Certainly, this week’s news remains dominated by the disappearance of Michael Jackson. However displeasing it may be to his millions of fans, the star of the nineties did not die on a barricade fighting for the defense of freedoms.
This has nothing to do with the fate of the Iranian youth. Smothered under the turbans of the mullahs, they now take refuge on the rooftops of Tehran, braving at the risk of their lives the armies of Basij militants. Brought in at great expense by the regime, these militiamen, with their “provincial accents” as observed by the residents of Tehran, unleash their fury to suppress the dissenters, whom a close associate of the Guide, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, even calls for the “execution of the death penalty.” The worst is probably happening without us fully realizing it: a systematic repression of indescribable ferocity descends upon the opponents of Ali Khamenei. Without news of their children or friends who have disappeared for several days, hundreds of families wait, desperate, at the foot of Evin prison.
Mobile phones silenced, blogs censored, messaging services often blocked, only the landlines crackle… painfully! And yet, even disconnected, young Iranians manage to express themselves by using, for example, their social network profile display. For the place of birth or residence, one can read the mention: “Born in hell, Iran.” Others have changed their pseudonym to “MobileDead” or “Nothing to say”: humor against savagery. If the symbolic temporarily prevails over the real, the means remains slight. Fear sets in. It precedes resignation, the ultimate step before that of exile, a new obsession for thousands of students who have resumed their university route without enthusiasm. Mir Hossein Moussavi will ultimately be proven right: during a campaign debate, he criticized the poor performance of the outgoing president Ahmadinejad, likely to swell the ranks of those waiting for visas in front of Western embassies. This is indeed the case.
These few weeks have remarkably matured the young Iranians: from the euphoria and the relative nonchalance of the first peaceful demonstrations, a vastly more serious tone has followed, showing a formidable determination. Like Maryam, whose “life turned upside down after the elections.” She is not alone. The essence of Shiite martyrdom, which glorifies sacrifice, seems to have changed sides and turned against its “founding fathers.” “They can kill us,” confides another 24-year-old student, “they cannot kill our opinion.” “After the blood,” according to Ali Reza, “are intense discussions that spread freely in the university dorms.”
In this Iranian society, discreetly steeped since the Islamic revolution in the hedonistic enjoyment of the moment, the idea of death now feeds with its dark power the legitimacy of the demands. “I have a son,” explains Mohammad, “and he will not forgive me if he ever learns that I was not among the protesters.”
The violation of private homes by militiamen searching for dissenters has shattered the hypocritical separation between “birun” and “andarun,” the outside and inside of the house. This allowed a thin space of freedom, highly salvatory for the “velayat-e faqih” system set up by religious dignitaries. From the now forbidden streets to the private rooftop terraces, the citizen of Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Kerman, or Tabriz can no longer escape the grip, except by resigning or fighting, if necessary against their own feeling of annihilation. A sign of this rupture, about ten general officers of the Revolutionary Guards have been arrested for disobeying and refusing to shoot at the crowd.
A reign is ending but the agony, in true Persian rhythm, will be interminable. However, one thing is certain: after the spark triggered by these elections, young Iranians will never bathe in the same river twice.
