OBSERVER

Dear friends,

For the past week or more there have been so many activities and happenings related to the elections here in Iran but I haven’t taken the step to write until now, partially out of uncertainty about whether or not writing would pose any danger and partially because I simply haven’t had time.

The past couple of weeks have been intense to say the least, between family parties, gatherings, daily chats, farsi classes, studying and naps during the heat of the day my days have been far fuller than I expected. At leisure I will write you more about those things.

For now, I would like to write a little about the current events that have so many of you asking questions. For about a week prior to the elections there were parties in the streets every night. People gathered in mass to celebrate, chant pro candidate slogans and provoke supporters of opposing campaigns. Many of you have seen footage or read about these celebrations. Although I have heard that these happenings sometimes resulted in violent clashes, I stayed away from the late night and most fervent rallies. Otherwise, the few times I was actually out on the streets, it seemed like a huge party. Everyone was in good spirits. The vast majority of those there were young Mousavi supporters sporting green ribbons, armbands, flags, home-made capes, painted hands and face and painted cars creatively decorated with posters, green check marks and other symbols of their support for this “reform” candidate. People rode on motorcycles or in cars or stood on the sidelines of almost dead stop traffic. Women and men used the occasion to flirt and shout back and forth enthusiastically. People chanted and once, a group of motorcyclists ahead of us got off their motorcycles (when traffic had come to a halt) and started dancing. A spirit of celebration was tangible.

On one such night, we passed by what seems to be a Basiji headquarters where mostly young men function as a sort of paramilitaryforce on behalf of conservative leaders. On this occasion, the building had been converted into a headquarters for Ahmandinejad’s campaign. We didn’t linger long around there as my accompaniments said that these young men are quick to get into a fight or bully. The day before the elections Khatemi (former reformist president) was supposed to come to Isfahan to give a speech and we went to a large plaza to attend. Thought we never actually heard a speech (I am told the speaker wires were cut, as has happened before), it was certainly worth it to go just to see the people. It seemed half the city was there or more, most of them Mousavi supporters. Again, there was the creative garb and this time the chants were organized, clever and often funny. Some played off of common children’s songs. Many of them made fun of Ahmadinejad. People carried potatoes to make fun of Ahmadinejad’s tactic of giving away potatoes to get people’s votes, and there was a chant to go along with it. People carried signs saying something to the effect of “ No more lies” (loosely translated). Here one of the main points of criticism against Ahmadinejad that has been raised by the other candidates is the fact that he lies and misleads the public, and additionally, that he may be delusional and or superstitious. Sound familiar, bush fans?

Anyway, I voted on election day. I hear it is many people's first time. One thing I don’t quite understand is why there is so much electoral enthusiasm this time. Apparently, it is normal here for VERY young kids to have opinions and sometimes very well informed opinions about political and electoral matters. It is as if the society has been activated in a weird way, maybe by the 79 revolution, even though that revolution was at the same time accompanied by serious suppression. But why this year proved to be so catalytic for peoples spirits I don’t know. Apparently this is the first year they have had debates, but so far I haven’t heard any strong arguments for Mousavi being a particularly strong reformist. People casually say that voting for Mousavi is voting for the better of two bad choices. Of course, the candidates have to be pre-approved by a council of religious leaders anyhow, so the leeway they have to be true reformists is fairly limited. Perhaps this is a mobilization more against Ahmadinejad than for Mousavi, but I don’t know. Either way, the enthusiasm for change is there. Interestingly, many of the candidates use slogans similar to those Barack Obama used in the US. A clerical candidate (Caroubi) had “Change” as his slogan, and Mousavi used (I am told) something like: We Can, among other things.

The day of the election, results started coming out. By the next morning, some announcements had been made of the preliminary results (which are apparently still not official) showing that Ahmadinejad had gotten an extraordinary proportion of the votes, something like 65 to 30 percent. At this point many votes still needed to be counted but the numbers didn’t change very much by the end of the day. Apparently, this year there have been some irregularities in the voting and accusations of fraud are coming from all sides. I think that people are confused about the details but convinced that fraud has taken place. A movement internally and externally is mobilizing around the critique of election fraud. I am even more confused than most about these details because I have the added hurdle of language to filter all this through. But so far, I have heard that one irregularity is that the election results were announced before the official body responsible for approving the election results has done so, and that the Supreme leader congratulated Ahmadinejad likewise too soon. Two, that the polling stations closed early in some places (apparently the expectation is that they should stay open until “people stop coming”); and three, that they ran out of ballots even though enough were supposedly printed for everyone of voting age. Rafsanjani (an important government official) has written an open letter to the Supreme Leader in criticism of election irregularities and fraud, but I haven’t been able to read it myself. Among other rumors, I have heard that an important but now old leader from the Islamic Revolution, may issue a fatwa or something like that in protest of what has happened here because these developments in someway violate religious principles – but what the content of that might be, I have no clue. I have also heard that the election results being reported so early and changing so little is strange. There certainly is no parity between the demographic dynamics I’ve seen and the election results: here in Isfahan and (Ive heard) in Tehran, it seemed the whole world was for Mousavi, but perhaps that is a result of the difference between rural and urban. Certainly, everyone will admit that Ahmadinejad has more support in the rural areas, but I have no way to gauge the scope of that support and what it amounts to in terms of portion of the population.

