National Unity and the Philosophy of the General Will

The Appropriation of the Uprising and the Illusion of Preemptively Claiming the Spoils of Freedom

At the historical moment of tyranny’s collapse, the central issue is not the precedence of particular demands, but the formation of a general will for liberation; a will from which alone pluralism, justice, and lasting freedom can emerge.

Introduction

Whenever a nation stands on the threshold of the collapse of political order and the ascendancy of violence, the first question is no longer which voice is more rightful, but how scattered wills can be transformed into a general will for common salvation. In the history of political thought, from Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau to later thinkers, this truth has been repeated again and again: a society caught in fear, instability, and violence can attain freedom and genuine political life only when it formulates its scattered wills at a higher level, in the form of a general will. The “social contract” is born precisely from this point: from the moment when individuals and groups realize that if each insists only on his own pain, interest, or particular identity, the result will not be liberation, but the continuation of division, the erosion of the possibility of collective action, and ultimately the reproduction of tyranny.

Iran today stands at such a moment. The Islamic Republic is no longer merely an inefficient, corrupt, or authoritarian government; it is an order that has built its survival on the exhaustion and destruction of society. This regime is not only unreformable, but intrinsically dependent on repression, humiliation, constant securitization, and organized violence. From bullets to prisons, from executions to the structural repression of women, from the destruction of the economy to the erosion of the possibility of ordinary life, from the humiliation of ethnic groups to the silencing of every dissenting voice, the Islamic Republic has shown that it neither wants nor is able to allow citizens a free life. In the face of such an order, the central question is no longer “reform,” “moderation,” or “negotiation”; the question is liberation.

But at such a moment, the danger is not only external. The only enemy of freedom is not the ruling apparatus of repression. Another danger also rises from within the ranks of the opposition: the danger of fragmentation, particularism, and preemptive boundary-drawing. Whenever forces of liberation, before uniting around the principle of common salvation, turn instead to determining shares, fixing priorities, appropriating the uprising, or pre-dividing the post-collapse horizon, the general will is eroded from within. In that case, what should become the historical power of a nation is reduced to a collection of parallel, and sometimes mutually obstructive, wills.

For this reason, the central concern of this essay is neither the denial of social pluralism nor the invalidation of the real and historical demands of various groups. On the contrary, the issue is precisely the defense of the very possibility without which none of those demands will have any chance of realization. The claim of this essay is that, in the present moment, there is a necessary ethical and political order: first, general liberation; then the free articulation of all demands, identities, and disagreements in the field of democratic politics. Any attempt to reverse this order, even if carried out in the name of justice or rights, ultimately suspends the very freedom it claims to defend.

In this sense, the “general will” is neither the name for eliminating differences nor a cover for homogenizing society. In this moment, the general will is simply the shared minimum without which no free and lawful future can arise: the rejection of the Islamic Republic, the rejection of its organized violence, and the acceptance of the principle that the form of the future system, the future constitution, and the relation between different rights and demands must be determined not through the imposition of one faction, but through the separation of religion from politics, through a referendum, a constituent assembly, and the free and equal participation of the people. This shared minimum is not the negation of pluralism; it is the condition of possibility for pluralism.

The Illusion of Spoils-Seeking: Definition and Dimensions

If we wanted to summarize the central error of part of today’s political atmosphere in one phrase, that error would be nothing other than the illusion of preemptively claiming the spoils of freedom. That is, the false assumption that one can divide the spoils of freedom before freedom itself has been achieved; that one can decide, before the collapse of tyranny, the share of forces, the priority of identities, or the precedence of demands; that one can register the symbolic or political ownership of the uprising in the name of this or that faction before the field of free politics has even opened.

This illusion is mistaken in two respects. First, theoretically: because freedom, before anything else, is a common condition, not a private possession. It is not something that can be divided in advance among separate flags. If freedom emerges, it first emerges as a shared horizon; that is, as the opening of a space in which differences, conflicts, and competitions can appear legitimately and peacefully. Before this opening, speaking of dividing the spoils of freedom is like dividing the inheritance of a house that has not yet been rescued from the fire.

