The Fall of Khomeini and Co.

One of the fundamental responsibilities of a state government is to secure the well-being of its citizenry. A government’s failed to protect its people when it starts killing them. And consequently, that’s when it needs to go. Following this weekend’s tragic murder of 16-year-old Neda Soltani, one can see clearly now that the Iranian government is starting to falter. Violence and voluntary armed forces, it seems, are all that the Ayatollah and his cronies have left. And they aren’t using these on outside forces, but their own people.

Could this bloodshed be a sign of the Iranian push toward civic freedom?

According to Ian Bremmer’s J Curve theory, it just might be. Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, argues that all non-democratic countries must go through a period of an ultimate low before they surface as civic democracies. This low is fueled by years of increasing domestic unrest (e.g government policies, economic woes, etc) that hit a final tipping point. Following this climax is the kind of revolution we’re seeing in Iran. So what was Iran’s tipping point? I believe it was the mistake the regime made when it deluded itself into thinking that its citizenry would accept a blatantly fixed election (word is now emerging that the government fixed election results in over fifty cities – reporting over 100% votes cast in attempts to boost Ahmadinejad’s popularity). White lies may water down domestic unrest, but an obvious one is often enough to blow the tea kettle.

At first sight of the video, I couldn’t help but wonder: “Was Neda simply a number to be added to Iran’s infamous execution list?” But second thought made me realize, she was anything but. Here I was, sitting thousands of miles away from Tehran, watching the Basij sniper its own citizen.

As the gruesome videos of her death continue to replicate on YouTube, the pressures of globalization are plunging the fragile regime into deeper waters. And the more it so desperately attempts to quash these forces, the further the country moves up the curve. Maybe the regime should have spent the few hours it would have taken to read over Paul Collier’s, The Dictator’s Handbook, before starting to execute its own people.

What we’re seeing now is the manifestation of years of domestic discontent starting to unravel –and the exposed weakness of the Islamic oligarchy. A weakness that is a hop, skip, click away to watch, thanks to the Internet and social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube.

But to some, this unraveling may still come as a shock. Didn’t the Iranians put the regime into power in 1979?

Sure, thirty years ago. Globalization is thought to have begun shortly after, too. With the end of the Cold War, collapse of the USSR, and the spread of ideologies at T1 speeds - much has changed since, for one thing. This social misconception that the people of such countries have remained politically stagnant for decades is also apparent in other states, like China. The same could be applied to North Korea or Burma, where oppression remains key to survival. But reality is quite the opposite. Due to the lack of majority support, heads-of-state like Khomeini, Jintao and Jong-Il often have to perfect the art of looking better than they really are - or the facade can turn against them. This is where propaganda and tight restrictions on information across state borders become central to a setup like Iran’s Islamic regime.

But unlike 1979, proxy servers and cyber manipulation of time zones can easily get by feeble censorship attempts.

It also doesn’t matter if Iran is religious or not. Non-democratic states come in all shapes and sizes. What matters is that the Iranian oligarchy failed to represent the people. This includes economic downturn and a sense that Iranian national pride has been severely compromised at the international level. And with this, the government turns to the two things that will eventually lead to its collapse. The last Czar of Russia was foolish to trust his army, too - one that would later turn against him. Perhaps the Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad should look over this history before too heavily depending on the Basij.

Assassinations are the ultimate form of censorship, true. They may even be inevitable in the case of statewide revolution. But Neda Soltani symbolizes the explosive and progressive nature of the current revolution. She was a young adult, a philosopher and most strikingly – a woman. Alongside a loving family, she is survived by a progressive ideology that is incapable of destruction by physical silencing. This ideology has contributed to the rise and establishment of many secular and prosperous states today, including post-colonial India, Brazil and post-Franco Spain.

With time, I believe, we will also see Iran climb up from the abysmal nature of Bremmer’s curve and emerge as a civic democracy.

And in that light, Neda’s death was not in vain.