state. However, it does not conceive of the state in the traditional
‘liberal’ manner as a neutral arbiter and set of discrete institutions
 Introduction 9

that occupy a place above society. Instead the state is seen as deeply
enmeshed in the layers of power and privilege which exist within soci-
ety itself. This means that the state is subject to the same tensions and
contradictions that broader society experiences. The state is also ever
more diffuse in nature and the line between state and society is blurred.
This has been the case historically but is more apparent than ever today.
Neo-liberalism has produced a larger, more diffuse and at the same time
more authoritarian state structure which incorporates global agencies,
civil society organisations as well as multinational companies.27 The role
of Halliburton, a private company which was subcontracted to provide
services to the US military during the invasion and occupation of Iraq is
one example; the Revolutionary Guard in Iran is another.
The empowering of military and business elites and the discourse of
‘national security’ has been accompanied by an aggressive and mili-
taristic foreign policy among Western countries which, Harvey argues,
is ‘entirely consistent with the neo-liberal agenda of elite governance,
mistrust of democracy and the maintenance of market freedoms’.28
However, both theorists of contentious politics and those analysts who
focus solely on ‘top-down’ models of state legitimacy and collapse
have underplayed the importance of the contemporary global political
environment. After the heyday of ‘third worldism’ and ‘world systems
theory’ in the 1970s when writers such as Samir Amin and Andre Gun-
der Frank investigated the dominance of the northern countries over the
‘global south’ or the centre over the peripheral countries of the world,
imperialism seemed to have disappeared from mainstream academic dis-
courses. Diane Elson, for example, wrote in 1984 that imperialism had
become a ‘somewhat outdated idea for considering the contemporary
framework of relations between states’.29
This shift in attention among scholars away from imperialism
occurred in a period when the US became the single remaining global
superpower and had important consequences for how global politics
was viewed within the academic world and beyond. Outside of academic
circles, the first decade of the twenty-first century saw a number of chal-
lenges to US hegemony and the ‘new world order’ in the form of the
global anti-war movement and the activities of movements in the Mid-
dle East. After the invasions of Afghanistan and, in particular Iraq, in
2001 and 2003 respectively, the global anti-war movement organised
the largest mass global demonstrations the world had ever seen. These
events raised a number of challenges to ideas of a new world in which
the politics of imperialism had supposedly become irrelevant. In par-
ticular, the fact that Iraq arguably contained one of the world’s largest
10 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

oil reserves sparked a renewed interest in classic theories of imperialism

developed by Marx and especially by Lenin, as ‘neither a transhistorical
political form nor a state policy, but a special stage in the develop-
ment of capitalism’.30 In opposition to prevailing notions of the end
of geopolitics, Alex Callinicos and David Harvey analysed the contin-
uing importance of nation-states and geopolitical conflicts in today’s
capitalist imperialism which sees the ‘simultaneous operation of both
economic and geopolitical determinations’.31
Analysing imperialism, the role of external forces and their impact
on the politics of the region has not been a feature of new work
on contentious politics in the Middle East. However, contemporary
imperialism has had a significant impact on the nature of the state,
elites and movements in the region. Like other broad historical-political
trends, this impact is not uniform or predictable in each case but
multifaceted and complex. In this book, I identify a number of ways
in which contemporary imperialism has affected contentious politics in
the region.
Imperialism has undermined authoritarian states and provided an
incentive for people in the region to join movements.32 In particular, the
dominance of the US, free market ideologies and the continued suffering
of people in the region as a result have encouraged many to join move-
ments in opposition to Western-backed regimes. However, imperialism
has also served to strengthen authoritarian states and allowed them to
crackdown on dissent. In Egypt, over thirty years of increasing depen-
dence on the US produced a state which relied upon repression, violence
and surveillance of its population for its survival. Meanwhile in Iran rul-
ing elites have maintained some level of legitimacy through utilising an
anti-imperialist ideology and voicing opposition to the foreign policies
of the US and Western powers.
Today’s contemporary imperialism, like its historical counterpart
colonialism, has important discursive features. Both entail a civilisa-
tional and racist discourse which dehumanises people in the region and
seeks to confine the boundaries of what change is possible to that which
suits Western political and economic interests. The invasions of Iraq
and Afghanistan were justified by an appeal to the idea of the ‘just war’
or ‘humanitarian war’, of ‘bringing democracy’ and liberating women.
Although many people demonstrated against the 2003 invasion of Iraq,
Western feminists in particular fell into the trap of supporting the neo-
conservative offensive and failed to take up the question of imperialism.
In effect what were considered to be the traditional ‘liberal’ demands of
civil society and movements, such as democracy, freedom, human rights
 Introduction 11

and women’s rights were posited as existing only in Western countries

and were used to justify an imperialist strategy.
One of the effects of the 2011 uprisings was to make the US’s support
and funding of authoritarian regimes publicly and embarrassingly vis-
ible. Since then, the US and its allies have adopted a new discourse of
seeking to support democracy and people’s aspirations for change in the
region. However, as Laurence Whitehead and others have argued, ideas
of democratisation and the promotion of democracy have been part
and parcel of the ostensible foreign policy agendas of Western coun-
tries since the end of the Cold War. The promotion of democracy has
been used by the major powers as a punishment and has enabled them
to withhold vitally needed aid and to justify military action in many
parts of the world on the basis of the idea of a ‘humanitarian war’.33
Yet despite its rhetoric, the US and its allies have continued to oppose
efforts at democratisation and support authoritarian regimes in a num-
ber of countries. Therefore it is not surprising that despite intermittent
calls for democratisation by the major powers, the early 21st century
has seen a hardening of autocratic regimes in many parts of the world,
including a weakening of democratic institutions in Western countries.
In response, many countries including both Egypt and Iran have seen
the proliferation of mass movements since the 1990s. In both cases
coalitions of religious and secular organisations and groups have worked
together in mass movements. Religious movements have become con-
sciously critical of mainstream Western political discourses which posit
them as anti-modern, backward and repressive and have put forward
strategies and ideologies of religious emancipation. In a phenomenon
that analysts have labelled ‘social Islam’ a proliferation of organisations
have taken over the role of the state in providing welfare and social
services. The largest mass movements in the region are those based
in nation-states. They combine nationalist, anti-imperialist, reformist,
secular and religious ideologies, and aim to challenge political elites.
The politics of such movements are dynamic and varied. It is a cen-
tral contention of this book that a number of important movements
such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the reform movement
in Iran adopted the idea that political liberalisation would follow eco-
nomic liberalisation. This approach was not confined to these particular
movements but has been a dominant part of development and polit-
ical discourses of the past three decades. In the 1990s the success of
democratic movements in overcoming authoritarian states in Eastern
Europe gave analysts hope that a new ‘third wave’ of democratisa-
tion was sweeping the world.34 Neo-liberal globalisation was thought
12 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

to bring with it concepts such as the transnational public sphere and

‘global civil society’ which in turn became dominant approaches to
the role of progressive movements in democratisation. The growth of
an ‘international civil society’ would accompany the withering away
of authoritarian states which would be replaced by interlinked ‘plural
societies’35 and herald a new era of interconnectivity in which peo-
ple would be empowered through participating in global networks of
non-governmental organisations (NGOs), civil society organisations and
movements.
The adoption of a grassroots, democratic and civil-society-centred
approach by Islamic movements in the 1990s has come under scrutiny
by scholars with some analysts arguing that it constituted a mere change
in tactics rather than ideology. This ‘Islamic take-over’ model argues
that Islamists are undemocratic by nature and therefore can only pre-
tend to ‘play by the rules’ of the democracy-political participation game.
However, it is the contention of this book that Islamist reformist move-
ments, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian reformers,
did wholeheartedly embrace the discourse of democratisation and civil
society in the 1990s. Crucially, along with it they adopted an interpreta-
tion of the neo-liberal paradigm. As a result, when in power Islamist
reformist movements such as those in Iran (1997–2005) or in Egypt
(2012) enacted neo-liberal legislation. This does not mean, however,
that we should dismiss Islamic reformism as essentially ‘small busi-
ness’ oriented, conservative and neo-liberal in character, as the adoption
of the neo-liberal paradigm by reformist movements is not the whole
story. My fieldwork with participants in Islamist and reformist move-
ments found that while leaders and intellectuals adopted this discourse,
many participants and younger members highlighted the need for a
more equal distribution of economic resources and the importance of
social justice. The contradictions in this approach meant that reform
movements were very successful in the 1990s but also very fragmented
ideologically and politically.
The first decade of the twenty-first century saw a hardening of
undemocratic regimes in many countries and increasing state repression
in many others as well as the rise of movements for change across the
globe. Later chapters of this book chart how new movements arose after
2005 to directly challenge economic inequalities and authoritarianism.
These include the Arab uprisings of 2011 onwards and the Green move-
ment, student movements and workers’ movements in Iran post-2009.
All were shaped by the strategies of more established movements that
preceded them, as well as the changing nature of states and elites.
 Introduction 13

Therefore the strategies of groups and organisations need to be analysed

within the context of a regional and domestic environment dominated
by the changing nature of states, neo-liberalism, repression, war and
conflict.

A socio-historical approach

In this book I utilise a comparative socio-historical perspective in the

analysis of social movements. Such an approach has the strength of
being able to move beyond studies of movements in one country by pro-
viding both a country-specific and region-wide approach. Egypt and Iran
are both very important countries in the region which have similarities
as well as many important differences. Movements in both countries
have arisen out of specific national and local contexts. However, they
share intellectual and political characteristics and are influenced by
regional and international factors and trends. The case of Iran and the
Iranian reform movement, in particular, is often viewed in isolation
from other countries in the region. In writing on the Middle East, the
history and contemporary politics of Iran are regularly separated from
the historical development and contemporary politics of the region as
a whole. This is despite the fact that regional issues and international
crises have a great impact on politics within the country.
It is also usually assumed that there can be no similarities between
the interpretations of Islam, gender and democracy put forward by the
reform and women’s movement in Iran and the supposedly ‘funda-
mentalist’ and ‘terrorist’ interpretations of other mainstream Islamic
movements in the region such as Hizbullah, Hamas and the Muslim
Brotherhood. However, liberatory and democratic readings of Islamic
laws, traditions and social norms have a long history in the region.
They represent intellectual trends which have been expressed in the
work of Islamic reformers and modernists from the middle of the nine-
teenth century onwards. Diverse social movements have their roots in
a long history of political struggle. For example, al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun,
the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, is a very significant contemporary
movement yet its origins lie in an Islamic revivalist and anti-colonial
association founded in the Suez town of Isma‘iliyya in 1928. In Iran
the grouping of religious reformists and intellectuals known as the
Roshanfekran-e Dini or ‘New Religious Thinkers’, have their roots in a
century-long history of reform and political activism in the Iranian
ulama (religious scholars). The first manifestation of this activism in
the form of a national mass movement in Iran was seen in the tobacco
14 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

protests of the 1890s and culminated in the constitutional revolution

(1906–11). Each movement, although unique in its contemporary set-
ting is therefore, in a sense, a repository of a history of struggle, debates,
strategies, successes, failures and changing relationships with the state,
allies and external forces. Social movements in Egypt and Iran thus have
an intellectual and political heritage which underpins current struggles
for democracy, civil rights and women’s rights in those countries. These
ideas continue to resonate in political associations today as movements
in the region, although unique in their contemporary context, reflect
this history of shared intellectual and political trends.
This book therefore seeks to contribute to the literature on politics and
movements in the Middle East by placing these diverse organisations in
a historical context. One of its aims is to problematise the presentation
of movements as static and homogeneous units, existing, as it were, out-
side of their political and societal context. This approach is particularly
prevalent in the work of several writers on the role of Islamist groups and
organisations in the recent uprisings in the region. In contrast this book
views movements as non-homogeneous ‘processes’ which are not static
but are in a constant state of flux.36 By utilising a comparative approach,
this book also draws out the common factors which have led to the rise
of movements as forces for change in the region. I aim to develop this
theory and contribute to the ongoing debates on movements, civil soci-
ety and resistance by treating Egypt and Iran as two cases in which the
nature, rise, and role of social movements can be studied.
While acknowledging the importance of discursive elements, this
book adopts a political economy framework which is grounded in a
‘critical realist’ epistemology. During the last thirty years the political
economy approach has been at the forefront of criticising culturalist
and Orientalist views of Middle Eastern history. Writers in this field have
argued that the domination of Muslim-majority countries by local and
external Western elites produced the specific political, economic and
social conditions under which ‘modernity’ developed and the contra-
dictory ways in which it was experienced. Various studies have therefore
highlighted the role of colonialism and imperialism in Iran and Egypt’s
development and indeed, underdevelopment and, to a lesser extent, the
role of movements and social forces in the process of historical and
social change.
However, as with the study of imperialism, political economy
approaches have fallen out of favour in recent years as the focus has
shifted towards post-structuralist and post-modernist approaches. In the
past three decades post-modernism has become if not dominant then
 Introduction 15

certainly a mainstream academic discourse in itself. Despite the valid

criticisms made by post-modernist perspectives of an overly confident
and non-critical realism, the denial of reality has become a form of
hegemonic discourse while the relativistic stance of strands of post-
modernist thought has weakened the ability of social science to criticise
social norms and practices. If all interpretations of reality or all ‘regimes
of truth’ are equally valid or invalid, then racist or sexist interpreta-
tions are just as valid or invalid as those that seek to challenge them.37
Ironically, the move away from the ‘real’ that rightly sought to high-
light the contingency and complexity of social reality and the politics
of research, has in many senses degenerated into empty and circular
arguments concerning discourses and narratives. This often serves to
obscure the material conditions, specific historical circumstances and
relations of power which produce narratives and discourses and lead to
them becoming dominant.
An example of this can be found in recent writings on ‘identity’.
In this book I use the terms ‘Arab’, ‘Muslim’, ‘Middle East’ and ‘West’
while acknowledging that these terms are problematic. The term ‘Mid-
dle East’ for example is a product of the racist imaginary of British
colonialism. I reject the notion that the ‘West’ and the ‘Middle East’
form distinct civilisational blocs, an idea which ignores the diversity
present within regions and cultures as well as the commonalities that
exist between them. Therefore in this book I view these terms not as
distinct, ahistorical and unproblematic concepts, but as historically con-
stituted geopolitical constructs. In addition, the term ‘Arab/Muslim’ as
a ‘unit of analysis’ presents us with some significant problems. Neither
‘Arab’ nor ‘Muslim’ can or should be used to sum up an individual’s
complex ethnic, national and community identity, or attitude to belief
or non-belief. It is therefore important to recognise, as Edward Said
argues, that ‘identities’ are not fixed, permanent and immutable.38 Writ-
ings on anti-racism in critical social science have in fact been rightly
criticised for reifying static concepts of ‘ethnicity’, ‘community’ and
‘groupness’.39 In opposition to this, new writing in the field stressed
the idea that all identities are in fact hybrid, involve processes of mak-
ing claims and are ‘political interventions and constructions of social
reality’.40 However, Anthias argues that partly as a result of this criti-
cism, arguments have been put forward that envisage a world in which
discourses of identity are presented as a ‘choice’ and hybridity a prod-
uct of a new transnational age. These arguments often disregard the
uneven and unequal access to power and resources among individuals
in society and in global capitalism. In doing so, Anthias argues, they
16 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

have fallen into the same trap as the essentialist approaches that they
rightly criticise.41 A balance is therefore needed between the assertion
that any social reality is complex and contingent on many factors and a
recognition and analysis of material constraints and structures.
This approach allows us to move beyond the focus on discourses
and narratives offered by traditional post-modernist perspectives and to
present a materialist analysis of the economic, political and social con-
ditions present in Egypt and Iran since the 1990s. The exclusive focus
on discourse and narrative has connected with a historical tradition
in Western social science which de-contextualises events in Arab and
Muslim societies from their historical and material roots. As a result
there is a growing gulf between the reality of the material conditions
present in the Arab/Muslim world and current political discourses sur-
rounding issues of democratisation, women’s rights and globalisation.
In order to counter this we need to analyse material and structural con-
straints in a critical, in-depth and non-deterministic manner, in order to
challenge them.
Such an approach is open to the criticism that it is overly deter-
ministic and raises the perennial question of the relationship between
structure – the extent to which people’s actions are determined by
their environment, and agency – the extent to which people have
the power to change their material circumstances. I argue that indi-
viduals have agency and the capacity to effect great change. This is
borne out by the interviews I have conducted which are a testament
to the strength of will and determination of individual participants
in movements in Iran and Egypt to change their societies. However,
I also argue that the actions of individuals take place within and are
often constrained by larger socio-political and socio-economic contexts.
A dialectical approach which recognises the importance of both struc-
ture and agency and their interaction is vital in order to capture the
complexity of social change. As Bourdieu argues, ‘any theory of the
social universe must include the representation that agents have of the
social world and, more precisely, the contribution they make to the con-
struction of the vision of that world, and consequently, to the very
construction of that world’.42 A dichotomous rather than dialectical
view of structure and agency thus underestimates the complexity of any
given social reality.

Fieldwork

The analysis in this book is based on fieldwork which I conducted in

Cairo and Tehran in 2008–9 as well as with participants in Iranian
 Introduction 17

movements in London in 2009. I interviewed forty-seven individuals

from a variety of backgrounds; twenty-two were Iranians and twenty-
five were Egyptians. Of the Iranian participants, three were leaders of
NGOs, two were former MPs, one was a trade unionist, three were
academics/journalists/writers, one was a publisher, three were religious
reformist intellectuals, two were members of the left in the 1970s
and the remainder were students and women’s rights activists. Of the
Egyptian participants, five were members of the Muslim Brotherhood,
including the ex-President, Dr Mohamed Morsi, two were members
of the al-Karama (left-Nasserist) party, two were activists in left-wing
organisations, five were academics/writers/journalists as well as being
participants in various movements, four were NGO activists, four were
trade unionists and the remainder were activists in other political groups
such as the 6 April Movement.
Egypt and Iran are both countries where a large percentage of the
population is urbanised and from working-class or middle-class back-
grounds. Iran is an ethnically and linguistically diverse society; however
over 68 per cent of the country is urbanised and the population consists
of a majority of Shi‘i Muslims – 90 per cent.43 Although non-Muslim
religious minorities are present, they constitute a small fraction of the
population as a whole – 1–2 per cent. It is therefore Iran’s majority Shi‘i,
urbanised, middle class and working class population that has partici-
pated in social movements. In Egypt the population is also urbanised
although not to the extent of Iran.44 However, in Egypt both urban
and, significantly, some rural areas have a long history of industriali-
sation and a large working class as, for example, in the Nile delta region
where modern agricultural and industrial activity coexist. The country
has a majority Sunni Muslim population with a large minority of Coptic
Christians – 10 per cent. Both historically and in the contemporary era
movements in rural and semi-rural industrial/agricultural areas of agri-
cultural workers and peasants have played an important role in Egypt.
However, this book will focus largely on urban movements, as Egypt’s
urban middle class and working class have played a significant role in
participating in and leading contemporary movements. Therefore this
book will analyse movements of the urban, working class and middle
class in both countries since the 1990s.
The fieldwork conducted for this book focused on the capital cities of
both countries, Cairo and Tehran. Tehran is the centre of national poli-
tics and has become the centre of the reform movement since the 1990s.
Although the participants in this study come from different regions of
Iran, including national minorities, the majority of reformist activists
live in the capital. In Egypt, Alexandria and towns such as Mahalla have
18 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

been important centres of social movements. However, the activists I

interviewed in Cairo were again from different regions and could, to
an extent, speak for the situation in the country as a whole. My aim
in conducting these interviews was not to gain a representative sample
of what ‘ordinary’ Egyptians or Iranians think about social movements.
Nor do I think that this would be either feasible or desirable. Instead
these were ‘elite interviews’ and the data collected represent the knowl-
edge and experience of specific activists. Such data, placed in a historical
and conceptual framework, can contribute greatly to our understanding
of social movements in both countries.
The context in which these interviews were carried out is also essen-
tial to consider. I arrived in Tehran in 2008 and conducted an exhausting
schedule of interviews in the morning and afternoon followed by large
family dinners in the evenings which went on until after midnight. In
Tehran I knew the local area, was fluent in the language, getting around
was relatively easy and often I met people at their houses or in cafés
where the atmosphere was relaxed and people seemed quite open and
willing to talk. By the time I reached Cairo, it was clear that the politi-
cal situation in the region had changed. At the end of December, Israel
began bombing raids in Gaza which we watched in Tehran like people all
over the region on Aljazeera via satellite with feelings of mounting hor-
ror and trepidation. By early January, the Israeli army mounted a ground
offensive which led to casualties and deaths of Palestinians living in the
Gaza strip on a horrific scale and which in September 2009 was con-
demned in a report by the UN as a ‘war crime’. After a brief period
of relative optimism following the election of President Barak Obama
in the US, this period was dominated politically by these events. Mass
demonstrations took place in Cairo and in many cities across the region
and across the world. In Cairo, these demonstrations were organised pri-
marily by the Muslim Brotherhood whose leaders and members came
under extreme scrutiny by the state during this period and hundreds
were arrested and imprisoned. Therefore it was both an extraordinary
time in which to talk to people about the impact of movements and
how they were affected by the regional crisis and a very difficult time
for those living in the region who felt under pressure from their own
governments and the horrific consequences of an external attack.
In Iran, the disputed election result of June 2009 resulted in a wave
of protest that overtook the country. As a result of the protests a mas-
sive government crackdown followed in which hundreds of the leaders
of the reform movement were imprisoned by the state, including some
whom I had interviewed. Newspapers, websites and organisations were
 Introduction 19

shut down and there were reports of deaths of activists at the hands
of the state’s security forces and the torture of political prisoners. The
state’s crackdown seemed particularly to target religious intellectuals
and activists, a number of whom were forced to leave the country at
this point. As a result I travelled to London to interview a number
of Iranian reformists now based outside the country including former
Vice President of Iran and Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance,
Ata’ollah Mohajerani. Other interviews with important religious intel-
lectuals such as Dr Abdolkarim Soroush and Hasan Yousef Eshkevari
were conducted over the telephone and by email.

Conclusion

In this chapter I have argued that despite the achievements of a number

of scholars in this field and much criticism of ‘Orientalist’ approaches,
an uncritical culturalism continues to dominate the literature on the
recent Arab uprisings and Western discourses on the current trajectories
and future potential of movements in the region. Some of the features
of this approach are the assertion that authoritarianism is due to domes-
tic and ‘cultural’ factors and is a permanent and stable characteristic of
the region. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in Western news
reporting on the second Egyptian revolution of July 2013. The shameful
spectacle of analysts and commentators rushing to declare the end of the
Egyptian ‘experiment’ with democracy while millions took to the streets
demanding real political and economic change in their country is evi-
dence of the continued prevalence of Orientalist approaches to Middle
Eastern politics. In some ways, these ideas have remained unchallenged
by the culturalist turn in the field of social movement theory and
the social sciences in general. While several studies have successfully
utilised post-structuralist frameworks in order to analyse movements,
the dominance of this approach has led to a neglect of any analysis of
the historical and contemporary context in which movements develop,
allowing a pernicious form of Middle Eastern exceptionalism to remain
unchallenged.
The lack of focus on the context in which movements develop and act
thus represents a major gap in the literature which needs to be addressed
in order to gain a full perspective on the role and dynamics of move-
ments in the region today. This book aims to add to the growing body of
literature on the subject, addressing this gap by presenting an analysis
of movements in Egypt and Iran in their current and historical politi-
cal contexts. State repression, authoritarianism and differing strategies
20 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

adopted by reformist and non-reformist currents within movements are

not confined to states in the developing world or the Middle East. They
arise as a result of the international context, the political economy of
states and the struggle for power between and within states, political
elites and popular forces or movements. The ability of ruling classes and
elites to maintain their dominance in Egypt and Iran has been shaped
in recent years by the crisis caused in the region as a result of increas-
ing militarisation and conflict in the international arena. Top-down
approaches which focus purely on the state without taking into account
the dynamic relationship which exists between states and movements
and the importance of struggle from below have been rightly criti-
cised. However, what is also missing from many political process and
elite bargaining approaches is the importance of the international con-
text and specifically of contemporary imperialism which dominates the
international environment.
This book therefore presents a socio-historical analysis of the role of
social movements, the state and imperialism in Egypt and Iran and most
importantly utilises the views and words of participants in movements
themselves. In the following chapter I critically examine debates around
civil society, movements and resistance in the Middle East and highlight
the possibility of alternative and counter-hegemonic conceptions of the
struggle for social and political change in the region.
2
Theorising Movements

This chapter explores some of the major conceptual debates surrounding

Middle Eastern movements and the roles of specific groups of actors.
It proposes that although terms such as ‘social movement’, civil soci-
ety and ‘democracy’ are highly contentious they have been applied in a
largely uncritical fashion, with recent notable exceptions. Debates have
tended to hinge around questions of Middle Eastern exceptionalism and
assumptions that the region is both essentially conservative and resis-
tant to the kinds of modern progressive movements and pluralistic civil
societies seen in the West. The result is that the region is viewed as
dominated by ‘ugly movements’ which Tarrow describes as those linked
to extremism, ethnic and nationalist exclusivism and terrorism1 and
‘uncivil societies’ that cannot hope to play a role in effecting positive
social change.
A number of important works have analysed the history of Egypt and
Iran in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A largely separate body
of literature has focused on theorising social movements, Islamic move-
ments, women’s movements and political movements in both countries.
In this book I do not intend to give a general history of Egypt and Iran,
which has been covered elsewhere or to focus solely on the movements
of a specific period such as Egypt in the 1940s or Iran in the 1970s.
While these are important approaches, the study of Middle Eastern his-
tory and politics as a discrete discipline which lies outside of the bounds
of political theory leads to both theoretical and empirical weaknesses.
On the other hand analyses which treat movements as case-studies for
the testing of political theory tend to isolate them from their histor-
ical contexts and from the material circumstances which gave rise to
the forces which have struggled for change. In many cases movements
are seen either from a purely national perspective by area specialists, or

21
22 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

written about in a way which downplays the domestic context in order

to fit in with broader trends in political theory.

From ‘ugly movements’ to contentious politics

There are a wide range of studies dealing with social movements,

civil society and the Islamic world. Social movement theory (SMT) has
become a growing area of research in the last few decades and has devel-
oped into a complex body of theory. As a field it has very diverse origins,
from the writings of Karl Marx on the Paris Commune to theories of
crowd psychology developed in the mid-twentieth century. This early
diversity reflects an ongoing and central ambivalence in SMT regard-
ing the nature of collective action and social protest and their role
in society. Charles Tilly argues that a central philosophical disparity
underpins differing views of the roles of protest between Marxist, neo-
Marxist, Durkheimian and Weberian theorists.2 Whereas Marxists saw
society as riven by class oppression and class conflict, Durkheimian and
Weberian theorists posited that society was held together by a set of
common beliefs and that it was disconnection from these beliefs or
anomie that led to social protest. Durkheim, for example, saw social
protest as occupying the same category of ‘deviant’ behaviour as crime
and suicide.
The 1950s and 1960s saw the emergence of the field of ‘collec-
tive behaviour’ which similarly posited social protest as an irrational
response to societal breakdown, social dislocation and marginalisation.
However, by the 1970s and 1980s a resurgence of leftist views of protest
as driving social change was taking place in the writings of a new
generation of American and European scholars. This generation had
witnessed the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements in America
and students’ and workers’ movements in Europe. Consequently they
expressed a very different view of the role of protest within society.
Rather than viewing society as inherently stable and protest as irra-
tional, they saw protest as a rational response to gross inequality and
part of a necessary project to change unstable and unjust societies
for the better. The work of theorists such as Doug McAdam, Sydney
Tarrow and Charles Tilly ‘defined social movements as rational, pur-
poseful and organised action’.3 They also sought to limit and define the
concept of ‘social movement’ as a form of collective action that pos-
sessed self-identification and a level of organisation and activism over a
sustained period of time. Charles Tilly, for example, defines social move-
ments as ‘the organised, sustained, self-conscious challenge to existing
 Theorising Movements 23

authorities’,4 whereas Sidney Tarrow writes of ‘collective challenges by

people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interaction
with elites, opponents and authorities’.5
Despite changes in the field of SMT in the 1980s and 1990s, neo-
Durkheimian models continued to influence views of social protest in
Islamic societies. For example, the idea that society is held together by
‘values’ can be seen in the work of Samuel Huntington. His formula-
tion of the theory of the ‘clash of civilisations’ is premised on the idea
that the diverse peoples and cultures of the world can be divided into a
number of distinct ‘civilisations’ on the basis of possessing shared ‘val-
ues’ such as freedom, democracy and individual liberty.6 In addition,
Ziad Munson argues that a neo-Durkheimian influence is present in
the work of writers such as Ernest Gellner who portray Islamic move-
ments as irrational responses to the breakdown of ‘traditional’ society.7
Munson argues that all theories which view movements as a response
to deprivation and marginalisation likewise fall into the Durkheimian
model. However, as Maha Abdelrahman argues, there is an important
distinction to be made here between culturalist approaches and those
which employ historical-materialist frameworks in order to analyse the
socio-political and economic specificities of countries in the region.8
The notion of movements as traditional, conservative and anti-modern
is particularly present in the work of writers who have posited the
idea of a clash between modernity and tradition in the Islamic world.
Writers such as Olivier Roy have argued that Islamic societies failed
to adapt to the conditions of ‘modernity’ following the breakdown of
traditional society. The subsequent breakdown of societal values resulted
in rootlessness and anomie amongst the population who then turned to
traditional ideologies and the authentic cultural appeal of Islamism.9
Kevin McDonald has argued that these accounts of Islam as the failed
‘other’ tap into a deep vein in Western culture.10 This view is summed
up by the work of Bernard Lewis, for whom the global ‘march of Muslim
rage’ is a product of the failure of Islam as a religion and Islamic societies
to embrace modernity.11
For many scholars classical SMT had the advantage of opposing
‘culturalist’ views of movements by treating them as rational and impor-
tant elements in changing societies. In the field of SMT, the political
opportunities structure model (POS) posited that factors which influ-
enced a movement’s origin, development, success or failure lay outside
the movement itself and were dependent on the structure of political
opportunities available at any given time.12 Mohammed M. Hafez and
Quintan Wiktorowicz, for example, used the POS model to oppose the
24 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

idea that Islamic movements were irrational and violent. They argued
that in fact state repression and a lack of democratic alternatives were
responsible for the use of violence as a tactic in the Islamic movement
in Egypt.13
While POS highlighted structural and political process-based
explanations for the success or failure of movements, resource mobilisa-
tion theory (RMT) utilised rational choice frameworks and saw partici-
pants in movements as rational actors. It sought to provide an analysis
of the capacity of movements to organise, based on factors such as
the availability of resources, cadres and organising facilities as essen-
tial components of both centralised ‘social movement organisations’
and decentralised movements.14 A number of works addressed such
organisational issues in Islamic movements. Carrie Rosefsky Wickam
analysed the Muslim Brotherhood’s mobilisation of student and pro-
fessional associations and Janine Clark conducted a study of Islamic
social institutions, such as health clinics.15 Despite the strengths of RMT
in providing frameworks for studying organisations, its rational choice
framework arguably limited its usefulness in relating such issues to the
wider political context in which movements operate. This view is best
summed up by Wickham’s statement that ‘it is often more palatable –
and less dangerous – for people in the Arab world to deflect responsibil-
ity for the region’s problems onto external actors than to acknowledge
the causes that are rooted in their own politics and culture’.16
Both structuralist and rational choice models were challenged fur-
ther by the culturalist and ‘anti-explanation’ turns in SMT and the
social sciences more generally. POS in particular came under criticism
for employing a top-down model of social change which was overly
structuralist and undermined the agency of political actors. Charles
Kurzman’s 1996 article argued that it was not structural factors but the
subjective ‘perceived opportunities’ of the movement’s strength that
were critical in the success of the Iranian revolution.17 He extended
this argument in The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran, arguing for an
‘anti-explanation’ model which rejected retroactive predictability for an
understanding of the ‘lived experience of the event’.18
Theories of framing processes informed by social constructivism have
in recent years heavily influenced contemporary SMT which has tried to
distance itself from its structuralist roots. The new focus of the Dynamics
of Contention (DOC) model is on mechanisms and processes, identity
construction and informal networks.19 This approach has a number of
strengths despite criticisms that it is overly technical and abstract in
formulation and language. In particular, contemporary SMT highlights
 Theorising Movements 25

the processual and contingent nature of contentious politics and social

change whereas classical approaches divorced movements from their
contexts in order to fit them into abstract models. Rather than seeking
to apply rational choice models or political process frameworks to test
cases in a mechanical fashion, those who utilise the DOC model now
argue that context is crucial, and that movements should be studied
as ‘ “analytic narratives” of episodes of contention’ in a way that con-
nects them to their origins and outcomes.20 However, questions remain
regarding the conceptual usefulness of this new focus particularly when
it is used to study Middle Eastern movements.
The new DOC approach has abandoned concepts such as class for
those that highlight the importance of identity construction. Informed
by ‘new social movement’ theory, Islamic movements in particular are
perceived as ‘heavily involved in the production of meaning and fram-
ing processes’ and as ‘driven by identity, culture and post-materialism
(as opposed to class, economic, or narrow political interests)’.21 Even
those whose focus is on labour movements question the existence of
class, arguing that ‘large scale social and historical structures have no
objective, trans-historical existence’ and are ‘always produced in a spe-
cific socio-historical context’.22 These types of formulations tend to
conflate the post-modernist critique of structuralism, in which class is
a ‘grand narrative’ that has no objective existence, with the claim that
structures are not trans-historical. It is worth remembering here that
the structuralist conception of class posits that it is not at all a trans-
historical category but a system of interpersonal relationships whose
effects can be studied in particular historical-geographical contexts. This
lack of clarity matters as the denial of the existence of class is a major
part of contemporary political discourse and a product of a political con-
text in which aspects of neo-liberal ideology have been embraced not
only by the right but also by the left. A pertinent example of the dom-
inance of this type of discourse is given by Crompton. She argues that
one of the effects of neo-liberalism in Western countries has been that
issues such as poverty, traditionally the focus of the left, have come to
be seen as a problem of ‘social exclusion’ not as an outcome of class
processes.23
The assumption that contemporary movements are no longer con-
cerned with economics and politics is also not borne out by the
empirical evidence. A majority of the studies conducted on contem-
porary Islamic and other movements have chronicled their activism
around issues of social welfare and provision of services as well as cam-
paigns on democracy, political freedom and Palestine. However, in the
26 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

academic world the continuing importance of economic and political

issues has been downplayed in favour of an, at times uncritical, discus-
sion of identity and ‘culture’. This is problematic as it allows a form
of Middle Eastern exceptionalism to remain unchallenged. Arab and
Muslim societies have been referred to by some writers as ‘semi-feudal’
religious societies. This is despite the fact that many Arab and Muslim
countries were incorporated into the world capitalist economy in the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.24 Egypt played a vital role in
the expansion of global capitalism in the nineteenth century through
its cotton industry and its geographically strategic location, as did Iran
prior to and following the discovery of oil in the first decades of the
twentieth century. Regardless of this reality, the Arab and Muslim world,
which is posited by some historians and commentators as ‘the other’,
is often treated as a ‘special case’ in which ideas of movements, class
and resistance are not applicable. This is not to say that other forms
of identity and solidarity do not exist in the region – they do, as else-
where. As Ayubi argues, the presence of other loyalties such as sect,
clan and tribe can interact with class to produce situations in which
intra-class groups can emerge.25 However, as a number of authors have
argued, sects, clans and tribes should not be seen as primordial or tradi-
tional entities but as modern political constructions in which economic
interests play a major part.26
In this book I use the broad definition of class posited by
Rueschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens as ‘the structured and cumula-
tively unequal distribution of the objects of near-universal desire: of the
material necessities of life and other economic resources, of respect and
honour, and of power and influence’.27 This definition views class as a
useful category of analysis for social scientists but more importantly as a
principal driver of social change. In doing so it reflects the Marxist view
of classes as forces in society with the potential to be decisive actors in
history, capable of enacting long-term historical change.28 This reading
of class is by no means deterministic. It at once celebrates the power
of human agency while acknowledging the contingency and unpre-
dictability of social change, particularly with regard to issues of collec-
tive consciousness, organisation and action. It is important therefore
to note, as E. P. Thompson argues, that the making of class conscious-
ness cannot be construed from class position in a deterministic manner.
Class identity, as well as collective action, is historically contingent and
dependent on a multitude of socio-economic and political factors.29
The new DOC model also has important consequences for how the
role of the state is conceptualised. A ‘top-down’ approach to social
 Theorising Movements 27

change which focuses in its entirety on bargaining among political elites

has been rightly criticised for overestimating regime endurance and
underestimating the strength of challenges from below.30 This critique
has been successfully taken up by those who argue that contentious pol-
itics exists beyond the state and institutional politics. Instead a more
‘bottom-up’ approach has been called for which gives greater regard to
social movements and informal networks. The study of informal net-
works in particular has been important in revealing the ways in which
people struggle for survival in the region on an everyday level and as a
counter to the idea that the episodic nature of social and political mobil-
isation is due to the supposed passivity of the population.31 Despite its
strengths this approach is based on a number of assumptions about
contentious politics that can be problematic. Primary among these is
the idea of the ‘withering away of the state’ as advocated by theorists
such as Melucci, Hart and Negri. Similar to the denial of class, the idea
that the state is no longer the primary focus of movements is a product
of neo-liberal ideology. This posited that globalisation would entail the
weakening of nation-states and the formation of a global ‘movement
society’. However, two decades of neo-liberalism have in fact produced
more entrenched and authoritarian state structures, albeit in particu-
lar diffuse forms. The Arab uprisings themselves have demonstrated
the continuing importance of the state and a variety of movements
have articulated the channelling of resistance directly at state structures.
Events since the Arab Spring have also demonstrated how difficult it is to
challenge authoritarian and coercive networks and structures that both
express and sustain the ‘deep state’.
As well as basic conceptual difficulties concerning the idea of what
constitutes informal politics, the question of the relationship between
non-movements or quiet encroachment and more organised expres-
sions of political opposition remains unresolved. A number of theorists
have sought to produce frameworks which allow for the presence of
both formal and informal movements and to analyse the interactions
between them. However, there is an underlying pessimism about the
possibility of large-scale social change present in the Foucauldian–
Scottian conceptualisation of informal politics which seems to preclude
such optimistic conceptual ‘marriages’. James Scott’s formulation of
‘everyday politics’ is not just about forms of protest which are a testa-
ment to those communities surviving extreme political repression and
economic deprivation. It views organised politics or large-scale revolu-
tionary change as neither feasible nor desirable. Less is said, therefore,
about the possibility of transforming states and political systems, a
28 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

process which itself is often seen negatively or dismissed as romantic

idealism.
A final important question surrounds the idea of whether there is
a Euro-centric ‘democratisation bias’ inherent in SMT. Despite the use
of both classical and contemporary models of SMT–DOC, debates still
persist about its application to non-Western countries and contexts.
In a chapter analysing comparative approaches to contentious poli-
tics, McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly argue that SMT can only be applied
in democratic contexts where participants have access to the formal
political system and engage in the repertoires of non-violent collective
action developed in the global north – petitions, strikes, demonstra-
tions, lobbying, party politics, etc.32 The implication that SMT–DOC
models cannot be applied to the Middle East at all is simply ignored by
most contemporary theorists of Middle Eastern politics. However, these
kinds of arguments should not be glossed over by those interested in
contentious politics in the region. Firstly, they make assumptions about
the nature of politics in the non-Western world, treating authoritarian-
ism and democracy as both innate to certain regions and as mutually
exclusive. They also posit a causal link between liberal democracy and
the repertoires of contention mentioned above – as if strikes or lobby-
ing are products of a liberal democratic framework. McAdam, Tarrow
and Tilly date this link between liberal democracy and social move-
ments as being forged at the end of the nineteenth century, which
glosses over the fact that European countries have not been democ-
racies, let alone liberal democracies for the majority of the twentieth
century. Social movements and the repertoires of contention associated
with them have persisted in the twentieth-century European context,
throughout periods of fascist rule, for example.
The repertoires of contention that McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly associate
with liberal democracies are in fact the product of the politics of mod-
ern nation-states. These took shape at the end of the nineteenth century
and in states where largely capitalist economic and social relations were
predominant. In them the state intervened in the lives of people in
new ways and took responsibility for instituting programs of national
education, legal systems and criminal justice etc. ‘Modern’ repertoires
of contention therefore are not exclusive to the Western, European or
Northern context. They emerged as a response to the centralisation
of power in nation-states and the advent of new economic and social
relationships which have existed in the non-Western as well as Western
world for over two hundred years. Stephen Poulson, for example, argues
that ‘the “master framework” of Iranian social movements during the
 Theorising Movements 29

twentieth century was primarily oriented toward creating concepts of

‘Iranian sovereignty’. This included the idea of ‘national’ sovereignty.
Therefore movements and social protest during the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries were directly related to state-making processes.33
In Chapters 3 and 5 of this book I chart the ways in which new
repertoires of contention were utilised by certain social forces from
the late nineteenth century onwards in Egypt and Iran. In doing so
I hope to pick apart the presumed innate link between social move-
ments and liberal democracy in favour of a nuanced contextual analysis
of the forces – both democratic and authoritarian – that exist in all
societies and the tensions inherent between them. But there is a fur-
ther criticism of the SMT–DOC model which argues that its teleological
democratisation focus is inappropriate for the Middle East and other
areas where movements exist alongside authoritarian regimes.34 How-
ever, it is important to note that authoritarianism is not a stable system
in general, nor is the Middle East exceptional in possessing authoritarian
regimes. Protest, grassroots welfare provision, everyday politics and all
the other types of political activity which are apparent in the region are
not simply features of a dynamic or stable authoritarianism. In the early
twenty-first century they contribute to the destabilisation of authori-
tarian regimes and are genuine forces for change. However, the politics
they have employed and the repertoires of contention McAdam, Tarrow
and Tilly describe have brought to power reformist parties which have
not proven to be an alternative to coercive neo-liberal states. In the next
section, I extend this discussion into a critical examination of debates
surrounding three prominent groups of social movements in the Middle
East since the 1990s. These are civil society, the women’s movement and
Islamism.

Civil and uncivil societies

Although the idea of social movements was originally confined to

Western countries, a body of literature developed in the 1990s with a
focus on the role of movements in developing countries, particularly
in Eastern Europe, South America and South Asia. This literature dealt
not only with social movements but redefined the notion of ‘civil soci-
ety’, a concept which has had a long history in Western scholarship as a
‘melange of associations, clubs, guilds, syndicates, federations, unions,
parties and groups’,35 working together to achieve change in their soci-
eties. Theorists from the left and right lauded the promise of civil society
in bringing about social change and democratisation, although they
30 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

conceived of the theory in different ways. For the left, the concept was
inspired by the overthrow of authoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe
through the mobilisation of movements, unions and non-governmental
organisations. For the right, the concept heralded the lessening role that
the state would play in society under the new economic orthodoxy of
neo-liberalism.36
The terms ‘social movement’ and ‘civil society’ are often used inter-
changeably, yet there are important differences between them. While
social movements are thought of as oppositional by their very nature,
Hilhorst argues that civil society organisations, consisting of NGOs,
unions, clubs, associations and other groups can work with the state
to achieve their goals.37 This distinction contradicts the extent to
which civil society has been conceptualised as acting against the
state. As Gordon White notes, the role of civil society has become
‘embroiled in a demonology of the state, often serving as an idealised
counter-image’.38 Also complicating the picture is the fact that civil
society organisations are often part of movements. For example, in
Iran women’s NGOs have been a major part of the women’s move-
ment and reform movement, whereas in Egypt, syndicates, welfare
and community organisations, among others, have articulated opposi-
tion to the regime. Therefore it is important to note that while social
movements form an independent category of analysis, civil society
organisations, political parties, unions and other groups can play an
important role in movements and are crucial to their development and
character.
By the 1990s the concept of civil society had become part of main-
stream development discourses. There was much theoretical develop-
ment which sought to analyse its role in democratisation and economic
development, particularly in areas of the world in which autocratic
political systems held sway. However, debates quickly arose as to the
presence and nature of civil society in the Middle East, which, mirroring
the debates on Islamic movements, centred on the question of Islamic
‘exceptionalism’.
Theorists such as John A. Hall and John Keane had defined civil soci-
ety as having both institutional and normative aspects. In their view
it required societal bodies and organisations independent of the state
and the presence of ‘civility’, which encompassed ‘values’ such as indi-
vidualism, secularism, pluralism and democracy.39 The presence of both
of these elements was initially thought to be lacking in Middle Eastern
societies. In terms of the normative aspect, this argument is perhaps best
summarised by sociologist Serif Mardin who conceives of civil society
 Theorising Movements 31

as a purely Western phenomenon associated with the ideas of individ-

ual freedom and liberty, a ‘Western dream’ which could not translate
into Islamic terms.40 Islamic societies were also thought to be lacking in
social forms which gave rise to the emergence of civil society in Europe.
For example, Ernest Gellner argued that the concept of the umma (com-
munity), which he associates with a lack of individualism in Islamic
societies, prevented the emergence of independent civic associations
and thus civil society.41 Similarly, Guilain Denoeux argued that pre-
modern Middle Eastern cities were characterised by a lack of ‘formally
organised political groups and elected municipal bodies representing the
collective interests of the city’.42
These views were challenged by writers who argued that Middle
Eastern countries such as Egypt possess a long history of political con-
tention by civic groups, organisations and movements. A two-volume
study on civil society in the Middle East was published in 1995 in
which the editor, Augustus Richard Norton, argued that the concept of
civil society, although European in origin, was not alien to the Middle
East.43 Authors such as Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Mustapha Kamil al-Sayyid
and Nazih Ayubi documented the proliferation of groups, associations,
active syndicates and NGOs in Egypt and other countries in the region
in the 1990s.44 Saad Eddin Ibrahim was one of a number of authors to
argue against the idea of the ‘inhospitability’ of Arab society and culture
to democratisation. He highlighted the fact that in the pre-modern era,
the public spaces of cities in the Arab and Muslim world were shared by
social groups who acted independently of the state, such as the ulama,
merchants, guilds, Sufi orders, autonomous religious and ethnic groups,
counsellors and advisers.
In countering the charge that Islamic societies lacked ‘civility’ Ahmad
S. Moussalli emphasised the history of free-thinking and pluralism
and the positive attitude to knowledge and rationalism in the work
of Islamic jurists, theologians and philosophers. He saw the continua-
tion of these characteristics in the modernist Islamic reformers of the
nineteenth century such as al-Afghani and Muhammad ‘Abduh and
drew a connection between them and the ideologies of contemporary
Islamic movements.45 In addition, Tim Niblock has pointed out that
‘the Western intellectual tradition has not always been dominated by
a dream of individual human rights guaranteed by impartial and sec-
ular law’. Niblock argued that ‘the contest between promoting social
cohesion and defending individual rights, then, exists within both
Western and Islamic societies. It does not constitute a simple dividing
line between the two.’46
32 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

These debates were important because underlying them was the

idea that civil society was the essential ingredient in democratisation.
As Augustus Richard Norton states in the introduction to his two-
volume study on civil society in the Middle East:

The fostering of civil society is a crucial step toward realising a freer

Middle East. One is hard pressed to design a participant political
system which could survive very long in the absence of a vibrant
civil society. In short, the existence of civil society is central to
democracy.47

However, authors such as Janine Clark argued that Islamic groups and
organisations could not be a force for democratisation due to what she
described as a lack of internal democratic practices and ideologies.48
Similarly, Sami Zubaida claimed that ‘social Islam’ was an obstacle to
democratisation in Egypt as it constituted ‘the instrument by which
the Islamist current controls and directs the masses’.49 Such analyses
were problematic as they tended to hold Islamic organisations to a
higher standard than secular or leftist organisations in terms of inter-
nal democracy or the presence of democratic ideologies. Asef Bayat
on the other hand argued that mosques and NGOs which provided
services in response to the Egyptian state’s retreat from social welfare
provision after the implementation of neo-liberal economic policies,
demonstrated the politics of community representation and survival.50
They created social and cultural ‘subsystems’ that could ‘breed oppo-
sition to dominant institutions and value systems’51 and offered those
who were excluded from the mainstream political process a place where
they could make decisions and organise their members around issues of
human rights, political prisoners and Palestine.52
The orientation of Islamic groups and organisations to social Islam,
civil society or democratic politics was not, as many have claimed,
purely opportunistic. In subsequent chapters I argue that Islamic groups
and organisations formed an essential part of civil society and were com-
mitted to democracy in the 1990s. However, there are important limits
to the civil society model and it is possible to question the presumed
links between civil society and democratisation. Daniel Brumberg argues
that ‘on the contrary, in Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan the sheer prolifera-
tion of small NGOs – riven by fierce ideological divisions and hamstrung
by official regulations – made divide and rule easier’.53 Similarly, Vickie
Langohr and Jan Aart Scholte have argued that, at best, the prolifer-
ation of civil society has had an uneven impact on countries in the
 Theorising Movements 33

region and at times hindered attempts at democratisation and political

liberalisation.54
This book contends that the failure of civil society to ‘democratise’
the Middle East is not due to the supposed antipathy of Middle Eastern
cultures to democracy but to the linkages between civil society and neo-
liberalism. Rather than being a gateway to democracy, the orientation of
Islamic and secular groups and organisations to civil society led in many
cases to the adoption of principles of neo-liberalism, particularly among
the leadership of organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood. This
had major implications both for the organisation and for the movement
of which it was a part.

Gender, Islamic feminism and the women’s movement

In this chapter I have argued that the new DOC model presumes
that ‘modern’ repertoires of contention originate and belong solely to
the global north. Similarly, most studies of social movements assume
that such repertoires belong solely to male-dominated and male-led
organisations and groups. In most accounts, strikes, sit-ins and lob-
bying can even be said to have a distinctly masculinist flavour with
women participating as an audience or not at all. Opposing this, I argue
that women’s participation in movements and their development of
some of the major repertoires of contention of the twentieth century
are crucial to understanding modern social and political movements.
I see women’s groups and organisations as one of the major social
forces driving political and social change from the nineteenth century
onwards.
It is important to note that women do not constitute a homogeneous
grouping, nor is their political participation always focused on cam-
paigns for gender equality. Historically women have played an equally
important role in nationalist, communist, Islamist and other move-
ments. Women have also played a major role in the economies and
politics of Middle Eastern countries. In Chapters 3 and 5 I argue that his-
torically women were not confined to the home and were responsible for
producing much of the agricultural and hand-crafted goods the trade of
which formed the basis of pre-colonial economies. As women’s positions
were transformed by colonialism and capitalist relations of produc-
tion, women joined political and social movements in large numbers.
Chapters 4 and 6 demonstrate how their participation in labour move-
ments and in anti-imperialist and pro-democracy movements continues
to be crucial.
34 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

The role of women in politics and social movements has been

neglected by writers who view Middle Eastern societies as conservative
and religious. Such analyses neglect the role of women as active
participants in Islamic or secular movements despite the long history
of their presence. Theories of women as confined to the ‘private sphere’
of Muslim societies often assumed that women were simply absent from
political events. This was despite an abundance of empirical and his-
torical evidence to the contrary from countries such as Egypt and Iran,
in which women had been chronicled as active participants and lead-
ers in major movements from the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries onwards. In particular, the active and visible participation
of women in the Iranian revolution challenged this view of Muslim
women as passive victims of male oppression.
Roksana Bahramitash and Nima Naghibi argue that the absence of
women from mainstream accounts of politics in the region served a
particular purpose which was directly related to the colonial/imperial
domination of Muslim countries. During the colonial period of the nine-
teenth century in which Arab and Muslim societies came under the
control of Western powers, the idea of Muslim women as passive victims
who were in need of saving from their backward, violent and uncivilised
societies formed an essential part of colonial discourse.55 Bahramitash
points out that during the brutal and genocidal 130-year colonial rule
of the French regime in Algeria, Algerians were denied civil or polit-
ical rights on the basis of their backwardness, while Algerian women
were ‘saved’ through a policy of forced ‘symbolic’ de-veiling. Forced de-
veiling was also carried out by the British in Egypt by the infamous Lord
Cromer who opposed the Suffragette movement in England and by the
pro-Western government of the shah of Iran in the 1920s.56
The 1990s saw the emergence of Islamic feminism and the women’s
movement in Iran and elsewhere. Diverse strands of Muslim or Islamic
feminisms sought to challenge views of Islam as an inherently conserva-
tive and patriarchal religion and to articulate progressive and liberatory
readings of Islamic religious texts. Such works presented a challenge
to mainstream Western readings of feminism which were premised
on the idea that Islam was the main source of women’s oppression
in Muslim countries. In contrast to this, prominent authors such as
Fatima Mernissi and Amina Wadud developed theoretical frameworks
and provided extensive analysis of the Qur’an and Hadith while other
authors situated the cause of women’s oppression in the region in fac-
tors external to Islam such as capitalism, imperialism and patriarchy.
Egyptian feminist and author Nawal al-Sa‘dawi, for example, writes that
women were victims, not of Islam but of the ‘patriarchal class system
 Theorising Movements 35

which manifests itself internationally as world capitalism and imperial-

ism and nationally in the feudal and capitalist classes of the Third World
countries’.57
Iris Marion Young and Zillah Eisenstein are among a number of
contemporary feminist authors who have provided a critique of the
response of Western feminism to issues such as the ‘War on Terror’,
imperialism and women’s oppression.58 These authors have noted that
Islamophobia, a form of contemporary racism which homogenises peo-
ple of Islamic cultures in order to present them as backward and violent,
has its roots in ideologies of colonialism in which the oppression of
Arab and Muslim women justified colonial rule. Young argues that con-
temporary Islamophobia has likewise utilised the logic of ‘masculinist
protection’ in order to justify Western military action in Afghanistan
and Iraq and to shore up support for contemporary ‘security states’ in
the West.59
In order to counter mainstream notions of Muslim women as absent
from politics in the region, a number of progressive women researchers
have highlighted women’s roles as agents in political, economic and
social spheres. They have chronicled the active participation of women
in the political, economic and social life of Egypt and Iran. Janet Afary,
for example, has written extensively on the role of women in the
constitutional revolution (1906–11) and other movements in Iran,60
while a number of authors have chronicled women’s positions in the
labour force post-1979 and the emergence of the women’s movement
in Iran in the 1990s.61 In the same vein, Sherine Hafez has argued that
Islamic women activists in Egypt are empowered by their work in Islamic
organisations.62
Such work raises criticisms that, in emphasising women’s
empowerment and agency, these authors are neglecting the relation-
ships of power and oppression that continue to persist in Muslim
societies. For example, Lila Abu Lughod has asked whether the project
of ‘showing Euroamerican colleagues that there were real feminists
in the Middle East, women who fought for women’s social, eco-
nomic and political rights, means having to dismiss other aspects of
their projects’.63 Specifically, she suggests that the price of arguing
for women’s rights from within an Islamic perspective may be the
acceptance of female difference, a lack of interest in unveiling and
arguing in terms of an Islamic moral framework. It is important to
remember that the analyses of Muslim feminist authors are by no
means homogeneous or incapable of problematising such issues. Much
has been written on the issue of veiling and unveiling by Muslim
women authors, while Amina Wadud has articulated interpretations of
36 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

gender and the Qur’an which defend the notion of the distinctness
of sex and gender while problematising the societal construction of
the role of mothers, marriage, family and normative heterosexuality.64
Furthermore, Leila Ahmed has noted that while Western feminists
are seen as able to fight for women’s liberation without discarding
Western culture in its entirety, Muslim and Middle Eastern feminists
are asked to abandon Islamic culture.65 Such arguments represent a
call for a view of women’s liberation that recognises women’s chang-
ing relationship with their heterogeneous cultures, their understanding
and experience of faith, and their national, community and personal
histories.
Also important has been the recognition among some authors that
women’s activism must be contextualised within the political, eco-
nomic and social framework in which it occurs. Drawing on the work of
Foucault and Judith Butler, Saba Mahmood criticises the binary model of
subordination–resistance engendered by analyses of Islam and women’s
oppression. She argues for recognition of women’s roles as a ‘product
of the historically contingent discursive traditions in which they are
located’.66 In recent years the context in which women join movements
has been dominated by increasing neo-liberal authoritarianism and war.
Therefore women deal with lack of political freedoms, poverty and state
repression on an everyday basis.
My analysis demonstrates that women are successfully challenging
restrictive gender relations within their own communities, both from
within the framework of an Islamic culture and from various secular
perspectives. Indeed these are not always separate political spheres but
are often interlinked. In particular women have been at the frontlines of
creating what I call an ‘in-between’ space since the 1990s, in which they
oppose both conservative interpretations of religious texts and efforts
by pro-Western states and Western governments to implement an ‘impe-
rial’ feminism. The space in which they have worked, however, has been
constricted by unequal access to economic resources, lack of political
freedoms and pressure from external powers in the form of imperialism,
war and conflict.

