Grapes of wrath now grow from the Iranian plateau and like the lava from Mount Damavand flow to burn the apparatus of dictatorship. This wrath flows from thirty years of criminal actions.  This is the cry of the victims of despotism. The wrath rises from the flames of human hearts, is fed from revenge and is a symbol of death. It is like a hope that does not last even a second.

But social life is not a hope. Life is a reality, and reality is hard and bitter. Social struggle is not a soccer game. It is more like a chess game that more than anything requires patience and thought. Perhaps a golden goal at the end will end the game, but the winner is always the person who knows the rules of checkmating.

A good chess player does not merely look at the next move, but considers that in the context of possible subsequent moves. And this can only be done if the current moment is properly analyzed. This in turn is only possible if anger is brought under a full control.

The current moment in Iran is depicted as follows:
Iran’s Green movement has succeeded in the last six months to stay the storm. All the events that followed the June 2009 presidential elections in Iran have clearly shown that the movement can not be uprooted. It should be noted that this movement has sprung from one of the most despotic systems, has grown and is now standing on its feet such that it is a force that is reckoned with in the political and power calculations. To take deeper root and rise higher requires more opportunities.

Forces from two different directions are busy to deny and kill possible opportunities. One of them is inside the movement which is turning more and more violent and believes that the summer fruit may be harvested in spring. The other is that of dictatorship which is still entrenched and awaits the moment when violence will replace reason so that the social battleground turns into a small battleground of violence and bullets. Despotism is disarmed in the vast social battleground. All the people can be arrested and detained, but all of them cannot be killed. In the wide social battleground, the greater pieces belong to us. While in the small battleground of bullets, soldiers are the decisive elements. We are empty handed in this battleground which is why despots are striving to push the Green movement into this narrow battleground. No general sends his soldiers to a battleground in which death is a certainty.

In the social struggle the selection of the battleground is as important as utilizing available resources. In the battlefield and also in the social battleground, one of the most effective tools is negotiations. The essence of talks has not positive or negative value by itself. What is important is the moment of the talks and the accomplishments it brings.

In all the social events in the last decades, social movements have succeeded only through negotiations. In Chile the negotiating party was General Pinochet. In South Africa, when Nelson Mandela aired his proposal for talks to the Apartheid regime from his prison, one of the most important peaceful movements in history took place and succeeded. Tens of other examples of this can be cited. From Gandhi in India to Lech Walesa in Poland.

Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s latest statement number 17 indicates an important moment for the Green movement. It shows that after six months, the movement views itself at a higher stage than “talks.” This is not a small achievement. Insignificant grains (as Mr. Ahmadinejad labeled supporters of the Green movement) are now a social force which is raising its demands.

Mousavi’s statement ends with this sentence: “All of these proposals can be implemented without the need for an agreement, talks and political give-and-take, and through wisdom, thought and well being.”

The response that came to this statement from those not in the Green movement or in the coup faction presents a clearer picture of the nature of the statement. In other words, the opponents of the Green movement have a more realistic take on the statement than the forces of the movement itself. Some of these groups are showing a greater inclination for “leftism” because of their anti-despotic anger.

It must be noted that this statement does not mention an addressee while it talks to the “current power practitioners” and presents its solutions to the “powers”. Is this an acknowledgement of the current “power” of which the administration is just one of the three parts? But perhaps more fundamentally the question is who are the talks supposed to be held with?

These are of course minor details which will be defined in the larger schema of things. Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s battleground remains the framework of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as the seventh statement clearly indicates with the purpose of implementing the forgotten provisions regarding social freedoms.

The direction of these events can be determined after the acceptance or rejection of this framework, suitable tactics can be chosen as one understands that under the “current moment” the grapes of wrath must be let free as social forces are mobilized or take small steps towards the goal by tolerating and understanding current social realities.

A leftist interpretation of the current events will strengthen the current despotism instead of toppling it. Life at the cost of prison, torture and exile has taught me that an unripe fruit can break the teeth: one must wait for the produce to reach its full-grown state, even if the summer takes longer.