Is there a Gorbachev in Iran?
A man who is powerful and respected enough to represent the protests against the system in such a way that the government can be convinced?
Who could initiate and accompany the desired transformation process of the country from within the system of rule, as Gorbachev did in the Soviet Union?
For almost three months, people in Iran have been taking to the streets, led by women who are tearing off their headscarves, waving them and finally burning them.
The protests were triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in the custody of the Revolutionary Guard for allegedly wearing her own headscarf incorrectly.
The protests are fought with state violence;
more than 300 demonstrators are said to have been killed, including more than 40 children.
»Khomeini issued the requirement to wear a headscarf in April 1979.
And this is, as Khomeini said, not really Islamic at all, but a national dictum," explains Islamic scholar Reinhard Schulze in the podcast.
»Khomeini defined the headscarf as the identity of the Iranian nation.
And the Iranian woman is the one who represents the Islamic Iranian nation.
That is why Iranian women are obliged to wear a headscarf.
In other words, the nationalistic character of the headscarf is much more important than the Islamic one«.
In the meantime, however, the headscarf has been Islamized in Iran, at least since 2008 when legislation focused on women's morality, says Reinhard Schulze.
And that's exactly what Iran's women are now resisting, refusing to accept the cloth as a religious symbol and instead treating it like other garments: as a simple thing made of cloth.
But can they get away with it?
Changing a regime that has considerable practice in controlling, policing and severely punishing its people when they rebel?
"Ultimately, the regime has already lost because it has basically lost an essential component of its justification strategies, namely gaining the recognition of the population," says Reinhard Schulze.
“That's why they always called themselves the Islamic Republic.
It should actually be a republican system, supported by popular sovereignty, as far as the regime can think of.
Ultimately, society should also support this system.
And now it's clear: society no longer supports this system."
In this episode of the SPIEGEL foreign podcast Eight Billions, Reinhard Schulze talks about why the perception of the protests abroad is particularly important, how the regime could react to the ongoing protests and in which respect Iranian society thinks more progressively than German society.
Listen to the current episode here: