BY ANONYMOUS
An eyewitness report on the June 15 demonstration for defeated
presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran sent by an academic whose
name has been deliberately withheld to avoid any repercussions for the
individual.
Today, under slate skies and despite official warnings that the
permit to march had been denied, against rumours that orders had been given to
shoot to kill, they came. They came by the tens if not hundreds of thousands,
marching east to west along the many kilometres of Enqelab Street to Azadi, or
Freedom Square. "It would be dishonourable, na mardi, to not go," a young
couple explained. "We have to go." Another man asks who is going, what is going
on? He is told that the "Mousavi-chiha" are marching, starting at 4. He
laughs, "Mousavi-chiha nadarim, hame ye Iran hastand!" We don’t have
Mousavi supporters; it’s now all of Iran…
That they came to Azadi, a place where 30 years ago the
revolution pivoted towards victory was fitting, for as much as the election
campaign had been about who best represented the revolutionary values of Iran,
Islam and the late imam, the push-and-pull of the past few days between
opposition and Ahmadinejad forces has been a struggle to lay claim to
authenticity. Authenticity that lies in the imagined and lived past, places and
practices of the Islamic republic. It is as if whoever can get to the important
places and rituals first and stay there, hang on to them, will win. So at night,
beginning at 9 p.m., we hear shouts of "Allah Akbar!" from the rooftops,
just like in the fall and winter of 1978-79. We have marches to sacred spots
like Azadi and appeals by all sides to the memory of Khomeini…
In the crowd, there are families, young and old. One cannot help
but notice the large presence of women of all ages. The typical daily life of
the capital is out here together, the homes, sidewalks and boulevards abandoned
for this shared space. There is word that the crowd is millions strong; we know
that it stretches eastward to Imam Hossein Square. It is an incredible occasion
– by comparison, the state-organised 2,00,000 strong anniversary march that
takes place every February starts from around Ferdowsi Square, several
kilometres closer in to Azadi.
The mood in the crowd was positive, reminiscent of the joyous
celebrations of the final week of the campaign. The chants are up-to-date,
changed to reflect the new circumstances in Iran, the things that we did not
know before Friday’s vote. "Hale ye noor e ro dide, rai e mano nadide?" A
reference to the light of the hidden imam that Ahmadinejad claimed to have seen,
roughly translated to rhyme, "If he saw that light, why didn’t he see the vote
we cast with all our might?!" And "Ta in Ahmadi nejad hast, in ghaziye ijad
hast!" Until this Ahmadi is here, this commotion will not disappear!
There are new signs as well. Written in English, "Where is My
Vote?" (I can’t help myself, the idea for an Al Gore-Mir Hossein Mousavi buddy
film pops into my mind: Dude, Where is My Vote?). Another: "2 x 2 = 24
million", a play on the bogus economic measures touted by Ahmadinejad during the
debates, now updated to reflect the equally dubious election results.
The procession passes through an underpass and just as there is
great pleasure in honking the car horn in tunnels, these many people send up an
enormous cheer, echoing off the walls. From dark to light, the crowd emerges
from the underpass and looks back to see what they have done. There is above
them, stretching across the tunnel, a dissonant sight, a sign with the visage
and message of the supreme leader. He watches over this protest in the manner of
TJ Eckelberg…
The crowd knots and comes to an absolute standstill. They are
pressed against each other, Coachella and Woodstock in one. Slowly, slowly, the
people move forward and see that the cause for the standstill is Mehdi Karroubi.
Karroubi whose almost 4,00,000 votes was the most telling sign that something
was seriously amiss with the vote count (he counted more registered activists
and supporters in his campaign machine alone). Karroubi, a former member of Imam
Khomeini’s inner circle, who during the presidential race four years ago
famously protested that "I was in first place during the vote count, took an
afternoon nap and when I woke up, I was suddenly two places behind Ahmadinejad."
The 72-year-old cleric stands atop a car surrounded by bodyguards, blessing the
crows with blown kisses.
As I have noted before, what is remarkable about the Mousavi and
opposition marches is the orderly disorder. These are not rallies or events in
the manner that we are accustomed to in the United States. There are no official
Mousavi volunteers guiding the crowd to the designated rallying points, college
interns filled with coffee and day-old pizza. The movement is self-directed.
Mousavi had asked his supporters to march but to march respectfully, to not give
any excuse for violence. The crowd is abiding. Along the nearly kilometre length
of a Basij base, the cry goes up: Shoar nagoo! Don’t shout slogans! Hands
are held up instead. It is quiet. Here and there a voice, unable to restrain
itself, begins to scream, "Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!" He is met instantly
with hisses and whistles – saket! saket! quiet! quiet! – and the voice
falls silent again.
How do we know where to go? When to go? SMS or texting is down,
the Internet is spotty and cellphones have become unreliable. Still, Tehran has
always been a city where information gets passed around easily. For all of the
complaints and anxiety that life has become too modern, that people are living
alone in great apartment towers instead of with their families in homes, the
citizens of this city find ways to know, to be in each other’s business.
Conversations come easily even amongst strangers, more so now than ever. Men
weave through the crowd, telling us what’s next. "Come tomorrow to Vali Asr at
5! Tomorrow! Spread the word!"
Compare this to the Ahmadinejad rallies that we have seen.
