In Iran, a surprising, confounding world (by David Ignatius)

[pinto]

Cross posting this here, there's another current thread in GD, posted by spindrifter. It's worth a longer exposure than GD might afford it. I have a real interest in Iran. I've cheered the moderate surges, groaned at the recent rants of Ahmadinejad, yet have always been aware there's a big, diverse population and a broader array of public discussion in the country than we in the United States assume. I think it's important we pay attention.

By David Ignatius
Daily Star staff
Saturday, September 09, 2006

<snip>

Which is the real voice of the country - the fulminating rhetoric of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or the measured tones of Parliament Member Kazem Jalali, who insists in an interview that Iran is ready for negotiation with the West? It is the gravelly sermon of Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who leads the crowd of worshippers in chants of "death to America" at Friday prayers at Tehran University? Or is it the learned discourse of Grand Ayatollah Yusef Saanei, who tells me in his seminary at Qom that he favors dialogue with the West and that in today's Iran, "there is talk of human rights everywhere you go."

You sense this split personality in the two worlds of Tehran, north and south. In the apartments of the Iranian elite in North Tehran, the headscarves and matronly manteauxof the women disappear and the conversations are as animated as anything you might hear in Paris or London. This is post-revolutionary Iran.

An example of this progressive Iran is Rajab Ali Mazrooei, who heads the association of Iranian journalists. His own son was arrested for running one of the thousands of Internet blogs here, yet he insists that despite Ahmadinejad's zeal, "the whole society is moving toward freedom and democracy."

But in the sprawling slums of South Tehran, where Ahmadinejad draws his power, the revolution seems very much alive. I visited the famous martyrs' cemetery south of the city, and encountered Mohammad Rashidi, 73, standing over the grave of his son Jaafar, who died 20 years ago in the Iraq-Iran war. "We have no problem with another war starting," he says. "Iran is powerful. Martyrdom is its slogan." From the cemetery, the wealthy suburbs of North Tehran are barely visible in the afternoon haze - distant, another world.

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http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=75335

[david_vincent]

1. Considering how much of Iran is under the age of 30,

I wouldn't take the comments of a 73-year old as being representative of the majority. Iran has a huge population of young people who are more interested in just about anything else than war.

[pinto]

2. Agree. I think that generation makes change inevitable in Iran.

The generation that fought the Iraq/Iran war was decimated but this proportionally huge segment of Iranian society is their future. And they are very familiar with the internet, a relatively free press, popular western culture (fwiw) and want a voice in their future, from what I can glean in press reports.

[bhikkhu]

3. And how well we have cooperated in their indoctrination.

That is to say, beating the drums of war, isolating them, working toward the sanctions which impoverished their neighbors, so recently conquered. Imagine being 16 in such an environment. If * labels Ahmenijad the Hitler of the age, he nevertheless provides him with all the tools of propoganda he might wish for.