“We are all Iranian”
People-to-people diplomacy as a form of global support of political protests
Grażyna Piechota, University of Krakow
Introduction
The following chapter analyzes the impact of non-state actors on shaping people-to-people diplomacy[1]implemented in a hybrid form, with the use of social media. The background of the analysis, which aims to identify specific activities of P2P diplomacy, was the political protests that have been going on in Iran since September 2022. The outbreak of collective discontent was triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, who was beaten by the Iranian morality police. The reason for the beating was an improperly worn headscarf, insufficiently covering the victim’s hair. The girl’s death sparked a wave of mass protests across the country, involving mainly young citizens. Despite the brutality of the forces suppressing the protests and the imposition of death sentences on demonstrators, support for the protests and the intensity of the riots in the streets of Iranian cities did not decrease for several months. Civil disobedience was directed against the authorities, the protesters demanded the release of women from religiously conditioned cultural oppression. The riots in Iran turned out to be the biggest since the 1979 revolution. The protesters initially demanded the abolition of the morality police and changes to the law on compulsory hijab. The protest evolved from a moral protest into a political protest and turned into anti-government riots. The uniqueness of these Iranian protests also consisted in the fact that, from the beginning of the outbreak of social discontent, women and men who supported them manifested in the streets. The death of a young Kurdish woman turned out to be just a pretext that led to an explosion of frustration among young Iranians, tired of economic sanctions and corruption, living in an Islamic republic without a vision of a better future. Protests on a global scale took the form of an Iranian women’s revolution, which was accompanied by various symbolic acts, such as the public burning of hijabs or hair cutting by Iranian women protesters and women around the world who supported them.
The subject of this research carried out using the case study method is the use of social media in P2P diplomacy understood as support coming from the global virtual community and its actors: individuals, NGOs and social movements to the protesters in Iran. Support for the protests was provided in a hybrid and complementary mode: using democratic manifestations on the streets of European and non-European cities , fundraising aimed at supporting demonstrators in Iran, cyberactivists using social media, signing virtual petitions addressed to politicians and governments of third countries, as well as participation in network happenings symbolically supporting Iranian citizens.
Therefore, the aim of this analysis is to indicate the role and importance of social media in digital diplomacy and its special form of people-to-people diplomacy, conducted by social movements which are active on a global level and in response to acts of civil dissatisfaction.
People-to-people diplomacy as an element of public diplomacy
Eytan Gilboa[2] defines public diplomacy as a communication process in which states, non-state actors and organizations use references to the policy of a foreign government by influencing its citizens. According to Gilboa, exerting influence occurs in two stages. The first stage is the actor’s use of communication processes to support public opinion in another country. The second stage is exerting influence on the government by public opinion, so that it conducts a policy in line with the will of the actor. Gilboa therefore assumes that the actor exerts a deliberate and intended influence, through the use of communication activities, in order to appropriately shape public opinion in a third country. In conflict situations, public opinion in a third country defends the actor’s policy, while in other situations, the aim of public diplomacy is to conduct a constructive dialogue, build relationships, understand the needs of the other party and correct misconceptions. In public diplomacy, it is important to use information effectively to convince different types of actors to understand, accept and support the actions being carried out. Eytan Gilboa also draws attention to the non-state supranational model. It is a theoretical concept designed to study the public diplomacy activities of groups, NGOs and individuals using public diplomacy across national borders. These actors tend to use global news networks and media events to cultivate cross-border support for their causes. This model is useful because it helps explain campaigns such as those for pro-democracy.[3]
Like Gilboa, Paul Sharp emphasizes the importance of information and communication processes in public diplomacy. He believes that public diplomacy is the process by which direct relationships are established with the people of a given country to advance the interests and values of represented people.[4] He also claims that public diplomacy is implemented as an interstate practice of communication and representation.[5] The importance of public diplomacy increased after September 11, 2001, when was noticed the role of purposeful communication activities undertaken by institutionalized non-state actors, which aim to understand, influence and build relationships with people across borders.[6] Paul Sharp created the following classification of public diplomacy:
- a citizen diplomat representing his/her government to another government
- a citizen diplomat representing specific sectoral or local economic interests
- a citizen diplomat on a case
- a citizen diplomat as an agent of social change, striving to transform the existing political arrangements on the national or international arena[7]