Second, practically: so long as the Islamic Republic remains in power, none of the particular demands, however legitimate and necessary, has any possibility of stable realization. The government that represses women for their most basic rights is the same government that answers every justice-seeking force, from every spectrum, with prison and elimination; the same government that governs ethnic groups not through equal participation, but through humiliation, securitization, and bullets. In such a situation, whenever a particular demand is turned, before general liberation, into the primary organizing principle of all politics, the result will not be the strengthening of that demand, but the weakening of the collective capacity to pass beyond tyranny.

Thus, the problem does not lie in the demands themselves, but in the order in which they are raised. Defending women’s rights, social justice, ethnic rights, freedom of conscience, and plurality in ways of life are all legitimate and necessary. But their legitimacy does not mean that each has the right to install itself in place of the general organizing principle of this historical moment. Until the “common condition of freedom” has come into being, no particular demand should transform itself into an “absolute right of precedence.”

Three Manifestations of One Common Error

This error appears in today’s Iran in several different forms; forms that may seem distant from one another on the surface, but are similar in their underlying logic.

1. Appropriating the national uprising in the name of a particular horizon

“Woman, Life, Freedom” arose from one of the deepest wounds inflicted by the Islamic Republic: the structural repression of women and the humiliation of their bodies, freedom, and dignity. In this sense, the connection between this slogan and women’s experience is neither accidental nor something that should be denied. But the reality of the Mahsa uprising also showed that this slogan, alongside “Man, Homeland, Prosperity,” became the common language of a nation. This very coexistence showed that Iranian society, even without necessarily formulating it theoretically, had taken this uprising beyond the level of a particular demand and understood it within the horizon of national liberation. The greatness of this slogan lies precisely here: it began from the suffering of women, but it grew within the horizon of general freedom and national liberation.

For this reason, this slogan is not the flag of a sect, not the deed of ownership of any particular current, and not in contradiction with general freedom. The error begins where this slogan, instead of being understood as part of the shared language of a nation, is reduced to the deed of ownership of one current or one exclusive interpretation. Precisely because the Islamic Republic has structurally repressed women for four and a half decades, the struggle against this misogynistic regime is not a marginal aspect of freedom, but one of freedom’s own necessities.

The issue is that monopolism — whatever name it takes — when it becomes an “absolute right of precedence,” diverts public energy from the path of collective liberation and pushes society into a contest of flags. In that case, what could have been a center of unity becomes an instrument of boundary-making. The issue is not that the suffering of women should be pushed to the margins; on the contrary, the issue is that this suffering is so fundamental and far-reaching that it must not be imprisoned within the monopolism of one particular interpretation. Any attempt to claim exclusive ownership over this slogan diminishes its national capacity and reduces it from a language of liberation to a flag of competition.

2. Reducing the politics of liberation to calculations of post-collapse shares

The second form of this error appears when politics, before being the question of passing beyond tyranny, becomes the question of shares, representation, and post-collapse position. Here, the illusion of spoils-seeking presents itself in the garb of “realism”: the concern over which force, in the aftermath of freedom, will have how many seats, how much influence, or what capacity for mobilization. But this apparently most realistic approach is, in truth, one of the blindest forms of political action. For so long as the free political space itself has not taken shape, speaking of one’s share within that space is nothing but a displacement of priorities.

Freedom is the precondition of legitimate competition. Without freedom, competition is either impossible or deformed. Therefore, any force that, in the moment of tyranny, becomes absorbed in calculating its own position after liberation instead of strengthening the general will, knowingly or unknowingly participates in the logic that erodes unity of action. Such a force imagines that by preserving its distinction, it is safeguarding its future capital; whereas in practice, it helps postpone the future itself.

