Iran’s regime on the brink of collapse

Mr Espahangizi, there is a fire in Iran and you must watch from Switzerland. How do you deal with that?
Kijan Espahangizi: I am full of worries, but also hope. Not slept much for four weeks, keeping myself updated on the current situation, exchanging ideas with people in Iran and abroad. More than six million Iranians live abroad, many also in Switzerland. We support the movement where we can. For us it is clear: the system is on the verge of collapse.

why are you so sure?
For 43 years this terror regime ruled through fear and terror. That doesn’t work anymore. Thousands of people have thrown off their fears and are risking their lives. And we see cracks in the system; Government people who are going to move money abroad, security people who don’t show up. For the first time, the mullahs are debating whether the headscarf requirement should be abolished.

Hundreds of thousands took to the streets as early as 2009 and there were demonstrations in subsequent years. Failed. What’s different now?
So far, people have taken to the streets over individual grievances such as election fraud, water shortages, unemployment or corruption. Now they are students, oil workers, people in the cities, people in the countryside, people from all ethnic regions. Even the men have understood: we are only free if the freedom of women is guaranteed. Everyone stands up for each other, that’s new.

But is that enough for a system change?
The revolution has long been taking place in the minds of the people. There’s no turning back. I have to catch up.

Yes please.
That was a process. In 2009, people hoped to create democracy within the Islamic Republic. The terror regime brutally crushed these hopes. People have learned from this: this system cannot be reformed. They are out to topple.

Protest researcher Jamila Raqib was skeptical in the online magazine “Republik”: The movement still lacked the structures necessary for a democratic transition. What is the risk that it will end up as it was in the late 1970s, when the mullahs took over after the Shah was overthrown?
We live in a completely different world today. The six million exiled Iranians did not exist. Globalized connectivity is a powerful new force. And the protest is much wider now than it was then.

The Arab Spring started under similar circumstances more than a decade ago – and failed.
Iran is different from its Arab neighbors. According to a 2020 survey, only 40 percent of Iranians consider themselves Muslim. The country is not religious. We have a long tradition of women’s empowerment. Incidentally, in the 1920s my grandmother wore short hair and certainly no headscarf. Hijab is not part of Iranian culture, it has been forcibly introduced by the regime.

They demand support from the Iranians and have drafted an open letter to the Federal Council: Switzerland should declare the Mullah regime a terror regime, adopt UN and EU sanctions, impose travel bans, freeze money… If this impress the regime?
That’s the wrong look. The target of the sanctions are the people on the street. As a country, Switzerland is extremely important to Iranians. Many have studied in Switzerland. Activists there say they want democracy and freedom like we do in Switzerland. You could show them now with sanctions: we are behind you. Without coded words.

Are sanctions only the right remedy? So far, the West has had little success with Iran.
Measures taken by eminent minds pay a lot. Switzerland could set up a task force to monitor which funds are leaving the country and which are entering Switzerland. And how to confiscate them. This is a first step. Next up: Switzerland could host a reconstruction conference like the one for Ukraine.

The bourgeoisie in particular is concerned that Switzerland is risking its role as mediator with too much effort. She represents US interests in Iran. And she sees Iran’s in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Canada.
Mediate with whom? The days of this regime are numbered.

With your effort you expose yourself. Concerned about your safety?
I can only give a general answer to that. The Islamic regime is sending a signal to all Iranian exiles: don’t think you are safe, we can get anywhere. Everything Iranians say and do abroad has been criticized for years. You get flipped. That also happens here in Switzerland. That’s why you’re careful. And that is why the protests in Iran concern all of us in this country.

They fight not only for Iran, but also for historians of the University of Zurich. Do science and activism go together?
I’m not a 24-hour scientist. I am also a family man, member of a club and a citizen of this country. As such, I have a responsibility to get involved politically.

The question arises because a Lausanne professor recently stuck her hand to a street to draw attention to the climate emergency.
I have nothing to do with that. But the thing is, if everyone who works in a scientific profession couldn’t get involved in politics anymore, we’d have a problem.