By contrast, Jan Melissen treats public diplomacy as an activity dedicated to the general public in foreign societies and more specific unofficial groups, organizations and individuals. Public diplomacy is no longer limited to messaging, publicity campaigns, or even direct government contacts with foreign publics for foreign policy purposes. It is also about building relationships with civil society actors in other countries and facilitating networking between NGOs at home and abroad.[8] Brian Hocking directly emphasizes that diplomacy works in a network environment, not in a hierarchical and state-centric model of international relations. In the field of public diplomacy, different types of actors can learn from each other.[9] A special type of public diplomacy is digital diplomacy, carried out with the use of the Internet and especially social media. According to Aleksandra Kusztykiewicz, with the development of the information society, various instruments are used to reach citizens, and cyberspace has become a place of activity of equal entities: States, international organizations, non-governmental organizations.[10] Digital diplomacy implemented with the use of information and communication technologies also leads to the activation of bottom-up, dialogue and direct communication processes of representatives of societies who, in individual acts of communication, demonstrate the ability to articulate content that is important from the point of view of public diplomacy. Such activities become particularly important when new social movements are activated, which are assumed to be global in nature.[11] The activation of a social movement – expressing postulates concerning social, political, economic or cultural issues and shared by the participants of the movement – simultaneously evokes support for values, ideas and postulates formulated in other parts of the world in real time. This transnational and non-public form of public diplomacy – resulting from the network promotion of values and civil liberties characteristic of democratic states – is implemented in hybrid forms. On the one hand, there are marches of support, petitions submitted to the representations of countries where activists and citizens express acts of opposition, NGOs involved in organizing bottom-up help for the protesters, including financial support and putting pressure on traditional diplomacy entities. On the other hand, by connecting network users in expressing support through virtually shared content with symbolic messages, a global virtual community is created. This, in turn, has educational functions, shapes the awareness of Internet users, affects the image of the State in which the protests take place and finally induces politicians in democratic regimes to action, which is caused by the pressure of their own societies. Protests, as acts of social resistance, are an exemplification of the values that are important for the manifesting social groups. At the same time, they define the State and its authorities as entities that do not share the same ideas and often use force against their own citizens to suppress manifestations. In the space of digital communication, protests indicate that the State and its authorities and civil society are guided by different values, which leads to the exposure of the narrative expressing social resistance.[12] This narrative becomes a determinant of activities undertaken by activists in the glocal space and focuses the attention of the global network community on the narrative formulated by new social movements. Thus, during protests, which are acts of civil disobedience, the narrative formulated by activists is included in the process of creating the State’s image through articulated emotions. According to Manuel Castells, emotions themselves are a channel of information transmission.[13] Using social media channels, activists refer to cultural patterns to formulate messages (in the form of memes, films and other emotionally charged pop culture content), so that the affective message generates the potential to attract others. During the protests, the narrative formulated by the authorities in response to the protests usually does not gain as much resonance in global public opinion as the position of the protesters is sometimes marginalized. On the other hand, the pressure of global public opinion is of significant importance for the image of the rulers of a country where citizens express massive acts of discontent and social resistance.
Geoffrey Wiseman emphasizes the role of citizens in conflict resolution processes: socio-political protests should be regarded as an internal conflict situation in which there is a confrontation between the rulers and social groups expressing civil dissatisfaction. Wiseman argues that, in such situations, traditional diplomacy is ineffective.[14] People-to-people diplomacy is defined as intentional, political and cross-border communicative interactions between groups of people of public interest rather than private that contribute to the peaceful management of relations.[15] This definition excludes activities that are not diplomatic in nature, have political goals or are related to foreign policy. Kadir Jun Ayhan introduced three types of people-to-people diplomacy: complementary, i.e activities complement the foreign policy objectives of the home country; supplementary, i.e activities fill the gap consistent with the foreign policy objectives of the home country; adversarial, i.e people’s initiatives challenge their country’s foreign policy goals.[16] At the same time, Kadir Jun Ayhan points out that the complementary model refers to P2P diplomacy activities that fill the vacuum caused by the lack of formal public diplomacy activities. This may be due to adversarial relations between the home country and third countries.
