Power Of the People

When a million people showed up on Revolution Avenue in downtown Tehran to protest the results of the June 12 presidential election, most of them wore sneakers, in case they had to run for their lives. The crowd included people of all walks and ages. Students holding posters that read LIES FORBIDDEN walked side by side with chadori housewives, heavily made-up young girls, manual laborers, middle-aged government workers and the elderly. They didn’t chant insulting slogans, and there were few police in sight. Beneath the placid surface simmered frustration and anger–but also traces of hope. “People have come out because they’ve finally had enough. They’re tired of all the lies that [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad has dished out,” said Massoumeh, 46, who brought her two young daughters to the march. (Like most other Iranians I talked to, she did not want to give her full name.) “They can see the difference between what is being said and what is happening.”

The popular revolt that spread across the country in the days after the election has been as startling to ordinary Iranians as to the authorities trying to suppress it. Not since the Islamic revolution of 1979 has Tehran seen such spontaneous outpourings of emotion. Within hours of the announcement of the election results, Tehranis developed their own sign language of dissent. People passing one another stretched hands in peace signs. Drivers on jam-packed streets honked their horns in protest. Apartment dwellers climbed to their rooftops to shout “Allahu akbar” and “Death to dictator!”–a gesture last seen three decades ago. When the regime blocked the Internet and cell-phone networks, demonstrators organized their rallies by word of mouth. It was democracy in action. “The amazing thing is that this movement has no leader,” said Sima, 40, a book editor in Tehran. “Sure, people support [opposition presidential candidate Mir-Hossein] Mousavi, but the real reason they’re here is to protest against the fraud.”

It’s not yet clear where the movement is headed. The regime has crushed challenges to its authority before, most recently in 1999, when students poured into the streets to protest the closing of a reformist newspaper, prompting the government to unleash vigilantes on them. The state deployed its shock troops again this time: members of the Basij, a pro-Ahmadinejad paramilitary group, stormed dormitories at Tehran University, reportedly killing five students and detaining hundreds. At least one demonstrator was killed when a Basiji opened fire on a crowd. There are eyewitness reports of deaths from clashes across Iran. Yet no matter what transpires–whether the government bows to the demands for change or launches a bloodier crackdown–Iran will never be the same. The election and its aftermath exposed the cynicism of the country’s leaders but also revealed the determination of millions of Iranians to reach for a future that suddenly seems within their grasp.

The mood on the streets of Tehran has been a mix of anger, exhilaration and dread. The day after Ahmadinejad was declared the victor in a landslide, people emptied into the streets in rage. Downtown, groups of demonstrators set several buses, a building and hundreds of garbage bins on fire, smashed the windows of state banks and destroyed ATMs. On Ghaem-Magham Street, I watched a lone woman dressed in a head-to-toe black chador standing on the side of the road, flashing the peace sign to passing cars and yelling, “Only Mousavi.” The woman, a 36-year-old bank employee named Maryam, had told her children to find dinner for themselves. “What I’m doing here is more important for their future,” she said. When people driving by warned her that she might get beaten for speaking so openly, she said, “Let them beat me. My country is going to waste. What am I worth in comparison?”

Just then, a Basiji charged at her from nowhere carrying a metal rod. As he prepared to strike her, a group of men got out of their cars, tackled the man and started beating him. Maryam got up from the ground, composed herself and went right back to her spot to continue her mission. I watched as seven more people joined her, until they were chased away by police special forces wielding batons.

Despite the initial post-election mayhem, the government had some reason to believe that the fury would subside. Since Ahmadinejad’s victory in 2005, when many voters stayed away from the polls, the reform movement had been largely dormant. So when Mousavi called for a demonstration on June 15, no one was sure how many people would show up. Some of his supporters may well have resigned themselves to defeat–until Ahmadinejad’s victory speech, in which he compared the protesters to fans upset about losing a soccer match and called them a minority of “twigs and mote.” A number of people I talked to at the pro-Mousavi march on Revolution Avenue cited the President’s comments as reason to keep up the fight. “What he said drove me crazy,” said a 26-year-old mechanic from Hashemiye, in south Tehran.

That people are now willing to risk their lives and take action shows that Iran has crossed a threshold. The nature of the demonstrations has reminded the state that people do, after all, care as much about democratic rights as they do about the economy. Ahmadinejad has done poorly on both counts, but as long as the state respected the vote, Iranians–who fought hard for the revolution that led to the creation of the Islamic Republic–were willing to overlook other shortcomings. Now that trust is gone. “This time they went too far,” says Mohsen, a 32-year-old government employee. “We already deposed one of the strongest dictatorships in the world 30 years ago. They should know that we won’t tolerate another.”