Islam, Islamism and post-Islamism

In this book I oppose the argument that Islamism is a homogeneous

and essentially conservative political phenomenon. Instead I trace the
intellectual roots of contemporary Islamist movements to a tradition
of liberatory readings of Islamic religious texts and customs that have
 Theorising Movements 37

persisted for over a century. This does not mean that I argue that all
Islamisms have been liberatory or progressive. Instead it is important to
note that ‘Islamism’ is used by commentators and observers as well as
by some participants in reference to disparate groups and organisations
with diverse economic, political and social policies.
Alongside other diverse political movements such as nationalism and
communism or socialism, Islamism has been one of the most enduring
political and intellectual trends in the region and one which has led
to much debate among academics and commentators. This debate has
focused largely on the issue of whether Islamism should be seen as a
positive or negative political force. Two major approaches to the study
of Islamism in the West have emerged, each of which has been criti-
cised by a number of authors. The first approach analyses the nature
of Islamic movements as democratic or non-democratic directly from
religious texts without reference to the political context in which move-
ments operate. Such essentialism can view Islamism in either a positive
or negative light, yet is problematic as it treats movements as static
and isolated from their broader political context.67 A second related
approach uses terms such as ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ to sum up the
politics of Islamic movements, without making it clear what such terms
refer to. An Islamic movement can be neo-liberal in terms of economics
but socially conservative or radically leftist in its economic programme
and advocate a right-wing and exclusivist reading of religious traditions.
Therefore, I agree with Houdaiby and others that we need to move
beyond such labels to an analysis of the changing nature of Islamic
movements in their political context, their interaction with the state
and external forces, their specific social, economic and political policies
and how they interact with other movements.68
In 1991 the world witnessed the outbreak of a horrific civil war in
Algeria following the electoral victory of the Islamic Salvation Front
(FIS). The fact that a modern Islamic movement had almost won power
through the electoral process and been prevented from taking office
through a military coup backed by Western ‘liberal-democratic’ coun-
tries raised further questions about the West’s assumed monopoly on
liberal values of political freedom and democracy. During this period a
number of Islamist movements such as al-Nahda in Tunisia, the Justice
and Development Party in Turkey, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
and the reform movement in Iran were actively campaigning for demo-
cratic reform. This prompted Tim Niblock to note that in some countries
Islamist movements ‘have been more strident in pressing for democratic
change than have non-religious political parties’.69
38 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

Other writers analysing the phenomenon of ‘political Islam’ and

Islamism in the 1990s presented a dynamic view of the role of religion in
movements. This sought to reveal how political elites can utilise religion
to legitimise their rule and how Islamic movements can reframe the
language of religion in order to resist political domination.70 Stressing
the fact that the Qur’an contains very few practical legal or politi-
cal elements and the importance of Ijtihad in the Islamic tradition,
Mohammed Arkoun, Talal Asad and others analysed the use of religious
symbology and language in contemporary politics.71 While calling for
attention to be paid to the specific historical experiences of Muslim
countries, some authors defended the universality of values such as free-
dom, pluralism and democracy and traced their development in the
intellectual and social history of Islam. Others also theorised that the
use of religious language by groups and movements does not neces-
sarily imply increasing religiosity and conservatism but can signify a
de-institutionalisation, politicisation and indeed secularisation of reli-
gious discourse.72 Indeed, increasing secularisation of Iranian society in
the 1990s and calls by some reformists for a separation of religion from
the state in that country led authors such as Asef Bayat to herald the
emergence of a post-Islamist era in Iran.73
Despite the efforts of Islamic movements, NGOs and organisations,
the end of the twentieth century saw the persistence of authoritarian
regimes in the region and an increase in state repression in countries
such as Egypt. Although some no doubt saw these events as confirma-
tion that the Middle East was ‘democracy-proof’, writers such as Maha
Abdelrahman have criticised the assumption that the presence of civil
society could in itself bring about democracy and called for a more
nuanced view of the complex interaction of movements, states, NGOs,
associations and external aid donors in the politics of the region.74
Others pointed to the characteristics of states and in particular the emer-
gence of free-market authoritarianism, the use of state repression and
the new international environment following the advent of the ‘War on
Terror’.75 Following the uprising of 2011 and the elections held there-
after, analysts were quick to condemn the actions of the short-lived
Morsi government as more evidence of the incompatibility of Islam
and democracy. This approach once again utilised Orientalist stereo-
types rather than paying attention to the strategies used by movements,
whether democratic or undemocratic, in their political context. The
repressive nature of Morsi’s regime was ascribed purely to its origin in
an Islamic movement, not to strategic choices made by its leadership,
demonstrating that, forty years after Orientalism, a critical approach to
Islamism is still far from being broadly accepted.
 Theorising Movements 39

Conclusion

The focus of repertoires of contention is often on the repertoires them-

selves rather than on the development and character of the social forces
that employ them. However, in this book I want to analyse the way that
certain groups and organisations have deployed and developed forms of
contentious politics. In doing so I hope to contextualise their develop-
ment and problematise the rather abstract and ahistorical approach that
sees them as purely European, white and masculinist in origin.
In this chapter I have argued that despite advances in the area of
social movements’ theory and Middle East studies, there are still major
questions surrounding the treatment of movements in the region today.
The danger of approaches that decontextualise movements and ignore
the political environment has been acknowledged by new models of
SMT and new work on civil society, gender and Islamism. However,
some recent models still cling to ideas engendered by the neo-liberal
orthodoxy which has dominated politics and economics over the past
decades. In many areas a position which argued that Middle Eastern
countries could not democratise as they were essentially conserva-
tive has given way to one that lauds civil society, non-movements
or the demise of the state. While an improvement, I argue that such
approaches still paint a false picture of politics in the region. In opposi-
tion to this, I have formulated a conceptual framework that places the
contradictions of contemporary neo-liberalism, external forces and the
state at the heart of this study of social movements. Movements in Egypt
and Iran have fought for social justice and community survival through
the provision of welfare and other social services. Far from being an
apolitical expression of individual piety, such activities can become both
centres of resistance to, and accommodation with, neo-liberal states.
The relationship between movements and states is complex and histor-
ically contingent. A strategy of reformism that does not target the state
directly and seeks to work within it can succeed or fail and lead to more
radical strategies, dependent on the nature of states and movements.
Contemporary movements are themselves influenced by a long history
of the dynamic relationship between movements, states and external
forces. The following chapters will analyse the impact of this history on
social movements in their domestic political environment and in the
region as a whole.
3
Social Movements, the State and
External Forces in Modern Iran

In the following chapters I analyse the rise of modern nationwide

movements in Iran and Egypt from the late nineteenth century
onwards. Utilising a socio-historical perspective, I examine the social
forces which participated in movements, their changing politics and
the forms of protest that they utilised. I argue that women, workers’
associations, Islamic groups and organisations, national minorities, stu-
dents and intellectuals developed and deployed repertoires of protest
and forms of political discourse during this period which still exert
an influence today. This chapter will present an analysis of the role
of movements, the state and external forces in modern Iran, focus-
ing on the period between the late nineteenth century and the end
of the 1980s. Although chronological, it will not present a survey of
Iranian history. Instead my analysis will focus on specific historical junc-
tures and turning points in which national movements interacted with
the state and external forces. These turning points include the tobacco
protest of 1890, the constitutional revolution (1906–11), the oil nation-
alisation movement of 1951, the secular left, religious and nationalist
movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the revolution of 1979 and the
foundation of the reform movement in the late 1980s.
My analysis seeks to demonstrate that far from being conserva-
tive reactions to the clash between modernity and tradition, modern
social movements emerged from the formation of nation-states and
the myriad contradictory experiences of modernity. They were there-
fore a product of modernity in the Middle East, as elsewhere in the
world. In particular, I will focus on the changing nature of the modern
Iranian state. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the
Iranian state underwent a number of transformations, from a loosely
decentralised state under the Qajar dynasty (1797–1925) to a highly

40
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Iran 41

centralised, modernising and authoritarian state during the Pahlavi

dynasty (1925–79). The Pahlavi state was in turn transformed, con-
solidated and developed by the Islamic Republic created in 1979. The
Islamic Republic itself has undergone a number of different phases
and since the 1990s has found itself under pressure from below to
democratise and initiate reform. The specific experience of modernity in
Iran, as in many other non-Western countries, involved the traumatic
encounter with European colonialism and imperialism. The following
chapter will therefore also focus on the interventions of foreign powers
in Iran including their influence in shaping the state and their impact
on social movements. An analysis of the interaction of all of these
factors is essential in understanding the complexity of Iranian social
movements and forms the backdrop to the relationship between Iranian
movements, external forces and the state today.

Iran on the eve of the tobacco protest

The true heterogeneity of modern Iran is often disguised by Western

media portrayals of the country as a religious and conservative society.
However, during the nineteenth century, Iran was a diverse multicul-
tural and multiethnic country and the Iranian state and society were
far from being a cohesive and centrally organised whole. At the begin-
ning of the nineteenth century the country’s population was composed
of villagers, nomadic or semi-nomadic pastoral communities and city-
dwellers and was home to diverse linguistic and ethnic communities.
Iran had been ruled by major dynasties of Arabic and Turkic-speaking
peoples and in the nineteenth century less than 50 per cent of the popu-
lation spoke Persian/Farsi. Indeed, there are significant ethnic minorities
in the country today such as Azeri, Kurd, Arab, Baluch, Turkmen, Gilaki,
Qashqai, Bakhtiari, Shahsevan and Lur communities. In addition to eth-
nic minorities there are religious minorities such as Sunni Muslims,
Jews, Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Georgians and Zoroastrians. The
majority Shi‘i Muslim community was also diverse with a majority of
ithna ‘ashari (twelver) Shi‘is, but it was also comprised of Isma‘ili Shi‘is,
a number of competing Sufi orders, Alavis, Shaykhis and Babis which
later became Baha’is.1
The relationship between state and society in Iran was dynamic. The
Qajar state was highly decentralised and its presence was felt most
strongly in the cities. It ruled for over a century through a loose network
of local notables including tribal chiefs and large landowners. However,
during this period the Qajar state possessed neither a standing army nor
42 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

a bureaucracy and even in 1923 the government lacked the administra-

tive machinery to collect taxes.2 Despite the decentralised nature of the
state, Iranian society was dominated by the power of the elite landown-
ing families, by the mid-twentieth century known as the hizar famil
(one thousand families), who ruled the country and benefited from its
resources.3 Other social groups consisted of high ulama, merchants and
state officials, a traditional middle class of lower ulama, clerks, bazaaris,
craftsmen and artisans and a lower class of workers, servants and those
engaged in agricultural and handicraft production.
The relationship between state and society in the nineteenth century
was placed under immense pressure by the economic and political dis-
locations brought about by colonialism. This period saw deterioration
in conditions for peasants as a result of the decrease in small landhold-
ings and a growth in the production of cash crops for export, such as
opium and tobacco. The obliteration of small-scale subsistence farming
led to an increase in the power of the large landowners and to inter-
mittent and widespread famines in rural areas. The famine of 1869–72
was an example of such a phenomenon and was partly caused by the
spread of opium-growing for export.4 Urbanisation was rapid during
this period and it was in urban areas where Iran’s early ‘civil societies’
flourished. The Qajar monarchy’s power and influence was most notice-
able in urban areas, but cities were also governed autonomously and
divided into wards where neighbourhood communities, trades people
and religious and ethnic groupings were represented by their own lead-
ers. Life in the cities was also organised through the presence of guilds,
Sufi orders and zurkhaneh (gymnasiums), populated by lutis (strong-
men) who often also worked in the bazaar as petty tradesmen.5 Indeed
the power of these diverse communities to challenge the state in the
nineteenth century was so strong that Abrahamian argues that Iranian
society during this period was characterised by an excess of ‘civil society’
rather than a lack of it.6
The position of women in nineteenth-century Iran was similarly
far from homogeneous and varied according to their socio-economic,
ethno-linguistic and urban or rural backgrounds.7 Although the Qajar
Shahs practiced both gender seclusion in large harems and veiling, seclu-
sion was not a common practice and was restricted to the elite. Lower
class women were not secluded and some communities did not have
a tradition of veiling.8 Women participated in the economy, in politi-
cal movements and in religious matters. In the cities they ran women’s
public baths and sold goods in houses; lower class women worked in the
home as seamstresses, spinners, and weavers or went to work outside the
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Iran 43

home.9 In rural areas women engaged in pastoralism and the majority of

farming, agricultural products and handicrafts were produced through
the unpaid work of women.10 In the cities the fluctuating prices of food
brought lower class women into the streets where they joined men in
demonstrations and riots. Women also participated in religious matters,
in Sufi orders and acted as mullahs, mujtahids (religious scholars) and
tutors and reciters of the Qur’an.11
Iran is the only country in which Shi‘i Islam is the state religion, a
fact that has received much attention from scholars who have argued
that the nature of Shi‘i Islam and the position of the Shi‘i clergy has had
a major impact on Iranian society, movements and the state. Despite
the fact that Shi‘is and Sunnis were not initially separate groups, a
distinct Shi‘i identity began to solidify after the death of the grand-
son of the Prophet Mohammad, Husayn at the battle of Karbala (10th
Muharram, AH 61/CE 680). Shi‘is believe Husayn died in the fight
against tyranny and injustice and he remains a key figure in Shi‘i rit-
uals and beliefs. In time, Shi‘ism came to be defined by the idea of the
‘Imamate’ (leadership of the Imams), which gradually evolved into a
distinct religious doctrine stating that only those descendants of the
Prophet Muhammad, through his daughter Fatima and his son-in-law
Ali, could lead the religious community. The line of the Imams ended
with the twelfth Imam who went into Occultation (gheybat) and this
marked the beginning of the period when, in the absence of the Imam,
the ulama assumed guidance of the Shi‘i community.12 Twelver Shi‘is
believe that this period will last until the return of the twelfth or ‘Hid-
den Imam’ in the form of the Mahdi, a messianic figure who does not
appear in the Qur’an but is found in both Shi‘i and Sunni beliefs and
whose reappearance, Shi’is believe, will usher in a rule of perfect justice
and equality. Classical Shi‘i jurists have maintained that in the absence
of the Imam, no earthly political order can be said to have infallible
authority over the community. Yet in practice, politically quietist rather
than activist attitudes have until recently dominated Shi‘i thought and
practice.13 Successive Shi‘i jurists were, to some extent like their Sunni
counterparts, guided by the fact that the Qur’an contains little reference
to politics or statecraft and ruled that matters of state should be handled
by those who exercise temporal rather than spiritual authority.
An Iranian Shi‘i ulama was created following the establishment of
the Safavid Shi‘i dynasty (AH 907–1135/CE 1501–1722). This religious
institution was generally regarded as influential and authoritative, but
it was not infallible. Iranian clergy did not constitute a totally homo-
geneous community and at times the ulama were divided by a number
44 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

of conflicts including theological disputes. In the seventeenth century a

conflict arose between two schools of thought within Shi‘i Islam regard-
ing the use of human reason to interpret religious sources. The Usulis,
who upheld rationality and interpretation, succeeded in their conflict
with the Akhbaris and this led to an increasing role for the religious insti-
tution. Mujtahids were recognised as being capable of practicing ijtihad
(applying human reason in the solving of juristic questions and the
interpretation of religious texts) on behalf of the community. Two pop-
ular religio-political movements, the Shaykhis and Babis (the latter was
later to develop into the Baha’i religion) also dominated Iran during this
period and challenged the authority of the Shi‘i ulama.
Moving into the nineteenth century, the outcome of these earlier
religious struggles resulted in a powerful, but highly divided and het-
erogeneous Iranian ulama. The Shi‘i institution of the new century
possessed a decentralised leadership, which recognised the existence
of ikhtilaf or divergent opinions. Mujtahids were followed by the com-
munity and administered justice through shari‘a courts for matters of
personal family law, yet their decisions were not legally binding upon
individuals.14 Eventually, the position of one sole religious leader in the
form of the marja-i taqlid or ‘source of emulation’ was established in an
effort to centralise religious leadership. However, in practice, religious
conflict and competition among leading mujtahids meant that there
were long periods in which the post remained empty and in fact the
notion of several marjas became accepted. Even when a sole marja was
chosen, rival ulama, religious dissidents, Sufi leaders and the community
as a whole would sometimes choose to ignore their rulings.15 This had
implications for the involvement of the Shi‘i clergy in movements. Dur-
ing the constitutional revolution, for example, two leading mujtahids
disobeyed the marja who supported the Qajar dynasty and joined the
popular rebellion. In addition, a circle of Islamic modernist thinkers
and activists emerged during this period drawing inspiration from the
revolutionary pan-Islamist thinker and activist Jamal al-din al-Afghani
and the reformist Mirza Malkom Khan. In the late nineteenth century
they engaged in a critique of the mainstream clergy, opposed European
colonialism and agitated against the autocratic political system.16 They
were also to play leading roles in mobilising the population during the
tobacco protests and the constitutional revolution.
An important factor leading to the emergence of a strong religious
institution independent of the state in Iran was the financial inde-
pendence of the clergy. However, this also meant that the ulama in
the nineteenth century were divided along class lines. Mujtahids were
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Iran 45

supported financially by the community through the religious contribu-

tions of zakat (alms for the poor and needy, mandatory for all Muslims)
and khoms (one-fifth of residual income paid by Shi‘is to the religious
authorities).17 In addition to this, well-known or senior ulama could
amass thousands of fee-paying tullab (seminary students) and control
vast waqf endowments, estates and lands. High-ranking ulama were
thus themselves great landowners and were often indebted to rich mer-
chants, the state and foreign banks. However, middle- and low-ranking
mujtahids and mullahs (low-ranking clergy) were reliant on commu-
nity support, often having to supplement their incomes by working as
teachers and finding themselves subject to the same constraints during
economic crises as the majority of the population. One benefit of this
financial dependence upon the community was a sensitivity to its needs
and interests and many were seen by the populace as champions of the
poor and disadvantaged.18

Iran’s first revolutions

The origins of Iran’s early social movements need to be understood in

the context of colonialism and interventions by two foreign powers,
Britain and Russia, which in the nineteenth century conducted a ‘great
game’ for control of the country. After a series of humiliating military
defeats and an inability to raise money to meet its lavish expenditure,
the Qajar monarchy granted Europeans exclusive rights to exploit Iran’s
resources. These ‘concessions’ were viewed by the population as the sell-
ing off of the country’s resources to foreigners by a weak and corrupt
government.
The impact of European domination on Iran’s economy and political
system affected every level of society. Concessions hurt the traditional
Iranian middle class, particularly the merchants of the bazaar, while
increasing imports of European goods disadvantaged local producers
and undermined guilds.19 The growth of cash crops for export led to
famine and food shortages among the middle and lower classes resulting
in bread riots in the cities. In 1890 the Tobacco Monopoly Conces-
sion granted exclusive rights to the production and sale of tobacco to
a British businessman. In the spring of 1891 mass protests erupted,
initially in Shiraz where they were headed by a leading member of
the ulama, Mirza-ye Shirazi. Mass demonstrations and strikes followed
in major cities and the bazaars were closed in solidarity in Mashhad,
Tabriz, Isfahan and Tehran, bringing international and domestic trade
to a standstill. A fatwa (religious opinion) issued by Shirazi enjoined all
46 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

Iranians to boycott tobacco and it was observed nationwide by diverse

communities including religious minorities. In response, the govern-
ment was finally forced to cancel the concession in 1892. The success
of this movement came as a complete surprise to both the monarchy
and the British and strengthened the determination of the middle and
lower classes who, led by the ulama, had opposed the policies of the
state.
The victory of the tobacco protest meant that the idea of mashrutiyya
(constitutionalism) which had previously been restricted to members of
the liberal intelligentsia claimed new adherents in all social classes who
found it in their interest to curb the power of the monarchy. The consti-
tutional revolution began as a response to the imposition of customs
reforms by the newly appointed Belgian customs minister under the
Qajar shah, which disrupted trading in the bazaar and led to food riots
in a number of cities. The protests soon developed into a movement
against the absolutism of the Qajar shah. In June 1906 two of Iran’s most
senior mujtahids, Sayyid Abdallah Behbehani and Sayyid Muhammad
Tabataba’i, led protests demanding that the government call elections
for a majlis (national assembly) and establish an adalat khaneh (house
of justice) in Qom. In the midst of an ongoing general strike, riots and
closure of the bazaars in major cities, the monarchy was forced to grant
permission for a national assembly which opened in October 1906.
The constitution of 1906 envisioned a constitutional monarchy in
which citizens would be protected by a bill of rights including pro-
tection of life, property and honour, freedom of speech, assembly and
organisation, equality before the law, habeas corpus and safeguards from
arbitrary arrest.20 However, the constitutional movement was soon dealt
a blow by the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907 which was signed with-
out the consultation of the new majlis and divided the country into
zones of foreign influence. In 1908 the Qajar monarchy was able to
take advantage of the crisis created within the country and divisions
among the ulama and attempted a military coup against the parliament.
This was fiercely resisted by the population, and national minorities
consisting of Christian Armenians, Georgians and tribal confederations
marched on the capital to protect the parliament, forcing the shah to
abdicate.
Foreign intervention and the dictatorial nature of the state were
jointly responsible for the constitutional movement’s eventual decline.
The cycle of conflict with the central government, economic crises and
opposition to foreign occupation continued in the years leading up to
and following the First World War. News of the Russian revolution was
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Iran 47

greeted with unbounded relief and optimism in Iran.21 However, the

removal of the Tsar’s forces from Iran led to a strengthening of British
control. In 1908 oil had been discovered in the southern part of the
country and a year later the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was established
for the purpose of exploiting this increasingly important economic
resource. In 1919 the British imposed the Anglo-Persian treaty on the
Iranian government, which resulted in the ‘effective colonial domina-
tion’ of Iran by the British army22 leading to mass resistance and twenty
months of riots and strikes which rendered the power of the central
government almost non-existent. On 21 February 1921 Reza Pahlavi, an
army officer in the Persian Cossack Brigade, conducted a successful mil-
itary coup. By 1926 he had declared the end of the Qajar dynasty and
crowned himself monarch, ushering in a new period of absolutism in
Iran’s history.
The constitutional revolution and the tobacco protest that preceded
it were immensely significant on a number of levels. The tobacco
protest was not the first mass urban revolt in Iran’s history, but it
was the first nationwide movement in Iran in which the ulama, the
traditional middle class of the bazaar, religious and secular intelli-
gentsia and the lower classes united against the monarchy. These forces
were again to unite in the constitutional revolution. National minori-
ties, including Arabs, Azeris, Kurds, Gilakis, Armenians and Georgians,
united to fight for constitutionalism and to protect Iran from foreign
domination under banners which read ‘The love of freedom has no
fatherland.’23 Women also participated, leading demonstrations, par-
ticipating in strikes and taking up arms to protect the parliament.24
Women’s demands during these movements included democracy, social
justice and greater gender equality. According to women’s activist
and journalist Lily Farhadpour, women fought for ‘economic devel-
opment, education for women, democracy, the abolition of seclusion
and early marriage, greater social justice, limits on polygamy and end-
ing violence against women’.25 Although women from both secular
and religious backgrounds participated on a massive scale in move-
ments, Farhadpour emphasises that many women wearing the hijab
(head covering) participated in sit-ins and demonstrations and fought
for women’s rights.
The tobacco protest and the constitutional revolution were also the
earliest indications of a rise in an activist rather than quietist orientation
among sections of the ulama. Rather than indicating a new homogene-
ity in the religious class, however, what emerged from the constitutional
revolution were a number of political affiliations and blocs among
48 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

lay religious intellectuals and members of the religious establishment.

Whilst groups of liberal ulama and lay Islamic intellectuals and activists
supported constitutionalism and women’s rights in Iran, conservatives
opposed change and supported the power of the state against popular
movements.

The return of absolutism

The reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi (1925–41) fundamentally transformed

the relationship between state and society in Iran. Reza Pahlavi had
seen that a weak and decentralised state could not withstand the twin
pressures of internal unrest and foreign intervention. Thus the shah’s
aim was to produce a powerful, centralised state, a strong military
and a modern system of administration.26 The government also intro-
duced economic reforms aimed at creating modern industries and large
factories which were owned by the state, the profits of which would
flow back to Reza Shah’s administration. Funding for these projects
came from monopolies that the state established with rich merchants
on essential commodities such as tea and sugar. High taxes, levies and
inflated prices were the result of these policies and the new urban work-
ing class and middle class paid a high cost for the state’s industrialisation
programme.27 The policies further increased the power of landowners
and rich merchants and increased social and economic stratification in
the country. During this period, 90 per cent of agricultural land was
owned by private landlords and the state whilst 98 per cent of the agri-
cultural population was landless.28 The state and the Pahlavi family were
the ultimate beneficiaries of government reforms and by the 1930s the
shah had amassed huge amounts of wealth through his ownership of
much of the country’s industry and vast agricultural lands.29
Escalating industrialisation and the drive towards urbanisation, which
came about as a result of the increasingly dire conditions in rural areas,
led to the growth of an urban working class. In the 1930s the number
of workers employed in large factories increased by 250 per cent.30 This
new urban workforce was attracted to communist and socialist ideals,
having been strongly influenced and radicalised by the Russian revolu-
tion of 1917 and by movements against the shah within Iran. A number
of underground liberal, communist, socialist and women’s organisations
emerged in the 1920s. The Iranian Communist Party was established in
1921, and the Council of Federated Trade Unions’ membership grew
to 8,000.31 In response, the government outlawed strikes and labour
unions, banned the independent press, political parties and women’s
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Iran 49

organisations, stripped the majlis of its power and ruthlessly crushed

political dissent. The shah particularly targeted communist and socialist
groups. In 1931 he passed a law banning all opposition political parties
and communism and the state waged a campaign of terror resulting in
the death or exile of many Communist Party leaders.32
Reforms in the area of state administration sought to dispel the forces
which had brought about the constitutional revolution and extend
the power of the state in areas such as the judicial system and edu-
cation which had previously been the arena of the ulama. The state
forbade the teaching of the Qur’an in schools and took over admin-
istration of the waqf, thus depriving the clergy of a major source of
income. On a cultural level, Reza Shah wished to fundamentally alter
the nature of Iranian society. The shah strengthened Iran’s pre-Islamic
identity and created an ideology of ‘Persianism’ based on the 2,500-
year-old Achaemenid Empire and civilisation that had originated in the
south-west of the country. He replaced the Muslim lunar calendar with
a Persian solar version, banned the speaking of all languages other than
Farsi, prohibited the wearing of traditional and tribal dress and waged
a war against Iran’s tribal groups and religious and ethnic minorities.33
Despite promoting his form of Persian nationalism, the domination of
Iran by foreign powers increased during this period. Reza Shah courted
various Western powers, including Britain, Germany and the US. The
shah was particularly attracted to the fascist ideology of Hitler, who in
the 1930s proclaimed Iran as the original birthplace of the Aryan race.
In addition to lessening the power of the clergy, the first Pahlavi state
set out to Westernise the appearance of its people. In 1936 Reza Shah
introduced a new civil code which decreed the compulsory unveiling
of women. It forbade women to be seen in the street wearing hijab and
the state’s police enforced this by physically assaulting women and pub-
licly tearing the scarves from their heads.34 As a result of these policies
women who had previously played an active role in the public sphere
were forced to either abandon the hijab in public or stay indoors. Reza
Shah’s reforms were met with shock and resistance by the population,
even among those who supported unveiling,35 partly due to the vio-
lence with which the authoritarian regime implemented them. Chehabi
argues that the state’s reforms, based on Reza Shah’s declaration that
prior to 1936 ‘women had been outside society’, clearly flew in the face
of the everyday experience of millions of women in Iran.36 Although
regarded by some as progressive measures, Reza Pahlavi’s reforms did
not fundamentally challenge the structures of patriarchy that existed
in Iran. Men continued to be seen as the heads of households and
50 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

male privileges in the areas of inheritance, divorce, polygamy and child

custody were reinforced.37
Reza Shah has been regarded by some historians as a moderniser and
reformer, particularly in his battle with the clergy and his introduction
of reforms for women which included raising the legal age of marriage.38
Parvin Paidar argues that he is often seen, similar to his personal hero,
Kemal Attaturk, as a ‘lone moderniser’ struggling with a hostile and
traditional society and culture.39 However, Reza Shah did not aim to
limit the power of the clergy in Iran because he was a secularist or a lib-
eral reformer. In terms of religion he held very conservative views and
had personally taken three wives. Furthermore, the clergy itself did not
present a uniform ideological bloc, nor was it united in its opposition
to his reforms. The new state fell short of introducing comprehensive
legal reforms for women, not because of the strength of opposition by
the clergy, but because Reza Shah supported the patriarchal structure of
society. The aim of his government’s policies and its reforms was not to
create a more equitable society but to produce a homogeneous, cosmet-
ically Westernised and hierarchical Iran and to eradicate any force that
could challenge the complete dominance of the Pahlavi family and the
state.

Oil and nationalism

Another significant turning point in the relationship between move-

ments, the state and external forces was the oil nationalisation move-
ment of the 1950s. The state had become increasingly dependent on
oil revenues during the 1930s and 1940s. Foreign intervention in Iran
had increased as a result of the growing importance of oil during the
Second World War and Reza Shah, whose admiration for Nazi Germany
was well known, was eventually forced to abdicate by the Allies in 1941.
The end of the war saw the rise of US power in the region. The US had
maintained a military presence in Iran since 1942 and throughout the
1940s and 1950s continued its intervention in domestic Iranian affairs
to ensure access to a constant and cheap supply of oil. These decades
were a time of great political dynamism not just in Iran but throughout
the region, where, as discussed previously, workers’ organisations and
secular left and nationalist groups united in mass anti-colonial move-
ments. In Iran, industrialisation and urbanisation of the population
continued throughout the 1940s and by 1948 over 240 large factories
together employed more than 53,000 workers (in addition to 60,000
workers who were employed in the oil industry).40
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Iran 51

The departure of Reza Shah and the rise to power of his twenty-one-
year-old son, Mohammed Reza Shah, ushered in a brief period of relative
freedom from state repression. As a result there was an explosion of
political activism and the formation of new political parties such as the
communist Hizb-e Tudeh (Party of the Masses) and the liberal-nationalist
National Front, led by the secular nationalist Mohammad Mossadegh.
By 1946 the Tudeh Party had 50,000 core members and 100,000 affili-
ated members with branches in every large town, making it by far the
largest political organisation in the country.41 The Tudeh-led Central
Council of Trade Unions had more than 275,000 members, represent-
ing 75 per cent of the country’s urban workforce, including 45,000 oil
workers42 who were fast becoming vital to the state’s ability to bring
in revenues. National minorities also asserted their demands for inde-
pendence during this period and organised in leftist, communist and
liberal political groups. In the north and west of the country, Kurds
and Azerbaijani communities succeeded in establishing autonomous
republics.
However, this period of relative political openness was not to last.
By the 1950s oil provided a third of Iran’s overall budget and financed
60 per cent of visible imports between 1946 and 1950.43 The Iranian
state, under Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, had taken on the classic char-
acteristics of a ‘rentier state’ and the majority of its revenue was drawn
from external ‘rents’ rather than taxation. Public anger mounted against
the British-owned Anglo-Persian Oil Company which had been granted
a monopoly on Iranian oil in 1933. A new mass nationalist move-
ment argued that income from the sale of the country’s most important
national asset should benefit the majority of the Iranian people and
pressure grew for nationalisation of the oil industry. Demands also
included constraining the power of the shah, granting the vote to
women and introducing freedom of the press. Public protests crippled
the government and a Tudeh-organised general strike forced the shah to
appoint Mossadegh as prime minister at the end of April 1951.
The first act of Mossadegh’s government was to pass an oil
nationalisation bill. In response, Britain first sued Iran in the interna-
tional court and, when the court found in favour of Iran, boycotted
Iranian oil. This plunged the country into an economic crisis so
deep that the government was unable to pay salaries, shortages were
widespread and prices rose steadily. The shah, supported by Britain and
the US, attempted to move against the nationalists in government in
1952. However, three days of mass street demonstrations, confronta-
tions with the police and a general strike again forced the shah to back
52 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

down. Eventually, however, Britain, the US and Israeli military agents

carried out a successful coup in August 1953 which removed the demo-
cratically elected government from power and reinstated Mohammed
Reza Shah. The overthrow of the government was engineered in part by
Kermit Roosevelt, the son of ex-President Roosevelt, a CIA officer who
later became vice-president of Gulf Oil.44
The social movement of 1951–3 had demonstrated that a mass move-
ment composed of diverse sections of society including workers, left-
ist groups, women, national minorities, liberals, nationalists, religious
figures and the bazaar could unite to force a powerful shah to step
down and appoint a popular politician as prime minister. Despite the
fact that the leading mujtahid of the period, Ayatollah Hassan Burujirdi,
supported the shah, the majority of low-ranking clerics supported the
nationalist movement. The National Front, led by Mossadegh, was itself
based on a coalition of liberal intelligentsia, progressive clergy and the
bazaar. Women played a major role in the movement and thousands
of women joined and led demonstrations and strikes in support of
Mossadegh.45
The 1953 coup is remembered by many today as evidence of the ruth-
lessness of foreign powers and the lengths to which they are prepared
to go to ensure that the Iranian people remain subservient to their
interests. In November 1979 militant students occupied the American
embassy in Tehran. During the following 444 days the students pieced
together shredded documents which revealed the full extent of the US’s
activities in Iran under the shah. Ali Rahnema argues that the politi-
cal power struggles of November 1979 are directly related to the events
of August 1953 when the US denied Iran the rudimentary right of
self-determination and political choice.46 While the Western media
portrayed the occupation of the embassy as an irrational outburst of
anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism, the US ignored or denied any
responsibility for the removal of an entire government by force in 1953.
This is perceived by Iranians as hypocrisy and successive governments
have demanded that the US formally apologises for the coup. Through-
out Iran and the region generally, the 1953 coup remains an example
of the readiness of Western powers to crush democratic movements in
order to maintain their political and economic dominance.

The forces of revolution

A major increase in social struggle and social movements both in the

region and across the globe occurred from the 1950s to the 1970s.
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Iran 53

National liberation and guerrilla movements were active across the

third world as were civil rights and civil liberties movements in the
West. Revolutions, nationalist coups and mass movements took place
in Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Cuba and Vietnam.
Jawaharlal Nehru, Ahmed Ben Bella, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Che Guevara
and Ho Chi Minh were heroes of the new age as were Malcolm X, Martin
Luther King and the student protesters of May 1968 in France. Mean-
while, the shah marketed Iran as an island of stability and prosperity in
a region shaken by revolutionary pan-Arabism.47 Following his return
to power in 1953, the shah had crushed opposition groups, imprison-
ing and executing leaders of the National Front and the Tudeh Party.
The country had become a major ally and puppet state of the US and
with the help of the CIA and Mossad, the national intelligence agency
of Israel, the shah’s government set up the infamous and hated SAVAK
secret police force in 1953.
Despite repressive measures taken by the government, by the 1960s
the shah’s regime was in trouble again. A majority of Iranian villages
were without schools, illiteracy and poverty were at very high levels and
prices rose steeply as the shah spent half of the national budget on the
military. An economic crisis brought about by heavy overseas borrowing
deepened the already dire economic situation. Defying a government
ban on industrial action there were fourteen separate strikes and armed
confrontations involving workers in Tehran and the army between 1957
and 1960.48 The shah saw himself as continuing the modernising legacy
of his father and in 1963 he introduced a package of reforms which he
termed the ‘white revolution of the shah and the people’. They included
land reform, further extension of the power of the state and the intro-
duction of progressive but limited social reforms, including votes for
women. In the spring of 1963 demonstrations against the shah erupted,
this time among seminary students in Qom and in the bazaar, led by a
member of the clergy, Ruholla Khomeini.
Ayatollah Khomeini, who was to take power after the revolution
of 1979, remains a major figure in Iranian politics more than twenty
years after his death. While many Westerners see him as the consum-
mate religious hardliner and conservative, his early religious studies and
writings were heavily influenced by mysticism, as well as by Islamic
and Hellenistic rationalist philosophy. Khomeini had gained a follow-
ing among students and was respected for his personal piety and his
principled stand against the corruption and autocracy of the shah’s
regime. Even though he had been one of the candidates for the pow-
erful position of marja he always dressed modestly in the brown cloak
54 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

and black turban of a low-ranking mullah, associating himself with the

stratum of clergy which represented the interests of the community. He
was also at odds with leading clergy at times; in the 1940s for example
he was banned from teaching by those above him in the religious estab-
lishment who were against the teaching of philosophy. Indeed during
this period he gave secret classes at his home to his closest students,
among them the future religious and political leaders Ayatollah Ali
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ayatollah Morteza Mottahari and Ayatollah
Hossein Ali Montazeri.49
Khomeini’s popularity in the 1960s was based on his political lead-
ership. He emerged during this decade as one of the few high-ranking
religious leaders to publicly criticise the shah’s regime for its authoritar-
ian nature and its dependence on the US.50 Khomeini also campaigned
against the shah’s introduction of a law that granted full diplomatic
immunity to all US personnel in Iran, which, in an echo of nineteenth-
century concessions meant that US citizens were in effect above the
law and could not be tried in Iranian courts for any crimes.51 In June
1963 two days of peaceful anti-government demonstrations took place
in Qom in which seminary students and others chanted: ‘Mossadegh
our national leader and Khomeini our religious leader.’52 However, the
shah’s regime would not tolerate dissent and the demonstrators were
fired on by the army leading to hundreds of deaths. This was a turning
point for the anti-government movement and also for Khomeini who
emerged as the only opposition figure openly calling for the removal
of the shah’s regime. Leftist and nationalist forces had been heavily
repressed since 1953 and those who survived did not dare to criticise
the shah’s reforms, whilst the leading clergy was either quietist or col-
laborated with the regime. In contrast, Khomeini’s speeches in 1963,
which denounced the white revolution and the violence of the regime,
galvanised the nation. His continued opposition to the shah’s rule led
to his deportation to Turkey in 1964.
While the secular left was largely silent on the brutal suppression of
the students in 1963, new religious organisations were forming a vocal
opposition to the state. Already in 1961–2 a number of lay Islamic intel-
lectuals, as well as reformist clergy including Mehdi Bazargan, Ayatollah
Mahmoud Taleghani and Yadollah Shahabi, had established the Nehzat-e
Azadi-ye Iran (the Freedom Movement of Iran). New forms of religio-
political organisations, groupings and ideologies also emerged during
this period. Khomeini had successfully mobilised the traditional forces
of seminary students and the bazaar. However, new Islamic associa-
tions such as the Anjoman-e-Eslami-ye Mohandesin (Islamic Association
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Iran 55

of Engineers) and associations of students, teachers and physicians

founded in the late 1950s brought together religious intellectuals and
activists with a modern technical education. Groups of reformist clergy,
who had previously been supporters of Mossadegh and members of the
National Front, played a major role in these new social movements.
This group of clerical political activists combined forces with lay reli-
gious intellectuals to forge a modernist view of Islam and challenged
the traditional clergy’s quietism.53 In the autumn of 1963 they coalesced
into a newly-formed centre of Islamic discussion, debate and activism,
the Husseiniyeh Ershad which appealed to a new generation of politicised
youth and students.
Among the most popular and enduringly influential figures from this
period was the lay religious intellectual Ali Shari‘ati (1933–77) whose
ideas continue to have relevance for the reform movement today. Ali
Shari‘ati was a university lecturer whose work was heavily influenced
by Marxist and anti-colonialist literature. He had studied in Paris where
he played an active role in both the Iranian student movement and in
the fight for Algerian national liberation. His lectures at the Husseiniyeh
Ershad provided a new revolutionary interpretation of Islamic history
which presented Shi‘ism as both an ideology of liberation and a social
revolution with the aim of creating a just and classless society. Over the
next ten years he developed a political philosophy which took inspi-
ration from third world liberation and anti-imperialist movements and
the lives of major figures of Shi‘i history. Imam Husayn, he argued, had
fought against an autocratic and unjust hereditary monarchy, a corrupt
regime similar to that of the present shah. Shari‘ati called for cooper-
ation between Shi‘is and Sunnis and between the secular and religious
opposition and declared that the real Kafir (infidels) were not unbeliev-
ers but oppressors and dictators whose regimes should be confronted by
force.54
Shari‘ati’s lectures drew thousands of followers and tapes of his
speeches were circulated throughout the country reaching a huge
audience. Although he died in 1977, his ideas, which fused a revolu-
tionary Islam and a humanistic, anti-imperialist socialism, were widely
known.55 In an interview I conducted in Tehran, Shari‘ati’s daughter,
Dr Sussan Shari‘ati, describes how his speeches and understanding of
Islam angered the conservative clergy but were immensely attractive to
a young generation of activists:

At the Husseinieh Ershad where Shari‘ati spoke, others, especially

clerics such as Mottahari, Rafsanjani, Khamenei, Beheshti and others
56 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

spoke as well. He was the only non-cleric who spoke. But the clerics
did not like what he said. They considered him not fit to speak about
religion without being a cleric, i.e. in their view, he spoke about issues
about which he was not an expert. They, therefore, asked him to leave
the Husseinieh Ershad. His response was that he wouldn’t leave. The
clergy boycotted the Husseinieh Ershad and the Husseinieh Ershad
became the place for Shari‘ati. He made fourteen speeches and organ-
ised different classes on philosophy, religion, various ideologies. This
was the beginning of the growth of the social movement which led
to the revolution in 1979.56

In the mid-1960s radical political forces were emerging, among them

two guerrilla organisations inspired by the tactics of the Palestine Lib-
eration Organisation (PLO), the Cuban revolutionaries and the Algerian
National Liberation Front (FLN). The Fedayeen-e Khalq was a Marxist-
Leninist guerrilla group dedicated to bringing down the shah’s regime
through direct attacks on the state, while the Mojahedeen-e Khalk was
an Islamic-socialist guerrilla organisation, similarly dedicated to con-
fronting the regime by force. Both gained mass followings among
students and also suffered intense repression by the state. Marzieh
Mortazi Langroudi is a women’s rights activist, a religious reformist
and member of the campaign group Mothers for Peace in Iran. In an
interview I conducted with her in Tehran, she spoke of her experi-
ences as a young woman from a religious family who attended the
Husseiniyeh Ershad and later joined the resistance movement against the
shah:

My generation is familiar with the dictatorial system of the shah.

I remember the tanks in the streets. We had Khomeini’s pictures
on our wall and sometimes we had to take the picture down in
case our house was raided and we were arrested . . . At the time my
husband was arrested I used to go to Husseinieh Ershad to lis-
ten to Shari‘ati. I envied the women who were engaged in armed
struggle . . . Husseinieh Ershad was neither a mosque nor a cinema.
It was modern, we sat on chairs and armchairs . . . Shari‘ati spoke of
religion, philosophy, sociology and many other issues . . . Shari‘ati’s
argument was that hijab was a way of struggling against capital-
ism. This argument was very attractive . . . We were anti-imperialist,
anti-capitalist and anti-shah. The regime called us Islamic Marxists.
But they could not recognise that these ideas came from within the
ordinary people.57
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Iran 57

The revolution: 1978–1979

The events of the Iranian revolution demonstrate that far from being
essentially Islamic or religious in nature, the downfall of the shah was
due to a combination of factors, including socio-economic issues, polit-
ical activism and the influence of external forces. In the 1970s, oil
revenues increased with Iran’s entry to OPEC and the oil price boom
following the 1973 Arab–Israeli war. However, the exponential rise in
revenue flowing to the Iranian state did not benefit the majority of
the population. Instead, the shah spent billions of dollars on buying
weapons from the US; Iran became the single largest global purchaser
of US weapons in that decade. In 1972 President Nixon and Henry
Kissinger recommended that the US sell Iran any weapon it wanted.
In addition Washington aided the shah’s regime in the construction of
power plants to provide Iran with nuclear energy.58
Mohammed Reza Shah, like his father, saw himself as a head of state
in the style of the ancient rulers of Iran. In an effort to promote Iran’s
pre-Islamic civilisation he changed the calendar to one that dated back
to the Achaemenid period. In 1971 he invited foreign guests and world
leaders to a huge celebration marking 2,500 years of Persian monar-
chy which was held at the archaeological site of Persepolis near the
modern city of Shiraz. This lavish celebration of a fictitious 2,500 years
of monarchy in Iran (a monarchy had not actually existed for about
a thousand years between CE 640 and CE 1501) highlighted the gap
between the wealth of the shah and the majority of the population who
suffered from poverty and unemployment, particularly in rural areas.
By the 1970s one million landless wage labourers had migrated to the
cities in search of work, becoming part of an enormous group of unem-
ployed workers living in slums on the outskirts of the cities. At the same
time, the elite of society who benefited from the shah’s policies were
busy sending their money overseas; corruption was rife and billions of
dollars were transferred out of the country – $2 billion in 1975 alone.59
Despite the fact that torture, murder and imprisonment were every-
day tools of the state, a number of groups engaged in active opposition
to the shah’s regime in the 1970s. Among the most important of these
were national minorities, the activist ulama and lay religious intellec-
tuals, the bazaar, student groups and workers. National minorities such
as Kurds and Azeris comprised over a third of the total population and
had historically suffered state persecution which had intensified during
the reign of the Pahlavi Shahs. The ulama and the traditional middle
class of the bazaar continued to be undermined by the shah’s policies
58 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

and opposed the dependence of the country on foreign powers and the
extension of the state into areas previously under their control. Prior
to 1978 the bazaar had closed to display solidarity with demonstrations
and actions led by secular and leftist groups such as the National Front
and the Tudeh Party. However, in the late 1970s an alliance was formed
between the bazaar and sections of the activist ulama which was to
play a crucial role in the revolution. Many university students had also
become increasingly radicalised by state repression and played a signifi-
cant part in leading and supporting strikes and demonstrations. During
the late 1970s they held sit-ins and hunger strikes against the regime,
demanding an end to martial law and freedom for political prisoners.60
Of paramount importance to the eventual success of the revolutionary
forces was the role played by the industrial working class. State policies
under both Pahlavi monarchs had encouraged industrialisation and the
growth of large factories which had led to an exponential rise in the
number of workers: from 4 per cent of the population in the pre-war
period to 54 per cent in 1977.61 Land reform had also transformed the
countryside resulting in mass migration to the cities and the proletari-
anisation of migrant peasants. By the late 1970s, 80 per cent of workers
in Tehran were of rural origin and strong links between the working
classes in all cities and the countryside helped to spread discontent
with the shah throughout the country.62 In the cities they worked under
appalling and dangerous conditions and faced intense political repres-
sion. Strikes and trade unions were banned and every workplace was
policed by the shah’s hated SAVAK security force.
Although civil and political campaigns opposing the shah’s regime
had been building prior to 1978, that year represented a watershed
moment in the revolution with the convergence of social forces opposed
to the state. In January state troops attacked a demonstration in Qom
where seminary students had been protesting against the publication of
an article that they perceived to have slandered Khomeini. Despite the
fact that leading clergy in Qom refused to support the call for a general
strike, mass demonstrations went ahead and the bazaar was shut for four
days. Bazaars were located in the centre of most Iranian cities and func-
tioned as important economic and social hubs. The closure of any bazaar
in support of anti-regime activists was therefore of crucial significance.
When the shah’s police forces brutally attacked the demonstrators, lead-
ing to deaths and many injuries among the students, a cycle of protests
in mourning spread from Qom to other major cities and helped mobilise
nationwide opposition to the shah. Despite several attempts at con-
cessions by the shah, demonstrations against the regime grew by the
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Iran 59

summer of 1978, mobilising urban workers, students, the traditional

middle class and the new urban middle classes composed of students
and professionals. In September, on a day that became known as ‘black
Friday’ the shah’s troops attacked a peaceful demonstration with live
ammunition and tear gas. This was a turning point for the movement.
Four thousand people had been shot by the army on that day and the
brutality of the regime convinced many observers that compromise with
the state was no longer possible.63 However, such atrocities did not shake
US support for the shah and only two days after black Friday, President
Jimmy Carter offered the shah the full support of the US.
By the autumn of 1978 large numbers of industrial workers, white
collar workers and urban professionals in major cities had joined the
struggle against the shah. In October oil, steel and railway workers were
on strike. Industrial action spread across the country and through every
sector of Iranian society from banks and airports to fisheries, brickworks,
steel mills and oil refineries, while radio and TV station workers refused
to broadcast the state’s propaganda announcements. Demands made by
the strikers developed as the movement grew. In the first six months
of 1978 they were mainly economic; however, by November, 80 per
cent of the demands were political and were increasingly focused on
the removal of the regime and criticism of the US.64
Strikes in the oil industry were vital in effectively cutting off the rev-
enue on which the state depended. Oil workers went on strike at the
Abadan oil refinery in southern Iran on 15 October 1978, paralysing
the government and causing a massive 42 per cent drop in the coun-
try’s total industrial output for the second half of 1978.65 By November,
the shah had appointed the military government of General Azhari and
attempted to use the army to force strikers to go back to work. However,
this action demonstrated the weakness of the government and lack of
support for the shah. The majority of rank and file soldiers was from
rural areas or was comprised of the urban poor, both of which had no
interest in seeing the shah’s reign continue. Many defected to the ranks
of demonstrators who had called on the soldiers to join them, while
others simply deserted in massive numbers to go back to their towns
and villages and re-join their families.66
The climax for the revolutionary movement came in December
1978. The religious mourning ceremonies of Tasu’a and Ashura – sym-
bolically important Shi’i ceremonies to demonstrate defiance against
unjust authoritarian rulers and foreign aggression – were marked with
mass demonstrations involving millions who defied state repression
and marched through Tehran and other major cities. Lengthy political
60 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

strikes in most areas of the country were organised at the beginning

of 1979 and strike committees sprang up everywhere to coordinate
actions and demand political change. By this time the country had
come to a standstill. On 26 January 1979 the regime finally col-
lapsed and the shah was forced to flee the country. His departure was
celebrated with a massive street carnival which lasted for days. As the
shah and his cronies fled the country, strike committees known as
Shuras and Komitehs (neighbourhood committees) took over the run-
ning of communities and provided food and security for residents.
It is important to remember that although neighbourhood committees
were influenced by nationalist, leftist and religious leaders, they were
generally independent of any one political force or party. Their goal
was to achieve a just and democratic government, end the domina-
tion of the country by the US and achieve economic prosperity. In the
factories, Shuras, which developed into democratic workers’ councils,
were shop-floor organisations which represented all the workers in a fac-
tory or plant and had the aim of achieving workers’ control over their
workplaces.67
The Iranian revolution is often presented as an uprising by a peo-
ple who, having been alienated by modernity, rejected secular Western
values in favour of a traditional and conservative Islam. Such an anal-
ysis assumes that from the beginning the revolution was conservative,
anti-modern and religious in nature. However, the revolution was not
brought about by religious forces but by workers, students, the urban
poor and the middle class who had been systematically exploited and
repressed by the shah’s regime. Religious figures played an important
role in leading the revolution; however, they did not comprise one
homogeneous political bloc and were highly divided along ideologi-
cal and class lines. Furthermore, the discourse of religious leaders was
of a modern and revolutionary nature which challenged the tradi-
tional clergy. National minorities played a major role in the struggles,
as did students and intellectuals. Of paramount importance was the
role played by millions of women who led and participated in the
revolution. Although women had participated in a number of national
movements, their role in the revolution represented a highly significant
moment in women’s involvement in Iranian politics. During the 1970s
an entire generation of middle class and working class women were rad-
icalised and politicised by their experience of the revolution, as were
students and workers. However, the revolution did not possess a united
leadership. The divisions between these diverse groups were to become
apparent in the post-revolutionary period.
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Iran 61

The establishment of the Islamic Republic

Although a number of diverse political forces participated in the rev-

olution including nationalists, leftists and disparate groups of Islamic
activists, many had been operating under extreme restrictions under
the shah and were not in a position to assume control of running the
country after the fall of the regime. Prior to the revolution political
organisations like the Mojahedeen and the Fedayeen had been out-
lawed and their leaders either imprisoned or sent into exile. Leftist
organisations, student groups and women’s organisations were able to
hold their first public demonstrations only after the overthrow of the
regime. In a bid to maintain consensus among the diverse revolution-
ary forces, a number of groups agreed to form a coalition of support
behind Ayatollah Khomeini who had been greeted as a hero on his
return from exile on 4 February 1979. Khomeini announced the cre-
ation of a provisional government headed by the popular liberal lay
Islamist Mehdi Bazargan and in March 1979 a referendum established
the Islamic Republic of Iran. The first draft of the new constitution of
the Islamic Republic was formulated in June. It abolished the monar-
chy in Iran, created an elected majlis and a strong presidency, stressed
social welfare and granted individual rights and freedoms. The consti-
tution declared that the new state would have an Islamic ethos but,
significantly, did not mention the implementation of Islamic laws.68
Throughout the country the revolutionary struggle of workers, rural
labourers, women and national minorities continued unabated. Work-
ers in particular were aware that it was their actions which had brought
down the shah’s regime and they continued the struggle to take con-
trol of factories and industries from managers and SAVAK syndicates.
At times this struggle was directed against the new leaders of the pro-
visional government who called on the striking workers to return to
work.69 Major political and industrial unrest continued from 1979 to
1981, peaking during the hostage crisis in November 1979 and through-
out the winter of 1980–1, despite pressure from a government that was
increasingly seeking to consolidate power by demobilising the forces
of revolution.70 Campaigns also took place in rural areas where mass
movements of peasants and rural labourers confronted landowners with
the aim of seizing land and achieving control of the system of agri-
cultural production which had been dominated by the power of the
large landowning families.71 Although the rhetoric of the leaders of the
new state, particularly that of Ayatollah Khomeini, lauded the masses as
the creators of the revolution, the provisional government was against
62 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

a fundamental change in the political and economic structures of the

country.72 However, following land seizures the state was forced to give
in to pressure from below and formulate a progressive land reform law.
It became clear that the Iranian revolution had also changed polit-
ical dynamics in the entire region. For the US and its allies it meant
the loss of one of the primary puppet-regimes in the region, as well
as the end of their domination of a country rich in oil. The revolu-
tion was seen as an inspiration for people living under the autocratic
rule of pro-Western regimes elsewhere in the Middle East and as such
presented a threat to the strategic and economic interests of the West.
In the context of a deteriorating relationship between Iran and the
US and fears that the US was planning a coup in the country, a group
of Muslim students occupied the US embassy in Tehran in November
1979. In response the Western media engaged in a frenzy of anti-Iranian
propaganda and Islamophobia, portraying the students as terrorists and
religious fanatics.73 The students stated that they had no ill feelings
towards the American people whom they saw as victims of the US gov-
ernment and within days female and African-American staff members
were released.74
The crisis brought about by the occupation of the embassy and fears
of foreign intervention hardened political positions within Iran, allow-
ing the conservative Islamists now grouped in the Islamic Republic Party
(IRP) to sideline the more liberal Bazargan and eventually bring down
his government. As leftists, liberal and conservative Islamists could not
agree on the form the new government should take, a Majlis-e Khobragan
(Assembly of Experts) was created, and the revised constitution of the
Islamic Republic was instituted on 15 November 1979. Similar to the
constitution of June 1979, it stressed the concepts of social justice,
independence from foreign domination and national integrity. Arti-
cle five also incorporated Khomeini’s theory of vilayat-e faqih stating
that the independent and just character of the Republic would be pro-
tected through the leadership of a pious, just, courageous, capable and
knowledgeable jurist who would hold final, if not infallible authority in
the political system.75
The theory of vilayat-e faqih, which today forms the basis of legiti-
macy of the Islamic state, continues to be interpreted in different ways
by reformists and conservatives in Iran. It represents a revolutionary re-
interpretation of Shi’ism which traditionally held that no government,
least of all a government claiming to be Islamic, could hold absolute
authority in the absence of the twelfth Imam. In order to justify this con-
cept as the new basis for the Islamic state Khomeini argued that the most
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Iran 63

qualified jurist in the country, the marja, could serve as an intermediary

between the people and the Imam and therefore rule in his stead and in
his name. Khomeini himself stressed that the sovereignty of the marja
depended as much on his recognition by the people as on his religious
stance, assuring potential critics that the position would guard against
autocracy. However, even at the inception of the Islamic Republic, these
assurances were not enough to silence opposition to the theory which
Khomeini had not spoken of publicly in the years leading up to the rev-
olution. Among the activist ulama several figures were openly critical of
vilayat-e faqih, among them Ayatollah Kazem Shariatmadari who many
regarded as senior to Khomeini and who argued that Khomeini’s inter-
pretation of Islamic government had no precedent in Islam or Islamic
jurisprudence.
Throughout 1980 power struggles continued within the clergy, the
leadership of the majlis and the country as a whole. A turning point
in these struggles occurred in September 1980 when Saddam Hussein, a
dictator who was armed and funded by the US and its allies, invaded
Iran. The horrific eight-year-long war that followed resulted in over
a million deaths. Saddam Hussein used the chemical and biological
weapons that were sold to him by the West to attack Iranians and Iraqi
Kurds causing huge numbers of casualties and deaths. Inside Iran the
war dominated domestic politics and fundamentally shaped the nature
of the newly formed Islamic Republic. The outbreak of war and the
bombing of major cities produced a climate of crisis and allowed the
group of clergy which supported Ayatollah Khomeini to consolidate
power and silence any opposition to their policies on the basis of pro-
tecting the country and defending the Islamic Republic. By 1983 the
social forces and movements which had fought in the revolution had
been ruthlessly suppressed. Leftist guerrilla and student groups were tar-
geted and thousands of their members and associates were arrested and
executed; universities which were centres of political debate were closed
and Kurdish and Azeri movements were attacked by the military.
In the early 1980s the government began the process of Islamisation
of Iranian society, enforcing a conservative interpretation of Islamic law
in the areas of marriage, divorce, custody of children and other aspects
of personal status law. Mandatory wearing of the hijab and policies
of gender segregation were introduced and often brutally enforced.
Women were prevented from studying in many academic fields and
barred from working in some professions such as the judiciary. The
generation of often highly religious women whose activism had been
praised in the revolution was now instructed by the state that men
64 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

would act as heads of households and be involved in the public sphere,

while women would confine their role in society to being wives and
mothers.
The nature of the state was also transformed during the period of
the Iran–Iraq war. The war helped to create a strong, centralised Iranian
state which relied for its survival on a draconian and repressive domes-
tic policy and a popular anti-Western foreign policy.76 However, despite
its strength, the state was by its very nature comprised of multiple
and competing centres of power and riven by ideological and factional
divides. The constitution of 1979 remained in many ways a product of
the revolution. It guaranteed equality before the law for all citizens, full
employment, an end to poverty and the provision of health care, educa-
tion and welfare by the state. It had also created a state with three major
and competing sets of institutions. The first was that of the republican
institutions which consisted of the Majlis, the judiciary and the office of
the presidency which had a limit of two terms. According to the consti-
tution any Iranian citizen regardless of gender, class or ethnicity could
vote and run as a candidate in local elections and parliamentary elec-
tions. However, while women could reach high political office they were
barred from the presidency.
Alongside the republican institutions were those of the vilayat-e faqih.
These included the post of rahbar (supreme leader), who was chosen
by a group of senior clergymen known as the Assembly of Experts.
This set also included the Council of Guardians (Shora-ye Negahban-e
Qanun-e Assassi), whose task it was to vet laws to ensure that they con-
formed to their interpretation of Islam and the shari‘a. As the supreme
leader, Khomeini wielded direct political and moral authority while the
Assembly of Experts and the Council of Guardians began to play a
vitally important political role. The third set of institutions were the
Nehadha-ye Enghelabi (revolutionary organisations) which were respon-
sible for mobilising the population in support of the government,
facilitating the process of Islamisation and the redistribution of wealth
from the shah’s state to the new state institutions and the popula-
tion. Among these were the Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guard), the baseej
(mobilisation) organisation, the Komitehs (local committees) and the
Bonyad-e Mostazafin (Foundation for the Oppressed).77
While the new political system did not allow for formally recognised
political parties, from the beginning it was clear that factions existed in
the new Islamic Republic. These arose as a result of differing interpreta-
tions of the meaning of the revolution, the role and nature of the state
and the role of Islam in Iranian politics. Factional groups were broadly
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Iran 65

separated into those on the left and the right with division focusing
on issues of the economy, foreign policy, socio-cultural issues and reli-
gion. The left faction was promulgated throughout the 1980s by the
war-time Prime Minister Mir Hussein Mussavi as well as Mehdi Karroubi
and high-ranking religious scholars such as Ayatollah Montazeri and
Ayatollah Beheshti.78 This faction saw the Iranian revolution as an
anti-imperialist movement, was in favour of state-run redistributive-
egalitarian economic policies79 and pursued a radical anti-imperialist
foreign policy. In terms of religion, they promoted the idea of a dynamic
fiqh (jurisprudence) arguing for the necessity of a continual reinterpre-
tation of Islam and Islamic law in order to make it relevant for the
modern era.
The right faction was vehemently opposed to the left, particularly on
questions of the economy and the role of religion. This group saw the
revolution as being primarily Islamic, supported the traditional middle
class of the bazaar and were staunch defenders of capitalism and private
property. In terms of religion, the right faction promoted a traditional
fiqh which aimed to implement a conservative interpretation of Islamic
law.80
As well as the traditional right another faction began to emerge
throughout the 1980s connected to the Revolutionary Guard and the
Baseej. Their social base was the urban and rural poor, particularly the
generation who fought in the Iran–Iraq war. As a result they had some
similarities with the left, particularly on questions of the economy,
where they were in favour of state intervention and welfare, and foreign
policy where they favoured a radical anti-imperialist policy. However,
like the right, they promoted a strict and conservative interpretation of
fiqh and argued constantly for the need to guard against Western cultural
infiltration.81
Thus, despite the demobilising of social forces and movements in
the early 1980s, the new state was pluralistic and its functioning was
characterised by competition over power by political elites and differing
parts of the state. Post-revolutionary politics in Iran were characterised
by tensions between the republican nature of the state, based on the
idea of popular sovereignty on the one hand and the idea of religious
guardianship embodied by the theory of vilayat-e faqih on the other.
Interestingly, Khomeini supported the left faction until his death in
1989 which meant that throughout the 1980s the left was dominant. For
this reason figures such as Ayatollah Montazeri were strong supporters of
vilayat-e faqih which they defined as being based on popular sovereignty
as much as on religious authority.82
66 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

Khomeini was also seen as being a flexible leader who rose above
factional politics. Although he enforced strict adherence to Islamic law,
his interpretations of the shari‘a were often pragmatic and susceptible to
change. For example, in March 1984 Khomeini announced that women
should participate fully in economic, political and social affairs within
Islamic laws and regulations.83 In that same year he amended the laws
which gave men unilateral rights to divorce without compensation after
coming under pressure from women who had fought in the revolution.
Indeed, Khomeini’s pronouncements on women continue to be used by
some in the women’s movement and the reform movement today who
see ideological Khomeinism as a form of left-wing Islamism that can be
used as a powerful weapon against conservatives in contemporary Iran.
The fluidity of the post-revolutionary factional configuration became
manifest on Khomeini’s death when left and right factions switched
their positions on vilayat-e faqih. This was a turning point for elite
politics in Iran which had important consequences for the reform move-
ment that began to emerge in the late 1980s. The right became staunch
supporters of Khomeini’s successor, Ali Khamenei, who represented
their faction while the left turned their attention to the elected institu-
tions of the majles and the presidency. Most importantly, alliances were
formed between the Islamic left and the increasing numbers of religious
scholars who were critical of how the theory of vilayat-e faqih was being
interpreted by the state.
The social movements of the 1990s arose out of fundamental changes
in Iranian society during this period. The state’s revolutionary heritage
and identification with the poor and oppressed were the basis for the
massive programme of health care, social welfare and education initi-
ated by the government. In the 1980s rural areas were provided with
electricity and piped water, roads and communications were developed,
schools were built in every village and state revenue was ploughed into
health and education programmes.84 As a result, literacy rates increased
dramatically, particularly among women, infant mortality rates fell
and rates of poverty decreased.85 Initially the government pursued a
pro-natalist policy in the 1980s, encouraging married couples to have
children; however, the economic realities of a booming population,
combined with the pressures of rising inflation and unemployment
brought about by the war and the US oil embargo, meant that this
policy was abandoned by 1989. Throughout the 1990s the government
distributed free contraceptives and embarked on a mass campaign of
population control through mosques, educational institutions and the
media.86 The average age of both marriage and pregnancy in rural and
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Iran 67

urban areas went up and the standard of living, particularly for women
and children, rose dramatically.87

Women in the Islamic Republic

The contemporary women’s movement in Iran is one of the largest

and most popular women’s movements in the world and has, since the
1990s, achieved significant reforms. Although it currently opposes many
of the policies of the state, this movement has its roots in women’s
experiences during the Iranian revolution and the changes in Iranian
society which followed. They were diverse and varied according to
women’s class, urban-rural, ethno-linguistic and religious backgrounds.
Women played a very significant role in the revolution and their par-
ticipation in the strikes and demonstrations that brought down the
shah was praised by revolutionary leaders such as Ayatollah Khomeini.
This experience was immensely significant for a generation of, particu-
larly Islamic, women activists. Elaheh Koolaee is a former reformist MP
(1996–2000) and professor of politics and international studies at the
University of Tehran. In an interview I conducted with her in Tehran,
she argued that the experience of the revolution raised women’s expec-
tations that they would be encouraged to participate in the public
sphere:

During the revolution Imam Khomeini created a new vision of

women in Islam. By discussing Zaynab [the daughter of Imam
Husayn] who participated in wars he changed perceptions of women.
This new perception also changed our women. That is why women
on a mass scale participated in the revolution and later in the public
sphere of life during the Iran–Iraq war.88

As part of the process of Islamisation, women’s demands of the new

republic were met in the 1980s. Despite an initial drop in women
entering the labour force after the revolution, due to the purging of
women from professional jobs, the closing of universities and enforced
gender segregation, economic and social reforms in the first decade
of the Islamic Republic eventually led to an exponential increase in
women’s participation in the labour force and in education.89 The
Iran–Iraq war, which caused devastation in many areas of the coun-
try, left an enormous gap in the male workforce which had to be filled
by women and also created female-headed households where women
were the main breadwinners.90 Ironically, gender segregation laws also
68 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

encouraged women’s entry into the workforce despite the fact that they
were designed to promote traditional gender roles. For example, in order
to prevent male clinicians from treating female patients the government
trained thousands of female doctors and nurses, encouraged women
to enter this field and allocated at least half of all places in state-run
medical universities to female students.91 Initially, female doctors and
nurses were not permitted to treat male patients but the severe shortage
of male medical staff due to the war meant that this policy was soon
abandoned. The Islamisation of society undertaken after the revolution
had a number of contradictory effects and far from acting as a barrier to
women’s participation in the labour force and in education, resulted in
encouraging it.92
Islamisation of society also made female employment and schooling
acceptable to socially conservative families who had previously discour-
aged women from entering the workforce during the shah’s regime.
A generation of urban working class and middle class religious women
had been marginalised under the Pahlavi state, which ideologically
restricted their access to secular education and employment and con-
sidered them backward for wearing the hijab.93 The Islamic state on
the other hand gave these women access to ‘material and ideological
resources’,94 while mandatory wearing of the hijab and gender segre-
gation opened previously male-dominated environments to women.
Many women trained to become professionals or worked in reconstruc-
tion campaigns, welfare organisations and the newly formed Islamic
women’s organisations such as the Women’s Society of the Islamic
Revolution headed by Azam Taleghani, daughter of the revolutionary
leader Ayatollah Taleghani, which ran literacy and education classes and
employment programmes for women.95 Millions of urban working class
and middle class women were thus empowered by the policies of the
new state and for the first time in Iran’s history education and employ-
ment became accessible to the majority of the population. The changes
wrought in Iranian society by the new state were to have major conse-
quences and would eventually contribute to the emergence of a reform
movement which challenged the legitimacy of the state itself.