Social media as a P2P diplomacy tool during protests in Iran
The above theoretical considerations indicated that the case analysis of protests in Iran, lasting from August 2022, should be conducted on the basis of an adversarial model of public diplomacy, which is the actual questioning by the Iranian society, massively protesting in the streets, of the policy pursued by the State authorities, which led to Iran’s long-term international isolation. This isolation, treating Iran as a State supporting terrorism, which results in numerous economic sanctions preventing its development and modernization, and its positioning in the group of democratic countries, are the aforementioned real reasons for the outburst of frustration among young Iranians who oppose the stagnant regime. The protests following the death of Mansa Amini were the biggest uprising of Iranian society in recent decades, directed both against the power of the State and the influence of religion on shaping public life. Earlier acts of dissatisfaction (the Twitter revolution in 2009) were quickly and effectively suppressed, and mainly small groups, supported by the Iranian diaspora, were involved in them, out of fear of the consequences. This case study highlights the real cognitive, affective and behavioral changes that have occurred in the Iranian and international community thanks to virtual communication that allows the international community to present and learn about the narrative of the protesters, contesting the policies pursued by the authoritarian governments in Tehran.
Networked communication, with the use of social media and virtual interactions, made it possible to build new beliefs about Iranian society as not accepting the policies implemented by the authorities and spiritual leaders. During the many months of protests in Iran, marches and protests in support of Iranian civil society took place in many democratic countries, including the United States of America, which the authorities in Tehran consider a model hostile power. Massive acts of support from democratic countries for the protesting Iranians also influenced the process of educating Western societies, which led to the separation of the ideology of governments from the attitudes of State citizens. The social interactions that took place as a result of information transmitted using social media were usually of a symbolic nature with an affective meaning, such as hair-cutting actions in solidarity with Iranian women. On social media, mainly on Twitter and Facebook, women around the world cut their hair and posted videos of the act tagged with #Iran and #MansaAmini. In France, over 50 well-known women (including Charlotte Rampling, Isabelle Huppert, Isabelle Adjani, Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard, Jane Birkin, Charlotte Gainsbourg) have done this, increasing their online reach, but also showing their support for young people on the streets of Iran. Symbolic hair-cutting also took place in other locations, thus contributing to the visibility of information about the situation in Iran).
Actresses cutting their hair as a sign of support and Abir Al-Sahlani a Swedish MEP of Iranian origin in EU Parliament
Other forms of support for the protests of Iranian citizens by the societies of democratic countries were mass demonstrations and pickets in front of Iranian diplomatic missions. Such actions, resulting from the fact that democratic societies obtain information about events in Iran, including the reasons for the outbreak of protests and the consequences that affect the protesters (including imposing and carrying out the death penalty), build new forms of beliefs about the Iranians, which in turn may effectively influence the formation of different opinions about the State and its citizens. Emotions evoked by the attitudes of Iranians, so determined in the fight for civil rights and freedoms, influenced the emotional forms of responses of various entities: individuals and social actors (NGOs, politicians, authorities), who massively took the side of the protesters. Due to the ineffectiveness of traditional diplomacy, the digital diplomacy directed by the global virtual community to the Iranian society was not only symbolic, but also emphasized the adversarial attitude of the demonstrators towards their own government.
Photo of demonstrations in Los Angeles in support of Iran
Photos from protests in support of Iran
Support for the protesters in Iran was expressed through communication mediated not only by individual Internet users, but also by non-governmental organizations engaging in various forms of support for the demonstrators. Amnesty International, as a global human rights organization, emphasized the process of international support for people sentenced by Iranian courts to imprisonment and even death. By publicizing specific stories of Iranians in the social media space, the organization increased the level of information about the situation in Iran, while mobilizing the global community to support Iranians in various forms, including putting pressure on politicians and mass media. The coherent narrative of Iranian activists channeled public attention to specific problems: the deficit of democracy and human rights, and was then reinforced by global NGOs, through both mediated communication and the mass media. Content published by non-governmental organizations (cf. examples below) influenced the global community in a not only cognitive, but above all affective way, which caused reactions to the actions taken by the Iranian authorities.
In order to make their voice in favor of Iran more effective, non-governmental organizations joined forces, undertaking joint initiatives. An example of such an initiative is the Joint Statement – “160+ Organizations Globally Stand in Solidarity with Iranian Women”.[17] More than 160 international organizations described the situation in Iran, simultaneously formulating demands and recommendations:
“We urge the UN Human Rights Council to condemn the violent actions of the Iranian government against women and hold them accountable for the suppression and killing of protesters.
