In a New York Times op-ed last week, These Revolutions Are Not All Twitter, Andrew Woods raises the significance of “a phenomenon called pluralistic ignorance — situations in which people keep their true preferences private because they believe their peers do not or will not share their beliefs”.
Public taxis in Iran are communal, men and women are crammed together for short pre-designated shared rides, and cabs have always been a hub for the latest views and news. A few months ago, I heard rumours of plain clothes “observers” using Tehran’s taxis to monitor conversations so it was great to see from the following account of a journey that this great oral tradition is alive and well. Here passengers openly voice their opinions on the latest developments in Egypt:
The car’s a Pride [Korean Hyundai model that replaced the familiar orange Hillman Hunter on Tehran’s streets] and all four passengers are women. I’m pleased because even if we’d had to squash into a Samand at least the one next to you is a woman and won’t eagerly cram herself next to you.
The radio is on so loud that the driver doesn’t hear us when we enquire about the fare. The woman next to me taps him on the shoulder and asks him to turn it down.
I say: “You’re all young. Radio’s for old men.”
The woman in front turns back to look at me angrily. The driver says nothing and I lower my head in silence like a good girl. I put on my handsfree set and turn up the music. The gong of the news hour goes and he turns the volume up.
We don’t have an antenna for the TV at home and it’s been a few days since I’ve heard the news and Iran’s stance on events in Tunisia and Egypt. I press the pause button and listen.
The presenter is introducing a woman chanting “Allah Akbar” on the streets of Egypt. She’s saying: “Two of my children were killed in the struggle against oppression, another of my children is taking part in the demonstrations with me. We will fight with our last drop of blood in the road to Islam…”
The driver starts cursing saying: “These bastards think we’re stupid. They would love it if Egypt became another ’57 [Iranian revolution of 1979] so they can bring about another revolution and the gentlemen [referring to Mullahs] can take the power seat.”
The woman observing strict hijab sitting in front looks the driver up and down and says: “Why, how old are you my son? You don’t remember those days and don’t know what took place and what happened. It was these same religious kids who brought about our revolution and if the BBC and the like would let us be, we’d be living our lives. None of you remember. You’re misjudging.”
The woman next to me who is older than the woman in front says: “Lady, tell me, not [indicating me and the driver] these youngsters who don’t remember anything. But you and I, we know, we’re just burying our head in the snow. Was it really like this? I was a teacher at Firouzkouh and my father’s house was in Tehran. That last month we never went to work. With the other teachers we’d make a picnic bite to eat and go straight to the demonstrations. Our head, God bless him, paid our salaries all the same. We were rabid. A few mojaheddin and militants screaming about our oil money and yelling about foreign interference, and we a bunch of uneducateds, how could we have known that they would do this to us.”
The grinning driver who until now had stayed silent, says: “Come on, our family’s full of martyrs…my uncle was martyred in the war, my father is a veteran…he works with cars now. He drives heavy goods vehicles. He was contaminated in the war and can’t wear shoes now, he has to wear slippers. He was right there at the demonstrations in the revolution and he’s full of regret now. He says ‘not that the Shah was good’ as this lady says, if he’d been good people wouldn’t have come out on the streets in protest, but he says ‘if we’d known it would end up like this, we wouldn’t have made a revolution.’”
The woman next to me is so angry her hands are shaking as she pays the driver, she turns to the woman in the front seat saying: “My dear lady, things haven’t been bad for you Hezbollah types, it’s the ordinary people who’ve suffered. We’re ruined.”
I feel it’s time I joined the debate. I say: “No, let’s be fair. They’ve done exactly what the Pahlavis did to the people, but not making a comparison, they weren’t bloodthirsty. But now, yes, people are much worse off.”
No one says anything. We’re stuck in traffic. The radio is on playing news analysis on Egypt. Once again the driver has turned the volume up. I’m sweating and wind the window down for some air. The wind hits my forehead, it gives me a good feeling. Today is 12 Bahman [the day Khomeini returned to Iran]. The noise and fumes and traffic give no indication of the people’s jubilation 31 years before. I think to myself that other than myself and the driver, there are three people in this taxi who have breathed the atmosphere of pre-revolution Iran. An atmosphere that in this taxi is depicted in two conflicting ways; one defends, the other condemns.
The radio says: “People are tired of un-Islamicness. People are calling for a situation where everyone has the right to speak, not just Mubarak and his family.”
The voices of this argument goes round in my head: “The bombs are all the work of Iran…They want everywhere to become Islamic until they destroy Islam…Tunisia’s different to us, we musn’t compare…Mubarak is like the Shah…It’s the day of the Imam’s coming…The people are happy…Shut up you docile woman…They dragged us to filth…The day of the Imam’s arrival…12 Bahman…Imam…Mobarak…Tunisia.”
