This project was originally written for a class at American University in 2021.
Introduction
Since the end of the Second World War, the world has seen significant shifts and movements in populations, and particularly the expansion of diasporas. More people chose to migrate out of their homelands for a variety of reasons over the last three hundred years – from those seeking opportunities during the American Dream in the 19th century to those fleeing persecution in their countries of origin in the 20th century.
Similarly, the 20th century saw an upwards tick in political activism with the emergence of a number of movements worldwide, calling attention to issues like gender equality, racial tensions, national sovereignty and economic freedom. This progressive movement carried forward into the 21st century and, more notably, into the “digital age”. As social media grows in prominence and becomes an increasingly intrinsic part of society’s social fabric, it also acts as a primary source for many to learn about social movements and engage in political and civic activity. Many political movements begin on social media, like the #BlackLivesMatter movement in the USA, or gain momentum on social media, like the “mera jism, meri marzi” movement in Pakistan.
With the emergence of social media, there is also a strong relationship between diaspora politics and political activism and how non-traditional media sources like social media can have some amount of influence in international foreign policy towards Iran. This is particularly interesting in a modern context, as diasporas are greater than they have been in recent history as more people are emigrating for a variety of reasons.
However, this paper aims to focus on the political activism of the Iranian American diaspora and discuss the question: “How has social media changed the political activism of the Iranian diaspora?” Further, this paper argues that diaspora activism, particularly the activism of the Iranian diaspora, plays an important role in speaking out against or about the repression of authoritarian governments and that with the rise of digital media and particularly social media, diaspora activism is able to gain more momentum and garner more support, and actually, as a result, can lead to genuine policy changes in their country of residence.
Iranian Americans: An Overview
As of 2020, there are about half a million to one million people living in the United States that identify as Iranian American[1],[2]. Following a round of social, economic and political reforms in the middle of the 20th century, there was the first wave of Iranian immigration to the United States in 1950, as foreign exchange rates liberalised, and foreign investment increased. Many of these were younger Iranians moving abroad for educational and professional opportunities, with the intention of moving back in a short period of time.
However, after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, immigration rose again and for different reasons – people were moving for refuge or as exiles, and with the intention of settling down for the foreseeable future. This spike was impacted the hostage crisis of the 1980s and Iranian immigrants were denied visas and opportunities to move were limited as the diplomatic relations between the US and Iran ended. After the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in the US was passed, many more Iranians became US citizens through naturalisation and further, there was larger cases of immigration to the country.
Iranian Americans make up a large demographic in the USA and are very active in their communities in many ways, from academics and doctors to creatives and politicians. Around three-quarters of Iranian Americans state that they vote in US elections and engage with American politics, and all of them state that their political involvement also involves discussions of foreign policy towards Iran. In a study conducted by the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA), respondents to a political survey stated that: “beyond the nuclear deal, important US-Iran relations issues for Iranian Americans include promotion of human rights and democracy and lifting the US trade embargo. Promoting regime change is also of growing importance…[3]”
The diaspora’s political activism and engagement in Iranian politics is not a new phenomenon. It began with Iranian dissidents and exiles in the 50s and 60s, protesting the Shah and his visit to the United States. Additionally, for many older generations of Iranian Americans, their existence within the US is inherently political due to the nature of their migration, characterised by the Islamic Revolution and rejections of the politics in Iran.
Diasporas and Activism
Identity Construction and Political Activity
In many cases, diasporas are often tasked with the role of acting as political advocates for a multitude of issues in their countries of origin – whether by raising awareness or lobbying to enact actual change in policy. This is often for valid reason as diasporas, in some capacity, act as unconscious representatives of their countries of origins, or their “homelands.”
In recent studies conducted, there has been research that states that diasporas operate as “ethnic lobbies in liberal host lands and as advocates of a multicultural in order to attempt to democratise authoritarian homeland regimes.[4]” This can be understood also in the context of mediation – diasporas provide a bridge between their homelands and their countries, and often transmit “Western values” from abroad.