We urge UN member states to to support calls for a UN led investigative mechanism on Iran through the adoption of a resolution during an urgent session of the ongoing 51st regular session of Human Rights Council. We urge the UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls, the Special Rapporteur on Elimination of Violence against Women, the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, the Special Rapporteur on Peaceful Assembly, and other UN mandate holders to investigate and report on the systematic violation of the rights of Iranian women and protesters by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The UN and member states should work with the government of Turkey and the Kurdistan Regional Government to ease border crossing restrictions for those rights defenders fleeing to safety and should work to ensure the safety of HRDs in these countries. Governments and the UN should facilitate and expedite refugee status and the repatriation processes of Iranian HRDs, and especially WHRDs, in neighboring countries who are at risk of extrajudicial retaliation by Iranian authorities.
We urge the governments of countries with diplomatic ties to Iran, especially Global South and non-aligned states, to summon the ambassadors of the Islamic Republic of Iran and express their concerns over the killings of protesters, the violence being used against protesters, and the widespread arrests of human rights defenders, journalists, student activists and political activists.
Donors should consider expanding urgent support funding for human rights defenders, especially women human rights defenders facing threat and risk, including fellowship and respite opportunities that are more flexible and easy to access.
We ask international and regional human rights organizations to take a stance on the recent events in Iran, to follow up on the situation of those detained, press for their release, and demand that Iranian authorities ensure their safety and health while in detention.
We ask the international and regionally focused journalist associations and unions to condemn the arrests and arbitrary detention of Iranian journalists in recent days, especially the female journalists who have been at the forefront of reporting on recent developments.
We ask feminist groups and organizations to continue supporting Iranian women and their demands for rights and bodily autonomy through protests, peaceful gatherings, statements, production of artwork, and through other means.”
The protests weakened significantly in the first quarter of 2023. However, both the determination of the Iranians, who protested in the streets for many months, paying the price of freedom or life, as well as the massive support of the international community and political pressure, led in 2023 to a softening of the stance of Iranian authorities towards the demonstrators. Some of the death sentences were not carried out, and as a result of the amnesty over 80 000 prisoners were released, including over 22 000 people detained during the protests. The human rights organization Human Rights Activists reported that at least 530 people were killed during the brutally suppressed protests by the authorities.
Summary
Socio-political protests are a phenomenon of the 21st century. New social movements, resulting from social reflection leading to the reconstruction of the public sphere, are an increasingly important subject of shaping relations on the national and international arena. As the above case study shows, new social movements that activate and mobilize societies to express acts of opposition, but also movements that are formed in third countries as a response to protests, mobilizing communities to support activists in a hybrid way, are becoming important subjects of public diplomacy. Among the actors of non-public diplomacy, the most frequently mentioned are NGOs, informal groups, international organizations or diasporas. New social movements should also be enumerated in this group. Their nature of operation is global, specialized, spontaneous, contesting reality, based on values on which a normative system should be built and using multimedia culture in network communication.
The analyzed case of the protests of the Iranian society – which were supported by non-public actors representing the global democratic community – is part of a complex system of international relations in which Iran as a State is considered an undemocratic entity that supports terrorism in the world. At the same time, Iranian citizens are proving through protests and their local continuations, such as strikes, in which they raise both from economic demands and political ones, from which it follows that they expect changes. The protests were supported by both the European and American democratic communities, which expressed support for the civil disobedience movement in Iran. Therefore, at the civil level, there was a symbolic restoration of ties between the Iranian and American nations.
The protests in Iran have led to the formation of a civil society, which is an important outcome of protests that have not had the intended political effect. Civil society – which will use social media in the consolidation processes, especially secure network communication channels – will influence the political change in Iran more and more in the future. Such consequences of P2P diplomacy are indicated by Ayhan Jun Kadir, who writes that individuals initiate forms of communication within P2P diplomacy not only to enter and maintain interactions at the transnational level, but also to shape political processes from the bottom up and exert an effective influence on changes.[18] Therefore, information and communication technologies are of key importance in this case, both in terms of channels, tools and forms of content transmission, as well as the introduction of new informal entities to the communication processes that conduct information and communication activities with the use of technology.