3. Sliding from ethnic pluralism into the demand for political rupture

The third form of this error appears when Iran’s real ethnic and linguistic plurality, instead of being understood within the horizon of equal participation in a shared national life, is transformed into a demand for autonomy or political rupture before the realization of general liberation. It is clear that in some regions of Iran, an accumulation of deprivations — from religious discrimination and cultural restrictions to underdevelopment, regional marginalization, and chronic securitization — has imposed deep and unequal pressures on part of the country’s population. This reality should neither be denied nor minimized. But these injustices are neither a license for ethnonationalism nor a legitimate basis for political rupture. The correct conclusion is that only within the framework of a free, lawful, and democratic Iran can these inequalities be addressed in a lasting and equal way, and the cultural, economic, and political rights of all Iranians be durably and equally guaranteed. The incorrect conclusion is that, before the collapse of tyranny, the question of borders, rupture, or political autonomy should become the primary priority of politics.

In that case, the issue slips from justice and equal participation into geographical share-seeking; and this is precisely the point from which both the Islamic Republic and separatist forces benefit. The defense of ethnic plurality helps freedom only when it is raised within the horizon of “Iran” as a supra-ethnic and shared whole, not in opposition to it.

In all three cases, we are not facing three unrelated disputes, but one common error: the attempt to give precedence to the particular over the possibility of the emergence of the general. But freedom is not a spoil that can be divided before conquest. Freedom must first emerge as a shared condition; only after that can the real differences, demands, and conflicts of society be articulated in the legitimate field of democratic politics.

The naked reality is that the Islamic Republic stands precisely against all these demands and has not allowed even the smallest possibility of political participation to any of them: the same government that today represses women for their most basic rights and imprisons their activists is the same government that silences every justice-seeking voice — left, right, or center — through prison, torture, and execution; and the same government that, in some regions of Iran, through the intersection of religious discrimination, cultural restrictions, regional deprivation, and chronic securitization, has imposed unequal and heavy pressures on part of the country’s population. Removing these injustices is possible only within the framework of a free, lawful, and democratic Iran. So long as the machinery of repression remains in place, no “right” is recognized: not the rights of women, not the rights of workers and intellectuals, and not the rights of citizens placed under unequal pressure within this discriminatory structure. Therefore, dragging these demands ahead of collective liberation — and worse, turning them into flags of competition and boundary-making within the uprising — is not only meaningless, but dangerous.

The Danger of Reducing Identity: A Critique of the Singular View

This error is not merely a tactical slip or a temporary political mistake; it is rooted in a mistaken understanding of identity and its relation to politics. It is precisely here that Amartya Sen’s argument becomes important. In Identity and Violence, Sen shows that one of the principal sources of modern violence is the “singular view” of identity: the idea that a human being can be reduced to a single component — gender, ethnicity, religion, class, language, or any other title — and that this component can be declared his or her ultimate destiny.

Sen opposes reducing the human being to one fate-determining identity and emphasizes the plurality and overlap of identities and their dependence on the context of action. Sen stresses that human beings always carry multiple and overlapping identities. A person may simultaneously be a woman or a man, religious or nonreligious, a speaker of one language, a member of one social class, a participant in one intellectual or cultural tradition, and at the same time a member of a nation. None of these levels of identity, by itself, has the right to swallow the entire political meaning of the person. Violence begins where one of these identities imposes itself as the “fate-determining identity” and pushes the other existential and civic dimensions of the individual to the margins.

The significance of this point for today’s Iran is clear. Whoever, in the current critical moment, turns the “group self” into the sole horizon of politics is in fact reproducing the very thing Sen warns against: the illusion that the future can be saved through one privileged and prior identity. Yet in the face of tyranny, what can free women, workers, intellectuals, Kurds, Baluch, Azeris, Arabs, Persians, the religious, the nonreligious, and all citizens from bondage is not the elevation of one particular identity, but the formation of a general will that temporarily takes precedence over partial identities without denying them.