While they may not necessarily be citizens of their homelands, they are placed within their own unique identity construction wherein they exist outside the state’s boundaries geographically but not culturally and socially. Scholar Yossi Shain also presents that diasporas are aptly suited to manipulate international images and focus attention on issues that may be used to influence foreign policy decision making by engaging with the domestic politics of their homeland on a global scale, due to their international location.
This phenomenon is not newly noted as well: Latha Varadarajan in her 2010 book, The Domestic Abroad, states that “for the first time in history, diasporas are coming together cheaply and effectively and are exerting their influencing on the politics of the countries they have physically, but not emotionally, abandoned.[5]” Diasporas have long used their unique positionality to engage in political activism to advance political issues in their home countries.
Problematising Politics
However, this is not to paint diasporic political beliefs with a broad-brush stroke: not all members of the diaspora share the same political beliefs and not all members of a diaspora may use their divergent identity construction to engage politically. Writing about the need to “problematise and disaggregate” the diaspora, social scientist Alexandra Délano Alonso suggests that one “think of diaspora not in substantialist terms as a bounded entity, but rather as an idiom, a stance, a claim.[6]” By challenging the ways in which the diaspora is perceived, it paves the way to create less of a monolithic view of the diaspora and avoid falling into traps of generalisation.
Rise of Social Media
Creating Communities
As social media rises in popularity and usage globally, people are more interconnected than ever before and more intimately as well. Many diasporic ethnic communities use social media to connect with existing and reach out to new generations of activists. David Faris lays this idea out in his work Electronic Iran. Eloranta et al argue that social media allows for the production of trust and support through the interactions of diverse people within diasporas that then use social media to advocate in a systematic manner. Further, they present that “even though emerging media technologies do not alone produce trust and network support in digital space, social media continues to provide openings in ways individuals create new ties and engage in civic engagement of social networking at both the local and transnational levels.”
This creation of alternative social networks acts as one of the greatest strengths of social media activism and creates frameworks to bridge social capital in activist circles. These frameworks are particularly filtered into personalised social networking spaces where politics is undermined as a collective and there is a sort of dialogical space of interaction for communication, sets of relations and civic norms of involvement. These personalised networking spaces are also aided by the algorithms of social media – scholar Stefania Milan speaks about this “medium-specific infrastructure” of social media and how it leads to the emergence of a contemporary, previously unimagined form and level of mobilisation. Some studies present that “political uses of social media have a mobilization effect among youth, as they create opportunities for individuals that otherwise would not participate[7].”
There are still significant problems with social media activism. Firstly, it is important to address the question of trust building and relationship depth within a social media context. Electronic Iran discusses the work of Robert Putnam, who argued that new, digital media has led to the decline of social capital in the American public life because these information and entertainment technologies make people passive, mere consuming subjects leading to lower group solidarity and enhanced fragmentation. As a result: Putnam argues that relationships formed within these environments often lack the depth of “normal” para-social relationships and further suffer from enhanced views of trust. While this is a valid concern, there has been work conducted after Putnam of social media relationships, in particular, that shows that people have begun to reconfigure relationships in the age of social media[8]. There are also deep levels of trust in these social situations, perhaps not at the level of offline relationships but deeper than previously believed[9].
With social media activism and these communities, there is also the question of authenticity of activism. As activism is more widespread and easily accessible, there is concern that movements are co-opted by corporations and individuals look to make personal gain rather than actually contribute to furthering the movement. This is prominent among companies who are “faking woke[10]” in attempts to sell products by catering to the politically savvy instead of actually participating in these large-scale social justice movements. However, it can be argued that this does not invalidate the legitimate work carried out by activists and people within these movements, nor does it reduce the actual value of social media activism.
