Abstract
One of the developments coinciding with the turn of the century in Iran that has shaped the society’s political culture and revolutionary discourse is the shift towards a non-violent method of political struggle, which is clearly seen in the mode of thought and behavior of post-revolutionary generations. This shift has also been accompanied by a change of orientation from state to society, as well as increased attention to women and gender, which has been evident in the protest movements in the last two decades. In addition, the prevalence of non-violence as a political philosophy among political activists and civil rights advocates has disburdened the revolutionary left of the past tradition of violent struggle, thus contesting the equation between radicalism and violence advanced by conservative circles. This turn towards non-violence is indicative of a new political realism wherein change, unlike during the 1979 Islamic revolution, is neither identity-oriented nor ideological, but demand-driven. From this perspective, the shift to non-violence is related to a new discourse for dealing with systematic repression that seeks changes in legal, cultural, socio-economic, and gender terms on a national scale. This discourse aims at uniting diverse groups of people against the institution of velayat-e faqih through a conceptual appeal to human honor. Historical parallels may be seen in the way that the idea of a House of Justice (Edalat Khaneh) functioned during the Constitutional era as a central and unifying concept across diverse groups. This paper asseses how, at the threshold of a new century, Iran might achieve historical political change through non-violence, especially with reference to excluded and marginalized groups. This prospect is discussed with particular reference to Mohandas Gandhi and Judith Butler and especially engages strategic and philosophical views of non-violence from secular and radical perspectives.
