Students and the paradox of elections in Iran

Ana K. Sami

It is an oft cited statistic; seventy per cent of Iran’s population is under the age of thirty. In and of itself, such a statistic is not momentous unless social and political implications are considered. After June 12, 2009, Iran will have conducted the tenth selection of a president since the 1979 revolution. With all of the election activity and rallies taking place in Iran, a less publicized topic is the issue of youth and university student voices in Iran who have recently exhibited increasingly daring behavior towards the events surrounding the upcoming elections, specifically targeting the candidates and selection process as a whole.

Although Iran’s political processes are common knowledge, it is paradoxical to use the term “election” as the general understanding follows that there is somewhat of a choice between candidates as decided by a state’s citizens. In Iran, these candidates are in fact pre-selected before an actual national “election” takes place. Amongst those who are barred from running are of course women, and those who do not pass the rigorous litmus test of the Iranian government’s Guardian Council. A true power base, this elite group consists of six theologians appointed by the Supreme Leader (Ali Khamenei) and six jurists nominated by the judiciary, also approved by the parliament. The single most important quality that the Guardian Council seeks to observe in a candidate is their commitment and loyalty to the established authoritative hierarchical structure, the most important of which is unquestionable loyalty to Khamenei.

A noteworthy implication of Iran’s youthful population includes timing. Currently, Iran’s population while now old enough to understand and participate in politics, cannot be held accountable or claim loyalty to a government they never chose. While their parents’ generation cannot be held fully responsible for what was to become of the revolution, they can at a minimum claim political participation and activism to change a way of life they knew and rebelled against.

The bold reactions and content of criticism surrounding the candidates from within Iran’s youthful population is striking considering previous protests and the consequences that followed. Although far too numerous to mention all of them, a sampling of activity for which photos and video are available can be presented. Most of these events take place in risky atmospheres in cycles that are quick to occur and immediately dismantled by state security and secret services.

As seen on video leaked out of Iran on May 4, during a lecture at the University of Babolsar, students pressed candidate Mirhossein Moussavi (a “reformist” backed by former president Mohammad Khatami) about his role and actions as a former prime minster (1981-1989). In particular, they criticized Moussavi’s role in the execution of thousands of political prisoners in the infamous 1988 massacres in Iranian jails. This historical mass execution has been documented and recognized by Amnesty International (AI) in a public statement as well as an in house report. Although Moussavi made his best attempt to avoid the question, students by way of shouting slogans and holding up signs and pictures of those killed in 1988 pushed for answers when they said “At the time, you were the prime minister…what do you have to say now about your silence back then when all this was taking place? How may people did you kill yourself?” These types of remarks are no doubt extremely risky in a government that has a past reputation of eliminating opposition, especially public criticism, by way of blood curdling tortures and swift executions.

In an even bolder move, a female student took the microphone and in frustration expressed her anger with regard to the situation of women in Iran. While several attempts were made to cut her remarks short, her voice, quick and unyielding, reverberated throughout the auditorium amidst the repetitive cheers, whistles, clapping, and overwhelming support from the crowd. Her remarks were an all out attack on everything that is at the very core of the Iranian government’s belief system.

“I am speaking of an Iran in which the law exists only to dictate to people what they can or cannot do…Interrogations and solitary confinement are the only answer the government has to offer even towards the most peaceful women’s social rights groups. Where should I start? Should I speak about the discriminatory laws or honor killings? When I am barred from one of my most basic rights of education, what sort of future do I have to look forward to? The only way the government sees women is perverse and sexualized which gets translated into legislative bills and laws so that their lustful and slave-like desires can be fulfilled…the victims of these laws from beginning to end are women.”

Mohsen Rezai (former head of the notorious IRGC, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) does not give campaign speeches in universities so that he may steer clear of questioning perhaps pertaining to Interpol’s warrant for Rezai’s arrest for direct involvement with the July 18, 1994 suicide bombing of the Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The internal role and actions of the stealthy IRGC remains dubious and eerily dark. They are at a minimum responsible for brutal crackdowns, and surveillance on the Iranian youth for past thirty years. In 1999, Mohsen Rezai’s own son, Ahmad Rezai sat in a panel discussion with the news service Voice of America to voice one of the most serious accusations against his father. He stated: “We believe that the Islamic Republic is a terrorist regime, the biggest terrorist government in the world…We want to be free…but we have no freedom in Iran.” Ahmad had extremely harsh accusations towards Khatami and the duplicitous nature of the reform movement which he described as being a charade. Ahmad stated that Khatami’s goals, first and foremost to “fool” the youth and the world while promoting domestic oppression at home.

Under Ahmadinejad’s tenure, some of the most gruesome images of public savagery were published in May of 2007. he blood soaked scenes of youth taken by Ebrahim Noroozi of Fars News Agency show youth being mercilessly beaten and tortured in the streets by masked secret service agents. These scenes, unimaginable to the average human, cannot be likened to any existing event; the most graphic and disturbing horror movie made would not stand a chance against this reality. The look on these youth’s faces of terror, pain, and humiliation is remembered as the face of Ahmadinejad, and furthermore the face of a government who promotes these atrocities, in ignorance of any human moral in existence. These are scenes the outside world is able to view as they happened in public, what happens internally in Iran’s prisons, especially the infamous Evin prison merits the slogans of Iranian students as they shout “Students die, and yet they accept not this brutality.”

Indeed, Iran’s students need not be schooled on the system of suppression that burdens them so greatly. Put best by a literature student in Iran named Kamran in an interview with SPA news agency: “Changing the rhetoric does not necessarily change the policies as long as the political roots are the same. I see no real difference between the candidates.” For students like Kamran, they have the experience of the empty promises of reformist candidates like Khatami (now backing Moussavi), and they are beginning to understand why things never seem to change for them. Challenging authority “can easily be interpreted by the judiciary as an offence to national security,” he added. Therein lies the crux of the matter; for a governmental foundation that demands its legitimacy from human interpretation of divine law, political criticism can only be seen as sacrilegious, a crime punishable by death. By voicing their opposition, the youth of Iran are choosing life, whether they are lucky enough for it to be their own, or in sacrifice of, so that others may live with the freedom so desired.

* Written for Al Arabiya. Ana K. Sami received her Masters degree at the Colorado School of Mines majoring in International Political Economy of Resources and is a specialist on human rights and women's issues in Iran.