It may be impossible for those in the West to comprehend the terror of facing state police or the Revolutionary Guard, or of being closed off from the outside world, or fleeing from tear gas. We cannot know the scale of the protests in Iran, or what their consequences will be for the nation’s citizens, nor can we predict their long-term implications.
What began as popular discontent following a disputed election now appears to have grown into a movement that threatens to splinter the Islamic Republic. Not since the revolution of 1979, when Iranians removed the U.S.-backed Shah’s brutal dictatorship, has the country seen this degree of public dissent.
Of course, it’s unknown whether or not the elections were rigged, but events since the disputed poll suggest that Iran’s conservative elements were unprepared to relinquish control. In a sermon last week, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei effectively told several million Iranians that their protests were illegal terrorist acts and would be put down with force. In doing so, he abandoned his significance as a neutral arbiter and aligned himself with President Ahmadinejad, whose predominant constituency consists of orthodox Islamists and political theocrats. By publicly siding with Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Khamenei destroyed any hope for compromise.
From the grainy footage and jumbled sound bites that have eluded the government’s veil of secrecy, it’s clear the opposition movement continues in open defiance of the president and the supreme leader. In letters to the BBC and Al-Jazeera, Iranians relay reports of killings, beatings, and arrests. Those who cannot venture into the streets of cities like Tehran and Qom take to the rooftops each night to praise god, just as Afghans did in the 1979 “choirs of Kandahar,” in resistance to the Soviet invasion.
The multitude of images now filtering through the net are as stirring as those from Tiananmen Square and are testimony to the strength and will of the Iranian people. They will remain in our prayers.
