Nonetheless, historical parallels run deep: Concern over the violence and stubbornness of "Askar, the cart driver" (2) motivated the people to support Constitutionalism. Likewise the Ansar Hizbullah’s (3) boldness and audacity in claiming to lead the believers directly to Paradise prompted the Iranians to denounce the injustice meted out to Khatami by voicing support for him.

Iran’s contemporary political developments are, however, characterized as being reactive. Domestic uprisings are not conscious, futuristic, and goal-oriented. They are rather day-to-day responses to an unfavorable past. As such, movements in Iran are inspired by "what people DO NOT want" rather than "what they do want".

During the Constitutional Movement, the people knew nothing about parliamentary rule, Constitutionalism, and division of power. They only knew that they were fed up with the oppression, tyranny, and despotism of Mohammad Ali Shah. (4) Instead of knowing what they wanted and acting on it, the people actually knew what they DID NOT want. The Constitutional Movement thus served as the peoples’ resort against despotism.

After the Constitutional Movement, the peoples’ urge to resort to an alternative elicited a successful response in Seyyed Zia’s (5) coup de’tat. Sick and tired of the anarchy and insecurity of the turn of the century the people sought refuge with Reza Khan’s safe despotism.

Before the August 19, 1953 coup de’tat, Dr. Mosaddeq’s good will and incessant efforts to establish a rule-free monarchy turned to dust, as he failed to comply with the Iranian peoples’ collective unconscious, a situation that enabled power-hungry coup leaders – who were avid to establish security even by recourse to intimidation and sheer force – to make abuses. But the Pahlavi coup leaders were hoist with their own petard, when after a quarter century, the regime fell into a dead end following a popular movement for freedom.

The Iranian peoples’ demands over the past 200 years have alternated between security and freedom. But due to the absence of a genuine mission among the governments and non-existence of political parties, the peoples’ choices have been unconsciously eliminative.

The same feature prompted 98 percent of the Iranians to vote for the Islamic Republic on April 1, 1979 without having the slightest knowledge about such a government system and relying solely on their repulsion with a regime whose unfavorable strategies they had been exposed to for a quarter century.

Actually, the overwhelming vote for the Islamic Republic stemmed from the peoples’ aversion toward the Pahlavi regime. The votes cast in favor of the Islamic Republic were, in fact, a negation of the Pahlavi rule, as most of those who voted for the Islamic Republic did not have the slightest awareness of this system’s legal and political shape and policies.

The same mechanism was at work during the May 23, 1997 presidential elections when urban and rural masses turned out in millions to cast protest votes against policies that had dominated Iran for two decades following the revolution.

As such, the votes cast in favor of Khatami carried a blunt message: They were a bold negation of the former policies, as the people had no idea whatsoever about the civil community which Khatami championed. The 20 million votes for Khatami thus served as the peoples’ way to negate Iran’s dominant social and political policies rather than as their approval of – and submission to – Khatami’s electoral promises.

Policies stemming from the 1979 Islamic Revolution are based on the past 20-year façade of piety and normative acceptance. These include the following:

• divinity of the power-wielders outweighs their legitimacy
• atomic division of the community into "in-group" (protons), "out-group" (neutrons), and "neutrals" (electrons), with a subsequent limitation of citizenship. Only specific citizens with particular political leanings are the in-group. These citizens enjoy all rights, while others are deprived of even the basic rights. Even when the government at times recognizes these rights for the latter, the rights are handed over as an act of kindness toward inferiors and condescension toward second-degree subjects.

Former President Mohammad Ali Rajaee is known as the architect of this mode of thought in the post-Revolution Iran. Unwittingly and despite his good will, Rajaee set forth the slogan of priority of commitment over expertise, exposing Iran’s administrative system to group collectivism based on affinity, submission, and religious formalism. Only those close to the power poles could enter this system, while only those fully submissive to the power poles could remain in the system, features which led to the prevalence of ignobility, meanness, and shortsightedness in Iran’s executive system.

• castigation of man’s biological demands by aggrandizing religiosity and piety.

This feature left extreme and unnatural impacts on the classes that were not in-groups, leading them toward extremist revolt against the norms. This is one reason why the Iranian government has failed to win the hearts of the young generation, especially the teenagers who had no contact and subsequently bondage with the culture dominating the Pahlavi era.

To assert itself, the young generation embarked on a negative campaign against the system. Just as the pre-Revolution religious community of Iran used the "Shaban 15" (6) religious celebrations to protest to the government, the modern-day young generation deals the same way with the system by exhibiting hysteric joy over "Chaharshanbeh Soori" (7) and victories of Iran’s National Soccer Team.

