School of Government

Identity plays an important part in terms of how we imagine our relationship with the state and governing bodies. If we know who we are, then we can know and articulate what we want as political actors. This book examines the relationship between identity and political resistance in the context of the Arab and non-Arab Middle East by focusing on recent uprisings, protests and revolutions in the region. The case studies here - Iran, Palestine, Israel, Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan – highlight a number of dynamics and different forms of resistance. The chapters show that political identities are not static and that they cannot only be understood in terms of dichotomies of Islamism vs. secularism or Sunnism vs. Shi’ism. Examining the impact of everyday grassroots politics on the question of identity, the role of ordinary interests and concerns within a dynamic political community, the book explores how processes whereby seemingly competing identities must be navigated, negotiated and must engage with each other.

This chapter brings together two approaches to the 2009-2010 Iranian popular uprisings. The first takes a ‘top-down’ approach deconstructing the Green Movement’s political and intellectual elite discourses. The idea of elite in this context is complex. On the one hand, there are individuals who are part of the Islamic Republic regime as noted above. However, Mousavi and Karoubi have found themselves in opposition to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and Ahmadinejad because of how they perceive the Islamic Republic. This dynamic highlights a conflict among Iran’s political elite. However, in addition to this, Mousavi and Karoubi also take on the role of an intellectual and political elite in the context of the Green Movement. This is because of their role in defining and articulating what it means to be part of the Green Movement, even if they fail to be ‘leaders’ of the movement. 
The second approach takes a ‘bottom-up’ perspective focusing on activists (those involved in the uprisings that have a political background preceding 2009, or those who are perceived by the regime as political) and participants in the protests. This highlights the heterogeneity of articulations of political identity among those who participated in the protests, even if not all of them necessarily see themselves as part of the Green Movement, which is considered by some to be too narrowly linked to Mousavi’s campaign. The analysis unveils the complexity and fluidity of identity construction because of the coexistence of several, at times conflicting, political identities. Such an approach allows for a more holistic analysis of the popular uprisings and contributes to an understanding of why political change did not take place.