Posted on 10/26/2001 11:10:20 PM PDT by kattracks
Tens of thousands of young people have taken to the streets of Iran in the past week, causing some of the worst violence in the history of the 22-year-old Islamic revolution.
The youths – both boys and girls – used two World Cup football qualifying fixtures as an excuse to reclaim the streets and assert their hunger for Western culture and freedoms.
In Tehran, the young people braved tear gas and blows from the security forces to cavort to the sound of the Western pop star Sonique, blaring from radios. Girls blew hooters at Islamic vigilantes armed with staves while their boyfriends fought riot police with stones and homemade explosives.
Shock at a 3-1 loss against Bahrain on Sunday sparked two nights of nationwide protests and the crowds returned to the streets on Wednesday following a 1-0 victory against the Emirates.
"What we're witnessing are the sort of demonstrations which preceded the last months of the Shah,'' said a senior Iranian analyst who wanted his name withheld.
Dozens of banks have been burned and cars overturned as the authorities set up special courts to try more than a thousand detainees officially denounced as football hooligans.
But the chanting of the crowds has been overtly political. Youths taunted groups of brutal Islamic vigilantes known as Bassiji, Persian for holy warriors, and chanted zindibad azadi [long live freedom].
The 11 September attacks have boosted pro-Western voices. Iran has emerged as one of the few Muslim states where people have taken to the streets in sympathy with the US.
Conservatives remain suspicious that expressions of sympathy hide a broader agenda of counter-revolution. Earlier this month in Mohseni Square – a part of Tehran so Westernised that Iranians call it the 51st state of America – police used clubs to disperse a crowd of mourners, including elderly women, holding a vigil for the New York attacks.
Hard-liners say that the war in Afghanistan marks the final stage in the military encirclement of Iran. In addition to the US arsenal in the Persian Gulf, Washington now has thousands of troops close to Iran's eastern border with Pakistan and to the north in Tajikistan.
Western efforts to bring back the exiled shah of Afghanistan are arousing fears of a similar plot to restore a shah to Iran. In silent protests on Sunday, demonstrators in Mohseni Square claimed Reza Pahlavi, the son of the ousted late shah, as their spiritual leader.
Opposition satellite TV channels beamed from Los Angeles have stoked a growing nostalgia for the monarchy. In a belated effort to muzzle the royalists, the Islamic vigilantes have swooped on the rooftops of northern Tehran confiscating hundreds of satellite dishes.
But popular pressure has already extracted concessions from the ayatollahs. While women are still barred from attending football games, they now occupy the front desks in Iranian hotels and strut the streets holding hands with their boyfriends.
Opposition to the great Satan of the US has given way to tacit support for the attack on the Taliban and an official policy of "active neutrality'' in the American bombing. Iran has also undertaken to rescue any US airmen downed in Afghanistan.
Newspaper editorials have openly appealed to the clerics not to waste the opportunity to mend relations with the US and have called on President Khatami to join the alliance.
Thanks for the flag.
Things are looking up.
You know, don't revolutions ever END? We don't go around saying we're in the 225th year of the American Revolution.
He had traveled the world over, many times. Tehran was his favorite business trip destination (except for cab rides), so he said.
The Shah was a tyrant, but a western looking one. Law abiding folks could get educated at home and abroad, and reap the benefits of a growing economy. That basically all changed, with the mullahs. But the western, liberal legacy remains.
I was enraged over our hostages. Yet compared to the current breed of terrorists, and their crimes against humanity, the Iran event was fairly tame.
If this "uprising" results in some liberalization, and movement toward normal relations with the west, I support it, obviously. I don't look for a 180 degree shift, but it signals significant discontent; which will be placated, or stamped down.
If it were to be stamped down, it won't go away. The Shah's son has been in the US all along, as a "shadow" candidate, to again lead "his" nation. Just as the Shah was forced out, so could the current mullah fanatics be put under extreme pressure.
Iranians are NOT arabs; they carefully classify themselves as "caucasians" and "ayrians." Before the revolution, there were Jews in Iran, but most fled for their lives. Same for Christians, I expect.
The citizens have had it both ways, now: Under the Shah, and under the mullahs. Are they changing choices? Do they have a say?
Interesting question, actually. Revolutions are often fought and won with a lot of young men. They take power, rise through the ranks... And the Revolution continues.
The Revolution ends when the youngest revolutionary dies of old age.
Remember when the Soviets went through Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, and finally Gorbachev in the space of a few years? The first three were pretty much the last of the Bolshevik Revolutionaries in the Politburo. Once they were gone, the revolution died, and voila! ...Perestroika.
Similar stuff is starting to happen now in China.
Give it another 10 or 20 years, and it'll happen in the American Civil Rights movement, as well.
Jesse and Sharpton are just about the last of the active orifinal arm-linkers.
I know that in Iran there are struggles between different sides unlike in the Arab countries. Also, this conflict in Iran is serious enough that he hard-line group in charge has killed dozens of opponents I believe in the last 5 years.
Second, if the locals want freedom they may just have to go earn it themselves instead of depending on others to do it for them.
Be careful what you ask for, my friend, you just might get it! Stay well and vigilant...FRegards
I don't believe this source when the news is bad. I have to doubt it when the news is good.
Ahh, a follower of the great philosopher, Al Bundy! LOL!
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