Conclusion

Prior to the nineteenth century and interaction with the West, Iranian
society was far from ‘traditional’ or static, but a dynamic society in
which political elites, the state and civil society struggled over polit-
ical and economic power. The transformation of state and society
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Iran 69

in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through colonialism

integrated Iran into the world economy, producing a modern state and
cementing capitalist relations of production, particularly in urban areas.
The discovery of oil in southern Iran led to the country’s emergence as
an important imperialist asset in the region and deepened foreign dom-
ination in the country. Thus modernity is not a recent experience in
Iran. It is clear that the modern state and many elements of modernity
were present in Iran, as they have been in most Muslim Middle Eastern
countries, for over two centuries.
In addition to reifying ideas of a static ‘tradition’, theories of the
clash between modernity and tradition assume that there is one homo-
geneous experience of modernity that can be applied to all countries
and social groups. These perspectives also imply that modernity brought
about positive changes for ‘traditional’ societies, including development
and exposure to Western values such as individual liberty, secularism
and rationalism. However, in this chapter I have demonstrated that
modernity, experienced in Iran through the processes of colonialism
and imperialism, had contradictory and negative effects. It helped pro-
duce an authoritarian state, which harmed the struggle for women’s
rights and civil rights, and a capitalist economic system which gave
rise to new forms of social stratification and undermined pre-existing
civil societies and social organisations. This experience of a contradic-
tory modernity also gave rise to new social forces which participated in
social movements in the country for over a century. These movements
did not advocate a return to traditionalism, but were very much a prod-
uct of the societal conditions in which they arose. They were modern,
mass movements composed mainly of the new urban working class and
middle class.
New movements employed new means of communication and new
repertoires of protest from the nineteenth century onwards. The first
modern social movement in Iran deployed a successful nationwide
boycott campaign. Its leaders were drawn from the clergy. However,
it was not the traditional quietist majority that mobilised but a new
group of politically active members of the religious class. This demon-
strates that the struggle for civil rights, women’s rights and rights for
national minorities in Iran has not historically been opposed by a mono-
lithic, conservative religious class, nor has the Shi‘i ulama been united
in supporting social reforms or progressive movements. Instead, the
religious establishment was highly divided and crucially, from the nine-
teenth century onwards, a section of the ulama and lay religious class
supported popular movements and progressive social reforms. They
70 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

formed alliances with liberal and nationalist groups around the country.
Interestingly, although social movements were often confined to the
capital, the leadership of the tobacco protest originated from a provin-
cial centre, Shiraz, demonstrating the geographically unified nature of
the movement. From their early origins women played a vital role in
these new movements. The first women’s organisations, journals and
publishing house were set up in the 1920s and women participated
in and led clandestine groups and mass mobilisations throughout the
1940s and 1950s.
A feature of Iranian movements of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries was their ability to unite different social forces against the
state and foreign domination. This seeming unity was due in part to
the common experience of the imposition of capitalist economic and
social relations as well as the new role the state was playing in both
regulating the lives of citizens and selling off the country’s economic
resources. This new role of the state and the centralisation of poli-
tics and power encouraged movements with diverse demands to target
both the state and external forces. This can be seen in the nationalist
movements which opposed colonialism, the tobacco protest and consti-
tutional revolution, the nationalist and leftist movements of the 1940s
and 1950s, which culminated in the coming to power of Mossadegh,
and the 1979 revolution. Labour and socialist movements have also
been crucial in Iranian history and politics. The first labour unions were
set up in the 1920s and by the 1940s workers had become a key, albeit
not numerically dominant, socio-economic grouping. As the Iranian
state was transformed into a ‘rentier state’ in the 1940s and 1950s,
oil workers in particular became essential to the regime’s survival and
played a major role in bringing down the shah’s government in 1978–9.
The revolution of 1979 transformed many aspects of the state. However,
a truly transformative socio-economic programme which was fought
for by workers, students and other groups was opposed by those who
eventually consolidated power in the early 1980s.
The role of external forces did not end with the revolution and con-
tinued to have a major impact on movements. The war with Iraq was
a turning point in the demobilisation of the revolutionary social forces
and helped create a strong centralised state with an anti-Western for-
eign policy and a repressive domestic policy. Popular leftist, nationalist,
women’s groups and liberal Marxist-Islamist groups were ruthlessly tar-
geted and demobilised in the years after the revolution. However, at the
same time some of the socio-economic demands of the revolution and
demands for an end to foreign domination were met by the regime.
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Iran 71

Despite political repression, the true legacy of the revolution has been
the economic and social reforms introduced in the first decade of the
Islamic Republic. These included welfare, education and literacy pro-
grammes which have transformed Iranian society since the 1980s. It is
these reforms, rather than the purportedly ‘Islamic’ nature of the state,
that have formed the basis of the state’s legitimacy since the 1980s.
4
The Rise of Social Movements
in Iran since the 1990s

This chapter analyses a number of the interactions between social

movements, civil society, the state and external forces in Iran since the
1990s. It begins with a discussion of the transformation of the Islamic
Republic in the era of reconstruction under President Rafsanjani and the
crisis of succession which followed the death of Ayatollah Khomeini.
I will then analyse the rise of the women’s movement, the movement of
Islamic reformists and the democracy movement in the 1990s with an
investigation of the strategies employed by these movements to achieve
legislative and political reform, including successes and setbacks in these
areas. The chapter will chart the rise of the new conservatives from 2004
onwards and examine the nature of the state under President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. Finally, I will discuss the emergence of the green move-
ment in 2009, its relationship with the movements of the 1990s and the
political situation in the post-2009 period.
As discussed in previous chapters, the phenomenon of Islamic
reformism has been analysed by a range of theorists. The Arab upris-
ings brought a number of reformist parties to power, including al Nahda
in Tunisia and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and precipitated dis-
cussion of the ability of Islamic reformists to present a ‘democratic
alternative’ to authoritarian state structures in the region. In Iran, as
in Turkey, an Islamic reformist current was successful in remaining in
office through the electoral system for a number of years. In Iran this
experience of reformists in power was crucial for the reform move-
ment and broader democracy movement. Many activists who came from
a movement or civil society background took up posts either in the
Khatami administration or in areas of civil society – the arts, publishing
and so on – which depended for their survival upon the administra-
tion. This chapter will also chart how reformists in Iran, as elsewhere,

72
 The Rise of Social Movements in Iran since the 1990s 73

oriented their politics towards a vision of civil society that embraced

neo-liberalism. When the Khatami administration enacted neo-liberal
reforms, those involved in social movements and civil society in the
1990s were either acquiescent or actively supported these policies. The
first major break between the popular movement and the Khatami
administration occurred after the student protests of 1999 when the
administration supported the state against the protesters. However, it
took over a decade for the limitations of the experience of reformism in
Iran to give rise to new movements for change.

The era of reconstruction

The transformation of the Iranian state at the end of the 1980s had
a significant impact on the rise of social movements and civil society
in the 1990s. The end of the 1980s heralded a crisis for the elites that
had controlled it for the past decade and was also the beginning of
the era of reconstruction in Iran. The Iran-Iraq war was concluded in
a UN peace deal signed in July 1988 and Ayatollah Khomeini died less
than a year later in June 1989, precipitating a crisis for the faction that
had effectively controlled the state throughout the 1980s. Khomeini
had managed to rise above the factional system and provided the new
Islamic Republic with a semblance of unity in both direction and ideol-
ogy. However, by the end of the 1980s, it had become clear that serious
issues threatened the cohesion of the new republic, foremost among
them the dire economic situation produced by the war, Iran’s isolation,
the US oil embargo and government policies. By 1989 the economy was
in serious crisis with inflation at 23 per cent, high unemployment, eco-
nomic stagnation and shortages in consumer goods which produced a
thriving black market.1
Khomeini’s death led to a succession crisis and a transformation in
the state’s interpretation and practice of vilayat-e faqih which robbed it
of much of its revolutionary and populist dimensions. Prior to the inser-
tion of vilayat-e faqih into the constitution the marjaiyat had been an
institution with both democratic and pluralistic elements. There were
six recognised Ja‘fari Shi‘i marjas of equal status in the world and indi-
viduals in Shi‘i communities could choose to follow a particular marja
based on their knowledge of his teachings and the relevance they had to
the individual.2 By contrast, the Islamic Republic proclaimed the valid-
ity of only one living marja who would exercise political authority and
demand the allegiance of all Shi‘i in Iran. In practice, it invested the
supreme leader with ‘the kind of power that Shi‘is only recognise for
74 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

the Prophet and the twelve Imams’.3 This tension between religious and
political authority was illustrated by a statement made by Khomeini
in 1987 in which he argued that the vilayat-e faqih had primacy over
all religious duties and injunctions including prayer, fasting and hajj
(pilgrimage). The implication that the state should come before basic
Islamic principles raised the question of whether the state worked for
the benefit of Islam and the people, as it claimed, or whether Islam was
being deployed to benefit the state.
The succession crisis further laid bare the fundamental contradictions
in the Islamic Republic. In March 1989 Khomeini had dismissed his
designated successor Ayatollah Montazeri (the only candidate who was
recognised as a marja) for his opposition to the policies of the state.
Unable to find a high-ranking scholar who supported both the theory
of Islamic government and the policies of the Islamic state, the Assem-
bly of Experts chose Ali Khamenei, to succeed Khomeini as supreme
leader. The selection of Khamenei had far-reaching consequences for
the nature of the state. His succession required the re-writing of the
constitution in order to remove the condition that the faqih had to be
recognised as a supreme marja or the highest ranking religious scholar
in the country.4 In many ways this signified the separation of the reli-
gious establishment from the government in Iran. Later, based on the
recommendation of a number of religious scholars at the Qom theologi-
cal seminaries, Khamenei was given the title of ayatollah.5 Ali Khamenei
left the presidency to assume a religious position, but even as supreme
leader he has also struggled to maintain legitimacy. He has issued two
significant fatwas since his succession (on the legality of satellite tele-
vision and the use of nuclear weapons) and in the mid-1990s he faced
opposition to his appointment as marja, not only from within Iran,6 but
also from Ayatollah Fadlallah in Lebanon and Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq.7
The re-writing of the constitution took place under the presidency of
Hashemi Rafsanjani who came to power with the aim of centralising
the state in order to push through an ambitious programme of eco-
nomic reform. He termed himself the sardar-e sazandeghi (commander
of construction) and by the mid-1990s he had become the leader of a
new faction of self-proclaimed pragmatic technocrats and Islamic mod-
ernisers. This group called themselves an organisation or party (hizb)
of Kargozaran (functionaries) and aimed to reshape Iran into a modern
Islamic state and an international economic power along the lines of the
successful Asian ‘tiger’ economies. In order to circumvent opposition,
Rafsanjani used the opportunity of amending the constitution to elim-
inate the left faction and create a strong executive that would allow
 The Rise of Social Movements in Iran since the 1990s 75

him to reshape Iran.8 The new constitution eliminated the position of

prime minister and increased the power of the presidency. Rafsanjani
also sought to reform the Nehads, further centralising the structure of
the Islamic Republic. He returned assets and industries belonging to
the Bonyad-e Mostazafin foundation estimated at over US$10 billion to
the private sector, including to those individuals who had previously
supported the monarchy.9
In 1989 Rafsanjani’s government announced its first five-year eco-
nomic development plan which introduced a programme of structural
adjustment consisting of privatisation and the removal of subsidies, tar-
iffs and price controls. With an unemployment rate of 25 per cent, the
introduction of tough taxation and cuts in subsidies led to demonstra-
tions and rioting.10 In 1991 the World Bank provided Iran with a loan of
US$250 million and a further US$850 million in 1994.11 Although dire
economic problems persisted within the country, the American-led inva-
sion of Iraq in 1991 pushed up oil prices which translated into increased
revenue for the state. President George Bush senior’s new foreign policy
aim of destroying Iraq meant that the US temporarily softened the oil
embargo against Iran while the UN imposed sanctions on Iraq. Despite
this, by the mid-1990s Iran was swamped by foreign debt and faced
a balance of payments crisis which raised inflation to almost 50 per
cent and led to high levels of unemployment.12 The economy did not
experience economic growth again until after 2001 when oil prices again
skyrocketed due to America’s invasion of Afghanistan.

The women’s movement

Despite neo-liberalism, the state continued with welfare policies, pro-

vision of resources and education for the majority of the people and
rising literacy, education and employment rates among women were a
result. They led to a new generation of educated women who expected
to play a role in the economic, cultural, social and political life of the
country. By the end of the 1980s religious women who had been alien-
ated from secular Western and state-sponsored feminist models in the
1970s sought to form frameworks that reflected their indigenous Iranian
culture and Islamic faith. As a result Islamic feminism(s) developed
which presented a politically and ideologically heterogeneous challenge
to conservative and patriarchal interpretations of Islam. Initially, reli-
gious women’s groups did not want to associate themselves with secular
feminists whom they saw as being associated with the state-sponsored
secular forces which had denigrated them during the shah’s regime.
76 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

However, as the women’s movement grew, secular women were invited

to take part in writing for women’s journals and the two groups formed
alliances to challenge patriarchal laws.
Throughout the 1990s, as a result of campaigns by both secular and
Islamic female lawyers such as Mehrangiz Kar and Shirin Ebadi, twenty
reformed family laws were passed by the Iranian parliament in favour
of women.13 By 1994 women were allowed to participate in all fields of
education such as maths, science, agriculture and engineering; female
athletes were allowed to compete in international sports and female
lawyers were allowed to practise in family courts.14 Amendments to
the 1994 divorce laws required men who wanted to initiate proceed-
ings to apply through the civil courts and women’s rights to initiate
divorce were also expanded. The changes to family law also included
Ujrat al-methl (wages to be paid for housework upon divorce) and the
Mahr (bride price) became index linked. Both of these reforms, which
were based on the traditional Islamic rights of women, were very impor-
tant in providing financial security, especially for poorer women.15 The
1994 laws also allowed mothers to be awarded custody of their children
upon divorce, a change which was endorsed by Khomeini’s daughter,
Farideh Mostafavi, as an Islamic right.16 In addition to pressing for
important changes in family and personal status laws, women’s activism
was also more apparent on an everyday level in politics as women
became ‘effective in subverting and in opposing the spatial and the
physical segregation rules and veiling’.17
A major turning point for the movement was the election of a
reformist government in 1997. Millions of Iranians – women, youth,
national minorities, Islamic and secular reformists, liberals and leftists –
voted to elect Hojjat al-Islam Mohammed Khatami as president. Khatami
ran on a platform which proclaimed the concepts of democracy, civil
society, women’s status and the rule of law and gained a landslide
70 per cent of the vote against an established conservative candidate.
The surprise victory of this little-known reformist candidate fundamen-
tally changed the meaning of elections in Iran from ‘settling factional
power struggles into expressing popular political will’.18 Upon coming
to power, Khatami’s Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Ata’ollah
Mohajerani, lifted restrictions on the press and encouraged growth in
publishing, arts and the media. One of the most important figures in
women’s publishing at the time was Shahla Sherkat who had become
editor of Zan-e Ruz (Woman of Today) in 1982 and then editor of the
important women’s journal, Zanan (Women). In an interview I con-
ducted with her in Tehran, she described how the journal engaged with
 The Rise of Social Movements in Iran since the 1990s 77

discussions of women’s rights in Islam and Islamic feminism in the

1990s:

In Zanan we tried to discuss the concept of feminism and open up the

discussion around the different meanings of feminism and different
forms of feminisms. We also tried to change the wrong perception
which the conservatives were giving to this concept. Feminism was
a taboo for many women or a bad word, so we tried to change this.
Against this trend, we argued that anyone can be a feminist whether
secular or Muslim or with any other ideological affiliations.19

Other female journalists, editors and publishers took advantage of the

opening presented by the victory of the reform movement and there was
an exponential increase in the number of female journalists working in
women’s and reformist magazines, journals and newspapers. Journalist
and author Lily Farhadpour writes that by 1999 women’s publications
were discussing issues ranging from debates over feminism and patri-
archy, to women’s positions within the family, the law, access to employ-
ment and education.20 In addition, arguing that gender inequalities did
not originate in the Qur’an, but were derived from the interpretation
of Islamic law by religious authorities, many Iranian women activists
sought to recapture the true spirit of the religion by writing about
Islamic history and the role of women in early Islam. Utilising exam-
ples of important figures they argued that the exclusion of women from
playing important socio-economic and political roles was an unknown
practise in early Muslim communities in which women were political
and military leaders, judges, overseers of the marketplace and religious
scholars. A dynamic interpretation of Islamic history and reinterpreta-
tion of the original sources therefore became part of frameworks utilised
by women to oppose attempts by religious authorities and political
elites to exclude them from full participation in political, social and
economic life.
By the late 1990s the women’s movement had become engaged in
formal politics. In 1998 there was a campaign for women to be repre-
sented at all levels of political life, including the opportunity to stand
for appointment to the Assembly of Experts. Women ran in the parlia-
mentary elections of April 1996 in which thirteen women were elected
to the majlis and in May 1997 Azam Taleghani, a well-known Islamic
feminist activist, publisher and daughter of the revolutionary leader
Ayatollah Mahmoud Taleghani, ran as a candidate in the presidential
election. With her statement that she considered it her religious duty to
78 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

stand,21 she challenged the law that denied the presidency of the Islamic
Republic to a woman. This important move opposed the interpretation
of Islamic law as formulated by state institutions and the exclusivist and
male-dominated nature of such institutions.
Following her example, other women participated in presidential
campaigns and in elections for ministerial posts and regional gover-
norships. Under pressure from conservatives, Khatami disappointed the
women’s movement by not initially including any women in his cab-
inet. However, he did appoint two women to senior positions in his
government – Massoumeh Ebtekar as vice-president and Zahra Shojaee
as presidential advisor and subsequently head of the Centre for Women’s
Participation.22 In April 1999, Khatami announced elections for newly-
created local and municipal councils. In the local council elections
the reformists gained another landslide victory, with more than four-
fifths of the popular vote. Many women were active in campaigns and
significant numbers were elected to local councils.
In addition to formal politics women were also active in the growing
area of associations, NGOs and charities. Neo-liberal reforms in the early
1990s had given rise to the process of NGO-isation in which NGOs took
on the provision of welfare and other services usually carried out by the
state. This led to an exponential growth in non-governmental groups,
associations and charities. By the end of the decade women were active
in eighty-four established women’s associations including NGOs, char-
ities and cultural associations. Ashraf Geramizadegan, who was editor
of the journal Hoghoghe Zanan (Women’s Rights) and manager of the
NGO Society for the Protection of Women’s Rights, described the work
of her organisation:

Within my own NGO we worked with women in different towns,

cities and even in rural areas about women’s rights issues and women
and health issues. We also asked women to come and discuss with us
their legal and health issues. In most parts of the country women get
together and have meetings to discuss Islamic issues. In these meet-
ings we were discussing Shari‘ati and Mottahari’s views with them as
well as discussing with them women’s rights issues.23

The fact that gatherings of women not only discussed Islam and the sta-
tus of women, but also the work of ideologues of the revolution from
the Islamic left such as Shari‘ati and from the right such as Mottahari,
both of whom wrote on women’s rights, demonstrates the continued
relevance of the objectives of the revolution in the 1990s. The Islamic
Republic had attempted to suppress women’s demands and broader
 The Rise of Social Movements in Iran since the 1990s 79

debates about the nature of the revolution in the early 1980s. However,
by the 1990s they were in the process of being re-formulated by a new
generation of Iranian participants in social movements.

Islamic reformism

Nowhere was this revitalisation of debate over the meaning of the rev-
olution and the Islamic Republic more prevalent than in the circles of
Islamic reformers. As outlined in the previous chapter, there is a long
history of political activism and progressive reformism among religious
scholars and lay religious intellectuals in Iran. By the end of the 1980s
these groups began to publicly articulate discontent with the govern-
ment’s policies and the interpretation of the theory of Islamic govern-
ment. A new group of religious intellectuals known as the Roshanfekran-e
Dini (New Religious Thinkers) began to coalesce around reformist jour-
nals such as Kian, established in October 1991 and edited by Mashaallah
Shamsolvaezin. In the early 1990s, as a lay religious intellectual and
lecturer in philosophy at Tehran University, Abdolkarim Soroush sub-
mitted articles to Kian which criticised aspects of the religious institution
and government in Iran, including the conservative interpretation of
Islamic ideology and the state’s interpretation of vilayat-e faqih.24 In his
later work, Soroush went on to discuss theories of Quranic hermeneu-
tics. In 1997 he published an article entitled ‘Straight Paths’ (siratha-yi
mustaqim), which drew on the philosophy and poetry of the Sufi poet
Rumi and argued for a distinction between the historically contin-
gent, rather than essential, features of religion.25 For Soroush and other
Islamic reformers the essential task of re-affirming the pluralistic and
non-state orientated legacy of Islamic philosophy and law was mirrored
by the need for the establishment of political reforms which would allow
these concepts to be realised in Iranian society. To this end, Soroush
opposed the ruling clerical elite and argued for a democratic reading of
religion that rested on three pillars: rationality, pluralism and human
rights.26 Soroush has highlighted the important idea that reformism in
Iran is founded upon the long history of rationalist Islamic philosophy
such as Mu‘tazilite philosophy and argued that rationality, pluralism
and the freedom to undertake criticism are essential features of this
form of Islam. This can be seen in debates which centre on the idea of
justice:

They [Mu‘tazilites] think that even God has to tune himself to justice
and justice is a rational idea. And reason can discover it and define it
and can find the instances of justice and injustice in the behaviour of
80 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

man and theoretically in God’s creation . . . [Rationalists] don’t think

that God is immune to criticism, they [believe that there is an] inde-
pendent criteria of justice . . . So justice is independent of God and
God has got to be just. This is the Shi‘i position in theology and it
has an immense effect on your political position and social behaviour
and your political practice as a believer. If you think that God is just
and justice has got no independent standpoint, therefore you cannot
criticise God and whoever is perhaps the imitation or the manifesta-
tion of God is to be immune from criticism. But from another point
of view, if you think that justice is independent of God’s creation
then you can bring everything under scrutiny and criticism, even
what God actually does.27

This theological, philosophical and political position has a significant

effect on views of how the law should be interpreted in contemporary
Iran and allows for criticism of the policies of the state:

More importantly, from a legal point of view, the law here is at stake.
If you think that law is something that is given by God then you can-
not criticise it. It is just, it has got to be just, and nothing else can be
said, but if you think that justice is independent from law therefore
you have a criteria in order to see whether the law is just or not, so it
gives you a very free hand in evaluating things and criticising.28

In the 1990s critiques of the state were eventually taken up not only
by those outside of the mainstream Shi‘i religious institution, but also
among Islamic leftists who had once been strong supporters of vilayat-e
faqih during the lifetime of Ayatollah Khomeini. The disquiet among
the leftists was engendered in part by Rafsanjani’s use of the Coun-
cil of Guardians to demobilise the left as a political force in the early
1990s. The new role of the Council included vetting candidates for elec-
tion, a practice used to exclude anyone who might threaten the political
establishment. Even candidates who had been staunch revolutionaries
and supporters of Khomeini were now being rejected by the Council
which questioned their Islamic credentials. This was increasingly seen
by many on the Islamic left and by liberal Islamic reformists alike as
having created an undemocratic system where political elites could use
the language of Islam to bypass popular sovereignty.
In 1997 the most senior living religious scholar in the country, Grand
Ayatollah Montazeri, published ‘Popular Government and the Con-
stitution’ in which he refuted the idea of the absolute mandate of
 The Rise of Social Movements in Iran since the 1990s 81

the jurist and criticised the anti-democratic nature of the Council of

Guardians.29 In 1998, one of Montazeri’s students, Mohsen Kadivar,
published Hokumat-e Vela’i (Government of the Jurist) which analysed
Khomeini’s theory of vilayat-e faqih in light of the classical Shi‘i texts
and concluded that no justification of the theory or for any theory of
government exists in the Qur’an or in the hadiths of the Prophet or
in the teachings of the twelve Imams.30 In his criticism of the practice
of Islamic government in Iran, Kadivar argued that it contradicted the
major principles of the revolution – republicanism and human equal-
ity – and made the clergy appear as a self-perpetuating political elite.31
Similarly, Mohammed Shabestari argued that the only emphasis on
political systems in the Qur’an is that involving the principle of justice
and that to ensure justice ‘in the society of the faithful’ there should be
no ‘red lines’ to demarcate the limits of critique.32 Meanwhile, reformist
cleric Hasan Yousef Eshkevari criticised not only the idea that the faqih
could serve as an intermediary between the people and the Imams but
also the existence of all intermediaries themselves, advocating an Islam
without clergy in which all intermediaries between man and God were
eliminated.33

The democracy movement

Social forces such as students and workers’ groups which had played
such an important role in the 1979 revolution were also apparent as cru-
cial factors in the growing democracy movement of the 1990s. By this
time Iran had a large, young, urban working class and middle class popu-
lation and, although higher education was widespread, unemployment
remained high especially among university graduates. Young people and
students organised themselves through groups and networks which had
been active on university campuses since the 1979 revolution, such as
the Dafter-e Tahkim-e Vahdat (Office for the Consolidation of Unity) and
throughout the 1990s used these groups to organise ‘protest marches,
boycotts, and other forms of oppositional activities’.34
The working classes were similarly engaged in political action at
this time. A number of workers’ groups and professional organisa-
tions had been founded by the 1990s and were active throughout
the decade. By 2001 there were 120 workers’ guilds and one out of
three in the labour force belonged to the organisation Labour House.35
Workers’ groups organised protests against ‘delayed and non-payment
of wages, inadequate health and safety provision, and redundancies
as the result of subcontracting’.36 In 2005, Tehran Bus drivers formed
82 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

the independent Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company Workers’ Syndicate

(Sherkat-e Vahed), which represented workers until its leader, Mansur
Osanloo, was arrested and imprisoned. Workers’ discontent culminated
in strikes and 1 May, International Workers’ Day, and 8 March, Interna-
tional Women’s Day, became rallying points for the labour movement
and the women’s movement respectively.
The democracy movement also found expression through reformist
newspapers and journals such as Kian, Jame’e, Khordad and Sobh-e Emruz
among others. Journalist and publisher Eisa Saharkhiz argues that ‘the
media played an important role in the promotion of civil society
organisations’.37 He described the role of the independent media during
the reform period (1997–2005):

The number of newspapers and journals [increased] from a handful

[to] over 200 independent publications and the circulation of each of
these newspapers and journals increased from 40,000 to 500,000.38

Organisations were set up to protect the rights of journalists and in

1999 the Kanoone Nevisandegan (Writers’ Association of Iran) began
distributing leaflets, pamphlets and open letters to state institutions
demanding reforms.39 Mashaallah Shamsolvaezin was a journalist and
spokesperson for the Association of Press Freedom in Iran and described
the activities of his organisation and its role in the broader democracy
movement:

The journalists’ trade union which was set up in the 1990s had
1,500 members, today it has 4,500 members. This is significant.
We are active, when they close down newspapers we object and write
letters of protests. [When] they closed down Shirin Ebadi’s office,
we objected and wrote letters of protests. When Zahra Kazemi, the
Iranian-Canadian citizen, died in custody we protested and staged
sit-ins in the streets outside where she was prosecuted. We officially
celebrate international journalists’ day. We give prizes to old and
renowned journalists. We give financial support to journalists who
are in jail. We are a member of the International Journalists Asso-
ciation and the ILO [International Labour Organisation] and other
international institutions. The state challenges us by arguing that
our association and our elections are not legal. But we have con-
tinued and they have given up on us. We feel that we have been
successful. We produce reports and demand free press, security of
employment, justice and fair trials for the journalists who have been
 The Rise of Social Movements in Iran since the 1990s 83

in jail. We also work on human rights issues and gender equality

issues and we organise workshops with international organisations
to discuss these issues. We are active both in our journalists syndi-
cate/trade union and in the Association of Press Freedom in Iran,
which is an open and a registered organisation, we act as a politi-
cal party. If they do not allow a journalist to talk freely and arrest
that person, we challenge it according to the regulations of the
association. In our reports we write that Iran according to this open
and registered organisation has not respected human rights and free-
dom of the press. We feel that gradually we are succeeding to stand up
strong and push the boundaries to force the government to behave
in a responsible manner.40

The years following Khatami’s election in 1997 thus led to a growth

in student, worker, women, pro-democracy and reformist movements.
However, there was also a power struggle between reformists in govern-
ment and conservatives. Despite the fact that reformists won historic
victories in elections held during this period, the conservative faction
was able to mobilise the areas of the state over which it maintained
power. These were the institutions of the vilayat-e faqih, particularly
the office of supreme leader and the Council of Guardians. The con-
servatives also controlled the judiciary through which they initiated
a backlash against the reform movement. The conservative judiciary
closed hundreds of newspapers and journals which were then licensed
by the reformist minister of culture and Islamic guidance and re-opened
under a different name. A popular reformist paper by the name of Jame‘e
(Society) was closed and re-opened as Tus, then Nishat and finally Asr-e
Azadegan (Era of the Free) under the same editorial staff. In the late
1990s a number of reformists in high positions in Khatami’s government
were targeted by the conservatives, including former Interior Minister
Abdollah Nuri who was arrested and given a sentence of five years.
Members of the reformist clergy and lay religious intellectuals whose
work was seen to threaten the religious ideology of the state were also
targeted and in 1999 Mohsen Kadivar was arrested and sentenced to
eighteen months in prison.
The conservatives were also willing to use extra-legal means to demo-
bilise the reform movement, utilising mobs and gangs to physically
attack and harass reformists. This tactic led, in the autumn of 1998, to
a series of murders of liberals and reformists. As anger increased at the
growing violent confrontations between conservatives and reformists
and the closure of several reformist newspapers, students at Tehran
84 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

University began major peaceful protests in the summer of 1999 in

which they used slogans and chants against dictatorship drawn from
the 1979 revolution. In response, militia groups entered the campus
dormitories at night and proceeded to engage in a brutal assault on the
students, leading to four deaths and hundreds of arrests. Tehran Uni-
versity students and others in cities around the country united in an
explosion of demonstrations in the first full-scale confrontation with the
authorities on the streets of major cities since 1979. Although they were
harshly suppressed, students continued to take action against the regime
in the years that followed, as in 2002 when demonstrations were held
to protest against the death sentence imposed on a reformist university
lecturer, Hashem Aghajari and again in 2003 when students agitated for
greater political rights.41
In April 2000 a conference was held in Berlin, Germany which a num-
ber of Iranian reformists, religious intellectuals and women’s groups
attended as well as international speakers and Iranians living outside
the country. The conference was targeted by a minority faction belong-
ing to activist groups exiled from Iran, which loudly condemned the
speakers for continuing to work for reform within Iran and proceeded
to garner international attention by engaging in several poorly thought
out stunts. As a result of the attention drawn to the conference by
their activities several reformists were targeted on their return to Iran
and received lengthy prison sentences for conspiring to overthrow the
Islamic Republic. The dissident cleric Hasan Yousef Eshkevari, who in
a speech at the conference defined the traditional Islamic practice of
ijtihad as the motor of an Islamic renaissance and Islamic reform in
areas such as women’s rights, received a death sentence for the crimes
of apostasy and attacking Islam.
Despite intense pressure from conservatives Khatami’s government
secured a second term of office in the election of 2000 and the reformists
established a political party, Jebheh-ye Mosharekat-e Iran-e Eslami (Islamic
Iran Participation Front). In the first years of the parliament of the sixth
majlis, women’s groups continued to push for major legal reforms and
succeeded in changing the law that the nationality of a child is deter-
mined by the father. There were a growing number of children in Iran of
mixed parentage, whose mothers were Iranian and whose fathers were
Afghan. Discriminatory legislation denied Iranian citizenship to these
children, the law stating that they had to adopt the nationality of the
father. The women’s movement achieved an important victory by both
confronting racial stereotyping and achieving social and legal benefits
for children through gaining rights to maternal Iranian nationality.
 The Rise of Social Movements in Iran since the 1990s 85

Nahid Ashrafi was director of Hami NGO (in support of Afghan women
and children refugees in Iran). She set up a school for Afghan children
in Khayrabad near Tehran and argued:

In Iran we have racism and discrimination against Afghans and

in Afghanistan we have racism and discrimination against Iranians
and Afghans who have lived for many years in Iran and now have
returned back to Afghanistan. We have tried to change these wrong
perceptions through the media to make these societies aware of the
consequences of racism and discrimination and change the public’s
attitudes towards Afghan refugees . . . We were able to argue in the
sixth parliament that Iranian women who married Afghan men (or
any other foreign men) should be able to pass on their citizenship
rights and nationality rights to their children. This was a great step
forward.42

Women parliamentarians also introduced a bill for Iran to ratify the UN

Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW). Fakhri Mohtashamipour is the executive manager of
the NGO Association of Women Entrepreneurs and chair of the board
of directors of the Association of History and Women Researchers. Like
many Islamic feminists she argues that ‘the 1979 revolution provided
a real opportunity for women to participate in the social and political
sphere of life, especially for religious women’.43 After the limitations of
the Iran–Iraq war, she states that women’s demands re-emerged during
the 1990s, and describes the importance of the reform movement:

The reform movement was a period when women participated in

civil society organisations and began to raise their voices about gen-
der equality in different spheres of life. The creation of Markaze
Mosharekat Zanan [Centre for Women’s Participation] was very
important as its aim was to increase women’s participation in all
spheres of the economy, politics and society. Two women were
advisers to the president and one of them was in charge of this organ-
isation. Both of these women participated in the cabinet. I worked in
this centre and set up a young women’s section. We had committees
for urban women, rural women, employed women and housewives.
I argued that we needed a committee for young women to deal with
their particular issues . . . I also worked on the issue of discrimination
against women and young women. The parliament was dominated
by reformists. So we were able to reform laws and regulations in
86 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

favour of women. In meetings we managed to encourage young

women to raise their voices and learn to challenge authorities and
fight for their rights. Funding was available for our activities. We were
able to work in different parts of the country and include women in
different projects. All these were empowering for women, especially
for young women. Men in position of power as local and regional
administrators accepted and acknowledged women’s participation
and talked about it.44

Reformism and the growth of civil society in Iran was thus a phe-
nomenon that came about as a result of the changing relationship
between the state and society. While the Islamic Republic had, in
the 1980s, sought to demobilise social forces for change, the victory
of the reformists in government presented a real opportunity for the
movement to use the institutions of the state, particularly the elected
institutions, to bring in reforms and they did achieve successes in
both legislative and political fields. However, while in government they
failed to fundamentally challenge the power of the unelected institu-
tions. They also failed to confront the neo-liberal, technocratic political
paradigm introduced by Rafsanjani and ignored the economic devasta-
tion it wrought on the working and middle classes. This left the way
open for a counter-attack by the conservatives in the following decade.

The rise of the new conservatives

Despite winning electoral victories, the Khatami administration suf-

fered from several major weaknesses. Although Khatami had talked of
fostering an ‘Islamic civil society’ and encouraging reformism, his gov-
ernment was hampered by attacks from conservatives who controlled
major sectors of the Iranian state. In addition, during periods of cri-
sis such as the attacks on the student protests of 1999, Khatami was
seen to adopt a conciliatory stance towards conservatives, calling for
calm and national stability and emphasising his loyalty to the supreme
leader. Khatami’s inability to put the movement before the state was a
major blow to the student movement and the more radical sections of
the reform movement. A student activist in the organisation Tahkim-e
Vahadat who I interviewed in Tehran argued:

During the reform movement both Mosharekat [the pro-Khatami Par-

ticipation Party] and Kargozaran [the more conservative reformist
party associated with Rafsanjani] made concessions to the
 The Rise of Social Movements in Iran since the 1990s 87

conservatives. Tahkim-e Vahdat was very critical of both organisa-

tions and opened up opportunities inside universities for the students
to raise their critical voices, and organised demonstrations, meetings
and conferences.45

The experience of the Khatami administration changed the nature of

reformism within Iran. Some came to the conclusion that the Islamic
state could not be reformed from within and had to be fundamentally
changed. For these people the only way to reform the government was
to separate religion from the state entirely. Rather than speaking of an
Islamic civil society or an Islamic democracy, secular reformists began
to talk about the necessity of a civil society, a democracy without the
religious prefix, while others remained convinced that Iran, as a reli-
gious society, required a form of religious government, but one that was
democratic and pluralistic.
External forces played a major role in weakening the reform move-
ment after 2002. Following his election, Khatami called for a ‘dialogue
of civilisations’ with the West and condemned the attacks on the US
on 11 September 2001, calling for an easing of hostilities between Iran
and the US. However, this was countered by President George W. Bush’s
2002 speech in which he labelled Iran as part of the ‘axis of evil’. This
unexpected attack on Iran had the effect of weakening the reformists
in the area of foreign policy. To a domestic Iranian audience such state-
ments were also seen as the continuation of a hypocritical policy on the
part of the US which criticised Iran while supporting conservative and
undemocratic Arab regimes and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. After
the invasions and occupations of Iran’s two neighbours, Afghanistan
and Iraq, the country found itself completely surrounded by US occu-
pied territories and confronted with an increasingly hostile US foreign
policy. International attention shifted to focusing on Iran’s nuclear pro-
gramme after 2003 and the US and Israel threatened the country with
sanctions and military attacks.
The post-2001 era also saw the revitalisation of Islamophobic dis-
courses as part of the neo-conservative project. Ideas of Islam and
Islamic societies as essentially backward, anti-modern and opposed to
women’s rights and democratic reform, all of which were used as rea-
sons to justify the West’s invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, threatened
the ideological space which had been painstakingly built up by Iranian
reformists and women’s rights activists. It also allowed conservatives
within the country to galvanise increasingly powerful support for an
anti-Western and anti-imperialist foreign policy which gained purchase
88 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

within the country. The actions of the US and its allies weakened
the women’s movement in practical as well as ideological terms. The
Bush administration allocated 20 million dollars ostensibly to support
women’s NGOs and promote human rights and women’s rights. How-
ever, this was seen as part of the US’s policy of destabilising Iran from
within and gave the conservatives an excuse to target NGOs. For this
reason, former reformist MP Elaheh Koolaee argued that ‘foreign inter-
vention did a lot of damage to women’s participation in the public
sphere of life’.46
Khatami’s administration also suffered through its failure to deal
with domestic problems. While the popularity of the reformists had
been based on their policies on culture and civil society, in the eco-
nomic arena they had pursued policies similar to those of the previous
Rafsanjani government. In fact, both those within Khatami’s admin-
istration and some major reformist intellectuals outside it supported
privatisation and lauded neo-liberal economic policies. For example, the
dissident journalist Akbar Ganji’s ‘Republican Manifesto’ argued for a
free market economy as a precondition to democracy in Iran.47
Privatisation had increased in pace after 2002 resulting in a steep rise
in unemployment and inflation and a widening gap between rich and
poor. This was seen as a betrayal by those groups which had fought
in the revolution for social justice and equality, many of whom had
also either fought in or lost relatives in the Iran–Iraq war. A new con-
servative faction sought to mobilise the urban poor and working class
who had suffered economically at the hands of both Rafsanjani and the
reformists. They reformulated a conservative politics that was based on
socio-economic concerns rather than on advocating a particular Islamic
ideology. Four years after instituting local councils as part of a process
of deepening political participation within Iran, Khatami’s government
was unable to maintain a majority in the 2003 council elections. Voter
turn-out was low, particularly in major cities and a number of conser-
vative candidates were elected including in Tehran, where Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, who was at the time a little-known academic with a
humble background, became mayor.
The presidential election of 2005 which followed was hotly contested.
Khatami was unable to stand as he had already served two terms as
president and there was division among reformists as to which can-
didate should replace him. To add to the reformists’ problems, the
Council of Guardians seized this moment to go on the attack, reject-
ing 200 reformist candidates including Elaheh Koolaee and Mohammed
Reza Khatami, the outgoing president’s brother. The extent of the
 The Rise of Social Movements in Iran since the 1990s 89

conservatives’ efforts to control the election led to an unprecedented

protest and sit-in in the parliament. Disillusioned, a section of the
reform movement decided to boycott the elections altogether while oth-
ers argued that a boycott would only enable the right to gain control of
the presidency. Thus prior to the 2005 election the reformists were dis-
organised and divided regarding what tactics to employ. Eventually they
fielded two candidates, the little-known Mustafa Moin who appealed to
the left of the movement and the centrist, Mehdi Karroubi.
Despite the disruptive measures taken by the Council of Guardians
the campaign for the 2005 election was vigorous and the legacy of
the Khatami years was evident in that all seven presidential candidates
from the political left and right campaigned on issues of the rule of
law, constitutional reform and economic development.48 Both reformist
candidates campaigned on the traditional reformist platform that had
been so successful in securing large mandates for President Khatami in
1997 and 2000. The new right faction’s candidate, Ahmadinejad, spoke
in campaigns of his humble background as the son of a blacksmith
and attacked the elitism of the reformists. Despite holding a powerful
position as mayor of Tehran, Ahmadinejad was known for his modesty
and ordinary style of dress and living. During the election he presented
himself as the defender of the oppressed and campaigned on the issue
of good government, implying that a conservative president would be
able to end the deadlock between the judiciary, the supreme leader and
the majlis that had afflicted the Khatami presidency.
However, his main campaign message was economic. In an echo of
previous Iranian leaders, both nationalist and religious, he promised
that if elected he would put the oil money on the tables of the poor. His
eventual surprise victory over Rafsanjani and the reformist candidates
revealed the extent of class tensions within Iranian society which had
long been ignored by the reform movement. Upon coming to power,
Ahmadinejad became the first non-clerical president since the 1980s.
While he was seen by many commentators in the West as a hardline
religious figure, much of his appeal actually stemmed from the fact that
he was not a member of the religious establishment, but was from a
non-religious conservative faction.
President Ahmadinejad’s government began by introducing a number
of policies which addressed socio-economic issues. One of the first was
designed to provide the youth of the country with jobs and housing so
that they could leave home and get married.49 The new right faction
was well aware of the enormous frustration felt by the younger gener-
ation of Iranians, who by the first decade of the twenty-first century
90 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

made up 70 per cent of the population. Their frustrations had been

successfully channelled by the reform movement in the 1990s when
they had voted in massive numbers for a more open society. However,
the government of Khatami had failed to bring in substantive economic
and political change, leaving the way open for the new conservatives.
The new administration also appealed to Iranian women who were
likewise frustrated by growing economic problems and the slow pace
of change. Unlike Khatami, President Ahmadinejad became the first
leader in Iran’s history to appoint a woman to his cabinet. However, as
his administration progressed it became clear that Ahmadinejad’s eco-
nomic policies were not truly redistributive and in fact carried on the
neo-liberal legacy of previous administrations. Furthermore, economic
gambles, such as the introduction of gasoline rationing in 2007, proved
disruptive to the economy and sanctions which were imposed upon Iran
as a result of the breakdown of nuclear proliferation talks worsened the
economic situation within the country.
Throughout Ahmadinejad’s administration there was a concerted
effort to demobilise the reform movement. NGOs, journals and
reformist organisations were either shut down or came under immense
pressure. However, youth, women, national minorities, workers and
other groups who had supported the reformists in the 1990s were
soon to reorganise themselves into a new social movement despite the
enormous obstacles that they faced. Following the election of the con-
servative government in 2005, a coalition of different political forces
including leftists, reformists, those who supported Rafsanjani, Islamic
reformers, secularists, liberals and nationalists came together to oppose
Ahmadinejad’s re-election in 2009. However, the 2009 election pro-
cess was disrupted by accusations of fraud and vote-rigging and the
subsequent emergence of a new political force.

The 2009 green movement

Following the elections of June 2009 the world witnessed the upsurge
of a social movement on the streets of Iran calling for democratic and
legislative reform. This movement involved the visible participation of
hundreds of thousands of women, workers, students and individuals
from different social classes and religious and political orientations
who led, organised and joined mass demonstrations following the dis-
puted presidential election. The period in the run-up to the election
had seen increasing political activism with students organising meet-
ings on campuses and extensive public campaigning by the candidates,
 The Rise of Social Movements in Iran since the 1990s 91

including for the first time a live televised debate. The incumbent Pres-
ident Ahmadinejad campaigned on a similar platform to that which he
had utilised in 2005, presenting himself as a man of the people and
focusing on social inequalities.
However, the past four years of Ahmadinejad’s government had
seen rising inflation, unemployment and increasing privatisation.
Ahmadinejad’s perceived mishandling of the economy and foreign pol-
icy, particularly his statements implying doubts over the Holocaust,
were attacked by the reformist candidate, former war-time prime minis-
ter and leftist, Mir Hussein Mussavi. While many analysts expected that
no single candidate would emerge with a majority and that the elec-
tion would go to a second round, early voting figures suggested a small
majority for the reformist campaign.50 Ahmadinejad’s eventual victory
with over 60 per cent of the vote was thus greeted with an explosion
of disbelief and rage among youth, women, workers and other groups
which had campaigned for Mussavi. Crowds poured into the streets of
Tehran and other cities where for days they fought running battles with
the police, army and groups of hired thugs, chanting the slogan ‘Rai-ye
man kojast?’ – Where is my vote?
Outside of Iran and particularly in the Western media, the protests
were portrayed as a confrontation between a young, secular, Western-
ised Iranian youth and the hardline clergy. However, this presentation
was far from reality. In fact, reformist religious scholars such as Ayatollah
Montazeri and Ayatollah Sanei immediately called on people to demon-
strate and protest against the election result which they termed both
illegitimate and ‘sinful’. Far from being purely secular, those who
demonstrated were drawn from a wide cross-section of Iranian society.
The diversity among women protesters who took to the streets in large
numbers was illustrated by their chant of ‘ba chador, bi chador’ – with
chador (a form of Iranian Islamic dress which covers the body), with-
out chador – which proclaimed unity between protesters old and young,
secular and religious.
The weeks of demonstrations which followed the election brought
together for the first time since the revolution those groups which had
found themselves disenfranchised by the state, which they claimed
was in reality a dictatorship while it purported to be Islamic. These
included women, students, workers, the urban poor, national and reli-
gious minorities, Islamic reformists, leftists, liberals, nationalists and
others. It was the first major confrontation between these groups and
the state for over thirty years. In many ways the protests also reflected
the culmination of the growth of these movements since the 1990s
92 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

and the experiences of the left and the reformists during the Khatami
years. 2009 was also a watershed moment in the relationship between
social movements and the state. The protests were met by a brutal crack-
down by the state in which many hundreds were injured and one young
woman, Neda Agha-Soltan, was killed in Tehran.51
The disputed election of June 2009 and the mass protests and crack-
down that followed were a turning point in the history of the Islamic
Republic. Not since the time of the shah had an election result been
regarded as so obviously illegitimate. Despite the previous banning of
candidates by the Council of Guardians and extra-legal measures taken
by conservatives, the alleged falsifying of results and the brutal repres-
sion of the protesters were seen to connote a different and far more
serious level of authoritarianism among political elites. Throughout the
decade of the 1990s the state’s revolutionary, republican and democratic
credentials had been slowly eroded. However, the events of 2009–10
exposed the real workings of the state, which was prepared to rely on
force and coercion in order to remain in power. This also challenged the
political strategy of reformists which had originated in attempts to seek
reforms through state structures. Between June 2009 and the state’s cele-
bration of the thirty-first anniversary of the founding of the Islamic state
on 11 February 2010, thousands of journalists, students and reformists
were arrested, along with many people accused of being associated with
the reform movement or having attended the demonstrations.
Despite immense pressure, however, students’ and workers’ protests
continued throughout 2010 as economic conditions worsened in the
country. Neo-liberal policies continued unabated after 2010 as the gov-
ernment dismantled subsidies on gasoline, water, electricity, rice, flour,
bus fares and university tuition, causing an enormous rise in infla-
tion and the cost of living, particularly affecting food. Alongside this
the welfare programmes of the state were cut back as the government
of Ahmadinejad amended Article 44 of the constitution in order to
privatise the public sector.52 As in Egypt and other countries which had
seen extensive privatisation, the neo-liberal reforms so praised by the
IMF strengthened the state and those with connections to it. In the case
of Iran, the Revolutionary Guard in particular benefited from the tens
of billions of dollars made available by the privatisation of state assets,53
while unemployment and the cost of living soared for ordinary people.
Sanctions also had an enormously detrimental effect on ordinary
Iranians, although the rich and those connected to the state continued
to grow richer. In some ways sanctions actually strengthened the state
as they allowed those in power to blame the US rather than government
 The Rise of Social Movements in Iran since the 1990s 93

policies for the increasingly dire economic situation. Financial sanctions

and restrictions on imports added to inflationary pressures and food
costs as Iran, like many neo-liberal developing economies, is an importer
of food and other essential items. The import of essential medicines such
as cancer drugs was also restricted. In July 2013 a group of women’s
rights and peace activists called Mothers for Peace wrote an open let-
ter to leaders of the UN and the World Health Organization, alerting
them to the critical shortage of vital medication due to the US/EU-led
sanctions on Iran and their deadly impact on the lives and health of the
Iranian population. The letter stated ‘we view the Western-imposed crip-
pling sanctions on the people of Iran as a form of structural violence – a
silent, yet a predatory war’.54
In early 2011 workers’ strikes and a mass pro-democracy movement
in Tunisia successfully ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after
twenty-three years of military dictatorship. In Egypt the participa-
tion of millions in workers’ strikes and protests succeeded in ending
the presidency of Hosni Mubarak and subsequent protests erupted in
several countries in the Arab world including Libya, Yemen, Bahrain
and Syria. In these different countries social movements were mobilis-
ing widespread anger against dictatorial regimes. In Tehran and other
Iranian cities the uprisings in the Arab world inspired tens of thou-
sands to take part in anti-government demonstrations. These protests
illustrated that despite repression and the problems of reformism, the
struggle between the movement in Iran and the state, having reached a
new level in 2009–10, could only be silenced temporarily.
Increasing division among state elites also characterised the post-2009
political situation. Throughout 2011 and 2012 there were several public
disputes between the conservative faction led by Ahmadinejad and the
supreme leader. Ahmadinejad publicly challenged the supreme leader
in May 2011 over the re-instatement of a minister sacked by his gov-
ernment and questioned the division of sovereignty between the majles
and the unelected office of supreme leader, a political issue previously
associated with reformers. In September 2012 Ahmadinejad’s press sec-
retary and head of the state news agency was jailed as the president was
addressing the UN General Assembly in New York.
Disunity among political elites was evident in the June 2013 presi-
dential election in which the Guardian’s Council disqualified not only
the reformist ex-President Rafsanjani but also Rahim Mashai, President
Ahmadinejad’s deputy and successor.55 As always, the fluid and unpre-
dictable nature of Iranian politics continues to confound those in the
West and elsewhere who view the country as a military dictatorship
94 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

or theocratic state. The elections of June 2013, which were widely

predicted to be a rubber stamp on state-sponsored candidates, were in
fact hotly contested and led to a resounding victory for reformist can-
didate Dr Hassan Rouhani. Although several commentators pointed to
the fact that the reformist candidate was hardly a radical, Dr Rouhani’s
election was met with relief and renewed optimism inside the country.
The economic and political policies of this government show, as
yet, no departure from previous decades of Iranian leaders who have
embraced privatisation and the empowering of a military-business elite
connected to the state. However, Dr Rouhani’s social policies, includ-
ing a softer line on dress code, an easing of internet censorship and
release of a number of political prisoners, are immensely popular. Most
importantly, his policy of seeking dialogue with the US and ending Iran’s
isolation provides a challenge to the course Western foreign policy has
taken in the region since the revolution.

