Protest, Policy Fix and Reprisals In China and Iran
Why Do People Protest in Authoritarian Nations? And What Should We Do?
The reprisals for popular protests in Iran and China continue, even while the protests themselves still simmer. Iran has hanged a man who assaulted a paramilitary officer during the protests, and China’s communist party has vowed to “crack down on infiltration and sabotage activities by hostile forces.”
In each country, protests lasted longer, spread more widely, and moved from particular issues (arrests for immoral dress in Iran, Covid restrictions in China) to general anger against these repressive governments for failing to respect people’s real interests. While brutal reprisals against demonstrators have been the norm, each country has tried to appease the crowds through policy fixes, with China rolling back some of the harshest Covid-isolation measures, and Iran saying it intends to abolish its morality police. It remains to be seen whether these fixes, bought at the price of much blood and freedom, will actually stop the protest movements that have been so adept at rallying people in the face of government censorship and intimidation.
What makes people in highly authoritarian countries risk their lives and freedom to protest? They are not blind to the risks. There is no doubt that the idea of more democratic governance is attractive, and it is quite difficult to seal borders against this idea, despite the best efforts of authoritarians. But the appeal of idealized democracy from afar does not really explain why some nations erupt in protest while others do not. It may explain, however, why some governments seem fated to be rocked by endless people’s movements.
The issues, politics, and history of China and Iran are different, but some commonalities that bear thought. Both governments have a well-known history of brutally suppressing dissent, including public demonstrations. They each heavily restrict freedom of expression in the interest of keeping a dominant ideology and unchallenged leadership, control the online access of their people and keep Western media out, and utilize online ‘armies’ to patrol and troll unacceptable views. Both countries feature well-educated youth who are very concerned they may not have such a bright future, given sanctions and looming economic uncertainty. And in both, there are real questions of whether those in power govern by popular choice.
This alone wouldn’t suggest they are ripe for nationwide political protests, much less regime change. The same factors pertain to varying degrees in Russia, Vietnam, and many other unfree places. But if we look more closely at the people’s movements in China and Iran, there are a few other combustible elements that tell us something about protests even in democratic societies.
One is that both regimes meddle in everyday life in ways that are highly intrusive, personally unjust or humiliating, and ultimately deadly to ordinary, politically neutral people — China, in its strict Covid-lockdown policies that make it difficult to get groceries or healthcare, Iran in its brutal policing of women’s public appearance or private parties. As one organizer of China’s democracy movement of the 1980’s said to the New Yorker, “Grievances have to be so dire that they have to feel like there is almost no other option.”
Another is that when particularly egregious abuses surface as a result of state practices, the state tries to stifle all discussion and outrage or lies, and many, many people know it. China’s Covid protesters carry blank pieces of paper to condemn censorship; Iranians burn their headscarves in public not out of sheer pique but to get pictures out to their neighbors and the world. The government has difficulty satisfying or placating protesters because it isn’t trusted to tell the truth or act in the public interest. And government efforts at suppression give off the smell of fear as much as strength.
Popular anger coalesces around particular victims because it is easy to see how anyone could be in their place, and the humiliation of their abuse is compounded by government efforts to deny the abuse or explain it away. Every protest movement needs a story, even if that story morphs over time. In China, it is the fire in Urumqi, where Covid restrictions contributed to the death of ten in an apartment building. In Iran, it is Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old who died in police custody after being beaten for not wearing a headscarf properly. This element of a real person who becomes an emblem of everyone’s pain is true in many countries: George Floyd’s murder by police in the US; Mohamed Bouazizi, the harassed Tunisian street vendor whose self-immolation kicked off Arab Spring.
Another factor is Iran and China’s deep background of repression and popular protest. Demonstrators now know of friends, relatives, artists, mentors, exiles, and even nationalist heroes who protested in the name of justice, and they want to be part of this history and do it one better. Educated people in Iran and China know there is a less-censored Internet out there, and know what government surveillance and censorship look like, even if they don’t try to circumvent these controls. And there is nothing more irritating to the young and curious than a nanny state, much less a police state.
Authoritarian states have an arsenal of violence at their disposal to handle anti-regime demonstrations — arrests, beatings, imprisonment, the violence of laws on subversion and state security. These are well-honed, and sometimes sufficient, but never produce the regime’s holy grail — stability. To the contrary, they educate the people they mean to cow in the need for protest to make change, and even the utility of violence in swaying iron-fisted rulers. Violence may produce intimidation for a while, but it also makes martyrs, inculcates alienation and feeds resistance.
Democracies have lots of protests too, and there is no reason to believe that stories of injustice will not proliferate in times of anxiety and hardship. The difference is a government that is designed to be responsive to the will of the people — through elections, through referendums, through pressure on appointed officials — rule of law, a free press, and media that allow people to air and vent their grievances. Change can happen, even change in control of government, short of taking up arms. Though bitterly partisan politics and obstreperous protests seem chaotic, they are a feature, not a bug, in democratic societies. The recent wave of legislative efforts in U.S. states to restrict the right to protest, and to bar public employees from protesting, is deeply detrimental to overall public order in the democratic sense.
We in democracies can raise our voices on behalf of those who are risking their lives, at home and in more repressive societies. Our governments have to listen to us, because we keep them in power. In a time of gathering reprisal, let’s double down on efforts to protect those who had the courage to object, and not forget their sacrifice even as we applaud their impact.
