Could `Iran` happen in North Korea?

The antigovernment protests in Iran are a new form of revolution. It is not organized - it is organic. It is a revolution of collective conscience. Does this provide an indication of what could happen in North Korea?

There are no charismatic revolutionary leaders or mass political movements fighting the government in Iran. The blogs and e-mails that now fill my inbox propose that the protest movement comprises millions of individuals who will not tolerate the regime anymore. Many of them fought to install the Islamic regime and against Iraq, and they have tolerated its political failings for 30 years. But conscience now questions the dissonance between rhetoric and the reality of what has been done to fellow human beings. The apparent falsification of election results was just the final straw.

The strategies of the Iranian government now give the impression that they could only have been planned by a "Ministry of Own Goals."

Early on was Ahmadinejad`s statement that the protesters were behaving like Nazis. This appeared bizarre from a man who claims that the holocaust and therefore Nazi imperialism did not exist. He then attacked clerics who underpin his Islamic state, notably the former revolutionary president, Rafsanjani.



Next we had the inevitable claims that the protests were orchestrated by the American CIA and British intelligence agencies. Iranians are well-aware of the futile efforts of those two agencies in the Middle East. If they could not be effective in Iraq, why should they have any impact in Iran?

The Iranian English language website, Kayhan International, perpetuated the view that the only state policy to respond to the protests was distraction. At the height of the street fighting, there was no mention of the violence, but there was a headline story about the "rusty old bucket of a North Korean cargo ship" being pursued by an American warship.

People might believe that votes could be accurately counted within a few hours of the polling stations closing. But not presenting the figures in relation to each constituency simply ignited public mistrust, and gave credibility to calculations from Chatham House that the number of votes apparently cast in some constituencies exceeded the number of voters. Nothing was learned. Next there were claims that a partial recount found no fault with the election, but no figures were given.

Whether or not votes are rigged, it would be wise for any regime to ensure that its claims are credible, because any sense of being cheated creates a distrust of a regime, even among its supporters. Harvard psychologist Stephen Pinker points out in his book, "How the mind works," that we have an instinctive "cheater-detector," and consequently a strong emotional reaction against being cheated, even if we indirectly benefit. This is honed by thousands of years of biological evolution and social interaction, and will not simply disappear because religious leaders do not understand evolution.

On June 17, Iranian footballers wore green bands in the World Cup qualifier against South Korea to show solidarity. I expect many Koreans remember when athletes from North and South Korea entered the stadium at the Busan Asian games, carrying flags showing a united Korea. Whether or not fans like green bands is secondary to wanting their national team to win. And that will include Iranian women, even though they are not permitted to enter football stadiums. A regime that bans its star players from playing for their country, as a punishment for wearing green bands, is going to score fewer home goals, and more own goals.

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One of the central theories of war studies is that it is unwise for armies to use too much force. They just need sufficient force to achieve their military aims, not more. This stems from Hitler`s 1941 Operation Barossa against the Soviet Union. With 4.5 million troops it was the biggest military action ever, with the largest number of casualties. Not only did it soon fail, but it provoked a massive brutal retaliation against Germany.

Every police officer and militia that appears on the Iranian streets is now fueling a reaction against the regime. Not least of this is because it is said that some of the plain clothes militia speak in Arabic. Iranians have little love of Arabic culture, and it is self-defeating if people believe the government is conspiring with Arabs by hiring them as a secret militia to attack Iranians.

The most counterproductive action was to criticize U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for "meddling" and "damaging his own credibility," because he called on Iran`s leaders to "respect the will of their own people." This was a particularly crass mistake. I happened to meet Ban about two weeks ago. Even from a brief exchange, he effused intelligent integrity and constantly exemplified his own wonderful strategy for addressing world problems, "principled pragmatism." However foolish North Korean leaders may be, it is unlikely that they would disgrace themselves by directly insulting Ban Ki-moon.

Other signs of hope, about both Iran and North Korea, come from a new film released last week in the United States and previewed in London at Amnesty International - "The Stoning of Soraya M." This true story is set in an Iranian village. It describes how a fake mullah conspires with the mayor and the local prison governor to have the wife of the governor accused of adultery. He wants to marry another woman.

The stoning is shown in graphic detail, and makes it clear that women are not killed by stoning. They are tortured publically for many hours and left to die in agony. Religious leaders acting contrary to Islam, conspiring with corrupt officials and political leaders to use violence against innocent women is an image that Iran will find hard to shake off, whatever the outcome of the protests.

The whole issue of stoning creates other astonishing contradictions by Iranian lawmakers. In 2008 judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi said "One cannot remove the punishment of stoning from law." Yet this punishment was only introduced into the Islamic Penal Code in1983.

Stoning is not, as many believe, Iranian tradition. It did not happen during the Shah`s era, and the practice is not Persian or proposed in the Koran. It is the introduction, by contemporary Islamic leaders, of a Jewish custom. The practice is closer to Zionism than Zoroastrianism. This is as bizarre as North Korean leaders introducing the use of the electric chair from America.

I happened to watch some of "Soraya" being filmed on location, and perhaps the most significant aspect of the film was two things that it did not show.

The end of the film originally contained scenes where the fake mullah was arrested, put on trial and punished. This was cut, which is a shame because it symbolizes the fact that good usually triumphs over evil.

More significantly, when filming started, local villagers became angry because they believed that the film was American anti-Iranian propaganda. But when the graphic stoning of Soraya was being filmed, the villagers redirected their anger against the possibility that a woman should suffer such treatment. Conscience is more powerful than politics.

Hope for Iran, and North Korea, lies in two things. Despotic regimes inevitably score own goals, appear foolish and inept, and alienate their own supporters. But paradoxically, it is unfortunate that those who rule North Korea seem less inept than those who rule Iran.

More importantly, deep inside our human psyche is not only a "cheater-detector," but also a conscience formed by thousands of years of human evolution. Conscience creates room for doubt about what is right and wrong in our world. As Ariel Dorfman put it in his novel about the Chilean dictatorship, "Death and the maiden," the important thing for those who resist is to "keep doubt alive."

Whatever happens in Iran and North Korea in the near future, the potential for Revolutions of Collective Conscience will remain fixed inside the human psyche. This is a form of resistance against evil regimes that could only be beaten by the annihilation of the human race. We just need to recognize and operationalize its potential.





By Chris Williams