Conclusion

Despite its talk of supporting democracy in the region, the policies of

the US and international bodies such as the IMF and WTO, which on
the one hand impose neo-liberalism and on the other hand exclude
Iran, have hurt ordinary Iranians and empowered the very elites their
rhetoric seeks to oppose. The US and its allies claim to oppose the
Revolutionary Guard and the state in Iran whose power they connect
to the dominance of a radical, conservative Islamism. However, it is not
the supposedly Islamic nature of the state that has led to the growing
power of a military-business elite within the country, but the policies
of international agencies and the logic of neo-liberal economics. Dur-
ing the 1990s, reformists in power were unwittingly complicit in this
process. Having accepted the idea that neo-liberalism would empower
civil society and shrink the state, they supported the enacting of neo-
liberal policies. While reformists won significant victories in a number
of areas they also failed to form a movement that was capable of mobil-
ising popular support and instead remained dependent on the support
of the Khatami administration.
The role of external forces has also been crucial. Since 2001 the region
has witnessed the commencement of the ‘War on Terror’, the invasion
and occupation of Iran’s two neighbours and an enormous increase
in US military presence in the Gulf and Central Asia. Increasing for-
eign pressure, sanctions and threats of military intervention served to
weaken the reform movement which wished to engage in a ‘dialogue
 The Rise of Social Movements in Iran since the 1990s 95

of civilisations’ and has made it more difficult for Iranians to mobilise

against the policies of the government of the day. Following the devas-
tation inflicted upon Iraq, the Iranian state is one of the only remaining
independent powers in the Middle East. For this reason it is supported
by many people throughout the region as well as inside Iran, being
regarded as the only power with the ability to resist US and Israeli
hegemony in the region. The government is therefore able to portray
those who criticise the state as supporters of ‘liberation by the West’,
something that most Iranians and people in the region oppose. While
many reformists and those in the green movement have been at pains
to oppose these arguments, the perception that the victory of the reform
movement could mean a victory for the US and Israel has seriously
damaged prospects for democratic reform within Iran.
Increasing foreign pressure and state repression thus dealt a serious
blow to the reform and democracy movements in Iran. However, even
after 2009, social forces remained in the country which opposed the
power of the state and which enjoyed immense support among the
population. The role of religious reformists continued to be vital and
the importance of these figures to both secular and religious sections of
the movement was evidenced by the mass demonstrations which took
place after the death of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri in January 2010 and
by the election of Rouhani. The revival of demonstrations in support
of the Arab revolts of February 2011 also demonstrated that, despite
intense pressure, discontent remained simmering under the surface. Fur-
thermore, the split in the coalition between Ahmadinejad’s new right
and the traditional right of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei,
revealed the extent of growing factionalism and disunity among polit-
ical elites. Conservatives, like reformists, are not a homogeneous group
in Iran and have serious disagreements over economic, political and
foreign policy issues which were to some extent papered over since
the election of Ahmadinejad in 2005. Therefore, in addition to grow-
ing levels of public discontent, the post-2009 period was characterised
by a growing crisis among political elites who controlled the Islamic
Republic, a fact publicly expressed for the first time since 2005.
Following the 2009 election, the state arrested and imprisoned thou-
sands of people and in many ways succeeded in demobilising the
movement. However, in doing so it laid bare to an already frustrated
and disillusioned public the extent to which it was increasingly far from
the republican and populist state of the 1979 revolution. It is interest-
ing, however, that despite the many crises of the state since the 1990s,
no mass movement in Iran has directly challenged the existence of the
96 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

state. Despite the neo-liberal economic policies introduced in the 1990s

there is less poverty in Iran than in other countries in the region with
similar populations, such as Egypt, and state revenues continue to be
spent on public welfare despite many failures and widespread corrup-
tion. This means that Iran is still one of the more equal developing
countries in the world. However, the growing gap between rich and poor
and the undemocratic nature of the strategies undertaken by political
elites to remain in power have eaten away at the state’s legitimacy and
produced a more coercive and less populist Islamic Republic. Growing
splits in the political elite, division among the clergy, international crises
and rising levels of public discontent with the regime will thus continue
to pose major challenges for both the state and social movements in the
future.
5
Social Movements, the State and
External Forces in Modern Egypt

This chapter investigates the rise and characteristics of social

movements in modern Egypt from the nineteenth century onwards.
Continuing the socio-historical focus of the book it analyses what forms
or repertoires of protest developed out of the contradictory experience
of modernity and the politics of the nation-state during this period.
It focuses on the role of external forces which were vital in shaping
these experiences and, as new social forces emerged, it discusses the
political trends that competed to appeal to them. As in Iran, Egyptian
social movements did not arise out of a clash between modernity and
tradition. Egypt was incorporated into the world capitalist economy by
the early nineteenth century through trade and the production of raw
materials for sale to European markets and Egyptian society displayed
most, if not all, of the aspects which have traditionally constituted
modernity in European countries, such as a modern state, commu-
nications and transport. It was in the context of this experience of
modernity, colonialism and imperialism that nationalist movements,
workers’ movements and communism, women’s movements and fem-
inism and Islamic movements arose. These social movements have, in
turn, played varyingly important roles in Egyptian political life for over
a century.
Rather than providing a survey of Egyptian history, this chapter will
focus on turning points including the revolution of 1919, the uprising
of 1946–52, the movements of the late 1960s and 1970s and the begin-
nings of the rise of civil society in the 1980s and 1990s. These periods
in particular provide the historical context for the rise of contemporary
movements in Egypt and perceptions of them have helped form and
shape the political strategies employed by participants in today’s social
movements.

97
98 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

Modern repertoires of protest have been utilised by diverse move-

ments in Egypt for over two centuries. As in other countries, movements
which have sought to mobilise the populace through strikes and demon-
strations, to provide welfare, undertake cultural activities or to reform
legislation have worked together during upturns in social struggle and
become competitors during periods of crisis and social change. These
movements have been characterised by a changing and dynamic pol-
itics as well as shifting political allegiances and relationships with the
state and external forces. The chapter will investigate these transforma-
tions, firstly by outlining the formation of a modern state under the
reign of Muhammad Ali and the nature and impact of colonialism on
Egyptian society in terms of economic control, political dominance and
territorial occupation. Secondly, it will analyse the role of social forces,
the growing importance of industrial workers and the urban middle class
in the major revolutionary periods, such as the revolution of 1919 and
the nationalist, communist and Islamist movements of the 1940s and
1950s. Finally, it will discuss the movements of the 1960s and 1970s in
the context of the transformations of state and society that took place
under the presidencies of Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak.

Egyptian state and society in the nineteenth century

At the beginning of the nineteenth century Egyptian society was diverse

and dynamic. A number of social and political organisations and move-
ments played important roles in society and acted independently of the
state. In rural areas, land was owned and managed by semi-communal
organisations of peasants and Bedouin communities practising animal
husbandry formed distinct political and social units. In the cities life
was organised through artisan and communal guilds, Sufi orders and
the social and political organisations of minority religious groups.1 As in
other Muslim majority societies, the position of women in Egypt var-
ied greatly according to their class and background. While seclusion in
harems was common among families of the ruling elite and the urban
rich, it was not practised by the large majority of the population. Most
women worked outside the home, engaging in textile and handicraft
production, agricultural labour and animal husbandry. Veiling was prac-
tised by a majority of women in urban areas, but not by those living in
large rural communities. In the cities, veiling was not unique to Muslim
populations and it was also practised by Jews and Christians.2
The transformation of Egyptian state and society in the nineteenth
century, particularly the interaction with Europe and the experience of
colonialism, produced the social forces which were to play a major role
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Egypt 99

in the social movements of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The founding of the modern Egyptian state and the beginnings of the
transformation of Egyptian society are usually attributed to Muhammad
Ali who ruled the country between 1805 and 1848 and founded a
dynasty that reigned until 1952. However, processes of social and eco-
nomic change in Egypt and the wider region were already well under
way by the beginning of the nineteenth century due to the expansion
of Europe into the Middle East and its increasing demand for textiles,
raw materials and markets. Indeed, Ayubi argues that the integration of
the Ottoman Empire into the world economy can be dated from as early
as the sixteenth century.3 By the late eighteenth century an affluent class
of merchants, high ulama and landowners had emerged in Egypt who
exploited rural and urban workers in order to amass commodities for
export, at first to other areas under Ottoman rule, but increasingly to
Europe. These processes led to a decline in the traditional classes of arti-
sans in some areas, as well as handicraft producers and small merchants.
In rural areas it spelled the end of peasants’ communal ownership of
land and increased the number of day labourers and migrant workers,
leading to the expansion of urban centres and the growth of wage labour
in the cities.4
Rather than being simply a form of ‘oriental despotism’ par excel-
lence, Egyptian society was characterised by a continual struggle by the
lower classes to resist orders passed down by rulers and elites. The short-
lived occupation by French forces (1798–1801) was resisted by a series of
revolts in which a section of the ulama, which did not support the ruling
elites, led uprisings and emerged as popular leaders in the country. The
support of these social forces for Muhammad Ali, a soldier of Kurdish
and Albanian origin who arrived in Egypt at the head of Ottoman forces
on 8 March 1801, led to him being declared wali (governor) of the coun-
try in 1805. As he consolidated authority, Muhammad Ali increased the
pace of change in Egyptian society, expanding trade with Europe and
the growth and export of cotton as a cash crop. Textile and cotton pro-
duction came under direct state control, heavy taxes were imposed on
the rural peasant population, textile and yarn guilds were abolished and
their members were compelled to join new textile factories.5 The reli-
gious institution of al-Azhar was brought under state control and its
economic independence was now limited. The state took over admin-
istration of waqf endowments and directly appointed the mufti (head
jurist) who had previously been appointed by the Ottoman sultan in
Istanbul.6
Muhammad Ali also sought to create a strong centralised state admin-
istration, bureaucracy and army. Following a practice established by
100 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

previous ruling dynasties, Muhammad Ali did not seek to foster an

indigenous Egyptian economic or political elite. Instead, he staffed the
army with officers of Albanian or Turko-Circassian origin and employed
European advisers, administrators and technocrats to run the state
bureaucracy and the economy. Muhammad Ali resisted the creation of
an Egyptian landowning class, preferring to construct one of Turkish
origin. However, the results of his agricultural policies forced him to
grant and sell land holdings and this led to the emergence of a new class
of wealthy Egyptian landowners, which included those of Mamluk and
Turkish origin. By the end of the nineteenth century, this class owned
40 per cent of cultivated land.7
The Egyptian economy was also transformed in the nineteenth cen-
tury, which led to the rise of new social forces and movements in the
country. By the 1840s Egypt’s major trading partners were European
countries such as France and Britain and the Egyptian economy was con-
tinually exposed to European trade pressures and economic conditions.8
The Anglo-Ottoman convention of 1838 had broken the state monopoly
that Muhammad Ali had attempted to impose over the Egyptian econ-
omy and opened the country up further to European economic and
political influence. In the later years of Muhammad Ali’s rule and under
his successors, the financial and commercial services and enterprises
of the country were largely owned and operated by European banks
and financiers. European citizens were granted a series of privileges or
‘capitulations’ in which they gained monopolies and extra-legal juridi-
cal status in the country meaning that they could not be tried for
any crimes in Egyptian courts.9 The cotton trade required the build-
ing of infrastructure projects which were undertaken by sections of
the landowning and emerging industrial ruling class. They invested in
communications, ports and railways and an increasing number of fac-
tories and industrial projects. By the end of the nineteenth century
there emerged a small but significant group of industrial wage workers
employed in modern industrial and transport enterprises.10
The transformation of the state by Muhammad Ali and the disloca-
tions and changes caused by colonialism in Egyptian society, economy
and politics also had an impact on women. While some historians have
seen modernisation and the opening up of Muslim majority countries
to European influence as having a positive effect on women, overall
conditions for women in nineteenth-century Egypt did not improve.
Although a small minority of middle and upper class urban women
were able to pursue education and become involved in writing, pub-
lishing and other activities, the majority of women were forced out of
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Egypt 101

their roles as active owners and traders of goods and property.11 The
growth of private landownership meant that women lost their status as
communal landowners and peasant women, like men, worked harder
for less return. Although there was continuity in some areas of women’s
traditional roles, the spread of capitalist relations of production based
on the gendered division of labour meant that women were forced into
domesticity while men gained status as being the sole breadwinners and
economic providers.12
By the end of the nineteenth century, the policies of Muhammad
Ali’s successors, Abbas and Isma’il in particular, had turned the
Egyptian countryside into a ‘large cotton field to supply the British
textile industry’.13 Muhammad Ali’s grandson, the Khedive Isma’il
(1862–79) borrowed massive sums from European and particularly
British financiers and banks for major infrastructure and building
projects such as the Cairo Opera House and the Suez Canal. Opened
in 1869, the Canal was built by Egyptian labour and owned, by the
end of the century, almost entirely by European financiers. The heavy
indebtedness of the Khedive and the huge taxes levied on the rural and
urban population led to a revolt against his rule which aimed to limit his
powers and break Egypt’s dependence on foreigners. The revolt, led by
Ahmad ‘Urabi and supported by Islamic reformers such as Muhammad
‘Abduh among others, succeeded in forcing the Khedive to pass a law
granting the creation in 1866 of a Chamber of Deputies. Fearing a threat
to their control over Egypt, the British used the uprising as a pretext to
invade the country and occupied Egypt in 1882.14
As a result of the British occupation, the dependence of Egypt on
European markets and its export of cotton as a cash crop increased
drastically. Cotton came to represent 92 per cent of the total value of
exports and the power of the large landowning class grew.15 However,
the growth of a new urban working class and professional class by the
end of the nineteenth century also gave rise to social movements which
fought for better living conditions and were opposed to British rule.
Strikes took place during the ‘Urabi revolt of 1882 and in the first decade
of the twentieth century by Cairo tram workers among others.16
Secular and Islamic responses to colonialism emerged which reflected
growing Egyptian nationalism and encouraged debates on ways in
which to strengthen Egyptian society. Some intellectuals of the secular
opposition began to articulate liberal nationalist perspectives in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and others argued that Egypt
should emulate Western methods and become Europeanised in order
to regain power and influence in the world system. Islamic reformers
102 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

and modernists such as Muhammad ‘Abduh argued for the need to

reform and strengthen Egypt’s Islamic religious traditions and culture
in order to resist colonial aggression. ‘Abduh was a committed nation-
alist activist and thinker. He had been one in a circle of students that
gathered around the anti-imperialist activist and reformer al-Afghani
who had come to Egypt in 1871 and was expelled by the Khedive
in 1879. ‘Abduh wrote influential articles in the newspaper al-Ahram
against British control over Egypt and played an important role in the
‘Urabi revolt for which he was imprisoned, tortured and subsequently
exiled by the British for three years.17 In 1888, however, he was allowed
to return and in 1889 he attained the position of mufti of Egypt. ‘Abduh
argued that the ulama had allowed Islam and Islamic education to fall
into a state of stagnation where taqlid (imitation) dominated rather
than ijtihad (independent reasoning). Opposing this he called for the
revitalisation of the practice of ijtihad among the ulama as a means of
strengthening Egyptian society in order to counter colonialism. ‘Abduh
and other reformers argued that Islam was compatible with modernity,
rationalism and progress and that the Islamic principles of shura (con-
sultation) and ijma’ (consensus) could be the basis for a constitutional
and parliamentary system which would limit the authoritarian powers
of the ruler.18 Although ‘Abduh’s views on systems of political repre-
sentation changed throughout his life, he opposed British rule in Egypt
and called for an ‘Egyptian representative government’.19 He maintained
throughout his life that political powers in the Islamic constitutional
organisation are not religious or theocratic but purely civil, suggest-
ing that any system of government that was consistent with Islam
would be secular in nature.20 Sections of the social forces that took
part in social movements during this period were immensely influenced
by the ideas of Islamic reformers such as ‘Abduh. Indeed they con-
stituted a strand of Islamic activism and reformism that continued to
be relevant throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first
century.

The Wafd and the 1919 revolution

While the 1904 entente cordiale between Britain and France further
entrenched Britain’s dominance over Egypt, the period continued to see
the emergence of both secular and Islamic nationalist groups and organ-
isations. Discontent with British rule grew as a serious financial crisis hit
Europe in 1906–7 having disastrous effects on the Egyptian economy
which lasted until the outbreak of the First World War.
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Egypt 103

By 1914 the country’s economic and political system was almost

completely under the control of foreign interests. Cotton represented
93 per cent of exports and effective state power lay in the hands of the
British. While society was still dominated by the power of the wealthy
landowning class, social forces opposed to British rule and political elites
which benefited from it grew at the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury. These were primarily composed of an urban working class and
the effendiyya, a new middle class of lawyers, teachers, journalists and
other professionals who had received a modern education. Together
these groups formed the basis of the nationalist movement in Egypt for
the next fifty years and their agitation against British rule culminated in
the popular revolution of 1919.
The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 initially led to an intense
crackdown on the political opposition by Britain who declared Egypt
a protectorate in December of that year. The Nationalist Party was dis-
solved, activists were arrested and imprisoned and martial law and press
censorship came into effect. As a result of the war, rising prices and food
shortages led to immense suffering among peasants, urban workers and
the unemployed. The British continued the practices of conscription
and forced labour and by the end of the war, one and a half million
Egyptians had been pressed into labour camps.21 By 1918 the situation
had reached crisis point, with severe food shortages and a high rate of
inflation which caused a rapid decline in real wages. The end of the war
also raised the question of Britain’s continued control over the coun-
try and in 1918 the Wafd (delegation) led by Saad Zaghlul was formed
to represent Egypt at the Paris peace conference. In 1919 the Wafd
formed itself into a party whose membership represented an alliance
between progressive landowners and urban professionals. Its original
strategy consisted of applying pressure on the international community
to support Egyptian independence. However, this strategy soon proved
fruitless as Britain refused to negotiate or to even recognise the Wafd’s
existence.
Although the Wafd was primarily composed of individuals from a
ruling class background who favoured negotiation with Britain, the
intransigence of the British led the new party to adopt a strategy of
mobilising social forces such as the urban working class and middle class
in support of its aims. In doing so, the Wafd assumed the leadership
of the popular nationalist movement. It quickly attracted mass support
and in response Britain arrested Zaghlul in March 1919. The refusal of
the British to recognise the Wafd and the arrest of Zaghlul fed a wave of
social discontent among workers, professionals and students. Workers’
104 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

protests were especially concentrated in areas where there was already

a tradition of struggle, for example in Cairo where the 1910 ‘Anabir
railway strike and the 1911 tram workers’ strike had taken place.
In 1919 a popular nationalist uprising erupted in the country, involv-
ing strikes and demonstrations by students and professionals against
British rule. Al-Azhar closed in solidarity with the nationalist movement
and months of daily demonstrations and strikes followed, in which
tens of thousands gathered at mosques or the houses of the Wafd lead-
ers while protesters fought bloody battles with the British military in
the city centres.22 Despite extensive repressive measures and the bom-
bardment of entire villages the British were eventually forced to grant
concessions as demonstrations, boycotts and violence against British
officials continued throughout the 1920s. On 28 February 1922 Britain
was forced to declare Egypt an independent state, although the British
government maintained control over crucial aspects of the country
including all communications, defence, protection of minorities and the
Sudan, control of which had been a joint Anglo-Egyptian responsibility.
While the constitution of 1923, which emerged from the struggle, suc-
ceeded in putting in place a parliament and included provisions for a
number of important civil liberties, it also granted extensive powers to
King Fu’ad who had collaborated with the British in order to remain
on the throne. In 1924 elections were held for the first Egyptian majlis
in which the Wafd Party won an astounding 195 out of 214 seats and
formed government.23 Although the Wafd faced huge political chal-
lenges, which they were often not able to meet, the party had mass
support throughout the 1920s and 1930s and won every free election
held in the country until 1952.24
The immensely significant revolution of 1919 had seriously threat-
ened British domination of Egypt. From it emerged a number of social
movements which played a vital role in Egypt’s political life for many
decades to come. These included a popular nationalist movement, as
well as a vitally important workers’ movement and a growing women’s
movement. Although the years of colonial rule had exacerbated dif-
ferences between Muslim Egyptians and national religious minorities,
the 1919 revolution was characterised by unity between Muslims, Copts
and Jews who together led and participated in mass strikes and demon-
strations against British rule. The events of 1919 also demonstrated
the magnitude of the workers’ struggle in Egypt and its explicit con-
nection with the struggle for national liberation. By the end of 1919,
twenty-one separate unions had been formed in Cairo alone, seven-
teen in Alexandria and more in other towns.25 In the following decades,
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Egypt 105

workers and urban intellectuals who were radicalised by the revolution

sought to establish formal political organisations in order to represent
their interests in the domestic political arena.
Large numbers of women participated in and organised militant
nationalist demonstrations and strikes against British rule in 1919 and
several were killed.26 In the 1920s Egypt’s first women’s organisations
were established, such as the Egyptian Feminist Union (EFU) led by
Huda Sha’rawi. For the next thirty years women’s organisations agi-
tated to bring about changes in health, education, family law and
employment for women. Although they retained their independence
from the Wafd, they were an integral part of the nationalist movement
and fought for national liberation as well as for greater gender equal-
ity in Egypt. Under the leadership of Sha’rawi, an upper-class Egyptian
woman, the EFU was more radically nationalist than the Wafd and
formulated political frameworks which combined feminisms, Islamic
modernism and nationalism.27 In international forums the EFU also
called for an end to the violation of national rights in Palestine and
for the next decades ‘on many fronts, Egyptian feminists confronted
international feminists with issues of imperialism they preferred to
ignore’.28

Nationalism, communism and the Muslim Brotherhood

Although the 1919 revolution had wrung serious concessions out of

Britain, the British government and European financiers were not will-
ing to give up their hold on Egypt. Between the election of the new
Wafd government in 1924 and the signing of the Anglo-Egyptian treaty
in 1936, Egyptian political life was dominated by cycles of chronic
political and economic instability. The Wafd would win free elections
and form government and then put pressure on the British govern-
ment to enter into negotiations to resolve the areas of Egypt’s national
sovereignty that were still under British control. The British would refuse
to negotiate and engage the palace and its allies in a plot to bring
down the Wafd government. Having successfully removed the Wafd
government, a pro-British government would be installed such as that
of Isma’il Sidqi which, in the 1930s, abrogated the constitution and
pursued extremely reactionary and repressive policies.29 Fearing revo-
lution, the palace would then be forced to hold new elections in which
the Wafd would win a resounding victory and the cycle would begin
again. In 1936 negotiations over the signing of a new Anglo-Egyptian
treaty were finalised. Egypt became, in principle, fully independent and
106 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

a member of the League of Nations, although Britain retained the right

to full use of the country’s military and industrial installations and con-
tinued to station troops in the Suez Canal and in downtown Cairo for
almost another twenty years until 1954.
In the years following the conclusion of the treaty, the fragility of
Egypt’s ‘paper independence’ was laid bare for all to see. The country
continued to be economically dependent on Britain and the palace and
its allies continued to attack and undermine the Wafd with Britain’s full
support. Indeed the role of the British government during the 1930s
and 1940s in Egypt and its attempts to crush democratic opposition
can be said to be a quintessential example of the relationship between
external forces and movements in the twentieth century. It also shaped
both nationalist responses to imperialism in the years to come and the
strategies of social groups such as workers, women and students whose
interests were not always at the forefront of nationalist political parties
such as the Wafd.
Although the Wafd still enjoyed mass support among the working
class and middle class, its strategy of favouring negotiation over con-
frontation and its role in brokering the 1936 treaty had led to a serious
loss of credibility for the organisation which began to be challenged by
new political forces. When in power, the Wafd proved to be incapable
of realising the ambitions of the 1919 revolution. The increased dom-
inance of large landowners in the party leadership meant that it had
become even more conservative on social issues at a time when radical
organisations were pushing for more militant nationalism and far-
reaching domestic reforms. The final straw came in the 1940s, ironically
when the movement for national liberation reached its peak. In 1942
King Farouk allowed the formation of a government which the British
suspected of having pro-Axis sympathies, leading the British to force the
king to disband the government and to install what they hoped would
be a less pro-German cabinet of the Wafd headed by Prime Minister
Nahhas Pasha. The Wafd was therefore perceived to have returned to
power with the help of British guns, a belief which seriously damaged
the credibility of the party.30
One of the most important of the new organisations formed dur-
ing this period was the Jama’at al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun (the Society of
the Muslim Brothers) founded in the industrial Suez Canal town of
Isma’iliyya in 1928. The Brotherhood was to have a long history in
Egyptian social movements and alongside other political forces played a
major role in the social and political movements of the 1930s and 1940s.
While the Brotherhood is sometimes viewed as a traditional, religious
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Egypt 107

and apolitical organisation, it is important to note that from its incep-

tion it was in fact part of a modernist, reformist and activist strand of
Islamic political thought and originated in a modern, industrial, social
context. In the 1920s the Suez Canal Zone had become a major centre
of British commercial and military operations and was one of the areas
of the country where the British occupation was felt most intensely.
Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Ikhwan, took part in the 1919 rev-
olution against British rule and later wrote of his shock at the sight of
British forces in occupation of his small home town just outside Cairo.31
Al-Banna was educated at a modern college of the humanities, the Dar
al-’Ulum (Academy) in Cairo where he was distressed by the continu-
ing British domination of the country, the growth of secularism and
the stagnation and irrelevance of the religious authorities at al-Azhar.
Far from constituting a traditionalist approach his later writings, which
called for a regeneration and reform of the faith, were a direct attack
on the traditional religious institution in Egypt and its failure to com-
bat the twin forces of economic and cultural imperialism. Conversely,
he and the Ikhwan maintained that Islam as a religion could not be sep-
arated from the everyday struggles of Egyptians for national liberation
and for social and economic justice arguing, ‘If the voice of religion is
not heard in the battle for freedom, then whose voice will be heard?’32
The Muslim Brotherhood’s analysis of imperialism was a crucial fac-
tor in determining the relevance of the organisation in the political
struggles of the period. Al-Banna argued that the economic exploita-
tion of the country, which benefited the British, also relied on the
collusion of a small class of wealthy Egyptians while impoverishing the
majority of the country.33 In 1927, al-Banna accepted a post as a teacher
of Arabic in a primary school in the city of Isma’iliyya and shortly after-
wards organised evening classes for the day labourers who worked in
British-run labour camps. In Isma’iliyya he saw the nature of British
military occupation and the full extent of the economic exploitation of
Egypt. The city was run by the British in the manner of a private fiefdom
ruled by the Suez Canal Company where foreign companies controlled
all public utilities. Al-Banna wrote that the conspicuously luxurious
homes of the foreign administrators overlooked the ‘miserable’ homes
of the workers. Even the street signs he observed were written in English,
the language of the ‘economic occupation’.34
For the first three years after its founding in 1928 the Ikhwan move-
ment was active in organising and teaching the day labourers in
Isma’iliyya, where al-Banna’s agitation against economic and politi-
cal exploitation resulted in accusations of his being a communist.
108 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

In 1932 al-Banna returned to Cairo where, four years later, the Broth-
erhood organised demonstrations and collected funds in support of
Palestinian workers in the Arab strike of 1936–9. Although the group
never defined itself as a hizb (political party), describing itself instead as
a society or association of Muslims, it did from the early days have an
implicitly political character. Indeed the fifth conference of the Ikhwan
held in 1939 defined the group as a political as well as religious, edu-
cational and cultural organisation.35 In Cairo, the Ikhwan also engaged
alongside other religious groups in providing welfare and education ser-
vices, including running schools and literacy programmes and agitating
against British rule and the palace. By the 1940s the Ikhwan had grown
to overshadow all other groups in the city and by the outbreak of the
Second World War they had become one of the most important opposi-
tion groups in the country. Mitchell argues that during this period the
membership of the Ikhwan represented every group in Egyptian soci-
ety, particularly the most politically active and radicalised social groups
including civil servants, students, urban labourers and peasants.36 At its
peak the organisation had 2,000 branches throughout the country and
an estimated membership of 500,000.37
The ideology of the Brotherhood was part of the trend of mod-
ernist and reformist Islam which had played such an important role
in Egyptian political life in the late nineteenth century. The Muslim
Brotherhood called for unity of Muslims to resist imperialism and for the
reinvigoration of the practice of ijtihad to strengthen Muslim societies.
While al-Banna argued that Islam as a religion was a comprehensive
system, he did not call for the establishment of an Islamic state but
instead argued for a society based on the principles of the shari’a and the
foundation of al-nizam al-Islami. This he perceived as an Islamic social
order based on equality, freedom of thought, national dignity and inde-
pendence, which would be capable of eradicating social inequality and
conflict between classes.38
However, the Ikhwan was only one among a number of other signifi-
cant forces which played a part in Egyptian political life from the 1920s
to the 1940s. Communist and workers’ movements grew exponentially
throughout this period and had a large base among urban workers and
the middle class intelligentsia. The Egyptian Socialist Party was founded
in 1921 and the Communist Party of Egypt was formally established in
1922.39 These organisations were heavily repressed by the Sidqi govern-
ment in the 1930s but were able to regroup in the 1940s. Misr al-Fatat
(Young Egypt), an echo of the ‘Young Turks’ known in Arabic as Turkiya
al-Fatat, was a much smaller political force. Founded in 1932 and led by
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Egypt 109

Ahmad Hussein this group attracted some sections of the intelligentsia

who were disillusioned with the Wafd. However, unlike communist and
Islamist groups its membership soon dwindled.
The Second World War stimulated the growth of large-scale industry
and transport in Egypt and for the first time these two sectors accounted
for the majority of the Egyptian economy. Large-scale manufacturing,
for example, grew by 40 per cent in the years between 1939 and 1945.40
At the same time the Second World War caused major financial chaos
and disruption in the economy. Prices rose steeply, unemployment
increased and the military decree of September 1939 imposed martial
law and press censorship in the country. During the war itself, the Allies
employed hundreds of thousands of Egyptians directly in labour camps
and in factories manufacturing supplies for the war effort. However, after
the war unemployment rose exponentially as these workers could not be
reabsorbed into the local labour force. Even when in employment the
majority of Egyptians suffered from poverty, overcrowding, disease, illit-
eracy and truly horrific working conditions. The report of a visit to the
Misr Spinning and Weaving Mill in Mahalla al-Kubra, where conditions
were said to be among the best in the country, found that 90 per cent of
the women employed there were suffering from chronic tuberculosis.41
In response, workers in Egypt organised themselves into trade unions to
fight for better wages and conditions. In 1942 a law passed by the Wafd
government legalising trade unions enabled their rapid growth and by
May 1944 there were 350 registered in the country with approximately
20,000 members.42
Meanwhile students, the urban effendiya and intellectuals formed
groups opposed to both fascism and British domination and some ini-
tiated the rebirth of communist and socialist organisations in Egypt.
Groups such as the ‘New Dawn’ and al-Haraka al-Dimuqratiyya lil-Tahrir
al-Watani (the Democratic Movement for National Liberation) were
active during and after the Second World War. In 1945 labour activists
in Cairo initiated a comprehensive political programme. Their demands
included a forty-hour week, the right to strike and form unions, the
right to work, education and medical care for all Egyptians, the evacua-
tion of imperialist armies from all countries, support for Arab Palestine
in its struggle with Zionism and imperialism and the establishment of
true democracy in Egypt.43
Women continued to play a major role in these struggles and joined
Islamic, nationalist, leftist and communist groups and movements.
Future generations were inspired by the political activism of Islamist
women – such as the founder of the Muslim Women’s Association
110 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

(1936–64), Zaynab al-Ghazali – who were militant and dedicated fight-

ers for the national cause. Women also played an important role in
communist and workers’ movements. In May 1946 the National Organi-
sation of the Congress of Egyptian Trade Unions was established. Among
its constituent unions was the Association of Egyptian Working Women
led by Hikmat al-Ghazali, a female worker from the textile manufactur-
ing centre of Shubra al-Khyama.44 Increasingly radicalised high school
and university students also played a major role in political activism
during this period, as they had during the revolution of 1919. Many
demonstrated; some in support of the Ikhwan, others in support of
communist and nationalist organisations. Indeed the extent of student
activism was so great that universities were often closed between 1945
and 1952, as the students were constantly in the streets.45

The 1946 revolt and the beginning of the end of the

ancien régime

A major upturn in the nationalist struggle in Egypt occurred at end of

the Second World War and united the diverse social movements against
the regime. In December 1945 a memorandum was released in which
the prime minister, Mahmud Fahmi al-Nuqrashi, requested that the
British government enter into renegotiations of the 1936 treaty. The
memorandum inflamed resentment of the government in Egypt act-
ing as a reminder of the 1936 promise to maintain a military alliance
with Britain, which had an estimated 80,000 troops stationed in major
Egyptian cities and the Suez Canal. Mass demonstrations broke out in
Cairo and Alexandria by students and workers demanding ‘no nego-
tiations without evacuation’46 and the abrogation of the 1936 treaty.
The Ikhwan movement called for a general strike and the launching
of a popular struggle against the British. The demonstrations were put
down violently by the Egyptian police and army leading to many
injuries. A general strike was called on 1 February 1946 which was desig-
nated ‘evacuation day’ by the protesters and strikes and demonstrations
followed in all major cities and towns, representing the largest mili-
tant nationalist mobilisation since 1919.47 The principal strike was at
al-Mahalla al-Kubra where 25,000 textile workers stopped production at
the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company plant.48
In response the new government of Isma‘il Sidqi brought in exten-
sive repressive measures and mass arrests took place. However, another
wave of strikes in Cairo between 1947 and 1948 mobilised civil servants,
textile workers, nurses and others and was characterised by increasing
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Egypt 111

confrontations between strikers and the state security forces. The state
of crisis in the country was worsened by the regional situation. In 1948
British rule over Palestine came to an end and Britain, as well as other
Western countries voting in the UN, supported the establishment of the
new state of Israel. As a result of a deliberate policy by the new Israeli
army two-thirds of the total population of Arab Palestine were forced
to leave their homes and became refugees, while the new state set its
sights on absorbing large numbers of Jewish immigrants who were flee-
ing the aftermath of the Holocaust in Europe. It was in the context of
the crisis caused in the region by the Israeli occupation of Palestine and
the forced expulsion of Arab Palestinians that the Egyptian government
sent in troops to defend Palestinian land. The defeat of the Egyptian
forces added to the unpopularity of the government and the king, who
were accused of not adequately supplying the Egyptian troops and this
increased discontent, particularly within the army. Dissatisfaction with
the performance of the army was also directly linked to British domi-
nation of the country. Indeed there was a perception that the Egyptian
army performed poorly due to the fact that it was in the interests of
the British to keep it that way. This further diminished the reputa-
tion of King Farouk who was seen as both personally and politically
corrupt.
The four years from 1948 to 1952 represent a turning point in
Egyptian history. During this time it was possible that any of the social
movements and political forces which had been active in the previous
decades could have used the opportunity provided by the unpopularity
of the regime to overthrow the government. However, there were very
few alternatives to the crisis-ridden regime. The forces of the left and
the Muslim Brotherhood had been severely diminished by the repres-
sive measures of the Sidqi government. Hasan al-Banna was assassinated
by government forces in 1949 and the party was riven by factional
disputes while many of its leaders were imprisoned. The ideology of
the Brotherhood also stood in the way of its being a truly radical
political force. Thousands of members of the Ikhwan movement had
fought alongside leftists and communists in a number of national move-
ments. However, the formal attitude of the Brothers to workers’ strikes
and mobilisations was at best ambivalent, and at times negative. The
Ikhwan’s aims, which included the construction of a harmonious soci-
ety based on the principles of shari’a, necessarily precluded the idea of
class conflict and class struggle. Despite the fact that the Ikhwan inter-
vened in workers’ struggles as a result of their genuine compassion for
the plight of Egyptian workers, they did not seek to mobilise workers or
112 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

support independent workers’ organisations and in a majority of cases

they opposed strikes.
Neither the Communist Party nor the Wafd were able to provide lead-
ership to the nationalist movement. The Communist Party had lost
credibility as a result of its decision to endorse the USSR’s support for
the establishment of the state of Israel and the Wafd government which
had come to power in 1950 was seriously discredited. The Wafd Party’s
ties to the ruling elites of Egyptian society meant that it was not in
favour of wide-scale mobilisation and did not plan to address the polit-
ical and economic inequalities of Egyptian society. Since its inception
the party had embarked on a policy of negotiating between landowning
and industrial elites and the British, attempting to find common ground
which would allow it to rule the country. However, by the 1940s the lim-
itations of this policy for the majority of the people of the country were
painfully clear and by the 1950s the Wafd was enmeshed in a series of
scandals involving the family of Prime Minister Nahhas Pasha.
Despite the inability of political forces to provide leadership for the
movement, a popular revolution against British rule was under way.
In 1951 alone there were a total of forty-nine workers’ strikes and sev-
eral bloody peasant uprisings took place in rural areas.49 In a last-ditch
effort to salvage the credibility of the party and facing continued intran-
sigence from Britain, Nahas gave in to the demands of the protesters
and abrogated the 1936 treaty. A protracted popular struggle to evacuate
British forces began which involved guerrilla fighting in the Suez Canal
Zone. However, the final confrontation between the state and the social
movement took place as a result of Britain’s announcement, on 25 Jan-
uary 1952, that its forces would expel all Egyptian police from the Canal
Zone and establish direct control over the area. In Isma’iliyya the local
Egyptian police refused to surrender to British troops, upon which the
British opened fire on them killing fifty policemen and injuring over a
hundred. The next day massive protests broke out in Cairo and other
cities. By the end of the day, much of downtown Cairo was on fire and
the authority of the central government was at an end. However, no
organised political force existed which was able to form government.
As a result it was left to a group of nationalist army officers, the ‘Free
Officers Movement’, to take control of the political system. This group,
composed of army officers from a variety of political backgrounds, had
been working together on a plan to overthrow King Farouk and his
British backers since the disastrous Palestine war of 1948. On 23 July
1952 the Free Officers leadership formed the Revolutionary Command
Council (RCC) and took power in a military coup.
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Egypt 113

The Free Officers’ Movement and Nasser

The RCC was composed of army officers whose political orientations

reflected the diversity of the nationalist movement. They included
supporters of the Ikhwan, communists, leftists and liberals. For this
reason, upon coming to power the group was supported by the major-
ity of the forces who had resisted British domination and who felt
that the end of the government would allow opportunities for political
mobilisation. Gamal Abdel Nasser had emerged early on as the leader of
the group. However, the position of commander of the RCC had been
given to General Mohammed Naguib, who was an older officer with
impeccable nationalist credentials. Shortly after coming to power the
RCC published a programme of reform in Egypt which reflected a frag-
ile consensus. The programme consisted of six general points: the end
of imperialism; the eradication of feudalism; the ending of monopolies
and the domination of capital over government; the establishment of
social justice; the building of a strong national army; and the creation
of a sound democratic system.
Further reforms were aimed at demobilising the forces which threat-
ened the political stability of the new government and at creating a
mass base of support among the working class and middle class. Conse-
quently, unprecedented social reforms were enacted alongside measures
that limited political participation. On 8 December 1952 the new
government enacted labour legislation which granted severance com-
pensation, guaranteed job security and introduced free medical care and
annual vacations. Along with these reforms the RCC began the process
of demobilising the powerful workers’ movement by banning all strikes
and restricting trade union activity. This was followed by the dissolu-
tion of all political parties and the arrest of popular opposition figures,
particularly communists and trades union leaders. A mass organisation,
the Liberation Rally, was to take the place of independent political par-
ties and was formed to provide a vehicle for the mobilisation of the
population. The next year successive land reform measures were passed
which transformed the social and economic structure of the coun-
tryside. No Egyptian landowner was allowed to hold more than 200
feddans of land and over one million feddans of land, one-sixth of the
total cultivated area, was transferred from the large landowning classes
to small farmers.50
Despite these reforms, the RCC was unable to fully consolidate power
until the mid-1950s when political opposition was eliminated and com-
promises were reached between the leaders of the new state and the
114 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

social movements that had led the uprising against the monarchy.
In June 1953 the monarchy was finally abolished and the Republic of
Egypt was established with Naguib holding the posts of president and
prime minister and Nasser in the post of deputy prime minister. How-
ever, by 1954 the fragile agreement between the officers of different
political orientations was under severe strain. In January of that year the
RCC acted to formally dissolve its last remaining political opposition,
the Muslim Brotherhood, precipitating a crisis. General Naguib resigned
in protest and huge demonstrations broke out across the country in
which the Wafd, the Ikhwan, socialists and workers united against mil-
itary rule. However, Nasser was eventually able to mobilise sections of
the workers, students and other forces through the Liberation Rally to
support him and managed to quell the revolt. Naguib stepped down and
Nasser assumed the post of President of the Republic on 18 April 1954.
The support of sections of the working class and other groups for
Nasser must be seen in the context of Egypt’s industrial and land reforms
which benefited Egyptian workers and peasants. Beinin argues that for
these reasons, workers, students and opposition forces entered into a
‘historic compromise’ with Nasser in which the political demands of
the working class and middle class were put on hold in exchange for the
realisation of social reforms.51 Nasser’s government enacted a series of
social welfare policies which included rights to reasonably priced food
and free education, with the result that employment and the standard
of living for urban workers continued to rise until the mid-1960s.52 Sup-
port for Nasser’s state must also be seen in the context of opposition
to imperialism and the threat that external forces continued to pose to
the interests of the majority of Egyptians. A major part of the legitimacy
of Nasser’s state was based on the achievement of Egyptian indepen-
dence and in November 1954 British troops were completely evacuated
from Egypt. By the mid-1950s the new state was thus able to consolidate
power without facing further mass demonstrations and strikes. It took
this opportunity to eliminate all political opposition, silence the media,
purge students’ and workers’ groups and arrest and imprison thousands
of Ikhwan members.
Nasser’s formulation of the policies of Arab unity, independence
and non-alignment also began to take shape in the mid-1950s. Egypt
opposed the Baghdad Pact which brought Britain into an alliance with
countries such as Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey as a bulwark against
Soviet influence in the Middle East. However, Western countries were
increasingly hostile towards the emergence of a new Arab power in the
region and when in 1956 Nasser announced the nationalisation of the
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Egypt 115

Suez Canal, they were quick to call it an act of ‘theft’. In October 1956,
while the Egyptian government was engaged in negotiations to offer
compensation to the Suez Canal Company’s shareholders, a tripartite
force composed of Britain, France and Israel attacked the country and by
November 2,500 Egyptian soldiers and civilians had been either killed
or wounded. However, Nasser’s newly re-formed Egyptian army had suc-
cessfully defended the Canal and Egypt’s independence. In April 1957
the Suez Canal was reopened to all traffic except ships from Israel and
the Egyptian government ordered fees to be paid in advance to the new
Egyptian-run Suez Canal Authority.
The Suez victory left Nasser in a very strong position within Egypt and
cast him as a hero of nationalist and independence movements through-
out the region. A new constitution had been proclaimed earlier in the
year which put in place a strong executive that Nasser would use to
shape politics, both domestically and in the region, for the next decade.
The RCC was disbanded and Nasser became the first elected president
of Egypt with 99.9 per cent of the vote. A new mass organisation, the
National Union, was founded in 1957 to mobilise support for the gov-
ernment and to exclude any potential political opposition from power.
From this strong position Nasser began to enact the policies that would
dominate the rest of his rule; Arab unity, pan-Arabism and eventually
Arab socialism.

Pan-Arabism and Arab socialism

The ideas of pan-Arabism and Arab socialism as well as their interpreta-

tion by post-independence Arab regimes are part of the intellectual and
political heritage of contemporary social movements in the region. Pan-
Arabism and pan-Islamism, which called for unity between the Arab and
Muslim peoples to resist colonialism, had been present in Arab literature
and political thought since the end of the nineteenth century. However,
any potential Arab unity was hampered by processes of colonialism and
imperialism which tied the economies of Arab countries more closely to
European countries than to each other. However, this common experi-
ence of imperialism and colonialism had also taught the leaders of the
post-independence Arab states in countries such as Egypt and Syria that
if Arabic-speaking countries could unite, their important strategic and
material resources could transform them into a powerful political pres-
ence on the world stage. In 1958 Nasser began the experiment of Arab
unity with Syria. A United Arab Republic was proclaimed and Nasser
was elected its president. However, the experiment of union with Syria
116 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

was short-lived and economic differences, struggles over political power

and ideological disputes as well as political conflict within Syria itself
brought the union to an end in September 1961.
Shortly after the failure of the experiment with Syria, Nasser
announced the ‘Draft Charter for National Action’ in 1962. This con-
sisted of a plan of action for several decades envisaged as the period
of ‘socialist conversion’ leading to the establishment of socialism.53
The new policy direction came with a third new vehicle of popular
mobilisation, the Arab Socialist Union, which was to be an army of
peasants and workers who would be the vanguard of revolution in
the struggle for an Arab world where the values of freedom, social-
ism and unity would prevail. As part of the policy of Arab socialism,
Nasser expanded the state’s role in the economy, embarking on a series
of nationalisations of large and medium-sized industries, although a
small role was reserved for the private sector. Nasser also expanded the
state apparatus and bureaucracy which by the mid-1960s could not be
sustained by the productive forces of the economy alone.
Despite the fact that Nasser proclaimed his state to be based on social-
ism, it did little to increase the participation of workers or peasants
in the last decade of his rule. Although the National Assembly of the
late 1960s was formed with half of the seats reserved for workers and
peasants, including some Marxists who had been allowed to return to
the Nasserite fold, limited representation was no match for the increas-
ingly authoritarian nature of the state. As Raymond Hinnebusch writes,
Nasser’s plan to ‘create socialism without socialists’ meant that although
the ‘collective ideology’ of the state was socialist, collectivist and anti-
imperialist, rather than empowering the working class and middle class,
Nasser’s government created a new state capitalist bourgeoisie with a
liberal, capitalist and consumption-oriented ideology.54
By the late 1960s this was the only class who directly benefited from
the state. Increasing levels of repression characterised the regime and
from the mid-1950s to the end of Nasser’s rule, members of the left
and the Ikhwan were incarcerated, tortured or executed. Among these
was the well-known Islamic intellectual Sayyid Qutb, whose ideas had
developed from a secular Muslim humanism in the 1950s to a radical
and militant form of Islamism in the 1960s, which refused collaboration
with capitalism and imperialism. After eleven years of imprisonment
and torture, Qutb was eventually executed by Nasser’s security forces
in 1966.
The crisis within Nasser’s regime was deepened by the catastrophe
of the 1967 war, in response to which a new movement arose in the
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Egypt 117

late 1960s. In June 1967 Israeli forces supported by the US attacked

Egypt, moving troops into Sinai and reaching up to the Suez Canal.
This time 10,000 Egyptian soldiers were killed and much of Egypt’s
combat force was destroyed. The disaster was a severe blow to the legit-
imacy of the regime and to Nasser personally, who made an offer to
resign. It also had a drastic effect on the economic situation in the
country as the US stopped all imports of wheat supplies causing food
shortages and spiralling prices. The historic compromise between the
Egyptian state and the popular forces was at an end and the following
year mass demonstrations and strikes broke out in Cairo, Alexandria and
Helwan, protesting against the defeat and the authoritarian nature of
the state. Despite some concessions from the government, rallies con-
tinued throughout the year – universities and secondary schools were
closed and, for the first time since 1952, the police and the army were
brought in to suppress the demonstrators, resulting in a number of
deaths. In November 1967 UN Resolution 242 was voted in, requiring
Israel to withdraw from the territories it had occupied in the war and
when it became clear that Israel had no intention of complying, a ‘war
of attrition’ began between the two countries.
Nasser died on 28 September 1970 leaving behind a paradoxical legacy
of nationalism, economic development, social reform and political
repression. In the last years of his rule, Nasser and the state bourgeoisie
that supported him had moved to the right on economic and foreign
policy issues. Significant concessions were made to the private sector
and a right-wing faction of the coterie of officials, military men and
senior bureaucrats that made up the higher levels of the state was in the
ascendant. These figures favoured economic liberalisation, a diminished
role for the state in the economy and the reaching of a compromise
on foreign policy with both the US and Israel. The man who was to
put these policies into effect was Nasser’s successor, President Anwar
al-Sadat.

Sadat’s counter-revolution from above

Sadat’s tenure as president (1970–81), and his policies, gave rise to a

new generation of social movements which opposed the state. Sadat
had been Nasser’s vice-president and his assumption of the presidency
upon Nasser’s death was presented as a fait accompli to the public who
played no role in discussions over his succession. Between 1970 and
1973 Sadat embarked on a purge of the leftist Nasserite state officials
who had been in power in the previous decade and as a result he was
118 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

faced with a threat to his presidency from the disgruntled remnants of

the left. While Nasser was able to mobilise popular forces in support
of his rule during times of crisis, the failure of both the left Nasserite
faction and Sadat to mobilise mass support demonstrated how divorced
the structures of the state had become from the majority of the popula-
tion. Sadat also faced mass opposition to his policies. A growing student
movement had developed on the university campuses that had revolted
in 1968, and in 1972 there were mass demonstrations in major cities in
which students called for the release of striking workers, the rejection of
negotiations with Israel and for the Egyptian government to stand firm
in its support for Palestine. Engineers’ and lawyers’ syndicates united
in demands for greater political freedoms and journalists called for an
end to press censorship in the country.55 In order to quell opposition
from the left Sadat used the police and army against the demonstrators
and purged left-wing academics and journalists from universities and
media organisations. Despite intense state repression, sporadic workers’
and students’ protests continued into 1973 when university campuses
were closed to prevent further student mobilisation.
Having repressed the popular opposition, Sadat began what he called
the ‘corrective revolution’ and the reversal of Nasser’s policies which
Hinnebusch describes as a ‘counter-revolution from above’.56 The pol-
icy of infitah (open door) aimed to open up Egypt’s markets to foreign
investment and imports and included privatisation measures, cuts in
food subsidies and the dismantling of the public sector in areas such
as education, health and welfare. As a result of infitah, Egypt quickly
became dependent on foreign imports. However, despite encourage-
ment by the state, large-scale foreign investment did not take place.
By 1975 this had led to a quadrupling of the country’s balance of
payments deficit and a burgeoning foreign debt.57
Sadat’s foreign policy, which consisted of negotiation and com-
promise with the West, was inseparable from his economic policies.
In October 1973 Sadat’s military forces launched a campaign to force
Israeli troops to withdraw from the Suez Canal and Egyptian territory
in the Sinai Peninsula. The October War did produce a limited Israeli
withdrawal from Egyptian territory although occupied areas of Palestine
including Gaza and the West Bank as well as areas of Syria and Lebanon
to the north remained under Israeli occupation. Sadat hailed this as a
victory and was briefly referred to as ‘the hero of the crossing’ although
this phrase was more often used ironically during his reign. As a result
of the military action, Israel received a massive airlift of advanced mili-
tary equipment from the US, cementing its position as the most heavily
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Egypt 119

armed state in the region. The US also guaranteed that Israel would not
have to negotiate with the PLO or other states over the remaining Occu-
pied Territories, making a mockery of UN Resolution 242. Sadat used
the limited political capital he had gained in the action to enact eco-
nomic liberalisation measures and the new regime allied itself to the
West. In 1977 Sadat visited Jerusalem and entered into negotiations for a
peace treaty with Israel. His government formally recognised the state of
Israel after negotiations at Camp David in 1978 and embarked on a pro-
cess of economic and political ‘normalisation’ with the Israeli state. As a
result of the peace treaty, Egypt was transformed into a virtual client-
state of the US in the region. It began to receive massive amounts of
US aid and entered into joint military exercises with American forces.
Under Sadat the state still played an important role in Egyptian soci-
ety. In 1970 the public sector accounted for 90 per cent of all investment
and 35.2 per cent of GDP. By 1980 this had fallen, but levels remained
high at 77 per cent of all investment and 27 per cent of GDP.58 The
growth of the military represented an important part of the continued
expansion of the state. By the 1980s Egypt had become one of the largest
importers of arms in the region. Government spending figures from
the mid-1970s and 1980s show that while spending fell on the positive
areas of state responsibility, such as health and education, outlay on the
state’s mechanisms of repression, control and surveillance increased.59
This occurred with the support of Egypt’s major ally, the US. As Robert
Springborg writes, in the 1970s ‘Washington was prepared to imple-
ment more authoritarian rule in Egypt to ensure an export-oriented,
privatised economy.’60 Therefore it is not surprising that Sadat’s political
reforms were limited to the disbanding of the Arab Socialist Union and
the creation of the National Democratic Party (NDP) as the governing
party. He allowed other political parties but, as Joseph Stacher has noted,
‘Sadat’s pluralism from above experiment did not intend to allow for
power-sharing.’61 Sadat’s economic and political ‘reforms’ were aimed
at increasing the political participation and economic clout of a small
section of the upper bourgeoisie while attempting to demobilise the
majority of Egyptians.
By the late 1970s Sadat’s policy of ‘privatising profits and socialising
losses’62 had benefited a small section of the population that came to
be known as the ‘infitah bourgeoisie’ and the country saw an explosion
in luxury imports and conspicuous consumption among a small section
of the population. However, for many Egyptians, unemployment, lower
wages and higher prices led to an increase in levels of poverty and eco-
nomic disadvantage. As a result of infitah the prices of imported food
120 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

skyrocketed, public services deteriorated and unemployment worsened

while inflation reached 30 per cent.63 Sadat’s reforms had not dealt
with the fundamental problems of the economy which included lack
of investment in infrastructure and had in fact worsened the prob-
lems of the country as a whole in areas such as illiteracy, government
corruption, nepotism and authoritarianism. The structural problems of
the economy deepened while the safety net of welfare was removed
from ordinary Egyptians and the country became heavily dependent on
foreign imports and foreign aid.
The Egyptian people were not, however, passive observers in this
process. There was an increase in levels of strikes and civil unrest dur-
ing Sadat’s regime including, in 1975–6, strikes and demonstrations in
which protesters shouted the slogan ‘hero of the crossing, where is our
breakfast?’, while groups of students denounced the ‘selling of the coun-
try to the imperialists’ and infitah.64 In 1977 Sadat responded to IMF
demands by cutting subsidies on essential foodstuffs such as flour, oil
and sugar; this led to rising prices and protests broke out on a scale not
seen since 1952. The popular mobilisation began with strike action by
workers in Helwan and students in Cairo and other towns. Sadat called
in the army to repress the strikers and protesters which resulted in over
seventy-nine deaths and thousands of injuries. Following the protests
thousands more were jailed.
Meanwhile, Sadat attempted to win popular support by emphasis-
ing his Islamic credentials, terming himself the ‘believer president’. His
policies of state repression also focused on demobilising the left and,
for a brief period, this allowed the mainstream Muslim Brotherhood
and other smaller Islamic groups which had been heavily persecuted
by Nasser to re-establish themselves as a political force in the country.
The Muslim Brothers began to reorganise during this period and their
paper al-Da’wa was allowed to begin republication in 1976. Some writ-
ers have focused on the idea that the resurgence of Islamism in Egyptian
politics in the 1970s and 1980s was due to the fact that Sadat used the
Islamists as a bulwark against the left. However, Sadat’s rapprochement
with the Muslim Brotherhood was relatively brief. After the signing of
the peace accord at Camp David, which was roundly condemned in
al-Da’wa, the Brotherhood’s relations with the state became increasingly
strained. On 3 September 1981 Sadat’s security forces arrested 1,536 peo-
ple including religious leaders, journalists, writers and politicians. These
included the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brothers, Umar al-Tilmisani,
who had been Sadat’s spiritual adviser and had supported him at Camp
David. Sadat also arrested many other prominent leaders and student
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Egypt 121

activists of the ‘1970s generation’ including writer, activist and feminist

Nawal al-Sa’dawi who was arrested in 1981 for alleged crimes against the
state.65
However, this strategy backfired. During their imprisonment the
Brotherhood’s leading members shared cells with Nasserists and left-
ists which set the stage for future collaborations between them and
divergent political forces. Towards the end of Sadat’s presidency, the
Muslim Brothers became increasingly critical of the government’s social
and economic policies and the peace treaty with Israel which had trans-
formed Egypt from a power in the region to a virtual pariah in the Arab
world. Eventually, despite intense state repression, Sadat was unable to
escape the growing anger of the public and in 1981 he was assassinated
by a young Islamic militant, an event that was greeted with a general
outpouring of joy among ordinary Egyptians.