Social media is an information and communication channel important for users around the world, also in public diplomacy processes. Through technology, individuals receive various information shaping their worldviews, beliefs, civic awareness and political identity. Information and communication technology has been credited with the potential to generate socio-political changes for over a decade (assuming the date 2010 and the recognition of the importance of social media in the Arab Spring). Young network users especially – who use only Internet communication, which is by definition unlimited in terms of content and reach – can obtain information that shapes their attitudes, also towards contesting their own government, implemented policy, and finally the perception of civil rights and freedoms. Social media having the ability to exchange information and consequently launching communication processes connecting people sharing similar values and ideas, create a common space of freedom and a hybrid, global civil society, which in the virtual space becomes the field of P2P diplomacy. On the one hand, Internet networks have become a channel for transmitting democratic values and, on the other hand, they have created support for democracy during the protests by democratic communities around the world. Thus, in public diplomacy in its form of P2P diplomacy, social media play a key role in the non-state model – they build, develop and maintain relations between societies, additionally performing important educational functions. Through the transfer of information, they enable the processes of value exchange, thus allowing the shaping of alternative models of life and the presentation of paths for their implementation. It can therefore be concluded that young Iranians – who went out into the streets with great determination – knew what change they expected, and this was the result of their participation in the global world of values known from the virtual space.
Bibliography
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[1] Hereinafter abbreviated to P2P diplomacy.
[2] Gilboa, E. (2016). Public Diplomacy. In G. Mazzoleni (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication. 1–9.
[3] Gilboa, E. (2008). Searching for a Theory of Public Diplomacy, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 616(1), 55–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716207312142
[4] Sharp, P. (2005). Revolutionary States, Outlaw Regimes and the Techniques of Public Diplomacy. In J. Melissen (ed.) The New Public Diplomacy. Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan.
[5] Sharp, P. (2001). Making Sense of Citizen Diplomats: The People of Duluth, Minnesota, as International Actors, International Studies Perspectives, 2(2), 131–150.
[6] Ayhan, K. J. (2019a). The Boundaries of Public Diplomacy and Non-State Actors: A Taxonomy of Perspectives, International Studies Perspectives, 20(1), 63–83.
[7] Sharp, P. (2001). Op. Cit.
[8] Melissen, J. (2005). The New Public Diplomacy Soft Power in International Relations, Palgrave Macmillan.
[9] Hocking, B. (2005). Rethinking the “New” Public Diplomacy. In J. Melissen (ed.) The New Public Diplomacy. Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan.
[10] Kusztykiewicz, A. (2017). Dyplomacja cyfrowa – nowa forma polityki zagranicznej Unii Europejskiej [Digital diplomacy – a new form of foreign policy], Studia z Polityki Publicznej, 2, 103–116.
[11] Castells, M. (2009). Siła tożsamości [The Power of Identity], Warszawa.
[12] Piechota, G. (2018). Pomiędzy happeningiem a zmianą. Znaczenie komunikacji sieciowej w protestach społeczno-politycznych [Between a happening and a change. The importance of networked communication in socio-political protests], Kraków. p. 190.
[13] Castells, M. (2013). Władza Komunikacji [Communication Power], Warszawa.
[14] Davidson, W. D. and J. V. Montville, (1982). Foreign Policy According to Freud, Foreign Policy, 45, 145–157.
[15] Ayhan, K. J. (2019b) The Boundaries of Public Diplomacy and Non-State Actors: A Taxonomy of Perspectives, International Studies Perspectives, 20(1), 63–83; Ayhan, K. J. (2020). “A Typology of People-to-People Diplomacy”, CPD Blog — USC Center on Public Diplomacy. https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/typology-people-people-diplomacy
[16] Ayhan, K. J., (2020). Op. Cit.
[17] POMED.org (Project On Middle East Democracy), (2022). “160+ Organizations Globally Stand in Solidarity with Iranian Women”, October 7. https://pomed.org/publication/joint-statement-160-organizations-globally-stand-in-solidarity-with-iranian-women/
[18] Ayhan, K. J., (2020). Op. Cit.
Biography :
Grazyna Piechota – Associate Professor at the Faculty of Management and Social Communication of the Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University. Scientific interest: political communication, social movements and political protests, populism and propaganda.