Democracy is percolating in Iran

The protest movement in Iran transcends the simple rejection of election results: its character is as extraordinary as its agenda is revolutionary.

It is widespread, defiant and characterised by the substantial presence of women and young people using cellphone cameras and web-based social networks to communicate with the outside world. In other words, it can be violently repressed; but it cannot be silenced.

The movement's agenda is revolutionary because although it is not advocating the overthrow of the political/clerical establishment, its demand for integrity, freedom of assembly, rule of law and justice are rooted in democratic governance. And this challenges the very legitimacy of the clerical order.

This is evident from the ubiquitous signs carried by protesters reading 'Where is my Vote?' and from the protesters' insistence on exercising their democratic right to protest, braving the brutality with which the establishment has responded.

The protest movement is strikingly different from the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Thirty years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini managed to rally the conservative clergy, the military and popular masses against the Shah's corrupt and repressive rule, ultimately replacing the Shah's monarchy with a theocracy.

This time, the protest movement has rallied around opposition candidate Mir Hussain Mousavi to demand integrity and justice.

In the process, Mousavi has been transformed from a presidential candidate whose political platform denounced corruption and the isolation of Iran into a symbol of popular aspirations for democratic governance.

The Khomeini revolutionaries drew strength from the popular opposition to American support for the Shah's repressive rule, and marched chanting 'Death to America'.

Mousavi's supporters have chanted 'Allahu akbar' ('God is great'), suggesting that real Islam is liberal, and on their side.

Iran's leading clerical dissident Ayatollah Hussain Ali Montazeri recently lent support to this notion: "I declare," he warned in a statement, "any resistance, especially any violence against the people, against the principles of Islam and haram".

The repression of peaceful protest has also been condemned by conservative figures such as Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the mayor of Tehran, who told Iranian state television that "we have to address the passions that people have about the election and this cannot be solved by resorting to force".

The religious conservative order has faced demands for reform in the past, in particular in 1997, when the reformist cleric Mohammad Khatami won the presidency.

Khatami's second landslide victory in 2001 confirmed popular support for more democratic and more open governance, but did not seriously challenge the clerical order.

This time is different because the very legitimacy of the theocratic establishment has been brought into question.

Ayatollah Khomeini based the power of the clergy on the concept of velayat-e-faqih (guardianship of the cleric), which placed ultimate power in the hands of the theocratic ruler entrusted with the task of ensuring that the state is governed according to Sharia.

Moreover, the ideal of a just Islamic state is at the roots of Iran's 1979 revolution. Justice is a basic value of Islam and the supreme leader is expected to be a role model of justice.

When Ayatollah Montazeri criticised Ayatollah Khamenei in 1989, he denounced "the denial of people's rights, injustice and disregard for the revolution's true values ..." In protesting the presidential election results, Mousavi demanded "the kind of justice promised by the Quran".

Khamenei has thrown his support behind the radical elements of the political establishment, characterised the election as a "divine assessment" of Ahmadinejad's support among the people, and, taking a hard line, vowed that there will be no retreat from the announced election results.

Invoking divine power to justify unjust temporal events is patently unjust, and this has now been rejected by the protest movement.

The very legitimacy of the clerical order has been challenged. In demanding democracy - in other words a government drawing its legitimacy from the will of the people - the protest movement is in fact challenging the legitimacy of the established theocracy.

The demand for fundamental reform has stirred the people and is probably irreversible.

The conservative order is also facing challenges from within. Former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is reported to be assembling supporters for a bid to topple Ahmadinejad and possibly even the supreme leader.

According to an Iranian reformist website, Rooyeh, Rafsanjani already has the support of nearly a majority of the Assembly of Experts.

Rafsanjani is reported to be promoting the idea of establishing a leadership council to replace the institution of supreme leader.

Moreover, the radical establishment in Iran may have been confounded by US President Barak Obama's Cairo speech on June 4, in which he extended a hand of reconciliation and friendship to the Muslim world, quoted from the Quran, and extolled the virtues of justice and human rights.

The new American approach has robbed the radicals of the demagogical value of its traditional anti-American rhetoric.

Mousavi, a reformist candidate who criticised the isolation of Iran, was likely to reject confrontation and embrace engagement. Such an engagement would likely involve the scaling down of Iran's regional power and nuclear ambitions. This is probably one of the reasons why he was unacceptable to the ruling establishment.

But the fact that he may indeed have won the election suggests that the protest movement speaks for a majority of Iranians.

One of the most poignant statements made by a protester to identify the protest movement with popular aspirations was captured by a writer for the New York Times who, reporting from Iran, asked a young woman what her name was. She replied: "My name is Iran."

Adel Safty is author of Leadership and Democracy. His new book, Might Over Right, is endorsed by Noam Chomsky and published by Garnet.