Mubarak’s regime in the 1980s

Most commentators agree that Sadat’s ‘main lines of policy were con-
tinued by his successor, Hosni Mubarak’.66 However, Mubarak’s initial
years in power were characterised by a degree of relative political open-
ness. Thirteen hundred prisoners who had been incarcerated in the
crackdown on opposition that preceded the assassination of Sadat were
released, among them the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brothers, Umar
al-Tilmisani, and many of the organisation’s other leaders. This brief
period of apparent political openness came about for a number of rea-
sons. Mubarak had come to power as a relative unknown in a period
when the state was facing a political crisis and it was important for
the new regime to seek a level of popular acceptance and legitimacy.67
Although Mubarak did not differ radically from Sadat in terms of eco-
nomic or foreign policy, in the early 1980s he gave a number of public
statements in which he criticised infitah in an attempt to appeal to a
wider social base.68 Mubarak did not reverse the policies of infitah, but
their worst effects were offset by the country’s reliance on external rents
such as oil, tourism and workers’ remittances from the Gulf and the Suez
Canal. Under Mubarak the country also became reliant on foreign eco-
nomic aid and the government borrowed massive amounts from foreign
countries and international agencies, making it by the 1980s one of the
most highly indebted countries in the world.
Mubarak’s attitude towards mainstream Islamic groups such as the
Brotherhood was initially one of conciliation. Having decided that the
regime could not afford to alienate and repress all Islamic groups in
122 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

the country as Sadat had attempted, Mubarak’s strategy was to gain the
support of mainstream non-violent Islamic groups in the state’s cam-
paign against militant Islamism. He used the religious institution of
al-Azhar to combat the ideas of militant Islamic groups such as al-Jihad
and al-Jama’at al-Islamiyya and several prominent shaykhs appeared on
television to put forward arguments against militancy and in support
of the government’s position. The government’s policy also included
cracking down on those suspected of violence and 4,000 people were
arrested and detained by security forces.69
Muslim Brotherhood candidates were allowed to run in elections in
alliances with other, non-religious parties and during the 1980s the
organisation contested both parliamentary elections. In 1984 they stood
in an alliance with the nationalist New Wafd Party, winning eight seats
in parliament, and in 1987 Muslim Brotherhood candidates stood in
the ‘Islamic alliance’ coalition with the Labour Party, winning thirty-
eight seats and becoming the largest parliamentary opposition bloc.
As well as taking part in elections, the Brotherhood also orientated itself
towards Egypt’s civil society organisations. Many areas of popular mobil-
isation such as trade unions had either been co-opted or repressed under
Nasser and Sadat. However, the Brotherhood was able to overcome the
authoritarianism of the state by concentrating on organisations on the
periphery of the political system. In the 1980s Brotherhood members
began running in elections for Egypt’s professional syndicates. Although
most syndicates had become inactive while their boards were dominated
by leftist or Nasserist forces, they had previously played an important
role in Egyptian political life.70 The Lawyers’ Syndicate in particular had
been highly critical of Sadat’s policy of peace with Israel and for that rea-
son its board had been disbanded in the early 1980s. Under Mubarak’s
initial phase of liberalisation, syndicates were allowed to operate more
freely and thus became areas in which Brotherhood members could
engage with the public.
A new generation of younger members of the Muslim Brotherhood
came to the fore in the 1980s. Members such ‘Abd al-Mun’im Abu al-
Futuh, Essam al-Arian and Abu al-’Ala Madi had their first political
experiences as student activists in the youth and student uprisings of
the 1970s. Abu al-Futuh had been head of Cairo University’s Student
Union from 1974 to 1977 and Abu al-’Ala Madi was head of the Islamic
Student Association in the faculty of engineering at Minya University.
These new groups spearheaded the organisation’s commitment to civil
society and student activism by campaigning in students’ and teach-
ers’ associations, where they focused on stamping out corruption in
university boards and offering services to students and unemployed
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Egypt 123

graduates. These activities were immensely successful and appealed, in

particular, to a generation of middle class and lower middle class youth.
These groups were part of a generation which had become highly edu-
cated as a result of the expansion of higher education that had taken
place under Nasser and Sadat. The number of university graduates had
tripled as a result of these policies between 1975 and 1985.71 Initially,
they had been promised jobs in the civil service after graduation, but
the state was increasingly unable to fulfil this promise and by the 1980s
millions of new graduates were either unemployed or in very low paid
government jobs. The raised expectations of this group of graduates and
the failure of the state to provide jobs created ‘enormous reservoirs of
discontent’.72 However, Wickham argues that the Brotherhood did not
simply exploit grievances among urban middle class professionals, stu-
dents and graduates. Instead, in regenerating and organising areas of
civil society, it promoted a new activist conception of Islam which chal-
lenged the dominant pattern of political alienation that had prevailed
among student and civil society organisations as a result of the failure
of the left and the repression they had experienced under Sadat.73
The Muslim Brotherhood also began to establish a widespread net-
work of Islamic institutions in diverse social and economic arenas.
The organisation provided social and charitable services, health clinics,
schools and cultural organisations and interacted with the community
through a growing number of ahli or private mosques. The Brotherhood
and other Islamic groups also founded for-profit commercial ventures
during this period, such as Islamic banks, investment companies, man-
ufacturing firms and publishing houses.74 These were areas on the
periphery of the formal political structure and so their presence was not
seen as a threat to Mubarak’s state. The government also recognised that
the new social networks could compensate for the withdrawal of the
state from the provision of welfare, health and education and so help
maintain the stability of the state. For this reason the Mubarak regime
initially allowed the Brotherhood to mobilise on university campuses,
in professional associations and in voluntary and other sectors.
In the mid-1980s the economic situation in the country worsened dra-
matically due to the collapse in oil prices. The sudden decrease in rents
and remittances, combined with the effects of neo-liberal policies, led
to an economic recession in the country and increasing levels of pub-
lic anger. During the mid-1980s there was an increase in the activities
of militant Islamic groups, with attacks on Mubarak, other senior mem-
bers of the state and, in 1986 and 1987, on Egypt’s Coptic Christian
community. There was also a sharp rise in workers’ collective action
between 1984 and 1989 with between fifty and seventy-five actions a
124 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

year reported in the Egyptian press.75 In 1986 Mubarak’s own riot police,
composed mainly of very young men escaping the extreme poverty
of Egypt’s rural areas, rebelled. In a symbolic gesture of defiance the
riot police destroyed many of the expensive, Western-style shops and
restaurants that lined the Pyramids Road in Giza. The protests soon
became more widespread as the riot police were joined by thousands
of workers and the unemployed, and the army deployed tanks, artillery
and special commando units to confront the rebels. As a result of the
protests the government imposed a curfew on Cairo, closed universities
and schools and 2,000 members of the police force and hundreds of
civilians were arrested. In July and August 1989 workers’ protests cul-
minated in mass sit-ins and strikes in Helwan which represented the
fiercest confrontation between workers and the state since the 1950s.76
Other sections of the population took their own actions as a result of
the crisis. Slum-dwellers organised ‘squatter communities’ and a western
suburb of Cairo that was inhabited by slum-dwellers was declared an
independent Islamic Republic of Imbaba.77
Following the rise in militant violence, workers’ strikes and public
anger, Mubarak’s regime turned to what al-Awadi terms a number of
‘survival strategies’.78 Mubarak had previously sought to channel pub-
lic anger away from the regime by allowing a ‘margin of democracy’ in
elections and by not repressing the activities of Islamic organisations.79
However, by the late 1980s the regime had become concerned at the
success of the Muslim Brotherhood in parliamentary elections and
other areas, leading to attempts by the state-controlled media and tele-
vision to counter the influence of Islamic groups by engaging in a
campaign of official Islamisation. The regime launched its own Islamic
newspapers such as al-Liwa’ al-Islami and the number of hours allocated
to increasingly conservative religious programmes increased.80 However,
this strategy simply served to highlight the divergence between the
regime’s rhetoric and the situation on the ground. Despite increasing
state repression the Muslim Brotherhood continued to win elections on
student campuses and in professional associations. By the late 1980s
members of the organisation had won a majority of seats in student
unions in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities and became the majority
on boards of teachers’ faculty clubs in major universities, where they
worked to increase the salaries of teachers, organise housing and pro-
vide health care services. By the beginning of the 1990s the Brotherhood
had been transformed from an organisation that was virtually destroyed
under Nasser into a leading force in the country’s civil society. Although
the Brotherhood organised on the political periphery and had not
 Social Movements, the State and External Forces in Modern Egypt 125

challenged the legitimacy of the state directly, it had fostered networks

of student, professional and charitable organisations which allowed
them to resist state repression and mobilise large numbers in opposition
to government policy in the 1990s.

Conclusion

The changing nature of the state and the role of external forces have
been major factors in shaping the history of Egypt’s social movements.
The domination of the country by external forces in the form of
colonialism and imperialism entailed the fostering and supporting of
an authoritarian state by the West which, at the same time, attempted
to demobilise reform and pro-democracy movements. The country’s
experience of colonialism and its eventual integration into the world
capitalist economy with a strong dependence on Western countries
also had important socio-economic effects, enriching a minority of
Egyptians while impoverishing the majority. However, the process of
uneven development gave rise to new social forces that emerged in the
early twentieth century to challenge this system. The working class,
middle class, women, workers, professionals and students from both
secular and Islamic backgrounds took part in social movements includ-
ing the revolution of 1919, the uprising of 1946–52 and the conflicts
of the 1960s and 1970s. Struggles for women’s rights and social reforms
were, at times, supported by important sections of a modernist, activist
and anti-imperialist group of Islamic reformers whose ideas continue to
be relevant today.
The conditions under which social movements developed in Egypt
meant that the demands of social forces for democracy, freedom from
foreign domination and social reforms were not articulated in opposi-
tion to each other, but were intimately connected and related. However,
as social and political struggle intensified in the 1940s, differences
between the leftist, communist, nationalist and Islamic groups emerged
more clearly. The leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood developed an
anti-communist political approach during this period whilst attempt-
ing to formulate arguments for socio-economic equality based on
Islamic rather than Marxist teachings. The organisation also highlighted
its reformist rather than revolutionary credentials; after the 1940s it
showed itself willing to work both with Nasser’s nationalist-populist
authoritarian state and Sadat’s neo-liberal authoritarian state.
In the uprising of 1946–52, the fact that no mass political group
was in a position to take power meant that the struggles of social
126 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

movements resulted in the coup of 1952. The new state met some
of the socio-economic demands of the revolutionary forces, as well as
the call for true national independence. However, while Gamal Abdel
Nasser’s regime transformed the state in some respects, it also pro-
duced a populist-authoritarian state with a powerful executive, which
attempted to corporatise or otherwise repress social forces. This allowed
future leaders Sadat and Mubarak to strengthen the authoritarian state
whilst robbing it of the pan-Arabist, nationalist and welfarist policies
that were the basis of its legitimacy. From the beginning of his presi-
dency and particularly from the 1990s onwards, Mubarak’s neo-liberal
authoritarian state continued to enrich a minority of wealthy business-
men, cronies and military elites, while the majority of the country was
plunged into poverty and economic crisis. This, in addition to the state’s
authoritarianism and dependence on the US, has led Egyptian writers
and activists to compare the situation in Egypt today to that which the
country experienced under colonial rule in the nineteenth century.
In Egypt, religious conservatism and attempts to appeal to
traditionalism characterised the governments of both Sadat and
Mubarak, who utilised religious programming and rhetoric in an
attempt to draw support away from the Muslim Brotherhood. In con-
trast, the Islamic social movements of the late 1980s and early 1990s
developed political frameworks based on empowering civil society and
increasing political participation. The Muslim Brotherhood became a
leader of this new movement and Islamic activists drew upon the his-
tory of Islamic reformism to orient themselves towards civil society.
This movement, composed of NGOs, civil society organisations, pro-
fessional syndicates and welfare and development organisations existed
on the periphery of Egypt’s political system and did not directly chal-
lenge the government. It, like other Islamic reform movements, also
accepted the ideological premises of neo-liberalism and advocated that
economic reforms would produce a smaller and less authoritarian state.
In doing so, it contradicted the organisation’s commitment to social jus-
tice which had characterised it from its inception in the 1920s. Despite
the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood had proved itself willing to work
with those in power and to support the dominant economic and polit-
ical ideology, the movement’s popularity and its ability to mobilise in
response to regional and domestic crises meant that it soon faced signif-
icant opposition from the state. In the following decades, a new series
of social movements arose which were to mobilise the growing public
opposition to Mubarak’s regime.
6
The Rise of Social Movements
in Egypt since the 1990s

This chapter focuses on the rise of social movements in Egypt from

the 1990s onwards, leading to the overthrow of Mubarak in 2011 and
their continuing struggle in twenty-first century Egypt. The nature and
impact of contemporary imperialism, socio-economic factors and the
‘closure’ of politics had transformed the relationship between state and
society and provided the backdrop for social and political unrest. In the
1990s the mainstream Islamic movement in Egypt drew on its history
to adopt a reformist approach and oriented itself towards civil society.
In doing so it accepted a neo-liberal model of political change and eco-
nomic development. As in previous decades the strategy of the Muslim
Brotherhood was, where possible, to work with those in power. This
did not mean that the movement subsequently avoided severe political
repression. The reality of neo-liberal economic reform and the social and
economic crises it produced also placed enormous strain on the leader-
ship of the organisation, as did the outbreak of the ‘War on Terror’ and
the worsening situation in Palestine.
The impact of neo-liberal economic policies and the experience of
contemporary imperialism contributed to a continually changing rela-
tionship between Egyptian state and society and were also responsible
for the development of new social movements including the move-
ment in solidarity with the second intifada, the Kifaya movement,
pro-democracy movements and the labour movement. These in turn
laid the groundwork for the social movement which overthrew Mubarak
and demanded bread, freedom and social justice in 2011.

The transformation of the state

In the 1980s, Mubarak’s regime was receiving from the US the largest
amount of aid of any country in the world other than Israel and was also

127
128 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

one of the world’s largest importers of US military equipment.1 Under

both Sadat and Mubarak Egypt provided Israel with oil and natural gas
and the country’s role as the representative of US and Israeli interests
in the region has continued into the twenty-first century. The Egyptian
government played a crucial role in enabling Israel’s blockade of Gaza,
which has been in place since the election of Hamas in 2006. Since 2001
the Egyptian government has also engaged in the torture of individ-
uals who were captured by the US under the policy of ‘extraordinary
rendition’.2
Under Mubarak’s regime in the 1990s the level of privatisation grad-
ually increased, as did levels of state repression. Structural adjustment
programmes were undertaken under the auspices of the World Bank
and the IMF in the early 1990s and the Egyptian government adopted
measures to further cut services and subsidies and to privatise public
sector companies. From the 1990s onwards the IMF and the World Bank
consistently listed Egypt as one of the highest performing privatisers and
economic liberalisers. The Bank’s 2007 report, for example, described
Egypt as the world’s leading economic reformer.3 Macro-economic data
on the country also showed an impressive record of GDP growth, at
7 per cent per year. However, these figures hid the real story of the
impact of privatisation and neo-liberalism in Egypt. While economic
indicators looked generally healthy, this was largely a result of the flow
of external rents and US aid to the country. US aid by itself accounted for
more than 15 per cent of GDP.4 Under Mubarak’s regime the Egyptian
state also became more dependent on revenues from external rents such
as oil, remittances from workers in the Gulf, tourism and Suez Canal
fees, thus making it a classic ‘rentier economy’. External rents accounted
for 75 per cent of Egypt’s total current receipts of foreign exchange in
the early 1980s and 60 per cent in 1995.5
Despite the government’s policy of virtually eliminating labour rights
in order to encourage foreign investors, investment in productive areas
of the economy was slow to materialise in the 1990s and 2000s. Western
multinational corporations, and to a smaller extent those based in the
Gulf, benefited enormously from the presence of a large market in Egypt
which is dependent on foreign imports in most areas. Companies orig-
inating in the US dominate the Egyptian market and the US is the
country’s largest trading partner. However, foreign direct investment in
the country is concentrated in areas such as oil, tourism and real estate
speculation which do not employ large numbers of people or play a role
in developing the productive resources of the country. Jobs were created
in the service industries but these were of a casual nature, underpaid
 The Rise of Social Movements in Egypt since the 1990s 129

and unstable and did not begin to replace the millions of jobs that
had been lost due to the dismantling of the public sector – often the
‘employer of last resort’6 – and areas of the economy such as agriculture,
manufacturing and industry. Egypt’s dependence on US economic aid
also increased reliance on US consulting services and the purchase of
US goods. Between 1975 and 1989 a total of US$8.7 billion or 58 per
cent of all US economic assistance to Egypt was spent directly within
the US, not on development projects in Egypt.7
Neo-liberalism also brought profound social and political costs. Asef
Bayat found that as a result of infitah and structural adjustment ‘more
than half of Cairo and adjacent Giza were classified as “poor” or
“ultra-poor” ’.8 His analysis is supported by Karima Korayem, profes-
sor of economics at al-Azhar University in Cairo who, on the basis of
fieldwork, asserts that by 1990–1 between 45.8 per cent and 57.2 per cent
of households were classified as living at or below the poverty line.9 In a
paper written in 1995 she argued that rising poverty levels in the 1990s
were due to the increase in the cost of living brought about by structural
adjustment policies which were ‘felt more by the poor’ because of their
relatively low incomes and their reliance on subsidies allocated to basic
consumer commodities and services.10
High levels of unemployment also resulted from structural adjust-
ment. Mubarak’s regime consistently underestimated unemployment
figures which were officially stated as being 11–12 per cent, while
most Egyptian economists agree that the real figure was somewhere
over 30 per cent.11 A report published in 2002 by the Economic
Research Forum for the Arab countries, Iran and Turkey, analysed the
Egyptian labour market in the 1990s and found that by 1998 unem-
ployment rates had increased for both males and females, many of
whom joined the ranks of millions of unemployed university gradu-
ates. Contributors Ragui Assaad and Mona Said also found that whilst
increasingly large numbers of women entered the workforce in the
1990s their employment prospects had been significantly restricted due
to economic reform.12
The working class and middle class shouldered the high social costs of
economic reform. The Arab Human Development Report for 2009 stated
that 20 per cent of Egypt’s population were living in ‘absolute poverty’
while 43.9 per cent were living below the poverty line of $2 per day. The
illiteracy rate of the population was 28.6 per cent, rising to 40.6 per cent
amongst women.13 While unemployment remained high, those who
had jobs were in a far from enviable situation as rising prices – a result
of increasing imports of basic items such as food – meant a falling level
130 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

of real wages. This was felt most keenly among the middle class and
urban working class. One of the results of foreign direct investment in
the country was over-inflated real-estate prices, excluding most middle-
class Egyptians from home-ownership and even making property rental
barely affordable.
In Egypt the transformation of the state into a regime of neo-liberal
authoritarianism disenfranchised the majority of the population.14
Rather than producing a ‘small state’, neo-liberal reforms led to the
expansion of the state’s military and coercive apparatus and produced an
increasingly securitised state which relied for its survival on surveillance
and coercion of the population. US military aid was a major factor in this
process. Military aid averaged over $1 billion a year, doubling the official
annual defence budget, which was stated as being between 4.5 per cent
and 4.7 per cent of GNP.15 Far from playing a more limited role, under
Mubarak the military increased its presence in society. Not only did
the military and security forces form the backbone of his regime but a
section of the military leadership also directly benefited from neo-liberal
economic activities. Links to the regime which guaranteed exemption
from high taxes, accountability and any oversight procedures enabled
them to make massive profits from the control of monopolies. Follow-
ing economic reforms and privatisation, neither the dominance of the
state nor its authoritarianism lessened. Nor did privatisation produce an
independent business class whose interests lay in reforming the regime.
Instead, it reinforced an authoritarian, clientelistic and patrimonial sys-
tem where a small number of wealthy businessmen connected to the
regime made huge profits and played an increasingly important role
in the polity through organisations such as the American Chamber of
Commerce in Egypt (AMCHAM). During Mubarak’s regime an alliance
was formed between this group of businessmen connected to the regime
and the leadership of the powerful military and security forces, pro-
ducing a ‘merger of guns and money’16 on which Mubarak’s neo-liberal
authoritarian state rested.

Civil and uncivil societies in the 1990s

By the 1990s the effects of the policies of infitah and structural adjust-
ment had begun to impact on Egyptian society. Mubarak’s support
for American military action against Iraq in 1991 had resulted in the
US cancelling billions of dollars’ worth of Egyptian debt and increasing
military and economic funding. However, this was not enough to offset
the negative impacts of economic reform. Oil revenues from migrant
 The Rise of Social Movements in Egypt since the 1990s 131

workers dried up due to the crisis caused by America’s actions in Iraq

and hundreds of thousands of migrant workers returned to Egypt where
they added to the high level of unemployment. In the early 1990s there
were more militant Islamist attacks on tourists and other targets and a
massive crackdown by the state followed which targeted not only mili-
tant Islamic groups but all potential sources of opposition to the state’s
policies. The cycle of militant protest and state repression came to be
referred to as the ‘dirty war’.
In the 1980s and 1990s a number of social forces and institutions
had emerged as potential opponents of the state. The judiciary had
begun to be openly critical of the state’s domination of elections and
the Supreme Constitutional Court had twice in the 1980s declared elec-
toral procedures to be illegal and forced the government to call new
elections. The Muslim Brotherhood continued to dominate civil soci-
ety and the welfare sector. By 1992 the organisation led all university
student and major professional associations, apart from the Journalists’
Syndicate, including the Lawyers’ Syndicate, the most politically active
of the associations.
The Brotherhood also gradually adopted a more critical stance towards
the regime. Following the election of 1987 the Supreme Constitu-
tional Court again ruled that the electoral procedures used had been
unconstitutional and the government introduced further reforms. How-
ever, these were widely perceived as aimed at ensuring the ruling
National Democratic Party’s dominance of the parliament so they were
challenged by a number of opposition parties including the Muslim
Brotherhood, the New Wafd and al-’Amal. These groups decided to boy-
cott the 1990 elections as a statement against political corruption and
the continuing enactment of emergency laws which had been in place
since Mubarak became president in 1981.17 In 1991 the Brotherhood
stepped up its criticisms of Mubarak’s pro-Western foreign policy. While
the organisation opposed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, it also
strongly opposed American attacks on Iraq and Egypt’s involvement in
and support of the war. They organised demonstrations and mobilised
the syndicates to criticise government policy. Having initially supported
infitah in the 1970s, some Brotherhood leaders now also became more
critical of economic reform, drawing attention to the increasing rural
and urban poverty in the 1990s. They publicly questioned the integrity
and independence of the IMF and the World Bank which, they argued,
were dominated by the US.18
Popular support for the Brotherhood’s provision of welfare and ser-
vices to ordinary citizens increased steadily and deepened the crisis
132 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

of legitimacy facing the government. In 1992 an earthquake hit Cairo

destroying hundreds of thousands of buildings and injuring over 12,000
people. Within hours Islamic activists mobilised their networks to pro-
vide relief. They set up first aid centres and distributed food, medicines
and financial relief to the victims of the disaster. Their ability to provide
assistance was in stark contrast to that of the state. The government
did not take immediate action but belatedly promised 5,000 Egyptian
pounds to each family member who had lost a home or a breadwin-
ner. They then failed to deliver even on this paltry sum, confirming
widespread public opinion that the mechanisms of the state no longer
worked for society and that the NDP had become nothing more than a
‘machine for patronage’.
The ability of the Brotherhood to mobilise and its increasing criticisms
of the government infuriated the regime who feared that Egypt’s revi-
talised civil society could present a threat to their interests. As a result,
the policy of partial conciliation was ended and Mubarak undertook
a campaign of mass arrests of the Brotherhood and repression of civil
society, NGOs and syndicates. The ‘dirty war’ which had come about
as a result of the rise in Islamic militant violence in the country pro-
vided the perfect opportunity for the regime to couch this new attack
on democracy as a war on Islamic extremism. Despite the fact that the
Brotherhood condemned attacks on tourists and the assassination of the
secular intellectual Farag Foda in 1992, government propaganda linked
the organisation to the terrorist attacks and introduced extremely harsh
and repressive laws in July 1992. The new anti-terrorism law empow-
ered security forces to arrest any person and detain them for up to three
days without charge and stipulated lengthy prison sentences for anyone
found guilty of ‘assisting or expressing sympathy with terrorists’.19 Secu-
rity forces of the regime destroyed the homes of activists and kidnapped
their family members in order to extract confessions. In less than a year
24,000 activists were arrested and in 1993 many were tried in military
courts where rules of evidence were lax and there was no access to judi-
cial appeal.20 By 1995 this process had demobilised the leadership of the
Muslim Brotherhood and had particularly targeted the younger lead-
ers who had led civil society activism, such as Essam al-Arian, a former
member of parliament and head of the Doctors’ Syndicate. Fifty-four
members of the organisation were found guilty of belonging to an ille-
gal organisation (the Muslim Brotherhood) and were sentenced to three-
to five-year jail terms with hard labour.
The regime also used violence and extreme repression to prevent
the Ikhwan from contesting elections. Prior to the 1995 parliamentary
 The Rise of Social Movements in Egypt since the 1990s 133

elections, hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood activists, including can-

didates and campaign organisers, were arrested and detained without
explanation. Most were released after the election, except the only
member of the organisation to win a seat, who was subsequently re-
arrested. During the election itself voters were attacked and harassed by
security forces. Fifty-one people were killed during the two days of vot-
ing and 878 were injured.21 Having guaranteed themselves a majority
in parliament, the NDP-controlled assembly issued law number 93 of
1995, which placed heavy penalties on any organisation critical of the
government and was labelled ‘the law to assassinate the press’.
The Brotherhood’s decentralised networks and the broad social base it
had built in previous years allowed the organisation to continue to oper-
ate in the country’s civil society despite greater government restrictions
and repression. While some academics have viewed the Brotherhood’s
domination of student, professional and welfare organisations as a vir-
tual ‘takeover’,22 this is far from the truth. The Brotherhood revitalised
areas of civil society which had in some cases been dormant for a num-
ber of years. Their involvement in and leadership of student unions, for
example, led to an increase in voter turn-out for the boards of student
organisations.23
Perspectives which portray the Brotherhood’s activities as a ‘takeover’
also promulgate views of Islamic organisations as inherently conserva-
tive and opposed to democracy. The Muslim Brotherhood traditionally
defined itself as a Jami’ah, a broad society rather than a political party.
However, its increasingly important role in civil society resulted in the
group issuing a number of detailed public campaign documents and pol-
icy platforms in the 1990s. These documents and the statements of both
the younger and older generation of leaders demonstrate that democ-
racy and political pluralism were part of the Brotherhood’s political
project. As Sana Abed-Kotob reminds us, the Brotherhood consistently
dismissed the argument that Islam and democracy are incompatible.
She quotes one of the leaders of the organisation, Essam al-Arian, who
called the charge that the Brothers are against democracy ‘a great lie’ and
stated: ‘We are the first to call for and apply democracy. We are devoted
to it until death.’24
The Brotherhood also had a long history of working with other organ-
isations and forces with diverse political outlooks. In the 1940s and up
to 1952 it had a policy of participating in parliamentary elections when
possible, and in the 1980s the organisation ran in alliances with nation-
alist and leftist groups. In the 1990s Brotherhood members also wrote
articles for newspapers and journals operated by the Liberal Party and
134 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

the Labour Party and in the aftermath of the election of 1990 stepped
up their calls for freedom of expression for all political tendencies.25
Perhaps most importantly, the Brotherhood continued to pursue these
strategies in a political environment where leftist and nationalist polit-
ical parties such as Tagammu and Wafd were becoming increasingly
discredited for taking part in electoral processes regarded as a sham, and
for supporting the state’s crackdown on Islamist groups. The Brother-
hood also maintained a stance of moderation and accommodation with
the state where possible, even when this was met with increasing levels
of state repression.
Having been excluded from the formal political process after 1990,
the organisation focused its attention on building civil society. They
sponsored conferences on issues such as unemployment to which they
invited speakers from different secular and Islamic perspectives, such as
Marxists, liberals and leftists. At a number of these conferences, critical
Islamic thinkers such as Yusuf Qaradawi, Fahmi Huwaidi, Tariq al-Bishri,
Muhammad Salim al-Awa, Muhammed al-Ghazali and Muhammad
Imara came to the fore and began to formulate new perspectives on
how to deal with the political crisis.26 The work of these thinkers was
part of the re-emergence in the region of a trend of Islamic political
thought which advocated democracy and pluralism, opposed authori-
tarian regimes and stressed equality for non-Muslim minorities and the
rights of women. In Tunisia the al-Nahda party and its leader Rashid
Ghanoushi formulated similar perspectives, as did the reformist current
in Iran, the Justice and Development Party in Turkey and FIS in Algeria.
This perspective was not a new current in Egyptian Islamic thought but
was in fact very much in keeping with the perspectives developed by
nineteenth-century Islamic reformers who sought to reform Islam and
combat colonialism.27
Less than a year after the violent repression during the election of
1995, a group of activists and intellectuals came together to form a
political current that they named the Hizb al-Wasat (the Centre Party).
This group included some members of the Muslim Brotherhood and
Islamic activists and intellectuals, as well as Coptic Christians and others
and was formed to put forward the politics of moderation and cen-
trism against both the authoritarianism of the state and the violence
of militant Islamic groups. The government rejected the group’s appli-
cation for a licence to form a political party in 1996 and again in 1998
when the activists attempted to re-register under the new name of Hizb
al-Wasat al-Misri (the Egyptian Centre Party). Although the wasatiyya
(centrists) never gained official permission to form a party they did
continue their activities as an NGO and according to Baker came to
 The Rise of Social Movements in Egypt since the 1990s 135

represent not only a political current but also a coherent strand of new
Islamist thought.28 The principles of the wasatiyya were based on a clear
stance against violence; respect for democratic procedure and for the
views of others; and acceptance of religion as a framework of values,
with flexibility of interpretation within that framework.29 Although the
group consisted of activists from a number of different backgrounds, it
was significant that this perspective was originally developed within the
Muslim Brotherhood and remained popular among the membership,
particularly the young generation of the organisation.
Despite the many achievements of civil society in the 1990s, efforts at
democratisation did not bear fruit in the next decade, leading some ana-
lysts to question the previously widely-held assumption that strong and
active civil societies would lead to democracy. The issue of NGO prolif-
eration was particularly controversial. By the 1990s there were hundreds
of secular left, liberal development and human rights NGOs and thou-
sands of Islamist community development and welfare organisations.30
The process of ‘NGO-isation’ in Egypt – as in other countries – was a
product of neo-liberalism and the withdrawal of the state from provid-
ing services. As such it was very much part of the new philosophy of
‘privatising profits and socialising losses’ which is at the core of neo-
liberal economics. The issue of NGO funding was also highly contro-
versial in a country where the authoritarian system of government was
supported by high levels of external aid and military funding. Although
many Islamic NGOs gained funding through zakat and other individual
contributions, other organisations were funded by international donors
and agencies. As such, NGOs came to be seen as an opposition ‘with-
out teeth and claws’ that could only operate if they did not criticise the
authoritarianism of the state and worked within the international eco-
nomic order. NGOs also redirected the work of activists from mobilising
in political organisations and instead oriented them towards provid-
ing welfare, thus inhibiting more radical and direct political action.
As Beinin writes, the nature and structures of NGOs have also been
subject to criticism as these organisations ‘typically promote techno-
cratic expertise over political ideology, weaken parties’ and ‘may actually
inhibit popular mobilisation and democracy’.31 Several laws passed in
the late 1990s severely restricted the activities of NGOs, including law
153 of 1999 which sharply restricted the ability of NGOs to organ-
ise and operate, while privatisation continued. Ironically, despite the
strengthening of authoritarianism in Egypt and attacks on civil soci-
ety, the Mubarak regime continued to be lauded by the international
community and global agencies for its forward-looking economic and
social policies. In 1998 the IMF concluded that Egypt’s programme of
136 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

privatisation was the fourth most successful in the world. A year later
the government engaged in another campaign of mass arrests targeting
the Muslim Brotherhood.

A decade of struggle

The first decade of the twenty-first century saw an unprecedented rise

in social struggle in Egypt. Cycles of protest involving many different
sectors of society took place during this period and each wave of demon-
strations, strikes and protests indirectly influenced the one to follow.
Egypt is a country which has historically played a major role in regional
politics and has been a leader of the Arab nationalist movement. The
issue of Palestine, in particular, remains central to Egyptian politics, due
to the strong historical links between the two countries and the fact that
Egypt has a border with Gaza. The role of the Egyptian regime in being a
corner-stone of US foreign policy in the region has also meant that his-
torically and in the contemporary era, regional and international issues
are inextricably linked with domestic issues and the lack of democracy
and civil rights in the country. Therefore it is important to view Egypt
within its regional and specifically Arab-world context.
The first wave of protests began around international and regional,
rather than purely domestic issues. On 28 September 2000, the visit or
rather ‘march’ of Ariel Sharon to the Aqsa Mosque precinct in Jerusalem
gave rise to the second intifada (uprising) throughout Palestine. The
violence with which the Israeli state attempted to suppress the mass
protests of Palestinians initiated weeks of solidarity demonstrations and
protests in Egypt.32 The demonstrators in Cairo and other Egyptian cities
were mainly university students but they were joined by school stu-
dents who, for the first time since the 1940s, organised ‘after school
demonstrations’.33
In the following month, public anger was further inflamed when
Mubarak invited the prime minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, among
others, to a summit in Sharm El Sheikh. One Cairo University student
commented:

I don’t understand it at all. Haven’t officials heard about our demon-

strations? We go home every night badly beaten by security forces
who try to quell our demonstrations because we want the govern-
ment to throw out the Israeli ambassador and then they do this; they
bring Barak over to Egypt. I don’t understand why they act against
what we ask for.34
 The Rise of Social Movements in Egypt since the 1990s 137

These protests were a turning point for the Egyptian movement as

they led to the founding of the first popular coalition group involv-
ing both Islamic and secular activists who had not worked together
to oppose the policies of the government for many years. On 13
October 2000 an assorted group of leftists of various political tendencies
(including Marxists and Nasserists), a number of Islamists, human rights
activists, feminists, journalists, public figures and independents35 organ-
ised the Egyptian Popular Committee for Solidarity with the intifada
(EPCSI). The EPCSI petitioned the Egyptian government to cut ties with
Israel and organised food and aid convoys to Palestine. On 10 Septem-
ber 2001 the committee called for the first demonstration in solidarity
with the Palestinians in Tahrir Square, the historical gathering place in
central Cairo. Al-Ahram Weekly reported that more than 1,000 people
gathered in the square, under siege from thousands of policemen who
prevented them from marching towards the American embassy.36
This demonstration was a watershed moment for protest movements
in Egypt. For the first time since the emergency laws had been intro-
duced, a group had succeeded in holding a demonstration, an act which
broke a twenty-five-year-old political taboo. This paved the way for more
demonstrations to be organised, which the state had no choice but to
allow, though they were severely repressed.
Another decisive moment for the protest movement was brought
about by the Israeli army’s attack on the Jenin Palestinian refugee
camp in the West Bank in 2002. Newspapers reported that thousands
of students from all over Egypt spilled onto the streets in spontaneous
demonstrations, and in the following days more than a million peo-
ple all over the country joined them. This time the demonstrations
were much larger and more violent and the reaction of the security
forces was more repressive. Al Jazeera website described Cairo Uni-
versity as a ‘battle-field’ and Al-Ahram Weekly reported the arrests of
hundreds of students, some of whom were hospitalised with severe
injuries.37 These events brought about a shift in the way that the par-
ticipants in the popular movement viewed the Egyptian state. The
students began to chant slogans such as ‘the way to a free Palestine
starts from a free Cairo’ and others criticising the complicity of the
Egyptian government, the emergency laws and high food prices. In an
interview I conducted in Cairo, an eyewitness described the events as
follows:

All hell broke loose. You had continuous rioting for two days at
Cairo University in 2002 and interestingly this was the first time
138 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

where I would hear outright anti-Mubarak chants . . . Once you start

mobilising over Palestine it always turns domestic.38

A third wave of protest began in early 2003 prompted by further eco-

nomic hardship caused by the devaluation of the Egyptian currency and
gathered momentum as threats of military action against Iraq increased.
The movement was strongly opposed to the invasion of Iraq and was
determined to maintain and build on the gains achieved by the soli-
darity movement which had preceded it, by breaking the government
siege tactics that had been employed against demonstrations since 1977.
As millions of people around the world took part in rallies in February
2003, Cairo protesters were surrounded by thousands of riot police and
were attacked with weapons and tear gas. However, these repressive
tactics only served to emphasise growing opposition to state policies,
denoting a shift in the dynamic between the protest movement and the
Egyptian government. The international anti-war movement was also
vital in signifying the presence of a more general global opposition to
the status quo. As the secretary general of the Egyptian Organisation for
Human Rights, Hafez Abu-Se’ada, stated:

A major shift in popular movements is underway worldwide. The

anti-war, anti-globalisation movements, and those who oppose the
new world order, as well as environmental and feminist activists and
so on, are working together better, and are doing so with a shared
sense of responsibility.39

The Egyptian state attempted to use a number of tactics to prevent

the growth of the protest movement against the Iraq War. As well as
violently repressing demonstrators, the state attempted to contain the
movement by providing channels through which people could express
their anger. On 15 March 2003 the state tried to deprive the movement
of its greatest and most hard-won achievement, the February protest
rally, by organising a mass state-sponsored demonstration against the
Iraq War in Cairo Stadium. Through this the state hoped to con-
tain reaction to the outbreak of war. However, this strategy failed and
demonstrations took place later in March 2003 which, for the first
time were large-scale, popular events involving many sectors of society.
As journalist and writer Hossam el-Hamalawy described to me:

From 19–21 March 2003, for three days people were protesting.
They were burning down Mubarak’s posters and burning down the
 The Rise of Social Movements in Egypt since the 1990s 139

Western flags in front of the five star hotels. The area from al-Azhar all
the way to downtown was a scene of clashes. Demonstrations started
from al-Azhar and at first security forces were surrounding it but they
broke the security cordons and it was just running battles all the way
from al-Azhar to downtown.40

Increasingly anger about the invasion of Iraq was fuelling anger against
the Mubarak regime and its domestic and foreign policy. The regime
responded with intense repression against the movement. Human
Rights Watch reported that riot police attacked the demonstration,
arresting more than 800 people, among them two members of par-
liament, and that in the following weeks there were mass arrests of
trades unionists, students, journalists, writers, university professors,
school teachers and activists who were rounded up, beaten, tortured
and kidnapped by security forces.41
The social movements in solidarity with the Palestinian intifada of
2000 and the anti-war demonstrations of 2003 were turning points
for the Egyptian political opposition. Despite increasing state repres-
sion they had broken the taboo of street demonstrations and brought
together diverse political forces which, for the first time, directly
opposed the government’s policies. In addition, the repression of the
demonstrations by the state’s security forces led to a radicalisation of
both the protesters and a whole generation of high school and uni-
versity activists. As the protests in solidarity with Palestine grew larger,
slogans were chanted, not only against the Israeli occupation, but also
against Mubarak’s government and for the first time targeted Mubarak
himself as protesters chanted ‘Mubarak and Sharon are the same man’.
Hossam el-Hamalawy argued:

How did we get to this from the 1990s when if you mentioned
Mubarak’s name people were so afraid they would run away? We have
to thank the Palestinian intifada and the anti-war movements. The
regime started talking rhetorically about Palestine and people take
the rhetoric seriously and go out in the streets and then they get con-
fronted with the reality that their regimes are like clients [to foreign
forces].42

The 1990s had witnessed the growth of a movement engaged in civil

society that had tried to find ways of accommodating or avoiding the
state’s authoritarianism, with varying degrees of success. However, the
new decade saw the rise of a very different movement; one which
140 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

recognised that in order to bring about positive change in Egyptian

society, forces of change would need to mobilise together in popular
mass protests. This new orientation provoked a variety of responses
among the left, Islamist and nationalist opposition. While some argued
that the opposition needed to build popular groups that would ori-
ent themselves towards the mass movement, others felt that it was
risky to confront the state. The Muslim Brotherhood in particular,
which had long seen itself as a moderate force in Egyptian politics,
was divided between the needs of responding to public anger, incor-
porating its increasingly radicalised members within its ranks and at
the same time continuing its strategy of compromise and accommo-
dation with the state. Throughout the years 2000–3 many members of
the Muslim Brotherhood had demonstrated and taken action with other
groups in support of the second Palestinian intifada and had been bru-
tally repressed by the state. It is significant that in March 2003 sections
of the leadership of the Brothers cooperated with the government in
organising a state-sponsored rally in order to express disapproval of the
US-led invasion of Iraq. However, despite their overtures to the Egyptian
state, on the day that the attack on Iraq began, tens of thousands of
Muslim Brothers students disobeyed the state and their own leadership
by taking part in an illegal mass protest in Tahrir Square.
The popular movement’s focus on domestic issues deepened in
response to the crisis caused by increasing privatisation which in Egypt,
as elsewhere, was accompanied by increasing authoritarianism. In 2004
a new prime minister, Ahmed Nazif, was appointed. Nazif re-invigorated
the privatisation programme, which had been on hold due to the eco-
nomic downturn experienced by the country in previous years.43 Nazif
was a figure regarded as being close to business interests and the coterie
of businessmen and high-level bureaucrats who surrounded Gamal,
the son of President Mubarak. Therefore his appointment compounded
fears that Gamal Mubarak was being groomed to succeed his father. The
number of strikes and industrial actions increased exponentially in 2004
with 265 strikes, sit-ins, protests and demonstrations taking place, half
of them after the appointment of Nazif’s government.44
There were also several significant changes in the leadership of the
Muslim Brotherhood during this period. Mohammed Mahdi Akef was
elected as the new Mourshid (Supreme Guide) of the Muslim Brothers
in January 2004. Akef, a veteran of the Muslim Brotherhood, contin-
ued the Brothers’ dialogue with other opposition forces and highlighted
the organisation’s moderate position on questions of shari’a law, women
and minority religious rights. The election of Akef was accompanied
 The Rise of Social Movements in Egypt since the 1990s 141

by the release of several important activists such as al-Arian and Abu

al-Futuh who had led civil society activism in the 1990s and who
continued to play important roles in social movements.
In March 2004 Akef declared his full endorsement of a list of
demands circulated by the Committee for the Defence of Democracy,
an organisation composed of five opposition parties and ten civil soci-
ety organisations.45 In a speech given in March 2006 Akef set out
the Brothers’ opposition to the policies of the US and Israeli govern-
ments and the ‘puppet regimes’ that ‘fell into their arms’. Akef stated
that opposition to these regimes involved not only Muslims, but all
the free men and women across the world. Pointing to the success of
the global social movement against war and neo-liberalism in bring-
ing about socialist governments in Latin America, he called for a world
league against aggression, involving non-governmental organisations,
institutions and individuals to bring about peace and justice on a global
scale.46 This demonstrated both the willingness of the Brotherhood to
ally themselves with non-religious forces and their perception that they
were part of a world-wide social movement.
The movements in solidarity with Palestine and the anti-war move-
ments helped to foster and legitimise a ‘culture of protest’ against the
Mubarak regime.47 From 2003 onwards a number of different social
forces came together to demand democracy and to challenge the
authoritarianism of the state. In September 2004 a coalition of political
organisations, civil society groups and individuals was formed to oppose
a new mandate for Hosni Mubarak and the anticipated succession of his
son, Gamal Mubarak, and to demand free multi-party elections. The new
coalition came to be known as Kifaya, ‘Enough!’ in Arabic, and the first
ever public anti-Mubarak demonstration with Kifaya slogans was held
in December 2004 in downtown Cairo.
During 2005 the actions taken by the new movement transformed the
relationship between the Egyptian government and the political oppo-
sition. From its inception the strategy of Kifaya was aimed at uniting
opposition forces to challenge the state through the breaking of polit-
ical taboos. The taboo against public protests and demonstrations had
already been broken by previous protest movements and was vigorously
defended by Kifaya. A second taboo was the ban on public criticism of
the president or the ruling party. Previously, opposition groups had criti-
cised issues such as corruption or nepotism in Egyptian politics but were
barred from any direct mention of the president or the NDP. However,
Kifaya broke this taboo by directly challenging the regime’s legitimacy.
Kifaya was also significant as a group which united Islamist and secular
142 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

leftist and nationalist forces. Ibrahim El Houdaiby is a writer and politi-

cal activist who defines himself as an Islamist activist. He was a member
of the Muslim Brotherhood and is the grandson of Hasan al-Hudaybi,
the General Guide of the Muslim Brothers who succeeded al-Banna
in 1949. In an interview I conducted with him in Cairo in 2009 he
explained the significance of Kifaya:

Kifaya succeeded in delegitimising Gamal Mubarak completely.

I think that is very important. They created a layer of people within
the democracy movement and even within the Egyptian state that
opposed him because he is incapable of leading the state . . . They suc-
ceeded in delegitimising him and they acted as a seed for bringing
together different political movements . . . This is a revolution that
has been waiting for thirty years and I am full of hope that things will
change . . . But the first seed was Kifaya and the coalition of opposition
groups, this is one of Kifaya’s great successes.48

In the run-up to the referendum on constitutional change, which

was required to permit Mubarak’s candidacy for another term as pres-
ident in the 2005 elections, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif commented
to a Reuters journalist that Egyptians were not yet politically mature
enough for democracy, which should be administered to them a little
at a time. At the time most Egyptians expected the results of the ref-
erendum to weigh heavily in Mubarak’s favour. In fact, a popular joke
had an aide asking Mubarak to write a goodbye speech to the Egyptian
people, to which Mubarak responds, ‘Why? Where are the Egyptian
people going?’ On the day of the referendum itself, 25 May 2005, the
Kifaya movement organised a protest which was brutally attacked by
Mubarak’s security forces. At the protest, which came to be known as
Black Wednesday, Mubarak’s security forces attacked, sexually molested
and beat women demonstrators. Members of the movement responded
by organising ‘The Streets Are Ours’, a group composed of women who
refused to bow to the regime’s tactics of intimidation. Their opening
statement read:

We shall not remain at home, captive to our fears. We have taken

to the streets as pupils, as students, workers, peasants, housewives,
professionals and faculty [members]. We have taken to the streets
in solidarity with the heroic Palestinian intifada and protesting the
criminal war against Iraq. We have taken to the streets demanding
the release of detainees and the lifting of the state of emergency and
 The Rise of Social Movements in Egypt since the 1990s 143

we have taken to the street fighting for democracy and we shall not
retreat!49

A summer of protest followed, which was a turning point for the

Egyptian opposition. A number of groups evolved as a result of Kifaya in
different sectors of society, including ‘Doctors for Change’, ‘Journalists
for Change’, ‘Workers for Change’ and others. The campaigns of Kifaya
also ignited other areas of civil society such as the organisation of the
Judges’ Association centred on the Judges’ Club in Cairo, which con-
fronted the power of the executive and lobbied for political reform.50
Following the outbreak of popular movements the judges intervened to
overturn the Ministry of Interior’s bans on demonstrations and over-
ruled efforts by the Ministry of Social Affairs to limit or disband civil
society groups.51 After the state acted extremely harshly to prevent free
elections in 1995 the Supreme Constitutional Court had ruled that
future parliamentary elections must be overseen by the judiciary. This
led to less state intimidation and repression during the 2000 elections
in which Muslim Brotherhood candidates stood as independents and
won seventeen seats.52 In April 2005, following intimidation and harass-
ment of their members by state security and police forces, the Judges’
Club mounted a direct challenge to the state’s authority by calling for
a boycott of the 2005 elections. They demanded full control of the
procedures of the upcoming elections, the implementation of reforms
entailing full independence of the judiciary, the upholding of the civil
rights of all citizens, improvements to human rights and an end to the
emergency law.53 A large group of judges held demonstrations outside
the Judges’ Club where they were joined by civil society groups, Kifaya
and members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The government of Hosni Mubarak increased levels of state repres-
sion in 2004 and also instituted further neo-liberal economic policies.
In autumn 2005 Mubarak promised Egyptians a loosening of the one-
party system over which he had presided for the previous quarter of
a century. However, despite the official rhetoric of reform, the presi-
dential and parliamentary elections that followed were condemned by
virtually all objective observers who described numerous cases of fraud
and intimidation and a frightening rise in violence which led to the
deaths of fourteen Egyptians.54 The presidential elections also resulted
in a higher than expected vote for Mubarak’s main political opponent,
Ayman Noor of the Ghad (Tomorrow or Future) Party, who was arrested
and imprisoned shortly afterwards. He was released in 2008, with no
official explanation of why he had been imprisoned for three years.
144 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

Despite increasing state repression, Egyptian protests again centred on

regional and international issues as mass demonstrations were sparked
across the world by Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in July 2006. The
Muslim Brothers stepped up their criticisms of Israel and its supporters
in Western countries and also focused their criticisms on the Mubarak
regime which blamed Hizbullah for provoking the Israeli military
action. The Israeli army’s disproportionate use of force was condemned
by all independent international human rights monitors and Lebanese
casualties mounted during the weeks that Israel refused to negotiate a
ceasefire.55 The US administration quickly declared that the real pur-
pose of the action was to destroy Hizbullah, and Condoleezza Rice
referred to the hundreds of Lebanese killed and the billions of dollars
of infrastructure destroyed as ‘the birth pangs of a new Middle East’.56
During the conflict the regime in Cairo embarked on a television and
media campaign to vilify Hizbullah and utilised its religious program-
ming to declare that Shi‘i Muslims were kafirs (infidels), an exceptionally
conservative position that is usually only held by extreme Wahhabi and
Talibanist groups. In contrast, the Muslim Brotherhood took a strong
position in support of Hizbullah and eventually Akef announced that
the Brotherhood would mobilise 10,000 volunteers and send them to
aid Hizbullah and the Lebanese resistance.57
Despite its criticisms of the Israeli government, the Brotherhood
traditionally held the position that, if it was elected into power, it
would honour all existing settlements with Israel, including the peace
treaty entered into by Sadat after Camp David. This position was similar
to that of the Turkish Justice and Development Party, which contin-
ues to have diplomatic relations with Israel while being critical of its
actions and was seen as pursuing a ‘moderate’ yet still independent
foreign policy position. As attractive as this policy is in theory, in prac-
tice both the Turkish government and moderate Islamic opposition
groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt found it difficult to
sustain in practice. This was due to the intensity of the political and
humanitarian crisis caused by the actions of the Israeli government
with the backing of the US. The Brotherhood’s maintenance of a mod-
erate position on Israel had been sorely tested by the humanitarian
crisis caused by the blockade of Gaza and again in the crisis which fol-
lowed the invasion of Lebanon. Following pressure from their member-
ship and the demands made by mass protests worldwide, Brotherhood
statements in 2006 began to demand a rethinking of the Egyptian–
Israeli peace treaty and an immediate suspension of all contacts with
Israel.58
 The Rise of Social Movements in Egypt since the 1990s 145

A wave of industrial action on a scale not seen in Egypt since the 1940s
also began in 2006. Workers have a long history of political mobilisation
for labour rights, democracy and national liberation in Egypt and the
Egyptian NGO, the Land Centre for Human Rights, reported a steady
increase in industrial action throughout the middle and final years of
the 2000s, with 202 strikes in 2005, 222 in 2006 and 614 in 2007.59
Women’s activism was also of paramount importance during the rise
in social struggle from 2000–10. Historically, women have played a
vitally important role in Islamic as well as secular left and national-
ist movements in Egypt. In the 1990s women with diverse political
views became involved in NGOs and Islamic social welfare activism, and
Muslim feminists formulated political frameworks through which they
fought for gender equality as well as democracy, social justice, national
dignity and independence. The workers’ movement also witnessed the
growing role and strength of women and women workers participated
in and led the movement of 2007–8. On 7 December 2006, 3,000 female
garment workers went on strike in the historic Misr Spinning and Weav-
ing Company in Mahalla, which is home to 27,000 textile workers and is
the biggest textile mill in the region. The female textile workers who led
the strike marched through the factory chanting: ‘the women are here,
where are the men?’ and called on male workers to join them. Together
they occupied the factory for several days until their demands were met.
The victory of the Mahalla strike movement was immensely signifi-
cant and encouraged workers in other sectors to take strike action. It was
the beginning of a major upturn in industrial struggle in Egypt which
involved strike action by train workers, cement workers, civil servants
and university students and staff – the first national strike by university
professors since 1977. Strikers’ demands and slogans became increas-
ingly political during this period. In Mahalla, strikers demanded a fair
national minimum wage for all Egyptians, burnt posters of Mubarak and
chanted the slogan ‘we will not be ruled by the World Bank, we will not
be ruled by imperialism’.60
A major turning point in the workers’ movement and in social move-
ments as a whole in Egypt was the formation of independent unions.
In September 2007 a group of government employees, the Real Estate
Tax Collectors, went on strike for the first time since 1919 and refused
to collect any taxes for the government. In the process of the strug-
gle their initial requests (that they be paid the bonuses that had been
promised to them and that they be placed under the jurisdiction of
the Ministry of Finance, a less corrupt employer of government work-
ers) were transformed into demands for their own independent unions.
146 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

In 2007 they coordinated national strikes of tax collectors and for ten
days they held a sit-in and protest outside government offices in central
Cairo. The strike committees they formed during this period were trans-
formed into a broader organisation representing workers’ rights and in
April 2009 they formed the Independent Trade Union of Tax Collectors,
which represented the first non-state workers’ union in over fifty years.
A leader of the independent union whom I interviewed in Cairo in 2009
stated:

We had a strike in front of the finance ministry and in front of the

General Workers’ Syndicate downtown. There were about 5,000 of
us and after the strike we marched through the city of Cairo . . . We
entered the Workers’ Federation and this, I believe, was the first
movement to start something rolling which created the first inde-
pendent union. Our strike was very badly received by the [state-run]
General Federation of Trade Unions and they turned our water off
and closed the mosque. But for two days we refused to leave and we
slept on the stairs of the General Union. We didn’t expect change
to occur from within the state-run union because they have always
opposed the workers. We wanted to change the whole system, all
of it.61

The tax collectors continued their action and developed their demands
during October and November. Having been told by the finance min-
istry that their demands could only be heard by the prime minister,
they organised a sit-in in front of the parliament building that lasted for
ten days:

We stayed for ten days and the people slept in the street. We con-
sidered this space to have been occupied by the workers. We had
liberated it from the Egyptian government and it was because as
Egyptians we had the right to say no.62

As a result of these actions, the strikers won their demands, includ-

ing a 300 per cent increase in wages. However, the independent union
leaders argued that their greatest achievement was in forcing govern-
ment officials to negotiate with them directly and bypass the state-run
trades union federation. In doing so they shattered the view put for-
ward by the regime that workers had to be policed by government-run
trades unions and demonstrated that workers should be represented
by their own democratic organisations. The independent union leaders
 The Rise of Social Movements in Egypt since the 1990s 147

described how, for the ten days that they had occupied the streets in
downtown Cairo, they erected tents and hung washing lines in order
to communicate that they were not going home until they won their
rights. During this period women strike leaders and participants played
a vital role in the workers’ movement. A female strike leader told me
in an interview that during the occupation women leaders set up tents
and organised food and water for the 10,000 strikers, about a quarter
of whom were women. She argued that their support of the strike was
political, stating:

The women slept in the streets for ten days. We didn’t leave . . . It was
political, not just because [the male strikers] were our brothers and
husbands. We supported them because we suffer under the same
conditions as the men do, so it wasn’t just for the men, it was for
us as well. It was driven by our own will. Some of us are the heads
of households and the monthly income we get isn’t sufficient for a
week.63

Women strikers, the huge majority of whom were hijab-wearing Muslim

women, were targeted by negative government propaganda but they
refused to leave the streets. Aziza Rashad described how women strik-
ers challenged the female Minister of the Labour Force, Aisha Abdel
Hadi, who stated that it was shameful for Muslim women to sleep in
the streets:

It’s not an easy thing for women in Egypt to sleep in the street. It’s
not acceptable. One of the ministers told us that it’s not acceptable
for women to sleep in the streets and we said no, we belong here just
as much as the men do.64

What had started as a fight for women’s labour rights extended to

a struggle for greater gender equality, demonstrating the connections
between different aspects of social struggle in contemporary Egypt.

