{"id":922,"date":"2018-10-23T03:49:40","date_gmt":"2018-10-23T02:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/codir.net\/?p=922"},"modified":"2018-10-23T03:49:40","modified_gmt":"2018-10-23T02:49:40","slug":"iran-national-teachers-strike-could-herald-new-era-of-dissent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/codir.net\/?p=922","title":{"rendered":"Iran: national teachers\u2019 strike could herald new era of dissent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran witnessed a\u00a0nationwide strike by teachers<\/a>\u00a0on October 14-15. Iranian social media exploded with\u00a0photos<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0videos<\/a>\u00a0of the teachers\u2019 sit-ins at elementary and high schools across more than a dozen cities. Official Iranian media completely ignored the strike, however, while mainstream media abroad largely either downplayed the story or covered it as if the protests were only about better salaries and a consequence of US sanctions against Iran.<\/p>\n

But the truth is that the strike was more about the students than the teachers themselves. The central demand of the strike was \u201ceducational justice\u201d. One viral\u00a0video<\/a>, for example, shows a teacher explaining the reasons for the strike to his teenage students. He reads from a long list of simply expressed complaints, saying they are striking:<\/p>\n

in protest over arrest of teachers\u2019 trade union activists;
\nin protest over commodification and privatisation of education;
\nin protest over unsafe and overpopulated classrooms;
\nin protest over the content of the coursebooks;
\nin protest over discrimination in the education system;
\nin protest over vast embezzlement and plunder of public assets.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The strike was organised by the\u00a0Coordinating Council of Teachers Union (CCTU)<\/a>\u00a0and follows the arrest of 14 teachers participating in a peaceful protest in front of the government Budget and Planning Organisation building in Tehran. Among them was unionist\u00a0Mohammad Habibi<\/a>\u00a0who was sentenced to ten years in prison and 74 lashes.<\/p>\n

This is the first widespread strike by teachers since 2000 and was held despite serious threats by judiciary officials. Indeed, on September 27, following a nationwide strike by Iranian truckers, Iran\u2019s prosecutor-general, Mohammad Ja\u2019far Montazeri, threatened the strikers with\u00a0the death penalty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dangerous times<\/h2>\n

Several unionists arrested in the past few months have faced serious charges such as \u201cconspiracy against national security\u201d. Yet the country\u2019s judicial system has failed to show the same decisive response to a shocking US$2.5 billion\u00a0embezzlement<\/a>\u00a0related to the Teachers Reserve Fund. (The fund was established by the government in 1995 and has more than 800,000 members who contribute 5% of their salaries in exchange for an annual share of the interest.)<\/p>\n

In September 2016, judiciary officials announced that several people had been arrested and charged over the embezzlement, but they have yet to be tried. A year later, in October 2017, an Iranian\u00a0member of parliament also revealed<\/a>\u00a0that one of the main suspects had left the country with more than US$150m. It is still unclear why this suspect was not arrested and how he was able to leave the country a year after the investigation began.<\/p>\n

Systematic corruption, coupled with growing economic hardship, has pushed Iranian teachers to the verge of absolute poverty. In 2016, the average monthly salary of an Iranian teacher with 15 years\u2019 experience was 2m tomans (US$473). That same year, the government announced\u00a0the poverty line to be 2.7m<\/a>\u00a0tomans ($600) a month. In 2018, this average salary was raised to 2.5m tomans. But due to a drastic fall in the\u00a0value of Iran\u2019s currency<\/a>, that is now worth around just US$227.<\/p>\n

The alarming message behind the multiplying strikes by civil servants has been totally ignored by the government. On the same day as the teacher\u2019s strike, along with several other protests by civil servants struggling to make a living, a number of governmental organisations allocated a multi-million dollar\u00a0budget<\/a>\u00a0to fund the religious ceremony of\u00a0Arbaeen<\/a>\u00a0in Karbala, central Iraq. Millions of Shia pilgrims gather for this annual event \u2013 and it is used by Iran as a massive demonstration of its power in Iraq.<\/p>\n

But the strike immediately received support from students in schools and universities across Iran. Another\u00a0photo<\/a>\u00a0shows school students and their teacher holding signs that read: \u201cMr Minister, defending students\u2019 right to education is your duty.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Students at the universities of Tehran and Allame held a sit-in in solidarity with the teachers. And a speech by Iran\u2019s president, Hassan Rouhani, at Tehran University was interrupted by student protesters holding pictures of imprisoned teachers and shouting: \u201cThey silenced our voice and bragged with our votes<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clampdown<\/h2>\n

Unsurprisingly, the government reacted by arresting more\u00a0members of the CCTU<\/a>\u00a0teachers\u2019 union. But it seems that the CCTU was using this two-day strike to evaluate its ability to mobilise and prepare for a joint general strike with other civil servants. As the CCTU warned in its\u00a0statement<\/a>, a bigger strike is likely in the near future.<\/p>\n

Over the past year in Iran we have witnessed two different types of politics, both of which are responses to the country\u2019s political, social, and economic crises.<\/p>\n

The first type is an externally originated, or \u201cexogenous<\/a>\u201d, politics. This type defines itself in confrontation or agreement with an outside force larger than itself. Iran\u2019s\u00a0Reformists<\/a>\u00a0are a typical example of this \u2013 they define themselves as being against fundamentalism and conservatism, but also as being part of the larger body that is the Islamic Republic (which, ironically, is both fundamentalist and conservative in nature).<\/p>\n

The second, more interesting, type is a kind of \u201cendogenous<\/a>\u201d politics. While this type reacts to and opposes external sociopolitical and economic problems, it is held together by the internal, collective identity of those behind it. The recent strikes and protests by teachers, workers, women and students are examples of this because the individuals involved are motivated and held together by nothing more than their collective internal identity as teachers, workers, women or students.<\/p>\n

In the past, protests by the latter were easily dismissed by, or rather dissolved into, the abstract demands of a unified revolutionary mass as happened in the 1979 revolution. Increasingly, however, the protests \u2013 by teachers, by truckers, by women \u2013 are echoing one another, amplifying the overall message of discontent in pluralised form.<\/p>\n

The recent strikes and protests, then, are evidence of a new kind of mobilisation in Iran, a kind of \u201cpeople power\u201d that is decentralised and shaped by each individual\u2019s sense of identity. It is a form of opposition more like a rootstock or rhizome \u2013 able to spread quickly and pop up anywhere. This may well herald a new era of dissent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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