As in all things Iranian (it seems to me) that there is unnecessary ambiguity. Shouldn’t there be statistics about the rural/urban population and some sort of more neutral analysis of historical patterns of political support according to those demographics? Isn’t there someone who can figure this out? Maybe they have already, maybe I just don’t know or just can’t read the relevant information because my language skills aren’t at that level. Or maybe the ambiguity is due to intentional censorship or limitation of information by the government. Or perhaps it is that there isn’t enough space in the society to construct neutral and objective analysis because of the political environment. Anyone who would try to do so would be likely to be shut down it seems. Or¼perhaps it is just like any country. Who am I kidding, what clear answers are available in the US and how much would I have to weed through to even have a clue? In any case, what is clear is that at least in some sectors of society, serious doubts remain regarding the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad’s reputed electoral win, and its no surprise, in a system so arbitrary with such absolute power¼doubt is the easy and natural option.

It's also worth noting that sms and text messaging has been blocked in the last couple of days, closely followed by facebook and youtube, in addition to all the other sites that were already blocked. Today (June 16), the BBC is blocked. These government sponsored blocks are a response to the heavy use of these media for organizing, and sharing information about what is going on inside Iran, including videos of police suppression and demonstrations post election. I just heard that mobile phones are also not working right now but I don’t know if this is government block or simply circuit overload. Now we arrive at the post election part. The first day, things here in Isfahan seemed quiet, almost unusually. I heard that the same day protests and police suppression had already begun in Tehran. Well, we were not too far behind. Every night since there has been serious action on the streets of Isfahan starting around 10 pm every night until early in the morning like around 2am, but the nature of that activity I don’t exactly know. I could hear a lot of noise. The first couple nights it was chants and cries. Last night, I heard shots, but I don’t know if it was from shots into the air or shots at the crowd. I heard louder chants than previous nights: Alllaha Akbar, for example, apparently a pro-Mousavi chant, and Marg Bar Dictador (Death to the Dictator – implying Ahmadinejad). I have been very cautious about going out on the streets because I had heard there were clashes between Mousavi and Ahamadinejad supporters, riot police and Basiji. I have heard that two people were killed in Tehran. In any case, you may have seen more of these protests that I have because the means of communication have been so cut off. Strangely, several of my family members who are normally in Tehran came to Isfahan for a visit and are now “trapped” here.

Apparently, Mousavi called for a protest today between 4 and 6. He is under house arrest as are others of his supporters and critics. Today, at one point I heard that he and Khatami and Caroubi were all at a demonstration at a University in Tehran, but I also heard that at one point Mousavi told the protesters to go home under the pretext that he was not able to get a permit for the protest – what seems to be an extremely flimsy pretext. As you can see there is much uncertain information, sometimes contradictory, sometimes difficult to explain, and anyhow, in this environment we must assume that Mousavi is likely to be under an UNUSUAL degree of pressure¼although I never thought he himself was radical enough to merit being the leader, focal point of or director of the energy of the youth of this country¼but perhaps when you get to a certain point¼it is not about the leadership so much as it is about a shared sentiment.

Today, I finally went out. I went out as demonstrators were passing by on the main street near to our house. They had already begun to mobilize a while ago, and from the roof of the house I could see pillars of black smoke and fine debris from some fire someone had lit. I think it was a bonfire rather than something that exploded because later I past by the site. At first I was very tentative and only went down the street a couple of blocks, but I went out further later with more people. There were kids and women and men about, many of them just interested to see what was going on. Some of them were active participants in the demonstration. I wasn’t very close to the demonstration but I could see hordes of people further down the street and on another parallel street. I could see hands in the air, synchronized to chants, and hear their chants. Riot police came from behind them and basiji were around dressed in plain clothes but with riot helmets, sticks, bats, and batons. The crowd of onlookers would come and go, occasionally fleeing from something and then returning. Finally, the Basiji arrived in greater numbers near the house forcing people to flee and I too went home. There was tear gas in the air but it was mostly dissipated by the time I had arrived. Many people wore masks. One young guy had a pile of rocks which he used to throw at basiji as they passed.

Later, I went out again, this time all the way to Engelab square, Isfahan. All along the way there was evidence of ongoing disturbance. The street was littered with large rock fragments and filled with police, riot police, military, and Basiji. Some people wandered around watching or trying to find a way to get where they were going. The Basiji tried to clear people off the streets in a directionless fashion, pushing us one way and then the other. To me and my group they urged us to move on, but in a fairly polite manner with a firm: befarmaid. But some of them were very aggressive and, it seemed, ready to fight. The whole side of one street was covered with riot police like ants and one parking lot had been taken over as a sort of headquarters.

It was there that the smoke was coming from earlier. (Now there were a number of other large fires along the main street). Things were clearly much calmer than they had been, but still very tense and very mobilized. A fight broke out nearby and the people with me were clearly very disturbed by the aggression and some of the things that were said that I did not understand. I returned home. Some stayed out and apparently, things heated up again, as I expect they will tonight. Basiji broke windows of mousavi supporters in one occasion and pro-mousavi supporters chanted things like: If you just sit down (and don’t protest against the government) Iran will be like Palestine, or about cheating in the elections. Apparently, more tear gas was released as well.

I will keep trying to understand this situation as best I can while remaining safe.

For now, that’s all.

Take care.