I open the window further. The smell of lead and fumes fills the air. The traffic policeman wears a filter mask covering his mouth and conducts the traffic with boards. Schools are closed on Thursday. The Tunisian dog had honour…It was their right to be killed…We haven’t sacrificed martyrs for Mir-Hossein Moussavi to come and take the veils off our women…Come on, that’s enough…Don’t you Neda, Neda me…
I turn up the volume of my handsfree set to drown everything out:
Iranian journalist Siamak Qaderi was sentenced to four years in prison and 60 lashes on 21 January. Qaderi, a blogger, was charged disseminating of false information liable to disrupt public order and publishing anti-government propaganda. Last year he was fired from the government news agency IRNA for interviewing gay Iranians and posting the interviews on his blog. Qaderi has been in detention since July 2010, his arrest was linked to eyewitness accounts he published of the opposition protests of the Green Movement.
Little Black Fish would like to share this clip of a group of Iranians in the Fars province dancing to make the best of a long traffic jam earlier this week.
It is significant in a country where music and dancing are banned social activities. When I first saw it two days ago it has some 300 views. Now with more than 10,000 views, demonstrating the engagement of our ever-growing community, it corresponds with the picture given below by a young Iranian citizen’s account of every day life in Tehran.
A report of everyday goings on in Tehran, for our friends outside the country:
“In life everyone experiences moments of loneliness — the story of being in a room full of people but feeling alone. I’m no exception to this rule, but I can say that it’s been some 18 months since I last had that feeling. In fact it’s been some time that even strangers that I meet seem familiar. It’s been 18 months that we’ve had a shared experience, that we’re all looking in the same direction, reading the same news, and it seems have the same dreams.
It’s been a long time that it’s easy to strike up a conversation with a stranger. There is something in common to be found with everyone, the most common being unemployment. I encounter people my own age who are mostly unemployed or older people who complain of the unemployment of those around them – educated and uneducated, worker and capitalist, political and non-political, like a fire that once roaring, burns wet and dry together. And for those working the inevitable question is “are they paying your wages on time?’ with the inevitable reply “we haven’t been paid for x many months”.
With unemployment out of the way, the conversation turns to the cost of living and the eradication of subsidies. Here narrative and analysis and legend are all mixed together and even the narrator can’t distinguish their boundaries. And no-one is in pursuit of the truth. It’s as though we’re drowning in a host of undesirables and our only solace in this endless ocean of disaster is in listening and telling
Beyond this, I must confess something. These days I’m experiencing a kind of freedom that I never even dreamed of. Right here in the streets of Tehran and in the darkest days of coup d’etat rule. I’ve gained a privileged freedom that even the perpetrators and supports of the coup have not encountered. Whenever and wherever I may be, I speak freely from the heart without fear of what the strangers around me might think. Never before have I had faith that those around me may think the same way as me. You can talk to anyone about the most controversial news from prisons of rape and torture, of the horrors of Kahrizak [detention centre] with the final agreement that “they’re [the regime] on their way out”. Somehow people’s empathy has transcended miles of political games. Poverty, expense, unemployment and a thousand and one difficulties have drawn us so close together that no one can break that unity easily. It may seem an exaggeration but I include military forces and police in this, I mean, you can easily stand next to a police officer and complain about the status quo and get the measure of his point of view too.
Moving on from the economic situation and politics, the next hot topic is Tehran is air pollution. As always traffic prevails, but recently I’ve noticed a new element to it, like today, as we were stuck in heavy traffic the driver said: “It’s probably the work of the people-harassing Basij [street militia]” referring to their directionless stop and search operations.
Hashish smoking among young people is so commonplace that it’s considered as ordinary as smoking a cigarette, and no-one even bothers to give good advice on it, as though it’s completely acceptable. Only the use of crack, that is the most current and cheapest substance, is considered somewhat disgraceful and that’s probably due to the negative view towards its destructive effect. Even so, every night crack addicts are visible on street corners throughout the city, their bodies showing the infected wounds of their addiction.
The number of street sellers has exceeded all imagination, though they haven’t uprooted the beggars – after all they too have something to sell, the simplest being your fortune, the famous ‘fal-e Hafez”. Otherwise there are wind-up toys, torches and digital watches, the most expensive going for 2000 Tomans (2 US Dollars). The latest CDs and DVDs can be bought at red traffic lights.
I’m not sure why, but it’s been a while since there was any talk of football, no longer considered a hot topic for discussion. Instead (comedy series) “Bitter Coffee” has captivated everyone and with each new set that comes out the talk is of whether you’ve seen it. The most popular character in the series seems to be Baba Shah, whose expressions have caught on and are used in everyday conversations. Farsi1 [a new TV network broadcasting from Dubai] and more recently Manoto [broadcasting from London] have become serious competitors. Of course Parazit [broadcasting from Washington D.C.] is as popular as ever.
Among students and young people there are two more subjects of great importance. The first is emigration, which has long been relevant, but these days it has a new intensity. The second is arrest and prison. The situation is such that there are few youngsters who haven’t suffered the prison experience — however short. Somehow the authorities have managed to take the edge off that experience too, making it normal.
The long and short of it is that it’s not so bad. We’re together and we suffer it together. People still fall in love here and I think in a country where love still exists, there is still life and hope.”
The Iranian judiciary has sentenced Kaveh Kermanshahi, a member of the Kurdish Human Rights Organisation to five years in prison for “actions against national security” and propaganda against the regime. Blogger Navid Khanjani convicted on the same charges as well as membership of illegal human rights organisations. He was given a 12 year prison sentence.
