Friday , 29 March 2024

In the midst of increasing violence – an important and powerful message to the brave Iranian people

Robert Green is an American author who has written several New York Times bestsellers including the 48 Laws of Power which has sold more than 1.2 million copies. He recently posted a video expressing his opinions and thoughts on the situation in Iran on his YouTube channel which has been receiving a lot of attention.
In his video Green shares several key strategic points which he hopes might be helpful for the people protesting in Iran.

One of his main messages is to point out that the Iranian people are the stronger side of this situation, regardless of their lack of weapons and money and regardless of what the regime’s propaganda might be conveying. The authoritarian regime might appear strong and powerful but their system is based on fear and their greatest fear is the unity of people since they have the greatest number and can in fact create the downfall of the regime at any point.
Green continues to share important facts about authoritarian dictatorships based on his previous work and research on these subjects. He summarizes what dictatorships need to survive into two categories 1) separation 2) silence and both categories are closely intertwined.
Authoritarian regimes create fundamental separation in society in order to prevent people from gathering or organizing which have the potential to create movements like the current one in Iran. Therefore they separate and create walls between for instance men and women, Kurds and Persians, upper class against middle class and in this way the regime has successfully diluted the people’s greatest strength and that is their large numbers. Furthermore, authoritarian dictatorships create a society where citizens are encouraged to spend all their time worrying about their own private lives and issues instead of thinking about the country. Which leads on to the second category of controlling the people into silence. Even though the majority of people in Iran are unhappy with the current situation in their country they have limited ways of hearing others and joining opinions because such platforms are strictly controlled or forbidden by the regime, like the internet or media which are state controlled.

Green continues to share what could make nationwide movements fail. The regime’s crackdown against the movement will always involve strategies of separation and silencing. Green further explains that most nationwide movements initially have the strength to overcome the separation and silence but then comes the element of time. Since standing against oppression and violence will become difficult to sustain over time, the movement may decline in numbers, there may be longer gaps in between the demonstrations and at that point the regime’s crackdown will become even more brutal. But if the people carry on and continue with their protests the security forces will fall down to the pressure of recurrent waves of protests and that will create separation in their own weak system of hierarchies. In addition, Green reminds us that one of the most effective weapon the people have against the regime is through general strikes across the country and across different industries, which will completely paralyze the economic sector and hit the regime where it hurts most.

Green also points out that since the current movement in Iran is leaderless it is essential to form some sort of organization or committee to further strategize the movement in order to prevent the energy from fading off. He specifically suggests some sort of committee of people and not a separate leader or group of leaders since that can bring other problems. Green points out several times that any type of fading out now is extremely dangerous since it can be expected that the crackdown will be very brutal and therefore it is vital to keep unified and uphold the strong movement, then the regime will without a doubt start to crack.

It seems that the Iranian regime has already started to rupture from within since they are now in the phase of intensifying their violence and ordering public executions, this is a clear sign of the regime digging its own grave.

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