Tehran
The past week of rioting in Tehran has left many strong images in my mind, but chief among them is the raw passion of thousands of angry Iranians the morning after the disputed presidential elections. Standing in public squares, or on the balconies and roofs overhanging them, they shouted the name of Mir Hossein Mousavi in a bristling staccato. Another image is of a burning pedestrian bridge arcing over a wilderness of highway and rocky wasteland. Hundreds of Mousavi supporters and riot police clashed on the bridge at midnight after the election result. Soaring luxury apartment blocks flanked the scene. There was the sound of men screaming, the crump of stone on plastic shields and the rumbling exhaust of several hundred gridlocked cars whose transfixed inhabitants watched the scene above them with horrified fascination. Or what about the black-clad crowd, marching up Tehran’s main boulevard in funereal silence under a canopy of green summer foliage? As the police helicopters whirred overhead, a sudden cheer rose up from the crowd to greet them.
But the image that keeps coming back to me is not one from last week, but from four years ago. In 2005, thousands of people shrugged off the theocracy’s restrictions and danced in the streets when Iran qualified for the World Cup. It was only the third time in the Islamic Republic’s 30-year history that crowds were allowed to gather in joy rather than mourning or protest. As I walked, amazed, through delirious crowds, a reveller waved his hand over the multitude and advised me to enjoy the sight. It wouldn’t last beyond dawn, he assured me.
True enough, despite a flurry of text messages advertising imaginary rallying points for another ‘freedom drive’, the next evening was business as usual in Tehran.
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