Efficiency and Efficacy of Social Media Activism
The role of social media today is undoubtedly larger than ever more, and in some ways is challenging the influence of traditional media sources like the news. Through its carefully constructed algorithms, it is also a perfect way to generate and share content of a political nature on a mass scale. Social media has the power to influence and inform public opinion that may help achieve geopolitical goals, and as social media is a tool that is accessible across socio-economic groups, particularly in Western countries that the diaspora may live in, it provides a wider audience than previously before that makes it easier to reach people and gain support.
This widespread influence plays an important role in social media’s power to transform. As social media dictates trends in fashion and entertainment, it also has shown power in determining social movements and, in some cases, actionable and real policy change. Following the death of George Floyd in 2020 and the mass mobilisation of the #BlackLivesMatter movement through social media applications like Twitter and TikTok, there have been “bans on chokeholds in various municipalities and positive movement toward comprehensive police reform, including the signing of an executive order by [former US] President Donald Trump to incentivize best practices in the police force.[11]” This is one example but it showcases the sheer strength of social media activism in illustrating any real change.
Iranian American Activism
In some ways, American diasporas engage differently from traditional diasporic methods of activism. These diasporas, like the Iranian American diaspora, use social media to create virtual spaces for communities to educate each other and mobilise movements but much of the actual policy activism happens offline and a lot of “homeland” politics are a form of solidarity politics.
Iranian Americans are uniquely situated as a diaspora as a result of the tension between the US and Iran, two countries with no diplomatic relations and a rather antagonistic relationship in general. As a product of this tension, Iranian Americans often face discrimination within the US and report feelings of not belonging or not feeling welcome. The result of this is active involvement in politics of both Iran and the US as there is such a significant stake for the demographic in both countries.
On the internet, Iranian Americans use social media like any other diaspora group: it is a central part to their community building as they use these spaces to find like-minded people with similar backgrounds. Additionally, visual media is a big part of these circles as they use things like infographics on social media to disseminate political information about the experiences of Iranian Americans and share information about the situation in Iran.
Younger Iranian Americans are more active on this front, especially high school and college students who run social media accounts that attempt to educate and foster dialogue about a multitude of issues. Some examples of this are Instagram accounts that are run by young Iranian Americans from a variety of political backgrounds. First, there is @_chaitalk, an account that began during the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic for “fostering conversations and building community among Iranian American high school, college and graduate students.” The account runs free-to-attend, open Zoom meetings on a regular basis that discuss issues of US-Iran relations like “building allyship on issues both in Iran and America” and issues of the Iranian American experience like “generational differences in attachment to Iranian culture.” The group does not have an explicit political affiliation but rather aims to create an environment for young people to have these conversations as a community to strengthen it as a whole.
On the other hand, there are accounts that are explicit about their political beliefs or ideologies. The account @iranic_cultures is a political comedy account that posts about the culture of Iran and about its leftist, anti-imperialist beliefs. In contrast, there is @therichkidsoftehran – an account that posts about “stuff they don’t want you to see about Iran” and is often criticized as glorifying the large wealth disparity in Iran and its past years of monarchy. Regardless of political affiliation or opinion, it is clear to see that social media accounts are doing what diasporic social media communities do: using the uniqueness of social media and taking advantage of its algorithm to create online spaces to gather with and engage with like-minded people to discuss political issues of importance to them. There is also an informational component to most of these accounts, whether that be outright political education or challenging the stereotypes of Iranians, that helps them reach wider audiences than just Iranian Americans and gain more support for their ideas.
Much Iranian American traditional political activism with regards to policy change still continues to happen offline and through conventional means like lobbying. Popular lobbying organisations like the National Iranian American Council, a group that is not without controversy, work within the walls of Congress to encourage policy shifts towards Iran. Some of these are effective but, again, it is important to remember that diaspora political beliefs are not a monolith and the views of the NIAC are not representative of the diaspora as a whole. However, the work done by groups like the NIAC are influential in shifting public attitudes towards Iran and has proven to cause some change in policymakers’ attitudes through measures like the “No War with Iran Strategy Call”.