Iran as a Supra-Ethnic Idea

If reducing identity is an error, then we must ask what shared horizon can contain this plurality within itself. The answer of this essay is clear: “Iran,” before being an ethnic or religious label, is a supra-ethnic and supra-sectarian idea. Iran is not a single bloodline, not a single race, not a single religion, and not a uniform ideological narrative. Iran is a historical, cultural, and political framework that has made possible the coexistence of multiple languages, ethnicities, religions, and ways of life under the roof of one shared life.

The importance of this point lies in the fact that “Iran” is not the negation of pluralism, but the condition of possibility for pluralism. Only within a shared national life can differences, instead of sliding into border wars and geographical competition, continue in the form of equal participation and legitimate political competition. If this shared vessel is broken, what remains of plurality will not be the freedom of multiplicity, but the direct confrontation of multiplicities.

The Islamic Republic itself has been one of the principal enemies of this supra-ethnic idea. This regime has tried to push back Iran’s historical identity — which rests on the coexistence of pluralities and the continuity of a shared life — in favor of a narrow Shiite-ideological identity. Defending Iran, in this sense, is not defending an ethnicity and not defending a religion; it is defending the very shared vessel without which no part of society will have the possibility of a free and equal life.

Continuity of Identity Without Essentialism

Here Derek Parfit’s insight becomes crucial. If Sen shows that the human being should not be reduced to a single identity, Parfit allows us to understand how a historical whole can have continuity without relying on essentialism. In Reasons and Persons, Parfit argues that personal identity is not based on a “deep fixed essence”; what matters are continuity, connectedness, memory, commitment, and the chain of relations that make the persistence of the person possible.

This insight can be extended — by analogy, not by complete equivalence — to collective identity as well. “Iran” is neither a frozen and eternal essence, nor a project that each generation invents from zero. Iran is a historical network of languages, memories, institutions, sufferings, victories, shared horizons, and civic bonds that is redefined by each generation without its thread of continuity being broken. In this sense, a modern Iran needs neither to deny the past nor to be condemned to repeat it. It can add new values — from equality between women and men and freedom of conscience to plurality in ways of life and free political competition — to the chain of its continuity without detaching itself from its historical whole.

This point is also politically important. One of the crises in today’s debate is that some imagine that to build a free future one must either deny historical Iran or return to a static version of it. Parfit allows us to move beyond this duality. One can be loyal to Iran without being captive to the past; one can build a modern Iran without inventing Iran anew. Political and ethical continuity lies not in rigid sameness, but in living connectedness.

For this reason, today’s unity of action is not for erasing pluralism, but for preserving the possibility of the continuation of that very pluralism in the tomorrow of freedom. The Islamic Republic is in conflict precisely with this living continuity; for it is not only a repressive regime, but a force that has tried to sever the thread of historical Iran’s continuity and replace it with a narrow ideological identity.

Value Pluralism

If Sen speaks of the error of reduction to one identity, and Parfit of continuity without essentialism, Isaiah Berlin adds another layer to the argument. In his theory of value pluralism, Berlin shows that human values are multiple, sometimes in tension with one another, and that no single principle can claim intrinsic and absolute superiority over all other values. Freedom, justice, equality, order, loyalty, security, creativity, and identity are all real values; but their relation to one another is never simple or tension-free.

The importance of this point for the present discussion is that even rightful values cannot turn themselves into the sole governing principle of all political life. Any project that seeks to turn one particular demand — whether gender-based, class-based, or ethnic — into the prior organizing principle of all politics is exposed to the danger of sliding into violence and a new tyranny. Not because that demand is illegitimate, but because absolutizing any particular thing destroys the very possibility of coexistence among values.

In this sense, the critique of monopolism is not a denial of justice, not a denial of equality, and not a denial of group rights. The critique of monopolism means defending the principle that no particular demand, however legitimate, has the right to install itself in the place of the totality of the political. Real freedom arises not in the elimination of conflicts, but in the construction of an order in which conflicts can coexist without destroying one another.

