Tehran, 4.30 local time, Enghelab Street:
I
meet with my students on Saturdays for a private class. We cook and eat
together, then talk of philosophy. This time there is no class. We only
try to keep up our morale. We are very determined but scared. That is
how I can describe most of the people who came out to attend the
demonstration today. After the Supreme Leader’s fierce speech at the
Friday prayers, we knew that today we would be different. We feel so
vulnerable, more than ever, but at the same time are aware of our
power. No matter how strong it is collectively, it will do little to
protect us today. We could only take our bones and flesh to the streets
and expose them to batons and bullets. Two different feelings fight
inside me without mixing with one another. To live or to just be alive,
that’s the question.
There
is another student who would have her lunch with us, but is not coming
to the demonstration. She’s too scared and while pretending to be in
control bursts into tears. She says she hates to see people suffer. We
tell here we have suffered for years. She says she doesn’t want people
to die. I tell her tens of thousands die each year on the roads in
Iran, at least this time it would be for a good cause. She says we are
elites and can save ourselves for better times when we can be more
useful. We reply there is no difference between people when we are all
in such a condition.
We
finish the lunch and sit to read poems of Mirzadeh Eshgi. That’s what I
suggest. He was a revolutionary anarchist at the time of Constitutional
Revolution 1906-11, killed for speaking out. It fits our situation.
Poems play an important role here. Nothing influences Iranians like
poetry. And these days, everything is about influence and fear.
The poems we read are bitter, ironical and they make us laugh. When
sorrow is more than you can tolerate, you burst into laughter. Then we
get going. It’s a quarter to four. But the following hour proves
funnier than we expected.
In
the bus everybody is going to the same place. All the streets to
Enghlab Square are blocked. Guards tell you where to go and where not
to go. They show us a small street that leads to Enghlab. I panic: Why
have they left it open? Do they want us to go in and surround us? Two
demonstrations were taking place, one in Enghelab and the other in
Azadi, respectively meaning, ‘revolution’ and ‘freedom’. I tell my
students, ‘We’re recycling the names.’
Enghlab
is busy, very busy, but there is no demonstration. People show the V
sign with their fingers but walk in silence. In front of Tehran
University, I see the students inside, clutching the rails of the
gates, as if behind bars. They shout. But I can’t hear them. In front
of the students on the sidewalk, on the other side of the bars, there
are two rows of anti-riot police and a row of Basij militia holding
posters insulting the demonstrators of the previous days. One says,
‘The trouble-makers pertain to MI6’. An hour later, when the street is
no longer so crowded, I go to the guy holding the poster and ask him,
‘What is MI6?’ ‘Britain’s intelligent service’, he replies. ‘Is it
different from Scotland Yard?’ I ask. ‘No, they’re the same thing.’
‘Oh, I see.’
We
walk up and down. We’re a group of four. We find friends, but don’t
join them. We don’t want to change the mood by changing our
companionship. We’re enjoying ourselves.
Then
comes the attraction of the day. Two water-spraying machines. They’re
huge, the size of a bus but taller, with fenced windows and two
water-guns on top of each. We burst into laughter. They don’t know how
to use them. They shoot second floor windows, anti-riot police and the
people, including girls in tight manteaus. It’s more Zurich than
Tehran. One machine is stuck. They don’t know how to drive it. It’s a
hot day, the sun is intolerably shiny and it feels good to become wet.
Much of the time, the sprays are not powerful. It’s as if they’re
watering grass. And it just does not fit the horror that’s in the air,
the aggression with which the people are hit with batons. A beautiful
day. It has been beautiful throughout the past week. You wonder whether
nature is ironical.
They
push the crowd back and forth, from here to there but soon realize
people are on all sides. We hear bullets, but people don’t rush away.
They’re fake. Nobody’s shot.
Then
in a couple of minutes, the street is not crowded as before, the
anti-riot police leave, and the students are gone. We don’t understand
why. Deprived of communication, you never get the big picture. Maybe
they have attacked the university from the back.
We
hear in Azadi Square there’s a huge crowd. So we get going. As we pass
the fences, a student, his face covered, smiles bitterly, ‘They’ll
storm the dormitory tonight.’
We have to walk. We feel awful. There’s a demonstration somewhere and we can’t get there. We wish we were in a crowd. That’s the only way we feel better. We have joked for hours now, but we need to shout. Something is pressing from within.
