The Christian Science Monitor By Ned Temko
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2022/0927/In-Russia-and-Iran-autocrats-face-rising-resistance
In Russia and Iran, autocrats face rising resistance
Popular unrest in Russia and Iran may not foreshadow the end of their governments, but it is a reminder that autocracies carry within them the seeds of their own destruction.
Neither Vladimir Putin nor Iran’s ruling ayatollahs are necessarily nearing a Berlin Wall moment.
But the fall of the wall will be on their minds and not only as a reminder that even the most harshly policed of dictatorships can crumble. They will find it hard to ignore the broader similarities between their dictatorships and the former East Germany – indeed among nearly all modern autocracies.
One parallel, above all: that the very same forces that allow dictatorships to survive also hold the seeds of their vulnerability and, potentially, their collapse.
Fear is a critical part of their staying power, fear of their determination to use whatever force is necessary to quash overt challenges.
When that is gone, Mr. Putin and the ayatollahs well know, it’s only a matter of time before they are, too.
That’s one reason for the violent crackdown on the protests gripping towns and cities across Iran in the past week, and Russia’s move to squelch resistance to Mr. Putin’s call-up of hundreds of thousands of men to bolster his dwindling invasion of Ukraine.
But another hallmark of dictatorships will haunt the rulers of Russia and Iran even more.
It’s the unspoken social contract that keeps the great majority of their citizens from contemplating open dissent, much less rebellion.
It rests not just on fear, but also on a trade-off with those in power, understood by both sides.
Yes, people say, we’ll stay out of politics, even if we don’t like living under your regime. But you have to give us a reason, and space, to stay out of the fray: a decent living and a fulfilling life for us and our families. (Sound familiar?)
Now folks, I have to ask the question, is our current administration facing the same predicament?
In other words: We don’t mess with you, if you don’t mess with us.
Think about it. Things seemed to work for the common folk here in America as long as the government fed and housed the poor, protected our borders, educated our children, kept our economy booming, and made sure we had energy resources to heat our homes and run our cars.
Here in the US, those social norms are falling apart.
The social contract in both Iran and Russia is unraveling as well.
In Iran, it’s because of the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. She was rounded up by the “morality police” for wearing her mandated headscarf with insufficient modesty – a transgression that can mean something as minor as a few wisps of visible hair.
Within days, protests erupted not just in her own Kurdish region in northwestern Iran, but around the country. There have been other bursts of unrest before, in 2009 over the results of a rigged election, in 2017 over economic grievances, and in 2019 in response to a sudden hike in fuel prices.
But in both their reach and their roots, these protests are different. The women of Iran raised their voices first, but they’ve been joined by men. Ms. Amini’s fellow Kurds cried out first, but they’ve been joined by voices across Iran’s ethnic, social, and economic dividing lines.
I find it fascinating that the latest protest movement is led by the women of Iran. It is similar to what we saw when the soccer moms here finally realized what was being taught in our schools and brought our attention to things like CRT and the 1619 project.
In Iran, the “unspoken pact” that provides the ballast for dictatorships has been broken. Millions of women – as their brothers, fathers, husbands or partners also know – have been stopped by the morality police. What happened to Ms. Amini has personally touched them all.
In Russia, too, this unspoken pact is under strain – because of Mr. Putin’s response to his army’s forced retreat in Ukraine.
Until the draft announced last week, the great majority of Russians had found it possible to tune out the conflict. They were encouraged by Mr. Putin’s public fiction that it wasn’t a war at all, just a distant “special military operation.”
Again, look at the similarities here. Most Americans had no idea where Ukraine was before the outbreak of war, and sadly, could care less. That was of course, until we started spending billions of our tax dollars to support Ukraine.
Even that wasn’t enough to get most people’s attention. Then, all of a sudden, gas at your local gas station went through the roof.
Wait a minute, I thought we were energy independent?
No, no, you silly fools. According to President Biden, the cost has skyrocketed because of Putin’s war.