Constitutional Patriotism

But Berlinian pluralism, if it is to move from the level of philosophical reflection to the level of politics, requires an institutional form. It is here that Jürgen Habermas becomes important. “Constitutional patriotism” in Habermas’s thought is an answer to the question of how plurality of identities and values can be formulated within a shared civic loyalty without slipping into ethnonationalism, blood-based belonging, or exclusive ideology.

Within this framework, collective identity is built not on blood and soil, not on religion, and not on a particular ideology, but on shared commitment to universal political principles and processes: democracy, human rights, freedom of expression, referendum, constituent assembly, constitution, and the possibility of free party and civic competition. This is the institutional form of the general will. If Berlin says that no single value should install itself in place of the whole, Habermas shows how this plurality can be formulated within a shared civic and lawful loyalty.

For Iran, this discussion is vitally important. For it is precisely here that one can distance oneself from two extremes: on the one hand, from identity-based and ideological monopolism; and on the other, from disorderly fragmentation and purely negative politics. A free Iran will be built not by eliminating differences, but by transforming them into lawful participation within a shared framework.

Civic Sacrifice

Here Hannah Arendt adds another dimension to the discussion. Arendt understands freedom not merely as an inner condition and not only as a set of individual rights, but as the appearance of human beings in a common world; a world in which action, speech, and plurality can become visible. But such a world does not come into being by itself. The public space of freedom requires a kind of civic sacrifice: the readiness of individuals and groups, even temporarily, to place their particular interests and priorities in the service of building the common world.

This sacrifice is neither the negation of pluralism nor the destruction of disagreement. It is the condition of possibility for their appearance. If the common world is not built, neither will plurality have a chance to appear nor will rights have the possibility of becoming established. From this perspective, the temporary suspension of some particular priorities in today’s Iran, if it serves the construction of the shared space of freedom, is not a betrayal of rights, but the condition for saving rights.

Arendt reminds us that politics is not merely the arena for expressing interests; it is the arena for building a world in which human beings can appear as free citizens. In the present moment, this common world has not yet been freed from the grip of tyranny. Thus, today’s civic sacrifice is the precondition of tomorrow’s pluralism.

The Historical Objection: Is This a Repetition of 1979?

Here we must respond seriously to the most important objection. Is saying “first general liberation, then particular demands” not the same promise that was made in February 1979 and betrayed the day after the revolution? Does this logic not once again mean sacrificing women, ethnic groups, religious minorities, and other vulnerable voices in favor of an ambiguous “whole”?

This objection is serious and respectable, and the answer to it must be precise. The decisive difference is this: the catastrophe of 1979 began precisely where there was no binding mechanism to guarantee participation and pluralism. There was no transparent and competitive referendum on the type of government, no clear program for the post-collapse structure, no inclusive constituent assembly, and no constitution submitted to free public debate before ratification. “Voting” at that moment was not an instrument of the people’s self-government, but an instrument for legitimizing the seizure of power.

What is proposed today, if properly formulated, is exactly the opposite of that experience. The temporary suspension of demands is not in favor of a charismatic leader and not in favor of an ideology, but in favor of processes that themselves guarantee the return of those demands: a free referendum, a real constituent assembly, a participatory constitution, and the guarantee of fundamental rights. In other words, “suspension” does not mean trusting a person, but trusting a mechanism. It is not suspension for erasing voices, but suspension for building a space in which all voices can appear without fear and elimination.

The Practical Consequence of This Intellectual Solution

This discussion is not merely theoretical reflection. It has direct and immediate political consequences. The world confronting Iran operates with a set of security, geopolitical, and strategic calculations. In such a world, what can bring the international community closer to effective support for the people of Iran is not the chaotic plurality of conflicting demands, but the emergence of a clear, coherent, and liberation-oriented national will. The free world can align itself with the will of the people only in the face of a united nation with a clear demand. But if every small group, before the fall of the regime, raises its own particular flag as the central axis, then from the outside too Iran will appear as a fragmented and incoherent crisis.