The 2011 uprising

The uprising of 2011 was in many ways the culmination of the previous
decade of social movements. Each movement, although unique in its
own context, had contributed to the de-legitimising of the regime and
had mobilised sectors of society to work together in opposition to the
state’s policies. As in previous years, the context of the 2011 uprising
148 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

was both economic and domestic and related to the broader regional
crisis. The regime had faced further economic and political crises in 2009
and 2010. The global economic crisis impacted on Egypt as it did on
all economies tied to the West. Moreover, the Israeli attack on Gaza in
2009 led to an outbreak of demonstrations and protests that once again
underscored Egypt’s connection with wider regional and specifically
Arab-world issues. It also revealed the impotence of the regime to act
because of its dependence on the US. As Ibrahim El Houdaiby argued,
it further highlighted the weakness of Gamal Mubarak as a statesman
and possible ‘heir to the throne’ in particular, adding to growing public
discontent at the prospects of his succession to the presidency:

He is incapable of leading the state. I think that has been made very
clear during the Gaza crisis. He completely disappeared for three
weeks until the ceasefire . . . Although his father isn’t a genius, he is
even worse . . . if you look at the way he was talking about Rafah,
about opening the border [with Gaza], he wasn’t speaking politics he
was speaking about the [peace treaty] agreement that was there, so
they couldn’t do such and such except if so and so, and I was watch-
ing him and thinking this is the same when you go to a government
office and you have a missing stamp and so you can’t submit your
papers until you have the missing stamp and that there is nothing
you can do about it because those are the rules.65

Events in Egypt were also sparked by the outbreak of protests in neigh-

bouring countries. Egyptians, like people all over the world, witnessed
a mass social movement which had successfully ousted President Zine
El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia after twenty-three years of military dic-
tatorship. This gave new impetus to the diverse movements opposing
the regime in Cairo and when, on 25 January, a group of activists called
for a demonstration to be held in downtown Cairo, the crowd, inspired
by events in Tunisia, began to chant the now historic slogan: ‘The peo-
ple want the downfall of the regime.’ During the next two weeks mass
protests took place in which every political group and social movement
that had been active in the past decade took part. The 2011 uprising
continued to place pressure on the leadership of the Muslim Brother-
hood to take a more radical stance against the regime. Although the
Brotherhood did not initially take part in the demonstration on 25 Jan-
uary, eventually the sheer number of people protesting led them to join
other forces for a mass protest on Friday 28 January, the first of many
‘days of rage’.
 The Rise of Social Movements in Egypt since the 1990s 149

Some academics in the West and elsewhere have attempted to por-

tray the Egyptian uprising as purely a ‘Facebook’ revolution.66 Rabab
El Mahdi argues that such analyses are problematic as they ignore the
role of social movements and particularly the workers’ movement in the
struggle against Mubarak. In the previous decade all sections of society,
old and young, Christian and Muslim, workers, students and profes-
sionals, Islamists and secular activists had in one way or another been
systematically alienated by the policies of the regime. These were the
social forces which joined together to demand the end of Mubarak’s
presidency. Indeed, the fact that the movement was far greater than a
group of Facebook activists was demonstrated by the regime’s attempt
to block the organising capacity of the protesters by shutting down
Facebook and internet sites. Following this action by the state, the
movement actually grew in size.
A turning point in the uprising was the defeat by the protesters of
Mubarak’s hated security and police forces, which shattered the veil of
fear that surrounded the regime. They heroically faced tear gas and live
ammunition and fought running battles with the police and security
forces who tried to prevent them from reaching Tahrir Square. In total
an estimated 1,000 protesters died in the battles in January and February.
Their actions eventually forced the security forces to retreat, leaving the
city in the hands of groups of people who formed neighbourhood organ-
isations to feed and protect communities. The protesters in Tahrir Square
set up a two-week occupation of the area and by 1 February millions of
demonstrators in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities had joined them in
demanding that Mubarak resign.
Tahrir Square became not just a focal point of demonstrations but
a new political space in which women, workers, Islamist and secular
activists, Muslim and Copts united. In many ways this physical space
represented the ideological space that had been built so painstakingly
by participants in movements over the previous decade. It demonstrated
the equality and solidarity present between people of different social
groups, between secular and Islamic activists and the importance of
equality and respect for women and non-Muslims. Politically, it was also
both a rejection of dictatorship and of Western control and domination
in the region. Tahrir became a symbol, not just for Egyptians, but also
for people engaged in social movements across the region who opposed
both local and global systems of oppression.
The death knell for Mubarak’s administration came when another
wave of workers’ strikes spread across the country. Demonstrations took
place on what was called ‘departure day’ and by 8 February those in the
150 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

textile and steel industries and in Suez had joined in industrial action,
followed by oil and transport employees, civil servants and health work-
ers. Having tried every strategy to cling to power in the previous few
weeks, Mubarak was finally forced to step down and the Supreme Coun-
cil of the Armed Forces (SCAF) announced that it had temporarily
taken control of the government. During two short weeks Egyptian
social movements and particularly the workers’ movement succeeded
in accomplishing what many analysts had thought was impossible. The
view that Arabs or Egyptians have a ‘submissive’ political culture or
that democracy is impossible in the lethal political environment of the
Middle East was proved to be a fallacy. Indeed, through their actions
they demonstrated that social change is not only possible but that it
can be achieved through the mass struggle of social movements against
dictatorship.

The post-2011 political environment

Following the participation of millions of Egyptians in the demonstra-

tions and strikes which brought down Hosni Mubarak (1981–2011) a
wave of industrial action swept the country. Journalists from the inde-
pendent Egyptian newspaper al-Masry al-Youm reported that between 12
and 14 February forty to sixty different labour protests involving tens
of thousands of workers took place around the country.67 Strikes contin-
ued to spread despite both the army’s communiqué that workers must
return to work and the similar requests made by religious leaders such as
Shaykh Yusuf Qaradawi.68 Workers’ strikes took place in diverse indus-
tries across the country, especially in industrial areas with a long history
of struggle such as Mahalla, Helwan and Nasr City, in both public and
privately run companies. Workers’ demands included the prosecution of
leaders of state-run syndicates and managers and the establishment of
their own independent trade unions. Independent unions were estab-
lished in a range of sectors and the new trade unions and professional
syndicates grouped themselves into an independent federation. Protests
and strikes demonstrated the depth of the movement and involved
broad sections of society which had been systematically alienated and
repressed by Mubarak’s regime. These included workers, students who
held strikes demanding the sacking of university presidents,69 small
farmers in rural areas and the residents of Cairo’s Ashwa’iyyat (slums).70
Mobilisations continued throughout the year as these social forces
struggled to defend the gains of the uprising against the consolidation
of power by the SCAF. Indeed, there was a strong perception that the
 The Rise of Social Movements in Egypt since the 1990s 151

social movements which had gained victory against Mubarak needed to

continue to mobilise in order to prevent the current regime of military
officials and bureaucrats from continuing ‘business as normal’ in the
country. Well-known Egyptian novelist and commentator Ahdaf Souief
wrote:

With hindsight, we left the streets too early. We were victorious,

and yet we left with nothing. When we managed to push out
Hosni Mubarak and the army took over, we should have stayed and
demanded that power be vested in a government of the revolution.71

Throughout 2011 the economic situation in the country worsened and

the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces seemed unlikely to yield polit-
ical power voluntarily to the democratic opposition. This was far from
acceptable to the majority of the millions of people who had fought
to bring down the Mubarak regime and who continued to mourn the
loss of an estimated one thousand martyrs who had died at the hands
of the regime’s security forces since January. It was not surprising then
that the ‘days of rage’ continued. In May 2011 over a million people ral-
lied in Tahrir Square in Cairo and a further 500,000 in Alexandria with
demands that included a fair national minimum wage and an end to the
emergency laws.
New political parties, alliances and configurations were also formed
as a result of the uprising. Whilst the leadership of the Muslim Broth-
ers initially did not support the protest that was called for 25 January,
many thousands of ordinary members of the Brotherhood took part
in the demonstrations and strikes which ousted Mubarak and they
were vital in organising food, water and safety for the protesters in
Tahrir Square. A view of the leadership as being more conservative
than the movement on the ground was strengthened by the organ-
isation’s lack of support for further mobilisations and its statements
that Egyptians should stop striking and protesting in order to main-
tain stability in the country. During the May protests, the crowds in
Cairo chanted ‘Tahrir is here! Where is the Brotherhood?’ and mem-
bers of the Brotherhood’s youth section accused the leadership of
being ‘out of touch’.72 Soon after the May protests the Brotherhood
announced the expulsion of one of its most prominent leading activists
‘Abd al-Mun’im Abu al-Futuh, who had played a major role in leading
the group’s civil society and student activism. Abu al-Futuh was also
associated with a group of prominent leaders who were involved in
articulating a liberal Islamist orientation for the organisation, a position
152 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

which has been popular at the grassroots level of the Brotherhood.

After his expulsion a group of young activists, including a prominent
youth leader of the organisation, Mohamed Affan, broke away from
the Brotherhood to form Hizb al-Tayyar al-Masry (the Egyptian Current
Party).73
The uprising also exacerbated long-standing rifts within the Brother-
hood organisation. Divisions centred on economic policy, social policy
and the position of Egypt regarding relationships with the US and Israel.
In terms of the economy the leadership’s previous support for infitah and
the interests of the business class was an anathema to those members
who saw Islam as a socially just and equitable social system. Political
divides centred on the issue of the strong influence exercised by the
US in the country through its massive aid and military funding, the
continuance of the peace treaty with Israel and the unpopular block-
ade of Gaza. Controversy also arose over the Muslim Brotherhood’s
new political platform which stated that women and Copts should be
excluded from the presidency, despite having rights to participate fully
in the political life of the country. This ran in opposition to a growing
body of Islamist thought in the region which was based on a dynamic
jurisprudence and the formation of religio-political frameworks founded
on equality and justice.74
In the run-up to parliamentary elections in late 2011, major con-
frontations took place between the social forces that spearheaded the
uprising against Mubarak and the military, demonstrating the inability
of SCAF to quell all popular dissent. In the demonstrations protesters
amended the now historic slogan ‘The people demand the fall of
the regime’ to ‘The people demand the fall of the field marshal
(Tantawi).’ They also chanted ‘Say it! Don’t be afraid! The Military
Must Go!’ The Muslim Brotherhood was largely perceived as being
the winner in Egypt’s post-2011 political environment, with a num-
ber of commentators raising the spectre of the 1979 Iranian revolution
and bemoaning the fact that the popularity of the Brotherhood was
evidence of the inevitability of the Islamist take-over in Arab and
Muslim majority countries. However, this view is contradicted by the
fact that support for the Brotherhood was falling drastically through-
out this period. Indeed, according to Hani Shukrallah, an Egyptian
journalist who had been editor of Al-Ahram Weekly, between the par-
liamentary elections (28 November 2011–11 January 2012) and the
first round of the presidential elections (23–24 May 2012), the Broth-
erhood lost over half its electoral base – nearly seven million votes.75
This was due, he argues, to the Brotherhood’s policies of continuing
 The Rise of Social Movements in Egypt since the 1990s 153

‘business-as-usual’ in the country by increasing neo-liberal reforms

and maintaining the blockade of Gaza, while attacking strikers and
protesters:

A Brotherhood in power that is happy to collaborate with the US and

Israel in fighting terrorism in Sinai; strategic ties with Washington;
signs a typically stringent loan deal with the IMF; shows astonish-
ing ineptitude and lack of vision; fails to deliver on any of its own
promises, let alone the promises of the revolution; and is hailed by
the US and Europe for its role in ‘containing’ Hamas and safeguard-
ing Israel’s security is a Brotherhood that has lost whatever mystique
it once had.76

Discontent with the Brotherhood’s failures erupted in June 2013 with

what was undoubtedly the largest popular demonstration of the twenty-
first century, surpassing in sheer numbers the major revolutionary
movements of the previous century, including the Iranian revolution
of December 1979. An unprecedented 17 million people took part in
mass protests against Morsi’s government, demanding that the aims
of the February 2011 uprising against Mubarak – bread, freedom and
social justice – be met. However, the reaction of Washington and many
Western commentators was that ‘nothing really big is expected in
Cairo’.77 Ironically, having vilified the Muslim Brotherhood through-
out the decades that the organisation’s leadership oriented itself towards
civil society and democracy, Washington now threw its weight behind
an increasingly unpopular and authoritarian Muslim Brotherhood lead-
ership which guaranteed continuing US dominance in the country. Far
from being a coup, or a fringe movement of a few thousand middle-
class people, the mass protests of 2013 were very much a continuation
of the social movement that started with the overthrow of Mubarak in
2011. Muhammad Hardan, deputy president of the Independent Union
of Workers in the Cairo Water Company, was interviewed by a Mid-
dle East solidarity organisation, MENA Solidarity, and explained why
he and other trade unionists had joined the revolt against the Muslim
Brotherhood:

We didn’t even have to issue a call from the union for participa-
tion in the protests, as everyone who worked for the company was
ready to go into the streets of their own accord because of the
oppression they had suffered during the recent period. The law on
trade union freedoms has not been brought in, trade unionists have
154 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

been oppressed and we’ve seen corruption spreading even more than
under the old regime. Wages have been cut, and anyone attempting
to demand their rights has been victimised. Prices keep rising, and
wages don’t keep up, but demonstrations have been criminalised and
sit-ins are broken up by force. Meanwhile factories and companies
are closing down. Workers’ rights have been ignored, even in the
constitution . . . If the next president refuses to meet our demands, we
will rebel again. There is no other solution. Those who have tasted
freedom will not be slaves again. The revolution will continue until
its demands are met, no matter who sits in the presidential palace.
We will never abandon the revolution and we will never give in.78

The new government formed by the military after the uprising used
the fight against the Brotherhood as a way to try to garner legitimacy
and demobilise the movement. Its attacks on Brotherhood members
have been supported by some secular and liberal organisations. How-
ever, unions, striking workers and organisations such as the revolution-
ary socialists and the April 6 Movement condemned the atrocities, as
well as the sectarian violence committed by the Brotherhood against
Copts. The military leadership of General al-Sisi hid behind a liberal
civilian front, while an article from September 2013 estimated that
44 per cent of Egyptians did not know the exact name of their interim
president (Adly Mansour) and 70 per cent did not know the name of
their prime minister (Hazem al-Beblawi).79 The regime, which was for-
malised with the election of al-Sisi as president in May 2014 appointed
several Mubarak-era governors and seems set to continue the failed
policies of Mubarak and Morsi. However, the popular movement against
these policies has not been quashed and workers’ protests have con-
tinued as the economic and political crises deepen, demonstrating that
despite facing enormous difficulties, Egyptians continue the fight for
their revolution.

Conclusion

At the beginning of the 1990s the Mubarak regime, which had previ-
ously adopted a conciliatory stance towards mainstream Islamic move-
ments, began to put in place a much harsher and more aggressive policy
aimed at undermining civil society. The mainstream Islamic movement,
led by the Muslim Brotherhood, continued to try to find ways to engage
in civil society activism without confronting the power of the state
directly. However, regional crises such as the 1991 invasion of Iraq
 The Rise of Social Movements in Egypt since the 1990s 155

and the worsening economic situation caused by neo-liberal reforms

and infitah led the Brotherhood to become increasingly critical of the
regime. The first decade of the twenty-first century was a turning point
for movements in the country. By this time, Egyptians had experienced
over twenty years of neo-liberal reforms and the increasing authoritar-
ianism of the state. This period was also dominated by regional crises
and in particular, the outbreak of the second intifada in Palestine. The
context in which new social movements arose was therefore connected
to profound crises, not only of the state and the international system,
but also of the politics of mass reformist movements, such as the Muslim
Brotherhood. Just when their dominance of the political scene emerged
most clearly, so did major ideological divisions within the organisation.
The Muslim Brotherhood was also confronted with a series of
political competitors which since 2000 challenged more directly the
authoritarianism of the state, its economic policies as dictated by the
World Bank and IMF and its dependence on the US. The movement in
solidarity with the second Palestinian intifada was followed by anti-war
movements which encouraged a culture of protest against the Mubarak
regime. These in turn indirectly influenced the rise of a democracy
movement and diverse movements for change between 2004 and 2006,
encompassing broad sections of society. In many ways the authoritar-
ianism of the regime and its repression of the anti-war and solidarity
movements acted as a catalyst for the democracy movement which fol-
lowed. As the regime attempted to repress the democracy movement,
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006 again sparked solidarity protests
in which anti-Mubarak slogans were used. While the democracy move-
ment was seen by many as a movement of the middle class, the workers’
movement of 2007–9 brought the working class into the heart of the
struggle against the Mubarak regime.
Diverse social forces thus became active after 2001. Movements
included secular and Islamic activists and demonstrated the potential for
unity between Coptic Christians and Muslims as well as between indi-
viduals from a variety of political backgrounds. Women played a major
role and participated in and led diverse social movements. Ultimately,
these forces were successful in overthrowing Mubarak and in the post-
2011 period united together once more to oppose President Morsi.
Despite facing many difficulties they continue the struggle for truly
transformative change in Egypt.
7
Reform and Revolution in Egypt
and Iran

Iran and Egypt are countries with different languages, cultural practices,
religious traditions and histories. However, they have shared the
experiences of colonialism, uneven development and a contradictory
modernity. The forming of modern nation states in both countries in
the nineteenth century and the new social and economic relations these
brought with them gave rise to the repertoires of contention used by
social movements which played a vital role in the process of social
and political change. In both countries social movements have been
diverse, yet many have involved the participation of an urbanised, edu-
cated working class and middle class population. Religious and secular
movements, reformist, nationalist, anti-imperialist, feminist, socialist
and communist movements have all played important roles in the
political life of both countries. Since the nineteenth century these move-
ments have developed strategies of political action which continue to be
relevant today.
Egypt and Iran have also seen the transformations of states through
uprisings, revolutions and counter-revolutions. Since the 1990s both
have experienced the rise of neo-liberal states and the erosion of state
legitimacy and democracy. These historical transformations have had
an enormous impact on movements and on regional politics. In the
1950s and 1960s Iran was advertised as a haven of stability by the shah,
while newly independent Arab states such as Egypt were leading anti-
imperialist and anti-Zionist movements in the region. By the late 1970s
the difference between Iran and the major Arab powers was striking.
In 1978 Egypt formally recognised the existence of Israel, began the pro-
cess of ‘normalisation’ with the Israeli state and undertook joint military
exercises with the US following the Camp David accords. Just a year
later, the Iranian revolution removed the pro-Western government of

156
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 157

the shah, cut ties with Israel and South Africa and defied US hegemony
in the region. Iran’s 1979 revolution and the establishment of the
Islamic state which followed transformed regional dynamics. Despite
the fact that Iran was not alone in the 1970s in possessing an extremely
unpopular and corrupt government, it was the only country in the
region which experienced a revolution that fundamentally altered the
political power structure. Islamic groups and organisations existed as
elements in opposition to the state in other countries, but the practical
and ideological role they played in the revolution and establishment of
an Islamic state in Iran was a singular event.
These divergent historical trends have led analysts to portray the
contemporary Iranian reform and democracy movement as a reaction
against the phenomenon of ‘Islamism’ – broadly understood as the use
of political frameworks which incorporate Islamic historical events, con-
cepts, symbology or language. Whereas Islamism is seen to be on the
wane in Iran, with analysts referring to a post-Islamist turn or phase
in Iranian history, in other parts of the region reformist Islamic groups
continue to dominate the political environment. Although the focus
of the West is on armed groups such as Da’ish/ISIL (the Islamic State
in Iraq and the Levant), reformist and moderate Islamist groups still
make up the most popular and successful opposition to Western-backed
regimes. Thirty years after Camp David, the Egyptian state under Hosni
Mubarak was a pro-Western military dictatorship receiving the largest
amount of US aid after Israel and was a major importer of arms from
the US.1 This political context created an ongoing crisis in the country
and in 2011 a mass movement succeeded in forcing Mubarak to step
down. Other countries in the region, such as Lebanon, face political
instability, conflict, poverty and the constant threat of Israeli inva-
sions, whereas Palestine remains under an ongoing Israeli occupation.
In these specific contexts Islamist movements and Islamic groups such
as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas
in Palestine have played the role of a genuine political opposition,
articulating criticisms of undemocratic regimes and Western domina-
tion from within Islamic frameworks. These Islamic movements are not
thought to be part of a post-Islamist current. However, the ideologies
and strategies of mainstream Islamic movements share many similari-
ties and are responding to common regional and international crises,
both political and economic.
Utilising interviews carried out with participants in social movements,
this chapter will discuss the influence of nineteenth- and twentieth-
century movements and their political projects, particularly Islamic
158 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

reformism and Islamic feminism. It will also focus on the dynamics

of social movements, insurrections and revolutions and investigate the
impact of neo-liberalism, the responses of contemporary reform move-
ments and their challengers. Finally, it will discuss the impact of external
forces on movements, the strategies diverse movements have used in
response to the growing level of crises in the region and the different
outcomes of political struggle in Egypt and Iran.

The influence of nineteenth- and twentieth-century

movements

In this book I have argued that in the nineteenth and twentieth

centuries, participants in social movements such as women, work-
ers, Islamists and others articulated forms of politics that continue to
be relevant. This analysis challenges both the idea that democratic
and reformist repertoires of protest originated solely in the West and
the notion that historically only men have lead and participated in
social movements. In the 1990s religious organisations and groups in
particular were important in embracing and formulating an Islamic dis-
course of civil society. This discourse contained a number of different
intellectual trends, those of Islamic reformism and Islamic feminism
representing two strands of particular significance. These perspectives
were widespread across the region and came to be regarded by some
Western commentators as forms of politics that broke the previous
dominance of Islamism. A number of authors have argued that a post-
Islamist phase took place in Iran in the 1990s, while in other countries
in the region post-Islamism was limited to a non-mainstream section
of the Islamist movement. Post-Islamism in Iran resulted from dislo-
cations produced by the Iranian revolution, which Bayat defines as an
insurrection designed to confront the power of the state. Ironically, the
revolution came about at a time when the Islamic movement in Iran
was quite weak. However, Egypt, which did experience the revival of
an Islamic movement in the 1970s and 1980s, did not experience a
revolution.2 Bayat uses a Gramscian framework to analyse the trajecto-
ries and strategies of the ‘Islamic’ revolution and the Egyptian Islamic
movement. While Iranians adopted the ‘frontal attack’ or insurrec-
tionary approach, Egyptians adopted a ‘war of position’ with ‘reformist
consequences’.3 Thirty years on, disillusionment with the Islamic state
led to the emergence of an active democracy and reform movement
in Iran. In contrast, Egypt by the 1990s, in Bayat’s view, experienced a
more negative ‘passive revolution’ in which society and state became
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 159

Islamised, yet there were few strategies for more fundamental socio-
political change.4
This argument has been extended in Bayat’s more recent writing
on the Iranian green movement and the 2011 uprising in Egypt. He
has distinguished the events in Iran in 2009 and Egypt in February
2011 from the 1979 revolution by utilising a new category for current
movements in the region – that of ‘refo-lution’. For Bayat, the Iranian
revolution was an insurrectionary movement which aimed at destroy-
ing the state and carried with it the inevitable risk of revolutionary or
counter-revolutionary excess. Current movements, including the green
movement in Iran, differ fundamentally, as they are neither ‘revolu-
tions’ per se nor simply ‘reform’ measures. Instead, he writes, we may
speak of ‘refo-lutions’ – ‘revolutions that want to push for reforms in and
through the institutions of the incumbent states’.5 Bayat has also argued
that in an authoritarian context non-movements rather than traditional
political organisations are the vehicles through which social change can
be achieved.6
Similarly, Hamid Dabashi has argued that the 2011 uprisings con-
stitute new kinds of revolutionary movements. Unlike other insur-
rectionary movements that the region has witnessed over the past
century, including the Iranian revolution, these movements are new
in a way that challenges our conceptions of revolution. They are also
post-ideological, post-class, post-Islamist and post-colonial uprisings.7
The argument that each revolutionary movement is unique and
occurs in a historically specific context is important. It represents a
major challenge to the kind of discourse which sees all movements in
the region as irrational outpourings of anti-Western, fundamentalist vio-
lence. A familiar refrain at the time of the first Egyptian uprising in 2011
was that any popular democratic movement in a Muslim majority coun-
try would lead to an inevitable Islamist take-over – another 1979. It is
not surprising therefore that writers such as Bayat, Dabashi and others
have been at pains to point out the differences between the Iranian revo-
lution and the revolts of 2009–11 and, indeed, the differing strategies of
Islamic movements and organisations vis-à-vis these popular uprisings.
While acknowledging the unique features of each movement and
revolutionary situation, this book asserts that the impulse to treat them
as an entirely new phenomenon of protest is also problematic as it
runs the risk of divorcing them from their history. This study seeks to
contextualise movements and view them as part of an ongoing polit-
ical struggle against authoritarianism and imperialism in the region.
To argue that there are important aspects of continuity between past
160 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

movements for change and the current uprisings does not mean that the
presence of new contexts, changing strategies and unexpected outcomes
should be ignored. It does suggest, however, that contemporary political
movements such as Islamism, Islamic reformism and Islamic feminism,
should be seen as building on a rich history and adapting this history
to a changing contemporary context. In the following sections I analyse
how this historical context has informed the strategies and politics of
both Islamic reformism and Islamic feminism.
Activists I interviewed highlighted that the ideas of nineteenth-
and twentieth-century Islamic reformists, and the strategies used by
movements from this period, informed the large-scale reform move-
ments of the 1990s. Indeed a number of Iranian reformers argued
that their movement was influenced by the ideas of the progressive
clergy who supported the constitutional revolution (1906–11) and led
both nineteenth- and twentieth-century movements against despotism
and foreign domination. Abdolkarim Soroush argued that the ideas
of Muslim reformers since the constitutional revolution have been
founded on Shi‘i ideas of justice and rationalist Islamic philosophy.
These ideas continued to be relevant to Islamic reformers and activists
in the Iranian revolution and the reform movement of the 1990s:

I would like to say that the whole of the fiqh, the shari‘a is the
embodiment of the concept of justice according to the legislator.
In any system of government or in any system of thought, as far
as I understand it, the law is the best manifestation and the most
vivid embodiment of the concept of justice according to the design-
ers of that system and Islam is no exception . . . It is pre-supposed that
law is based on justice and it incorporates justice in itself and tries
to perpetuate it, convey it and transfer it from generation to gener-
ation . . . In the constitutional revolution, some of the fuqaha, some
of the jurists played a big role. For them justice was the main idea.
In the movement of the constitutional revolution, one of the main
demands was for an edalat-khaneh, the house of justice. This is what
they wanted, they were looking for justice. They did not mention the
idea of equality or liberty but justice for them was much more famil-
iar and important because it came directly from religion and from
law and from morality. As you know, some of the clerics later on did
oppose the idea of equality, of liberty, they thought that these ideas
were alien to religion. But as far as justice was concerned nobody
could oppose it and could reject it. They accepted it and did have a
positive view of it . . . When we come to the Islamic revolution, I think
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 161

the same was there. According to Ayatollah Khomeini, the shah’s

regime was not just and more importantly a revolt against the shah
was valid.8

Similarly, Ata’ollah Mohajerani argued that the period from the consti-
tutional revolution to the reformist era in the 1990s can be presented
in terms of four distinct stages in the evolution of a movement whose
strategies and ideas changed over time:

The main direction of the constitutional revolution was against

despotism, to limit the power of the shah in mashrutiyyat. Dur-
ing the second phase, the national movement [1951–3], the main
direction was against colonialism, against Britain because it was a
national movement and the main subject was oil at that time. Third
you have the Islamic revolution. The Islamic revolution was like a
blade with two edges, anti-despotism and anti-colonialism. After that
you have reformism, the main direction of which is anti-despotism.
So justice is the main goal for all reformists but they believe too
that the main direction is anti-despotism, ‘marg bar dictator!’ [death
to the dictator!]. So we can find similarity between these four steps
from the beginning of the nineteenth century, ‘engelab-e mashrutiyyat
[constitutional revolution] to reformism.9

Islamic reformist intellectual Hasan Yousef Eshkevari argued that the

reform movement in Iran was not opposed to the ideas of Muslim
reformers but represented a continuation of their ideas and the demands
of the 1979 revolution:

Since these demands developed out of the discourse of religious

reformers the regime adopted the title of Islamic Republic. The idea
was that Islam is not in contradiction with freedom, justice, devel-
opment, science and modern politics; on the contrary Islam defends
all these ideas. In particular, Ayatollah Khomeini, when he was in
Paris, approved of all these ideas. For example, he confirmed that
by ‘republic’ he meant a republic similar to that of France. This way
of thinking formed the slogans of the revolution and ultimately the
constitution . . . However, after the establishment of the regime, these
principles were gradually forgotten or changed. Hence, the reform
movement of the mid-1990s was a return to the demands of the
revolution. In this context, Khatami as the President of the Islamic
Republic discussed civil society, law, democracy, freedom . . . The new
162 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

generation welcomed these issues and writers, journalists and ‘reli-

gious new thinkers’ created the reform movement.10

The ideas and strategies of Muslim reformists constitute part of a polit-

ical and intellectual heritage which has enormous popularity, not just
in Iran, but throughout the region and among Muslim and Middle
Eastern diasporas. Similar to other movements, the Muslim Brother-
hood is not a monolithic or homogeneous organisation. It is a diverse
group which includes a number of different strands of Islamic politi-
cal thought. Far from being distinct from the Muslim Brotherhood, the
ideas of the Islamic centrist current, wasatiyya, grew out of that organ-
isation. This occurred in the context of the rise of reformist Islamic
intellectuals such as Tariq al-Bishri and Yusuf Qaradawi in the 1990s.
The ideas of the wasatiyya were also shared to a large extent by those
leaders of the organisation who came from the ‘1970s generation’ and
were involved in leading civil society activism in the 1990s. These ideas
have a long tradition in Egyptian Islamic thought and continued to be
popular among the membership of the Muslim Brotherhood and other
Islamic groups. In the 1990s, the repertoires of protest associated with
Islamic reformism were, as in Iran, transformed into new strategies and
languages of political action. As a political and social movement the
Muslim Brotherhood adopted various strategic positions depending on
the political context and pressure exerted by its membership. The 2011
uprising in Egypt brought differences of strategy into the open and par-
ticularly the inability of the leadership of the organisation to relate to
the demands of the movement on the streets.
As in Iran, women’s organisations are widespread in Egypt and
Egyptian women have a long history of contributing to and leading
movements for change. Their involvement results partly from increased
participation in the labour force but also from wider developments in
society as a whole. Hala Shukrallah runs the New Woman Foundation,
an NGO in Cairo which, since the 1980s, has campaigned for women’s
rights and has recently worked with female strikers in Mahalla. She has
studied the composition and nature of the Egyptian labour force and
the impact of neo-liberal privatisation, particularly on women workers,
for over twenty years. Hala Shukrallah argues that neo-liberal economic
reform led to a ‘feminisation of labour’ in Egypt, especially among
low-paid casual workers:

You see women working in the pharmaceutical companies, in the

beverage companies. This is all female labour with male supervisors.
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 163

Also in the garment industries and the processing of cotton. This is

very casual labour and seasonal labour.11

The crisis produced by neo-liberalism contributed to the development

of a labour movement in which female workers were both leaders and
participants. Similar to women in Iran, Egyptian women who participate
in movements and lead organisations have fought for gender rights in
addition to articulating demands for labour rights, democracy and social
change. Islamic feminist activist and NGO leader Dr Omaima Abu Bakr
discussed the work of her NGO, the Women and Memory Forum:

One of our main principles, our mandate for Women and Memory
is that we try to revive cultural memory, the memory of women
pioneers and women achievers and the role of women in Arab cul-
ture and history. A lot of women figures have been marginalised in
our history and in the historical discourses . . . This has to do with
re-interpreting history. One of the issues we all believe in is a cri-
tique of modernity. We believe the enlightenment paradigm was
imported by the intellectuals during the colonial period. That mod-
ernist paradigm was imported via British Victorianism and turned
out to be more conservative, a conservative modernity. So one of
the things we do is to go back in history to look at the status of
women even before the Ottoman Empire . . . We are interested in dis-
covering the role of women in the public sphere and in society. These
are medieval Islamic societies but we discovered gender mixing and
no segregation . . . We discovered women had a very interesting role
in the public sphere before the Victorian discourse and the discourses
of domesticity. So we want to re-interpret these discourses.12

For Dr Abu Bakr the articulation of an indigenous Islamic history in

which women have played an important role in politics and society is
a major part of diverse strands of Islamic feminisms. She also argued
that this view of women’s role in Islam is gaining popularity among a
generation of Egyptian women:

I see it as part of the agenda of Islamic feminism because it’s empow-

ering. Historical knowledge is empowering. So it’s one of the things
that Islamic feminists can work on if they come from a background
of history . . . I think many times we have felt that we have been suc-
cessful in reaching out to the younger generation. Whenever the
younger generation of women is acquainted with our activities and
164 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

ideas they are very attracted to our perspective and they get very
enthusiastic about it. I think that they find it’s an opportunity for that
in-between space. I mean in the middle of all these battling extreme
discourses like extreme secularism, extreme orientalism, extreme
state-sponsored feminism, extreme political Islam, we try to create
a space in-between.

The idea of creating a space ‘in-between’ the competing discourses of

orientalist-feminism and conservative Islamism, both of which degrade
Muslim women, is also articulated by Iranian women activists and is
an important part of the frameworks used by contemporary Islamic
feminists. Fakhri Mohtashamipour was executive manager of the Associ-
ation of Women Entrepreneurs and chair of the board of directors of the
Association of History and Women Researchers. She argued that artic-
ulating a dynamic interpretation of the history of women in Islam has
been a vital part of the Iranian women’s movement:

By studying the history of women in Islam we can find women in

different parts of Islamic history in positions of power as well as con-
tributing to the prosperity of the country. By finding these women,
we can argue about the importance of gender equality in Islam and
challenge those who want to discriminate against women and use
Islam for their beliefs. With historical examples, we can argue that
firstly women are able and secondly Islam acknowledges the ability
of women to participate in society as men’s equals. In those periods
where women were invisible, it was not because of Islam but was
because of a particular reading of Islam according to the rulers of that
period. All these have helped us change male domination in our soci-
ety and also given confidence to young researchers and students to
argue their case. It is difficult to measure our success. I may not be
able to give you any figures. But I can say that when they ask us to go
and discuss women in history in a place like Qom, a small religious
conservative city and many young women attend our meetings and
either sympathise or challenge us, this is a measure of our success.13

The struggle for gender equality also occurs in female-run Islamic wel-
fare and development NGOs in both countries. Islamic women activists
are concerned with welfare provision, political activism and challenging
dominant views of women’s roles in society. Zeinab Afifi, the leader of
an Islamic development and welfare NGO in Cairo, argued that her
organisation is committed to the aim of teaching women and men to
overcome traditional gender roles:
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 165

Many women think that man is like God and she accepts everything
from a man, good or bad because he is a man. This is not Islam. In
our Islam we are equal. So we have to change the mentality of women
and men . . . This is my Islam, this is what I believe. Flexibility between
men and women, husbands, brothers and sons is important. In our
culture the girls must marry, but maybe she doesn’t want to marry,
she wants her freedom . . . Both are good, it’s not the aim of life to get
married and have a husband and children. So my work as a woman
is not to have a baby or to serve my husband only.14

The statements of Dr Abu Bakr and other women I interviewed

demonstrate that women in Egypt and Iran struggle on many differ-
ent fronts and are part of a broader intellectual and political trend in
the region and beyond. In addition, the reform movement in Iran and
Egyptian movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood share a political
and intellectual heritage which dates back to the Islamic reformers of
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Over the last hundred years,
diverse forms of Islamisms, feminisms, nationalisms and leftisms have
influenced groups which converged and at times competed in social
movements. The history of these struggles and their ideas is very much
apparent in contemporary movements of both countries and forms the
basis of the strategies employed by them. Thus, rather than speaking of
new categories of social protest and social movements, I believe it is pos-
sible to discuss the diverse strategies employed by dynamic movements
in an ever-changing political context.

Dynamics of social movements, insurrections

and revolutions

One of the reasons social scientists are notoriously bad at predict-

ing revolutions is that it is impossible from the outset to distinguish
between insurrectionary and non-insurrectionary movements as all
of them have both reformist and revolutionary goals. Analysing the
Iranian revolution, the largest and most recent revolutionary uprising
in the region’s history prior to Egypt in 2011, is particularly important
in this context. I argue against two dominant views of the nature of the
Iranian revolution. The first assertion is that from its inception the rev-
olution was an insurrectionary movement aimed at overthrowing the
state, or in Gramscian terms a ‘war of manoeuvre’. Secondly, I ques-
tion the interpretation of the revolution as the triumph of Islamism,
in the sense that it was led by an insurrectionary clergy. Despite their
166 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

importance in countering the kinds of orientalist schema referred to

previously, both positions are problematic.
There is very little historical evidence, particularly for the latter
position. As I have outlined in Chapter 3, an Islamic movement did
exist in Iran in the 1960s and 1970s, despite low levels of public reli-
giosity. However, it was not led by the clergy. Indeed public support for
the Islamic movement was not connected to the religiosity of the public
but to the political leadership that was provided by a broad movement
of lay Islamists and a minority of the clergy at a time when leftist and
nationalist forces were either crushed by the shah or ineffective.
For over a century, Islamic reformists and diverse Islamic movements
in Iran have challenged the mainstream clergy’s quietism and support
of the state. The popularity of Khomeini, the ideas of Taleghani, lay
Islamists such as Shari‘ati and student groups of the 1970s such as the
Mojaheddin-e Khalq, lay in their opposition to the mainstream clergy,
not their identification with it. As Iranian journalist and writer Baqer
Moin argued, Khomeini’s political leadership after the revolution and
the establishment of the Islamic Republic was carried out in opposition
to the mainstream clergy. Indeed Moin argues that the main reason for
the ‘secularisation’ of the concept of vilayat-e faqih, which became syn-
onymous with political power and authority in the 1980s, was Ayatollah
Khomeini’s attempt to overrule the clergy:

If you think of power, you think of the power of man. That is a secu-
lar concept. What is not secular is the power of God. Once you give
into the power of man, it’s a secular concept. So he [Khomeini] abso-
lutely secularised the concept of vilayat-e faqih and clearly it was very
important. If you look at the Safavids and the Qajars, they all ruled
with the permission of the clergy. The Pahlavis tried to break that
and they were broken. I think Khomeini was afraid of the conserva-
tive clergy more than anyone else. If you look at the statements he
made towards the end of his life, Khomeini’s biggest enemy were the
clergy who didn’t want change.15

This challenges the view that the leadership of the clergy was a major
factor distinguishing the Iranian revolution from other movements. It
is also difficult to identify the Iranian revolution as an inherently insur-
rectionary movement. No revolution, including the Iranian movement
of 1978–9, begins as a unified movement with the aim of insurrec-
tion against the state.16 A brief history of the revolution shows that,
of the diverse groups that opposed the shah, the majority began with
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 167

economic or political demands that were limited and certainly did not
involve the overthrow of the state. The main demands of the revolution
were freedom from foreign domination, social justice and democracy,
not the removal of the shah. Reformist cleric Hasan Yousef Eshkevari
argues that the demands of the revolution were as follows:

The demands of the 1979 revolution were based on the ideas of

Muslim reformers: Freedom from dictatorship, national sovereignty
and freedom from foreign domination, justice (meaning social jus-
tice and economic and legal equal rights) and development (meaning
civil, economic, moral and scientific development).17

The revolution involved Islamic groups and leftist, nationalist and com-
munist groups with different strategies. The policy of the major secular
left group, the Fedayeen-e Khalq, was radical and aimed at overthrowing
the shah. Farokh Negahdar was a leader of the Fedayeen from the 1960s
to the 1980s. He argues that the strategies of the mainstream Islamic
movement were not seen by the state as being aimed at insurrection:

We [the Fedayeen] united almost everybody who was secular and

opposed to the shah’s government. When we went through the
revolutionary process between 1978 and 1979, almost everybody
who was a dissident was supporting us. But SAVAK [the secret police]
had a strategy which said that within these two groups of the oppo-
sition, the left and the Islamists, the major threat came from the
Fedayeen. If someone is able to overthrow the regime, these people
are the Fedayeen not the Islamists. This was a major mistake.18

In Iran, as in other countries which have experienced revolutions, the

intransigence and brutality of the state radicalised the social forces
which fought for change. It led to a growing realisation by the sum-
mer of 1978 that only the defeat of the shah could bring about the
demands of the revolution. By December 1978 the relationship between
the state and the movement had become a ‘zero-sum game’. It was in
this context that a diverse, non-unified, previously majority-reformist
movement overthrew the state.
The experience of the Iranian revolution shows how particular
reformist groups, as well as social and political movements which
employ reformist strategies, can become unified and employ revolu-
tionary strategies for change during times of crisis. The Gramscian
distinction between a war of position and manoeuvre, however useful,
168 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

should not be seen as either dichotomous or a deterministic formulation

in which the strategy of insurrection takes place after the ground has
been laid by a ‘war of position’. A war of position which can include
groups that organise on the periphery of the political system and a
war of manoeuvre in which groups directly challenge the state often
occur simultaneously in actual movements. This dialectic of reform and
revolution takes place particularly in situations where reformist organ-
isations struggle to reformulate strategies in increasingly revolutionary
situations. It is in this context that the relationship of movements with
the state and external forces becomes crucial in shaping the reformist
and revolutionary strategies of social movements.
The presence of both reformist and revolutionary elements in a
dynamic and changing political environment can be seen in the char-
acteristics of social movements in Egypt and Iran from the late 1990s
onwards. In the 1990s in both countries, Islamic movements drew
upon their rich history of political activism and social reformism to ori-
ent themselves towards building civil society within a broader strategy
of Islah or reformism. However, as I discuss in the following section,
state repression and the worsening economic situation led to a crisis of
reformism, and in some cases to a radicalisation and politicisation of the
movement.

Islah and civil society in the 1990s

Neo-liberal economic reform has had a major impact on the Egyptian

and Iranian states and the relationship between state and society.
Although it has had different effects in each case, there are some
important similarities. In both countries economic reform has produced
greater income disparity and alienation of the population from the
political system. This process has been particularly marked in Egypt
with high levels of poverty, unemployment and corruption contribut-
ing to the rise of mass movements among different sectors of society.
While levels of income disparity are lower in Iran, expectations of the
revolutionary state are higher, leading to increasing public anger and
discontent with government policies. In both cases the social classes
which have benefited from privatisation are bureaucrats, cronies tied
to the state, wealthy businessmen and military and security forces.
Neo-liberalism has consequently resulted in increased levels of state
repression and decreased levels of public participation. In both coun-
tries state legitimacy and democracy have been eroded. This is by
no means evidence of exceptionalism or ‘privatisation Middle-Eastern
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 169

style’. The erosion of democracy has taken place in many countries as

a consequence of neo-liberalism and authoritarianism has been crucial
in repressing popular opposition to economic reform. Therefore this
phenomenon reflects both regional and broader international trends.
The changing nature of the state also had an impact on the develop-
ment of movements and the nature of civil society in both countries.
In Egypt and Iran, NGOs and civil society organisations grew in the
1990s with a gradualist, reformist ideology that was not aimed at con-
fronting or challenging state power. Indeed, in both countries activists,
particularly from an Islamic perspective, have used the term Islah or
reform to describe their political projects. The interviews I conducted
in Egypt and Iran reveal that these activists perceived Islah as encom-
passing a process of gradual change in which democratic institutions
and civil society are built up and political participation is increased.
However, the growing socio-economic crisis and increasing authoritar-
ianism led, in some cases, to a re-thinking of this project in favour of
movements which directly challenge the power of the state. Interviews
I conducted with participants in the Iranian reform movement and
diverse Egyptian movements demonstrate how this change occurred
and how movements attempted to respond to the new challenges
presented by neo-liberal authoritarian states.
Although both Egypt and Iran are now neo-liberal states, the imple-
mentation of economic reform took a different course in each country.
Having been transformed into a virtual ‘puppet-regime’ by Sadat, Egypt,
alongside Chile, was the first country to undergo the ‘experiment’ of
economic reform. However, it was slowly and unevenly instituted by
Sadat and his successor Mubarak, due to Egypt’s close relationship with
the US and its strategic importance to Western countries. As Philippe
Droz-Vincent argues, while Washington was keen to create an export-
orientated economy in Egypt, this policy was overridden by its primary
aim of ensuring the survival and ‘stability’ of the pro-Western authori-
tarian state.19 Following major uprisings such as those in the late 1970s,
the Egyptian state would slow or suspend the process of privatisation
and removal of subsidies. This strategy was continued into the Mubarak
era. Neo-liberal reforms were intensified after 2004 when the new pri-
orities of the post-11 September period allowed the regime free rein to
ruthlessly crack down on its political opposition in the name of the ‘War
on Terror’.
Despite the slow and uneven pace of reform, many participants in
social movements from nationalist, leftist and Islamist backgrounds
agreed that economic reform has had a hugely negative impact on the
170 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

majority of the population of the country. Hala Shukrallah argued that

neo-liberal reforms have transformed the Egyptian economy by strip-
ping rights from employees and increasing low paid, casual or seasonal
employment in which workers have no security:

In the last ten years you’ve seen a real change in the composition
of the labour force. You have a much younger workforce and casual
labour working without contracts and in some cases with contracts
that they are not even allowed to see . . . The whole process of pri-
vatisation has really shown its character in Egypt . . . We are told your
comparative advantage is in cheap labour. What advantage? This
is our strength in the market? That we have no rights? That we
should not live? That we are slaves? It is as clear as that. We have
become a slave plantation. You are talking about labour that works
twelve hours a day with no vacations for something like 250 Egyptian
pounds a month [equivalent to less than US$2 per day]. This is slave
labour.20

However, the Egyptian people were not passive observers in this process.
Neo-liberalism also led to resistance and brought diverse social groups
together in opposition to the policies of the state:

In the last ten years social movements have increased because the
pressure has increased. The gap between the people and the gov-
ernment has become enormous and they are pushing them further
and further into complete desperation. There is no regard for their
existence; they are really keeping them at subsistence level. I don’t
know what kind of a government this is but it is really digging its
own grave. They are so sure and confident about their ability to con-
tinue like this because they have world powers who are protecting
them and who are willing for them to go on because they don’t want
an alternative that fights them. So everyone has become part of the
fight.21

The socio-economic and political changes engendered by neo-

liberalism in Egypt played a major role in uniting social movements
against the regime. In Iran the advent of neo-liberal economic reforms
took place in the early 1990s during the second phase of the post-
revolutionary Islamic Republic. In this phase many of the welfarist,
revolutionary and republican aspects of the Islamic state were eroded
and neo-liberal reforms were introduced. However, the implementation
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 171

of neo-liberal policies in Iran has also been secondary to the overall aim
of ensuring the survival of the state. The state has attempted to maintain
its identity as a revolutionary republic, from where it draws much of its
legitimacy, while implementing economic reforms. As a result, levels of
poverty continue to be low in the country, with only 5 per cent of the
population living on under $2 dollars a day compared to 43.9 per cent
in Egypt. Levels of education and social welfare are much higher in Iran
than in US-backed states such as Egypt. Iran has a literacy rate of 99 per
cent whereas almost 30 per cent of the Egyptian population is illiter-
ate. Women in Iran also have more rights than in many neighbouring
US-backed states. A classic ‘rentier state’, Iran is highly reliant on oil rev-
enues which can cause immense economic instability and vulnerability
to sanctions and other economic blockade measures taken by Western
countries. However, a far greater percentage of oil revenue is spent on
public programmes; a third is invested directly in the public sector and
a third is allocated for domestic use.22
The process of NGO-isation in the 1990s occurred as a result of the
state’s neo-liberal economic policies. In many countries NGOs stepped
in to fill the gap produced by the state’s withdrawal from providing ser-
vices in the areas of education, health and welfare. The mushrooming of
NGOs was also thought to have contributed to the strengthening of civil
society and the process of democratisation in countries which under-
took economic reform. Twenty years later, academics remain divided
on the role of NGO-isation and civil society in social movements and
democratisation. On the one hand, critics of the process of NGO-isation
argue that it decreased the ability of groups to mobilise in opposition
to state policy. On the other hand, the rise of civil society organi-
sations in Iran and the parallel Islamic sector in Egypt were seen as
evidence of increasing spaces of dissent. Islamic NGOs and development
organisations have contributed to the deligitimisation of the policies of
states by providing concrete examples of efficient Islamic social organ-
isation. In doing so, Bayat argues, they have created alternate cultural
and social subsystems.23
As a result of the state’s withdrawal from providing services and
its increasing authoritarianism the project of welfare provision in the
1990s was not an apolitical project but had become increasingly politi-
cised. A number of Muslim Brotherhood leaders and activists argued
that welfare provision was not only a religious duty of Muslims but
that it developed as a response to the inadequacy and corruption of
the Egyptian state. In this sense it was seen as a political endeav-
our. For example, in 2009, former president Mohamed Morsi argued
172 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

that while the regime provided some social help to the people, it was
not enough and was riddled with corruption. Interestingly, while he
acknowledged the increasing authoritarianism of the state, he argued
that it was contrary to a liberal economic framework:

You cannot mix two different theories or ideologies, an authoritarian

way of ruling, a liberal economy and a non-democratic govern-
ment . . . This is not development, this is throwing the people back
to two hundred years ago when the population was five million and
now it’s eighty million.24

While Morsi’s formulation lets neo-liberalism off the hook, other

senior figures in the Brotherhood were not so positive about its results.
Dr Gamal Nassar argued that the organisation’s welfare provision came
about in response to the socio-economic crisis caused by neo-liberal
policies, stating:

The government is not performing the role it should be. It neglects its
role and there are extreme shortages in the services provided. There
is high unemployment and high inflation. Generally speaking, the
people are complaining. Of course, the Muslim Brotherhood cannot
fully render these services because as stated earlier they are hindered
by this restrictive government from doing so. However, they try as
much as possible to help the people.25

Other activists in the organisation argued that welfare provision is an

important part of the project of Islah or reform/revitalisation of society,
which has been part of the organisation’s aims since its inception in
1928. However, Islah has a political dimension as well, enabling social
movements and civil society organisations the space and operational
freedom to carry out social reforms. Mustafa Radwan was a young
activist and editor of Ikhwan Web. He argued that in his opinion, Islah
entails not just welfare but fighting for political freedoms:

The goal of the Muslim Brotherhood in the political realm is Islah

and the revitalisation of society. Real Islah for the Muslim Brother-
hood revolves around a number of issues. First the issue of freedoms
in general: by this we mean the freedom of expression, the freedom to
protest, the freedom to form political parties and civil society organ-
isations. If we are able to create such freedoms we will be able to
change the status quo because by changing political life first we can
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 173

then move on to create change in other realms as well. Thus political

change is a central point which we focus on because from there a
number of changes can take place in the other realms of society. For
example, if we really produce a political change (Islah) we will be
able to put in place a better education system which would encour-
age talent, research and development. With a better political system
we would not have problems of corruption and we would not have a
political system which imposes things on society.26

Another young Muslim Brotherhood activist argued that NGOs became

the only area of life in which political expression was possible under
Mubarak due to the authoritarian nature of the state:

The institutions of the government do not fulfil their role in pro-

viding for the needs of society, that is why society tries to look for
alternatives. Additionally political life is suffocating and you are pre-
vented from participating in the political administration of your local
street or alley even. This is why many people turn to NGOs in order
to find other channels.27

However, he also argued that without political change the gradual-

ist project of Islah and the growth of civil society would always be
hampered by the state:

If civil society organisations reach a certain level of success, they are

opposed by the government. Others are restricted to certain fields
where they will not gain a lot of popularity and success.28

NGO activists and leaders of Islamic welfare and development organ-

isations in Egypt were also critical of the operations of NGOs in that
country. Some of these diverse organisations are run by individuals who
define themselves as Islamist but are not associated with any particu-
lar group or political tendency. However, many were organised by the
Muslim Brotherhood which led the parallel Islamic sector. As discussed
above, Dr Omaima Abu Bakr identifies herself as an ‘Islamic feminist’
and is one of the leaders of the Women and Memory Forum, a women’s
rights NGO, which works on the subject of gender rights in Islam. She
described the work of women’s NGOs in Egypt:

There are lots of women’s NGOs in Egypt in Cairo or in Upper

Egypt and they do very good work. They work on literacy, they
174 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

work on poverty and they work on female circumcision and wife

battery – the real grassroots issues in Egypt – as much as their funds
allow them. Women activists in most of these NGOs are also part of
social movements. These will be the same women’s activists who par-
ticipate in any social movement, particularly when there is an issue
or campaign; they try to lobby and campaign on these issues.29

Despite the many achievements of NGOs and women’s organisations,

Dr Abu Bakr argued that they were not able to counter the negative
effects of neo-liberalism and the withdrawal of the state from provid-
ing services. Instead they found themselves repressed by an increasingly
authoritarian government:

The growth world-wide of civil society was part of the neo-liberal

philosophy. They [the government] encourage NGO-isation but at
the same time they create obstacles for you when you want to be
too independent. The downside is that NGO-isation encouraged the
state to let go. In terms of medical care, social security – the basic
needs of Egyptian citizens. This is the minimum responsibility of the
state. Socially and economically and educationally they let go but
politically they became more repressive. It was supposed to be the
opposite!30

These interviews demonstrate that in Egypt neo-liberalism did not

lead to a withdrawal of the state from the arena of politics, although
it did roll back the provision of services. Indeed after the late 1990s the
state became more authoritarian, repressing civil society, Islamic devel-
opment and welfare organisations, which led to some of these becoming
politicised. In other cases more radical groups emerged which directly
countered the policy of the state.
In Iran the process of NGO-isation occurred during the second phase
of the Islamic Republic, as did the implementation of neo-liberal eco-
nomic reforms. Baqer Moin claimed that at first the aim was to reduce
the presence of the state in the realm of economics:

Civil society started economically by trying to reduce the state. They

succeeded to an extent but the beginning of real civil society after the
revolution was primarily with Khatami.31

He argued that critics of the Islamic Republic emerged during this period
with demands that the role of the state in society should also be reduced.
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 175

The withdrawal of the state enabled the opposition to mount a powerful

argument against the institutions of the vilayat-e faqih and in support of
popular participation and the republican institutions.
Eisa Saharkhiz is a prominent Iranian Islamic reformist and journalist.
He contended that reformists supported privatisation as theoretically it
meant a reduced role for the state and increased participation. However,
in reality, political elites tied to the state, particularly in the military and
security sector, benefited from privatisation:

The reform movement encouraged the idea that the state should be
small in terms of bureaucracy. Privatisation was encouraged. The idea
was to encourage people to participate in economic affairs. Not for
those who are in positions of power within the state to become the
owners of capital in the name of privatisation. After the suppres-
sion and decline of the reform movement, the army and other state
institutions became the owners of capital.32

In both Egypt and Iran the pace of economic reform increased dra-
matically in the first decade of the twenty-first century. As a result
of privatisation and the rolling back of welfare programmes the gap
between rich and poor in Iran has grown. Although it is not yet as large
as that of pre-revolutionary Iran or contemporary Egypt, the growth
of income disparity has been a major factor in undermining the legit-
imacy of the state. Baqer Moin argued that since the 1990s the state
has empowered an elite in Iranian society. This was a reversal of the
policies of Ayatollah Khomeini and the revolutionary republic in the
1980s:

Rafsanjani tried to open up the system to a much more technocratic

and somehow elite democracy rather than a popular democracy but
he couldn’t build up the base for what he wanted to do. He didn’t
set up a strong political party because he had much more of an
elite base. He thought you get good technocrats, good businessmen
and then things move forward. At the lower level they didn’t do
much mobilisation and translation of that mobilisation into party
politics. It was elite politics. So Khomeinism in a sense, ideological
Khomeinism, was dormant in the period of Rafsanjani.33

Economic reform also undermined the reform movement in Iran as

neo-liberal policies were carried out both by Rafsanjani and by the
reformist President Khatami. This led to a crisis for the reformists in
176 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

2004–5 and contributed to the election of President Ahmadinejad who,

despite promises to address income disparity continued the policies
of the free market. Moin argues that the election of Ahmadinejad in
2005 was in many ways a protest against the increasing corruption and
income disparity which resulted from the policies of Rafsanjani and
Khatami:

What happened after Khatami was that there was an attempt to

do away with the elite altogether, to remove the elite that were
empowered by Rafsanjani economically and by Khatami politically.
Rafsanjani was a rich man before the revolution but [before the 2005
election] one of his sons was accused of corruption. That was spread
around by Ahmadinejad’s government itself in order to undermine
the strength of the reformists which naturally had an impact.34

Although neo-liberal reforms in Egypt and Iran were implemented in

very different contexts, in both countries they have had the effect of
delegitimising the state. They also shaped the political and economic
context in which civil society and movements for change have devel-
oped. Instead of empowering civil society, the process of neo-liberalism
in Iran and Egypt led to the enrichment of a minority elite within
society that was connected to the state and the military and security
services. In addition to the negative economic impact of neo-liberalism
on society, this was one of the factors which allowed a conservative fac-
tion to regroup and launch an attack on the reform movement in Iran
after 2005. Baqer Moin stated:

That gave the conservatives time to regroup, to go for the jugular

and they brought in Ahmadinejad. I think from now on, in my
view, the civil societies that we have got in Iran in terms of writ-
ers, unions, feminists, film makers, women’s organisations and youth
organisations are going to be under threat and under pressure.35

However, in Iran, as in Egypt, the impact of neo-liberalism and the

limitations of civil society led some to turn to more militant action.
Eisa Saharkhiz argued that this was due to the fact that President
Ahmadinejad continued the policies of privatisation while repressing
popular participation:

In Ahmadinejad’s period the process of privatisation is continuing

but not in the interest of the poor and ordinary people. A few
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 177

powerful people are becoming economically and politically more

powerful. The same people who are in the government and other
institutions have become the owners of capital. Ordinary people are
excluded from being the owners of capital. Different sections of the
armed forces are the owners of banks.36

Strategies of new social movements 2009–2011

Social movements are dynamic and pursue a variety of strategies for

change in the face of increasing authoritarianism. Researchers of social
movement theory (SMT) in Western countries have focused on the civil
rights movement, the women’s movement and the anti-war movements
of the 1970s. Within such organisations there tends to be great diversity
and although dynamic and charismatic figureheads emerge, leadership
also tends to be fluid and non-homogeneous. The civil rights move-
ment, for example, brought to prominence reformist Martin Luther
King Jnr and radical ideologue Malcolm X, while the militant Black
Panthers were led by Huey P. Newton. More radical groups and lead-
ers argued that in order to achieve the aim of civil rights, the power of
the state, which supported the entrenched system of racism in America,
needed to be confronted.
Social movements in the Middle East have arisen in specific contexts.
In this book I have argued that neo-liberal reforms led to increased
levels of authoritarianism in Egypt and Iran. This context created an
increasingly difficult situation in which movements attempted to oper-
ate. A number of authors have focused on the way in which informal
networks and non-movements come to dominate forms of contentious
politics under increasingly authoritarian regimes. Their analyses have
been important in deepening our conception of the nature of polit-
ical struggle and in countering notions of political passivity which
have come to dominate the ‘political culture’ approach. However, while
authoritarianism can lead to the failure of social movements and the
emergence of non-movements it can also result in the adoption of
more radical strategies for transformative social change. Egyptian and
Iranian social movements in the 1990s began as gradualist and reformist
movements with limited aims. However, in the context of increasing
repression in both countries, more radical movements emerged which
challenged the authority of the state itself.
The labour movement has been an important part of this
radicalisation. One Egyptian activist I interviewed argued that in some
areas, such as in workers’ syndicates, a more militant movement arose
178 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

after 2004 which made direct demands on the state and challenged the
‘moral economy’ approach of the Muslim Brotherhood:

Prior to 2004/2005 workers’ syndicates were mainly concerned with

charity and social services. With the rise of social and protest move-
ments, workers’ syndicates became interested in political issues: in
the workers themselves, in their financial rights, in working hours,
and in other more general rights. I will give you an example from
my personal experience. One of my acquaintances from the Muslim
Brotherhood was the president of the syndicate committee in the
factory where he works. I have personally seen his transformation.
Up until 2002 the committee was concerned with issues such as
organising Umra [a sort of pilgrimage], recreational activities, charity
activities, financial donations, etc. Starting in 2002 there was a shift
in the concerns of the committee as it started paying more attention
to issues such as individual rights within the factory. They went on
strike and were able to obtain the rights they were demanding.37

The green movement in Iran, despite being heavily repressed after

2009, also represented an increasing radicalisation of a movement some-
what disillusioned with the reformist experience of the 1990s. Ata’ollah
Mohajerani was vice-president and minister of culture and Islamic guid-
ance during the administration of President Khatami. He argued that
the economic and political crisis of the current leadership of the Islamic
Republic formed the context for the emergence of the green movement.
In his view this movement went further than previous social move-
ments and civil society in the 1990s. It began, he argued, by opposing
the results of the disputed presidential election but ‘took a new step by
opposing vilayat-e faqih and despotism’.38
Prominent Iranian Islamic reformist intellectual Abdolkarim Soroush
argued that for this reason the green movement was a turning point in
the history of the Islamic Republic:

It was a watershed. It was something that was unprecedented in

the whole history of the revolution. It was the creation and the
emergence of a new alternative to the Islamic government.39

Baqer Moin contended that the crisis following the disputed elections
of June 2009 has also revealed disunity at the heart of the Iranian state
and led to the articulation of demands for democracy and social and
political equality by a politicised and radicalised generation:
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 179

It shows the cracks and the disunity and the alienation of the con-
stituents of the Islamic Republic. It’s the first time that this has come
about. During Bani Sadr’s government [after the revolution], that was
another period in which we had this type of disunity. But the Bani
Sadr period was soon healed because Khomeini was around and his
ability to arbitrate and bring in all groups was enormous. This time
the cracks are at the very, very top. It’s political, it’s social and it’s
economic. And it’s serious. [After the revolution] there was lots of
debate about hukumat-e Islami, [whether to have an] Islamic demo-
cratic republic or just a republic. The division that was created in
1979 was papered over with the constitution but it is coming into
the open again. People are questioning again and they are searching
for an answer. They have cowed some people into submission but
once they are given a chance, they will come again. The young have
been politicised by the June election and the protests.40

The current political context in both countries is dominated by a

political and economic crisis which has been brought about by the
introduction of neo-liberal policies and increasing authoritarianism.
Reformism is by far the most popular of any political strategy in the
region and for the last twenty years it has been articulated by large main-
stream Islamic organisations and movements. However, mainstream
reformist movements in both countries have found it difficult to for-
mulate strategies to harness the growing frustration and anger of the
population. For this reason, both countries have witnessed not the rise
of ‘refo-lutions’ but the crisis of reformism. This has raised the question
in both countries of whether gradualist and reformist strategies are still
possible or whether more radical strategies which aim at a fundamental
transformation of the social, economic and political power structures
are necessary. The context in which this debate takes place is shaped
by the nature of the state and most crucially by the actions of external
forces.

