In Invisible Borders, I distinguish between two concepts, both related to collective action but pointing to two different states of social movement: romantic fervor and dignified revolt. What follows here is neither a restatement of the book nor an attempt at abstract theorizing. It is a reading of these two concepts in Iran’s current condition, where one has reached its peak while the other has been pushed to the margins.
Romantic fervor emerges when accumulated pressures lose their gradual channels of release. The horizon of vision narrows, collective experience becomes compressed, and acceleration replaces pause. In this condition, narratives are simplified, boundaries sharpen, and society moves toward immediate answers. This fervor is not sudden and does not arise out of a vacuum; it is the product of long-term erosion, an accumulation of experiences that have, one by one, eliminated the possibility of calm, gradual action.
By contrast, dignified revolt belongs to a stage that once existed but has gradually lost the conditions for its expression. Dignified revolt means protest without the collapse of language, resistance without fully surrendering the field to emotion, and gradual action before explosion. This form of action requires time, channels, and a minimum possibility of being heard—conditions that, in Iran, have been eroded not accidentally but systematically.
One common misunderstanding is to reduce today’s social outburst in Iran to economic pressure alone. This view is both superficial and misleading. Economic pressure exists, but not as a single cause; it is one layer within a multi-decade process of erosion. A society in which the future horizon has gradually shortened, hope has given way to despair, and the ability to imagine tomorrow has been continuously constrained cannot be explained solely through inflation figures or exchange rates.
A rent-based and discriminatory system, gendered and ideological repression, the systematic elimination of diverse ways of living, the collapse of social trust, and the transformation of the Islamic Republic into an isolated and problematic actor on the global stage have all fed into this erosion. Inflationary pressure is merely the last tangible layer of this process, not its source. Society was worn down before it became poor; its horizon narrowed before its table shrank.
In this context, the role of media and external arenas cannot be ignored. Over decades, through its own policies, the Islamic Republic has turned a number of countries into adversaries. The United States, Israel, and the European Union are not neutral actors. When enemy-making becomes part of a system’s mechanism of survival, the other side responds. Sanctions, economic planning, interventions related to exchange-rate engineering, the twelve-day war, encouragements directed at the opposition, and the media field that has taken shape have all played roles in intensifying this condition. Media outlets such as BBC Persian and Iran International, along with opposition statements, are part of this arena—not initiators, but amplifiers.
In recent months, Trump’s aggressive rhetoric and promises, alongside reciprocal threats from the Islamic Republic, have added another dangerous layer: the possibility of turning an internal crisis into an all-out war. Even if these promises are never realized, their mere prominence alters the logic of the field. As the shadow of foreign intervention grows darker, speed increases, fear and anger intensify, and romantic fervor escalates. In such a situation, dignified revolt is pushed further to the margins—not because it is invalid, but because conditions have changed.
That said, this chain cannot be reversed in a way that minimizes the role of the Islamic Republic. Not merely as an inefficient system, but as a structure in which inefficiency, discrimination, and violence are institutionalized. A structure that has repeatedly shown ideology to be woven into its fabric and not subject to deep recalibration. Systematic repression, the normalization of violence, the securitization of everyday life, and the absence of meaningful costs for the exercise of power have not been exceptions but components of its survival mechanism. Individuals change, faces rotate, programs and strategies shift, but what must change has never changed—and there is no sign that it will.
Reforms within this structure are possible, but they remain superficial. What stays intact is the core that reproduces discrimination, repression, and blockage. The Islamic Republic’s recent acts of violence have not only blocked any path toward reform or gradual adjustment; they have effectively buried the very idea of national reconciliation and a culture of dialogue under a graveyard of anger and resentment.
In the current condition, dignified revolt has not been eliminated; it has been sidelined. The demands of the moment have prioritized speed and reaction, narrowing the space for calm action. As the environment becomes more securitized and the likelihood of harsher repression grows, this tendency may intensify. If total repression occurs and foreign interventions are reduced to behind-the-scenes deals, society will be forced to return to quieter, fragmented forms of resistance—not out of virtue, but out of survival. Under such conditions, returning to dignified revolt is not a choice but an imposition of the situation.
On the other hand, if regime change occurs, the issue moves beyond protest and enters a phase that can be called the danger of day zero—a condition I will explain in the next section.