In the early weeks of 2018, protests swept through the small towns of Iran, mobilising the disgruntled lower rung of society. Demonstrators chanted slogans against the country's theocracy. Meanwhile, large cities, where some of the largest anti-regime demonstrations previously had taken place, remained relatively quiet.
Though this year's demonstrations have received less global coverage than earlier ones, this latest round may be more significant: They show support for the government crumbling in the rural, poor base that made the revolution possible and has allowed its adherents to stay in power ever since.
As a correspondent for The New York Times, I covered dozens of anti-regime protests since the late 1990s in large cities. They became an outlet for people to express their frustration at the regime's oppressive policies. Over the years, the demonstrations became bigger, culminating in the massive protests of 2009, when hundreds of thousands of people marched in the streets for six months over what they believed was an election stolen by then-president Mahmoud Ahamdinejad.
In response, the government deployed loyal supporters from rural areas, equipping them with clubs and truncheons to beat the protesters. In 2009, some of the fighters looked so provincial that rumours spread they were mercenaries. Nearly 100 protesters were killed.
That year, I was forced to leave the country after I received death threats for covering the unrest.
Over the last few months, the protesters I've seen in video clips are angrier than the ones I encountered in large cities nine years ago. These new protesters, despite being better educated than their parents, remain unemployed.
The recent protests began as a relatively small venture on Dec 28, 2017 in the northeastern city of Mashhad, Iran's second largest. The initial protest expressed anger over the economy. Prices of basic goods had increased by roughly 40% in the previous year, according to official sources.
But the demonstrations quickly moved to other cities, and targeted politicians as well. Calls were made for an end to the regime, and for the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to step down. Angry protesters set fire to police stations and attacked paramilitary bases. Newspapers covered the protests and debated what triggered them. Some 3,700 people were arrested, and at least 21 people were killed during demonstrations, including an 11-year-old boy.
The reasons protesters gave for their anger included the rampant cronyism and stifling class inequality that has widened since the election of president Ahmadinejad in 2005. The 2015 lifting of economic sanctions with the West also has disappointed many people. Urban areas got a few benefits, but small towns had not witnessed growth. Instead, high unemployment rates, inflation and corruption have lingered.
This new movement appeared leaderless and without a clear agenda. But some 48 million Iranians (more than half the country's population) have smart phones and are online. Technology helped the protests spread quickly to almost every province, including some 100 cities and remote areas, where protests against the state had not been seen since 1979.
The protests emerged after President Hassan Rouhani released his budget proposal for the new Iranian fiscal year. The budget envisioned steep cuts in cash subsidies to the poor, while increasing fees for foreign travel and services like vehicle registration. In a canny move, he made public the amount of funding allocated to Iran's wealthy religious foundations -- as well as powerful paramilitary forces loyal to the regime.
Mr Rouhani said it was a step forward for transparency, but the revelations went viral on social media and angered many Iranians. The disclosure of an US$8 billion (253.3 billion baht) budget for the Revolutionary Guard, Iran's most influential security force, prompted sharp criticism. Protesters objected to government spending on Iranian involvement in regional wars, including those in Iraq and Syria, instead of funding projects that could create jobs at home.
Religious foundations, many of them tax-exempt, also got a boost in the budget, including a 20% increase for representatives of the supreme leader at Iran's universities. These organisations, which are under the direct supervision of Ayatollah Khamenei's office, are also linked to some of the financial institutions that have announced bankruptcies over the last year and depleted Iranians' savings.
While the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei blamed the protests on "enemies" (a reference to the United States and Israel), President Rouhani acknowledged young people were unhappy about far more than just the economy. "It would be a misrepresentation [of events] and also an insult to Iranian people to say they only had economic demands," Mr Rouhani said. "People had economic, political and social demands," a reference to the pressures his political opponents impose to keep their grip on society.
The government launched a clampdown in large cities, arresting hundreds of activists, including a group of environmentalists. One university professor, Kavous Seyed-Emami, was said to have died in prison. Authorities claimed that he committed suicide, but did not permit an independent autopsy, spurring speculation about torture. Four others have died in custody over the last three months.
But in smaller towns, the regime has refrained from deploying its fearsome paramilitary troops that are commonly used to repress protests. Isolated clashes between police and protesters have broken out, but there was no evidence to suggest a comprehensive effort to end the protest movement by force. The Revolutionary Guard largely stayed away from these areas, perhaps to avoid further alienating the residents.
Though these protests seem unlikely to pose an existential threat to the established order, they will shift perceptions of the country's grassroots.
In times of adversity, the Islamic Republic has always banked on the support of the working classes.
When the next crisis comes, it's not clear the regime will be able to depend on its once-diehard supporters.
It might have to start addressing popular demands rather than crushing them. Zocalo Public Square
Nazila Fathi is a former Tehran correspondent for the New York Times and the author of 'The Lonely War: One Woman's Account of the Struggle for Modern Iran'.