External forces

External forces, particularly the Western powers, have played a major

role in state formation and have transformed the economic and political
structures of Arab and Muslim countries. Contemporary movements in
the region have responded to the socio-economic crises and political
dislocations brought about by imperialism by opposing war, conflict,
political and economic domination and the continuing occupation of
180 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

Palestinian land by Israel. The invasions and occupations of Iraq and

Afghanistan and threats of war against Iran have contributed to increas-
ing turmoil in the region. In addition, the nature of contemporary
capitalism, which is dominated by the ideology of neo-liberalism, has
produced increasing global inequalities in a world economic system in
which the economies of developing countries are dominated by cor-
porations originating in the wealthy nations of the West. However, few
studies have considered the impact of external forces and the experience
of contemporary imperialism on the nature, rise and development of
social movements in the region. Thus, the remainder of this chapter will
focus on this subject with regard to Egypt and Iran. In particular, I will
analyse whether the role of external forces in the region has weakened
social movements and democracy.
US foreign policy in the region has been geared towards the support
of US-friendly authoritarian regimes and Israel. In practice this policy
has meant the repression of political and social movements, particularly
those which have an Islamic character. The advent of the War on Terror
also revitalised the use of Islamophobic discourses which posit Muslim
societies as backward and anti-modern and have been utilised histor-
ically in order to justify the colonial occupation of Arab and Muslim
societies. In the War on Terror mainstream reformist Islamic groups
such as the Muslim Brotherhood were targeted and Egypt, along with
other countries, saw an assault on democracy, human rights and free-
dom of speech and organisation. In contrast, Iran is independent of the
US and is seen as having a foreign policy which opposes US interests.
However, the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the build-up of
US troops and bases in the region created a climate in which the govern-
ment was able to crack down on the reform movement in the name of
national security. Therefore heightened state repression, securitisation
and authoritarianism in both countries can be seen as a consequence of
the actions of the US and its allies in the decade following 2001. This has
created a very difficult environment for movements for change, reform,
women’s rights and democracy.
Ibrahim El Houdaiby is an Islamist activist and writer who argued that
US foreign policy in the region has, in the guise of ‘bringing democracy’,
followed a short-sighted policy of strengthening authoritarianism:

Of course the Americans should have an interest in democratisation.

They should have. But they are betraying this by supporting dictators
in the region for short-sighted and short-term political gains. And
this is very dangerous. They fear that if they support free elections a
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 181

group will be elected which does not adhere to the American foreign
policy agenda and this is what will happen in Egypt . . . Of course they
[movements] will not be uncritical of the US’s role in the region but
[free elections] would serve mutual interests in so many ways.41

A young Muslim Brotherhood activist similarly argued that the US

acts out of self-interest in preserving dictatorships in the region and
supporting Israel:

I believe that America’s intrusion in the region is motivated by self-

interest. I mean just look at what it is doing today in Iraq. I do not
believe that America has an agenda of democracy and freedom. If it
was really interested in freedom, it would not allow Israel to fight
Hamas because Hamas gained power through elections. It would not
have allowed Israel to surround the Gaza strip and it would not wage
a war on Hamas’s legitimacy in the area. I believe that you either
believe in freedom and democracy fully or you do not. You can-
not use the ‘freedom’ agenda whenever it suits your interests and
abandon it when it does not.42

It is sometimes asserted that one of the features of post-Islamism in

Iran has been its unwillingness to become involved in anti-imperialist
and anti-Zionist struggles, an ideological orientation which is identified
primarily with Islamism.43 However, my research revealed that anti-
imperialism and anti-Zionist activism in social movements does not
arise out of an innate conflict between Islamic groups and Western
foreign policy. Participants in Islamist movements in both Egypt and
Iran opposed the idea of a clash between the West and Islam. Indeed
activists with Islamist orientations were often less radical in opposing
imperialism and Zionism than those with nationalist or leftist orien-
tations. Historically, leftist and nationalist groups have been at the
forefront of opposing imperialism and Zionism, some in much more
radical ways than contemporary social movements and groups which
have an Islamist orientation. Conversely several Islamist regimes are
strong advocates of US foreign policy in the region.
Islamic groups and movements do not therefore have an innate
propensity for militancy, anti-imperialism and anti-Zionism. Indeed the
interviews I conducted with participants in movements in Iran and
Egypt demonstrate that both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian
reform movement have sought a moderate and reformist position with
regard to the US and Israel. In Egypt, prior to 2011, members of
182 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

mainstream reformist Islamic organisations proclaimed the example of

the Justice and Development Party in Turkey as a model of a non-
radical Islamism which is compatible with secularism and membership
of international organisations such as NATO. In Iran, a range of political
activists from different groups have called for the ending of sanctions
and threats of war against the country and for a ‘dialogue of civilisations’
with the West.
Mustafa Radwan who was editor of Ikhwan Web, commented on the
role of Turkey and the example of the ‘Turkish model’ for Egypt’s
Islamists:

I look at the Turkish example as a wonderful development under

the circumstances. These circumstances include the complete secu-
larisation of society under a dictatorship. Turkey is a society which
fights religion. However, one can say that under such circumstances,
the ruling party in Turkey has succeeded in providing a good exam-
ple of an administration successful in dealing with Turkish society.
It has provided justice and development and indicates that Islamic
movements can reach power.44

However, despite being a good model for Turkey, Mustafa was unsure
whether the same model could be applied in Egypt due to the presence
of different economic and political circumstances:

In Egypt the situation is different . . . You see we are not a demo-

cratic system but at the same time we are not a complete dictator-
ship. We claim to be a capitalist country but we have only adopted
the negative sides of capitalism. Thus our circumstances are very
different . . . One of the negative points about the current Turkish
government is its dealings with the state of Israel. Turkey has both
military and economic ties with Israel. The recent events in Gaza
have damaged the relationship between Turkey and Israel and have
created a severe crisis between them despite the fact that Turkey
played the role of mediator between Israel and Syria before the attacks
on Gaza. However, I do not see any problems with Turkey joining the
European Union. According to the Turkish system, joining the EU
will be beneficial to the economy and there is absolutely nothing
wrong with this. Regarding NATO, I believe that as long as joining
this alliance and working with it serves the interests of Turkey then
there is absolutely nothing wrong with it as long as this alliance is
used for the protection of Turkey alone and not for the invasion of
other countries.45
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 183

This is evidence of the desire of mainstream Islamic activists to find an

‘in-between’ position in relation to foreign policy that is neither mili-
tant nor a concession to Western domination of the region. However,
the articulation of this form of politics throughout 2009–11 was put
under immense strain by the humanitarian crisis caused by the policies
of the US and Israel in the region. This does not denote any presumed
innate radicalism or anti-Westernism on the part of Islamic organisa-
tions. It does, however, denote the extent of the crisis that the policies of
the US and Israel have created in counties such as Egypt. An anonymous
participant in social movements whom I interviewed in Cairo summed
up the differences between Turkey and Egypt in the following way:

The Turkish example is an example of success – it is a movement that

was able to come to power but at a huge price. The difference between
Turkey and Egypt in terms of Islamic movements is the social base.
In Turkey there is a very large successful small business class that is
mainly exporters to the European Union – they pushed the move-
ment in this direction. In Egypt the base is much, much poorer,
we don’t have this wide-scale Islamic business class so the base is
extremely poor and sees no advantages whatsoever in making these
concessions. So there is a difference in the social base that makes it
very difficult for them [the Muslim Brotherhood] to take this line.

It was not the innate character of Egyptian Islamism but rather the
impact of neo-liberalism and imperialism that formed the strategies used
by Islamic groups. Despite the reformism of its leadership, the popular
Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt was radicalised and politicised
by the actions of external forces. Imperialism has made the political
environment more difficult for social movements. However, it has also
encouraged resistance to undemocratic regimes. Dr Amany Abu Fadl was
an academic and a leading member of the Muslim Sisters in Egypt. She
argued that external forces, the occupation of Palestine and the policies
of Western governments towards Egypt spurred movements, whether
Islamic or non-Islamic, to oppose the state:

The external factors have a strong impact on the different move-

ments in Egypt, either Islamic or non-Islamic. A great part of our
Islamic discourse is devoted to the Palestinian cause and the unfair
attitude of the world community towards it under the pressure of
the Zionist lobbies everywhere. Also, the aggressive policies of the US
towards the Islamic peoples of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan
are a motivation for Islamic movements in Egypt and their platforms
184 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

of action. As for the Muslim Brotherhood, they have many of their

leaders in prison on the pretext of logistic and financial aid to the
Palestinian resistance.46

Tarek Mustafa was a leading member of the Independent Union of

Tax Collectors in Giza. In an interview I conducted with him and other
unionists in Cairo in 2009, he contended that external forces have
had a huge impact on repressing movements such as the trade union
organisations:

The US support of the dictatorship here and others in the region

affects us very much. I make a contrast to Iran which is in opposition
to the US and here, where the US supports the government, so there
has been complete silence on what happens with unions. We are for
the right to life wherever that may be and we are part of a workers’
movement across the globe. It will take us a long time to convince
other workers that we as Arabs and majority Muslims can be part of
this worldwide movement. And we are supportive of any rights in all
other countries because we are part of this international movement.
We want to communicate to the world that we are not different; we
are humans like everyone else. If there are differences between East
and West, we are not responsible for them. It is governments that are
responsible, both Western and Eastern governments.47

Tarek, alongside other unionists, stressed that opposition to US foreign

policy did not mean opposition to the US, the West or to Christianity
and argued that workers’ organisations and non-state actors should
unite and have dialogue:

As workers we should unite with people elsewhere. If these means of

communication are open with the Western world then these kinds of
attacks on Iraq and Palestine could be avoided. Then there could be
open dialogue.48

Unionist Adel Qader Nada agreed that a distinction exists between

people and governments. While progressive social movements such as
unions wish to have dialogue with organisations in other parts of the
world, he argued that democracy could not be brought from outside by
the military or aid interventions of Western governments. In an inter-
view I conducted with him in Cairo in 2009 he argued that Obama’s talk
of change in the region was seen as ‘a joke’ and a continuation of the
policy of Bush in Iraq where there is a saying: ‘Saddam’s hell was better
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 185

than Bush’s heaven.’ Therefore he argued that any change would have
to occur through pressure from people, non-governmental organisations
and social movements.49
Rather than seeing anti-imperialism as opposed to the struggle for
democracy and women’s rights, what was striking about the diverse
interviewees was their insistence on creating an ‘in-between’ space. This
entailed opposing the rhetoric and policies of Western governments,
authoritarian states and conservatives within their own societies. How-
ever, activists argued that this task was being made much more difficult
by the policies of the US and Israel and the discourse of Islamophobia.
Women’s groups and others are at the forefront of opposing the rhetoric
and polices of conservative Islamists in Egypt, much of which was
adopted by the Mubarak regime in order to serve as a bulwark against
the growing popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood. Islamic feminist
author and activist, Dr Omaima Abu Bakr, maintained in an interview
I conducted with her in Cairo that the dependence of the country on
the US has served to strengthen the position of conservative Islamists
which, as an Islamic feminist, she opposes:

It’s a pattern, it’s a paradigm . . . The more you are attacked the more
you have the conservative Islamist reaction. Along with that secular-
ist, orientalist attack, you find another current rising as a defence,
saying you’ve defeated us in all aspects, our economy, our political
independence, our culture. Now we dress like you, we eat like you,
we think like you, you’ve changed everything. Women become an
icon of non-changeability and the last bastion in our defense against
external threats. So the situation becomes stagnant, women and the
family become the last bastion and so it becomes very difficult to try
to reform.50

Islamic feminists and reformers in Iran similarly argued that the US’s
hostility towards Iran, the imposition of sanctions and threats of
war strengthened the conservatives and allowed the government of
Ahmadinejad to portray the reform movement as pro-Western. Shahla
Sherkat was editor of Zanan (Women) Magazine. She argued that pres-
sures from outside Iran affect the women’s movement and democracy
movement:

I believe that pressures from outside always have a negative impact

on us. The more they put pressure on us, the more the conservatives
become stronger. Wars and conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have
united people in Iran against foreign intervention.51
186 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

In this very difficult environment, Egyptian and Iranian partici-

pants in movements articulated criticisms of Western foreign policy,
Islamophobia and the discourse of conservative Islamists. Jamileh
Kadivar was a lecturer at Al-Zahra University, a political scientist and
gender and Islam specialist. She argues:

The West has a negative view of Iran including women’s issues in

Iran. The reality is that women’s situation in Iran is better than in
the region and better than during the shah. Women in Iran do not
believe that change should come from outside. They believe that
they have to do it themselves, even if it is a hard and long path . . .
Our society is Islamic. We have to concentrate on the positive side of
Islam and try to publicise this positive side. We can lobby the author-
ities on these issues so that we can change women’s issues. We can
also approach ordinary people and discuss with them how certain
laws and regulations are damaging to their lives as men and women
and how they can be changed . . . I have written about the issue of why
women cannot be judges and I argue that nowhere in the Qur’an and
the Hadith does it say that women cannot work as judges . . . We need
to be brave enough to challenge the conservative male clergy.52

Similarly, journalist and publisher Eisa Saharkhiz stated that the

majority of Iranian reformists, having witnessed the destruction of
Afghanistan and Iraq, were convinced that democracy and reform can
only come from within the country:

The attack on Iran existed before the 9/11 attacks in America. After
9/11 attention went to Afghanistan and Iraq, then came the sec-
ond [round of] threats from the USA and the West. In Iran at first
there were a few who thought that after the Taliban and Saddam
Hussein, democracy would be achieved for the Afghans and Iraqis.
But very soon they realised that this was not the case, especially under
the reformist government they realised that democracy had to come
from within and by themselves. Now these days under Ahmadinejad
the idea that democracy must come from within and by the people
themselves is very strong, especially with the worsening situation in
Afghanistan and Iraq. Many politicians of the reform movement have
realised that they cannot remain in power without the support of the
grassroots and civil society organisations. The civil society organisa-
tions have also realised that they cannot go forward without a degree
of political freedom.53
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 187

Despite facing many obstacles, in the first decade of the twenty-first

century social movements mobilised millions in opposition to regimes
that were supported by the US, as was the regime of Hosni Mubarak in
Egypt, and against regimes with an anti-imperialist and anti-US rhetoric,
such as those in Iran and Syria. Activists in movements opposed both
the policies of governments and the strategy of imposing democracy
through military and aid interventions which have weakened progres-
sive movements for change. Instead, movements have articulated their
own strategies to reform and democratise their societies. Whether this
entailed confronting authoritarian and neo-liberal states or adopting
policies that sought to reconcile elements of the neo-liberal agenda with
reformism, participants in movements have consistently argued that
change cannot be imposed from outside but must be achieved through
struggle from below.

After 2011 – the different outcomes of political struggle

In this book I have argued that in response to the failures and limitations
of civil society and reformist strategies, the growing political and eco-
nomic crisis caused by neo-liberalism and the actions of external powers,
new movements arose in both Egypt and Iran that sought to challenge
the legitimacy of the state. In Egypt a radicalised labour movement was
particularly vital in bringing down the government of Hosni Mubarak.
After the January–February 2011 uprisings, those who fought in and
supported the revolution were dismayed to find business as usual being
conducted by the military elites of SCAF. It was not surprising then,
that popular resistance continued and grew during this period despite
increasing state repression. This popular resistance was characterised by
some as a split between secular and religious forces which had taken part
in the overthrow of Mubarak. However, as I have discussed in Chapter
6, in reality many supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, especially its
young members, were disillusioned with the party’s policies in power.
The popular movement against Morsi’s government culminated in the
second uprising of June 2013. Significantly, this movement was dis-
missed by many in the West as a coup and sectarian conflict, but in
terms of numbers it was much larger than that of 2011, signifying a
deepening and further radicalisation of the movement. Indeed rather
than being seen as two distinct uprisings, the events of 2011 and 2013
can be seen as an ongoing revolutionary struggle in Egypt against the
economic and foreign policies which have caused devastation in the
country and in the region as a whole. For this reason, Morsi’s embracing
188 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

of neo-liberal economic policies, similar to the Islamic reformist move-

ment in Iran, his open letter to the Israeli president and re-arming of
the border between Gaza and Egypt can be seen as directly contribut-
ing to his downfall. Morsi betrayed even the most reformist goals of the
Muslim Brotherhood, who, despite opposing direct confrontation with
the state, had argued consistently for a change in economic and foreign
policy since the 1990s.
Despite widespread repression of the popular movement after the
downfall of Morsi, it is important to note that opposition to General
al-Sisi and the dominance of the armed forces continues in the coun-
try. This is in spite of great efforts by the new civilian government and
its military backers to justify the massacring of Brotherhood members
and supporters in the name of countering an Islamic take-over. The
continued uprising in Egypt is not evidence, therefore, of the end of
the Egyptian experiment with democracy or of the notion that Arabs
are unfamiliar with or don’t know how to ‘do’ democracy. Quite the
opposite – increasing radicalisation of the movement and social forces
has led to two years of revolution against the status quo in the country,
a testament to the strength of will and courage of political activists in
that country from both secular and religious backgrounds.
However, in Iran, the reform movement, heavily repressed after the
rise of the green movement in 2009, remains divided on tactics. This
is in part a legacy of the experience of the reformists in power in the
1990s and their embracing of neo-liberal economic policies which did
not benefit the majority of the population. Despite widespread disillu-
sionment with the policies of the government of Ahmadinejad from
2005–13, there were limits to how much the reformists could be seen as
a viable political alternative, even if they had not in fact been heavily
repressed by the new conservatives in power. The issue of foreign inter-
ference also played a major role in Iranian politics with military threats
against the country and the damaging effects of sanctions serving to
strengthen the government’s legitimacy, in some respects. However, the
demobilisation of the movement on the streets could not itself hide the
increasing crisis of the state, particularly as cracks in the already paper-
thin conservative coalition between Ahmadinejad and the Supreme
Leader Khamenei started to show after 2009 leading to several very
public disputes between different sectors of the state.
Despite increasing public dissatisfaction and the state crisis, Iran did
not witness the growth of a radical movement after 2009. Instead an
electoral strategy was pursued in which a broad coalition of reformists,
many of whom were in power during the 1990s, aimed for the limited
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 189

goal of removing Ahmadinejad’s faction from power and replacing it

with a more reformist candidate. The fact that this strategy was success-
ful demonstrates that analyses that paint a picture of Iran as a military
dictatorship, authoritarian state or simple theocracy are limited. The
strategies available to the political opposition in Iran provided the pop-
ulation with a president who would pursue some popular reformist pro-
grammes, particularly in relation to social policy and foreign policy, but
who would also not threaten the survival of the political system in Iran.

Conclusion

In this chapter I have argued that the contemporary context in

which social movements develop and articulate dynamic strategies for
political, economic and social reform is dominated by neo-liberalism,
authoritarianism and imperialism. These factors have been overlooked
in many studies of movements which focus solely on their internal
workings and which treat ideology and strategy as somehow innate.
In opposition to this, I have argued for an analysis which places the
political, economic and social context at the heart of any examination
of the changing strategies that movements adopt. Neo-liberalism has
been implemented in different ways and has had different effects in
Egypt and Iran. However, in both countries neo-liberal reforms have
removed protections from workers and increased poverty, unemploy-
ment and income disparity. They have not led to smaller states but
more authoritarian, more securitised and more coercive states, as the
‘social contract’ between the state and the populace has been under-
mined. The experience of contemporary imperialism has also produced
exactly the same situation. Despite the rhetoric of democratisation, the
foreign policy of the US and its allies has supported authoritarian pro-
US friendly states while threats of war and the imposition of sanctions
on Iran have strengthened the ability of its state to crack down on
reform movements.
Contrary to analyses which argue that Islamic movements in the
region are innately radical and opposed to the West, I have argued
that participants in social movements in Egypt and Iran are not anti-
Western, despite their criticisms of the policies of the US and Israel.
Indeed throughout the 1990s Islamic groups, not only in Iran but also
in Egypt, articulated a moderate, gradualist and reformist position based
on the concept of Islah. However, the political and economic crises that
these countries and the region as a whole have experienced in the last
decade have put this strategy under greater and greater strain.
190 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

The limits of NGO-isation and the weakness of civil society when con-
fronted with state repression have been demonstrated in both Egypt and
Iran after 2004–5. The crisis of civil society has also been, on a deeper
level, a crisis of reformism. Despite the fact that the majority of people
in the region support reformist organisations and do not call for the vio-
lent overthrow of states, the question of whether reformism as a strategy
can be effective in producing change has arisen, as have more radical
movements. In both countries imperialism and neo-liberalism have
thus dominated the environment in which contemporary movements
have arisen and developed. This context has shaped the trajectories
of movements and their strategies. Despite facing immense pressures,
movements in both countries continue to try to find a middle ground,
a space where they can oppose imperialist domination and fight for
reform and democracy. Women’s movements in Egypt and Iran have
argued against Western liberation and conservative Islamism. Reform
movements, women’s movements, democracy movements and work-
ers’ movements have criticised the policies of Western governments
and argued that democracy can only be brought about from within.
Participants in social movements also see their struggles as being inti-
mately connected, not separate from each other. The environment in
which they continue to press for greater social, economic and political
change in their countries will be shaped by the policies of external forces
and the nature of the state.
The differences in terms of outcome for the movements in Iran and
Egypt are stark. In one country a radicalising two years of revolution-
ary struggle took place despite increasing state repression. In the other
an electoral strategy was successful in reforming but not directly chal-
lenging the legitimacy of the state. A major difference between the two
countries has been the absence of an organised labour movement in
Iran, despite deep public dissatisfaction with the economic policies of
successive administrations since the 1990s. Of course workers’ struggles
have taken place in Iran but not on the scale of the mobilisations in
Egypt since 2006. This is due to a number of factors. Firstly, the eco-
nomic situation in Iran is much better than that of Egypt. Despite being
a neo-liberal state, the government of Iran has to be seen to provide
a basic standard of living for its population in order to maintain its
legitimacy as a revolutionary republic. It is for this reason that Iran,
as I have argued earlier in the chapter, is still among the more equal of
developing countries globally. Secondly, since the enacting of sanctions
against the country by the US and its allies, economic issues have also
become bound up with foreign policy issues helping to deflect attention
 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran 191

from failures in the domestic arena. Finally, the combined impact of

sanctions, increasing hostility of the West and threats of military attacks
also make mobilisation against the government more difficult. There-
fore in Iran, the events of the years following the mass protests of 2009
have shaken, but not irrevocably damaged, the legitimacy of the state.
The 2013 elections which were widely expected by observers outside
the country to have a very low turnout, demonstrating disillusionment
with the political system, actually had a very high number of voters.
In addition, the way that the public participated in the election cam-
paign and the appointment of a consensus reformist candidate whose
selection promotes the continued survival of the state, shows that the
reform of the Iranian political system is still perceived to be possible.
At the same time sanctions and military threats increase support for a
strong, efficient state.
In Egypt, however, the legitimacy of state has been fundamentally
undermined by years of authoritarianism and neo-liberal economic
policies. Since the popular movement called for the overthrow of Pres-
ident Morsi, the army under General al-Sisi has attempted to enforce
a new identity for the state in opposing the Muslim Brotherhood and
other Islamist forces. By creating a dichotomy between secular and reli-
gious forces that only two years previously were united in opposition to
the state and by massacring the opposition, the military hopes to demo-
bilise social movements and forge a new legitimacy for the state under
whose guise business as usual will continue. However, as in Iran, neo-
liberal policies will continue to undermine the legitimacy of the state
and provide opportunities for social movements to mobilise.
Conclusion

For many decades the policy of Western governments has been one
of repressing opposition movements in the name of fighting terrorism
and Islamic fundamentalism. At the same time the West has supported
extremely conservative regimes in countries such as Saudi Arabia, which
is responsible for the rise of extremist Islam inspired by the Taliban,
al-Qaida and the Jihadist Da’ish or the self-declared ISIL. The disastrous
effects of this policy, which can be described as ‘democracy only on
our terms’, can be seen in the civil war which followed the election of
FIS in Algeria and the humanitarian crisis which has resulted from the
blockade of Gaza. The 2011 uprisings in Egypt and other countries have
demonstrated the futile and unjust nature of this strategy. The years of
US-sanctioned state terror under Mubarak closed down political dissent,
but the political space created by social movements allowed alterna-
tive voices from both religious and secular backgrounds to be heard,
including those of workers, the young, students and women.
Social movements have played a major role in the process of social
and political change in Egypt and Iran. Dynamic social movements have
mobilised a range of diverse participants from both religious and secular
backgrounds and adopted differing political orientations and strategies
in response to changing relationships with allies, political elites and the
state. In the 1990s a vibrant reform movement in Iran fought for polit-
ical and legislative change, while in Egypt a diverse Islamic movement
proved itself to be a vital part of civil society. Reformism and liberatory
and progressive readings of Islamic religious texts are not new phenom-
ena, nor are they restricted to a particular country. Instead, they are
part of an intellectual and political heritage of reformism in the region,
which has a century-long history. In both countries, these social move-
ments have utilised this heritage to argue for a form of politics which

192
 Conclusion 193

opposes both conservative Islamism and Western intervention in the

region.
An analysis of the historical and contemporary political and socio-
economic contexts of social movements is vital in understanding their
role in Muslim majority countries today. Orientalist and culturalist
approaches to the study of Muslim majority countries have portrayed
them as static and conservative societies in which movements, class and
resistance do not exert an influence. Opposing this, I have presented a
historically contextualised analysis of the role of Egyptian and Iranian
movements for change which highlights the dynamic nature of move-
ments and political struggle in these countries. Such an approach views
the strategies of social movements as ever-changing rather than innate
and allows for an analysis of their politics and how they have evolved
over time. It also demonstrates that modern repertoires of protest are
not solely European, nor do they arise only in social democratic con-
texts. From the nineteenth century onwards strategies and languages of
protest associated with modern nation-states have played a major role
in non-European and specifically Middle Eastern countries.
Much of the contemporary discourse concerning the role of move-
ments in Muslim majority countries is based on a false paradigm
which argues that moderate, reformist models of politics which do
not radically question the status quo are preferable to those that
challenge neo-liberalism and imperialism. It is somewhat ironic that
contemporary Islamic movements are seen as destabilising and militant
forces in Muslim majority societies, whereas the military and foreign
policy interventions of Western states are regarded as strategies with
political liberalisation and democratisation as their goals. Although
Islamic groups and organisations are most often viewed as part of a rad-
ical political current, my analysis demonstrates that they in fact typify
a reformist, gradualist political project. This project has its limits as it
allows the continuation of ‘business as usual’ in the region, deepens
an ongoing political and economic crisis and leads to the suffering of
millions of people.
There is an intimate relationship between neo-liberalism and con-
temporary imperialism. Indeed neo-liberalism, which involves the eco-
nomic subordination of ‘export-orientated’ economies, and imperialism
are in many ways two aspects of the same process. The rhetoric of
democratisation and political liberalisation which accompanied the
imposition of neo-liberal reforms in the 1990s in both countries
promised that, with economic reform, the role played by nation-
states would be diminished. Some even argued that the nation-state
194 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

itself would disappear as the major unit of international and domes-

tic political organisation. However, decades after these reforms were
imposed on countries in the developing world, neo-liberal states have
become larger, more militarised and more authoritarian. In Egypt and
Iran, the state has withdrawn from providing services while its coercive
role has increased in order to quell popular opposition to privatisation
and the removal of subsidies. In addition, rather than creating a reform-
orientated business class, both countries have witnessed the empower-
ing of an elite within society that has failed to support democratisation.
This is not surprising, as in both countries this elite is tied to the state
and sections of the military.
The nature and rise of neo-liberal and repressive states in countries
such as Egypt and Iran were fully in line with global trends since the
1990s. Not only did political liberalisation fail to take place in devel-
oping countries such as Egypt, but political freedoms and liberties in
Western liberal democratic countries were eroded by governments faith-
ful to the ideology of neo-conservatism. Indeed, neo-liberal security
states with similar characteristics have emerged to varying extents in
both industrialised and developing countries. The failure of the neo-
liberal project, represented by the collapse of financial markets in 2008,
exposed the features of a common global capitalism based on ‘privatis-
ing profits and socialising losses’ and riven by cronyism, corruption
and increasing militarisation. Egypt and Iran do not therefore represent
exceptional cases of economic reform ‘gone wrong’. Instead, they exem-
plify the results of neo-liberal economic reform in countries in both the
industrialised and developing world.
Broad social movements have arisen since the 1990s, many of which
have utilised Islamic frameworks to challenge the policies of contem-
porary states. Indeed in both countries, participants in movements
restructured the language of Islamic modernism and reformism and a
century-long history of social struggle, into the new framework of ‘civil
society’, which became a dominant part of both neo-liberal and develop-
ment discourses. Taking advantage of the small space afforded to them
by the withdrawal of the state from providing services, civil society
organisations flourished in the 1990s.
Interestingly, in both Egypt and Iran, participants in movements for-
mulated perspectives based on the idea of Islah. In both countries a
parallel NGO sector was formed which stepped in to fill the role of
the state by providing services such as health, education and welfare.
This was not simply an apolitical endeavour based on notions of reli-
gious duty and individual piety, but was implicitly political. It involved
 Conclusion 195

the creation of spaces independent of the state and demonstrated

the superiority of non-state agencies, such as NGOs and development
organisations, in the provision of basic services. In Iran, this sector
grew alongside a flourishing women’s movement and a democracy
movement in the 1990s, while in Egypt NGOs, syndicates and others
articulated opposition to the policy of the state. In both countries, the
trend of centrism, reformism or wasatiyya grew within Islamic groups
and organisations, as did diverse strands of Islamic feminisms. In addi-
tion, Islamic groups and activists worked alongside secular campaigners
in popular movements for democracy and reform. Rather than seeing
secularism and Islamism as monolithic and mutually exclusive posi-
tions, activists recognised both the diversity within such frameworks
and the commonalities that exist between them. This was important in
building mass movements and campaigns which cut across sectarian,
religious and political divides, as in the Egyptian pro-democracy move-
ment of 2005–6 in which left groups, nationalist groups, the Muslim
Brotherhood and other Islamic groups were active, and the Iranian
reform movement and women’s movement.
However, in both countries, the state became more repressive and
instigated more widespread economic reform after 2004–5. The failure
of Muslim majority countries or Arab states to democratise was seen
by some as further evidence of the incompatibility of these societies
or Islam with democracy and civil society. Ironically, this was despite
the presence of large reform movements in the region which often
either struggled for democracy against authoritarian states backed by the
West, or strived for social justice in opposition to neo-liberal reforms
demanded by international agencies. The exception to this was Iran,
where due to the existence of the Islamic state, the opposition move-
ment was lauded by many commentators in the West and elsewhere as
an inherently anti-Islamic and therefore progressive movement.
The demonisation and hysteria that have surrounded depictions of
Iran as an Islamic fundamentalist state is connected to the broader
discourse of Islamophobia, which was utilised in order to justify the
invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Iranian reformists are not innately
more progressive or reactionary, radical or reformist, pro-business or
leftist, than Egyptian Islamists. The Iranian reform movement actu-
ally shares a number of interesting similarities with mainstream Islamic
movements in other parts of the region such as Egypt. However, a major
difference has been the relationship of the Iranian reform movement
with neo-liberalism and the state. In both Egypt and Iran, sections of the
Islamic movement are pro-business whereas others are from the ‘Islamic
196 Social Movements in Egypt and Iran

left’. For example, the Muslim Brotherhood famously supported Sadat’s

infitah in the 1970s, while a pro-business section of the Iranian Islamic
movement has been engaged in a struggle with the Islamic left since
the 1970s. In Iran, reformists were in power in the 1990s during the
presidency of Mohammed Khatami and were therefore associated with
the implementation of his economic reforms. This served to weaken the
reform movement which was a major factor that contributed to the elec-
tion of President Ahmadinejad in 2005. The experience of the Iranian
reformists in power could have been taken as a lesson by the Muslim
Brotherhood leadership after they formed government. However, as in
Iran the neo-liberal policies of the mainstream Islamic reformists led to
their downfall.
Despite increasing state repression in Egypt and the disagreements
within the Iranian reform movement, which partly allowed the forma-
tion of a conservative government after 2005, new movements arose
in both countries to challenge the power of the state and fight for
democracy. In Egypt, the democracy movement and the workers’ move-
ment defied state repression and began to directly challenge the state’s
existence. In Iran, popular support for reform of the undemocratic and
exclusivist policies of the Islamic state spilled into the green move-
ment of 2009. These were the largest protests seen since 1979 and
utilised phrases against dictatorship from the revolution such as ‘marg
bar dictator’. The enormous tensions created by neo-liberalism and con-
temporary imperialism within Egyptian and Iranian society resulted in
the re-emergence of demands from social groups previously alienated
from the state, such as the working and middle classes. Despite facing
enormous state repression, these groups mobilised in social movements
and played a major role in both countries.
The 2009 green movement in Iran and the 2011 uprising in Egypt
demonstrated that a new, more radical popular movement had emerged,
one that was willing to risk direct confrontation with the state and
fight for more substantial political, social and economic change. While
these movements have been termed ‘refo-lutions’, it is important not
to underestimate the necessity of truly transformative change in both
countries and the potential of contemporary movements in struggling
for this change. In Iran, continuing threats against the country allowed
the Ahmadinejad government to maintain a semblance of popularity as
a strong state that stood against the destruction of the country by the
US or Israel. However, despite this, the Iranian movement for change
continued to be supported by a majority within the country, as is evi-
denced by the election of President Hassan Rouhani. While a reformist
 Conclusion 197

compromise has been reached in Iran, it is unlikely that it will con-

tinue to be stable in the face of continued neo-liberal economic policies,
despite the popularity of President Rouhani’s social policies. In Egypt,
since the removal of Mubarak, a number of social forces have pushed
for transformative change. Although they operate in a difficult polit-
ical environment, workers, women, students, the poor and activists
in left, nationalist and Islamic groups took to the streets to demand
the removal of Morsi and genuine social and political change. It is at
once an irony and at the same time not surprising that the US, which
branded the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation throughout
the decades that it engaged in pro-democracy and civil society activism,
became its supporter once it gained power and enacted undemocratic
neo-liberal policies. This fact demonstrates that hypocrisy and the self-
interest of Western elites continue to dominate US foreign policy in the
Middle East.
It is undoubtable that Egypt and Iran will continue to possess dynamic
and ever-changing political landscapes. In both countries, participants
in social movements have argued that democracy must come from
within their own countries and cannot be imposed from outside by
Western military intervention. The strategies of these movements and
their relationship to the state have changed as the economic and polit-
ical environments in which they operate have altered. The future of
democracy and of truly transformative change lies with social move-
ments and with the people of the region.
Notes

1 Introduction
1. Geraldine Brooks, Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women
(Anchor Books, New York, 1996); Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran
(Random House, New York, 2004).
2. Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, Mobilising Islam, Religion, Activism and Political
Change in Egypt (Columbia University Press, New York, 2002), p. i.
3. Rabab El Mahdi, ‘Orientalising the Egyptian Revolution’, Jadaliyya, 11 April
2011, last accessed 25 September 2013, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/
index/1214/orientalising-the-egyptian-uprising.
4. John R. Bradley, After the Arab Spring: How the Islamists Hijacked the Middle
East Revolts (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2012).
5. Hamid Dabashi, The Arab Spring: The End of Post-Colonialism (Zed Books,
London, 2012).
6. Asef Bayat, ‘Paradoxes of Arab Refo-lutions’, 13 March 2011, al-Masry al-
Youm, last accessed 15 March 2011, http://www.almasryalyoum.com/node/
351032.
7. See for example Joel Beinin, ‘Neo-liberal Structural Adjustment, Political
Demobilization and Neo-authoritarianism in Egypt’, in The Arab State and
Neo-Liberal Globalization: The Restructuring of State Power in the Middle East,
Laura Guazzone and Daniela Pioppi (eds) (Ithaca Press, Reading, 2009),
pp. 19–46; Rabab El Mahdi, ‘Enough! Egypt’s Quest for Democracy’, Com-
parative Political Studies, Vol. 42(8) (2009), pp. 1011–39; Asef Bayat, Making
Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn (Stanford Uni-
versity Press, Stanford, 2007); Quintan Wiktorowicz (ed.), Islamic Activism:
A Social Movement Theory Approach (Indiana University Press, Bloomington,
2004).
8. Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France,
Russia and China (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979).
9. Alberto Melucci, ‘Social Movements and the Democratization of Everyday
Life’, in Civil Society and the State, John Keane (ed.) (Verso, London, 1988),
p. 257.
10. Ibid., p. 265.
11. Galal A. Amin, Egypt’s Economic Predicament: A Study in the Interaction of Exter-
nal Pressure, Political Folly and Social Tension in Egypt 1960–1990 (Brill, Leiden,
1995), p. 104.
12. Laura Guazzone and Daniela Pioppi, ‘Interpreting Change in the Arab
World’, in The Arab State and Neo-Liberal Globalization, Laura Guazzone and
Daniela Pioppi (eds) (Ithaca Press, Reading, 2009), pp. 1–15.
13. David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 2005), p. 19.
14. Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First
Century (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2005).

198
 Notes 199

15. Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, p. 19.

16. Staffan Lindberg and Arni Sverrisson, ‘Introduction’, in Social Move-
ments in Development: The Challenge of Globalization and Democratization,
Staffan Lindberg and Arni Sverrisson (eds) (St. Martin’s Press, New York,
1997), p. 4.
17. Martin Khor, Rethinking Globalisation: Critical Issues and Policy Choices (Zed
Books, London, 2001), p. 7; Walden Bello, Deglobalisation: Ideas for a New
World Economy (Zed Books, London, 2004), pp. xii–xiv.
18. Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, pp. 69–70.
19. Iris Marion Young, ‘The Logic of Masculinist Protection: Reflections on
the Current Security State’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society,
Vol. 29(11) (2003), p. 8.
20. Guazzone and Pioppi, ‘Interpreting Change in the Arab World’, p. 1.
21. Giacomo Luciani, ‘The Oil Rent, the Fiscal Crisis of the State and Democrati-
zation’, in Democracy Without Democrats? The Renewal of Politics in the Muslim
World, Ghassan Salame (ed.) (I. B. Tauris, London, 1994), p. 151.
22. Abdelbaki Hermassi, ‘Socio-economic Change and Political Implications:
The Maghreb’, in Democracy Without Democrats? Ghassan Salame (ed.)
(I. B. Tauris, London, 1994), p. 241.
23. Sami K. Farsoun and Christina Zacharia, ‘Class, Economic Change, and
Political Liberalization in the Arab World’, in Political Liberalization and
Democratization in The Arab World, Vol. 1: Theoretical Perspectives, Rex Brynen,
Bahgat Korany and Paul Noble (eds) (Lynne Rienner, Boulder and London,
1995), p. 263.
24. Eberhard Kienle, A Grand Delusion: Democracy and Economic Reform in Egypt
(I. B. Tauris, London, 2001), p. 131; Agnieszka Paczynska, ‘Globalization,
Structural Adjustment, and Pressure to Conform: Contesting Labor Law
Reform in Egypt’, New Political Science, Vol. 28(1) (2006), p. 46.
25. Salwa Ismail, Political Life in Cairo’s New Quarters: Encountering the Everyday
State (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2006), p. 130.
26. Ali Ansari, ‘The Revolution Will be Mercantilized’, The National Interest, 105
(2010), p. 55.
27. Subir Sinha, ‘Neoliberalism and Civil Society: Project and Possibilities’, in
Neoliberalism: A Critical Reader, Alfredo Saad-Filho and Deborah Johnston
(eds) (Pluto Press, London, 2005) p. 166.
28. Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, pp. 81–2.
29. Diane Elson, ‘Imperialism’, in The Idea of the Modern State, Stuart Hall, David
Held and Gregor McLennan (eds) (Open University Press, Milton Keynes,
1984), p. 154.
30. Alex Callinicos, Imperialism and Global Political Economy (Polity Press,
Cambridge, 2009), p. 4.
31. Ibid., p. 15.
32. Anne Alexander, ‘Mubarak in the International Arena’, in Egypt: the Moment
of Change, Rabab El Mahdi and Phil Marfleet (eds) (Zed Books, London,
2009), p. 150.
33. Laurence Whitehead, ‘Concerning International Support for Democracy in
the South’, in Democratization in the South: The Jagged Wave, Robin Luckham
and Gordon White (eds) (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1996),
p. 247.
200 Notes

34. Samuel P. Huntington, ‘Democracy’s Third Wave’, Journal of Democracy,

Vol. 2(2) (1991), pp. 12–34.
35. Victor Perez Diaz, ‘The Possibility of Civil Society: Traditions, Character and
Challenges’, in Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison, John A. Hall (ed.)
(Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995), p. 87.
36. Asef Bayat, ‘Islamism and Social Movement Theory’, Third World Quarterly,
Vol. 26(6) (2005), pp. 891–908.
37. Andrew Sayer, Realism and Social Science (Sage, London, 2000).
38. Edward Said, Representations of the Intellectual (Vintage, New York, 1996).
39. Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis, Racialised Boundaries: Race, Nation,
Gender, Colour and Class and the Anti-Racist Struggle (Routledge, London,
1992).
40. Floya Anthias, ‘New Hybridities, Old Concepts: The Limits of “Culture” ’,
Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 24(4) (2001), p. 619.
41. Ibid., p. 637.
42. Pierre Bourdieu quoted in Rosemary Crompton, ‘The Development of the
Classical Inheritance’, in Class, Patrick Joyce (ed.) (Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 1995), p. 55.
43. The UN estimated Iran’s urban population at 68 per cent in 2007. Just
under 50 per cent of the total population speak languages other than Farsi
and 90 per cent are Shi‘i Muslims. The remainder – almost 9 per cent –
are Sunni Muslims and 1–2 per cent are Jews and Christians. ‘UN Coun-
try data’, last accessed 7 November 2011, http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.
aspx?crName=Iran%20(Islamic%20Republic%20of).
44. The UN estimated Egypt’s urban population at 42 per cent in 2007. Ninety
per cent of the population is Sunni Muslim and 10 per cent are Coptic
Christians. ‘UN Country data’, last accessed 7 November 2011, http://data.
un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=EGYPT.

2 Theorising Movements
1. Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics
(3rd edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011), p. 9.
2. Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (Addison-Wesley, Reading,
1978), p. 17.
3. Donatella Della Porta and Mario Diani, Social Movements: An Introduction
(2nd edition, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2006), p. 14.
4. Charles Tilly, ‘Social Movements in National Politics’, in State Making and
Social Movements: Essays in History and Theory, Charles Bright and Susan
Harding (eds) (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1984), p. 304.
5. Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics
(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994), p. 4.
6. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World
Order (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1996).
7. Ziad Munson, ‘Islamic Mobilization: Social Movement Theory and the
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’, The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 42(4) (2001),
p. 491.
8. Maha Abdelrahman, Civil Society Exposed: The Politics of NGOs in Egypt (The
American University in Cairo Press, Cairo, 2004), p. 80.
 Notes 201

9. Olivier Roy, ‘Patronage and Solidarity Groups: Survival or Reformation’, in

Democracy Without Democrats: The Renewal of Politics in the Muslim World,
Ghassan Salame (ed.) (I. B. Tauris, London, 1994), pp. 270–81.
10. Kevin McDonald, Global Movements: Action and Culture (Blackwell, Oxford,
2006), p.170.
11. Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response
(Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002).
12. Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald, ‘Introduction: Oppor-
tunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Framing Processes - Toward a Synthetic,
Comparative Perspective on Social Movements’, in Comparative Perspectives
on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural
Framings, Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy, Mayer N. Zald (eds) (Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1996), p. 1.
13. Mohammed M. Hafez and Quintan Wiktorowicz, ‘Violence as Contention
in the Egyptian Islamic Movement’, in Islamic Activism: A Social Move-
ment Theory Approach, Quintan Wiktorowicz (ed.) (Indiana University Press,
Bloomington, 2004), pp. 61–88.
14. Craig J. Jenkins, ‘Resource Mobilisation Theory and the Study of Social
Movements’, Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 9 (1983), p. 530.
15. Janet Clark, ‘Social Movement Theory and Patron-Clientelism: Islamic Social
Institutions and the Middle Class in Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen’, Comparative
Political Studies, Vol. 37(8) (2004), pp. 941–68.
16. Wickham, Mobilising Islam, Religion, Activism and Political Change in
Egypt, p. x.
17. Charles Kurzman, ‘Structural Opportunity and Perceived Opportunity in
Social-Movement Theory: The Iranian Revolution of 1979’, American Soci-
ological Review, Vol. 61(1) (1996), pp. 153–70.
18. Charles Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran (Harvard University
Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2004), pp. 5–6.
19. Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention
(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004).
20. Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly, ‘Comparative Perspec-
tives on Contentious Politics’, in Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture,
and Structure, Mark Irving Lichbach and Alan S. Zuckerman (eds) (Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 2009), p. 261.
21. Quintan Wiktorowicz, ‘Introduction: Islamic Activism and Social Movement
Theory’, in Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach, Quintan
Wiktorowicz (ed.) (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2004), p. 16.
22. Joel Beinin and Frédéric Vairel, ‘Introduction: The Middle East and North
Africa Beyond Classical Social Movement Theory’, in Social Movements, Mobi-
lization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa, Joel Beinin and
Frédéric Vairel (eds) (Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2011), p. 8.
23. Rosemary Crompton, Class and Stratification (Polity Press, Cambridge,
2008), p. 3.
24. Roger Owen, Cotton and the Egyptian Economy, 1820–1914: A Study in
Trade and Development (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1969); Charles Issawi,
The Economic History of Iran (University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
1971).
25. Nazih N. Ayubi, Overstating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle
East (I. B. Tauris, London, 1995), p. 175–6.
202 Notes

26. As Johnson demonstrates; for example, an analysis of sects in twentieth-

century Lebanon reveals the essentially class-based nature of their politics.
See Michael Johnson, Class and Client in Beirut: The Sunni Muslim Community
and the Lebanese State 1840–1985 (Ithaca Press, London, 1986).
27. Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens and John D. Stephens,
Capitalist Development and Democracy (Polity Press, Cambridge, 1992), p.47.
28. Ibid., p. 48.
29. E. P. Thompson, ‘The Making of Class’, in Class, Patrick Joyce (ed.) (Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 1995), p. 131.
30. Anne Alexander, ‘Brothers-in-Arms? The Egyptian Military, the Ikhwan and
the Revolutions of 1952 and 2011’, The Journal of North African Studies,
Vol. 16(4) (2011), p. 535.
31. Beinin and Vairel, ‘Introduction’, p. 12.
32. McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly, ‘Comparative Perspectives on Contentious
Politics’, p. 279.
33. Stephen C. Poulson, Social Movements in Twentieth Century Iran: Culture,
Ideology and Mobilizing Frameworks (Lexington Books, Oxford, 2005), p. 3.
34. Holger Albrecht, ‘Introduction: Contentious Politics, Political Opposition,
and Authoritarianism’, in Contentious Politics in the Middle East: Political Oppo-
sition under Authoritarianism, Holger Albrecht (ed.) (University of Florida
Press, Gainesville, 2010), p. 2.
35. Augustus R. Norton, ‘Introduction’, in Civil Society in the Middle East, Vol. 1,
Augustus R. Norton (ed.) (Brill, Leiden, 1995), p. 7.
36. John Keane, ‘Introduction’, in Civil Society and the State, John Keane (ed.)
(Verso, London, 1988), pp. 7–10.
37. Dorothea Hilhorst, The Real World of NGOs: Discourses, Diversity and Develop-
ment (Zed Books, London, 2003), p. 28.
38. Gordon White, ‘Civil Society, Democratization and Development’, in Democ-
ratization in the South: The Jagged Wave, Robin Luckham and Gordon White
(eds) (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1996), p. 179.
39. John A. Hall, ‘In Search of Civil Society’, in Civil Society: Theory, History,
Comparison, John A. Hall (ed.) (Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995), p. 2.
40. Serif Mardin, ‘Civil Society and Islam’, in Civil Society: Theory, History,
Comparison, John A. Hall (ed.) (Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995), p. 279.
41. Ernest Gellner, ‘The Importance of Being Modular’, in Civil Society: The-
ory, History, Comparison, John A. Hall (ed.) (Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995),
p. 40.
42. Guilain Denoeux, Urban Unrest in the Middle East: A Comparative Study of Infor-
mal Networks in Egypt, Iran, and Lebanon (State University of New York Press,
Albany, 1993), p. 30.
43. Norton, ‘Introduction’, p. 10.
44. Nazih N. Ayubi, Overstating the Arab State; Saad Eddin Ibrahim, ‘Civil Soci-
ety and Prospects for Democratization in the Arab World’, in Civil Society
in the Middle East, Vol. 1, Augustus R. Norton (ed.) (Brill, Leiden, 1995),
pp. 27–54; Mustapha Kamil al-Sayyid, ‘A Civil Society in Egypt?’, in Civil Soci-
ety in the Middle East, Vol. 1, Augustus R. Norton (ed.) (Brill, Leiden, 1995),
pp. 269–94.
45. Ahamd S. Moussalli, ‘Modern Islamic Fundamentalist Discourses on Civil
Society, Pluralism and Democracy’, in Civil Society in the Middle East, Vol. 1,
Augustus R. Norton (ed.) (Brill, Leiden, 1995), pp. 79–119.
 Notes 203

46. Tim Niblock, ‘Civil Society in the Middle East’, in A Companion to the His-
tory of the Middle East, Youssef M. Choueiri (ed.) (Blackwell, Malden, 2005),
p. 490.
47. Norton, ‘Introduction’, p. 8.
48. Janine Astrid Clark, ‘Democratization and Social Islam: A Case Study of the
Islamic Health Clinics in Cairo’, in Political Liberalization and Democratiza-
tion in The Arab World, Vol. 1: Theoretical Perspectives, Rex Brynen, Bahgat
Korany and Paul Noble (eds) (Lynne Reinner, Boulder and London, 1995),
pp. 167–86.
49. Sami Zubaida, ‘Religion, the Sate and Democracy: Contrasting Conceptions
of Society in Egypt’, in Political Islam: Essays From the Middle East Report, Joel
Beinin and Joe Stork (eds) (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997),
p. 61.
50. Asef Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist
Turn (Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2007), p. 33.
51. Ibid., p.20.
52. Ibid., p.45.
53. Daniel Brumberg, ‘The Trap of Liberalized Autocracy’, Journal of Democracy,
Vol. 13(4) (2002), p. 63.
54. Vickie Langohr, ‘Too Much Civil Society, Too Little Politics: The Case of Egypt
and the Arab Liberalizers’, in Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Regimes
and Resistance, Marsha Pripstein Posusney and Michele Penner Angrist (eds)
(Lynne Reinner, Boulder and London, 2005), pp. 193–218; Jan Aart Scholte,
‘Civil Society and Democracy in Global Governance’, Global Governance,
Vol. 8(3) (2002), pp. 281–304.
55. Roksana Bahramitash, ‘The War on Terror, Feminist Orientalism and
Orientalist Feminism: Case Studies of Two North American Bestsellers’, Cri-
tique: Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 14(2) (2005), pp. 223–37; Nima
Naghibi, Rethinking Global Sisterhood: Western Feminism and Iran (University
of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2007).
56. Bahramitash, ‘The War on Terror, Feminist Orientalism and Orientalist
Feminism’, p. 226.
57. Nawal al-Sa‘dawi, ‘Women and Islam’, Women’s Studies International Forum,
Vol. 5(2) (1982), pp. 193–206; p. 206 quoted in Parvin Paidar, Women in
the Political Process in Twentieth Century Iran (Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1995), p. 13.
58. Young, ‘The Logic of Masculinist Protection’, pp. 1–25; Zillah Eisenstein,
Against Empire: Feminisms, Racism, and the West (Zed Books, London, 2004).
59. Young, ‘The Logic of Masculinist Protection: Reflections on the Current
Security State’.
60. Janet Afary, Sexual Politics in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 2009).
61. See for example, Elaheh Rostami-Povey, Women, Work and Islamism, Ideology
and Resistance in Iran (Poya, M., 1999, 1st edn), (Zed Books, London, 2010,
2nd edn).
62. Sherine Hafez, ‘The Terms of Empowerment: Islamic Women Activists in
Egypt’, Cairo Papers in Social Science, Vol. 24(4) (2001).
63. Lila Abu-Lughod, ‘Feminist Longings and Post-Colonial Conditions’, in
Remaking Women, Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, Lila Abu-Lughod
(ed.) (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1998), p. 16.
204 Notes

64. Amina Wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam (One World,
Oxford, 2006).
65. Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate
(Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1992).
66. Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject
(Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2005).
67. Nathan J. Brown, When Victory is not an Option: Islamist Movements in Arab
Politics (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2012), p. 3.
68. Ibrahim El Houdaiby, ‘Islamism in and after Egypt’s Revolution’, in Arab
Spring in Egypt: Revolution and Beyond, Bahgat Korany and Rabab El Mahdi
(eds) (The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo, 2012), p. 148.
69. Tim Niblock, ‘Civil Society in the Middle East’, p. 495.
70. John L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? (Oxford University
Press, Oxford, 1992); Ahmad Shboul, ‘Islamic Radicalism in the Arab World,’
in The Middle East: Prospects for Settlement and Stability, Amin Saikal and
Geoffrey Jukes (eds) (Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1995),
pp. 29–68.
71. Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in
Christianity and Islam (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1993);
Mohammed Arkoun, Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon
Answers (edited and translated by Robert Lee) (Westview Press, Boulder,
1994).
72. Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori, Muslim Politics (Princeton University
Press, Princeton, 1996).
73. Asef Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist
Turn.
74. Abdelrahman, Civil Society Exposed: The Politics of NGOs in Egypt.
75. Rabab El Mahdi and Phil Marfleet (eds), Egypt: The Moment of Change (Zed
Books, London, 2009).