Then
at Towhid Square the scene changes drastically. The streets to Azadi
are blocked. But this time, people don’t change their path. They fight
for it. There’s a shower of stones. Tear gas. Fire. People
jam the sidewalks. The battle scene is huge. We cannot see the limits
but it extends to nearby street. My student is keener to go forward
than I am. Her mother could persuade her to stay home for two days, but
now allows her to go out on the most dangerous day. The people shout,
‘Down with the dictator’. The anti-riot police are also throwing
stones. People don’t run back anymore. I grab a broken brick and throw.
I’m amazed. I never thought I’d do it. I should practice. It was a very
bad shot. I grab another one, the size of a pomegranate and keep it
with me, hiding it behind my back. My feeling is a mixture of a
university teacher and a hooligan.
If
we want to go forward we need to pass through tear gas. So we ask a car
to give us a lift. Then there is an attack. They cannot tell enemy from
other people although they want to show everything is fine and they’re
only after trouble-makers. There is a woman who is being beaten. She’s
horrified and hysterical but not as much as the anti-riot police
officer facing her. She shrieks, ‘Where can I go? You tell me go down
the street and you beat me. Then you come up from the other side and
beat me again. Where can I go?’ In sheer desperation, the officer hits
his helmet several times hard with his baton. ‘Damn me! Damn me! What
the hell do I know!’
I
ask myself, ‘how much longer can these officers tolerate stress? How
many among them would be willing to give their lives for somebody like
Ahmadinejhad?’
The
driver tells us that he did not vote but he has come out to the streets
to beat the Basijis. At each intersection he is guided by officers in a
different direction and after a while we realize we are back where we
started. We see officers load people in a van used for carrying frozen
meat. Then a couple of minutes later, a new scene unfolds. We get out.
Here’s a true battleground. And this time it’s huge. Columns of smoke
rise to the sky. You can hardly see the asphalt. Only bricks and
stones. Here people have the upper hand. Three lanes, the middle one
separated by opaque fences, under construction for the metro. The
workers have climbed up the fences and show the V sign. They start
throwing stone and timber to the street to supply the armament. I tell
myself, ‘Look at the poor, the ones Ahmadinejhad always speaks of.’ But
the president’s name is no longer in fashion. This time the slogans
address the leader, something unheard of in the past three decades.
It’s a beautiful sunset, with rays of light penetrating evening clouds.
We feel safe among people moving back forth with the anti-riot police
attacks.
Two
Basiji motorcyles are burning. People have learnt how to do it fast.
They lay the motorcycle on its side, spilling the gasoline and lighting
it on fire. We climb up a pedestrian bridge and
watch. People shout from the bridge, ‘Down with Khamenei’ and ‘your
aura is gone for good’. A Basiji is caught: He soon disappears under
the crowd beating him. As if in a roman coliseum those on the bridge
shout, ‘Beat him up!’ I shout with them before coming to my senses.
What is with me? He staggers away as a group of ten people kick and
punch him.
At
Gisha, there’s a similar scene. Again the people have the whole
crossing in their control and you can hear the uproar and horns.
Motorcycles are burning in smoke. But I’m suddenly stunned. I see a red
object, which later proves to be a man, about 50, his head covered with
blood, crouching, people passing him by as if he was a garbage can.
Then comes a guy with a long stick who wants to beat up the already
beaten Basiji. People gather and stop him. He’s furious, ‘Why should I
not? They beat tiny girls! They beat everyone! Bastard!’
I
shout at him, ‘But we’re not beasts! We’re not like them!’ Somebody
takes the Basiji away as people curse him. I think, ‘But the bastard
deserves it. To come out of your house in the morning, just to beat up
people you don’t even know.’ I don’t recognize myself and my feelings
anymore.
You
can get in any car to go back home. People trust one another now. The
woman in the back seat sitting next to me says, ‘It’s no longer about
Mousavi or election results. We have suffered for thirty years. We
didn’t live a life.’ An old man next to her offers me fresh bread. They
tell jokes about the political figures and laugh out loud. They feel
victorious. ‘I had waited thirty years for this. Now I feel relieved.’
She writes down my phone number to send me news. ‘Send it to The
Guardian!’, she says.
I will. I promise.
