The protests in China and Iran have something in common – Pierre Haski

In the space of just over two months, two spontaneous mass movements overturned two totalitarian regimes. Aside from authoritarianism, China and Iran are two very different countries, yet there are many similarities between the two uprisings.

In both cases, events that could have gone totally unnoticed caused an explosion of popular anger. In Iran, the death of Mahsa Amini while in the hands of the religious police has nothing exceptional: the brutality of the various forces of order is unfortunately a frequent element. However his death triggered the women’s revolt.

In China, the fire in a building in Urumqi that started the wave of protests could have remained an isolated case, as happened in September with the incident involving a bus full of people transported to an isolation camp in Guizhou province, with 27 victims. But this time the ten dead in Urumqi have prompted the Chinese to take to the streets as they had never done in the last three decades.

The gears of the revolution
Is it possible to compare the two movements? In reality it is right to compare them to understand how revolutions are born and what is the gear that sets the masses in motion. In 2011, the suicide of a vegetable seller in a small Tunisian town caused the fall of a dictatorship, because the context was explosive and because the regime was not as solid as it seemed.

In Iran as in China, it is always a question of context, especially for the young people of the two countries who for different reasons see their horizons blocked. In Iran the moral rigor of the mullahs, combined with the eternal economic chaos due to the isolation of the regime, have made a youth who aspires to a better life lose hope.

In China, the spark was the exasperation with the zero covid policy, which kept the country in a universe made up of lockdowns and tampons when Qatar stadiums showed on television that the rest of the world is living a normal existence. But we must not forget the economic slowdown, due to which 20 percent of young people have no job (it is an official figure) while the crisis in the real estate market erases the aspirations of the middle class.

Young people are always at the forefront, because in the end they are the ones who don’t think they have anything to lose in front of a vanished horizon. It is the internet generation that is activating, and in this Iran and China are on the same wavelength despite censorship.

This hyperconnection favors the speed of dissemination of information and codes of revolt. In Iran we have seen the slogan “women, life, freedom” go viral in a matter of hours along with haircuts and unveiled challenge videos spread all over the world.

In China there are the white sheet to symbolize censorship, heroes for a day like “Superman” – a nickname given to a boy from Chongqing who sported a sticker of the superhero on his backpack and was arrested after making an incendiary speech – or still science students who used theFriedman equation, simply because the sound of the word Friedman is similar to that of the expression “free man”. Anything to fool the censorship.

All this does not help predict the development of these unprecedented movements, but it does make us understand how today’s political phenomena arise when there is no space for politics. Dictators are finding out the hard way.

(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)