3 Social Movements, the State and External Forces

in Modern Iran
1. Paidar, Women and the Political Process in Twentieth Century Iran, p. 31.
2. Ervard Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 2008), p. 10.
3. Ibid., p. 26.
4. Nikkie R. Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (Yale University
Press, New Haven and London, 2006), p. 26.
5. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, p. 30.
6. Ibid.
7. Paidar, Women and the Political Process in Twentieth Century Iran, p. 37.
8. Guity Nashat, ‘Introduction’, in Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Repub-
lic, Lois Beck and Guity Nashat (eds) (University of Illinois Press, Chicago,
2004), p. 17.
9. Paidar, Women and the Political Process in Twentieth Century Iran, p. 40.
10. Issawi, The Economic History of Iran, pp. 132–4.
11. Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution, p. 29.
 Notes 205

12. Ziba Mir Hosseini and Richard Tapper, Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari
and the Quest for Reform (I. B. Tauris, London, 2006), p. 10.
13. Hamid Algar, Religion and State in Iran, 1785–1906 (University of California
Press, Berkeley, 1980), p. 2; Said Amir Arjomand, The Shadow of God and
the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change in Shi‘ite Iran
from the Beginning to 1890 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1984),
p. 260.
14. Mangol Bayat, Iran’s First Revolution: Shi‘ism and the Constitutional Revolution
of 1905–1909 (Oxford University Press, New York, 1991), p. 11.
15. Ibid., p. 14.
16. Ali Rahnema, ‘Introduction to the 2nd Edition: Contextualising the Pioneers
of Islamic Revival’, in Pioneers of Islamic Revival, Ali Rahnama (ed.) (Zed
Books, London, 2008, 2nd edn), p. 37.
17. Mir Hosseini and Tapper, Islam and Democracy in Iran, p. 11.
18. Vanesssa Martin, Creating an Islamic State: Khomeini and the Making of a New
Iran (I. B. Tauris, London and New York, 2000), p. 4.
19. Ibid., p. 6.
20. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, p. 47.
21. Homa Katouzian, Iranian History and Politics: The Dialectic of State and Society
(Routledge, New York, 2003), pp. 162–7.
22. Hamid Dabashi, Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundations of the
Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York University Press, New York, 1993), p. 82.
23. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, p. 51.
24. Mansoureh Ettehadieh, ‘The Origins and Development of the Women’s
Movement in Iran 1906–41’, in Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Repub-
lic, Lois Beck and Guity Nashat (eds) (University of Illinois Press, Chicago,
2004), p. 89.
25. Lily Farhadpour, ‘Women, Gender Roles, Media and Journalism’, in Women,
Power and Politics in 21st Century Iran, Tara Povey and Elaheh Rostami-Povey
(eds) (Ashgate Publishing, Farnham, 2012), p. 3.
26. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, p. 66.
27. Misagh Parsa, Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution (Rutgers University Press,
New Brunswick and London, 1989), p. 34.
28. Paidar, Women and the Political Process in Twentieth Century Iran, p. 86.
29. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, p. 71.
30. Parsa, Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution, p. 35.
31. Paidar, Women and the Political Process in Twentieth Century Iran, p. 101.
32. Dabashi, Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundations of the Islamic
Revolution in Iran, p. 117.
33. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, p. 83.
34. Houchang E. Chehabi, ‘Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes: Dress Codes
and Nation-Building under Reza Shah’, Iranian Studies, Vol. 26(3/4) (1993),
p. 220.
35. Mohammad H. Faghfoory, ‘The Impact of Modernization on the Ulama in
Iran, 1925–1941’, Iranian Studies, Vol. 26(3/4) (1993), p. 293.
36. Chehabi, ‘Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes’, p. 228.
37. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, p. 88.
38. Afary, Sexual Politics in Modern Iran, p. 9.
39. Paidar, Women and the Political Process in Twentieth Century Iran, p. 113.
206 Notes

40. Parsa, Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution, p. 38.

41. Ervard Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions (Princeton University Press,
Princeton, 1982), p. 303.
42. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, p. 109.
43. Parsa, Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution, p. 39.
44. Ibid., p. 45.
45. Paidar, Women and the Political Process in Twentieth Century Iran, p. 134.
46. Rahnema, ‘Introduction to the 2nd Edition: Contextualising the Pioneers of
Islamic Revival’, p. 10.
47. Baqer Moin, ‘Khomeini’s Search for Perfection: Theory and Reality’, in
Pioneers of Islamic Revival, Ali Rahnema (ed.) (Zed Books, London, 2008, 2nd
edn), p. 89.
48. Parsa, Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution, p. 48.
49. Moin, ‘Khomeini’s Search for Perfection: Theory and Reality’, pp. 77–8.
50. Martin, Creating an Islamic State: Khomeini and the Making of a New Iran,
p. 22.
51. Rahnema, ‘Introduction to the 2nd Edition: Contextualising the Pioneers of
Islamic Revival’, p. 55.
52. Ali Rahnema, An Islamic Utopian: A Political Biography of Ali Shari‘ati
(I. B. Tauris, London, 2000), p. 113.
53. Ibid., p. 227.
54. Ibid., pp. 237–310.
55. Ervand Abrahamian, ‘Ali Shari‘ati: Ideologue of the Iranian Revolution’,
in Islam, Politics, and Social Movements, Edmund Burke (ed.) (University of
California Press, Berkeley, 1988), p. 296.
56. Interview conducted by the author with Sussan Shari‘ati, Tehran, 12 Jan-
uary 2009.
57. Interview conducted by the author with Marzieh Mortazi Langroudi, Tehran,
13 January 2009.
58. Parsa, Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution, pp. 52–3.
59. Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran, p. 90.
60. Parsa, Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution, p. 149.
61. Asef Bayat, Workers and Revolution in Iran: A Third World Experience of Workers’
Control (Zed Books, London, 1987), pp. 22–5.
62. Ibid., p. 32.
63. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, p. 159.
64. Bayat, Workers and Revolution in Iran, p. 78.
65. Ibid., p. 81.
66. Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran, p. 116.
67. Bayat, Workers and Revolution in Iran, p. 100.
68. Martin, Creating an Islamic State: Khomeini and the Making of a New Iran,
p. 158.
69. Bayat, Workers and Revolution in Iran, pp. 100–2.
70. Ibid., pp. 102–3.
71. Mansoor Moaddel, ‘Class Struggle in Post-Revolutionary Iran’, IJMES,
Vol. 23(3) (1991), p. 319.
72. Ibid., pp. 321–2.
73. Massoumeh Ebtekar and Fred Reed, Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story of the
1979 US Embassy Capture (Talonbooks, Vancouver, 2000), pp. 89–95.
 Notes 207

74. Elaheh Rostami-Povey, ‘The Iranian Women’s Movement: A Historical Back-

ground’, in Women, Power and Politics in 21st Century Iran, Tara Povey and
Elaheh Rostami-Povey (eds) (Ashgate Publishing, Farnham, 2012), p. 15.
75. Martin, Creating an Islamic State: Khomeini and the Making of a New Iran,
p. 160.
76. Rostami-Povey, ‘The Iranian Women’s Movement: A Historical Background’,
p. 16.
77. Mehdi Moslem, Factional Politics in Post-Khomeini Iran (Syracuse University
Press, Syracuse, 2002), p. 33.
78. Ibid., p. 48.
79. Ibid., p. 5.
80. Ibid., pp. 104–6.
81. Ibid., p. 134.
82. Ibid., p. 116.
83. Rostami-Povey, Women, Work and Islamism, Ideology and Resistance in Iran,
p. 77.
84. Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, ‘Oil Wealth and Economic Growth in Iran’, in Con-
temporary Iran: Economy, Society, Politics, Ali Gheissari (ed.) (Oxford University
Press, Oxford, 2009), pp. 15–23.
85. Roksana Bahramitash and Hadi Salehi Esfahani, ‘Nimble Fingers No Longer!
Women’s Employment in Iran’, in Contemporary Iran: Economy, Soci-
ety, Politics, Ali Gheissari (ed.) (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009),
pp. 83–93; Salehi-Isfahani, ‘Oil Wealth and Economic Growth in Iran’,
pp. 15–16.
86. Fatameh Etemad Moghadam, ‘Women and Labor in the Islamic Republic of
Iran’, in Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Republic, Lois Beck and Guity
Nashat (eds) (University of Illinois Press, Chicago, 2004), p. 174.
87. Salehi-Isfahani, ‘Oil Wealth and Economic Growth in Iran’, pp. 15–16.
88. Interview conducted by the author with Elaheh Koolaee, Tehran, 12 Jan-
uary 2009.
89. Bahramitash and Salehi Esfahani, ‘Nimble Fingers No Longer! Women’s
Employment in Iran’, p. 78.
90. Val Moghadam, Modernising Women, Gender and Social Change in the Middle
East (Lynne Rienner, Boulder and London, 2003), p. 187.
91. Amir Mehyar, Gholamadi Farjadi and Mohammad Tabibian, ‘Labor-force
Participation of Women in Contemporary Iran’, in Women in Iran from 1800
to the Islamic Republic, Lois Beck and Guity Nashat (eds) (University of Illinois
Press, Chicago, 2004), p. 187.
92. Bahramitash and Salehi Esfahani, ‘Nimble Fingers No Longer! Women’s
Employment in Iran’, p. 85.
93. Rostami-Povey, Women, Work and Islamism, Ideology and Resistance in Iran,
pp. 135–6.
94. Ibid., p. 136.
95. Ibid., p. 137.

4 The Rise of Social Movements in Iran since the 1990s

1. Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr, Democracy in Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty
(Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006), p. 103.
208 Notes

2. Ziba Mir Husseini and Richard Tapper, Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari
and the Quest for Reform, p. 19.
3. Ibid.
4. Shahrough Akhavi, ‘Contending Discourses in Shi‘i Law on the Doctrine of
Wilāyat al-Faqı̄h’, Iranian Studies, Vol. 29(3/4) (1996), p. 267.
5. Mehrdad Haghayeghi, ‘Politics and Ideology in the Islamic Republic of Iran’,
Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 29(1) (1993), p. 37.
6. Saskia Gieling, ‘The “Marja’iya” in Iran and the Nomination of
Khamanei in December 1994’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 33(4) (1997),
pp. 777–8.
7. Said Amir Arjomand, ‘Constitutional Implications of Current Political
Debates in Iran’, in Contemporary Iran: Economy, Society, Politics, Ali Gheissari
(ed.) (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009), p. 249.
8. Bahman Bakhtiari, ‘Parliamentary Elections in Iran’, Iranian Studies,
Vol. 26(3/4) (1993), p. 379.
9. Ibid., p. 381.
10. Ibid.
11. Rostami-Povey, Women, Work and Islamism, Ideology and Resistance in Iran,
p. 98.
12. Salehi-Isfahani, ‘Oil Wealth and Economic Growth in Iran’, p. 29.
13. Rostami-Povey, Women, Work and Islamism, Ideology and Resistance in Iran,
p. 101.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Haleh Afshar, Islam and Feminisms: An Iranian Case-Study (Macmillan Press,
New York, 1999), p. 194.
17. Ibid., p. 214.
18. Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr, ‘Iran’s Democracy Debate’, Middle East Policy,
Vol. 11(2) (2004), p. 98.
19. Interview conducted by the author with Shahla Sherkat, Tehran, 12 Jan-
uary 2009.
20. Farhadpour, ‘Women, Gender Roles, Media and Journalism’, p. 12.
21. Rostami-Povey, Women, Work and Islamism, Ideology and Resistance in Iran,
p. 145.
22. Ibid.
23. Interview conducted by the author with Ashraf Geramizadegan, Tehran,
14 January 2009.
24. Gheissari and Nasr, ‘Iran’s Democracy Debate’, p. 96.
25. Said Amir Arjomand, ‘The Reform Movement and the Debate on Modernity
and Tradition in Contemporary Iran’, IJMES, Vol. 34(4) (2002), p. 723.
26. Ibid., p. 724.
27. Telephone interview conducted by the author with Abdolkarim Soroush,
3 December 2009.
28. Ibid.
29. Arjomand, ‘Constitutional Implications of Current Political Debates in Iran’,
p. 259.
30. Ervand Abrahamian, ‘Review of Kadivar’, Islamic Law and Society, Vol. 8(2)
(2001), p. 297.
31. Ibid.
 Notes 209

32. Farzin Vahdat, ‘Post-Revolutionary Discourses of Mohammad Mojtahed

Shabestari and Mohsen Kadivar: Reconciling the Terms of Mediated Subjec-
tivity’, Middle East Critique, Vol. 9(16) (2000), p. 53.
33. Gheissari and Nasr, ‘Iran’s Democracy Debate’, p. 101.
34. Ahmad Ashraf and Ali Banuazizi, ‘Intellectuals in Post-Revolutionary Iran:
Iran’s Tortuous Path toward “Islamic Liberalism” ’, International Journal of
Politics, Culture and Society, Vol. 15(2) (2001), p. 247.
35. Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn,
p. 109.
36. Elaheh Rostami-Povey, ‘Trade Unions and Women’s NGOs: Diverse Civil
Society Organisations in Iran’, Development in Practice, Vol. 14(1/2) (2004),
p. 256.
37. Interview conducted by the author with Eisa Saharkhiz, Tehran, 11 Jan-
uary 2009.
38. Ibid.
39. Rostami-Povey, Women, Work and Islamism, Ideology and Resistance in Iran,
p. 143.
40. Interview conducted by the author with Mashaallah Shamsolvaezin, Tehran,
10 January 2009.
41. Gheissari and Nasr, ‘Iran’s Democracy Debate’, p. 103.
42. Interview conducted by the author with Nahid Ashrafi, Tehran, 31 Decem-
ber 2008.
43. Interview conducted by the author with Fakri Mohtashamipour, Tehran,
10 January 2009.
44. Ibid.
45. Interview conducted by the author with an anonymous student activist,
Tehran, 13 January 2009.
46. Interview conducted by the author with Elaheh Koolaee, Tehran, 12 Jan-
uary 2009.
47. Salehi-Isfahani, ‘Oil Wealth and Economic Growth in Iran’, p. 33.
48. Shahla Haeri, ‘Women, Religion and Political Agency in Iran’, in Contem-
porary Iran: Economy, Society, Politics, Ali Gheissari (ed.) (Oxford University
Press, Oxford, 2009), p. 131.
49. Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Mahjoob Zweiri, Iran and the Rise of its
Neoconservatives: The Politics of Tehran’s Silent Revolution (I. B. Tauris, London,
2007), p. 62.
50. Ali Ansari (ed.), Preliminary Analysis of the Voting Figures in Iran’s 2009
Presidential Election (Chatham House, London, 2009).
51. Robert Tait and Matthew Weaver, ‘How Neda Agha-Soltan Became the Face
of Iran’s Struggle’, The Guardian, 22 June 2009, last accessed 21 June 2012,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/22/neda-soltani-death-iran.
52. Yassamine Mather, ‘Iran’s Political and Economic Crises’, Critique: Journal of
Socialist Theory, Vol. 38(3) (2010), p. 505.
53. Ibid., p. 506.
54. Farid Marjai and Mehrnaz Shahabi, ‘ “Iranian Mothers for Peace” Alert
the World on Sanctions and Shortage of Medicines’, Monthly Review
Zine, 1 February 2013, last accessed 24 September 2013, http://mrzine.
monthlyreview.org/2013/ms010213.html.
55. Yassamine Mather, ‘Iran’s Political and Economic Crises’, p. 505.
210 Notes

5 Social Movements, the State and External Forces

in Modern Egypt
1. Ayubi, Overstating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East, p. 100.
2. Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern
Egypt (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995), p. 4.
3. Ayubi, Overstating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East, p. 86.
4. Ibid., pp. 15–17.
5. Ibid., p. 101.
6. Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt,
p. 10.
7. Abdelrahman, Civil Society Exposed: The Politics of NGOs in Egypt, p. 88.
8. Afaf Lufti Sayyid-Marsot, Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad Ali (Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 2007), p. 2.
9. Panayiotis J. Vatikiotis, The Modern History of Egypt (Johns Hopkins University
Press, Baltimore, 1991), p. 66.
10. Joel Beinin, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the
Egyptian Working Class, 1882–1954 (Princeton University Press, Princeton,
1987), p. 5.
11. Nikkie R. Keddie, Women in the Middle East Past and Present (Princeton
University Press, Princeton, 2007), p. 62.
12. Ibid., p. 64.
13. Abdelrahman, Civil Society Exposed: The Politics of NGOs in Egypt, p. 89.
14. Ayubi, Overstating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East,
p. 105.
15. Ayubi, Overstating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East, p. 91
and Charles Issawi, ‘Economic Evolution Since 1800’, in The Political Economy
of Contemporary Egypt, Ibrahim Oweiss (ed.) (Center for Contemporary Arab
Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, 1990), pp. 179–81.
16. Beinin, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian
Working Class, 1882–1954, pp. 30–80.
17. Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798–1939 (Oxford Univer-
sity Press, Oxford, 1970), p. 133.
18. Ibid., pp. 139–44.
19. Malcolm Kerr, Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories of Muhammad
‘Abduh and Rashid Rida (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1966),
p. 148.
20. Ibid., pp. 148–50.
21. Vatikiotis, The Modern History of Egypt, p. 245.
22. Beinin, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian
Working Class, 1882–1954, p. 101.
23. Ibid., p. 123.
24. Ibid., p. 13.
25. Ibid., p. 106.
26. Keddie, Women in the Middle East Past and Present, p. 89.
27. Ibid.
28. Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt,
p. 13.
 Notes 211

29. Vatikiotis, The Modern History of Egypt, p. 282.

30. Raymond Baker, Egypt’s Uncertain Revolution under Nasser and Sadat (Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1978), p. 9.
31. Robert Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers (Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 1969), p. 3.
32. Ibid., p. 211.
33. Baker, Egypt’s Uncertain Revolution under Nasser and Sadat, p. 9.
34. Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers, p. 7.
35. Ibid., p. 16.
36. Ibid., p. 12.
37. Derek Hopwood, ‘Egypt, Politics and Society: 1945–1990 (HarperCollins Aca-
demic, London, 1991), p. 22.
38. Ibid., pp. 7–10.
39. Beinin, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian
Working Class, 1882–1954, pp. 138–40.
40. Ibid., p. 258.
41. Ibid., p. 271.
42. Ibid., p. 288.
43. Ibid., p. 332.
44. Ibid., p. 345.
45. Hopwood, Egypt, Politics and Society: 1945–1990, p. 23.
46. Ibid., p. 25.
47. Beinin, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian
Working Class, 1882–1954, p. 341.
48. Ibid., p. 344.
49. Baker, Egypt’s Uncertain Revolution under Nasser and Sadat, p. 27.
50. Issawi, ‘Economic Evolution since 1800’, p. 183.
51. Beinin, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian
Working Class, 1882–1954, p. 455.
52. Ibid., p. 457.
53. Sami A. Hanna and George H. Gardner, Arab Socialism (Brill, Leiden, 1969),
p. 104.
54. Raymond A. Hinnebusch, Egyptian Politics under Sadat: The Post-Populist
Development of an Authoritarian-Modernizing State (Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 1985), pp. 31–3.
55. Ibid., p. 51.
56. Ibid., p. 54.
57. Ibid., p. 57.
58. Ayubi, Overstating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East, p. 199.
59. Ibid., p. 300.
60. Robert Springborg, Mubarak’s Egypt: Fragmentation of the Political Order
(Westview Press, Boulder, 1989), p. 11.
61. Joshua A. Stacher, ‘Parties Over: The Demise of Egypt’s Opposition Parties’,
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 31(2) (2004), p. 220.
62. Springborg, Mubarak’s Egypt: Fragmentation of the Political Order, p. 84.
63. Hinnebusch, Egyptian Politics under Sadat: The Post-Populist Development of an
Authoritarian-Modernizing State, p. 62.
64. Ibid., p. 63.
212 Notes

65. Nawal al-Sa’dawi, Mudhakkirati fi Sijn al-Nisa’ (Dar al-Mustaqbal al-’Arabi,

Cairo, 1986).
66. Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Faber and Faber, London, 2002),
p. 420.
67. Hesham Al-Awadi, In Pursuit of Legitimacy: The Muslim Brothers and Mubarak:
1982–2000 (I. B. Tauris, London, 2004), p. 49.
68. Robert Bianchi, Unruly Corporatism: Associational Life in Twentieth-Century
Egypt (Oxford University Press, New York, 1989), pp. 49–52.
69. Ibid., p. 59.
70. Bianchi, Unruly Corporatism: Associational Life in Twentieth-Century Egypt.
71. Beinin, ‘Neo-liberal Structural Adjustment, Political Demobilization and
Neo-authoritarianism in Egypt’, p. 33.
72. Wickham, Mobilising Islam, Religion, Activism and Political Change in Egypt,
p. 36.
73. Ibid., p. 120.
74. Ibid., p. 97.
75. Beinin, ‘Neo-liberal Structural Adjustment, Political Demobilization and
Neo-authoritarianism in Egypt’, p. 23.
76. Omar El-Shafei, ‘Workers, Trade Unions and the State in Egypt: 1984–1989’,
Cairo Papers in Social Science, Vol. 18(2) (1995).
77. Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn,
p. 139.
78. Al-Awadi, In Pursuit of Legitimacy: The Muslim Brothers and Mubarak: 1982–
2000, p. 99.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid., p. 120.

6 The Rise of Social Movements in Egypt since the 1990s

1. Beinin, ‘Neo-liberal Structural Adjustment, Political Demobilization and
Neo-authoritarianism in Egypt’, p. 20.
2. Anne Alexander, ‘Mubarak in the International Arena’, in Egypt: The Moment
of Change, Rabab El Mahdi and Phil Marfleet (eds) (Zed Books, London,
2009), p. 146.
3. Bruce K. Rutherford, Egypt after Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam and Democracy in
the Arab World (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2008), p. 229.
4. Abdelrahman, Civil Society Exposed: The Politics of NGOs in Egypt, p. 100.
5. Ibid.
6. Galal A. Amin, Egypt’s Economic Predicament – A Study in the Interaction
of External Pressure, Political Folly and Social Tension in Egypt 1960–1990,
p. 115.
7. Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (University
of California Press, Berkeley, 2002), p. 238.
8. Asef Bayat, ‘Cairo: Power, Poverty and Urban Survival’, Middle East Report
Online 202, Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), 1996,
last accessed 1 November 2011, www.merip.org/mer/mer202/mer202.html.
9. Karima Korayem, ‘Structural Adjustment, Stabilisation Policies and the Poor
in Egypt’, Cairo Papers in Social Science, Vol. 18(4) (1995), p. 8.
 Notes 213

10. Ibid., p. 31.

11. Phil Marfleet, ‘Egypt Shaped at the Grass Roots’, 25 June 2011, open-
Democracy, last accessed 24 August 2011, http://www.opendemocracy.net/
philip-marfleet/egypt-shaped-at-grass-roots.
12. Ragui Assaad, ‘The Transformation of the Egyptian Labor Market: 1988–98’
and Mona Said, ‘A Decade of Rising Wage Inequality? Gender, Occupation,
and Public-Private Issues in the Egyptian Wage Structure’, in The Egyptian
Labor Market in an Era of Reform, Economic Research Forum for the Arab Coun-
tries, Iran and Turkey, Ragui Assaad (ed.) (The American University in Cairo
Press, Cairo, 2002).
13. Arab Human Development Report 2009, Challenges to Human Security in
the Arab Countries, last accessed 24 August 2011, http://www.arab-hdr.org/
contents/index.aspx?rid=5, p. 231.
14. Farsoun and Zacharia, ‘Class, Economic Change, and Political Liberalization
in the Arab World’, p. 263.
15. Philippe Droz-Vincent, ‘The Security Sector in Egypt: Management, Coer-
cion and External Alliance under the Dynamics of Change’, in The Arab State
and Neo-Liberal Globalization: The Restructuring of State Power in the Middle
East, Laura Guazzone and Daniela Pioppi (eds) (Ithaca Press, Reading, 2009),
p. 220 and p. 240.
16. Ulrich G. Wurzel, ‘The Political Economy of Authoritarianism in Egypt:
Insufficient Structural Reforms, Limited Outcomes and a Lack of New Actors’,
in The Arab State and Neo-Liberal Globalization: The Restructuring of State Power
in the Middle East, Laura Guazzone and Daniela Pioppi (eds) (Ithaca Press,
Reading, 2009), p. 105.
17. Al-Awadi, In Pursuit of Legitimacy – The Muslim Brothers and Mubarak: 1982–
2000, p. 144.
18. Ibid., p. 161.
19. Rutherford, Egypt after Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam and Democracy in the Arab
World, p. 87.
20. Ibid.
21. Al-Awadi, In Pursuit of Legitimacy – The Muslim Brothers and Mubarak: 1982–
2000, p. 171.
22. Mona El-Ghobashy, ‘The Metamorphosis of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers’,
IJMES, Vol. 37(3) (2005), p. 373.
23. Wickham, Mobilising Islam, pp. 186–7.
24. Sana Abed-Kotob, ‘The Accommodationists Speak: Goals and Strategies of
the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt’, IJMES, Vol. 27(3) (1995), p. 325.
25. Ibid., p. 330.
26. Bjørn Olav Utvik, ‘Hizb al-Wasat and the Potential for Change in Egyptian
Islamism’, Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 14(3) (2005), p. 301.
27. Ibid., p. 303.
28. Raymond Baker, Islam without Fear: Egypt and the New Islamists (Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2003).
29. Utvik, ‘Hizb al-Wasat and the Potential for Change in Egyptian Islamism’,
p. 295.
30. Beinin, ‘Neo-liberal Structural Adjustment, Political Demobilization and
Neo-authoritarianism in Egypt’, p. 26.
31. Ibid., p. 27.
214 Notes

32. Fatemah Farag, ‘Child Murder Sparks Campus Fury’, Al-Ahram Weekly Online,
Issue No. 502, 5–11 October 2000, last accessed 1 November 2011, http://
weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/502/eg5.htm.
33. Fatemah Farag, ‘Echoes of Intifada’, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, Issue No. 503,
12–18 October 2000, last accessed 1 November 2011, http://weekly.ahram.
org.eg/2000/503/pal2.htm.
34. Dina Ezzat, ‘Word on the Street’, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, Issue No. 504,
19–25 October 2000, last accessed 1 November 2011, http://weekly.ahram.
org.eg/2000/502/eg5.htm.
35. Amira Howeidy, ‘A New Political Map?’, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, Issue
No. 582, 18–24 April 2002, last accessed 1 November 2011, http://weekly.
ahram.org.eg/2002/582/eg3.htm.
36. Khaled Dawoud, ‘Message to “the Castle” ’, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, Issue
No. 551, 13–19 September 2001, last accessed 1 November 2011, http://
weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/551/eg4.htm.
37. Amira Howeidy, ‘Solidarity’, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, Issue No. 580, 4–10
April 2002, last accessed 1 November 2011, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/
2002/580/eg4.htm.
38. Interview conducted by the author with Hossam el-Hamalawy, Cairo,
23 November 2009.
39. Amira Howeidy, ‘Preempting Activism’, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, Issue
No. 627, 27 February–5 March 2003, last accessed 1 November 2011, http://
weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/627/eg3.htm.
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23 November 2009.
41. Human Rights Watch, Egypt: Security Forces Abuse of Anti-war Demonstra-
tors, November 2003, last accessed 1 November 2011, http://www.hrw.org/
reports/2003/egypt1103/.
42. Interview conducted by the author with Hossam el-Hamalawy, Cairo,
23 November 2009.
43. Beinin, ‘Neo-liberal Structural Adjustment, Political Demobilization and
Neo-authoritarianism in Egypt’, p. 30.
44. Ibid., p. 37.
45. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, ‘The Sick Man of the World’, Washington Post,
28 March 2004.
46. Mohamed Mahdi Akef, Speech given at the Inaugural Session of the Interna-
tional Campaign against American Hegemony, Cairo, 23 March 2006.
47. Alexander, ‘Mubarak in the International Arena’, p. 150.
48. Interview conducted by the author with Ibrahim El Houdaiby, Cairo, 19 Jan-
uary 2009.
49. The Streets are Ours Press Release, 2005.
50. Rutherford, Egypt after Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam and Democracy in the Arab
World, p. 2.
51. Ibid., pp. 65–6.
52. Ibid., p. 88.
53. Ibid., pp. 152–5.
54. Ibn Khaldoun Centre for Development Studies, ‘Independent Commit-
tee for Election Monitoring Reports: Progressive Deterioration of Election
Process’, Civil Society: Ibn Khaldoun Centre for Development Studies Newsletter,
November 2005.
 Notes 215

55. Human Rights Watch, Why they Died: Civilian Casualties in Lebanon during the
2006 War, 5 September 2007, last accessed 18 November 2011, http://www.
hrw.org/reports/2007/09/05/why-they-died.
56. Tony Karon, ‘Condi in Diplomatic Disneyland’, Time Magazine, 26 June
2006, last accessed 14 September 2011, http://www.time.com/time/world/
article/0,8599,1219325,00.html.
57. Dina Bishara and Amr Hamzawy, ‘Islamist Movements in the Arab World and
the 2006 Lebanon War’, Carnegie Papers, Democracy and Rule of Law Project,
No. 75 (2006), p. 6.
58. Ibid.
59. Beinin, ‘Neo-liberal Structural Adjustment, Political Demobilization and
Neo-authoritarianism in Egypt’, p. 37.
60. Interview conducted by the author with Hossam el-Hamalawy, Cairo,
23 November 2009.
61. Interview conducted by the author with Abdel Qader Nada, General Secre-
tary of the Independent Union of Real Estate Tax Collectors and head of the
Giza Governorate Branch, Cairo, 26 November 2009.
62. Interview conducted by the author with Tarek Mustafa, Treasurer of the Inde-
pendent Union of Real Estate Tax Collectors and Qualubeya Governorate
Representative, Cairo, 26 November 2009.
63. Interview conducted by the author with Aziza Rashad, member of the Coun-
cil of the Independent Union of Real Estate Tax Collectors, Giza Branch,
Cairo, 26 November 2009.
64. Ibid.
65. Interview conducted by the author with Ibrahim El Houdaiby, Cairo, 19 Jan-
uary 2009.
66. Rabab El Mahdi, ‘Orientalising the Egyptian Revolution’, last accessed on
8 August 2011, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1214/orientalising-
the-egyptian-uprising.
67. Khaled Ali, ‘A Roadmap for Labor’, 17 February 2011, al-Masry al-Youm, last
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68. Mohammad Fadel, ‘Labor and the Future of the Egyptian Revolution’,
14 March 2011, al-Masry al-Youm, last accessed 15 March 2011, http://www.
almasryalyoum.com/node/352272.
69. Mohamed Habib, ‘Revolution Restores Student Power to Egypt Campuses’,
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70. Asef Bayat, ‘Paradoxes of Arab Refo-lutions’, 13 March 2011, al-Masry al-
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73. Ibid.
74. Omayma Abdel-Latif, ‘In the Shadow of the Brothers: Women of the
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’, Carnegie Papers, No. 13, 2008.
216 Notes

75. Hani Shukrallah, ‘The Decline and Fall of the Muslim Brotherhood’,
Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 6 December 2012, last accessed 24 September
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0/The-decline-and-fall-of-the-Muslim-Brotherhood.aspx 3/4.
76. Ibid.
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http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/75363.aspx.
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view-on-morsis-fall/.
79. Egypt Independent, ‘Poll: 40% do not know interim president, 70% do not
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not-know-pm.

7 Reform and Revolution in Egypt and Iran

1. Beinin, ‘Neo-liberal Structural Adjustment, Political Demobilization and
Neo-authoritarianism in Egypt’, p. 20.
2. Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn,
p. 42.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., p. 138.
5. Asef Bayat, ‘Paradoxes of Arab Refo-lutions’, al-Masry al-Youm, 13 March
2011, last accessed 15 March 2011, http://www.almasryalyoum.com/node/
351032.
6. Asef Bayat, Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East (The
American University in Cairo Press, Cairo, 2009) p. 14.
7. Hamid Dabashi, The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism, p. 54.
8. Interview conducted by the author with Abdolkarim Soroush via telephone,
3 December 2009.
9. Interview conducted by the author with Ata’ollah Mohajerani, London,
5 December 2009.
10. Email interview conducted by the author with Hasan Yousef Eshkevari,
2 February 2010.
11. Interview conducted by the author with Hala Shukrallah, Cairo, 20 Jan-
uary 2009.
12. Interview conducted by the author with Dr Omaima Abu Bakr, Cairo,
15 November 2009.
13. Interview conducted by the author with Fakri Mohtashamipour, Tehran,
10 January 2009.
14. Interview conducted by the author with Zeinab Afifi, Cairo, 1 Decem-
ber 2009.
15. Interview conducted by the author with Baqer Moin, London, 4 Decem-
ber 2009.
 Notes 217

16. Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn,
p. 47.
17. Email interview conducted by the author with Hasan Yousef Eshkevari,
2 February 2010.
18. Interview conducted by the author with Farokh Negahdar, London,
5 December 2009.
19. Droz-Vincent, ‘The Security Sector in Egypt: Management, Coercion and
External Alliance under the Dynamics of Change’, p. 97.
20. Interview conducted by the author with Hala Shukrallah, Cairo, 20 Jan-
uary 2009.
21. Ibid.
22. Salehi-Isfahani, ‘Oil Wealth and Economic Growth in Iran’, pp. 5–6.
23. Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn
p. 20.
24. Interview conducted by the author with Dr Mohamed Morsi, Cairo, 19 Jan-
uary 2009.
25. Interview conducted by the author with Dr Gamal Nassar, Cairo, 17 Jan-
uary 2009.
26. Interview conducted by the author with Mustafa Radwan, Cairo, 21 Jan-
uary 2009.
27. Interview conducted by the author with Magdy Saad, Cairo, 20 January 2009.
28. Ibid.
29. Interview conducted by the author with Dr Omaima Abu Bakr, Cairo,
15 November 2009.
30. Ibid.
31. Interview conducted by the author with Baqer Moin, London, 4 Decem-
ber 2009.
32. Interview conducted by the author with Eisa Saharkhiz, Tehran, 11 Jan-
uary 2009.
33. Interview conducted by the author with Baqer Moin, London, 4 Decem-
ber 2009.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Interview conducted by the author with Eisa Saharkhiz, Tehran, 11 Jan-
uary 2009.
37. Ibid.
38. Interview conducted by the author with Ata’ollah Mohajerani, London,
5 December 2009.
39. Interview conducted by the author with Abdolkarim Soroush via telephone,
3 December 2009.
40. Interview conducted by the author with Baqer Moin, London, 4 Decem-
ber 2009.
41. Interview conducted by the author with Ibrahim El Houdaiby, Cairo, 19 Jan-
uary 2009.
42. Interview conducted by the author with Magdy Saad, Cairo, 20 January 2009.
43. Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn,
p. 87.
44. Interview conducted by the author with Mustafa Radwan, Cairo, 21 Jan-
uary 2009.
218 Notes

45. Ibid.
46. Email interview conducted by the author with Amany Abu Fadl, 24 Novem-
ber 2009.
47. Interview conducted by the author with Tarek Mustafa, Cairo, 26 Novem-
ber 2009.
48. Ibid.
49. Interview conducted by the author with Abdel Qader Nada, Cairo,
26 November 2009.
50. Interview conducted by the author with Dr Omaima Abu Bakr, Cairo,
25 November 2009.
51. Interview conducted by the author with Shahla Sherkat, Tehran, 12 Jan-
uary 2009.
52. Interview conducted by the author with Jamileh Kadivar, Tehran, 14 Jan-
uary 2009.
53. Interview conducted by the author with Eisa Saharkhiz, Tehran, 11 January
2009.
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Index

6 April Movement 17 authoritarian regimes

elite 92, 130
Abdelrahman, Maha 23, 38 neo-liberal 5–6, 7–9, 36, 125, 130,
‘Abduh, Muhammad 31, 101–2, 210 155, 169, 177, 179, 187,
‘Abu al-Futuh, ‘Abd al-Mun’im 122, 189, 194
141, 151 persistence of 3, 19, 27, 28–30, 38,
Abu-Se’ada, Hafez 138 41, 49, 54, 59, 72, 102, 116,
al-Afghani, Jamal al-din 31, 44, 102 117, 120, 122, 125–6, 134–5,
Aghajari, Hashem 84 139, 140–1, 159, 171–4,
Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud 5, 72, 91, 185, 191
93, 95, 186, 189 US/Western support of 1, 10–12,
policies 89–91, 92, 176, 185, 188 69, 119, 125, 153, 169, 180,
rise to power 88, 89, 196 189, 195
al-Ahram Weekly see newspapers and axis of evil see United States (US)
journals Ayubi, Nazih N. 26, 31, 99
aid interventions 2, 184, 187
al-’Amal 131 Bayat, Asef 32, 38, 129, 158–9,
al-Arian, Essam 122, 132, 171
133, 141 al-Banna, Hasan 107–8, 111,
Algeria 34, 37, 53, 55 142
National Liberation Front 56,
bazaar 42, 45–7, 52–4, 57–8, 65
134, 192
Beinin, Joel 114, 135
Ali, Muhammad 98, 99–101
Ben Ali, President Zine El Abidine
American Chamber of Commerce
93, 148
(AMCHAM) ix, 130
Black Wednesday 142
Amin, Galal A. 5
Bourdieu, Pierre 16
Amin, Samir 9
Brooks, Geraldine 1
Anglo-Egyptian treaty 105
Burujirdi, Ayotollah Hassan 52
Anglo-Ottoman convention
100
Anthias, Floya 15 Cairo 16, 17–18, 106, 107, 109, 129,
Arab Human Development 132, 142–4, 148, 150, 153, 162,
Report 129 164, 173, 183–5
Arab socialism 115–16 ‘Anabir railway strike 104
Arab Spring 3, 27 demonstrations in 18, 108, 110,
Arab unity 114, 115 112, 117, 120, 137–8, 141,
Arab–Israeli war 57, 118, 181 146–7, 149, 151
Ashrafi, Nahid 84 student unions in 122, 124, 136
Assaad, Ragui 129 Tahrir Square 137, 140, 149, 151
Association of Press Freedom tram workers’ strike 101, 104
83 Callinicos, Alex 10
Ata’ollah Mohajerani 19, 76, Camp David 5, 119, 120, 144,
161, 178 156, 157

235
236 Index

capitalism neo- 7, 10, 87, 194

economic 26, 56, 65, 69, 70, 116, politics 50, 53, 55, 62, 72, 76–8,
125, 175, 177, 182 83–4, 92–3, 95 106, 151, 166,
global 5, 6, 10, 15, 26, 28, 34, 97, 176, 188, 192, 196
180, 194 rise in Iran 86–90
relations of production 33, 69, 101 women 34, 36, 75, 163, 164
Central Council of Trade Unions 51 corruption 6, 194
Centre for Women’s Participation 85 in Egypt 111, 120, 122, 131, 141,
Chamber of Deputies 101 145, 154, 168, 171–3
civil liberties 53, 104 in elections 18, 37, 88–9, 90–2,
civil rights 14, 22, 34, 46, 53, 69, 105, 131–4, 143, 176, 178
109, 114, 136, 163, 167, 177 see in Iran 45, 53, 55, 57, 96, 157, 176
also human rights and workers’ Council of Guardians 64, 80–1, 83,
rights 88–9, 92
civil society 6, 14, 20, 29–33, 38, 42, Crompton, Rosemary 25
76, 82, 85, 94, 97, 122–4, 127,
143, 151, 178, 186–7, 190, 192 see democracy movement 33, 93 190
also democracy movement, elites, in Egypt 125, 127, 142, 155, 196
networks, social justice, struggle in Iran 81–6, 95, 157, 185, 195
from below, uncivil society, women, democratisation by force 2, 10–11,
workers’ rights 180–1, 184, 186–7, 188, 192–3
demands of 10, 29–33 Denoeux, Guilain 31
global 12 dialogue of civilisations see United
Islah and 168–77 States (US)
Muslim Brotherhood and 130–6, Doctors for Change 143
139, 141, 153, 197 Doctors’ Syndicate 132
SMT (Social Movement Theory) and Durkheim, Emile 22–3
22–9, 39 DOC see SMT (Social Movement Theory)
state structure and 9, 68–9, 72–3,
86–8, 126, 141, 154, 194–5 Ebadi, Shirin 76, 82
collective ideology 116 Ebtekar, Massoumeh 78
colonialism 3, 10, 14–15, 33–5, 55, Egypt see also authoritarian regimes,
156 see also imperialism Cairo, colonialism, Mahalla,
in Egypt 5, 13, 97–8, 100–102, Muslim Brotherhood, neo-liberalism,
104, 115, 125–6, 134, 159, 163 revolution, Suez Canal and Wafd
in Iran 41–2, 44–5, 47, 50, 68–70, cotton trade 26, 99–101, 103, 201
161, 180 dictatorship 1, 8
communism 33, 37, 98, 156 see also dirty war 131–2
Marxism Draft Charter for National Action
in Egypt 105–10, 111–13, 125 116
in Iran 48–9, 167 economic liberalisation 5, 11,
Hizb-e Tudeh (Party of the Masses) 117, 119
51, 53, 58 economy 100
conservative foreign occupation of 99, 101, 107
interpretations of Islam 12, 36–7, global trade and relations 26, 99
60, 63, 65–6, 68–69, 79, 94, 124, mufti 99, 102
133, 185–6, 190 nationalism and communism
Middle East 2, 4, 21, 23, 33, 39, 105–10
40–1, 48, 126, 144, 193 Ottoman rule 99–100, 163
 Index 237

state and society 98–102, 150–4 Harvey, David 6, 7, 9, 10

Syria, relations with 115–16 Hermassi, Abdelbaki 7
Waqf 45, 49, 99 Hilhorst, Dorothea 30
Egyptian Feminist Union (EFU) 105 Hizbullah 13, 144, 157
Egyptian Organisation for Human Hokumat-e Vela’i see Government of the
Rights 138 Jurist
Egyptian–Israeli peace treaty 119, Holocaust 91, 111
121, 144, 148, 152 El Houdaiby, Ibrahim 142, 148,
el-Hamalawy, Hossam 138, 139 180–1
El Mahdi, Rabab 149 al-Hudaybi, Hasan 142
elites 4, 5, 12, 18, 23, 57, 99, human rights 7, 10–11, 31–2, 61, 79,
176, 194 82–4, 88, 105, 135, 137–8, 140,
business 6, 7, 94, 112 143–6, 180
clerical 79 Human Rights Watch 139, 214–15
landowning 42 Huntington, Samuel 23
military 8, 9, 94, 126, 187 Hussein, Saddam 63, 131, 184, 186
political 8–11, 20, 27, 37, 65–6, 68,
77, 80–1, 92–3, 95–6, 98, 100,
Ibrahim, Saad Eddin 31,
103, 112, 175, 192
identity 15, 26, 43, 49, 171, 191
Western 14, 197
Elson, Diane 9 identity construction 24–5
Eshkevari, Hasan Yousef 19, 81, 84, Ijtihad 38, 44, 84, 102, 108
161, 167 al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun see Muslim
Brotherhood
Facebook 3, 149 ILO (International Labour
Farhadpour, Lily 47, 77 Organization) 82
Farouk, King 106, 111–12 Imam(s) 43, 55, 62–3, 67, 74, 81
Farsoun, Sami K. 8 IMF (International Monetary Fund)
Frank, Andre Gunder 9 3, 6, 8, 92, 94, 120, 128, 131, 135,
Free Officers Movement 112–13 see 153, 155
also RCC imperialism 3, 4, 9–11, 14, 20, 33–6,
freedom of the press 82–3, 90, 92, 156, 159, 179–81, 189, 193, 196
118, 120, 139 in Egypt 97, 102, 105–9, 113–16,
Friedman, Thomas 6 120, 125, 127, 145, 183, 185,
187
Ganji, Akbar 88 in Iran 41, 55–6, 65, 69, 87
Gaza see Israel International Journalists
Geramizadegan, Ashraf 78 Association 82
globalisation 5–7, 11, 16, 27, 138 International Women’s Day 82
Government of the Jurist 81 International Workers’ Day 82
green movement in Iran 12, 72, Iran see also elites, neo-liberal reforms,
90–5, 159, 178, 188, 196 revolution, Revolutionary Guard and
Guazzone, Laura 7 women
American embassy siege 52, 62,
Hafez, Mohammed M. 23 206
Hafez, Sherine 35 civil action in Tehran 53, 59, 83–4,
Hall, John A. 30 91–2
Hamas 13, 128, 153, 157, 181 Fedayeen-e Khalq (guerrilla group)
Hardan, Muhammad 153 56, 167
238 Index

Iran – continued Kadivar, Jamileh 186

global trade and relations 50–2, Kadivar, Mohsen 81, 83
68–9, 75, 87, 92–3 Kanoone Nevisandegan see Writers’
Iran–Iraq war 64–5, 67, 73, Association of Iran
85, 88 Kar, Mehrangiz 76
isolation 5, 73, 94 Karroubi, Mehdi 65, 89
state and society 41–50 Keane, John 30
ulama (religious scholars) 13, 31, Khamenei, Ali 55, 66, 74, 95, 188
42, 43–9, 57, 58, 63, 69, 99, Khatami, Mohammed Reza 5, 72–3,
102, 205 76, 78, 83–4, 86–91, 94, 161, 174,
Iraq, invasion of 2, 9–10, 35, 75, 87, 175–6, 178, 196
95, 130–1, 138–9, 140, 142, 154, Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruholla 53–4,
180–1, 184–6, 195 56, 58, 61–7, 72–4, 80–1, 161,
Islamic Iran Participation Front 84 166, 175, 179
Islamic principles Kifaya movement 127, 141–3
ijma’ (consensus) 102 Koolaee, Elaheh 67, 88
Qur’an 34, 35, 38, 43, 49, 77,
Korayem, Karima 129
81, 186
Kurzman, Charles 24
shari’a law 108, 111, 140
shura (consultation) 59,
60, 102 Labour House 81
umma (community) 31 Langroudi, Marzieh Mortazi 56
Islamic Republic of Iran 61–7 Lawyers’ Syndicate 118, 122, 131
Islamic Student Association 122 League of Nations 106
Islamophobia 35, 62, 185, 186, 195 Lenin, Vladimir 10, 56
Isma’il, Khedive 101, 102 Liberation Rally 113, 114
Israel Luciani, Giacomo 7
Egyptian war 115, 117, 118, 144
Gaza 18, 118, 128, 136, 144, 148,
Madi, Abu al-‘Ala 122
152, 153, 181, 182, 188, 192
Mahalla strike movement 17,
influence of United States 157,
109–10, 145, 150, 162
180, 181, 185, 189
Majles 66, 93
Mossad 53
Mardin, Serif 30
October War 1973 118
Palestine, occupation of 2, 18, 87, Markaze Mosharekat Zanan see Centre
111, 117–19, 128, 136–7, 139, for Women’s Participation
144, 153, 179–80 Marx, Karl 10, 22
relations with Lebanon 144, Marxism 26, 55, 56, 70, 116, 125,
155, 157 134, 137
Mashai, Rahim 93
Jama’at al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun see McAdam, Doug 22, 28, 29
Muslim Brotherhood Melucci, Alberto 4, 27
Al Jazeera 18 MENA Solidarity 153
Jebheh-ye Mosharekat-e Iran-e Eslami militancy 52, 105–6, 110, 116,
see Islamic Iran Participation Front 121–4, 131–2, 134, 176–7, 181,
Journalists for Change 143 183, 193
Journalists’ Syndicate 83, 131 militant groups
journals see newspapers and journals al-Jama’at al-Islamiyya 122
Judges’ Club 143 al-Jihad 122
 Index 239

military interventions 2, 9, 11, 187, aims and ideology 33, 37, 107–8,
193, 197 111, 123, 125–6, 131, 133–4,
Afghanistan 35, 87, 94 140–1, 144, 152–3, 155, 162,
Egypt 104, 106, 107 178, 181, 187–8, 197
Iran 45, 50, 51–2, 188, 191 demobilisation of 132, 152, 196
Iraq 35, 87, 94, 130, 138 elections/politics 122, 124, 143,
Israel 118, 144 152, 155
Misr Spinning and Weaving Mill membership 107, 122, 140, 142,
109, 110, 145 148
modernity, contradictory experience origins 13, 106
of 14, 23, 40–1, 60, 69, 97, 102, repression of 111, 114, 121, 132–4,
156, 163 136, 154, 180, 184, 188
Mohajerani, Ata’ollah 161, 178 social and economic arenas 122–3,
Mohtashamipour, Fakhri 85, 164 131–3, 171–2
Moin, Baqer 166, 174, 175, Mussavi, Mir Hussein 65, 91
176, 178
Moin, Mustafa 89 Nafisi, Azar 1, 198
Mojahedeen-e Khalk 56 Naguib, General Mohammed 113–14
Montazeri, Ayatollah Hossein Ali 54, Nahhas Pasha, Prime Minister Mustafa
65, 74, 80, 81, 91, 95 106, 112
Morsi, Dr Mohamed 153, 154, 155, Nasser, Gamal Abdel 53, 113–18,
171–2, 187–8, 191 120–6, 137
Mossadegh, Mohammad 51, 52, 54, National Front in Iran 51–3, 55, 58
55, 70 Nazif, Ahmed 140
Mottahari, Ayatollah Morteza 54, 55, neo-conservatism 7, 194
78 neo-liberal
Mubarak, Gamal 140, 141, 142, authoritarianism 29, 36, 125–6,
148 130, 156, 169, 172, 179, 187
Mubarak, Hosni 98, 152–3, 211 see economics 4, 6, 8, 30, 32, 37, 86,
also Muslim Brotherhood and Cairo 88, 90, 92–3, 123, 127–8, 129,
anti-Mubarak demonstrations 135, 143, 163, 175, 189–91
138–9, 141, 142, 145 ideology 6–7, 9, 11–12, 13, 25, 27,
international relations 135, 136, 33, 39, 73, 75, 94, 126, 174,
199, 212 176, 180, 183, 193–7, 158
overthrow 93, 149–51, 155, 187, reforms 5, 73, 78, 130, 141, 153,
197 155, 162, 168, 169–71, 176–7
relations with US 1, 157, 169, 187, networks
192 formal 8, 12, 27, 81, 123, 125,
strategy 121–6, 127–32, 143–4, 132, 133
154, 173, 185 informal 24, 27, 41, 177, 202
Munson, Ziad 23, 200 social 123
Muslim Brotherhood 2, 11–13, 17, New Religious Thinkers 13, 79
72, 105–10, 120, 126–7, 153, 157, newspapers and journals
165, 173, 183, 195–6, 200, 202, journals
211–16 Kian 79
action/demonstrations 18, 24, Sobh-e Emruz 82
108, 111, 132, 140, 144, 148, Hoghoghe Zanan (Women’s Rights)
151 78
240 Index

newspapers and journals – continued POS see SMT (Social Movement Theory)
Jame’e (Society) 82 Poulson, Stephen 28, 202
Khordad 82
Zanan (Women) 76 al-Qaida 2, 192
Zan-e Ruz (Woman of Today) 76 Qaradawi, Shaykh Yusuf 134, 150,
newspapers 162
al-Ahram Weekly 102, 137, 152, Qutb, Sayyid 116
214–16, 223, 224, 225, 226,
232
Rafsanjani, Ali Akbar Hashemi 5, 54,
al-Masry al-Youm 150
55, 72, 74–5, 80, 86, 88, 89–90,
NGOs (non-governmental
93, 175–6
organisations) 12, 17, 30–1, 190,
Rahnema, Ali 52, 205, 206
200, 202
Rashad, Aziza 147, 215
funding 135
RCC (Revolutionary Command
in place of state aid 32, 78, 126,
Council) 112, 113–15
171, 194–5
refo-lution 159, 179, 196, 198, 215
and political reform 38, 90, 132,
religion
134–5, 145, 169, 173–4
and women 78, 84–5, 88, 145, and democracy 7
162–4, 209 Islam 23, 34, 37–8, 43, 50, 56, 65,
NGO-isation 78, 135, 171, 174, 190 77, 79, 160, 204
Niblock, Tim 31, 37, 46, 204 and the state 87, 107, 108, 134–5,
non-governmental organisations see 182, 198, 203, 205, 209
NGOs religiosity 38, 166
non-movements 27, 39, 159, 177 rentier economy
Norton, Augustus R. 31, 32, 202, 203 Egypt as a 128
Iran as a 51, 70, 171
OECD (Organisation for Economic repertoires of contention see SMT
Co-operation and (Social Movement Theory)
Development) 6 revolution see also refo-lution
oil nationalisation movement 40, 50 in Egypt
OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum 1919 97–8, 102–7, 110, 125
Exporting Countries) 57 1946–52 53, 97–8, 112, 116,
Orientalism 3–4, 14, 19, 38, 164,166, 125–6
185, 193, 203 2011–13 19, 147–50, 151–2, 159,
Osanloo, Mansur 82 165, 187
Ottoman Empire see Egypt in Iran
constitutional 1906–11 14, 34–5,
Pahlavi, Reza Shah 48–51, 205 40, 44, 45–7, 49, 70, 160, 161
Palestine Liberation Organisation 1978–79 5, 24, 40, 53, 57–66,
(PLO) 56, 119 70, 81, 84–5, 95, 156–7, 158,
Palestinian intifada (2000) 127, 136, 159, 161, 166–8
137, 139–40, 142, 155, 214 Revolutionary Guard 8, 9, 64, 65, 92,
pan-Arabism 53, 115–17 94
pan-Islamism 115 Reza Shah, Mohammed 51, 52, 57
Pioppi, Daniella 7, 198, 199, 213, Roshanfekran-e Dini see New Religious
222 Thinkers
political freedom 7, 25, 36, 37, 118, Rouhani, Dr Hassan 94, 95, 196–7
172, 186, 194 RMT see SMT (Social Movement Theory)
 Index 241

Sadat, Anwar al- repertoires of contention 28–9, 33,

corrective revolution 118 39, 156
counter-revolution from above Resource Mobilisation Theory 24
117–21 top-down model 9, 20, 24, 26–7
foreign policy 118–20, 128, 144, social Islam 11, 32, 203
169 social justice 12, 39, 47, 62, 88, 113,
hero of the crossing 118, 120 126, 127, 145, 153, 167, 195
infitah (open door) 5, 118–20, 196 social services 11, 39, 178
policies 117–19, 126, 211 Soroush, Dr Abdolkarim 19, 79, 160,
al-Sa’dawi, Nawal 34, 121, 212 178, 208, 216, 217
Saharkhiz, Eisa 82, 175, 176, 186, Souief, Ahdaf 151
209, 207, 218 state legitimacy 8–10, 38, 62, 68, 71,
Said, Edward 15, 200 74, 96, 114, 117, 121, 125–6, 132,
Said, Mona 129, 213 141–2, 147, 154, 156, 168
Sanei, Ayatollah 91 struggle from below 3, 20, 187
SAVAK 53, 58, 61, 167 Student Union 122, 124, 133
al-Sayyid, Mustapha Kamil 31 Sudan 104
Second World War 50, 108–10 Suez Canal 101, 106–7, 110, 112,
securitisation 7, 8, 180 115, 117–18, 121, 128
Sha’rawi, Huda 105 Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
Shabestari, Mohammed 81, 209 (SCAF) 150–2, 187
Shamsolvaezin, Mashaallah 79, 82,
209 Tahrir Square see Cairo
Association of Press Freedom 82–3 Taleghani, Ayatollah Mahmoud 54,
Shari‘ati, Ali 55–6, 78, 166, 206 68, 77, 166
Sherkat, Shahla 76, 185, 208, 218 Taleghani, Azam 68, 77
Shojaee, Zahra 78 Taliban 144, 186, 192
Shora-ye Negahban-e Qanun-e Assassi Tarrow, Sydney 21–3, 28–9, 200, 201,
see Council of Guardians 202
Shukrallah, Hani 152, 216 Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company
al-Sisi, General 154, 188, 191 Workers’ Syndicate 81–2
SMT (Social Movement Theory) 3–4, The Streets Are Ours 142, 214
22–4, 28–9, 39, 177 see also Tilly, Charles i, 22, 28–9, 200, 201,
democracy movement, 202
democratisation by force and tobacco protest 40, 41, 44, 46, 47, 70
networks Tudeh Party see communism
collective behaviour/action 22–3,
26, 28, 123, 200 ulama see Iran
collective identities 31, 116 uncivil society 21, 29–33, 34, 130–6
Dynamics of Contention i, 24–5, ugly movements 21–2
26, 28, 29, 33 UN Convention for the Elimination of
expectations 123, 168 all forms of Discrimination
inequality 6, 22, 108, 213 against Women (CEDAW) 85
modernity vs. tradition 14, 23, UNDP (United Nations Development
40–1, 60, 69, 97, 102, 156, 163, Programme) 6
208, 212 United States (US)
Political Opportunities Structure arms supply 57, 157
model 23–4 axis of evil 5, 87
242 Index

CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) hijab/veiling of 34, 35, 47, 49, 68

53 Islamic feminism 43, 163–5, 173
dialogue of civilisations 5, 87, 94, and journalism 70, 76–7
182, 184 labour force, in the 35, 42–3, 67–8,
and Egypt 10, 117, 126–30, 152–3, 98, 129, 147, 162
192, 197 liberation of 10, 36, 47, 51, 66–7
Halliburton (private contractor) 9 oppression of 34–5, 36, 49, 63–4,
and Iran 49–54, 59–60, 62, 66, 73, 69, 100–1, 142
75, 92–4 organisations/NGOs 30, 56, 68,
and Iraq 63, 140 70, 78, 85, 88, 93, 105, 110,
and Israel 117–19, 156, 180–1 163, 174, 176, 209
policy in the Middle East 10–11, rights of 2, 11, 14, 16, 35, 47–8,
18, 87–8, 94, 118–19, 144, 50, 64, 66, 84, 87, 134, 152,
180–1, 183–7, 189 171, 180, 185–6
‘Urabi, Ahmad 101 seclusion of 42, 98
social movements 13, 21, 48, 52,
vilayat-e faqih 62–3, 64–6, 73–4, 79, 61, 75–9, 83, 104, 109, 125,
80–1, 83, 166, 175, 178 155, 162, 190, 192, 195
Workers for Change 143
Wafd (delegation) 102–6, 109, 112, workers’ rights 48, 50–3, 57, 58–61,
114, 122, 131, 134 70, 81–3, 92–3, 101–5, 108–14,
War on Terror 35, 38, 94, 127, 169, 118–21, 123–4, 143–7, 154, 170,
180, 203 178
White, Gordon 30, 199, 202 World Bank 6, 8, 75, 128, 131, 145,
Whitehead, Laurence 11, 199 155
Wickam, Carrie Rosefsky 24 world systems theory 9
Wiktorowicz, Quintan 23, 198, 201 Writers’ Association of Iran 82
women WTO (World Trade Organization) 94
activism 17, 43, 47, 56, 63, 85,
90–1, 105, 145, 164, 197 Young, Iris Marion 7, 35, 199, 203
children and citizenship 84–5
driving political change 33–4, 35, Zacharia, Christina 8, 199, 213
60, 67, 70, 75–9, 84–6, 90, 105 Zaghlul, Saad 103