This argument is also clear at the level of political reality. Three main scenarios lie before Iran. One is an internal coup and the replacement of faces without a change in the nature of the repressive system. Another is the regime’s survival and the intensification of the country’s practical collapse, to the point where ethnic, regional, and chronic crises reach the threshold of explosion. The third is the alignment of foreign support with the national will for overthrow, in such a way that pressures and support are concentrated on weakening and purposefully overthrowing the system, not on bargaining with it. In all three scenarios, what is decisive is the presence or absence of an internal general will. Internal fragmentation neutralizes even the best external opportunities.

The Necessity of Provisional Governance and the Critique of the Illusion of Leaderlessness

If the general will must pass beyond division, and if freedom without a transitional structure is exposed to being stolen, then unity of action needs an axis of coordination. In reality, this axis is nothing other than a provisional government that assumes responsibility for managing the transition and prepares the way for the establishment of democratic institutions.

Here one must speak plainly: no successful political transition has occurred without a temporary leadership structure. On the day after the collapse of the Islamic Republic, one cannot hold elections on “day one.” Free and credible elections require prerequisites without which voting will not be an expression of the people’s will, but a repetition of disaster. Parties must have the opportunity to form, programs must have the chance to be presented and criticized, electoral law must be clear, independent supervisory institutions must exist, and above all, basic order and security must be preserved.

All of this takes time. And in the meantime, someone must govern the country. The illusion of a “leaderless transition” in practice leads not to democracy, but to a power vacuum; a vacuum that the most organized armed forces, the remnants of the apparatus of repression, or proxy and separatist forces will immediately fill. Therefore, provisional governance is not a betrayal of democracy, but the precondition for the possibility of democracy.

Of course, the issue is not merely the existence of leadership, but its nature and limits. Provisional governance must be called “provisional” precisely because its mission is limited, clear, and bound to the democratic process: preserving order, guaranteeing security, liberating the public sphere, and preparing the path for free elections and a constituent assembly. Its legitimacy derives not from a claim to permanent representation, but from its commitment to opening the field of public participation.

The Path of Coalition: Regulating the Relation Between Plurality and the General

The path of coalition does not mean that all forces must begin from zero and abandon their identities. The path of coalition is real alignment with the will of the majority of the people of Iran. Today’s unity must form around the “axis of Iran”; an axis whose non-negotiable principles include preserving territorial integrity, full commitment to freedom of expression, rejection of every form of religious and ideological tyranny, and acceptance of public and equal participation in determining the future political destiny.

The correct politics in this moment is not the denial of pluralism, but the regulation of its relation to the general. That means accepting the truth that, in the moment of tyranny, priority belongs to saving the shared field; and only after that can differences be legitimately and constructively articulated. Any force that today fragments the general will, even if its intention is good, in practice weakens the capacity for collective liberation.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the issue of Iran today is not only who must go or what order must come; the issue is deeper than that: what is the relation of freedom to identity, what is the relation of plurality to unity, and in the moment of tyranny’s collapse, which has ethical and political precedence?

The answer that this essay draws from Hobbes, Rousseau, Sen, Parfit, Berlin, Habermas, and Arendt is not naïve or one-sided. It does not say that differences are unimportant; it does not say that particular demands should be silenced; it does not say that the suffering of groups is imaginary. On the contrary, it says that all of these are real, important, and must be recognized in the tomorrow of freedom. But for that tomorrow to arise at all, one truth must be accepted today: freedom, before being the field for dividing spoils, is the condition of possibility for all rights.

For this reason, today’s political virtue lies not in denying plurality, but in the temporary suspension of the right of precedence of every particular cause in order to build the common world of freedom. If Iran is to be freed, it must first appear as a general will. And if this will takes shape, then in the bright tomorrow, freedom will belong neither to one group, nor to the deed of one identity, nor to the spoil of one current; it will become the shared inheritance of a nation that has learned that before dividing tomorrow, it must first save tomorrow itself.

References

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