Are you starting to see the similarities? Just like in Russia and Iran, our government is slowly breaking our unspoken contract between “We the People” and the federal government.
Now back to Russia. Just like us, many young, urban Russians were upset by the invasion and its diplomatic consequences – the West’s imposition of isolating sanctions on their country.
Thousands had voted with their feet, leaving for other countries. A small, vocal minority inside Russia has been criticizing the war, despite increasingly harsh penalties.
But with the call-up of 300,000 men – and possibly many more – the situation has changed. Just as Ms. Amini’s arrest and death reached deeply into the lives of millions of Iranians, the mobilization has brought the war home for many more Russians. Made it real. Immediate.
Their protests have been fueled by the rapid, often haphazard way in which the draft is being implemented. It has reportedly swept up not just the young militarily-trained men Mr. Putin said would be called upon to serve. It has taken untrained civilians and older men, fathers and grandfathers.
Let me give you one more example of this worldwide unrest, currently taking place.
It is happening, in of all places, China.
As I have said, try as they might, the world’s dictators can never hide their fear of their own people. For all the bluster and displays of power, they panic at the sight of protests.
The Washington Post Editorial Board
Hundreds of bank depositors in Henan province have been increasingly restless about their accounts being frozen, demanding that provincial authorities help recover savings from at least four small “village” banks.
Many small banks in recent years attempted to compete with larger institutions by offering higher interest rates and signing up depositors online from far and wide.
The four Henan banks stopped withdrawals April 18. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission has said a major shareholder of the village banks, Henan New Fortune, was under investigation for financial crimes in the way it raised funds.
Unable to retrieve their money, depositors started to protest online and in person.
On May 23, protests broke out before security services stopped them. The leaders of China’s party-state system, obsessed with maintaining social “stability,” reacted with alarm.
In June, many jilted depositors from around the country planned to converge on the capital of Henan province, Zhengzhou, in hopes of getting their money back. But before they could travel, they were blocked by software that the government uses to control the spread of covid.
The green code on their phones turned red. They could not travel.
Then, on July 10, more protesters from around China came to Zhengzhou, this time with green health codes, and assembled in front of the branch office of the nation’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China.
They unfurled banners alleging corruption, including one in English that declared “No deposits. No human rights.” Another banner read, “The Chinese dreams of 400,000 depositors in Henan have been shattered.”
According to a report in The Post by Christian Shepherd and Pei-Lin Wu, the demonstrations were met by dozens of uniformed police officers as well as heavyset men mostly wearing white tops. The blue-shirted officers stood by as the burly men in white shirts attacked the crowd.
Protesters were dragged down a flight of steps before being carried away. Some were loaded onto buses, bruised from the clashes.
A parallel wave of protests has swelled in recent weeks among people who took out mortgages to pay for apartments that developers never finished. They are threatening a boycott.
According to Reuters, Chinese censors have been blocking protest messages online and deleting videos of demonstrations.
Just another day in the life of what China’s government boasts is a “democracy that works.” What does not work is freedom to speak, to assemble, to protest or to change the leadership.
Even something as straightforward as a legitimate protest over lost deposits ends with beatings, bruises and arrests.
The immediate response to the protests, in both Russia and Iran, has been the use of force. That may work, for the time being. Those in power, and their security forces, still seem ready and able to crack down.
Now, once again, I have to interject.
In Russia, Iran, and China, if you speak out against the government you are simply arrested and put away for life.
In extreme cases, that life comes to an end very quickly. You have no day in court. There is no jury of your peers. Your neighbors simply wake up one morning and ask, “I wonder what happened to Professor Pasley?”
But the current protests in Russia, Iran, and China are different. While they may not bring either the Russian, Iranian, or Chinese regimes to their end, they should not be ignored.
For while the demise of a dictator’s rule can be long, twisting, and ultimately unpredictable, the final chapter, when it comes, comes quickly.
Are the protests we are seeing in the world todaya sign of history repeating itself?
Is a regime change coming in the near future for all of the countries we have talked about today, including the US?