Lastly, an important feature of diaspora political activism is solidarity politics. Scholar Sally Schulz writes about solidarity politics as “some form of unity (however tenuously the members might be united) that mediates between the individual and the community and entails positive moral duties.[12]” Social media campaigns like #NoSanctionsonIran are attempts from the Iranian American diaspora to advocate for the Iranian people in US politics through public sphere politics and try to influence US policy towards Iran. This solidarity politics is also an example of diasporic resistance of the homeland regime as the solidarity is with the people of Iran and not with the government.
Conclusion
Navigating identity and national loyalties is difficult when you have many “identities” and “allegiances”, especially when they are often at odds with each other. The rise of diasporas has shifted this difficulty into more normalcy and allows these unique constructions to function as their own microcosms with individual culture, experiences and even politics. Diasporas like the Iranian American diaspora are disposed to advocate for their homeland and act in ways to challenge the status quo – bringing light to injustices and situations in their homeland while being in their country of residence.
Further as Iranian Americans adapt to changing political and social landscapes, they evolve their use of the technologies available to continue to spread their messages and ideas about an array of issues. Social media allows a widespread platform of new people and new ideas that help the diaspora gain momentum and support from people who may have previously been uninvolved or uninformed. Often, this digital activism can lead to attitude or priorities shift, and even legitimate policy changes.
The future of US-Iran relations is unsure as the relations between the two countries continue to worsen every day. Uncertainty continues to grow as the two administrations refuse to cooperate and regularly act in opposition of each other. However, even as recently as March 2021, Iranian Americans have actively advocated for the improvement of these relations through a variety of social media campaigns and even memorial events. The future is definitely not without the politics of the diaspora and active change through social media mobilisation.
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[1] “2011 American Community Survey Ancestry : United States Census Bureau”. Internet Archive, 2021, https://archive.org/details/2011AmericanCommunitySurveyAncestry/page/n1/mode/2up.
[2] “Census Of Iran Residing In America?”. Entekhab.Ir, 2015, https://www.entekhab.ir/fa/news/63723/چه-تعداد-ایرانی-مقیم-آمریکا-هستند.
[3] “National Public Opinion Survey Of The Iranian American Community”. PAAIA, 2018, https://paaia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/PAAIA-2018-Survey-final.pdf.
[4] Shain, Yossi, and Aharon Barth. “Diasporas and International Relations Theory”. International Organization, vol 57, no. 3, 2003, pp. 449-479. Cambridge University Press (CUP), doi:10.1017/s0020818303573015.
[5] Varadarajan, Latha. The Domestic Abroad. Oxford University Press, 2012.
[6] Alexandra Délano Alonso & Harris Mylonas (2019) The microfoundations of diaspora politics: unpacking the state and disaggregating the diaspora, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45:4, 473-491, DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2017.1409160
[7] Kruikemeier, S. Unraveling the Effects of Active and Passive Forms of Political Internet Use: Does It Affect Citizens’ Political Involvement? N.p., 2013. Print.
[8] Corinna Di Gennaro & William H. Dutton (2007) Reconfiguring Friendships: Social relationships and the Internet,Information, Communication & Society, 10:5, 591-618, DOI: 10.1080/13691180701657949
[9] Henderson, Samantha, and Michael Gilding. “‘I’ve Never Clicked This Much with Anyone in My Life’: Trust and Hyperpersonal Communication in Online Friendships.” New Media & Society, vol. 6, no. 4, Aug. 2004, pp. 487–506, doi:10.1177/146144804044331.
[10] Quart, Alissa. “Faking ‘Wokeness’: How Advertising Targets Millennial Liberals For Profit”. The Guardian, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/06/progressive-advertising-fake-woke.
[11] “How Social Media Is Changing Our World”. Fair Observer, 2021, https://www.fairobserver.com/business/technology/beau-peters-social-media-movements-black-lives-matter-me-too-misinformation-data-privacy-news-15251/.
[12] Scholz, Sally J. Political Solidarity. Penn State University Press, 2008. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/j.ctt7v61r. Accessed 30 Apr. 2021.