Editor’s Note: The author is an Iranian-American who spent four months in Iran around the election period and wishes to remain anonymous.
A month or so before the elections, on the surface there was no political pulse in Tehran. I was walking in the Tajrish bazaar in northern Tehran wearing a green scarf, and a shop owner yelled out to me enthusiastically: “Mir-Hossein Mousavi!” An older lady dressed all in black walking beside me remarked abruptly, “So, you are a Mousavi supporter, eh?” Unaware if she thought that was a good or bad thing I replied sheepishly, “Oh, I just like the color of the scarf.”
“No,” she said matter-of-factly, “of course you must vote for Mousavi.” I hadn’t heard Mousavi’s name spoken on the street before, and up until then I had the impression that Mousavi – who is not as charismatic a character as former president Mohammad Khatami – would not possess the ability to mobilize voters in great numbers. However, a variety of social and economic factors proved to be compelling enough to stimulate people politically and draw them to the streets in the weeks leading up to the election.
People of all classes and religious backgrounds expressed legitimate grievances with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – Iran’s state of isolation, heavier sanctions, heightened inflation, the overall downturn of the economy and the deterioration of personal freedoms. This is not to say that Ahmadinejad did not have a group of supporters, but having run on a populist platform his first time around, he certainly did not accomplish what he had promised to do.
Three weeks before the presidential elections, people of all ages began to flood the streets of Tehran. Shop owners throughout the city plastered their windows with political advertisements. And on every main street you would find campaign bases set up at mosques and outside shops.
The streets rumbled late into the night with mostly pro-Mousavi chants – although there were always scattered groups of Ahmadinejad supporters – beeping car horns and the occasional group of teenagers performing a dance in the street. Some girls even tore off their headscarves while singing flirtatiously “Ahmadi bye-bye, Ahmadi bye-bye.” In a city without nightclubs and bars, the streets of Tehran at night became the center for a unique mingling of politics and pleasure. For the first time since the revolution, besides the relatively confined student demonstrations in 1999, young people claimed the streets as their own and made them a public space for expression. And in the midst of all of this, the police would survey the crowds from a distance.
Although a majority of the demonstrators were certainly under the age of 30, the opposition to Ahmadinejad’s presidency did not belong exclusively to the young and educated – disapproval of his administration was widespread. Upon viewing images of young people marching in support of Mousavi, foreign commentators tended to make a broad generalization about the demographics of the opposition movement, effectively narrowing it to what they saw as an educated elite composed of students and the bourgeoisie. They failed to grasp the reality of the situation: the support for Mousavi has widespread roots in Iranian society and should not be branded as merely a liberal or a subversive movement.
A pro-Mousavi demonstration I joined a week before the election stretched from southern Tehran all the way north to Tajrish Square. Everyone had come out to support Mousavi – women in black chadors, families, shop owners, and high school and university students. Even little children learned to chant along with their families. According to many people with whom I spoke, this strong sense of unity and togetherness among Iranians was not present during Khatami’s candidacy in 1997 and has not existed since the revolution. “Don’t be scared, don’t be scared, we are all together,” people chanted.
The opposition movement was not limited to the streets – coffee shops, malls, bazaars and homes were all abuzz with conversations on the latest election news. In the weeks leading up to the election, families would plan their evenings around BBC Persian news and debate programs, arguably the most informative and influential news programming during this election. Also this year, as a semblance of democracy, the Iranian state television broadcast a series of candidate debates. Every night people sat religiously in front of the TV to watch the candidates attack one another and to have a good laugh at Ahmadinejad, who concentrated his efforts on vehemently accusing his opponents of corruption, fraud and immorality. After the debates, people would switch to BBC Persian for commentary and young people would hurry out of the house and into the streets.
While watching one of the debates, a friend of mine shouted with enthusiasm when Mousavi made a good argument. Turning to me he said, “You know the excitement that you had for Obama in the U.S.? Well, that is how we feel about Mousavi.” From many of the comments people made, I believe that Barack Obama’s win in the U.S. elections instilled both a sense of hope in the Iranian electorate, as well as a desire to emulate his campaign for change.
On election day, as I walked through the streets and observed polling stations, the pre-election excitement indeed reflected itself in the voter turnout. People throughout the city reported a higher turnout than in 1997 when Khatami was elected and many people stood in line for more than two hours to vote.
To our dismay, the turnout rate did not result in what people expected to be an easy win for Mousavi. The following morning we watched mortified at the announcement on state television of Ahmadinejad’s landslide victory. Although at first paralyzed by shock and humiliation at this seemingly unjust defeat, by the afternoon people had taken to the streets – just as before, except this time they were driven by bitterness and rage. “This is the first and last time I will vote in the elections,” one person told me. Many believe that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his cronies planned the staging of the elections well ahead of time.
The same people who were supporting Mousavi and a democratic electoral process are now shouting “Death to Khamenei” and “Death to the dictator.” The movement is no longer just about the election results or Mousavi; it is now about the future of the Islamic Republic.
The tension continues to rise as the regime represses demonstrators and kills civilians, commits mass arrests, and blocks Internet, satellite and cell phone usage. Iranians believe that the situation is getting worse by the day; some fear that soon they will not even be able to leave their homes. There is talk of a blacklist with names of prominent artists, intellectuals and other oppositionists – some of whom have allegedly been threatened, arrested or assassinated.
Now, as Iranians watch these events unfold, there is a growing uncertainty regarding the future of the republic as many are concerned about internal clashes within the government. Although it is uncertain what the coming weeks and months will bring for the Iranian people and Mousavi’s movement, it is clear that the outcome of the crisis will influence the shaping of the future Iranian political environment on both a domestic and an international scale.
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Published on June 26, 2009