• one-dimensional interpretation of freedom. Increased and exaggerated renunciation of worldly pleasures to reach heavenly salvation caused pleasures – including those of the five senses – to be interpreted solely as spiritual. This pessimistic outlook defined freedom as "freedom from something" rather than "freedom to do something".

The freedom championed by the Revolution is liberation from the world and its attractions, while freedom of the citizens is equated with carnality and anarchy and is as such denounced. This outlook takes freedom as the vehicle for salvation in the hereafter and does not consider it to bear any relationship to the material world.

• holding a foreign enemy responsible for domestic setbacks and shortcomings and attributing shortages to enemy plots. Such hypothetical enemy offers a good pretext by which any views contrary to those espoused by the establishment could be suppressed.

Meanwhile severance of ties with the US as a foreign enemy gradually became the Revolution’s policy. Relations with the US have been discussed by pros and cons, yet serve as a litmus test of peoples’ revolutionary fervor and zeal.

• the tactic of altercation and the post-Revolution diction which were the outgrowths of the war era and the developments in the 1980s were used by top-echelon officials and in-group citizens to do away with the opposition. This move diminished the ruling wing’s tolerance, paving the way for domestic adventurism.

Such features gave rise to inferiority complex and diminished self-confidence among those who were not the in-groups and fostered a plaguish quest for supermen and saviors.

And a society that creates supermen and saviors is ailing, while supermen and saviors are the plagues of the society. People who fail to demand their citizenry rights by relying on civil bodies feel shelterless and try to find a haven by creating a legendary hero to help retrieve their rights. By so doing, they rely on an individual whose likes and dislikes will determine the life and death of the civil community but who will not effect any dramatic change in the ailing social structures.

The popular support for Mohammad Khatami on May 23, 1997 was largely the upshot of the Iranians’ plaguish quest for hero. The epic-makers of May 23, 1997 were a disillusioned generation who dreamed of Khatami as their legendary savior. As such, votes for Khatami were actually cast for Khatami as the voters saw him rather than as he actually was. This faced Khatami with three insurmountable problems:

The first stems from the political diversity of Khatami’s supporters. Khatami gained landslide victory in the elections by relying on a disparate political front that ranged from the technocrats of Executives of Construction (EC) to the leftists of the Majma Rouhaniyoon Mobarez (MRM) to the Islamic Mujahideen Organization. The President will find it extremely taxing to satisfy all these incongruous groups after his election victory.

The second arises from the defeated wing which will be on the constant lookout for the slightest flaw in Khatami’s performance to use it to its own advantage.

The third and most important is that Khatami has to please the 20 million who voted for him. These are people who, due to the past elimination policies, are very sensitive and diurnally raise higher demands. They fall into two extremes with usually contradictory demands.

Khatami’s word and deeds are, moreover, incompatible, with those of some veterans of the Islamic Revolution who, unable to identify with him, are concerned and worried. But while preserving the principles of the Revolution, Khatami has succeeded in addressing new social groups that were previously sidelined and ostracized and involved them in the Revolution.

Khatami has rendered a new interpretation of the Revolution which is alien to the established view held by the revolutionaries who have started opposing him.

Khatami actually knows that his 20 million supporters dwarf this group, but as his supporters belong to different political groups, he cannot easily harmonize them. As such, the President has strictly avoided any tensions over the past year to deprive his opponents of their long-sought chance to take advantage of the tensions.

Ironically, even though Khatami’s opponents comprise a minority, they act in unison and are highly capable of making optimal ! use of tension. They, therefore, eagerly look for an unsafe and tense atmosphere that could be played in their hands.

Khatami’s silence on past-year domestic crises emanates from the President’s realism, as he strives to prevent his opponents from taking advantage of the situation. But in case Khatami’s silence is prolonged without bringing the right wing to its senses, it will leave a negative impact on his supporters, ultimately facing the President with a dilemma: either to pay tribute to his opponents or meet the demands of his supporters.

Khatami’s art lies in turning the system’s "recital" into a "symphony" which will lead to Iran’s international power and prestige. Whether Khatami will succeed in leading this symphony to its last note is a question which has no definitive answer at the present time.

1. An anti-despotic uprising against he Qajar kings.
2. A notorious Iranian ruffian.
3. A pressure group opposing the government.
4. Qajar king during the Constitutional Movement.
5. He was prime minister in 1920 and came to power after a British coup against the Qajar dynasty. His tenure as premier coincided with the period of transition from Qajar to Pahlavi monarchy when Reza Pahlavi ascended the throne.
6. A religious feast for the Shiites marked by the theme of "Messianism".
7. An ancient national Iranian feast celebrated annually on the last Wednesday of the solar calendar (AH) with fireworks and festivities.