25th IVR World Congress: Law, Science and Technology
25th IVR World Congress Law and technology
Frankfurt am Main
15–20 August 2011
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- Democracy (1) (remove)
- 029
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The emerging non-violent character of the iranian protest movement
(2012)
- In assessing the aftermath of the fraudulent presidential election of 2009 in Iran, one question has received less critical analysis than other complexities of this event: What can explain the remarkable non-violent character of the Green Movement in Iran? I propose that the answer, inter alia, lies with the following three learning experiences: 1) The experience of loss brought about by the Iran/Iraq war; 2) the experience of relative opening during Khatami’s presidency; and 3) the experience of modernization of faith in the work of the post-Islamist thinkers that aimed to make political Islam compatible with democracy. Together, these learning processes fostered a new mode of thinking that is civil and non-violent in character.