Yesterday, Mother’s Day in Iran (an appropriate day, given Ahmadinejad’s
persistent claim to be the "defender" of the vatan, or motherland), the
Ahmadinejad groups held their own rally and show of force in Vali Asr Square in
Central Tehran. Their numbers are not few – the crowd filled the square and
stretched south for at least a kilometre. But this action is more organised,
mobilisation by memo as one observer put it. Word goes out in the mosques,
bonyads (charitable trusts) and ministries that there is to be a gathering
and they come, organised by section and arriving in chartered buses and vans.
Unlike the Mousavi rallies, their great leader is present both in person and in
stereo. Audio equipment is set up so that we might hear his message and the
speakers tell the crowd where to go afterwards. The atmosphere is no less
festive, no less family-oriented than the opposition rallies. But the numbers
are less and the movement less sustained. There is perhaps less to lose for this
group, less sense of outrage and danger.
Back on Enqelab the sun slips under the clouds and light begins
to fall sideways across the crowds, hands turn golden in the last part of the
day. Dasta bala! Dasta bala! Hands in the air! Hands in the air! All arms
are up, spread into the familiar sign of victory. The crowd reaches the square
but cannot enter, does not need to enter, this spot will do. On either side of a
nearby underpass a call and response begins, arms and legs hang over the guard
rail, bodies lean over the road that runs several metres below. From one side of
the underpass: "Mir Hossein!" From the other: "Ya Hossein!" From
one side: "Mir Hossein!" Now from the other: "Ya Hossein!" Cars
and motorcycles raise the alarm, young men with green scarves over their faces,
ninja-style, run and hop between the traffic. They urge the crowd and cars on,
MC-style. Two large passenger buses emerge from under the tunnel and the drivers
lay on their horns, making the crowd go wild, they love it. It is all noise. The
cheer goes up, "Gofte boodim age taqalob bishe, Iran ghiamat mishe!" We
told you that if they cheat, Iran will explode!
We leave the square and head north along Jenah Expressway
towards Aria Shahr or Sadiqia Square. It is only at this point that the enormity
of what is happening becomes clear. In the diminishing light there and
stretching towards the rising foothills that mark the upper reaches of Tehran
one can only see person after another. Cars and buses that have made the mistake
of turning into this crowd have been engulfed.
The story takes a bad turn; all does not end well. Seeing the
camera around my neck, several people rush up to me, frantically urging me to go
take pictures, shouting that they are killing us all! Behind a wall, in an
alleyway set off from the road, a confrontation is taking place between one
spike of the crowd and Basij forces holed up in a base. There is the unsettling
pop-pop-pop of gunfire, a plume of black smoke rises into the sky. A crowd is
gathering in the alley and men rush forward to throw rocks while others tell
them to stop, stop, that’s what they want! A police officer, alone, rushes in to
help, brought in by part of the crowd. Suddenly, he is surrounded, confronted
violently by angry protesters. A great confusion ensues as water bottles and
rocks are hurled at the cop; 10-15 men form a perimeter around the officer to
shield him, their hands up, begging the crowd to control themselves, to let this
man pass, he has come to help. During the worst moment we see the terrified
policeman pressed against a courtyard wall, his hat has been knocked off, he
shouts that he is here to help. Finally, thankfully, the situation is
controlled, the police officer joins in the chanting and he is allowed to go
into the alley to help…
The chant goes up, the same as was used during the 1979
revolution: "He who kills my brother will be killed by me!"
The wail of an ambulance. A boy, he could not have been older
than 14, is rushed through the crowd, carried sideways at the head and the legs
by three men. Foam is coming out of his mouth and his eyes. There is no way of
knowing for sure but there are reports that five to seven people have been shot,
have been killed right here in this spot. I see a young man hold up his right
hand, it is covered in blood…
They found a way to make it last. Everyone says that in a few
days the protests will be stopped, what’s the point of going out, but when the
moment comes, everyone is here. To stop this now would take a tremendous display
of violence and thus far, blessedly, that has not happened.
Still, at this point the crowd remains uncertain… An apt if
unimaginative metaphor would be a school of fish. Everyone moves in one
direction then suddenly shoulders drop and they run for their lives the opposite
way. Riqdan! Riqdan! They’re attacking!! The mass looks back and sees
that there are already hands held up, beckoning the crowd to stop, to come back,
to be brave and not run.
Fear. It would be an unfair mismatch if fear were to disappear.
Do not believe the lie that this is a story of middle-class, urbane Iran set
against the great multitude of obdurate peasants, the supposedly authentic Iran.
That is a myth, what Juan Cole has called the "North Tehran fallacy", no
different than the bogus notion that Middle America is the True America. Iran’s
heart and voting population lies in its cities as much as in the countryside… It
was in the cities that the 1979 revolution took place, and the six to eight
million new voters that showed up at the booth to vote, many for the first and
only time in their lives, did not emerge from Iran’s diminishing villages.
Tehran is fast becoming two. In the late afternoon and lasting
until around dinner time it is a place of peaceful civic celebration, a
Disneyland of political action for the whole family to participate. At night the
mood shifts abruptly and the capital becomes a battleground, a city in which
fear stalks on motorbikes mounted in helmeted pairs…
It is like a dream. We wake up in the morning, our legs and
voices sore, wondering if this is really happening, anxious for what will come
next.